Transcript of NewsX interview, 31 May

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyVxbewKgP0

0:00 NewsX:
Ahead to Europe, US Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal have met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev as diplomatic efforts intensify ahead of expected peace talks. Graham announced that the US Senate will advance a bill next week to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and countries continuing to buy its oil and other goods. During their visit, both senators accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of stalling the peace process. Graham, who spoke with Donald Trump before the trip, said the US president expects concrete actions from Moscow. This comes as Trump called both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stubborn while trying to mediate an end to the war. Here is what the senators had to say.

Graham:
I don’t believe Russia is interested in peace. As we speak, they’re building up their forces along Ukraine’s border for a counteroffensive in the summer or the fall.

I’m going to Paris and I’m going to Germany after this trip. I’m going to urge our European allies to lower the price cap to make it harder on Putin’s fossil-fuel economy. Increase OPEC production and lower the price cap. If Europe will do that, it will matter. It will hurt Russia’s war machine.

Ukraine is ready for peace, is willing to make sacrifices and compromise for peace, is willing to stop the fighting to achieve peace. It’s clear to almost anyone, Putin is not remotely interested in anything that would lead to peace.

Blumenthal: 1:46
–on Vladimir Putin. And right now, let’s be very blunt, he’s playing the United States for a stooge. Americans don’t like to be made fools of. But that’s what he’s doing. Clearly, obviously, prolonging and playing for time, stonewalling and stalling and stringing out the President of the United States. Americans won’t stand for it.

NewsX:
Meanwhile Russia claims to have shot down over 1,400 Ukrainian drones in the past week and taken control of 13 settlements in Sumy, Kharkiv and the Donetsk region.

The Russian Defence Ministry also reported strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure and reportedly repelled multiple attacks while advancing on several fronts. Ukraine on the other hand said its forces deployed a newly developed mobile air defence system to shoot down Russian drones over Odessa. Kiev reported 93 frontline clashes on May 30th alone, including the repelling of 28 Russian attacks near Pokrovsk. This comes as Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nabensya, has said that Moscow is open to a ceasefire, but only if the West stops arming Ukraine and Kyiv halts troop mobilisation. He added that a simple truce would not be enough to end the conflict.

3:08
Well several developments there. Joining us to discuss them is Gilbert Doctorow, a Russian affairs expert, who’s joining us from Brussels. Gilbert, as always, thank you ever so much for taking the time to speak with us. Some strong statements there from US senators that are in Ukraine. They say that Russia is stalling. They say that sanctions are coming and that the US have been having the wool pulled over their eyes. What’s your response to those comments?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 3:36
We’re watching political theatre. The two senators, Lindsey Graham and Blumenthal, who are now in Kiev, have been among the most vicious anti-Russian politicians on Capitol Hill. And they are both there expressing the views that they have said in Washington in the last week, that they are imposing on President Trump a bill calling, which sets these new sanctions on Russia as a harsh response to what they have just explained in the tape you gave, Russia supposedly unwilling to come to the peace table.

Well, that is political theater, but it does set certain conditions for Mr. Trump. And he is maneuvering very well, very skillfully, dancing his dance, which is to keep all of his opponents off balance, not to appear as if he’s siding with the Russians, when de facto he is. I expect that he will make the best of this bad situation. He will accept the sanctions as having been originated in his group, when they have not been. They are being imposed on him, and they are veto-proof because more than 80 senators have signed up to them.

4:50
But what I expect will come out of this is exactly the opposite of what Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal think will come out. It will be that Mr. Trump will gracefully acknowledge that Russia must be punished, and he will punish Russia, at the same time that he is balanced and is punishing Ukraine. The explanation will be that both sides need pressure to moderate their positions and come to terms. As regards Ukraine, he will cut all American aid to Ukraine, and that will sober up people in Kiev, and it will indeed bring the war closer to an end. That is what I see resulting from this political theatre that you have just put on the stage.

NewsX:
Gilbert, some US officials, top senators, we’ve also had European leaders as well, saying that Putin is dragging his feet and prolonging these peace negotiations to strengthen his position on the battlefield. Does Putin actually want peace?

Doctorow: 5:56
The appearance that we get from the news, on both alternative news and mainstream news in the West and the world at large, is that Mr. Trump is dominating all world developments. Indeed, you can’t go through a day without hearing major reports on what Trump is doing domestically or internationally.

The reality with respect to the Russian-Ukraine war is that Mr. Putin is dominating this. He is being very considerate. He doesn’t want to insult the Americans, least of all Mr. Trump. And he is giving them the appearance of controlling events, when de facto the Russians are controlling events. A week ago, Americans were saying that the Russians must change their negotiating team, Mr. Medinsky is too aggressive, and so forth, that the negotiation should be held in Geneva. Well, many suggestions were coming from the States.

6:50
The reality is that Mr. Putin and his team have determined where they will take place, which is in Istanbul, and what they will do. They will review memoranda, which will not be disclosed to the public or to the other side before the 2nd of June. And Mr. Medinsky remains in charge of the Russian negotiating team.

7:13
So what I’m saying is that without insulting President Trump, Mr. Putin is de facto controlling events. Draw it out? The Russians, of course, they’re drawing it out, until and unless they receive what they want, which is a truce, or a ceasefire that cannot be violated by the Ukrainians, in the sense that they will be rearming, repositioning their troops and so forth, and so regaining some stability which they have lost in the preceding weeks.

The war on the front is dominated by the Russians. They are pushing the Ukrainians steadily back, a few hundred meters a day, a few kilometers a day, all across the front. They are– in your news, you mentioned the attacks on Pakrovsk, which the Russians called Krasnoyarsk. Yes, that is a key transport hub, a major point of defense of the Ukrainian forces and distribution, logistic center, and it is partly taken over already by the Russians. It will soon be in Russian hands. After that, the next news that we’ll have, that you will be placing before your viewers, will be the Russians attack on Slaviansk and Kramatorsk, which are the last remaining major towns in the Donetsk oblast.

8:38
That is, before you reach the Dnieper River. We’re coming to that. So we don’t have to speak about a late summer offensive, a massive offensive, a Russian move in the fall. No, no, in the coming weeks we will see gradually the Ukrainian forces without the front collapsing, but they are being progressively pushed back towards the Dnieper River. That is how the war is evolving.

NewsX: 9:03
Yes Gilbert, I will repose the same question, just because I’d like a more direct response to whether Vladimir Putin actually wants peace in this war. You’ve just detailed there all of the gains that are being made. You’ve said that Russia are controlling these discussions, which is something that Western leaders have said. Russia are setting the agenda. Putin says he wants direct talks with Zelensky. Zelensky offers them. Putin says no. Does Putin want peace?

Doctorow:
He wants peace. He wants a peace treaty. Let there be no mistake about that. If the war ends with a Russian running to the Dnieper River and the Ukrainian forces collapsing, but without a peace treaty, the Russians will be very unhappy. Mr. Putin is a legally-minded person. He is a lawyer by training. He wants a piece of paper signed by a legitimate representative of the Ukrainian nation.

Why? He doesn’t want to face the next 20 or 30 years of Russia being subjected to terrorist attacks by Ukrainians who are in a chaotic region that doesn’t have a proper government. He wants Ukraine to be headed by a legitimate government, which concludes a valid peace treaty with Russia.

And so it’s taking some time; he set conditions which are harsh, but which Russia will not step back from, and which Russia will eventually obtain. Namely that a truce, a ceasefire, is part of a global settlement that will be validated by European and US powers and will have and will be a peace for a long term and not just for the next six months.

NewsX: 10:49
Yes. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you ever so much for joining us. We will of course continue to bring you–