Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDsIswiAREs

Diesen: 0:00
Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Gilbert Doktorow, an historian, international affairs analyst and author of _War Diaries – the Russian-Ukraine War_. So I remember the last time Trump was ramping up the pressure and rhetoric against the Russians. He gave them 12 days to accept an unconditional ceasefire. Otherwise the response would be crushing.

This of course, the prospect of America going, if not to war with Russia, but at least putting its might behind the attempt of crushing Russia created a lot of excitement. And then the 12 days expired, they met in Alaska and Trump took the unconditional ceasefire off the table. I was wondering now we’ve seen this display at United Nations. We see the same rhetoric, the Russians are losing, Ukraine is winning, will get back all its territory. And while you’re at it, why not take some Russian territory and shoot the Russian jets out of the sky.

1:11
And yet again, the Europeans are very excited. Finally, America is joining, becoming more directly involved at least, already quite involved. How are you assessing this development?

Doctorow:
Well, before I begin, I’d like to congratulate you for putting on air very divergent opinions coming from different experts or people who are being watched on alternative media. An hour ago, I caught the first part of your interview this morning with Jeffrey Sachs.

And what I’m about to say sharply diverges with his interpretation of it. The general position within alternative media of Sachs is very well known, and with good reason, and has a very wide following with good reason. I am much less known with good reason, and my views could be described as an outlier on what we’re about to discuss. I think it would be very informative for viewers to juxtapose, to watch these two different interpretations when each of us has been asked this question by yourself.

2:32
Jeffrey Sachs said that the performance of Mr. Trump at the United Nations was a colossal failure of leadership. I disagree entirely. But behind this is not just my opinion on that one issue and his opinion on that one issue, but where we both stand on everything about Mr. Trump, since it is not widely discussed that Mr. Sachs is a globalist by definition, given his position at Columbia University.

He is a Green movement supporter, since his whole career the last 30 years has been support of sustainability. And Mr. Trump in his speeches at the UN trashed both positions, both globalism, particularly the aspect of it relating to open borders, and very specifically trashed the Green movement. So we’re coming from very different positions on Mr. Trump in general.

3:21
But let’s look at what happened this week in his speech and in Trump’s answer to reporters regarding the shoot-down of Russian jets violating airspace; and the likelihood that Mr. Zelensky will succeed in recapturing his territory, thanks to, with the help he’ll be receiving from the European Union.

Now, Jeffrey Sachs was denouncing Trump for his lack of candor and for his not explaining to the American people the basis of his policy and for being duplicitous. My position is that if Mr. Trump did any of those things, he’d be impeached and removed from office within a few weeks.

His policy on Russia, unlike his policy on the Green movement or open borders, has little or no support within MAGA. It has still less support, in fact is vehemently opposed by the majority of congressmen and by the majority of the American political establishment. For that reason, there is no candor in his speech. There is duplicity, double talk, and he’s leading people on. This was my first conclusion regarding his remarks [in] respect of the likelihood of Mr. Zelensky winning the war against Russia. There was an initial reaction among European leaders of glee. It was not just Lindsey Graham in the States who was taken in by this. It was all of the European top leadership, whether it’s Merz or Starmer or Macron. Macron was sitting next to Trump, and looked very pleased to hear Trump say that he really thinks Zelensky can succeed.

5:42
Well, that was the initial reaction. After a bit of time and reflection and after people like the _Financial Times_ came out and said, Hey by the way, it could be that Mr. Trump’s word shouldn’t be taken at face value and that in fact he is setting the stage for an American off-ramp and for Europe to be blamed, because there will be a blame game for the eventual defeat, capitulation of Ukraine.

Well that has now become a consensus view within the spokespeople for the European Union, like Kaja Kallas, who came out and said precisely that. That– well, not precisely. What she said was that Ukraine cannot succeed with the help of the European Union alone.

6:32
That is a hint, hint, that the United States should be part of the party, of the group. But it suggests that they now understand that they have been taken for fools or as one reader of my recent essay said, that Mr. Trump was trolling them, which is indeed my view of the situation. If he said openly that he expects Mr. Zelensky to be defeated and so on, he would find enormous resistance within all of Congress. So that’s the game he’s playing.

Also the question of the “paper tiger” remark, an insult to the Russians. Indeed, some Russian readers of my interviews as they’re translated into Russian by one or another Russian internet platform have said that this was an insult to Putin.

Well, let me give my brief explanation. Mr. Trump wants to be a peacemaker. He wants the war to end. And he’s been told by all sides that he must pressure Mr. Putin. I believe he is pressuring Mr. Putin. And this taunt of Russia being a paper tiger was part of the pressure techniques of Donald Trump on Mr. Putin, but not in the sense that the European leaders and many in Congress would like it to be. The taunt is, “Vladimir, get it over with now. Crush Ukraine now.”

8:25
Now, I said in a recent interview that it could be done if Mr. Putin took out the Oreshniks and destroyed Bankovskaya Ulitsa, the street in downtown Kiev, where most of the government offices are. A Russian, one Russian reader and commentator said, you’re 100% right. At first, for a Russian to write that is rather brave. That’s to be taken to be a Putin critic or an Eno agent. But that is the message that Mr. Trump is delivering.

Diesen: 9:11
It is interesting though that the peacemaker is not always able to make peace because it’s a fear of being a sign of weakness. So for example, you saw toward the end of the Cold War when Reagan wanted to open up talks with the Soviets and discuss how to improve relations and have more peace. It would have been very difficult for a dove to get away with this, but he was the hardliner and no one could accuse him of being soft on the Russians.

So given that he had that reputation for being a bit of a hawk, he had the political capital to go and actually talk and try to make peace. I mean, you could say the same with the way the Russians gave territorial concessions to the Chinese. For Yeltsin, that would have been impossible because he was seen as weak, he would have been almost treasonous. No one saw Putin as weak. So he was able to make a lot of agreements which laid the foundation for more stable and stronger relations with the Chinese.

10:21
I guess my point is you might be onto something there because you do have to, it’s very difficult to make peace if you’re seen as peacemakers given that they’re seen as weak. It could be good as playing the hawk at times. I must say though, there is some dishonesty. It’s not [exclusive] to Trump either though. The whole idea that when he says yes, Ukraine can win, nobody really believes this.

And given that their reaction was wait, he’s just trying to blame us for the Ukraine failure. So obviously the Europeans don’t think that Ukraine is winning either. It’s just one of these things you have to say to pledge loyalty to the narrative that keeps the war going. So we’re all chanting, yes, the war was unprovoked, the Ukraine is winning, they’re having low casualties, Russia has these human waves, Zelensky is just super democratic. I mean, this is what you have to say to give support for prolonging the war.

11:20
But the thing is that there’s no honesty anywhere though. Everyone is just lying to support the narrative which makes it impossible to come up with a peace agreement and instead to keep the war going. How do you assess though Starmer, Macron, von der Leyen and Merz? What are their positions? Because I saw Mr. Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, take to Twitter that he realized, wait, we might be getting played here. That is Trump is trying to hand over responsibility for the Ukraine war to us. I mean, I guess they wouldn’t panic in such a way if they actually thought that the war was going their way. I mean, why would you want to take responsibility if you actually think you’re winning?

12:15
Well, they are so heavily invested in all of this tripe, all of this nonsense, that it’s very difficult for them, particularly since they moved locked arms. And they are very critical of any member of the 27 countries that breaks ranks as Fico in Slovakia and Urbán in Hungary have done. So they will make a move, but they’re putting it off and putting it off, a move towards reality, to get out of the bubble.

Let me be very precise about duplicitousness and lying to the public or false words that Mr. Trump is spreading. That is in one area, maybe in a few other areas, but the area that is of note is his policy on Ukraine, the Ukraine-Russia war, and on what he expects American relations with Russia to be after the war.

13:20
He doesn’t dare set that out in a straightforward, honest, candid way. For the reason I just said, he would lose all of his political support and become a lame-duck president instantly, if not impeached, if that’s what he did. At the same time, his speech to the UN was perfectly candid and honest and showed leadership. Whether you like the direction of his leadership is another question; that’s a personal choice of anyone who’s listening. But he was perfectly candid in expressing his heartfelt thoughts about open borders, about the renewables as a substitute for traditional fossil fuels.

And he was perfectly honest and candid, if anyone bothered to listen to the end of his speech about a multipolar world. Why do I say that? He established that it is the obligation of heads of state and heads of government to look after the prosperity of their peoples and to give support to the traditions, the national traditions of each country, which established the uniqueness and the sovereignty of those countries. My goodness, that is a complete break with the underlying principles of the neocons and of globalism. And that was speaking from the heart. Oh, he does have a heart, and he just speak from it, but not on Ukraine and Russia.

Diesen: 15:11
But I hear what you’re saying. John Mersheimer, he’s also, he interpreted it in the same way that this was this statement, which was very belligerent on paper and rhetoric. What it effectively did was to wash Trump’s hands of the Ukraine war. And I thought this was convincing because when he said, well go shoot down Russian jets, but you know, America won’t participate and you can put crushing sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions, which will also crush Europe. But you know, you go first and then we’ll join later.

Yeah, we’ll send all the weapons, they can retake all the territory, but you know, You have to buy them from us. And they don’t really have the money. America don’t have the weapons and the Ukrainians don’t have the soldiers. So one, one, I guess I found your argument in your article quite convincing in this sense. But I do have to say though that words, they do matter though, and the rhetoric can be quite dangerous.

16:22
This whole argument of striking deeper inside Russia, they’re going to send more weapons. That’s one of the things that made Lindsey Graham just giddy like a little schoolgirl that now America wouldn’t put any limits on weapons. So you’re going to have this long- range missile striking deep inside Russia, which is effectively then an American attack on Russia, and with the Russian jets as well. I mean, once those words have been uttered, they have to be taken into account by Russia. And again, they made it very clear if anyone in Europe thinks about firing upon a Russian jet, then it’s war. There’s no other path. So it seems that the rhetoric nonetheless is intensifying, though.

Doctorow: 17:08
It would be troublesome if there were anything true, the claims and the demands and the … fists in the air from European leaders. What Trump was doing was calling their bluff, and it is a bluff because he knows and they know that they don’t have the wherewithal to do anything without the United States. And it also is calling the bluff of the Americans, the people under him who are saying to him and he then repeats, oh we will ship 3,000 missiles to Ukraine, so that they can strike deep.

Well, that issue has been taken up by Russian analysts on air, on state television, and they insist: these weapons haven’t been produced yet. We’re speaking about something two years, three years from now. When Trump said he’s going to ship them, he didn’t say when. Oh, he said when, but it wasn’t serious. It is not going to be in three weeks.

18:11
Therefore, this belligerency that seemed apparent and that could have made people like Lindsey Graham delighted is also a bluff, and empty talk. In the meantime, Mr. Putin, the lawyer– He is a trained lawyer after all, who doesn’t want to take an action that is no longer a military, special military operation, but in fact an act of war. He doesn’t want to do that without the authorization, specific authorization of his parliament.

That man, the lawyer, is working at odds with the man who is the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces, which also was named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. So we have this contradiction at the top of Russia, and it should be resolved. It has been lingering and lingering.

Diesen: 19:15
Yeah, well, Zelensky was making some comments that he might hit, I’m not sure if he was going to hit Moscow with Tomahawks, something along those lines. But I saw a report, I haven’t had it verified, but I read that the Tomahawks are not forthcoming.

So again, this would also be something that would cause a direct war between NATO and Russia. So I guess there is some, behind the wild rhetoric, there seems still to be some common sense.

But on the issue of common sense, what do you see actually happening now at the moment? I mean, you followed the war very carefully with your war diaries And there’s been, you know, gradual unraveling over time.

We tried to patch up the holes with new weapons, more aggressive recruitment strategies in Ukraine. But at the moment, there’s some, a lot of regions now which are being encircled, not just Pokrovsk or Konstantinivka, but Kupiansk, that might be the most critical one. There’s a lot of problems building up, Also the Zaporizhzhya front, which is now being closed off both from the West and the East. But once countries get desperate, and you did say the Europeans, they committed themselves fully to this. And if there is no diplomatic path, I’m always worried that desperation translates into stupidity, and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of that at this moment in Europe.

So what do you see happening? I ask because I see the Russians now shipping Oreshniks to Belarus. So I’m not sure if they will know something we don’t know yet.

Doctorow: 21:15
Well, to a couple of things. First, to ease the difficulty of listeners to this. Kopyansk is what has been described as a major fortified outpost of Ukraine. It is a logistical hub, yes, but it is also a city protecting Kharkov. It’s part of the Russian strategy of taking Kharkov without a ground assault on Kharkov that could be very costly in civilian deaths. And after all, Kharkov is not just the second-largest city in Ukraine, but it is essentially a Russian-speaking city. So they would be killing their own people if they came in and stormed the city.

So they are going to encircle Kharkov and taking Kupyansk is a big part of it. They do this very dramatically by using underground pipelines from the Soviet era, gas pipelines, to again bring in secretly their own troops. Some of them, these pipes are pretty big because I was told that some of the Russian forces were riding motorcycles or scooters through these pipes. Anyway, It was a very dramatic event. They already have their troops in the center of Kupyansk and they’re cleaning it out.

22:40
This is an important development for the Northeast because this area, Kharkov, was a staging ground for the attacks on the Russian frontier or border provinces, oblasts, Belgorad and Kursk. Moreover, very specifically, the 700 soldiers whom the Russians are said to have encircled inside Kopyansk, Ukrainian soldiers, a large number of them were what was called, or is called, the Russian Volunteer Army, or Corps, which were precisely the people, defectors from Russia, who were armed and sent in by the Ukrainians to commit acts of terror and murder civilians in the first Ukrainian incursion on border areas, which was approximately one year ago, and before the Kursk action, Belgorod. So the Russians are very keen to murder all of them. I think they’ve taken out 250 out of division, 750.


23:51
But that is not the main front. The main front, as you said, is in the Donetsk oblast, and that is where the Russians are advancing and are likely to do in the city of Pakrovsk, which is known in Russian as Krasnoyarmesk, are something similar to what they’re doing now in Kupyansk. And yet there are other things afoot. You’ve mentioned Zaporozhzhye, yes, but there’s something more, I think, more important for us to understand how this war will end, that’s now being discussed on Russian television. And that is the need to take Odessa, because Odessa is rather close. If you look at the map, in maritime terms, it is that close to Crimea.

24:40
And the British and French have looked at Odessa as a key base for precisely that. So the Russians now are also turning their attention to Odessa to be captured. And if they capture it, then this tells you a lot about how the war will end, because once the rump Ukraine does not have Odessa, it loses much of its interest for Britain and France. So this is the way the war is going.

But all of this is going terribly slowly and the world doesn’t stand still. This is why I believe Mr. Trump is pushing Putin to get it over with by some stunning act, like an Oreshnik attack on Kiev that that decapitates the Kiev regime.

Diesen: 25:42
So you think the decapitation strike could be forthcoming; that is, as the frontlines are falling apart to add to the confusion, just go directly after Kiev. Because, well, so far the Russians, well, I wouldn’t say they haven’t touched Kiev because they have increased a lot, especially lately. But it wouldn’t be so popular even within Russia given the historical role of Kiev in Russian history as the origin from Kievan Rus. But do you think such a decapitation strike could come in the foreseeable future?

Doctorow: 26:26
Well, first of all, for one thing, having the Oreshnik takes away a big objection to attacking Kiev. They’re not going to wipe out the Lavada, the very famous and important Russian Orthodox Church-history monastery and repository of the holy relics and remains of Russian saints. They don’t have to do much damage to Kiev as a whole. They just have to wipe out and go deep to get to the safekeeping places of underground of Mr. Zelensky and his close circle on Bankovskaya Urizen and one or two other locations. So the material damage to Kiev would be minimal.

Is it capitation? I think that much depends on Mr. Trump. If he were, for example, to really step up sanctions, do something that severely interrupts the Russian economy, which is within his power, so he can do some nasty things. That might just push Putin to do what he otherwise should be doing, which is to go from this war of attrition, which can go on much too long, to finishing up the Zelensky regime. We’ll see.

Diesen: 27:55
I thought there was a big chance of something like this happening after the attack on Russia’s nuclear forces, that this was something that they couldn’t, yeah, something that would put an end to the attrition warfare. But yet, they seem to continue the same approach.

My last question, though, I just wanted to ask about this recent tensions between the Europeans and Russia. Because I had on also two days ago, I did an interview with Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who was previously an advisor to the US Secretary of Defense.

And he argued that in conversation with different people from US intelligence that they kind of dismissed this as being a European hoax. They were exaggerating. The Estonians especially were not credible. They argued that Poland, you know, they more or less, not more or less, they did very openly admit that there was no warheads on this.

Of course, the Russians, they go further. They say, of course, there’s no warheads, but also these weren’t ours. They were sent by Ukraine. Again, I don’t sit on any evidence here, so it’s not for me to say. But what do you make of these tensions though? Because even if it is Russia doing it to perhaps send a signal that we can also bring the war to you.

Even if this is the case, I’m a bit not perplexed, but I take note of the European excitement in this that they can almost show the smoking gun coming from Russia that now we have some legitimacy to step this up or pull the Americans in. I’m not really sure. Yeah, even in this country there, because I’m in Norway, and Oslo, they thought they saw drones. It’s like, oh, Russia, Russia.

29:52
And at the end of the day, they’re not sure if it was a drone. And the next day they arrested someone on a different drone, but you know, he’s a Norwegian. So it doesn’t make any sense. But this impulse always to run into this almost excitement that now finally the Russians have attacked us, now we can do something. It is very strange to me.

Doctorow:
Well, none of us knows for sure, and I doubt that the truth behind this will be known for decades, but we come at it from our own conceptualizations. And my conceptualization is that this fits in line with a typical false-flag operation designed and partly executed by the British, by MI6. I look at timing. Timing is important. In the case of Estonia, Kaja Kallas herself said a week ago, you know the Russians have made these incursions four times this year.

Okay. Why didn’t you say anything before? Why is it coming up now? Why suddenly out of nowhere is Norway coming? Why suddenly is Denmark and the Prime Minister, by the way, not the military, the military are much more cautious in Denmark. They say they have no idea where this is coming from, and it could come from a ship in the Baltic Sea. It could be anybody’s ship.

But it’s the real Russophobe prime minister of Denmark who said, oh, we can’t rule out Russia. OK. I believe MI6 is behind this, because it fits the pattern. If you go back over the last decade, every time there is some kind of big false-flag operation, whether it was in Syria or in Russia, relating to Russia, it coincides with something.

Well, the murder, death, of Alexei Navalny. It came what, a week before the Munich Security Conference, when his widow had already been prepared to come to speak. Well, that’s interesting. But it was a setup. Who had access to him in the far north?

Well, the Brits have a very extensive system of espionage and activities across Russia, particularly with the assistance of people who can pass for Russians, Russians speaking Ukrainians who worked with them, as well as Ukrainian intelligence. And I said at the time that Navani was killed by the Brits. I say at this time that what we’ve seen is a British plot; aided and supported by the Ukrainians, who are fully in on this, because it brought to the attention of Europeans how useful Ukraine can be in supplying them with its unique technology and hardware to intercept, to destroy cheaply, not at $50,000 a missile, a $20,000 drone coming from Russia. That was very convenient for Mr. Zelensky.

33:01
But more broadly, and then the whole idea of a drone wall, which was one of the results of this whole operation. A drone wall for all of Europe with the Ukrainians as part of this. That’s one result. But the timing, again, for me is a big indicator. This came, this whole story about the supposedly Russian drones attacking Poland and Romania, then the Russian military jets in incursion in over Estonian airspace, all of that comes at the tail end and just after Zapad 25.

This joint exercises of Belarus and Russia held every four years. That just was ending with 100,000 Russian soldiers with 25 foreign delegations, many of them quite important and obviously prospective customers for Russian military gear and for security arrangements with Russia, for money of course. And it is very convenient to start this new “Russia Russia Russia” chant to direct attention away from that big Russian success in Zapad 25.

Diesen: 34:18
It’s, yeah, behind the empty rhetoric slogans in the media, there is a more complex reality, I guess. So thank you so much for taking time out of your Saturday to speak. I always very much appreciate your perspectives.

Doctorow:
Well, I very much appreciate your exposing the audience to divergent views, which they have a right and a need to get.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZXVX6xRatk

WION: 0:00
Welcome to Game Plan, I’m Shivan Chanana. While Europe has been busy dealing with unknown drones flying into NATO airspace in various countries, Russia planned and executed a subterranean ambush in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kupyansk, just across the Oskil river beyond Luhansk. Now this is a key artery for supplies for the Ukrainian army. Kupyansk was turned into a heavily fortified zone by Kiev as Ukraine established fire control over the approaches to the city. That is essentially what Ukraine prepared Kupyansk for.

0:31
But Russian troops reportedly used carts and scooters to travel 13 kilometers under the Oskil River, navigating through extensive Soviet-era underground networks of pipelines to ambush Ukrainian troops who were stationed in Kupiansk. And they were totally caught unaware. Russian troops have now sealed off a large Ukrainian group north and west of Kupyansk, trapping some 700 Ukrainian troops, out of which 250 are reported to have been eliminated by the Russian defense ministry.

So how did Russia do it? Why was Ukraine caught off guard? How do they navigate in these Soviet-era pipelines which exist even now? How important is Kupyansk for Russia? What is Russia’s game plan? On this episode of Game Plan, I’m being joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow from Berlin. He’s an international affairs analyst, author and historian. Dr. Doctorow, always a pleasure speaking with you. Is the fall of Kupyansk imminent now?

Doctorow: 1:27
According to the latest Russian reports, which were broadcast last night on state television, the Russians are occupying a part of central Kupiansk and are cleaning it out.

What that means is they have mine sweepers to eliminate the weapons left by Ukraine in those parts of the city which they abandoned for the sake of causing havoc to the invaders. But let’s take a step back, as you mentioned a moment ago. Why is Kopyansk important? Aside from its logistical aspect, which you have mentioned, it is a defending point for the city of Kharkov. The city of Kharkov, or Kharkiv, as it’s called in Ukrainian, was and is the second-largest Ukrainian city in an area that is Russian-speaking.

2:14
So it is more than that. The Kharkov area, being close to the Russian border, has been a staging ground for the incursions into Belgorod and Kursk oblasts, or region of the Russian Federation. Moreover, the troops, those 750 troops, now 500 troops, who are they? And why would they be of particular interest to the Russians? Because a part of them are what’s called the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is a group of Russian defectors, Russians who joined the Ukrainian side and who were celebrated by the Ukrainian government when it staged its violent terrorist operations inside Belgorod about a year ago.

WION: 3:02
I understand. And when you say clearing out Kupyansk, that is essentially what the report suggests so far. Now, is Kupyansk going to fall to Russian forces eventually? Is that now a certainty?

Doctorow:
Oh, it’s a certainty. What is happening is the slow evacuation, to the extent possible, from the area. The Ukrainians have more or less given it up. They will leave those who are trapped to be killed. That is the way that they have behaved so far in each similar Russian capture of a fortified city. So those fellows are goners unless they can manage to surrender. The city of Kupyansk will fall.

Kharkov is really the target of this operation. Here again, the Russians are not storming the city of Kharkov. It has a large Russian-speaking population. They are not intent on causing civilian casualties. But they will surround and starve out Kharkov. The surrender of Kharkov will be inevitable, and that is an important part of the Russian game plan for the end of the war.

WION: 4:13
I hear your point. And Dr. Doctorow, what kind of loss is this going to cause to Ukraine? As Kupyansk, was a fully fortified town. It was guarding Kharkiv, Kharkiv being the second largest city. What kind of loss will this be for the Ukrainian government as far as the infiltration is concerned? And also going forward, what’s next for the Russian forces after that?

Doctorow:
Well, let’s be honest, the main area of activity is not around Kharkov. That is a secondary front for the Russians. The main area of activity, of course, is in the Donetsk oblast, which is the key oblast, region of the Donbas.

And it is there you have the Ukrainian forces collapsing in front of our eyes, withdrawing and leaving the path open for the Russian capture of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in the center. The city that gets the most attention, which I believe you mentioned is Pakrovsk, which is known in Russian as Krasnoyarsk, is in a similar position to what is happening in Kupyansk. That is to say, the Russians have avoided storming any of these cities in the most obvious way by sending in massive troops from outside and running over the barbed wire, whatever else the Ukrainians have established to protect them. Instead, they are doing the bombardment of these towns to soften them up and using special methods as were using Kupyansk, the underground tunnels.

WION: 5:49
And Dr. Doctorow, let me also get your thoughts on the latest statement which came in from Donald Trump after talking to Zelensky, saying that Ukraine can regain all territories lost to Russia. And this is– earlier he was talking about ceding territory, and now he’s giving Ukrainians hope that they can regain all that territory which has been lost to Russia. Is this yet another U-turn from Trump, which it seems like, which will eventually also get U-turned later, or is there any kind of hope now which Ukraine is gaining? And how will that translate into the battlefield?

Doctorow: 6:25
This news is prime news on this morning’s BBC. And it’s being described as a statement of fact that has to be dealt with. It means that Mr. Trump has been turned, that he has now sided with the Ukrainians against the Russians. This is all nonsense. Mr. Trump is a master of deception. He is a master of spreading confusion.

And he is a master at playing the British, the EU countries, for fools, which is not particularly difficult because they are fools. The point is that the United States has stopped supplying arms that it paid for. It will not renew that. Mr. Trump made no such promises.

7:11
What is clear is that he wanted to shut up Mr. Zelensky in a very polite and seemingly gracious way and to silence his opponents in Europe, to make them think, or at least be able to say, as the BBC did as the voice of Mr. Starmer, that Mr. Trump has turned. He hasn’t turned at all.

But he’s gained some time. He’s gained some weeks. On the other hand, his message yesterday, during his General Assembly speech, made clear what I have seen in him for some time. His message was to Mr. Putin when he said how disappointed he was that the war wasn’t ended in one week, and his taunt to Mr. Putin that the Russians look like a paper tiger. That is the message of Mr. Trump to Putin: get it over with, finish this war quickly, so that we can move on to real business like the arms limitation talks that have to be renewed at the start and so forth.

WION: 8:16
All right, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, thanks so much for joining me here on “Game Plan”. As always, never holding back your views or your thoughts or your feelings regarding the UK, at least at this point and the Ukrainians. But as far as your comments on Trump are concerned, you’ve maintained earlier as well that he’s not to be considered as someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He knows very well what he’s doing. So his statements right now which suggest that he is back with the Ukrainians, it’s perhaps also a message to Russia but eventually he wants to get this done with as he’s mentioned enough times in the past as well.

We need to wait and watch how this one unfolds, but as of now this is what the Russian game plan seems like as of now. They are definitely going after Kupyansk, but perhaps not after the entire city of Kharkiv. How this eventually plays out we need to wait and watch.

8:58
That was Dr. Gilbert Doctorow joining me here on “Game Plan”. Thanks so much, doctor.

Doctorow:
My pleasure.

With over 10 million subscribers worldwide, WION is by far India’s biggest and most authoritative English-language broadcaster.  It is an honor to be called upon by them periodically to comment on major Russia-related developments. My last time with them on air was a month ago.

This 9-minute interview taken this morning focuses on the ongoing Russian capture of the city of Kupyansk in northeast Ukraine. The novel and most newsworthy aspect of this conquest has been the use by the Russians of Soviet era gas pipelines to move their troops into the city stealthily and take the Ukrainian defenders by surprise, killing about one third of the garrison outright and trapping the rest.

With regard to those ‘rest,’ it is noteworthy that among them are units from the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps that staged a terrorist incursion in the RF border region of Belgorod a year ago. Destroying these murderers was certainly one key objective of the Russian forces entering Kupyansk now.

Taking the city of Kharkov by knocking out fortified towns in the vicinity and surrounding the metropolis is surely on the Russian game plan for ending the war, although in fact this is a secondary front while the center of Russian attention continues to be in the Donetsk region, where the main fighting is around another logistics hub, Pokrovsky, known in Russian as Krasnoarmeysk. That is also proceeding well for the Russians as they move ever closer to the city’s outlying districts.

Taking Pokrovsk will open the way for the Russians to take the last two heavily defended cities in central Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, after which they have a clear path to the Dnieper river that divides Ukraine in two. It is worth noting, when speaking of the changing Russian military objectives, that there is talk on Russian state television now of the importance of taking Odessa to ensure the safety of the Crimea. The distance by sea from Odessa to Crimea is rather short and the city’s port is viewed by the French and British as a desirable base for their own anti-Russian operations when the war ends.  If Odessa is excised from the rump Ukraine, the country will lose much of its attraction to these Western allies of Zelensky.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY4T88gIpdw

Napolitano: 0:33
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, September 24th, 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be with us in just a moment on President Trump embraces Ukraine. But first this.
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2:02
Professor Doctorow, good morning and welcome here. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. Let’s get right to the hot international news, at least in the West here. As the sun comes up on the East coast of the United States, President Donald Trump yesterday saying that Ukraine can win in all caps, W-I-N, the war against Russia, and retake Crimea and the other areas now under Russian security control. What do you make of that?

Doctorow:
Double talk. Look, my opinion has not changed. I do not say that I am certain. I do not claim that others are wrong, but I think I am onto something quite important when I say that Mr. Trump deceives constantly, misinforms constantly. These are the tools he uses to maintain his independence and to put at arm’s length his many opponents domestically and abroad.

Napolitano: 3:12
Well, what do the Russians think when Trump makes a statement like this? And there’s a lot more to it. “Russia is a paper tiger, NATO”, which of course includes the United States, which is predominantly the United States, “can help Ukraine win the war”. Do you think these are just negotiating techniques?

Doctorow:
I think they have the intent of making fools of his opponents and they very gladly fill that role. The BBC today put without any question whatsoever the statement that Trump has changed sides, that he now backs Ukraine, that Ukraine will retake its territory, they’ve gone in for that. Why not? They are so heavily invested in this story that the Ukraine will win, that Russia will be humiliated, that they will seize at any opportunity, at any straw that Mr. Trump gives them to think that he has joined their side.

4:16
That does not mean he joined their side. I look at the small print. When he said that the Europeans can go ahead and shoot down Russian military aircraft if they are violating the airspace of NATO countries over the Baltic — he was then asked afterwards by a journalist whether the United States would support Europe in this venture, and he said it all depends, depends on the circumstances.

Well, if you’re sitting in London, Paris, Berlin, and you hear him say that, you understand perfectly that you will be on your own. And none of these countries is likely to take his invitation to fire [on] a Russian aircraft and face the wrath of Russia by themselves, which is what you–

Napolitano: 5:08
You missed one country in there which probably is prepared to fire at Russian aircraft and bear the brunt of Putin’s wrath on its own: Poland.

Doctorow:
No, I don’t believe so. I don’t think that Mr. Tusk is that bold or that much a risk-taker to put his country on the line without a firm backing from Washington, which he does not have and will not get.

Napolitano: 5:40
All right, Chris, put up the full screen. You had it there a moment ago. I just want to read the operative language of President Trump’s statement on what he calls “Truth Social”. This is yesterday, Professor Doctorow.

Trump:
“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN” [in all caps] “all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience and the financial support of Europe and in particular NATO,” [now I’m editorializing: which includes the United States. Now back to reading] “the original Borders from where this war started is very much an option. Why not?”

Is this his negotiating, in your view, his negotiating technique? And if so, with whom is he negotiating?

Doctorow: 6:33
He is buying time, yet again. Now I’d like to note here that– and it goes back to his remarks in the General Assembly, when he said that he was disappointed that Mr. Putin did not do what the Americans expected, which is to defeat Ukraine in a week. And then he made this taunt that you have quoted, that Russia is possibly a paper tiger. I agree with him. And so far, what is really at issue is Mr. Putin’s way of conducting this war, where Mr. Putin, the lawyer, is at odds with Mr. Putin, the military commander in chief.

Napolitano: 7:21
But is not Mr. Putin’s goal in fighting the war to eradicate a Ukrainian military so that at least for another generation the Russians don’t have to put up with this again? He could send off a half dozen Oreshniks tomorrow and destroy the regime. That’s not what he wants to do.

Doctorow:
I agree with your analysis, but I say it’s a faulty policy, because the world does not stand still. This has been the problem with this war from the beginning, that every time it looked like the Russians were coming to victory, the West came in with a new escalatory move and provided Ukraine with manpower, with, I’ve got to say, advisors, and with hardware, which enabled them to fight on.

If the situation is now reaching a culmination point, which means that the defenders of Ukraine are all the more desperate and irresponsible in their behavior, [then] I think it is a big mistake if Vladimir Putin does not take that into account and do what is within his power, which is to utterly destroy the Ukrainian regime in one day with the Oreshniks on Bankovskaya Urytsia, whatever it’s called, the one street in downtown Kiev, where all the government officers are.

That would be much more sparing of Russian lives and Ukrainian lives than his war of attrition today.

Napolitano: 8:50
I guess he doesn’t want to spare the Ukrainian lives. Chris, let’s play back to back the cuts that reference what Professor Doctorow has been saying. 18 and then 22, Chris.

Questioner:
Mr. President, do you think that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace?

Trump:
Yes, I do.

Questioner:
Would you back up NATO allies– you said that you thought that they should shoot down the Russian aircraft– would you back them up, would the United States help them out in some way?

Trump:
Depends on the circumstances. It’s been a terrible war, should have ended, and Russia should have stopped it.

But they’ve been three and a half years and they’ve gotten not so far. So we’ll see what happens. But the other side can fight, too. And they’ve proven that. Maybe it’s a – it could be that Russia is a paper tiger.

I don’t know what they are, but three and a half years of fighting and killing everybody, of killing 7,000 people a week For nothing. For nothing. So it’s a very sad situation, but most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago. And I’m glad you got it. But I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back.

Macron:
Yep.

Trump:
So we’ll see how it all works out.

Napolitano: 10:07
Let them get their land back. You know, Professor Doctorow, that that is a metaphysical impossibility.

Doctorow:
And so does Donald Trump. He is speaking with sarcasm and he is giving again the message that I have read into him going back weeks: that is, Mr. Putin, get it over with. Now he didn’t say how the war should end.

He didn’t say what Russia will give, should give up in a settlement. No, he expects Russia to take all the chips, but they should do it now so we, the United States, and you Russians can get on with our real business, which starts with renewal of the New Start arms limitation agreement, which expires in February 26, very, very soon. These are issues of much greater importance to Mr. Trump than where the lines between the new Ukrainian rump state and Russia will be.

Napolitano: 11:09
Well, they’re certainly of great importance to the Russians. I don’t know if they’re of importance to Trump. He’s the one that tears up these agreements. He thinks they’re a sign of weakness when the United States is very rationally restrained from expanding its nuclear arsenal.

I want to play President Trump and President Macron again. Watch the look on President Macron’s face. This goes to your argument, Professor Doctorow. He may be saying this for the benefit of the Europeans. Watch the smirking President of France.

——–
Trump:
It’s been a terrible war that should have ended, and Russia should have stopped it. But they’ve been three and a half years, and they’ve gotten not so far. So we’ll see what happens.

But the other side can fight, too. And they’ve proven that. Maybe it’s a — it could be that Russia is a paper tiger. I don’t know what they are, but three and a half years of fighting and killing everybody, of killing 7,000 people a week for nothing. For nothing.

So it’s a very sad situation, but most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago. And I’m glad you got it. But I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back.

Macron:
Yep:

Trump:
So we’ll see how it all works out.
——–

Napolitano: 12:27
Here’s President Zelensky’s reaction, Not to that interview with President Macron, but to the Truth Social posting that I read a few minutes ago, cut number 19.

========
“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience and the financial support of Europe and in particular NATO, the original Borders from where this war started, is very much an option.”

Are you surprised to hear that?

Zelensky:
A little bit. A bit. I mean, this, I’m sure in my people, in my army, and I’m sure in strengthening, in support of the United States. But President Trump was more positive in it. And he showed that he wants to support Ukraine to the very end.

So we understand now that we are ready to finish this war as quick as possible. And he wants, and I want, and our people want. But he understand that Putin doesn’t want. And he understands that he’s not winning, but he says to everybody that he will win. And I see very, it was a little bit surprise for me, you’re right. I was very positive signals from the side that Trump and America will be with us to the end of the war.

Yes, we will see. We will see. But God bless. It will be so.
========

Napollitano: 14:05
What do you expect him to say? Surprised and he’s happy, but he may not believe it. He may take the Doctorow view of this.

Doctorow:
Well, I don’t know how deeply he will analyze it. So long as Trump says what he said, that Europe will save Ukraine, Zelensky knows that it cannot save Ukraine. This is the key point.

Mr. Trump has washed his hands of American military and financial contributions to Ukraine. That is decisive. Everything else is irrelevant, actually. Let Mr. Macron smirk, let him feel satisfied that he has turned Mr. Trump, which he hasn’t. The man is not for turning. And I believe that Mr. Putin is missing the cues.

The cue is Trump is buying him time to end it. And end it, he can only do with Oreshniks. Otherwise, this will go on for one more year. And Lord knows what’s going to happen in the global alignment of countries on this war and on Russia in one year’s time. This is the time to end it.

Napolitano: 15:25
Can you give me your understanding of the drone issue, the claims that Russia sent drones over Poland, the counterclaims that these were Russian drones on the ground in Ukraine, reassembled by the Ukrainians sent over Poland as sort of a false flag. How do you read this drone controversy, which candidly seems a little like old news and then it keeps coming back?

Doctorow: 15:57
It keeps coming back because it is not a self-standing issue. The drone issue is part of the Russian incursion issue. They are both being masterminded by the same people, probably sitting in MI6 in London.

It is because the Brits are way ahead of the States in nasty, nasty tricks, especially today, when Mr. Trump has pulled in the CIA and the other actors who otherwise took part in dirty tricks and false flag operations in Ukraine.

The situation is complex, and I’m not surprised that many people have not seen this as one whole campaign by the leadership in Europe, this means Britain and Germany, to nail Russia with accusations that are false or which are, may be true as in the case of incursions, but are true for reasons that are not coming up in the press. I have in mind specifically the point that in effect, the NATO powers in Europe have created or want to create an air blockade on Russia.

17:17
They are saying that Russia is crossing their airspace. Well, it probably is, because if you look at the map, and if you ask Google artificial intelligence this question, can any aircraft pass the length of the Baltic without passing over NATO countries’ territorial waters, the answer comes back: it cannot. So what we saw–

Napolitano:
That’s Sweden, right?

Doctorow:
Sweden joined NATO, and that made it almost impossible for Russian aircraft to cross the Baltic and not touch on one or another territorial water of a NATO state. That is not being discussed in the media.

It is a nasty secret because what we’re talking about now is essentially an attempt to blockade in the air, which follows the May events. You will recall, in May of this year. The Estonians sent cutters to arrest a gray fleet tanker that was taking oil to or from St. Petersburg as Russia owned. And they were driven away like scattering mice before a cat when the Russians sent up fighter planes over that area.

18:39
That failed. The naval blockade on the ground, on water level, failed. Now they’re trying an air blockade. So the only way– what this will lead to, if it is pursued, and if they follow the advice of Mr. Trump and shoot down a Russian plane, it leads us directly to World War Three. Since Mr.

Trump did not answer the question– you heard that he didn’t answer the question, but the United States will provide support– he was asked that elsewhere, in which he said it depends on the circumstances. The point is that it’s very feeble to non-existent support, and no NATO country will dare attack a Russian airplane if it doesn’t have US backing.

Napolitano: 19:20
Does Emmanuel Macron believe that Russia is a paper tiger?

Doctorow:
I don’t think for a minute he believes that. He knows how many nuclear missiles he has. He knows that the Russians have 10 times or more that number. And that he knows that the Russian nuclear triad is totally updated, which the United States is not. Therefore, if anyone is feeding him proper intelligence, and I assume they are, he knows that that is not a paper tiger.

Napolitano: 19:48
Back to the drones. Is it your understanding that MI6 engineered this, that the drones were a false flag and the Poles were in on the scheme?

Doctorow:
My first reading of the situation was much more simple and direct. It seemed to me, and not just to me but to many other people, that the Ukrainians had initiated this, and that the intent was to put the Russians into direct conflict with Poland. If a military action took place, then that would quickly broaden into a direct kinetic war, as opposed to proxy war between NATO and Russia.

20:30
Then when this broadened, then Romania became an issue. And then following that several days later, at the end of last week, we had this Estonian claims. It became clear that this was not a one-off, the drones were not a one-off act by Ukraine to engage Poland in war. It was something much bigger, and it was being directed most likely from the West and most likely from Britain.

And the timing, let’s look at this question of incursions. The incursions, even Kallas said, Kallas, the head of, the foreign policy commissioner of, the vice president of the European Commission, said that there were four Russian incursions over Estonia airspace this year.

21:17
Well, why wasn’t the complaint made earlier, and why was it made now? The answer is Zapad-25, the military exercises that Russia was conducting at the same time as the drone incursions and ended just before the story of jet fighters over Estonian airspace.

This was a NATO response to Zapad 25 to start the 100,000 Russian soldiers in operations from Murmansk to the southwest of the Russian Federation with a very big soft-power impact on the 25 delegations from all over the world, including Iran, who were present as witnesses.

Napolitano: 22:06
If MI6 orchestrates this type of dirty tricks– and I don’t mean to demean it by calling it dirty tricks; it could have led to the loss of life; it could have led to a a war– is CIA far behind? Don’t they work hand in glove?

Doctorow: 22:23
Well, I think you have other panelists who are much more capable, much more experienced in judging what CIA can do. I, as an outsider looking on, say that’s doubtful.

After all, I think that Mr. Trump has some control over policy, even in the CIA, and they would be much more cautious about something as inflammatory, as escalatory as what has gone on in the last week; whereas MI6 knows no restraints. Their boss is all in favor. It’s all sporting for a war.

Napolitano: 22:59
Professor Doctorow, a fascinating stuff. Thank you very much. Welcome back home from your happy trip. And thank you very much for joining us. We’ll look forward as always to seeing you next week.

Doctorow:
My pleasure.

Napolitano:
Thank you again. Coming up later today at 1:30 this afternoon, Aaron Maté– do you know that General Petraeus embraced somebody he once tried to kill who was the head of the Taliban when Petraeus was leading the charge in Afghanistan? We’ll get into all of that.

And Pepe Escobar– what do President Xi and President Putin think of Trump’s latest words, which I think are nonsense and Professor Doctorow says are carefully calculated? That’s Pepe Escobar today at 3.30 this afternoon.

23:49
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.