RT interview: “’Zelensky won’t be around long enough for his opinions to matter’ — Professor Gilbert Doctorow”

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Yesterday evening I gave an interview to RT which focused on the outcome of the negotiations in Istanbul earlier in the day between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.  Those talks ended in a major achievement with respect to exchange of ailing prisoners of war, to POWs under age 25 and to exchange of the bodies of those who fell in enemy territory and were left behind by their comrades. These exchanges will bring great joy to the relatives of the live POWs and will bring closure and financial compensation to the relatives of the fallen. However, as regards the main reason for the parleys, exchange of memoranda on the respective Ukrainian and Russian visions of the end-game and a comprehensive peace treaty, what we know of the memoranda indicates that the sides are very far apart. In essence, each of the warring parties is demanding that the other side capitulate.

The discussion also touched upon the Ukrainian drone attack against military airports across the Russian Federation on Sunday, which raises many questions, including the involvement of British MI6 and America’s CIA in the planning and possibly in the execution of the attack.

There is here a good deal of material in this interview which readers will find builds upon my earlier essays using most recently released information about the events in question.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

RT-Interview: „‚Selensky wird nicht lange genug im Amt sein, dass seine Meinung noch eine Rolle spielen würde‘ – Professor Gilbert Doctorow“

Gestern Abend gab ich RT ein Interview, in dem es um das Ergebnis der Verhandlungen zwischen russischen und ukrainischen Delegationen in Istanbul ging, die am selben Tag stattfanden. Diese Gespräche endeten mit einem bedeutenden Erfolg hinsichtlich des Austauschs kranker Kriegsgefangener, Kriegsgefangener unter 25 Jahren und der Rückführung der Leichen derjenigen, die auf feindlichem Gebiet gefallen sind und von ihren Kameraden zurückgelassen wurden. Dieser Austausch wird den Angehörigen der lebenden Kriegsgefangenen große Freude bereiten und den Angehörigen der Gefallenen einen Abschluss und eine finanzielle Entschädigung ermöglichen. Was jedoch den Hauptgrund für die Verhandlungen betrifft, nämlich den Austausch von Memoranden über die jeweiligen ukrainischen und russischen Vorstellungen vom Endspiel und einen umfassenden Friedensvertrag, so deuten die uns bekannten Informationen darauf hin, dass die Positionen der beiden Seiten sehr weit auseinanderliegen. Im Wesentlichen fordert jede der Kriegsparteien die Kapitulation der anderen Seite.

Die Diskussion berührte auch den ukrainischen Drohnenangriff auf Militärflughäfen in der Russischen Föderation am Sonntag, der viele Fragen aufwirft, darunter die Beteiligung des britischen MI6 und der amerikanischen CIA an der Planung und möglicherweise auch an der Durchführung des Angriffs.

Dieses Interview enthält viel Material, das auf meinen früheren Essays aufbaut und die neuesten Informationen zu den fraglichen Ereignissen berücksichtigt.

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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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