A very good “Spotlight” show from Press TV: Russia-NATO Clashes

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This discussion with New York based radio journalist Don Debar hosted by ‘Spotlight’ presenter Bandia Honardar may be taken as my ‘coming out’ on the subject of Putin’s dismaying performance in the Valdai Discussion Club plenary session on Thursday.

Note that in my response to Honardar’s first question, I swept past the question and used the moment on air to change the subject to something I consider far more substantial than what the Press TV team had prepared.  That is exactly my point about the obligation of a panelist to use the microphone to deliver a prepared message whatever the question because use of the microphone must be advantageous to both sides.

My key point to the Iranian journalists was the following:  How can Iran take seriously any Russian commitments to its defense when Vladimir Putin drops all pretense at sovereignty to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump as he did in Sochi.? How can Iran establish durable partnership with the man who praises unindicted war criminal Tony Blair as an ‘experienced statesman’ upon his designation by Trump as a member of the Peace Board to govern Gaza if the President’s 20-point peace plan is accepted by Hamas?

I wish to emphasize here that the danger of U.S. providing Tomahawks to Kiev lies not in the actual delivery, which may or may not take place, but in the way this is a nod to the Germans to proceed with delivery of their Taurus missiles to Ukraine for immediate deployment and firing deep inside Russia.  No one is talking about that aspect of the Tomahawk controversy though I believe it is essential.

Enjoy the show, which Press TV produced in a very professional manner.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/134767

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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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