Russia is a ruled by a cruel dictator, an authoritarian who has snuffed out all civic freedoms which the population enjoyed in the 1990s Yeltsin years, right?
Wrong. I have been saying that Russia has more freedom of expression and of the press than you will find in Western Europe today under the rule of Liberal ideologues.
And I submit the following as proof positive of my convictions:
This is today’s voice over version of my interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano on the ‘Judging Freedom’ channel of youtube. To those of you who watched this video in the English original when I reposted it yesterday or who read the transcript that I posted this morning it must have been obvious that the Judge and I were discussing politically very sensitive issues about whether and how discontent in the broad Russian public and/or in the Moscow elites has applied pressure on Vladimir Putin to change course on Ukraine and stand ready to “destroy” the country now if Zelensky does not capitulate and accept Russian terms for ending the war. I also had some select words about the incompetent and corrupt governor of St Petersburg Beglov.
All of this talk was translated into very good Russian, nothing was cut, and it is now available in Russia for review by anyone who has the time and the interest.
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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Gilbert Doctorow 