Yesterday evening’s 25-minute long ‘Spotlight’ program on Press TV put me together with a well prepared activist, fellow panelist Ken Stone, from Hamilton, Canada. The discussion was skillfully led by one of Press TV’s senior presenters, Bardia Honardar.
I note in particular that the Russian side to the resolution condemning unilateral sanctions on Iran was led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ryabkov, who is the leading ‘tough guy’ in the Ministry with respect to the United States. It was Ryabkov who in December 2021 presented the Russian ultimatums to the USA and NATO over rollback of NATO to its 1994 borders.
My main point in the discussion is that presently the Trump Administration is very busy fighting on all fronts domestically and in relations with Europe while it roots out the Deep State and its policies of never ending wars. Otherwise its attention is primarily focused on ending the Russia-Ukraine war for the sake of a reset of global governance, secondarily on preventing return of war in Gaza. Only after these issues progress will it be possible for Washington to devote due attention to reconfiguring relations wih Iran.
Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write.
Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975).
After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility.
From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.
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Gilbert Doctorow 