‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 20 August 2025: The Kremlin’s View of Trump

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This conversation with Judge Napolitano brought out some essential points that have received little or no attention in alternative media, not to mention mainstream.

First among these comes from the interview that Sergei Lavrov gave to Russian state television yesterday in which he strongly hinted that a step towards convening a Putin-Zelensky meeting should be revocation of the prohibitions on use of the Russian language in schools, in public places, and on dissemination of Russian language media.  If that were to happen, I believe the Russians would be more amenable to a one-on-one meeting of their president with Zelensky.

As I explain here, surely Zelensky’s insistent demand for such a meeting was premised on the likely refusal of the Russians to agree so that he could turn around and say to the Americans and to the EU leaders “you see, I told you that Putin does not want peace,” after which he would proceed with his demands for more arms and financial assistance.

We also discussed at length what I call out as the very capable conduct of the negotiations with the Europeans by what I call the Collective Trump, taking in his obviously very smart assistants, of whom Steve Witkoff is only one example.  He was stringing the Europeans along on his supposed support for an immediate unconditional cease fire. He was not persuaded of anything in this matter by Putin when they met in Alaska; rather his meeting with Putin was essential for him to be convinced that Putin is someone he really can work with. That done, he proceeded to announce his favoring a full peace treaty now.

I see the same deception being played now by Trump when he tells the Europeans that there will be American participation in the planned security guaranties for Ukraine.  Perhaps, but only if the “peacekeeping” force is very different from what the Coalition of the Willing that descended on Washington this past Monday expects.  If it is not just Europeans but also Chinese, Indians and others from the Global South then it will likely be acceptable to Moscow as consisting of monitors, not war makers, not a pseudo-NATO that is ready to attack Russia at any moment.

I will go no further here but urge the Community to pay close attention to this conversation.

©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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One thought on “‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 20 August 2025: The Kremlin’s View of Trump”

  1. I had not realized the importance of the language issue to the Russians in this conflict. I acknowledge but do not pretend to understand its implications vis-a-vie a peace settlement. IMHO everything team Trump does and especially Trump double talk is aimed specifically at neo-cons in the MIC to keep them off balance and with no input into negotiations. Again, IMHO Trump has made peace with the Russians with a handshake, now to see if he can jam it down the throats of the MIC/neocon at home and abroad and achieve an actual agreement on paper that can be signed by both Putin and Trump. Again, IMHO this whole episode starting with Alaska has been orchestrated with one of 2 goals in mind. Actual peace, or enough political cover for the US to walk away from Ukraine

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