Yes, indeed, NATO Secretary General speaking in the context of the ongoing Munich Security Conference has gleefully declared that Russia is experiencing “crazy losses” of 65,000 soldiers killed or wounded in the past two months and that the Russian economy is reeling from a one-third loss of oil export revenues. These words are meant to prod Conference attendees to believe in a possible Ukrainian victory in the war and to maintain solid materiel and financial support to Kiev.
If only words could win wars, Zelensky and Co. would be carried aloft by proud patriots down the streets of Kiev.
Reality tells any neutral observer that Rutte’s figures are ‘crazy’ in the sense that they are totally fabricated in the febrile word shops of Kiev and have no substance to them.
Promotional offer for new one-year paid subscriptions to my alternative web platform gilbertdoctorow.substack.com where I post analytical articles not shown on Word Press You will be eligible to receive a free of charge paperback copy of the historical novel on the Russian emigration of the 1970s, ‘Nadine’s Story’ by Larisa Zalesova. Subscribers must identify themselves by email to gsdoctorow@gmail.com to avail themselves of this offer. Information about the book is available on the various country websites of Amazon.
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 