Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 16 October: NATO-Russia War May Now Be Unavoidable

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As they say, it is always darkest before the dawn.  Though this discussion was recorded at noon, Brussels time today, figuratively speaking it took place before the “dawn” that arrived at 8pm when the Kremlin released a lengthy summary of the just completed two-and-a-half-hour phone call between Presidents Putin and Trump.  To all appearances, that phone call draws us back from a pending crisis that would open a clear path to a NATO-Russia war, as the title that Glenn Diesen assigned to our video reads.

When we spoke at noon, we knew that Trump would be receiving a visit from Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House tomorrow at which he was expected to announce his decision to dispatch Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. We also had reason to believe that the Russian reaction to such news could be a dramatic escalation in the conflict. 

As I mention in this video, two days ago, on 14 October, talk show host Vladimir Solovyov said on Russian state television that it was time to respond appropriately to the rising threat to Russian security and in particular to the delivery of Tomahawks by declaring war on Ukraine and proceeding to beat the hell out of Kiev by missile strikes on all the decision-making centers in the capital. This decapitation would extend well beyond Zelensky and his circle to virtually the entire political class of Ukraine, while the country would be bombed into ruins. And as I explain, Solovyov is not just a talking head: for reasons I set out here it is fair to say that his threats were cleared with Putin for delivery in this unofficial way.  The fact that this show of the 14th was posted on youtube, as virtually never happens, suggests that it was meant as a direct warning to the United States.

If that is so, then today’s phone call indicates that the message was received by the intended audience and Washington is taking a step back from the disaster that was otherwise pending.

We must be grateful for small favors and hope that reason will prevail at the foreseen summit between Putin and Trump at a date still to be announced.

In the meantime, I recommend this conversation with Glenn Diesen to see where we were headed, and may yet be headed, if the summit in Budapest does not result in a breakthrough in the deadlock between Russia and NATO over a conclusion to the Special Military Operation that addresses and resolves the root causes of the conflict as stated by Moscow.

©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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