Transcript of yesterday’s solo interview on News X World

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFB8q8REXSs

NewsX: 0:02
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has voiced support for all efforts to end the war in Ukraine. In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s commitment to dialogue and a political resolution. The call comes after US-Ukraine talks in Jeddah proposed a 30-day ceasefire, a plan Putin says raises serious concerns. Meanwhile, Washington has resumed military and intelligence sharing with Kiev after suspending it due to a past dispute between Zelensky and Trump. The two leaders also discussed their OPEC commitments and Saudi Arabia’s mediation efforts between Russia and the US.

0:46
We are joined to discuss this further with Gilbert Doctorow, Russian affairs expert located in Belgium. Thank you very much for joining us. Gilbert, President Putin has listed a range of tough requirements for Moscow to even consider a truce. This includes no NATO membership for Ukraine and it also includes these territories including Crimea. Can you explain why the Kremlin insists on these demands and whether it truly wants a workable ceasefire or are these conditions primarily for show?

Doctorow: 1:23
For show. They’re substantive, and the Russians insist that they be addressed. Otherwise, the sacrifice of 150,000 Russian soldiers over the last three years will be unjustified and the Kremlin will find itself opposed by patriots at home.

This is nothing new. In June, 2024, Mr. Putin stated very clearly– I believe it was a meeting of the Russian ambassadors in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs– he stated clearly these terms that we heard again in the last several days, that Russia is ready to halt all hostilities at once if the Ukrainians evacuate their forces from the Russian provinces. That is the two Donbass provinces and the two Novorossiya provinces of Kherson and Zaporozhya, which they have incorporated into the Russian Federation.

02:24
This is nothing new, but the main issue here was also stated in 2024, and has been repeated several times since. And that is the agreements that have to be reached with the United States, not with Ukraine, with the United States, because the overarching issue that caused Russia to unleash the special military operation was to roll back the NATO expansion since 1994, which is in violation of all the promises given to Gorachov by Baker and by the German leadership when Russia agreed to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact countries.

NewsX: 3:05
The United States, as you say, under President Trump, has pushed for this 30-day pause in the fighting, yet Putin’s reaction is described as incomplete. From the Russian viewpoint, why isn’t a short-term pause an appealing step towards ending the conflict? Doesn’t it least offer a humanitarian window?

Doctorow: 3:25
Not at all. It provides Ukraine with a window to rearm and reposition at a moment when they are on the run, when the Russians have, after very great efforts and heroic action in Sudzha, where they marched 16 kilometers in a gas pipe to attack the Ukrainian forces holding a major city that was in their possession since the incursion into Kursk. The Russians have made enormous efforts to seize the initiative. They have it. And they have no intention of sacrificing this, allowing Mr. Zelensky to rearm and reposition and to take away the advantages that the Russians have won at great cost.

NewsX: 4:13
Ukrainian President Zelensky has called Putin’s response manipulative. What’s your perspective on that accusation? Does Russia accept any responsibility for prolonging negotiations? Or do you see Zelensky’s criticism as baseless?

Doctorow:
No, it’s not baseless. He is correct. But I point to the fact that the expectation could have been that the Ukrainians and all the propagandists in the EU would have attacked Putin for turning down the American-Ukrainian initiative. No, they haven’t done that. They’ve been much more cautious, because Mr. Trump wants this to go ahead, and he knew fully well that Mr. Putin would never accept the terms of the ceasefire as they were first agreed with the Ukrainians.

So for the Russians, the response in the West has been acceptable. Yes, they are manipulative, but what else do you do in negotiations if not try to manipulate? What is Mr. Trump doing all the time? You can call that manipulative. That is what negotiations are all about.

NewsX: 5:22
Yeah, but one final question: Moscow often criticises for what it sees as Western meddling in the region, yet a ceasefire brokered by the US would arguably bring both relief to the Russians and Ukrainian civilians. How do you reconcile Russia’s distrust of Western involvement with the need for a credible international mediator?

Doctorow:
Well, the United States is not a credible international mediator. Let’s be clear about it. The United States is a co-belligerent. And the moment that Mr. Trump restarted the sharing of intelligence data with Ukraine, which is critical to their offense as well as defensive operations; the moment that Mr. Trump released a continuing supply of weapons that were allocated to Ukraine in the last days of the Biden regime, the United States once again became a co-belligerent.

6:18
You cannot be both a co-belligerent and an honest outside broker. So the situation is rather peculiar in all senses. Nonetheless, the Russians fully appreciate that Mr. Putin made this clear at his press conference yesterday together with Belarusian President Lukashenko, that the Kremlin is highly appreciative of all of Mr. Trump’s efforts and that they will likely succeed, but only after the terms, the details in which the devil exists are clarified, because we all received from Mr. Rubio in his press conference after the meeting in Jeddah only procedural remarks: that groups have been named to negotiate and so forth. But as to content, we learned nothing, which is not surprising. However, I suspect that Mr Putin also learned nothing because the Trump administration hasn’t yet put together a logical, consistent path to peace.

NewsX: 7:20
Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for joining us. We now move to some ore news updates.