Breaking news indeed! This interview opens with the presenter saying that the Russian-Ukrainian-US talks on peace will recommence on 17 February where they were last held, meaning Abu Dhabi. Then half way through our conversation we learn that the talks will in fact be held in Geneva.
No matter! The essential fact remains that the two sides are very far apart insofar as Zelensky refuses to make any territorial concessions, refuses to face the reality that Ukraine has lost the war because he is being encouraged by Europe to keep on fighting and to rely on their arms and cash deliveries to Kiev.
Under the circumstances, the greatest likelihood is that the sides will not have an agreed text of a peace treaty ready for Trump’s deadline of 15 May and Mr. Trump will walk away from these negotiations lest his continued participation have an adverse effect on the Republicans’ campaigning for November mid-term elections. In that case the interesting question is whether Trump will stop all U.S. arms shipments to Europe for Ukraine, will he stop the U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine. If this happens, then the war will wind down in a matter of weeks whatever the Europeans may wish or say.
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 