A homecoming: ‘The Gaggle’ with George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle

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This nearly hour-long interview covers the waterfront of issues surrounding the 28-point peace plan that was jointly elaborated by Team Trump and Team Putin in a secret backchannel that eluded the attention not only of Congress but of the recalcitrant Secretary of State and others in the Administration who have been working against Trump on resolving the Ukraine war. This was the plan that Steve Witkoff was planning to hand deliver to Zelensky in Istanbul yesterday, but which the Ukrainian leader hoped to dodge by cancelling the meeting.

On the American side it evidently was developed by Witkoff and his junior aides. On the Russian side, it appears that Kirill Dmitriev carried the ball during his visit to the United States following the break-off of plans for a summit of the two presidents in Budapest. What then looked like an irrelevant trip to promote US-Russian big business projects when relations were at a nadir turns out to have been a cleverly disguised step forward in coordinating plans for peace.

There are many current developments in Kiev suggesting that a regime change piloted by the United States is underway. As of today, these are all a matter of conjecture, not hard facts. The latest word on Russian state television last night was coverage of attempts in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament) to bring down Yermak, Head of the Office of the President, and key power behind Zelensky’s throne. The corruption scandal is the lever for this attack. Yermak’s downfall would prepare the way for Zelensky’s removal or forced power sharing with other political forces.

The talk with Szamuely and Lavelle focused on the Russian side of the equation and what it will take to end the war.

I was delighted that at the start of our chat Peter brought up our mutual excitement in November 2016 when we met the news of Trump’s electoral victory and celebrated on air in the RT studio, Moscow by opening a bottle of shampanskoye. I was then a regular panelist on his CrossTalk show.  My contact with George Szamuely so far had been virtual when we were matched panelists on a couple of Press TV (Iran) talk shows.

©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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One thought on “A homecoming: ‘The Gaggle’ with George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle”

  1. Russia is preparing for a long war/confrontation with the west, even after Ukraine, it is visible in all levels of society, from the entertainment industry, patriotic songs and music, in the religious sphere, the militarization in educational institutions, the economic and industrial sectors etc.

    Interestingly Germany is using the Russian scare as a cover to become the biggest (at this stage conventional) military power in Europe, the Anglo-American nightmare of a powerful Germany and powerful Russia having normal relations is a future possibility.

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