Transcript submitted by a reader
NewsX: 0:02
Now let’s move over to Europe, where a major show of European unity in Kiev today has occurred. The leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland arrived together for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The four EU leaders and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer are calling for an immediate 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine and have vowed to ramp up the pressure on Russia if it refuses. German Chancellor Friederich Merz warned that if Moscow rejects a proposed 30-day ceasefire, Western sanctions will intensify and military aid to Ukraine will continue. French President Emmanuel Macron called for direct talks between Ukraine and Russia if a truce is reached, saying Paris is ready to help mediate.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk joined the German and French leaders in meetings with Zelensky and his wife Olena. They paid tribute to fallen soldiers at Kiev’s Independence Square. Ukrainian officials welcomed the delegation ahead of this critical summit discussing the US-led ceasefire proposal. This diplomatic push comes just a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed his troops at a massive military parade marking 80 years since World War Two.
Meanwhile, North Korea has justified its involvement in the war. Leader Kim Jong-un claims it is a defensive move to support a brother nation. And here’s what he had to say. Let’s take a listen.
Kim: 1:44 [from English-language subtitles]
Our participation in the conflict was just, and it falls within the sovereign rights of our Republic. If (the United States and the West) attempt another assault on the Russian Federation, our brother nation, instead of giving up their attempt for military invasion, I will not hesitate to order the use of military force of Democratic People Republic of Korea (DPRK) to repel enemy’s invasion, in accordance with the corresponding article of the DPRK-Russia treaty and its spirit.
NewsX: 2:13
We are now joined by Gilbert Doctorow, Russian affairs expert located in Brussels, Belgium to discuss this further. Gilbert, thank you very much for joining us. How does Moscow interpret the visit directly to Kiev by these four major European leaders? And this obviously coincides with yesterday’s parade in the Red Square in Moscow. How does Russia view these four United alliances standing with Zelensky?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
I don’t think they take this very seriously. This is nothing new. The four countries we’re talking about have been backers of Zelensky for a long time. They have been prominent, first in calling for no negotiations to deal with Russia. And now on watching Donald Trump proceed with talks with the aim of finding a peace, they have jumped on that bandwagon in the hope of derailing it, in the hope of sabotaging it. Their visit to Kiev is simply a display of plumage for their home electorates. It has no influence on the course of the war, certainly no influence on what Russia is doing or may do in the future.
3:37
These are the countries that will be left holding the bag when the United States, if the United States washes its hands of the Ukraine war, as Mr. Trump has threatened to do.
NewsX: 3:49
Yes, and Gilbert, President Macron has offered to facilitate talks between Russia and Ukraine. Do you think Moscow would accept this invitation from the French, or is France too aligned with NATO?
Doctorow:
Mr Macron is aligned with himself. Everything that he does is self-promotional, and he flip-flops at least as often as Donald Trump does, to always be at the head of the march. If the band changes its direction, you can be sure that Mr. Macron runs around the side to get to the head of the band in its new direction. And that is what’s going on now. He has no ability to influence Mr. Putin, whom he hasn’t spoken to for a good long time. And I don’t think that Mr. Putin is terribly keen to take a phone call from him, because he has– he’s a windbag. He has no electoral support within France. He has no solid government in France. And so why should the Russians take him seriously?
NewsX: 4:51
Yes, we’ve just seen the statement from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. How does Moscow view North Korea’s open declaration of support? Do you think this endorsement is helpful diplomatically or is it potentially problematic?
Doctorow:
Look, going back to before the, or at the very start of the special military operation which has become a full-blown proxy war between Russia and NATO, Russia was very careful to observe the restrictions set by the United Nations on which it itself had voted to approve sanctions on North Korea.
5:26
But as the war moved on, as I say, after it became a Russian-Ukraine war, a Russia-NATO war, that is, the Russians understood it was folly to continue their sanctions on North Korea. And they took up what the Koreans had in large supply and was very useful to Russia, which was the artillery shells, which are of the same standard as the Russians have had for decades. The additional element which was celebrated, which was remarked by Mr. Putin when he shook the hands of military leaders from North Korea who were present in Moscow for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Victory Day. He gave a special hug and showed his particular gratitude for the participation of North Korean troops in the military operations in Kursk.
6:25
Let us remember, although in the West this is fudged, this is not brought out and defined clearly, let’s do that right here. The North Koreans were not fighting the Ukrainians for extension of Russian territory. They were fighting alongside the Russians to free an invaded Russian province. That’s a very different story. And so the importance of the presence of North Korean troops to take part in the celebrations yesterday was a message to the West, and a message to the United States in particular, that this agreement, military agreement between North Korea and Russia, which was evidenced by the participation of these troops in the war, is two-way.
That is to say that North Korea will be defended militarily by Russia in case any country– and let’s be honest which country we’re talking about, it’s the United States– even thinks about causing harm to North Korea, as Mr. Trump did in his first administration.
NewsX: 7:31
Obviously, Gilbert, these ceasefire talks have been going on for, well, since Trump took office on January 20th of this year. If this ceasefire proposal fails, what is Russia’s next objective? More territory, or simply sustaining this war of attrition?
Doctorow:
Let’s recall what the extension of Russian territory in Ukraine is all about. This takes us back to the first year of the war. When the war was strictly between Russia and Ukraine, the objectives were regime change. That is, the Russian objectives, were to remove from office the, what they considered to be neo-Nazis controlling Ukraine, and not to take any territory. The whole game changed, however, when it became clear to the Russians that the United States and its allies were supplying long-range missiles and other armaments which could reach into the Russian Federation and would certainly reach into all of the territory that they had acquired on the battlefield in Ukraine.
8:51
What this meant was: they had to push back the Ukrainian forces a sufficient distance to compensate for the new long-range missiles that the United States, England, and France supplied to Ukraine. And that, creating a buffer and assuring that they could not be attacked by Ukrainian artillery and missiles supplied by the West, was what the territorial expansion was all about.
Here we are today, and the Russians continue to move back, to push back the Ukrainians on the front line with that very same intent: to ensure that they are not vulnerable to Ukrainian attack.
9:31
Gilbert, finally, German Chancellor Merz has warned of intensified sanctions and increased arms to Ukraine if Russia rejects this ceasefire proposal. How do you think Russia would be preparing to respond both economically and militarily?
Doctorow:
The sanctions on Russia are so vast right now, greater in number and more damaging potentially to the Russian economy, than had been applied to any country on earth.
Therefore, Mr. Merz’s statements are strictly posturing to appear tough and brave in front of his electorate. And he needs to do that, because he has been basically weakened on the day that he was supposed to become and did eventually become the chancellor of Germany. He didn’t have on the first vote the number of votes cast sufficient to ensure his becoming chancellor. So he is off to a weak start, and he would like to bolster his position and appear to be a real national leader by threatening the Russians.
10:42
However, he has very little ability to do anything that would damage the Russians, except if he would authorize the delivery of the Taurus missiles, the German missiles that Mr. Scholz, his predecessor, refused to give to Kiev because it makes Germany a co-belligerent. If Mr. Merz does that, then the Russians have an answer. And I believe the answer will be to use their Oreshnik and other precision, unstoppable hypersonic missiles to destroy the factories producing these weapons in Germany.
NewsX: 11:21
Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for joining us, Let’s move over now to the Middle East, where Washington’s envoy to Israel had–
Gilbert Doctorow 