Transcript of ‘Conversation with Glenn Diesen,’ 4 October

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQdNcL7XkU8

Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome back. We are joined by Gilbert Doctorow, historian, international affairs analyst and also author of the Russia-Ukraine War or more specifically _War Diaries, the Russia-Ukraine War_. I always carry it with me. It’s an excellent book, and I really recommend it.

So welcome back to the program. We see that President Putin just gave a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi. Many people had waited for this speech with some suspense because of the dangerous times we live in and also at this annual Valdai discussions he usually devotes four hours to discussing all world events. So many eyes were on this meeting, and also because of course the proxy war between NATO and Russia continues to escalate as the Ukrainian army suffers more on the battlefield. We see now discussions of Tomahawks, the US providing long-range missiles. No, it’s also long range intelligence for doing the long-range strikes.

1:07
We see _Financial Times_ reporting that the British are already engaged in attacks deep inside Russia in cooperation with the Ukrainians. So there’s a growing pressure, is my point, on Putin to restore Russia’s deterrence. And to a large extent, you feel he did not deliver on this. Am I correct?

Doctorow:
Yes, you’re correct. I was deeply disappointed in his presence at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi. Although I watched it from afar, there was complete coverage with some delay, provided by several different YouTube channels. I can’t say that I saw all four hours of it. It took a great deal of patience to do that. And I doubt that too many other of my peers spent more than a short time watching it and using the subject to project what they wanted to hear, but in fact did not hear.

When I looked yesterday at YouTube, and of course YouTube presents, it has AI-directed proposals to you and suggestions to you, knowing what your preferences are. So each day I got a menu of YouTube channels and they were consistently speaking about Putin threatens, Putin warns, Putin denounces. And they made it seem as though he was doing what everyone expected him to do, but in fact he did not do. Or to the extent that he issued warnings, they were so vague, so indefinite, that they have no meaning. Moreover, the most important fact is that the warning, the very clear red line that he described one year ago, oh, one year, two months ago, in several interviews, there’s a red line about use of long-range American or other missiles to strike deep within the Russian Federation.

He said very clearly that any country supplying this, And first of all, the United States, because the missiles in question, they weren’t named as Tomahawks, but it was known that all of the missiles striking Russia from Ukraine are in fact targeted and controlled by NATO member states. He said specifically that if long-range missiles were supplied to Ukraine and they struck Russia, then Russia would consider the [countries] supplying, delivering such missiles to Ukraine to be co-belligerents, co-belligerents for which Russia would reserve the right to strike back militarily.

3:55
That’s not what we heard on Thursday. That very clear and very strict warning to the United States was erased. Instead, what we heard was, well, if the United States supplies these missiles, they really won’t change the situation on the battlefield, even though they’re awesome. They are outdated. And more importantly, what they will do is spoil our budding relationship, cancel out the light at the end of the tunnel. Oh my goodness, that is not calling the United States a co-belligerent. If that were all that Putin said at this meeting, I would maybe try to find excuses for him.

But things were much worse from my perspective, and none of this is being carried by my peers. My peers on some very widely watched programs are speaking about Putin as a gentleman, Putin as the adult in the room and so forth. They’re saying what they said about him for years and they’re ignoring intentionally or not, they’re ignoring what happened at Valdai, Kekwelo. Namely, his so obvious attempts to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump that I would say he sacrificed Russian sovereignty then and there.

5:18
What do we name? Well, there was his lengthy homage to Charlie Kirk, the lengthy discussion of the son of a CIA director, directoress, who died as a Russian soldier fighting for Russia in Donbass. But more to it. His answer to a question from the audience, “What do you think about President Trump’s 20-point peace plan?” And he said, that is Putin said, “This may surprise you, but I approve of it. And I think that it has a lot of merit. Of course, I would add to it that it should acknowledge specifically the two-state solution.”

And then he went on to say, because the question was also asked about the designation of Tony Blair to be on the governing board, the interim governing board, I think he called it a peace board, which he, Trump, would head that would manage affairs in Gaza until such time as it was determined that the Palestinians could govern themselves. Well, Tony Blair on the peace board. Tony Blair, the unindicted war criminal, the man who encouraged Bush to fund his murderous and illegal invasion of Iraq against all the provisions of the United Nations Charter.

7:02
This man was then praised by Vladimir Putin as an experienced statesman and a person with whom he had personal contact and rapport, going back to the start of the new millennium when he spent one or more days in Blair’s residence and they both had shared coffee while in their pajamas. A touching note. But I just wonder how we can reconcile this statement with Mr. Putin as the defender of the Third World, of the members of BRICS, of the Palestinians, it is reconcilable. It is, as I say, a sacrifice of Russian sovereignty for which Russia may pay very dear. And we also, because it puts us in line for World War Three.

Diesen: 8:06
Yeah. Well, that was, one might, I guess the critical takeaway as well was that, well, it looked like the main message he wanted to get across to signal Russia’s main objective was for Russia and the United States to continue improving their relations while at the same time making it clear that Russia is now done with the Europeans because, well, he used words like describing them as weirdos and they, well, there’s no, I think everyone now recognizes strategic vacuum in Europe and there’s, he doesn’t see any way of fixing this, but also no desire either. So this is kind of the main thing he wanted to go for.

But I did share some of your ideas or thoughts on this because I was there at Valdai, and the day before we met with Lavrov, and he was also asked about Tomahawks and he came with this dismissive attitude as well. “They’re not going to change anything.” But what happened, but this is the, you know, okay, you exude confidence, but this is not what you want to say if you want to uphold a deterrent. It almost sounds like they, invite it in. And I think this can be very dangerous because if they do have more impact than expected, then Russia will strike back, and then we have war.

9:30
If the Tomahawks go in, the Germans will then see, “Oh, maybe we can go too now.” And the Germans will definitely get hit by Russia. So I think like almost a soft tone, but it might nonetheless escalate the risk of war. Same as you mentioned celebrating the Americans. So Charlie Kirk you know is a hero just like Russian conservatives.

He praised Americans fighting with Russia in Ukraine. And Trump of course I think he leaned a bit heavy into how easy it is to work with him and authentic, all of this. I think the European experience is that you don’t want to bow too heavy towards Trump because he’s the kind of guy who will, you know, buy his enemies and sell his friends. He’s very, well, if you praise him too much, he owns you. So I think this is what the international system he’s going for as well.

10:32
And the effective thing is what the Indians did is they pushed back a little bit. So I think this can only possibly embolden Trump further. So I don’t think that was helpful either. And the one area I would maybe disagree with you is the issue of Tony Blair though, because he kind of expressed some loathing of Blair and then the only positive thing he could say was, yeah, he has good coffee. I mean, it’s a, it’s a worth, it’s not a great compliment to give to someone, but you know, maybe I was reading it wrong.

Just as a last note, I spoke to different people in the audience there before and after this, you know, a lot of ambassadors and generals, mostly foreign, and they are, you know, so academic. Many had the same takeaway though, that they expected Russia to really have to come in with a message that they’re going to restore their deterrent, authentically so. And that’s what I heard before, and that’s also what I heard afterwards was it didn’t deliver what they had expected.

Doctorow:
We are in a world of real-politik and there’s very little room for personal rapport and for nostalgia for public relations in the past or supposed cultural affinities. This is a dynamic world that is changing, constantly in flux.

And that is something that Russia’s partners have to consider and that Mr. Putin did not help by his presentation in Valdai. I was on Indian radio yesterday, and the Indians were following Mr. Putin’s remarks at Valdai, at Sochi, with respect to his backing India in the face of American secondary sanctions and making reference to their long history of rapport with Russia going back to Soviet Union, and Soviet support for India in moments of need like in 1972. All of this is fine, but if you paid attention to this backtracking that I mentioned a moment ago, from hard red lines to very mushy, fuzzy lines, you wonder what Mr. Putin’s guarantees are worth. Well, I don’t have to wonder. You don’t think they’re worth much.

And that’s certainly true of Iran. I was on Iran’s Press TV and the question is, what do you make of Mr. Putin when he is backing the Trump plan? For that matter, so is India. So Iran in BRICS is in a tough spot there. Their close allies are on the other side of the fence on an issue that’s of great importance to Iran.

13:32
But there is, the personal aspect has been brought up repeatedly, that “I had good rapport with Trump and he’s a good conversationalist and he listens.” All that’s fine. But in the big order of things, when Putin tries so hard to ingratiate himself with Trump, he can only earn contempt, which is not a good basis for a durable relationship.

Diesen:
I was also wondering if Russia is being lulled into a false sense of security a bit as well, because he spent quite a lot of time discussing why the war more or less almost is over because he looked at the attrition rates and he looks at how the losses the Ukrainian army is taking, both men and material, and why it’s not possible to replenish this. And so more or less, you know, going with numbers and statistics to show that this is coming to an end, likely sooner than later.

But I guess my pushback against this would be that I agree with this assessment, but there’s other variables at play which won’t remain constant over time. That is that the Europeans are preparing for more direct warfare, they’re also seizing ships, discussion of blocking trade routes, which is an act of war. There’s this threats against Kaliningrad. It’s this possibility that the Russian economy might start to do worse a few months from now. Who knows?

15:13
It’s possible that China and India can’t stand up to American pressures forever. I mean, I’m not saying this will happen, but there’s a lot of unknown variables. And if you’re in a good place now, which I think Russia is in this war, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to be in a good place necessarily in six months or 12 months. So it does beg the question why, why would they still slow-balling this whole thing. I mean, they’ve got current success now, but if something goes wrong, given that Russia sees this an existential threat, then they would have to break out the nuclear weapons if things would start to go terribly wrong. So I’m just saying it seems strange to me that this will be the core variable to focus on.

Doctorow: 16:00
They’d have to break out nuclear weapons or they’d have to change their leader. That should not be off the table for discussion. But I think Putin was looking in the wrong direction, so was Lavrov. The issue is not whether the Tomahawks or the German missiles, Taurus, will change the situation on the battlefield.

No, they will change public opinion, which is where war must begin and end. If Russia is struck by a Tomahawk, if a major population center is struck by a Taurus, well, who cares what’s going on on the Donbas front, that will change the whole war entirely and it will go very badly for the Russian leadership. The public, which is now living very comfortably, earning salaries three times what they got before the war started, will be enraged by a strike that kills civilians in any major city, enabled by this lax response that we heard in Sochi to American plans to send in Tomahawks. And I agree completely with you that the real threat from the Tomahawks, which may very well never be supplied, is that this opens the door to Merz to do what Scholz didn’t dare do, because they’re saying, waiting for the Americans to go through the door first. And practically speaking, Donald Trump just went through that door, even if he never supplies a single Tomahawk.

17:43
Which means that we may, there’s not a question of delivering the Taurus to Kiev. Surely they’re already there in big numbers. The question is implementing them, using them. And if that happens, yes, well, who knows what Mr. Putin will say then. Maybe it’ll just spoil relations with Germany. He backs away from destroying the one factory in Germany that makes these terrorist missiles. It opens a lot of uncertainty. And instead of a clarification from the speech that Dmitry Peskov said would be important, we have new uncertainties.

Diesen:
Yeah, there was a lot of ambiguity. Again, I’m not sure how to interpret the optimism though, because if he’s too calm, too optimistic, it kind of signals that the guard is down, we’re not really going to do anything. Or if it’s just, maybe he knows something we don’t know if this is the reason behind it. Because I go to the Valdai every year and I’ve never seen him in such a good mood. He kept making jokes the whole time. He was such a loose, relaxed attention.

And also, you know, afterwards when President Putin goes backstage, I hear he’s away from the audience and the cameras, he’s still super optimistic and positive and like happy. So I’m not sure. He’s not putting on a, I guess, a show. I think it’s authentic. But as you say, if he’s like, Tomahawk’s this, nothing is that important.

19:33
It’s kind of strange because again, back to the thing when it’s kind of praising Trump. I’m glad they get along well, and it’s important to when the two largest nuclear power they have to be able to get along and reduce tensions. But on the other hand, this is a country which is now more or less at war with Russia. It’s their missiles, with their intelligence, their targeting data, the war being planned by their generals, killing thousands of Russians. And they’re now talking about escalating, so opening the doors to flooding Ukraine with more weapons. And if the only response is, yeah, he’s a good guy, We can work with him.

I mean, it’s, there has to be a balance somewhere where, yes, we’ll be, we’ll work with him. We happy for good relations. So we can end this war. But at the same time, if there has to be a deterrent somewhere, I didn’t necessarily see that balance, I guess.

Doctorow: 20:31
Well, the, it’s not my, discovery, the Russians say, hopefully that Trump is surrounded by enemies. And although they may have a rapport with him and understanding with him, they are aware– this is what comes out of Russian state television– that Trump may not be able to carry through his programs, particularly his reconciliation with Russia. Therefore, for Vladimir Putin to put so much trust in what he believes is an agreement with Donald Trump to normalize relations is strange to say the least.

There are three, I see at least three major threats to Russia. We discussed a while ago, this is for Tomahawks. You mentioned in passing the second threat, which is the blockade of the Baltic, interruption of trade routes. And we’ve seen various manifestations of that. That’s this whole hysteria over supposed Russian drones everywhere in the states bordering the Baltic by the way, and not just in places like Romania. That is the detention of the captain and some mate on a gray fleet Russian tanker by France. This is another manifestation of the attempt to intimidate Russia, to interrupt its trade routes and to establish an air and maritime blockade on the Russian use of the Baltic Sea. That is, as you said, an act of war.

22:12
What I would have expected is for Vladimir Putin to say, “Gentlemen, you pursue this, and by international law, that is an act of war, and we will declare war on you the next day.” He didn’t do that.

Now, all he has to do is to say the obvious: “Gentlemen, if you use, as you intend to use, the 145 billion euros in Russian state assets that are now frozen in euro here in Belgium as collateral for a loan to Ukraine, which by your own terms will not be repaid unless Russia agrees to pay tribute, to capitulate and to pay war damages to Ukraine. That is effectively confiscating our state assets. Under international law, that is an act of war, and we will declare war on you if you proceed with this.”

This would be normal. That would be a threat. What he said in his Q&A, these weren’t threats. They were mulling over what should we do. It was a variation on Maria Zakharova’s constant refrain. Can you imagine? Well, yes, we can imagine almost anything now.

Diesen:
Yeah, well, I guess the same as Tomahawks can be applied to the… Well, it turned out not to be a Russian ship, but irrespective of it, a ship was seized by the French. The French thought it was Russian and their objectives are more or less open. They want to disrupt the Russian trade. That’s the same reason the Europeans are also participating in striking deep inside Russia, its energy infrastructure. They also want to disrupt this transportation corridors. But again, this is an act of war and President Trump, sorry, President Putin, he made the point that, well, this is piracy.

It’s like, well, yes, it is. But condemning it and pointing out how dangerous is one thing. But again, if the main objective was to restore deterrent, that was a little bit left out of the conversation, because if it’s just one ship and then it’s never again yeah why go down the route of escalation especially when you’re winning on the battlefield. But the whole point there is things that the precedent, he siezes a ship, he releases it soon thereafter, no foul, then there’s no reactions from the Russians. Well, now you can do this again.

I mean, this has been the lessons of sending weapons. Remember the beginning, the West didn’t want to send any tanks because this was seen as being overly provocative and, you know, making the West directly involved. The F-16s would mean World War III, but now we’re just openly speaking about participating in striking deep inside Russia. I guess my main fear is the illusion of escalation control because it seems that we might not have the same assumptions about how we move up and down the escalation ladder. For the West, we slowly go a little bit up, we pull down if there’s too many fierce reactions, but the Russians, they tend to make, do nothing and then come up, come with a big response.

I think it was around the Crimean speech in 2014. President Putin made this comment that, you know, you treat us like a spring, you pushed us further and further back. At some point, we’re just going to lash back hard. That’s not how the West escalates. We do this slow incrementalism, setting precedents.

I’m just wondering if we think that the Russians are weak, but they’re actually building up an arsenal, Oreshniks or something, preparing to hammer us. I would like to see more certainty, as you said, more specific, setting the rules for proxy war because everything is unclear and that creates a lot of risks for miscalculation, I think.

Doctorow: 26:18
The issue here is not whether or not Western military experts properly evaluate Russia’s military potential. The issue here is how political experts advising the leadership in Europe and the United States evaluate the determination and risk-taking readiness of Russian leadership. There is the weak point.

As I said, this is a parallel to the question of whether or not these missiles will change the situation on the battlefield. Let’s assume they don’t, but it will change the political atmosphere which runs the war. If there’s a strike against Petersburg or strike against Moscow, all hell will break loose in Russian political life. And as to strikes deep inside Russia, they are already going on. As you mentioned at the outset, thanks to particularly British assistance, the Ukrainians are striking, effectively destroying Russian refineries and creating local areas, particularly in the southwest as I understand in Belgorod and probably in Korsk, maybe nearby Russian oblasts.

27:39
They have created a serious shortage of fuel. Now this is not getting proper attention in alternative media. In fact, it’s getting no attention in alternative media. But it is a reality. Now why Russia’s response has been to step up its strikes on Ukrainian oil production, gas production, gas pipeline, pumping centers, and so forth.

These strikes, of course, have been denounced in Western media, as strikes against civilian infrastructure, and nobody says a word about what they’re a response to, because there is a kind of omerta, kind of conspiracy of silence, to describe in the public agora what is happening to Russian infrastructure, which Russian drivers of cars in the locale that is affected understand perfectly well. Why it’s not reported by us is an open question.

Diesen: 28:48
I think the one key thing that could destabilize is also the assumption we have in the West often that Putin is a dictator. You know, he wields all power.

Now, well, this is kind of important because if you think that he’s okay, he’s not going to retaliate in a big way, he’s going to let this one go. As you said, that’s an assumption that it’s all up to him. But you know, there’s a lot of other political forces in Russia and if they, as you suggest, get upset enough, that either creates, well, it creates an immense amount of pressure on Putin. I used to write articles around 2015-16 about how the military and the key opposition were seeing Putin as being weak because they said, you know, we see that NATO, you know, we try to reach out a hand, we see that they’re not taking it. Instead, they’re building up capabilities along the border.

They’re preparing the Ukrainians for a war. And, you know, again, this back in 2015-16, and the main argument was we should prepare for war instead because it is coming. But, yeah, forward to today or to 2014, it would be impossible for him then not to react. And I think the same happens now. If we read his body language or his words and think that we can step over a red line, it’s not up to him necessarily.

There will be a demand coming from the political system that this is unacceptable. And I don’t know, do you see him possibly put in being undermined, this political credibility by taking too soft of a stance?

Doctorow:
Well, I’ve said something that is unspeakable for the last couple of weeks, that he may be removed from power. And yes, people say, oh, how could it happen? Who would do it? He has 80% popularity ratings. Well, a year ago, I would have said that this was indeed impossible. There were people like John Helmer, who was saying back then, people like Paul Craig Roberts, who was saying back then that Putin is leading us to World War III. In the case of Helmer, he paid attention to the general staff, saying there’s a lot of unhappiness in general staff with the go-slowly, turn-the-other-cheek approach of Putin to the way the war is being conducted. I didn’t believe that for a minute.

I thought that Helmer was getting information, if he was getting any real information from very few discontents who were not actually in the active service. However, considering what’s going on now, considering that Russia is facing three major threats that we discussed on this program, [1] the extension of this $145 billion to Ukraine, which can extend the war for now three years. [2] The long range missiles, which, either German or United States, can be used for political advantage to undermine the government by creating popular hysteria in Russia. It’s kind of terrorism. [3] And of course, there’s blockade in the Baltic.

32:09
These are major threats. And I can see where Russian patriots close to the government would look for a way out. Now I have in mind where and why. I’ve done my own poll. Your program, “Judging Freedom” and a few other, one or two other very important alternative media interview programs are now being systematically translated, not translated, dubbed into Russian using AI techniques by a YouTube channel called Parusky in Russian.

And they have, they provide data as a YouTube channel on the number of hits or views and the number of thumbs up, the number of comments and the numbers come pretty big. My Wednesday interview with Judge Napolitano had, the last time I looked, 78,000 views. It had approximately 920 reader comments, which were almost all negative. That’s to say, we Westerners are idiots, we can’t possibly understand Russia, and our president is the best president of the world. Okay, fine.

33:26
So I’d say 900 no’s for the idea that the conduct of the war is going badly. But 1,800 thumbs up. That’s to say those who agreed with the notion that the war is being badly conducted outnumbered those who love Putin at any price. Two to one. That’s not reflected in the 80-percent approval ratings that the Russian state pollsters or official pollsters give us.

I’m sure those are completely accurate, but they’re asking the wrong questions. So there is, I believe, taking under 75,000, that’s a lot of people, that’s much more than any usual poll takes to find out public opinion. And two to one, the votes who bother to write in what they think, most active people, they are two to one against the conduct of the war as it is today. So could there be at higher levels of say the FSB or other agencies at the top, [objection] to what Mr. Putin is doing?

Of course there could be. I’m just an observer here, and I have no recommendations to anybody in Russia or outside Russia what should happen. But I do think that we in the West as careful observers cannot ignore the possibility that he will be removed.

Diesen: 34:55
Well, I think so far, yes, it’s stable given that he’s been, well, he’s attributed for saving Russia. Even, you know, as Gorbachev once said as well, that if he hadn’t been for Putin, Russia would probably have been destroyed. And I guess they look at other variables as well. For example, Moscow now is truly one of the nicest cities in the world. It certainly was not in the 90s. So the way that Russia has recovered and strengthened itself, to a large extent, his credit.

But I do agree with you, though. I get the sentiment that many people do not agree with this slow, attrition war. But it’s not even just the Russians. Like I said before, I was speaking with all these different ambassadors and generals from not just China, India, but also from the West. No military there, but only diplomats from the West. But nonetheless, a bit of confusion was why Russia hasn’t attempted a capitation strike.

I mean, they know where everyone [is], they have their weapons. It seems to be an issue of intent, of not wanting to do it. So, but given all the human suffering both on the Ukrainian and the Russian side that this war brings. And also that it brings us closer and closer to World War III as the Europeans are now pulling themselves into this conflict. It seems, well, as more than one of these military and diplomatic people told me that they asked, you know, why they couldn’t understand why Oreshniks haven’t rained down upon the government buildings in Kiev, which sounds brutal.

36:47
But they saw this, well, what’s the alternative? Because Russia can’t end it. That’s capitulation. So if the option is between decapitation strikes and this slow grinding attrition war, Why not even try to go for a decapitation strike like the Americans and the Israelis tried in Iran? I don’t really know the answer to this. Again, I’m not a military strategist, but it is strange, given how many casualties have been ramped up over the past three and a half years.

Doctorow: 37:22
The man has been in power for 25 years. That is a very long period. I think we’re witnessing the end of an era. His wonderful foreign minister is tired. He’s tired. The man, I don’t think he spends more than one night a week in his own bed. He’s traveling constantly. The recent images I’ve seen of Sergei Lavrov, the man is finished. So this is an end-of-era phenomenon that we’re witnessing, but I don’t see my peers recognizing that.

Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Maybe he’ll link, he’ll go serve his term until the end, But I see cracks, and I see non-performance. I see a lack of vigor in his response to these latest challenges from the West that [is] troubling.

Diesen: 38:17
Yeah, no, I am, well, what I found fascinating this year was usually after he gives these speeches every year at the Valdai Discussion Club, the assessments are often, you know, everyone seems to more or less end up around the same interpretation.

But what I thought this year was kind of unique is how different people perceived it. Some saw this as being the strict warning to the West, like, you know, don’t cross here, this is our deterrent, while others have interpreted it as being so, yeah, being soft to the point that they might just pull back the red lines and thus embolden NATO to escalate. So it is, it’s very, and I never left this speech as being more confused, I guess, than I was now, which is not great when you’re a country at war, you want to be very specific, you want to communicate clearly and what you’re communicating should be credible and you should have the capabilities as well to back it up. This is the three C’s of deterrence, communication, credibility and capabilities.

Doctorow:
You were there on the spot, and your reading of the audience and the notables in that audience of course is the most valuable, more than anything that I can find on television, and yet … and yet, there were things obvious.

Diesen:
But I’m wondering if there’s something, again, the way he often speaks, because he talks about the Europeans getting more aggressive and he points to the polls and then he reads a poem. He talks about how Blair is a horrible person, but he makes good coffee. And I’m wondering now if he, in this super optimistic, friendly, let’s-all-get-along, cumbaya speech, if he was at the same time– If I turn on the news, the Russians are just hammering Ukraine even harder and harder. Their missile attacks seem to have learned a way of working around the Patriot systems which can’t intersect properly and more so.

40:41
So things seem to be getting, hardening dramatically on the battlefield and at the same time he seems to be lowering his guard. So again, I’m not sure if there’s something I didn’t pick up on.

Doctorow:
The situation on the battlefield is not a hundred percent covered in the West, not in alternative media for sure. There was apparently a rather big and initially successful counter-attack by Ukraine in the Sumy region. I’ve seen very little about that.

What we see now on Russian state television is the counter-counter attack and how they’ve driven them back and recovered. They never described how they lost. So to say that this is one way that the Russians are really crushing the Ukrainians, I think it’s not quite accurate. Yes, in places the Ukrainians are falling back. They still have a long way to go to reach the Dniepr.

41:39
And this is the point. If 145 billion comes to Ukraine, they will hire any number of mercenaries. They will find ways to embolden their soldiers, and the war is going to drag on until Europe is ready to fight Russia, which would be too damn late.

42:00
Well, thank you so much for sharing your views on this. As I said, speaking with the different people there, their interpretation was so widely different that– and I must say, there were several who were leaning towards your thoughts as well, that this was definitely not what they had expected. So I’m not sure if you have any final thoughts before we wrap this up.

Doctoorow:
No, just a great appreciation to you for sharing what you saw, because you were there. And for widening to your audience a variety of views on issues that they should see from many different angles.

Diesen:
Yeah. Well, just on that, I did ask a question to Putin there about how the geopolitical consequences of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but then specifically in terms of the Arctic and the Baltic seas, now that tensions are, or pressure is mounting on Kaliningrad.

But again, in the spirit of the good mood, he didn’t touch on the Kaliningrad. But this is the US general threatened to invade. So again, I’m not sure if his efforts to lighten the mood resulted in ignoring some of the severity of what’s happening. Again, I’m not sure how to read President Putin either in terms of his performance there. But anyways, it’s worth watching in full, even though he does go on for four hours. So, yeah. Anyways, thanks again for joining us.

Doctorow: 43:32
My pleasure. Thank you.