Transcript of today’s interview with Press TV, Iran

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Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/133323

PressTV: 0:00
Let us go to Brussels and talk to Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst, who is joining us, as I said, from Brussels. Very good to have you on the program, Gilbert. What do you think are the potential scenarios that we are going to witness in this conflict? Is it going to be de-escalation, or further escalation?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:18
It’s impossible to say with any confidence where this is headed, but I am an optimist with respect to the initiatives of Donald Trump, because there is some deep understanding that is being achieved between the United States and Russia, to which we are not privy.

But there are little signs that come out, signs that I was reading with respect to Steve Witkoff’s visit to Petersburg on Friday, which was a stop on his way to those meetings in Oman that you have just described. The Russians were, as I believe, important brokers in arranging the meeting in Oman. And I believe that Witkoff stopped over to get final recommendations, advice from President Putin on how to proceed in his dealings with Iran. The Russians–

If that is correct, and the Russians were demonstrating to Donald Trump how useful they can be, how constructive the relations with the United States can be, if there is a return to a normal relationship between the two countries, and looking past the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.

1:45
Now, what does that mean for the end of the fighting?It means that the Russian positions are taken in all seriousness by Washington, which will seek to accommodate Russia’s security concerns. We’ve already heard from Witkoff that essentially America agrees to Russia’s keeping the four oblasts that it now largely occupies and has annexed by, according to constitutional procedures. I’m speaking now of Donbas oblasts and what used to be called Novorossiya, which is Kherson and Zaporozhzhye. These provinces are acknowledged by the United States as being future Russian-recognized territory.

2:37
Now what happens to the rest of Ukraine is really an open question. Mr. Kellogg, who was named originally as Trump’s envoy to the Ukrainian talks, made a peculiar statement over the weekend that Ukraine would be divided. And he later modified that. This was in interviews to British newspapers, that Ukraine would become subject to spheres of influence and that this would be resolved similarly to Berlin after the end of World War II.

The problem with that notion is really that Mr. Kellogg is missing the overview of the situation, which is well in hand between Witkoff and Trump. What I mean by that is that the Russians refuse to recognize Western arms and Western military in Ukraine under any circumstances when this war ends. The war was started to ensure that Ukraine would be neutral, and Russia will not end the war until it is satisfied that the participants, stakeholders in the war in the West agree in writing that Ukraine is neutral and that their arms and their military will not be in Ukraine, whether it’s called a sphere of influence or whatever.

4:09
So these are possibilities, but not necessarily going to evolve. The West is doing its best– Britain is the ringleader, France is the second ringleader, in trying to sabotage the peace talks by speaking of a coalition of the willing, which didn’t work very well, to have men on the ground to resist Russians in case there is a further Russian aggression, as they say, in Ukraine after a peace treaty is signed. The issue that the Russians made, Mr. Lavrov made, in Turkey this past weekend is very relevant here: that the, whatever peace is concluded, has to look after the security interests of all the parties.

4:57
And to speak about providing security to Ukraine alone is to miss the point entirely. The Russians also need security guarantees. And therefore the outcome of these negotiations is very much dependent on how well Mr. Trump can control these European former allies of Britain and France in particular.

PressTV: 5:24
Very interesting to get your perspective on the matter Mr. Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst joining us from Brussels.

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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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