Transcript of NewsX World interview, 8 October

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKx-eUpYDoM

NewsX World: 20:31
Now for this discussion, we’re joined by Gilbert Doctorow. He’s an international relations and Russian affairs expert, joins us live from Brussels. Thank you very much for joining us again. Good to see you. Gilbert, now in response to Ukraine’s increased reliance on gas imports, how might Russia adjust its energy policies as well?

Doctorow:
What we’re talking about is the consequence of exchange of strikes by Russia and Ukraine against the energy infrastructure of the other side. In our news, Western news, they speak only about Ukraine’s strikes on the Russian infrastructure. In the Russian news, they speak only about their own strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.

21:22
And it’s understandable that the broad public does not have any sense of the sequence here. Who did what to whom when, and what was an action, and what was proactive, and what was reactive? From my following this, I would like to call out that the latest Ukrainian remarks on what they have to import, or on how Russia has now lost its refinery capacity, 30, 50 percent or more of Russian production and refining has been stopped. The Russians are importing gasoline and so forth. As typically, the Ukrainians are projecting onto the Russians what is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine is importing, Russia is not importing anything in this regard.

22:15
However, the Russians have had serious losses of refining capacity and of other energy infrastructure due to Ukrainian strikes. And some of those strikes were directed by Americans. Let’s be quite open about this. It isn’t discussed in media, but it is known that the most recent strikes by Ukraine on Russian gas and oil infrastructure [were] using HIMARS, and it was Americans who were directing those HIMARS.

This is a very serious escalation. The damage was considerable. In Russian news you hear nothing about the extensive destruction of their energy infrastructure by Ukrainian attacks. What you do here, and this is mostly in social media, is in this region or that region there is a shortage of fuel. Now, when this comes to a discussion, public discussion, the Russian patriots will tell you, “Ah, this is the season of the harvest. The diesel fuel and other fuel is in short supply for that reason.”

23:28
Rubbish. It’s in short supply because refineries were struck. The issue is very serious. And the Russian response was also serious. They’ve had in the last few days massive attacks by missiles and drones on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure across the country. And the results were devastating, but not in the sense that they were put an end to the war.

NewsX World:
And Gilbert, can you tell us more about the involvement of US in these strikes that you say that it’s not covered enough or it’s not covered at all in media?

Doctorow: 24:11
It’s covered in the alternative media. The question of US firing HIMARS was discussed yesterday on one of the leading YouTube platforms, with highly responsible people, both as panelists and as hosts. So I take that quite seriously.

I assume that the information was coming from inside Russia by people who are, who have some relationship with the panelists who are speaking in the West. Nonetheless, the fact is that Russia is, as is understandable in a state of war, holding back a lot of information about the damage that it is experiencing, and is trumpeting its successes in blowing up everything it can on the Ukrainian side.

NewsX World: 25:01
And do you think that after all this, the US can still act as a mediator? Why do you think the US is leaning towards Ukraine now?

Doctorow:
The US’s role as mediator was rather peculiar from the very start. The United States effectively, the Russians wanted to call it out. They would say what we all know, that the United States has been, is, and for the foreseeable future, even under Donald Trump, a co-belligerent with the Ukrainians against Russia. Russia has not pressed that point, because if you press it, what you have is a war, a war with the United States, which they would prefer to avoid. I think we would be happy if they avoided it, because it probably would be the end of civilization on Earth.

25:45
For that reason, they haven’t done what they have a right to do, which is name the United States as a co-belligerent. Now they’re doing that, or intending to do that, if Europeans follow the United States through the open door of supplying long-range missiles, which they will control, to attack Russian infrastructure, energy infrastructure and otherwise. That they will control it is a blessing in a way, because if these missiles could be operated by the Ukrainians, you could be sure they would not be directed against refineries. They would be directed against Moscow’s and Petersburg’s presidential neighborhoods as a terrorist attack to create havoc in Russian society.

But neither the Germans nor the Americans are very likely to give the Ukrainians free control of where these missiles, which they may supply, which they may deploy, will be used against Russia. It’s not a pretty situation.

NewsX World: 26:49
Yes, indeed, we stay in a very sensitive place now. And also, Gilbert, I’m sure you saw the news yesterday with the confirmation that Ukraine has used domestically made missiles in recent strikes on Russian infrastructures. How does this reflect Ukraine’s growing self-reliance in defense, and what impact might this have on the conflict’s strategic dynamics?

Doctorow:
If there are serious weapons being manufactured in Ukraine, they won’t be manufactured for long, because intelligence will reveal to the Russians where these are, and they’ll be bombed out of existence. They opened an important manufacturing center, Neil Loth, a couple of days ago. The day after it was opened, it was obliterated by Russian bombing attack. So I don’t take this question of the Ukrainians’ ability or technical ability to produce serious weapons as having any determinant in the way the war goes, simply because the Russians can bomb anything they want out of existence on Ukrainian territory. That such weapons might be supplied from the West, that’s another story.

27:58
I do believe that the terrorist missiles that Mr. Scholz was talking about at the end of last year before the elections and the the entry of the still more aggressive Mr. Merz into the chancellorship, I believe that there are Taurus missiles in Ukraine presently. The question is how long before the Germans allow them to be used, and as I say a lot, how long before the Germans themselves use them from the Ukrainian bases against Russia, an act which will probably bring retribution. The Russians are unlikely to do anything about Tomahawks supplied by the United States, because that is a nuclear war to end civilization. But if the Germans try it, you can be sure that the Taurus factory will be bombed the next day.

NewsX World:
Thank you very much, Gilbert Doctorow, for joining us and sharing that insight.

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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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