Legitimate Targets: an interview with resonance

Uncategorized 2 Minutes

This community is growing, partly thanks to kind invitations from new, additional host broadcasters to enter into recorded conversations about the most important relevant developments in the Russia-Ukraine war. So it was with this week’s hosts at LegitTargets who disseminate their videos on X and other platforms.

The main focus of this interview was my statement that conclusion of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely and the best decision Trump can make would be to withdraw from the process.

Of course, such pronouncements are formulated by reading the day’s tea leaves and when the tea leaves are refreshed the calculus changes. The meeting yesterday in Moscow between Trump’s emissary Steve Witkoff and President Putin suggests that agreement on the terms for peace has become closer at least between the two Great Powers. What remains problematic is getting the Europeans and Zelensky to agree to the terms.

The Witkoff-Putin talks have been discussed extensively this morning on Russian media. I do not hear there the venomous condemnations of Putin’s not going for broke and demolishing Kiev that I hear from some of my confreres in the U.S. alternative media who are more royalist than the king, so to speak.

I find it interesting that my LegitTargets interview was picked up by the Russian news aggregator Inosmi in a Russian voice-over video and from that news articles were published by various Russian print media.

See original LegitTargets posting below and Inosmi reposting in Russian https://x.com/LegitTargets/status/1915517034030653722?t=wtQA-vs4B-6-zFw9IUj8nw&s=19

https://inosmi.ru/20250425/soglashenie-272760070.html

LegitTargets: ein Interview mit Resonanz

Diese Community wächst, auch dank der freundlichen Einladungen neuer, zusätzlicher Gastgeber, an aufgezeichneten Gesprächen über die wichtigsten relevanten Entwicklungen im Krieg zwischen Russland und der Ukraine teilzunehmen. So war es auch bei den Gastgebern dieser Woche bei LegitTargets, die ihre Videos auf X und anderen Plattformen verbreiten.

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Interviews stand meine Aussage, dass ein Friedensabkommen zwischen Russland und der Ukraine unwahrscheinlich ist und die beste Entscheidung, die Trump treffen kann, der Rückzug aus dem Prozess wäre.

Natürlich werden solche Aussagen auf der Grundlage der aktuellen Lage getroffen, und wenn sich die Lage ändert, ändert sich auch die Einschätzung. Das gestrige Treffen zwischen Trumps Gesandtem Steve Witkoff und Präsident Putin in Moskau deutet darauf hin, dass zumindest zwischen den beiden Großmächten eine Einigung über die Friedensbedingungen näher gerückt ist. Problematisch bleibt jedoch, die Europäer und Selensky dazu zu bewegen, den Bedingungen zuzustimmen.

Die Gespräche zwischen Witkoff und Putin wurden heute Morgen in den russischen Medien ausführlich diskutiert. Ich höre dort nicht die giftigen Verurteilungen Putins, der nicht alles auf eine Karte setzt und Kiew zerstört, wie ich sie von einigen meiner Kollegen in den alternativen US-Medien höre, die sozusagen royalistischer sind als der König selbst.

Ich finde es interessant, dass mein LegitTargets-Interview vom russischen Nachrichtenaggregator Inosmi in einem russischen Voice-over-Video aufgegriffen wurde und daraufhin Artikel in verschiedenen russischen Printmedien erschienen sind.

Siehe Originalbeitrag von LegitTargets unten und Repost von Inosmi auf Russisch. https://x.com/LegitTargets/status/1915517034030653722?t=wtQA-vs4B-6-zFw9IUj8nw&s=19

https://inosmi.ru/20250425/soglashenie-272760070.html

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

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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3 thoughts on “Legitimate Targets: an interview with resonance”

  1. If there were any improvement in Russia American relations, one would expect that the Russians get back their diplomatic properties, open up consulates & embassies, and resume direct air communications. How else can people speak of business opportunities for the oligarchs on both sides? These are simple & easy steps compared to weapons agreements, sanctions, war, and security architecture. If we don’t perceive even a few baby steps, the rest is all in the fables land of MSM & PR operations.

    Russia wants abeyance in the threat from American missile installations; that does not seem commensurate with the terms of the current peace proposal. The US seems hell-bent on increasing the pressure on Russia, from Greenland in the north, from Japan in the East, from the Caucus, and from the West. Everything coming from the Deep State (apart from the histrionics to mislead the public) spells continuity of agenda, expanding American hegemony; only a possible shift in tactics is on the table. The Europeans are playing their part, sponsoring the war, buying American LNG and weapons, increasing their military spending, and moving their industry and manufactures to the USA.

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  2. How can the US mediate between itself and Russia?
    Even during the Easter ceasefire, U[S]A used HiMars, which we know from the NYT, always requires hands-on American operators.
    Anything that portrays Ukraine as doing anything other than what the US is doing ignores the degree to which the Americans have operational agency in anything the proxies do or say: target acquisition, satellite surveillance, terrein recognition, signals decryption module configuration — it all requires Americans hands on involvement. The American go-to strategy is to put out a narrative frame that implies plausible deniability, as though there were some degree of separation between what the proxies want and say with the US itself, portraying itself as some benevolent proponent of peace above the fray of the other factions. Going along with any of the spin is the height of disingenuousness.

    The Russian acquiescence in any such deal can be no more than kabuki to help Trump save face for losing the war and to pin blame on the lower ranks, such as Zelenskyy.

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  3. Transcript:

    odysee.com/@unRhodes-ian:6/2025-04-26-Doctorow—Legitimate-Targets—Russia-peace-deal-TRANSCRIPT:c

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