‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 26 November: Can Putin Tolerate More War?

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In today’s chat we discussed several very important issues of the day as a flood of news relating to the peace negotiations come out of Washington, Moscow, Abu Dhabi and the European capitals.

I report on the very evident split between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin over the unconventional and now apparently failing procedure by which negotiations for peace are being held. Lavrov yesterday strongly criticized the use of back channels and entirely sidelining his own ministry which normally should be in charge of such important talks that require great secrecy and also great diplomatic competence on the part of the leading figures in the talks.  Lavrov said that he has not seen the revised plan, now counting 18 points and so cannot comment but does not expect to see anything good in it, since the leaks allowed the wrecking team from Europe to nullify what was good about the original 28-point plan.

Today, President Putin’s special advisor on foreign relations Yuri Ushakov made a public statement to the effect that he has seen the revised plan and that it can be used as a basis for further talks.  Let me be clear:  Ushakov is a seasoned diplomat with a lot of relevant experience considering that he was the Russian ambassador to Washington from 1998 to 2008. But today he is a law unto himself, not a member of the diplomatic corps. He may be said to speak for Putin.  And now we find that his position on the peace process is diametrically opposed to that of the Foreign Minister.  This is a remarkable development in Moscow that one very rarely sees. What we may guess is that Putin’s prioritization on establishing good relations with the United States has drawn him into the backchannel solution, which now is going sour.

Judge Napolitano raised the issue of Ursula von der Leyen’s pack of lies and hypocrisy speech yesterday regarding the way forward on the peace talks.  A two-minute excerpt from that speech was put up on the screen. The woman is very dangerous for the future of Europe.  Let us assume that she has a very solid bomb shelter beneath the Commission headquarters.  But that gives little comfort to the rest of us. Should she have her way, in a year or two Western Europe may look a lot like war ravaged Ukraine does today.

©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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