It is not often that I find myself describing statements by Sergei Lavrov as empty propaganda, but that is exactly what his latest remarks on Europe’s plans to increase military budgets amounts to. In particular his suggestion that the spending rises would have ‘catastrophic’ consequences sound not just peculiar but downright foolish. “Catastrophic” for whom? Certainly not for Russia.
However, Lavrov was just one voice in a chorus of Russian senior politicians denouncing the policy of mandatory 5% of GDP spending agreed at the NATO summit in the Hague last Friday. President Putin himself described this as proof of Europe’s planning for war on Russia, as a step into a new arms race. While Europe is adding trillions to its already enormous spending on the military, Russia expects to reduce its military budget by 6% in 2026, said Putin, demonstrating its commitment to peace.
Meanwhile, the Sunday night Solovyov talk show was filled with dire predictions of existential threats to Russia coming in particular from Germany and its chancellor Merz. Russian viewers would have needed very steady nerves to get a good night’s sleep after the Solovyov panelists had their say.
In my interview with India’s NewsX World this morning, I maintain that Russia’s latest salvo in the Information War is maladroit and largely a waste of time. Putin, Lavrov and their minions surely know very well that Europe is and will remain a paper tiger.
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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Gilbert Doctorow 