‘Judging Freedom’: New Pressures on Putin

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One of the advantages of Andrew Napolitano’s channel ‘Judging Freedom’ is that he invites panelists who may agree on the facts relating to some major international development but can offer quite divergent interpretations of the statesmen making that news.

So it has been with respect to Donald Trump’s announcement yesterday that he is prepared to punish Vladimir Putin for disappointing his expectation that a peace with Ukraine would be concluded two months ago.

In his interview with the Judge, Scott Ritter said that the measures that Trump had announced are doomed to fail – both imposition of 100% secondary tariffs against Russia and those countries trading with Russia and renewed, expanded arms shipments to Ukraine via NATO’s European Member States. The Patriot anti-missile system will not be able to cope with Russia’s massive ongoing air strikes across Ukraine. This factual part of Ritter’s assessment is accepted by a great many analysts in independent media, myself included. But then there was Ritter’s explanation of why these ineffectual punishments were announced by Trump: because the President, the key members of his administration and the whole of Congress are just “idiots.’

Another panelist on ‘Judging Freedom’ yesterday, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, described Trump’s announced plans as the least bad measures he could introduce in response to demands from his critics inside Congress and in the broader political establishment for action to turn back the Russian offensive and buy time for the Kiev regime.

I am aligned with Macgregor in looking for logic in Trump’s actions, though I go several steps further than Macgregor has done. To be specific, I stress the timeline for imposition of the 100% secondary tariffs.  Fifty days! That just happens to cover what remains of summer 2025 while a major Russian offensive is underway. And, like so many of Trump’s deadlines we may assume that it will be extended if necessary.

In the meantime, Trump has bought off the most dangerous critic within his own party, Senator Lindsey Graham, who is obliged to say that his pressure for sanctions on Russia has paid off even if he may be disgruntled that it is not going into effect tomorrow.  Moreover, critics of Trump within Europe also are left speechless, now that officially Washington is resuming arms shipments to Ukraine and is cooperating on their plans to supply advanced weapons systems to Kiev including the Patriot from their own arsenals while scheduling replacements produced for them in the USA against payment.

My read-out is that in effect Trump is saying to Vladimir Putin: ‘just get on with it. Finish up this war in the coming 50 days and we will be friends!”  This is, I suggest, a repetition of what Trump told Netanyahu about his Gaza war on Hamas: “Do what you like but be fast about it!”

If Vladimir Putin can summon the decisiveness that so far he has not shown in this war, and proceed to bomb the hell out of Ukraine, up to and including a decapitation strike on the Zelensky neo-Nazi gang in Kiev using those wonderful Oreshnik hypersonic missiles that Russia boasts, then the European continent will enjoy peace once again and the hysteria over rearmament led by Germany can be reined in. 

It bears mention that the moneyed classes in Moscow were very satisfied with Trump’s ‘surprise’ message. The BBC yesterday reported that the Moscow stock exchange rose 4% on the news.

Since Macgregor reports from information provided to him by friends in Washington that the latest behind closed doors talks between U.S. and Russian officials remain cordial, we may assume that Trump remains on track to pursue détente with Russia and hopes that the Kremlin will do what has to be done expeditiously and effectively. These carrots may just have more sway with Vladimir Putin than the sticks that Trump identified publicly yesterday.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

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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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3 thoughts on “‘Judging Freedom’: New Pressures on Putin”

  1. The war is not going to be over in 50 days, not in 150 days, and not in 350 days, for that matter. The idea that Russia should speed things up to help Trump politically is just silly. Russia’s slow, methodical approach is a politically motivated decision to extract maximal gains in its war with the West. The strategy is working well and there is absolutely no motivation for Russia to change course now. The eventual result will be the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state, and politically weakened, demilitarized and exhausted Western governments and populace. It’s not pretty, has associated costs, and doesn’t provide the kind of instant gratification that our internet addled brains so wantonly crave, but good things come to those who wait.

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  2. trump wants Russia to sit out the indo pacific war ( bushwhacking)which is scheduled to begin shortly 👍

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