‘Judging Freedom,’ 7 May edition: LIVE from St Petersburg, Russia

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In today’s conversation with Judge Napolitano, we discussed a number of the observation from my ongoing visit to Petersburg and Moscow that have been the subject of my Travel Notes these past several days. We also talked about why the Kremlin is likely to take what Steve Witkoff says more seriously than what Donald Trump says, given that the President flip-flops every day in his efforts to tame the domestic opposition to his Russia policies. I am particularly proud of having explained why Putin’s relations with Narendra Modi were as important in his decision to launch the Special Military Operation as were his ‘higher than an alliance’ relations with Chinese President Xi.

‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7kspmwAZqI

I use this opportunity to provide the link that takes you to Russian state television stations which I mentioned at the close of the interview: https://www.ontvtime.ru/live/russia1-tv.html This is for those among the Community who may wish to watch the Victory Day parade in Moscow live on the 9th.

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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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2 thoughts on “‘Judging Freedom,’ 7 May edition: LIVE from St Petersburg, Russia”

  1. i’m also in St Petersburg – with my family who travelled to Xinjiang last year.

    last year I was in St Petersburg/ Moscow, so after seeing it was safe, I brought them here

    It was clear to them that there is no anxiety about the war in the population.

    Our two guides in Moscow and St Petersburg also explained that all the roundabout importing of items were not new in Russia’s history with Europe, that they will shrug it off like they have.

    As the guide explained the Leningrad history and poked fun at Trump for claiming that USA won the war, she also said that the European powers forgot that they allied with Hitler after they fell so quickly. I wonder how true is that

    At the end of the day, we visited a local supermarket and bought 7 fruit pieces – 2 apples, 2 pears, 3 oranges.

    i know abit of Russian, so I thought I heard wrong when the cashier said 155 rubles, so I wanted to fish out 1000 note.. she wasn’t.

    that’s about usd2 for all!

    Yep, the Russians are doing okay.

    a bit surprised to be told that all mobile services will be down for 2 days though.

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  2. One interesting note: Chevrolet is sort of South Korean: after the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo Corporation, which built close ties to former USSR as soon as it could, went bankrupt and GM bought up its motor division. After GM itself got reorganized after the more recent global financial crisis, the Chevrolet brand was reassigned to its South Korean operations and, as far as I’m aware, Chevrolet operates as if it is a South Korean corporation when it can and it is to its advantage. The thing about South Korea, in turn, is that its corporations left Russia very reluctantly and various kinds of economic cooperation somehow kept going under the sanctions…and once Trump came back to WH, South Korean corporation started planning return to Russia. (In many ways, SK businesses and diplomats have been far friendlier to Russia (and, incidentally, Iran, too) than their politicians. I would not be surprised if GM’s “Koreans” are the ones getting back to Russia eagerly.

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