Transcript of NewsX interview, 18 June

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NewsX: 8:37
We’re now joined by Gilbert Doctorow, who’s a Russian affairs expert, and he joins us from Brussels, Belgium. Gilbert, thank you very much for joining us on the programme. Gilbert, this G7 conference, formally G8, is coming to a close. What have been your thoughts on how everything has played out in regards to Zelensky’s presence and Russia’s absence?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Russia has been absent for 10 years, so that’s not a new development. But as regards to Mr. Zelensky, his trip was totally wasted. He was on his way into Alberta when he was apprised of the fact that Trump had already left hours before. I think Mr. Trump’s departure was motivated in part to avoid meeting Zelensky and to avoid participating in a discussion of the Ukraine war that was on the agenda for the day.

The fact is that Mr.– this is a meeting of seven, but Mr. Trump would find himself in the minority of one. He would have six fellow members, all grouped against him on the question of the Ukraine war. And that, of course, is not very agreeable or very constructive. As regards his mention of how sad it was that President Obama, together with Justin Trudeau of Canada, had decided to remove Russia as the eighth member of this group — he called this very sad and said that it was, had there been Russian participation in the G8, then there wouldn’t have been a war that we’re now fighting.

However, this is, these are pure rhetoric. The reality is that when Mr. Trump, sorry, when Mr. Putin was a member of the G8, he was in exactly the same disadvantageous and uninteresting position of Mr. Trump presently. He was a minority of one with seven allies in the West aligned against him who agreed, who met privately before he arrived at any conference, and agreed on a policy line which was all directed against him. So in that sense, the problems of today’s G7 are simply repeating the problems that existed in 2014, when you had seven members ganging up on the eighth. Now it was six members who were planned to gang up on the seventh, namely Mr. Trump.

11:18
Mr. Trump is not Mr. Putin. He is the most powerful man in the world. And so they could only lick their wounds and complain when he left, when he left early on the alleged reason that he had business to do in Washington that was more important.

NewsX: 11:39
Gilbert, the Kremlin has called G7 useless. Ukraine did want to make more gains than it did, but it did produce Canada’s massive support, some massive financial support from Canada. Do you think Russia is losing more ground diplomatically or gaining it?

Doctorow:
Well, whatever the G7 does, it really is not news in the sense that they are all aligned against Russia, not a day-to-day matter, not just when they convene together. So Mr. Zelensky left, as you said quite properly, he left this meeting with nothing in his hands other than what Canada could contribute. This may be of some small solace to him, but it in no way helps Ukraine to continue to fight effectively against Russia.

12:33
In point of fact, because of the Israel-Iran war, The United States has withdrawn a large part of its air defenses from Ukraine and moved them to the Middle East to provide some protection for America’s air bases and the 40,000 American soldiers who are stationed in the Middle East, should they come to blows with Iran. The United States also has reportedly stopped sending any further military materiel to Ukraine.

All of this is very bad news for Mr. Zelensky and bad news for his army. It is not a surprise that Russia is staging massive strikes on Kiev presently, as you have otherwise reported, because the air defences there are very weak.

NewsX: 13:25
Gilbert, prior to the G7, Putin and Trump had a direct phone call. They have so far agreed to commence talks again, once again, on the 22nd of this month. What are your hopes going into those talks, given Russia’s escalating strikes on civilian infrastructure across Ukraine? Do you think they’ll make any progress? And do you think peace is still on Putin’s mind when it comes to sending his delegation to Turkey?

Doctorow:
Oh, peace is definitely on Mr. Putin’s mind, but it’s a peace that he wants on his terms. In that sense, He is no different from Mr. Zelensky, who wants a peace on his terms. Both sides are looking for a capitulation of the other side, which of course is an impossible situation and does not indicate that they will reach any agreement until there is a definitive result on the battlefield. That’s, having said that, the meeting between the Russians and the Americans is really about technical matters. It is about restoring the functionality of their respective diplomatic establishments in the other country. Their embassies are operating on a very weak level because staff is missing.

14:48
Staff was thrown out in recriminatory exchanges going back several years. They are non-functional, and the intent is to restore functionality, because you cannot negotiate with the other side, over important matters of geopolitics, which is what Trump and Putin are trying to do, when you don’t have staff on the ground manning your embassy.

NewsX: 15:16
Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for joining us on the program and [for] your insight. We now move over to the Middle East–

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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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