Transcript submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:06
Hi everybody. Today is Thursday, January 16th and our friend Gilbert Doctorow is back with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Good to be with you.

Alkhorshid:
Let’s get started with the ceasefire in the Middle East and the Trump’s policy. Who’s going to get the credit for the ceasefire? Is it the Biden administration or the coming Trump administration?

Doctorow:
In mainstream media, it’s clear it’s the Biden administration. In alternative media, people know better. And I think there’s been a lot of discussion of the intervention by Trump’s emissary, who’s a businessman, a Jewish businessman, because everyone said about Trump and his nominees, he has so many Zionists among them, and there are Israeli hawks and the rest of it.

0:59
And they got the wrong end of the stick. When you see what happened in the last week, it’s clear that we really don’t know how Trump is going to behave in office, but let’s look at the bright upside. There was a reason for that optimism, based on what we saw this last week, where according to off-record accounts, his emissary called Netanyahu, he said, “I’m coming tomorrow to speak to you.” And Netanyahu said, “But it’s Shabbat.” And he said, “So what?” So– and then he came, and he read the riot act to Netanyahu, something which was unfathomable to those people who said that he was in the hands of– Trump was in the hands, in the pocket of the Zionists. Not true.

1:54
What Trump said about himself, let us hope, is a more accurate description. He’s a friend of Israel, not a friend of Netanyahu, and with a man who understands perfectly, that Israel is in self-destruction following the policies of Netanyahu. So this gives us reason to hope that Mr. Trump will be a lot better in his second term than he was in his first.

And I have another reason. I have to admit, I didn’t listen to it very long yesterday, but I did catch some of the discussions for the clearing of Rubio in the Senate, the Senate committee, which had hearings on him. So I heard him speak. And I’ve heard from some colleagues, again, leading people in the American alternative media who were speaking about Rubio, so he’s kind of a small person. He’s no match for Lavrov. He has no experience.

2:59
But what I heard during these hearings was completely different. He looked to me like a fantastic choice by Trump. He’s at a different world from the Tillerson or the Pompeo who Trump inflicted on himself and on the country in his first term in office. Why do I say that?

First of all, he was extremely well prepared for all the questions, and his answers were appropriate. He didn’t say more than he had to, to shut up the critics. He didn’t tip his hand. He said things that they would like to hear, but which really do not bear on how he’s going to behave in office. The main thing is not just that he’s a very clever man and very well read and very well briefed to speak concisely without a moment’s hesitation answering these difficult questions, but he’s one of theirs.

4:02
He’s a senator. And all the senators have these IOU chips in their vest pocket. He’s done favors for them, they’ve done favors for him and they’re speaking the same language. So in that sense, to get through difficult issues and difficult policies for approval of the Senate, there couldn’t have been a better choice than Rubio. And I’m quite pleased to see that at least this questionable character, all his views about Iran, oh, but you know, he spoke about Iran.

He had been, obviously, rehearsed this, because what he said was very, very intelligent. We always say there was a distinction between the people and the government. He did it in a very sophisticated manner, speaking about the millennia of Persian culture, about the people of Iran, worthy of our respect, etc. etc. And unfortunately they’re stuck with these ayatollahs.

5:08
But it left you with the understanding that this man is not going to bomb the hell out of Iran. Because that’s not going to achieve anything other than destroy people whom he’s otherwise praised for their civilization. So this was a sophisticated answer, much more sophisticated than anybody I formerly heard in the entourage of Trump use. Excellent. Moreover, it was clear again from the hearing that the issues that are most important to Trump are not going to be handled by Rubio.

5:45
He has designated emissaries who will be carrying out his work. Now how long Kellogg will last as an emissary is another question. But in each case, if you take the emissary, who this businessman from New York, a realtor of course, whom he sent to Jerusalem to deal with Netanyahu. It’s a very clever person, very capable man. Nonetheless, for purposes of pure diplomacy, traditional diplomacy, Rubio is the best candidate because of the, again, the suave, sophisticated nature of dealing with people that comes from being on the floor of the Senate for years.

6:30
So these little indications that have come up in the last week, I’m sure we’ll see more as the hearings of other nominees go forward. They give me a lot more confidence that Trump two will not be a repeat of Trump one, which was, as we all know, very disappointing.

Alkhorshid: 6:51
When you look at the people who are going to work with Donald Trump in his administration, you see young people who are prepared to be shaped by the Trump strategy. And you don’t see Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, those people who were seeing themselves above Donald Trump, who were seeing themselves as policymakers. I see these people as [those] who want to work with Donald Trump, who want to get in line with what Donald Trump wants to do. Do you see the same sort of manner in the new administration?

Doctorow: 7:32
Well, I can’t claim to have done investigation of these people. I’m going to listen to the hearings as they go along, but in general I agree with what you just said. These are people who have their own views, of course. They didn’t come in, they weren’t chosen as blanks, They already had some reputation or positions. But I think they are willing to bend to the decisions of the commander in chief, which, as you say, someone like Tillerson, who had been himself CEO of one of the largest corporations and certainly had a lot of grandeur about him and expectation that that he would be served rather than serving. I think that is not what we’re seeing today in Trump. He has a lot more of a team than he had then.

Alkhorshid: 8:27
Do you think that the ceasefire in Gaza would influence the situation in Ukraine and the way that the Trump administration would manage any sort of talks with Russia, or it doesn’t have– it’s an isolated event that doesn’t have any sort of influence on Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Well, the situations are different. And I’d say the problem with this very quick seeming success– it’s not over yet. Netanyahu is still dragging his feet on signing off and getting his government to approve it so that it can proceed on Sunday– but it’s set expectations which are unfortunate, because going into the Ukraine situation nothing of the sort is possible. The commanding hand is that of Putin, who is not dependent on the States for supplies on the contrary, who has won his victories against all that the United States could throw at him.

9:34
Therefore, the ability of anyone sent by Washington to impose something on Putin is nonexistent. The notion also that the United States could stand by as a counselor, as the two hostile sides resolve the problem between themselves, that also is completely inapplicable to the Russia-Ukraine situation. The Russians have said plainly that the government in Kiev is illegitimate, and there’s no one to talk to there.

10:11
Until there is an election in Ukraine, there is no one to talk to, and this will not wait until there’s an election. So the Russians have made it plain that they expect the solution of the Ukraine problem to be between themselves and their army, their own army. It’ll solve it on the ground. And then any discussion will be only with the United States. No United Kingdom, no EU, no China, no Turkey, nobody else.

10:42
It will be a one-to-one summit between two, let’s call it properly, two superpowers. Now that many neutral observers have properly identified the Russian armed forces as the second strongest in the world after the United States. So we have two superpowers. And superpowers never had the little guys in at the negotiating table. It was always bilateral talks.

And that’s what we can expect whenever the Russians and the Americans are ready for it, which may not be next week, it may not be this spring, it could be in the summer, after the Russians score their decisive victory over what remains of the Ukrainian army.

Alkhorshid: 11:33
When it comes to the reality on the battleground, because which is the main … indicative for those people who want to talk about Ukraine, here comes the situation in Pokrovsk. And how do you see the main line of the battlefield right now, which is so important for the Trump administration?

Doctorow:
I want to emphasize, I never pretend to be a military expert, but I do take counsel, some of them appear on your program, from people who are genuine military experts. And I read a assiduously the “Financial Times”, or the “New York Times”, but particularly “Financial Times”, who are Russia haters.

12:20
And when I see on their front pages, day after day, accounts of Russian military advances and the acknowledgement– they don’t use the word brilliant, strategically brilliant as I would, to describe what the Russians are now doing. But when you read between the lines, it comes out of the latest reports that the Russians are not going into urban warfare to take Pokrovsk street by street. They’re actually going to strangle Pokrovsk by surrounding it and cutting it off from its supplies, which is what they’re presently doing, while making a direct line northwest of Pokrovsk to Dnipropetrovsk, which is on the Dnieper River, it is the third-largest city in Ukraine. It is where some of the biggest oligarchs, including the one who installed the present Kiev regime in power, it’s where they have their home base. Well, that’s a matter of perhaps irrelevancy.

13:25
But the main point is that it is another important settlement, urban settlement, which is not properly defended and which they probably can take without too much effort. So the net result of that is to cut off the Ukrainian front lines from all supplies. If that happens, and it will happen, in ‘perhaps the next one, two, three weeks, then the defense lines of Ukraine genuinely will crumble. And there may be mass desertions, or they simply will run for their lives in a disorderly retreat. In any case, the possibility of a capitulation coming out of this is very high.

14:15
We had all been speaking about the fight for Pokrovsk as if it were a repeat of the several other months-long struggles that were very expensive in men on both sides, the route that this war has seen over the course of nearly three years. No, no, this will be more likely, as I said, cutting them off from their supplies, which are coming from the West and the North, and forcing them to exit the city as fast as their legs can carry them.

Dnieperpratrovsk 14:49
When Zelensky sees what has happened in the Middle East, how Donald Trump forced Netanyahu to accept, to go after a ceasefire in Gaza, what comes to his mind in your opinion? What’s going on there in Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Well, he’s not going to say what goes on his mind, because then he’ll be lynched. He’s probably making sure that that exit route he’s planned is properly prepared, because he may be using it very soon. Don’t expect anything truthful come out of him. That would not be in character. But of course he must be alarmed, as you’re suggesting.

Alkhorshid:
So he’s trying to do each and every thing at his disposal to, I don’t know, with Europeans, with other leaders in order to help him in order to continue this conflict in Ukraine. And after all, do you see the draft age– they’re talking about from 27 to 18– being implemented by the Ukrainian government?

Doctorow: 16:03
I don’t think his government will last if they begin to implement it. There is such popular resistance to this. What we’re talking about now is the demographic destruction of Ukraine. I’m just in very simple terms.

25, maybe you’ve got a kid, you’ve had a child or two. At 18, you’ve got nothing. Therefore, if the 18 year olds and the 20 year olds are slaughtered, then there’ll be a demographic hollow for one generation, at least in Ukraine. We know what this means for all of Eastern Europe that came out of communism. They all had these demographic holes that came out of the extreme poverty in the period of adjustment, readjustment or transformation of their economies.

16:52
And here you would have it on a big scale in Ukraine. So the Ukrainian nation would be … “destroyed” is an extreme way of putting it, but severely damaged for at least a generation, maybe two generations. Therefore the public appreciates that they’re not stupid and they will resist to the last the sending of their boys, robbing the cradle, to be cannon fodder.

Alkhorshid: 17:25
If you remember last time that Donald Trump was asked if he wants to meet with Putin, he said, “Putin wants to meet with me.” It seems to me that he’s so cautious about the internal policy of the United States, he knows how they’re going to attack him in the mainstream media.

Do you think that if he announces that he’s going to meet with Putin in the near future, let’s say in February, is he going to get some sort of attack from the mainstream media? And how strong would that be? Because it’s so decisive, it’s so important, when it comes to the outcome of that meeting.

Doctorow:
We know about the resistance, growing resistance in Germany led by the Alternative for Deutschland to the policies, the anti-Russian policies, the slavish following of Americans’ orders, that the German governments– put that in plural, from the period of Merkel through the Scholz, and likely to continue if the Christian Democrats take over with Merz. We know about resistance to this and the growing opposition to this in Germany.

18:47
I think people are not aware, in fact I wasn’t well aware until a few days ago, that there are also thinking people in France, where the situation of the government is also very volatile. The government, this newly-installed government by Macron, may not last more than a few weeks, however much he tries. And all of that didn’t seem terribly relevant to the issues that you and I are discussing right now, because the French resistance, opposition to Macron government has all been a rather petty [glitch] outsider. [To] the Frenchman, it’s not petty, but from the outside looking in, for the global balance of power and whatever, the French are fighting over two years of retirement age change and whether or not the gasoline taxes are imposed. These are rather small domestic issues.

19:42
However, there is obviously some undercurrent in France, people who are following what we’re talking about. And they have their own hero, certain Emmanuel Todd, who’s I think, close to my age, maybe a little bit younger, but who has been writing about Russia and the Soviet Union, going back to the Soviet Union, how it would collapse before anybody else was saying that. He’s come out with a book a year ago on how the United States lost the war in Ukraine just a year ago. He recently was interviewed by Figaro, the leading conservative newspaper in France, and he was explaining that the biggest problem that Donald Trump has now is how to manage the defeat in Ukraine, which is exactly what you asked me about. For that very reason, I agree with Emmanuel Todd.

It is a tough one, and you just said it will be attacked. Wouldn’t it be reasonable then if he postponed this meeting with Putin till he gets something under his belt, of macho nature, that spares him attacks for being weak in defending American interests. And that’s where these latest rather extravagant statements he’s made about Panama Canal or about Greenland come in. If he can achieve something there– and I think he can achieve something in Greenland; I think Greenland is low-hanging fruit– then everyone will shut up when it comes to giving up Ukraine, because strategic value of Ukraine to the United States is nil. It’s only valuable if you are an ideologist and want to talk in Cold War terms.

21:31
But if you’re a realist and understand that Russia is no threat to Poland, there’s no threat to the Baltics, there’s no threat to the United States, then you really don’t care what happens to those poor people in Ukraine who are so stupid as to fight against Russia. And you are delighted at all of the mineral wealth and strategic advantages that the United States can take by doing a deal with the Greenlanders. Leave Denmark out of the equation, since their premier already gave up the fight and said it’s up to the 56,000 Greenlanders to decide whether they want to go to the United States. Well, he can buy them off. Surely he can buy them off.

And this would be a very important win for Mr. Trump, which I say would put an end to any concerns about his being in Mr. Putin’s pocket, although that very issue also is unlikely to be revived, because the people who promoted that to the newspapers and to the broader public, these intelligence bosses, they are about to be purged as Trump takes over. Therefore, he will be insulated against that kind of backstabbing from within federal bodies. And he will have the comfort of this glow of American patriots for their territories that they now possess.

Alkhorshid: 23:11
You mentioned the situation in Germany. We have AfD and the left-wing party, Sahra Wagenknecht, if I’m not pronouncing it right. How do you see these two parties and how influential are they and which one is, in your opinion, has the better strategy for the future of Germany?

Doctorow:
I thought that Sarah Wagenknecht was eloquent speaker. She said many things that I liked. She also said one or two things that I didn’t like going back two years. When there was, as you may recall, she joined with a feminist leader in Germany. They both spoke at the Brandenburg gates and were calling for a ceasefire. This was not too long into the war in Ukraine. But she opened her remarks, and she opened the petition that she asked people to sign, and many hundreds of thousands of people did sign in that petition. It opened with remark that Russia was the aggressor.

24:23
Well, I discussed this with people at the European Parliament because I happened to be a participant in the roundtable at that time in the European Parliament building. And they said, “Well, you can’t say anything without opening this way. You have to do your genuflection to the powers that be, who want to hear only that Russia is the aggressor. She did it.”

I didn’t like that at all. In the case of Weidel, Alice Weidel, the co-chairman and now the Bundes-Chancellor nominee of the Alternative for Germany. She is not genuflecting before the powers that be. On the contrary. She is not stupid. She’s a very intelligent woman, and she and Elon Musk had an interview, this was eight days ago, whatever, in which– I was disappointed with it, because she said almost nothing about international affairs.

25:33
It was all directed to the questions of the domestic German, particularly economic and social questions, which she took wonderful positions on in favor of a better balance in energy, that is to say, downscaling all the green policies that came in with Merkel and had been amplified when the Greens became a member of the traffic-light coalition under Scholz, giving, restoring nuclear power, strict curbs on immigration, and on financial and other social benefits to illegal settlers in Germany. Lowering the regulatory burdens on German industry,

A lot of very good recommendations, common sense, very close to the so-called populist positions of Trump. Pragmatism as opposed to ideology, all sounds good, but not a word about the issues that interest your audience and me, which is what does she have to say about the war in Ukraine and what about Russia. There was only a little hint when she said something about resuming gas supplies from Russia. But the reason for this, as I’ve had time to reconsider my first thoughts about the interview, they were very cautious, she and Musk.

27:11
They wanted to produce an impression on the German electorate and the American public that the Alternative for Deutschland are not the heirs of Hitler. They are civilized, democratic-minded people who are friendly and whom you can admire for their pragmatic, common-sense approach to economic and social issues.

Well, that’s good, as far as it goes. However, when I’ve looked at what Weidel has said in front of the German Parliament since, what she has said in various locations, either to the journalists or to a public auditorium, there’s a lot more to it. I wouldn’t say it’s anti-American, but it is “get out”. We are an occupied country, and we’ve had enough of it. And we will not slavishly follow what you tell us about relations with Russia. And we will restore the Nord Stream. And well, that is of course music, to my ears, and I think to the ears of a lot of the viewers of this and other alternative-media programs. She came across as the only one who was saying in a full-throated way that the Americans are the problem, not the solution.

28:53
I note that Wagenknecht, Sahra Wagenknecht has come out also a bit more full-throated and a bit less cautious in her most recent public statements. And it’s surely an influence coming from Weidel and the Alternative for Deutschland. So this was a discovery, and I’m hopeful that she will have some success. The last polls, of course, showed she trails Merz, this awful Christian Democrat leader who wants to send Taurus missiles against Russia. She trails him by 10 points.

She had about 20 points in popular polling and the CDU Merz had 30 points just below. We’ll see how this closes in the next six weeks. But I’m pleased to say that Elon Musk, who did not create a very positive impression in that interview, has put his money on the right horse. She is very capable. I heard this was not– but even in the “Financial Times”, in a little biographical sketch of her a couple of days ago, remarked that she has a PhD, that she has had some time working in financial institutions.

30:16
And she is not the slovenly, stupid, Baerbock that Scholz was foolish enough to bring into his cabinet as minister of foreign affairs. No, this woman is highly intelligent, and I think her head is in the right place. So maybe if not this round of elections in the next, she will help bring Germany around to common sense and to a peaceful Europe-wide– meaning extending to the Urals– foreign policy.

Alkhorshid: 30:58
If you were to mention the main impacts of the war in Ukraine, not only the situation on the battlefield, but the way that the United States and together with Europeans were trying to damage Russia during more than two years. We were approaching three years of the conflict in Ukraine.

And is that going to change the Russia’s grand strategy in a long run? How is that going to influence the Russian society, the Russian politicians, because it’s not just the war in Ukraine, it’s not about the battle, the way that they have cut off the Nord Stream pipeline, the way that they tried to put tremendous sanctions on Russia. It wasn’t just a military act. How do you find the impact, the influence, the whole strategy, the whole policies of NATO against Russia? And how is that going to influence Russia’s strategy?

Doctorow: 32:10
Well, if you want to speak about the population, the man in the street, I think the man in the street was never so Anglophile, so much a lover of the West as the intellectuals, the intelligentsia in Russia has been. They have, many of the intelligentsia, have reluctantly had to face the facts that you just were describing, that the West is trying to destroy their country. And so they have somewhat reluctantly signed on to Mr. Putin’s policies with respect to the war in Ukraine. However– and of course, we know that the most outrageous Russian quislings, Russian betrayers for Western interests, left the country soon after the start of the special military operation.

33:10
Having said that, it is undeniable that there are two minds in Russia about the West and about the country’s orientation. I won’t name names, and I won’t name countries, but let’s just say, for example, that a large part of the Russian diplomatic core is Zapetniki, our Western nurse, people who regret deeply the damage that this war has caused to their relations with the West and the rest of the world. Well, I should say the West, they’re not so interested in the rest of the world. These people can’t be chased out. They are part of Russia.

So the situation is not simple. It is complicated. And these are factors that Mr. Putin has to deal with when he’s appealing to all Russians and not just to some Russians and serving their interests. The hatred that has come out most recently in statements by, it was a former secretary of defense, or what they call the, well, I’ll just leave it, the defense minister in Britain, speaking about the need to close Russia, the whole of Russia, all 145 million Russians behind a high wall, a prison.

34:37
That kind of hatred for the country, which expresses very well the British view of Russia since before the Crimean War, that is something that even the most determined cosmopolite among Russians cannot ignore. So the other side, well, where do they go? Well, they’re going to the East, as we all know. And Russia was never naturally aligned with China.

If you will speak to the man in the street going back 20 years, of course, they were not enthusiasts for drawing closely into an embrace with China. However, China has moved, become such a visible factor in everyday life in Russia today. Like 40 or 50 percent of the cars sold in Russia are made in China, and they’re not too bad. Really, they’re not too bad.

35:39
So the popular view of China and things Chinese has of course in this three-year period, changed in a much more positive way. Going back before this war, really there was resistance, I think, to the embrace with China. Not any more. Moreover, it’s not just China, it’s the whole of East Asia. There yesterday was a lot of television coverage of the visit of the Russian government headed by Miss Houston to Vietnam. And Russia has good relations. And of course a lot of Russian tourism now was directed to Southeast Asia.

36:20
So they’re making their accommodation with a part of the world that was not naturally a magnet for them, but considering the very shabby or hostile treatment that they’ve experienced from so much of the West, England in particular, they have had to make an adjustment. And the war is behind this, of course.

Alkhorshid: 36:44
And one of the main factors in Europe is the United Kingdom. Are they going to, let’s put it this way, do they have any sort of leverage on Donald Trump?

Doctorow:
Well, I think reverse is true. Starmer has not been invited to the inauguration. I think that’s an answer to your question. He and Ursula von der Leyen can share a beer someplace, but they will not be sharing it in Washington DC.

Alkhorshid: 37:22
Because we know that how the United Kingdom is against Russia. I don’t know the reason. Many people are giving us a lot of reasons that the United Kingdom is right now. But we know that in the war in Ukraine with the situation that NATO is dealing with right now, United Kingdom is the most radical country or government in Europe who supports the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine. Is that going to, you mean if they change their prime minister to, let’s assume, a Starmer goes away and someone else who’s better than Starmer, is that going to change the– I’m talking about the United Kingdom as a country, does it have any sort of influence in Europe that may cause some sort of pressure on Donald Trump?

Doctorow: 38:24
Well, their influence within Europe of course declined ever since Brexit, So I think the fact that they are outside the Union diminishes greatly the possible influence they will have in the sense that you intend.

We went from one Russia hater from Boris Johnson to another Russia hater in Keir Starmer. I don’t think that they represent the whole of British politics and certainly not the whole of the British nation. However, these feelings go back a long way. And one of the two talk shows that I follow very closely in Russia is called “The Great Game”. And the great game is the British-Russian rivalry in the 19th century for control of Central Asia, and even for control of India, because the Russians had their eyes on India and the British knew it very well. Of course, the great game was played out in Afghanistan and other stans, but it is well in the recollection of the British, just as the Light Brigade in the Crimean Wars, part of legend and part of the literature that every young Brit receives in secondary school.

39:45
So this antipathy or adversarial relationship with Russia was there. And of course, it is exacerbated by the contempt the British could feel for Russia in the 1990s when it was flat on its back. And of course the resentment that it has ever come back. These are factors that are not going to go away soon.

Alkhorshid: 40:16
Yeah, just to wrap up this session, Gilbert, do you see France, the changes that are happening in France would help the policies that we know from the Trump administration would be putting an end to the conflict in Ukraine. How do you see France’s role in the policies, in the main policies of Europe in the near future?

Doctorow:
Well, I think that France’s policies in Europe are on hold. Mr. Macron– doesn’t stop him from running before every microphone that he can see to make wonderful statements that vary from day to day on the outlook for European policies and for France’s contribution to them. He talks a lot, but I don’t think that France is in a position to influence Europe yet.

41:13
They have to do away with Macron government. And then we shall see. As I said before, France’s first concerns are regrettably domestic. I say regrettably because they cannot, they’re not in a position to contribute to the resolution of these very big Europe-wide problems on the orientation of the EU, the structure of the EU, the bureaucratization of the EU, and simply speaking, the authoritarian ways of the European Commission achieve Von der Leyen. Macron himself, as I’ve written, going back to his first election was put in place by the CIA.

I don’t depart from that judgment, that he has been a willing servant of the worst elements in American foreign policy community. Until we see him off, I don’t see any possibility for France to play a constructive role either in the EU or in relations to Russia. But he will go. I don’t believe he can hold on very long. It took– much will depend on the outcome of the, of the general election.

42:28
Much will depend on the growing formation of a group around Orban and Fico and the incoming, head of state in Austria. They are about to change–

Alkhorshid:
Romania.

Doctorow:
And well, Romania is a bit more problematic to– we don’t know to what extent the United States and the CIA will continue to influence the procedures in the election, presidential election. But in Austria, it’s already a foregone conclusion that a populist so-called far-right party candidate will assume power. That will make three already in central Europe who are against the will of Brussels. That is serious, quite serious.

Alkhorshid: 43:25
Yeah. It seems that there are some similarities between Germany and France in terms of far, they call it far, I don’t agree with “far right” and “far left”, but let’s put the way that they’re talking about. Far right and far left in France and far right and far left in Germany. As you know, the party of Macron came to the third position in the latest poll in France, but these two, as we call it, the far right and far left, which are the two winners of the election in France, what are they representing? Is the same way as in Germany or is it different?

Doctorow: 44:16
Well, [it’s] a bit difficult talking about the far left. It is fractured also, with the very far left, essentially communist, at the far end that spectrum. And more moderate, if it makes sense to call it moderate, some social democratic position also on the left. On the right, you’ve got Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, the group that essentially was founded by her now deceased father. Her position, it is sovereignty. That is the main issue.

45:00
Right-left is not descriptive of slavish collectivism of the European Union member countries that have voluntarily surrendered their sovereignty. France never sat comfortably with that. Least of all was it comfortable with the surrender of national defense sovereignty in the framework of NATO, which is why they had an out and in. They left under De Gaulle; they came back finally under Sarkozy. But they still are a bit nervous about that.

They want their sovereignty back. The Germans have not used those words till now. The question of German sovereignty, the reality that Germany has been occupied country since World War II, that was never part of public discourse. It was off limits. The Alternative for Deutschland has brought it back in.

46:00
Well, I shouldn’t say it was never. The Dillinga had this as a subtext. It had the “Ami Go Home”, Americans clear out, the popular songs. But it didn’t drive it home as a central issue. And I think that the Alternative for Germany is doing just that.

It is central to that, to Weidel policies when she feels it’s safe to talk, which is what she’s doing around the country as she’s making her campaign to become chancellor. But it was something that she avoided taking up in the interview with Elon Musk for obvious reasons, not to touch off all the alarm bells among the EU censors who are watching that interview very closely.

Alkhorshid:
Thank you so much, Gelbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.

Doctorow:
Well, I thank you for having me.

Alkhorshid:
Bye-bye.

Doctorow: 47:07
Goodbye.

Today’s panel discussion of the Gaza Ceasefire was one of the most substantial and, I believe, interesting broadcasts that I have been honored to participate in on this channel.

I call attention to the lengthy commentary by a spokesman for the Axis of Resistance who insisted that the ceasefire represents a victory for Hamas and proves the resilience of the Palestinian people and their unity around Hamas.  He seems unconcerned that the one year and four month conflict has utterly destroyed the lives of the 2 million Gaza residents, quite apart from those who died outright.

As for the genocide, I am hopeful that viewers will consider my insistence that responsibility for the killings lies as much or more with the United States as it does with Israeli since the ceasefire could have come long ago had the Biden administration showed any interest in sparing the lives of civilians and intervened as forcefully as Donald Trump’s emissary appears to have done.

http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/132319

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Press TV, Iran: Waffenruhe in Gaza

Die heutige Podiumsdiskussion über die Waffenruhe in Gaza war eine der gehaltvollsten und, wie ich finde, interessantesten Sendungen, an denen ich auf diesem Kanal teilnehmen durfte.

Ich möchte auf den ausführlichen Kommentar eines Sprechers der „Achse des Widerstands“ hinweisen, der darauf bestand, dass der Waffenstillstand einen Sieg für die Hamas darstellt und die Widerstandsfähigkeit des palästinensischen Volkes und seine Einheit um die Hamas herum beweist. Er scheint sich keine Sorgen darüber zu machen, dass der ein Jahr und vier Monate andauernde Konflikt das Leben der 2 Millionen Einwohner des Gazastreifens völlig zerstört hat, ganz zu schweigen von denen, die direkt gestorben sind.

Was den Völkermord betrifft, so hoffe ich, dass die Zuschauer meine Behauptung, dass die Verantwortung für die Morde genauso oder mehr bei den Vereinigten Staaten als bei Israel liegt, in Betracht ziehen, da der Waffenstillstand schon vor langer Zeit hätte kommen können, wenn die Biden-Regierung auch nur das geringste Interesse daran gezeigt hätte, das Leben von Zivilisten zu schonen, und ebenso energisch interveniert hätte, wie es der Abgesandte von Donald Trump offenbar getan hat.

Today’s chat with host Nima Alkhorshid covered a lot of ground. We opened with what the apparently successful intervention by Donald Trump’s emissary in the Gaza cease-fire talks may tell us about the way that Trump’s pre-election promises of ushering in an age of peace will be realized.  Of course, this naturally led to discussion of how the challenge of taking control of Netanyahu, where the U.S had the whip hand if Biden ever wished to exercise it (which he didn’t) and the challenge of dealing with Putin, who holds the high cards in the Ukraine conflict.

Otherwise, we discussed how Trump’s incoming team differs from the arrogant prima donnas whom he assembled in his first term. For this it was useful to consider impressions from Marco Rubio’s Senate hearings yesterday.

I have little doubt that viewers will find here much food for thought, whether they agree with me or not.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Dialogue Works“-Ausgabe vom 16. Januar: Russlands nächster Schritt, der Trump-Faktor erschüttert Washington

Im heutigen Chat mit Gastgeber Nima Alkhorshid wurde viel besprochen. Wir begannen mit der Frage, was uns die offenbar erfolgreiche Intervention von Donald Trumps Abgesandtem bei den Waffenstillstandsgesprächen im Gazastreifen darüber sagen kann, wie Trumps Wahlversprechen, ein Zeitalter des Friedens einzuleiten, verwirklicht werden können. Dies führte natürlich zu einer Diskussion darüber, wie die Herausforderung, die Kontrolle über Netanjahu zu übernehmen, wo die USA die Oberhand gehabt hätten, wenn Biden dies jemals hätte ausüben wollen (was er nicht tat), und die Herausforderung, mit Putin umzugehen, der im Ukraine-Konflikt die Trümpfe in der Hand hält, bewältigt werden kann.

Ansonsten haben wir darüber gesprochen, wie sich Trumps neues Team von den arroganten Primadonnen unterscheidet, die er in seiner ersten Amtszeit um sich versammelt hatte. Dazu war es nützlich, die Eindrücke von Marco Rubios gestriger Anhörungen im Senat zu berücksichtigen.

Ich habe wenig Zweifel, dass die Zuschauer hier viel Stoff zum Nachdenken finden werden, ob sie mir zustimmen oder nicht.

Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:32
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, January 15th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. In your ability to read the tea leaves in the Kremlin, what do you think the Kremlin thinks about the end of the war in Ukraine? How close do they think Russia is to achieving its military goals?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:10
Well, the tea leaves are giving us various readings. I was surprised when the premier talk show that I follow quite closely, “Vladimir Solovyov” came back on air on Sunday.

And he and his panelists were jubilant, celebrating what Trump had said at Mar-a-Lago in his big press conference regarding Greenland, regarding Panama, and his other statements, because they– they rejoiced, because they saw that he had completely scrapped the democratic ideology, Democratic Party ideology, of foreign policy based on values and was speaking the language that they understand best, they and the Chinese, called realpolitik, that he had no embarrassment about saying what America wants in its own neighborhood.

They took this to mean, as well, that there will be a meeting with Trump, whether it comes in a few weeks or it comes in April or it comes in August. They expect there to be a summit, and they anticipate that Ukraine will not be on the agenda, because the Ukraine problem will be allowed to be solved by the Russians themselves. Instead, the subject for the summit will be a new security architecture for Europe and maybe more broadly for the world, based on the kind of Yalta II principle, which is real politik in practice, the good old days of spheres of influence, which Mr. Biden and the cold warriors had denied entirely when they proceeded up to Russia’s borders.

Napolitano: 2:54
How much longer do you think _they_ think this war will go on? I mean, at some point Russia will say, we’ve achieved our goals. That’s one less negotiating lever that General Kellogg will have. And as you say, this will be off the table by the time presidents Putin and Trump meet. But when do you think this will happen?

We are getting reports in the West, sorry for the triple question, this morning that the Ukrainian military is now utterly incapable of resisting the Russian military. Do you get the same reports?

Doctorow: 3:38
There’s a little bit more to it than that. It’s not just the Ukrainian weakness, it’s Russian strategic brilliance. The “Financial Times”, none other than the Russia-hating “Financial Times”, has had a number of articles on front page in the last few days explaining what the Russians are up to.

And to be precise about it, the idea that Russia would lose time and lose a lot of men in urban warfare, taking over the strategically valuable hub of Pokrovsk. This is what everybody’s been talking about. And this was in our mind when we were saying that the war could go on, well, it could go on for a while longer. It won’t. The Russians have now made a move around Pokrovsk in direction of Dnepropetrovsk, which is I think the third-largest city in Ukraine, and they are cutting off Pokrovsk from its supplies, so that the whole Ukrainian defense force sitting in Pokrovsk will probably be lucky to withdraw at night and get out of there. So the Russians may well take the city without storming it.

4:52
That gives you a sense. Once they move past Pokrovsk, they have a straight line to Dnieper. Therefore, what I’m saying is that the Russians may solve the capitulation question for the Ukrainians in a much shorter time than we had envisaged, by this strategic brilliance that they’re now demonstrating.

Now let’s consider something else. Today’s news, or yesterday’s news, was the remarks of Nikolai Patrushev, who was the secretary, as they call it, of the Russian National Security Council. He was removed from that position. He’s three years older than Putin, and he’s moved into a more, quieter place. But he remains a close advisor to Vladimir Putin. And he was interviewed by Moskovsky Komsomolets, This is a Soviet-era title for daily newspaper that still has a very large following and very good quality journalists. They interviewed him.

5:55
The key remark he made is that Ukraine may cease to exist during 2025. That is the answer to your question. I mentioned before the kind of jubilation over the fact that Trump shows himself to be a realist and recognize the rules that Russians like, but now we have the other side of the story. It’s a very clear message to Washington that the problem can be solved much more quickly in our favor than you imagine.

Napolitano:
Is that him on the frame, Chris, if you’ll put that back up, is that the gentleman of whom you speak?

Doctorow:
Yes, that is Mr. Patrushev. And he was saying that– he didn’t explain exactly what he meant by “cease to exist”. But he gave us a hint. He said, well, you know, these cities, several cities that really have, they’re Russian-oriented. And they, we could take them over.

And the first one he mentioned was precisely Dnepropetrovsk, which is where the Russian army is headed right now. And then he added to that Kharkov, which they’re also closing in on. That’s in the northeast, right on the Russian border, from which these assaults on Belgorod region and Kursk region have been staged. And then he said, “Oh, and by the way, Nikolaev and Odessa”, these are Russian cities where there’s resistance to the regime in Kiev that was installed by an illegal coup d’etat.

7:26
Well, if you look at the map, what he’s saying is, it’s not his own personal opinion alone. What he was describing, the cities he named, are very widely discussed among Russian patriots as what they want the war to end with, which is the whole Black Sea littoral of Ukraine. That would give them a direct line of supply to the Russian-populated eastern part of Moldova, and that’s called Transnistria. This has been in the news recently because of the cutoff of gas through Ukraine to that area.

8:06
In any case, the Russians have peacekeepers there. They would like to have a secure line to it. And if they take over Nikolai and Odessa, then it’s part of their territory. And the last thing I’ll say about Mr. Patrushev, and he said another country may disappear this year, a country called Moldova. It may just disappear, pure and simple, which means the Russians gobble it up, or it may disappear into another state, which is what the Russians really would prefer, the other state being Romania, which– it always was part of Romania, except until Mr. Stalin had different ideas. So it’s quite conceivable that Moldova will in fact depart to Romania, and the Russians will get what they want.

Napolitano: 8:49
Right, a couple of follow-up questions. Is it more likely than not that what this gentleman says reveals the thinking of Vladimir Putin?

Doctorow:
Mr. Putin can juggle a number of balls in the air at the same time. This is one of them. It’s not the only one. I think he’s also quite happy to believe that they can find a common language with Trump and work something out. But if failing that, this is where the Russians will go.

Napolitano:
All right. But when he says Ukraine– Chris, can you put the headline up again? I want to quote it to precisely– when he says Ukraine may cease to exist in 2025, does he mean all of Ukraine or just the Eastern, Russian part, which has been the subject of the special military operation?

Doctorow; 9:39
Well, I think we’re in a name game, because certainly something of the present- or the 1992-defined Ukraine will continue to exist. That’s clear. Russia has no intention of gobbling up Ukraine, for its own security reasons. But what would you call what’s left over after the Russians take what they want and other neighboring countries like Hungary and Romania take the bits and pieces that they want, will it still be called Ukraine? That’s an interesting question.

Napolitano:
I want to play a clip for you, both Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan have been giving these farewell, boost-up-our-own-legacy interviews in the past couple of weeks.

Secretary Blinken gave one that went on for about 90 minutes to the “New York Times”. And though it’s a print publication, it was a video interview. We’re not going to play all 90 minutes, but we do have a one-minute clip of Secretary Blinken in which, in my view, he says utterly outrageous things, almost as if he’s been on a cloud for the past three years. But I’d like your comments on it. Secretary Blinken from about six or seven days ago.

Blinken: 10:58
Where the line is drawn on the map, at this point, I don’t think is fundamentally going to change very much. The real question is, can we make sure that Ukraine is in a position to move forward strongly?

Interviewer:
You mean that the areas that Russia controls, you feel will have to be ceded?

Blinken: 11:12
Ceded is not the question. The question is, the line as a practical matter in the foreseeable future is unlikely to move very much. Ukraine’s claim on that territory will always be there. And the question is, will they find ways, with the support of others, to regain territory that’s been lost? I think the critical thing now going forward is this: if there is going to be a resolution or at least a near-term resolution, because it’s unlikely that Putin will give up on his ambitions, If there’s a ceasefire, then in Putin’s mind, the ceasefire is likely to give him time to rest, to refit, to re-attack at some point in the future. So what’s going to be critical to make sure that any ceasefire that comes about is actually enduring is to make sure that Ukraine has the capacity going forward to deter further aggression. And that can come in many forms.

12:07
It could come through NATO, and we put Ukraine on a path to NATO membership. It could come through security assurances, commitments, guarantees by different countries to make sure that Russia knows that if it reattacks, it’s going to have a big problem. That, I think, is going to be critical to making sure that any deal that’s negotiated actually endures and then allows Ukraine the space, the time to grow strong as a country.

Napolitano: 12:30
So here are my takeaways. And of course, I invite yours, Professor Doctorow, which is fine. We played this for you. Regain territory that has already been lost — he’s crazy. Ceasefire — he’s totally misread President Putin. Ukraine on a path to NATO — if he honestly believes that, he really has been in another world the past three years. Your take, sir.

Doctorow: 12:58
Well, I subscribe to the views that two other members of the “Judging Freedom” team have been saying in past weeks. I’m thinking now of Larry Johnson and Ray Macgovern. They’ve been saying that the head of the CIA, Burns, has been lying to the White House, telling them what they want to hear. And essentially, been passing along to the White House and to Congress, to federal entities that consult with the CIA. They’ve been passing along Kiev’s propaganda, all of it. Everything that you cited, they could have taken, they certainly did take, verbatim from Mr. Zelensky’s office.

13:42
Therefore, it’s not something absurd that Blinken has thought up or retained. No, no, it’s something he’s receiving in his daily briefings, clearly. And there’s the problem. It’s easy to say, yes, the deep state is behind this, this kind of delusional thinking. But I’d like to say one thing on behalf of the deep state.

The deep state is not a permanent condition. The deep state is in principle a staying power or a factor in consistency from one party in power to another over a long period of time. As a principle, the deep state is a moderator so that excessive swings in policy don’t take place. However, the deep state itself can be subject to purges. And Dick Cheney purged the American deep state.

14:36
Any balance of real Russian expertise was chased out of the CIA and out of other intelligence agencies, because their expertise was no longer needed, according to Dick Cheney. Instead, they need only experts in Islamic extremism and Arabic speakers. And so the Russian experts were sent home on retirement and they were not replaced.

Napolitano: 15:03
All right, I get that, but why do you think Blinken would say, other than pure propaganda purposes, “we put Ukraine on a path to NATO”? Ukraine is as far away from NATO as it is from the moon right now.

As I was saying, he’s preparing his lectures for Columbia. These are all self-justification. They’re false, they have no relation to reality, but they are his narrative, that is his identification, and he can’t walk away from it because people will pin it on him if he tries to. Therefore, he’s taking pride in these absurdities and he will be continuing to say that for a long time. That is not unusual among the political losers.

Napolitano: 15:47
All right. Here’s another absurdity. President Zelensky just a few moments ago, while we were on air, Professor Doctorow, to the Polish press agency, quote, “The sooner Ukraine becomes a member of the EU and NATO, the sooner we will all achieve geopolitical stability.” Now that must be propaganda. He surely, if he has any rational ability between his ears, cannot expect that that will happen.

Doctorow:
Well, the British have an expression to cover eventualities like this. They say in a kind of snide way, “You would say that, wouldn’t you”. Of course you said that.

Napolitamo:
Do you know, my father, God rest his soul, used to say that to me as a kid at the dinner table when I said things that sort of upset the prevailing conversation. Go ahead, please.

Doctorow: 16:50
Of course, he has been a salesman within Ukraine. And I wouldn’t say this, that these remarks by Zelensky had Washington or Berlin or London as the addressee. They were addressed to his own people. He’s trying to prove to them to continue the faith, because he is going to bring them into the Holy Land, meaning the EU and NATO.

Napolitano: 17:17
All right. Here’s a follow-up. This interview is going on as we speak, Professor Doctorow. This is President Zelensky:

“Donald Trump’s inauguration in five days. We count on active cooperation in the spirit of peace through strength. We count on maintaining sanctions imposed on Russia.”

Where is he getting that from?

Doctorow: 17:45
As I said, it’s self-justification to his own people, to explain why they should lower the mobilization age and steal from the cradle, as we could say. This is deeply opposed within the country. There are a lot of people who would like to lynch him for that. And so he’s trying to justify himself to this vast silent opposition to what he’s about to implement, this broad mobilization.

Napolitano: 18:13
Here’s– I was talking to you about the farewell interviews. Jake Sullivan did a series of them– And here’s a brief clip from National Security Advisor for five more days, Jake Sullivan, on Russian sanctions. Chris, cut number two.

Sullivan: 18:33
If we had sanctioned Russia’s oil 18 months ago, at a time when oil prices were high, gas prices were high, it would have meant a spike at the pump in a way that would have put pain on working people in the United States.

Today, oil prices are much lower. The oil market globally is very well supplied. And so we have an opportunity to hit Putin in his pocketbook without hitting the American people in theirs. What we’re giving the incoming team, the incoming administration is real leverage in a negotiation.

Napolitano: 19:06
I think the incoming administration wants Russia to be as prosperous as it wants the United States to be, and for that prosperity to be manifested through the free market. What do you say?

Doctorow:
Well, the remarks from Sullivan, they show his utter incapacity to think strategically. What he was describing was tactics to cover up a strategic move, and one is not sufficient to the other. He is ignoring completely the state of the war. The whole thing is about a war, And the war is reaching its climax and its culmination.

19:48
When these penalties, sanctions, had they been introduced 18 months ago, as he said, they could have caused Russia a lot of harm. They were not, for strictly domestic political reasons in the States, which overruled military considerations that would have had a bearing on the status of the war in Ukraine. So he’s imposing them at a point where they make no sense. They’re imposing them in the belief that the war will go on to 2027. It will not.

20:21
Going back to the question you asked me, the war will end in 2025. Therefore, the notion that these sanctions could impact Russia’s ability to conduct the war is utter folly. He has no strategic thinking.

Napolitano:
In response to what President Zelensky has been saying, again, as we speak, Professor Doctorow, the Polish Prime Minister Tusk said, quote, “The Polish presidency of the EU Council will break the deadlock.” He’s referring to the decision over Ukraine entering the EU.

“We will work together with Ukraine and our European partners to accelerate the accession process.” This interview is going on in Poland even as we speak.

21:13
Question: is the Kremlin opposed to Ukraine in both the EU and NATO, or just NATO, since the latter purports to be so weak, a military organization and the former purports to be administrative and financial?

Doctorow:
Well, I don’t think this is the uppermost in the minds of the Kremlin at this moment. They have more important things to do to end the war.

As to what will be left of Ukraine, that will have a decisive influence on who wants it. It’s a basket case that the Russians proceeding as they are now will leave what whatever rump Ukraine is as a basket case. That’s one issue. The other issue is: Mr. Tusk is assuming a unanimity of opinion within the EU, which is collapsing as we talk.

The likelihood of other countries joining the group of Fico in Slovakia and Orban in Hungary is rising with the day. I don’t know if indeed the Alternative for Deutschland will succeed in breaking the cordon sanitaire and in having a role in the coalition, not to mention possibly its own majority government in Germany. That’s improbable. But nonetheless, this is significant change in the thinking of the most important country in Europe, which is facilitated, which is magnified by Trump and his emissary in this case, which is his Twitter, X colleague. The changes that are going on since this interview with Weidel was held last week– which was featuring, promoting her to the German public and to the American public– that change is only beginning to be felt.

23:18
She has a 20 percent that is the Alternative for Deutschland, which is against the sanctions, which is for restoration of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. They have 20 percent; the long-established centrist party of the Christian Democrats has 31 percent. We’ll see how this difference narrows in the coming six weeks.

Napolitano:
Right.

Doctorow:
But with American support, I think we will see a significant change in the German political language. So Tusk is just whistling in the dark.

Napolitano: 23:55
Professor Doctorow, thank you very much, my dear friend. Always wonderful, wonderful incitement from your very fertile brain. Much appreciated. We look forward to seeing you next week.

Doctorow:
Well, thanks so much. Bye-bye.

Napolitano:
Of course. Thank you. And coming up later today at noon, Aaron Mate; at 1 o’clock, Kivork Almasian with the latest on whatever is going on in Syria and between Hamas and Israel; at two o’clock, Pepe Escobar; at three o’clock. Phil Giraldi.

24:28
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Transkript eines Lesers

Napolitano: 0:32
Hallo zusammen. Hier ist Judge Andrew Napolitano mit „Judging Freedom“. Heute ist Mittwoch, der 15. Januar 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow ist jetzt bei uns. Professor Doctorow, es ist mir immer eine Freude, mein lieber Freund. Danke, dass Sie bei uns sind. Sie können ja im Kaffesatz des Kremls lesen. Was glauben Sie, denkt der Kreml über das Ende des Krieges in der Ukraine? Wie nah ist Russland ihrer Meinung nach daran, seine militärischen Ziele zu erreichen?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:10
Nun, der Kaffesatz gibt uns verschiedene Hinweise. Ich war überrascht, als die führende Talkshow, die ich ziemlich genau verfolge, „Vladimir Solovyov“, am Sonntag wieder auf Sendung ging.

Und er und seine Diskussionsteilnehmer waren begeistert und feierten, was Trump in Mar-a-Lago in seiner großen Pressekonferenz über Grönland, über Panama und seine anderen Äußerungen gesagt hatte. Sie freuten sich, weil sie sahen, dass er die demokratische Ideologie, die Ideologie der Demokratischen Partei, einer auf Werten basierenden Außenpolitik, vollständig über Bord geworfen hat und die Sprache sprach, die sie am besten verstehen, sie und die Chinesen, die Realpolitik genannt wird, dass er sich nicht schämte, zu sagen, was Amerika in seiner eigenen Nachbarschaft will.

Sie nahmen dies auch so auf, dass es ein Treffen mit Trump geben wird, ob in ein paar Wochen, im April oder im August. Sie erwarten ein Gipfeltreffen und gehen davon aus, dass die Ukraine nicht auf der Tagesordnung stehen wird, weil das Problem der Ukraine von den Russen selbst gelöst werden darf. Stattdessen wird das Thema des Gipfels eine neue Sicherheitsarchitektur für Europa und vielleicht sogar für die ganze Welt sein, basierend auf dem Prinzip von Jalta II, das Realpolitik in der Praxis ist, die guten alten Tage der Einflusssphären, die Herr Biden und die Kalten Krieger völlig verleugnet hatten, als sie an die Grenzen Russlands vorgerückt sind.

Napolitano: 2:54
Wie lange, glauben Sie, glauben die noch, dass dieser Krieg andauert? Ich meine, irgendwann wird Russland sagen, wir haben unsere Ziele erreicht. Das ist ein Verhandlungshebel weniger, den General Kellogg dann hat. Und wie Sie sagen, wird das vom Tisch sein, wenn sich die Präsidenten Putin und Trump treffen. Aber wann, glauben Sie, wird das passieren?

Wir erhalten heute Morgen Berichte aus dem Westen, entschuldigen Sie die dreifache Frage, dass das ukrainische Militär nun völlig unfähig ist, dem russischen Militär Widerstand zu leisten. Erhalten Sie die gleichen Berichte?

Doctorow: 3:38
Es steckt noch ein bisschen mehr dahinter. Es ist nicht nur die Schwäche der Ukrainer, es ist die strategische Brillanz der Russen. Die „Financial Times“, niemand anderes als die russlandhassende „Financial Times“, hat in den letzten Tagen eine Reihe von Artikeln auf der Titelseite veröffentlicht, in denen erklärt wird, was die Russen vorhaben.

Und um genau zu sein, die Idee, dass Russland Zeit verlieren und viele Männer in Häuserkämpfen verlieren würde, wenn es das strategisch wertvolle Zentrum Pokrowsk einnimmt. Darüber haben alle gesprochen. Und das hatten wir im Hinterkopf, als wir sagten, dass der Krieg noch eine Weile andauern könnte. Das wird aber nicht passieren. Die Russen haben sich nun um Pokrowsk herum in Richtung Dnepropetrowsk bewegt, der drittgrößten Stadt der Ukraine, und sie schneiden Pokrowsk von seinen Versorgungsquellen ab, sodass die gesamte ukrainische Verteidigungsstreitmacht, die in Pokrowsk stationiert ist, wahrscheinlich froh sein wird, sich nachts zurückziehen und von dort verschwinden zu können. Die Russen könnten die Stadt also durchaus einnehmen, ohne sie zu stürmen.

4:52
Das gibt Ihnen einen Eindruck. Sobald sie an Pokrowsk vorbeigekommen sind, haben sie eine gerade Linie zum Dnjepr. Was ich damit sagen will, ist, dass die Russen die Kapitulationsfrage für die Ukrainer durch diese strategische Brillanz, die sie jetzt demonstrieren, möglicherweise in viel kürzerer Zeit lösen können, als wir es uns vorgestellt hatten.

Betrachten wir nun etwas anderes. Die Nachrichten von heute oder von gestern waren die Äußerungen von Nikolai Patruschew, der der Sekretär, wie es heißt, des russischen Nationalen Sicherheitsrates war. Er wurde aus dieser Position entfernt. Er ist drei Jahre älter als Putin und hat einen ruhigeren Posten übernommen. Aber er bleibt ein enger Berater von Wladimir Putin. Und er wurde von Moskovsky Komsomolets interviewt, einer Tageszeitung, die noch immer eine sehr große Fangemeinde hat und sehr gute Journalisten beschäftigt. Sie haben ihn interviewt.

5:55
Die wichtigste Bemerkung, die er gemacht hat, ist, dass die Ukraine im Jahr 2025 aufhören könnte zu existieren. Das ist die Antwort auf Ihre Frage. Ich habe bereits die Art von Jubel darüber erwähnt, dass Trump sich als Realist erweist und die Regeln anerkennt, die den Russen gefallen. Aber jetzt haben wir die andere Seite der Geschichte. Es ist eine sehr klare Botschaft an Washington, dass das Problem viel schneller zu unseren Gunsten gelöst werden kann, als Sie sich vorstellen können.

Napolitano:
Ist das er auf dem Bild, Chris, wenn Sie das wieder hochladen, ist das der Herr, von dem Sie sprichen?

Doctorow:
Ja, das ist Herr Patruschew. Er hat nicht genau erklärt, was er mit „aufhören zu existieren“ meinte. Aber er gab uns einen Hinweis. Er sagte: „Nun, wissen Sie, diese Städte, mehrere Städte, die wirklich russisch orientiert sind, wir könnten sie übernehmen.

Und die erste Stadt, die er erwähnte, war genau Dnepropetrowsk, wohin die russische Armee gerade unterwegs ist. Und dann fügte er Charkiw hinzu, auf das sie sich ebenfalls zubewegen. Das liegt im Nordosten, direkt an der russischen Grenze, von wo aus diese Angriffe auf die Regionen Belgorod und Kursk durchgeführt wurden. Und dann sagte er: „Ach ja, und übrigens, Nikolaev und Odessa“, das sind russische Städte, in denen es Widerstand gegen das Regime in Kiew gibt, das durch einen illegalen Staatsstreich an die Macht gekommen ist.

7:26
Nun, wenn man sich die Karte ansieht, dann sagt er damit, dass es nicht nur seine persönliche Meinung ist. Was er beschrieb, die Städte, die er nannte, werden unter russischen Patrioten sehr häufig als das diskutiert, womit sie den Krieg beenden wollen, nämlich mit der gesamten Schwarzmeerküste der Ukraine. Das würde ihnen eine direkte Versorgungslinie zum russisch besiedelten östlichen Teil Moldawiens verschaffen, und das nennt sich Transnistrien. Das war kürzlich in den Nachrichten, weil die Gaszufuhr durch die Ukraine in dieses Gebiet unterbrochen wurde.

8:06
Auf jeden Fall haben die Russen dort Friedenstruppen. Sie hätten gerne eine sichere Verbindung dorthin. Und wenn sie Nikolai und Odessa übernehmen, dann ist es Teil ihres Territoriums. Und das Letzte, was ich über Herrn Patruschew sagen möchte, ist, dass er sagte, ein anderes Land könnte in diesem Jahr verschwinden, ein Land namens Moldawien. Es könnte einfach verschwinden, schlicht und einfach, was bedeutet, dass die Russen es verschlingen, oder es könnte in einem anderen Staat verschwinden, was die Russen wirklich bevorzugen würden, wobei der andere Staat Rumänien wäre, das – es war immer Teil Rumäniens, bis Herr Stalin andere Pläne hatte. Es ist also durchaus vorstellbar, dass Moldawien tatsächlich zu Rumänien übergeht und die Russen bekommen, was sie wollen.

Napolitano: 8:49
Richtig, ein paar Anschlussfragen. Ist es eher wahrscheinlich oder eher unwahrscheinlich, dass das, was dieser Herr sagt, die Denkweise von Wladimir Putin offenbart?

Doctorow:
Herr Putin kann mehrere Bälle gleichzeitig in der Luft jonglieren. Dies ist einer davon. Es ist nicht der einzige. Ich denke, er ist auch ziemlich froh zu glauben, dass sie eine gemeinsame Sprache mit Trump finden und etwas ausarbeiten können. Aber wenn dies scheitert, werden die Russen hier ansetzen.

Napolitano:
In Ordnung. Aber wenn er sagt, dass die Ukraine – Chris, können Sie die Überschrift noch einmal einblenden? Ich möchte sie genau zitieren – wenn er sagt, dass die Ukraine 2025 aufhören könnte zu existieren, meint er dann die gesamte Ukraine oder nur den östlichen, russischen Teil, der Gegenstand der speziellen Militäroperation war?

Doctorow; 9:39
Nun, ich denke, wir spielen hier mit Namen, denn sicherlich wird etwas von der heutigen oder der 1992 definierten Ukraine weiter bestehen bleiben. Das ist klar. Russland hat aus Gründen der eigenen Sicherheit nicht die Absicht, die Ukraine zu verschlingen. Aber wie würden Sie das nennen, was übrig bleibt, nachdem die Russen sich genommen haben, was sie wollen, und andere Nachbarländer wie Ungarn und Rumänien sich die Teile genommen haben, die sie wollen? Wird es dann immer noch Ukraine heißen? Das ist eine interessante Frage.

Napolitano:
Ich möchte Ihnen einen Clip vorspielen. Sowohl Außenminister Blinken als auch der Nationale Sicherheitsberater Sullivan haben in den letzten Wochen diese Abschieds- und Aufschwungsinterviews gegeben.

Außenminister Blinken gab der „New York Times“ ein Interview, das etwa 90 Minuten dauerte. Und obwohl es sich um eine Printpublikation handelt, war es ein Videointerview. Wir werden nicht die gesamten 90 Minuten abspielen, aber wir haben einen einminütigen Clip von Außenminister Blinken, in dem er meiner Meinung nach völlig unverschämte Dinge sagt, fast so, als hätte er die letzten drei Jahre auf einer Wolke verbracht. Aber ich würde gerne Ihre Meinung dazu hören. Außenminister Blinken von vor etwa sechs oder sieben Tagen.

Blinken: 10:58
Ich glaube nicht, dass sich an der Stelle, an der die Grenze auf der Karte gezogen wird, grundlegend viel ändern wird. Die eigentliche Frage ist, ob wir sicherstellen können, dass die Ukraine in der Lage ist, sich stark voranzubewegen.

Interviewer:
Sie meinen, dass die Gebiete, die Russland kontrolliert, Ihrer Meinung nach abgetreten werden müssen?

Blinken: 11:12
Abtreten ist nicht die Frage. Die Frage ist, dass sich die Grenze in absehbarer Zukunft in der Praxis wahrscheinlich nicht sehr stark verschieben wird. Der Anspruch der Ukraine auf dieses Gebiet wird immer bestehen bleiben. Und die Frage ist, ob sie mit Unterstützung anderer Wege finden werden, verlorenes Gebiet zurückzugewinnen. Ich denke, das Entscheidende für die Zukunft ist Folgendes: Wenn es eine Lösung geben wird oder zumindest eine kurzfristige Lösung, denn es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass Putin seine Ambitionen aufgeben wird, dann wird ein Waffenstillstand Putin in seinen Augen wahrscheinlich Zeit geben, sich auszuruhen, sich neu zu rüsten und irgendwann in der Zukunft erneut anzugreifen. Entscheidend für die Nachhaltigkeit eines Waffenstillstands ist daher, dass die Ukraine in der Lage ist, weitere Aggressionen abzuwehren. Dies kann auf unterschiedliche Weise geschehen.

12:07
Es könnte über die NATO kommen, und wir bringen die Ukraine auf den Weg zur NATO-Mitgliedschaft. Es könnte durch Sicherheitszusagen, Verpflichtungen und Garantien verschiedener Länder geschehen, um sicherzustellen, dass Russland weiß, dass es bei einem erneuten Angriff ein großes Problem bekommen wird. Das ist meiner Meinung nach entscheidend, um sicherzustellen, dass jede ausgehandelte Vereinbarung auch tatsächlich Bestand hat und der Ukraine dann den Raum und die Zeit gibt, als Land stark zu werden.

Napolitano: 12:30
Hier sind meine Schlussfolgerungen. Und natürlich bitte ich Sie um ihre, Professor Doctorow. Wir haben das für Sie abgespielt. Bereits verlorenes Gebiet zurückgewinnen – er ist verrückt. Waffenstillstand – er hat Präsident Putin völlig falsch eingeschätzt. Die Ukraine auf dem Weg in die NATO – wenn er das ehrlich glaubt, hat er in den letzten drei Jahren wirklich in einer anderen Welt gelebt. Ihre Meinung, Sir.

Doctorow: 12:58
Nun, ich schließe mich den Ansichten an, die zwei andere Mitglieder des „Judging Freedom“-Teams in den vergangenen Wochen geäußert haben. Ich denke jetzt an Larry Johnson und Ray Macgovern. Die haben gesagt, dass der Chef der CIA, Burns, das Weiße Haus belogen und denen gesagt hat, was sie hören wollen. Und im Wesentlichen haben sie die Informationen an das Weiße Haus und den Kongress sowie an Bundesbehörden, die sich mit der CIA beraten, weitergegeben. Sie haben die Propaganda Kiews weitergegeben, alles. Alles, was Sie zitiert haben, hätten sie wörtlich aus dem Büro von Herrn Selensky übernehmen können, und das haben sie auch getan.

13:42
Es ist also nichts Absurdes, was Blinken sich ausgedacht oder beibehalten hat. Nein, nein, es ist etwas, das er in seinen täglichen Briefings erhält, ganz klar. Und da liegt das Problem. Es ist leicht zu sagen, ja, der Schattenstaat steckt dahinter, diese Art von Wahnvorstellungen. Aber ich möchte eines im Namen des Schattenstaats sagen.

Der „tiefe Staat“ ist kein Dauerzustand. Der „tiefe Staat“ ist im Prinzip ein Faktor, der über einen langen Zeitraum hinweg von einer an der Macht befindlichen Partei zur nächsten bestehen bleibt. Im Prinzip ist der „tiefe Staat“ ein Moderator, der dafür sorgt, dass es nicht zu übermäßigen Schwankungen in der Politik kommt. Der „tiefe Staat“ selbst kann jedoch Säuberungen unterliegen. Und Dick Cheney hat seinerzeit den amerikanischen „tiefen Staat“ gesäubert.

14:36
Jegliches Gleichgewicht an echtem russischem Fachwissen wurde aus der CIA und aus anderen Geheimdiensten vertrieben, weil ihr Fachwissen laut Dick Cheney nicht mehr benötigt wurde. Stattdessen werden nur noch Experten für islamischen Extremismus und arabische Sprecher benötigt. Und so wurden die russischen Experten in den Ruhestand geschickt und nicht ersetzt.

Napolitano: 15:03
In Ordnung, das verstehe ich, aber warum, glauben Sie, würde Blinken, abgesehen von reinen Propagandazwecken, sagen: „Wir haben die Ukraine auf den Weg in die NATO gebracht“? Die Ukraine ist derzeit genauso weit von der NATO entfernt wie vom Mond.

Doctorow:
Wie gesagt, er bereitet seine Vorlesungen für Columbia vor. Das sind alles Selbstrechtfertigungen. Sie sind falsch, sie haben keinen Bezug zur Realität, aber sie sind seine Narrative, das ist seine Identifikation, und er kann sich nicht davon lösen, weil die Leute ihn dafür kritisieren werden, wenn er es versucht. Deshalb ist er stolz auf diese Absurditäten und er wird das noch lange Zeit sagen. Das ist bei politischen Verlierern nicht ungewöhnlich.

Napolitano: 15:47
In Ordnung. Hier ist eine weitere Absurdität. Präsident Zelensky hat vor wenigen Augenblicken, während wir auf Sendung waren, Professor Doctorow, gegenüber der polnischen Presseagentur gesagt: „Je früher die Ukraine Mitglied der EU und der NATO wird, desto eher werden wir alle geopolitische Stabilität erreichen.“ Das muss Propaganda sein. Wenn er auch nur einen Funken Verstand hat, kann er doch nicht erwarten, dass das passiert.

Doctorow:
Nun, die Briten haben einen Ausdruck, um Eventualitäten wie diese abzudecken. Sie sagen auf eine Art abfällige Weise: „Das müssten Sie sagen, nicht wahr? Natürlich haben Sie das gesagt.“

Napolitamo:
Wissen Sie, mein Vater, Gott hab ihn selig, sagte mir das immer als Kind am Esstisch, wenn ich Dinge sagte, die das vorherrschende Gespräch irgendwie störten. Fahren Sie bitte fort.

Doctorow: 16:50
Natürlich war er als Verkäufer in der Ukraine tätig. Und ich würde nicht sagen, dass diese Äußerungen von Selensky an Washington, Berlin oder London gerichtet waren. Sie waren an sein eigenes Volk gerichtet. Er versucht, ihnen zu beweisen, dass sie weiterhin Vertrauen haben sollen, denn er wird sie ins gelobte Land bringen, d.h. in die EU und die NATO.

Napolitano: 17:17
In Ordnung. Hier ist eine Fortsetzung. Dieses Interview läuft, während wir sprechen, Professor Doctorow. Hier ist Präsident Zelensky.

Zelensky:
„Donald Trumps Amtseinführung in fünf Tagen. Wir zählen auf aktive Zusammenarbeit im Geiste von Frieden durch Stärke. Wir zählen auf die Aufrechterhaltung der gegen Russland verhängten Sanktionen.“

Napolitano:
Woher nimmt er das?

Doctorow: 17:45
Wie gesagt, es ist eine Selbstrechtfertigung gegenüber seinem eigenen Volk, um zu erklären, warum sie das Mobilisierungsalter senken und die Menschen quasi von der Wiege an bestehlen sollten, wie man sagen könnte. Dies stößt im Land auf heftigen Widerstand. Es gibt viele Menschen, die ihn dafür lynchen würden. Und so versucht er, sich gegenüber dieser riesigen schweigenden Opposition für das zu rechtfertigen, was er umsetzen will, diese umfassende Mobilisierung.

Napolitano: 18:13
Ich habe mit Ihnen über die Abschiedsinterviews gesprochen. Jake Sullivan hat eine Reihe von ihnen geführt – und hier ist ein kurzer Ausschnitt von Jake Sullivan, der noch fünf Tage lang nationaler Sicherheitsberater ist, über die russischen Sanktionen. Chris, Schnitt Nummer zwei.

Sullivan: 18:33
Wenn wir vor 18 Monaten, als die Öl- und Gaspreise hoch waren, Sanktionen gegen das russische Öl verhängt hätten, hätte dies zu einem Anstieg an der Zapfsäule geführt, der für die arbeitende Bevölkerung in den Vereinigten Staaten schmerzhaft gewesen wäre.

Heute sind die Ölpreise viel niedriger. Der Ölmarkt ist weltweit sehr gut versorgt. Und so haben wir die Möglichkeit, Putin in seiner Geldbörse zu treffen, ohne das amerikanische Volk in seiner zu treffen. Was wir dem neuen Team, der neuen Regierung geben, ist ein echter Hebel in einer Verhandlung.

Napolitano: 19:06
Ich denke, die neue Regierung möchte, dass Russland genauso wohlhabend ist wie die Vereinigten Staaten, und dass sich dieser Wohlstand durch den freien Markt manifestiert. Was meinen Sie?

Doctorow:
Nun, die Bemerkungen von Sullivan zeigen seine völlige Unfähigkeit, strategisch zu denken. Was er beschrieben hat, waren Taktiken, um einen strategischen Schachzug zu vertuschen, und das eine reicht nicht für das andere. Er ignoriert den Kriegszustand völlig. Es geht um einen Krieg, und der Krieg erreicht seinen Höhepunkt.

19:48
Wenn diese Strafen, Sanktionen, wie er sagte, vor 18 Monaten eingeführt worden wären, hätten sie Russland großen Schaden zufügen können. Sie wurden aus rein innenpolitischen Gründen in den USA nicht verhängt, die militärische Überlegungen, die sich auf den Stand des Krieges in der Ukraine ausgewirkt hätten, außer Kraft setzten. Er setzt sie also zu einem Zeitpunkt durch, an dem sie keinen Sinn ergeben. Sie werden in dem Glauben durchgesetzt, dass der Krieg bis 2027 andauern wird. Das wird er nicht.

20:21
Um auf Ihre Frage zurückzukommen: Der Krieg wird 2025 enden. Daher ist die Vorstellung, dass diese Sanktionen die Fähigkeit Russlands, den Krieg zu führen, beeinträchtigen könnten, völliger Unsinn. Er hat kein strategisches Denken.

Napolitano:
Als Antwort auf die Äußerungen von Präsident Zelensky, Professor Doctorow, sagte der polnische Ministerpräsident Tusk, Zitat: „Die polnische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft wird den Stillstand überwinden.“ Er bezieht sich auf die Entscheidung über den Beitritt der Ukraine zur EU.

„Wir werden mit der Ukraine und unseren europäischen Partnern zusammenarbeiten, um den Beitrittsprozess zu beschleunigen.“ Dieses Interview findet in Polen statt, während wir hier sprechen.

21:13
Frage: Ist der Kreml gegen einen Beitritt der Ukraine sowohl in der EU als auch in der NATO oder nur in der NATO, die eine so schwache militärische Organisation ist, und die Ukraine vorgibt, eine administrative und finanzielle Organisation zu sein?

Doctorow:
Nun, ich glaube nicht, dass dies derzeit die oberste Priorität des Kremls ist. Sie haben wichtigere Dinge zu tun, um den Krieg zu beenden.

Was von der Ukraine übrig bleibt, wird einen entscheidenden Einfluss darauf haben, wer sie haben will. Es ist ein hoffnungsloser Fall, weil die Russen, wenn sie so weitermachen wie bisher, die Ukraine, die dann noch übrig ist, als hoffnungslosen Fall zurücklassen werden. Das ist das eine Problem. Das andere Problem ist: Herr Tusk geht von einer einstimmigen Meinung innerhalb der EU aus, die jedoch gerade zusammenbricht, während wir hier reden.

Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass sich weitere Länder der Gruppe um Fico in der Slowakei und Orban in Ungarn anschließen, steigt mit jedem Tag. Ich weiß nicht, ob es der Alternative für Deutschland tatsächlich gelingen wird, den Cordon sanitaire zu durchbrechen und eine Rolle in der Koalition zu spielen, ganz zu schweigen von einer eigenen Mehrheitsregierung in Deutschland. Das ist unwahrscheinlich. Aber dennoch ist dies ein bedeutender Wandel im Denken des wichtigsten Landes in Europa, der durch Trump und seinen Abgesandten in diesem Fall, nämlich seinen Twitter-Account, erleichtert und verstärkt wird. Die Veränderungen, die seit dem Interview mit Weidel letzte Woche im Gange sind – in dem sie der deutschen und der amerikanischen Öffentlichkeit vorgestellt und beworben wurde – sind erst in Ansätzen zu spüren.

23:18
Sie hat 20 Prozent, das ist die Alternative für Deutschland, die gegen die Sanktionen ist und für die Wiederherstellung der Nord Stream 1-Pipeline. Sie haben 20 Prozent; die alteingesessene Zentrumspartei der Christdemokraten hat 31 Prozent. Wir werden sehen, wie sich dieser Unterschied in den kommenden sechs Wochen verringert.

Napolitano:
Richtig.

Doctorow:
Aber mit amerikanischer Unterstützung wird sich die politische Sprache in Deutschland meiner Meinung nach deutlich verändern. Tusk pfeift also nur im Dunkeln.

Napolitano: 23:55
Professor Doctorow, vielen Dank, mein lieber Freund. Immer wieder wunderbare, wunderbare Anregungen aus Ihrem sehr fruchtbaren Gehirn. Vielen Dank. Wir freuen uns darauf, Sie nächste Woche zu sehen.

Doctorow:

Nun, vielen Dank. Bye-bye.

Napolitano:

Vielen Dank. Und später heute Mittag hören Sie Aaron Mate; um 13 Uhr Kivork Almasian mit den neuesten Informationen zu den Geschehnissen in Syrien und zwischen der Hamas und Israel; um 14 Uhr Pepe Escobar; um 15 Uhr Phil Giraldi.

Judge Napolitano für „Judging Freedom“.

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 15 January 2025: Nikolai Patrushev and how Ukraine will ‘cease to exist’ in 2025

As usual, the discussion with host Judge Andrew Napolitano covered a number of different subjects, including the ‘farewell’ speeches by Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken, bizarre statements from President Zalensky during an ongoing meeting with the press, and the latest comments by Polish President Tusk on how under his leadership the European Council and the broader EU Institutions will proceed with Kiev’s accession to the EU and NATO. 

However, the greatest time was devoted to a just published interview with Nikolai Patrushev, former Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council who now continues to serve as a close adviser to Vladimir Putin.  The interview appeared in Russian in the daily newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, with an abbreviated English language summary in The Moscow Times. See

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/14/ukraine-may-cease-to-exist-in-2025-putin-aide-says-a87610

In this article we see one possible end result of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Another possible end result will come about in an eventual summit meeting between Putin and Trump at which they agree on a new security architecture for Europe based on Realpolitik considerations such as were practiced in Yalta at the conclusion of WWII.  Putin clearly has these and other possible denouements in mind which he juggles like so many balls in the air.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

For the Russian voice-over version see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCsijXAUEo

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Judging Freedom“-Ausgabe vom 15. Januar 2025: Nikolai Patrushev und wie die Ukraine 2025 „aufhören wird zu existieren“

Wie üblich wurden in der Diskussion mit Judge Andrew Napolitano verschiedene Themen behandelt, darunter die „Abschiedsreden“ von Jake Sullivan und Tony Blinken, bizarre Äußerungen von Präsident Selensky während einer laufenden Pressekonferenz und die jüngsten Kommentare des polnischen Präsidenten Tusk dazu, wie der Europäische Rat und die EU-Institutionen unter seiner Führung den Beitritt Kiews zur EU und zur NATO vorantreiben werden.

Die meiste Zeit wurde jedoch einem gerade veröffentlichten Interview mit Nikolai Patrushev gewidmet, dem ehemaligen Sekretär des Nationalen Sicherheitsrates Russlands, der nun weiterhin als enger Berater von Wladimir Putin tätig ist. Das Interview erschien in russischer Sprache in der Tageszeitung Moskowski Komsomolez und in einer gekürzten englischen Zusammenfassung in The Moscow Times. Siehe

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/14/ukraine-may-cease-to-exist-in-2025-putin-aide-says-a87610

In diesem Artikel sehen wir ein mögliches Endergebnis des andauernden Krieges in der Ukraine. Ein weiteres mögliches Endergebnis wird sich bei einem eventuellen Gipfeltreffen zwischen Putin und Trump ergeben, bei dem sie sich auf eine neue Sicherheitsarchitektur für Europa einigen, die auf realpolitischen Überlegungen basiert, wie sie in Jalta am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs praktiziert wurden. Putin hat diese und andere mögliche Ausgänge ganz klar im Sinn und jongliert mit ihnen wie mit Bällen in der Luft.

Sputnik Globe, like other Russian media assets, has been fighting a tough battle against US global media domination and censorship of all other voices. But, despite all, they remain afloat and for the moment their website is fully accessible here in Europe, though it was blocked in the recent past.

From time to time, they invite me to comment on some current breaking news, and yesterday I made my contribution to their article on Biden’s latest package of anti-Russian sanctions. 

https://sputnikglobe.com/20250114/did-anti-russian-sanctions-become-bidens-poison-chalice-for-trump-1121429139.html

Transcript submitted by a reader

Firstpost – Spotlight: 0:00
We begin with the fallout of the war raging in the heart of Europe between Russia and Ukraine, and its impact on the global oil trade. The war, which is just days away from its three-year mark, has brought Cold War rivals, Russia and the United States, to the edge of a direct conflict. In the latest, the United States has imposed its harshest sanctions yet on Russia’s oil industry. Two major Russian oil producers, along with 183 vessels that have shipped Russian oil, have been hit with severe sanctions. The move is aimed at targeting Moscow’s revenues that it uses to fund its war with Ukraine.

Biden: 0:44
They will have profound effect on the growth of the Russian economy and make it more difficult for Putin to conduct his wars. It is probable that gas prices could increase as much as three, four cents a gallon, but what it’s going to have a more profound impact on [is] Russia’s ability to continue to act in the way it’s acting in the conduct of war.

Putin’s in tough shape right now and I think it’s really important that he not have any breathing room to continue to do the god-awful things he’s continuing to do. And as I said, he’s got his own problems economically, significant problems economically, as well as politically at home.

Spotlight:
Not just Russia.These sanctions are also expected to directly impact Moscow’s top oil customers, India and China. Beijing is the world’s largest oil importer and New Delhi ranks third. The newly sanctioned tankers handled over 530 million barrels of Russian crude oil in 2024, about 42% of the country’s total seaborne crude exports. Out of these, around 300 million barrels were shipped to China, adding up to roughly 61% of China’s seaborne imports of Russian oil. And the bulk of the remainder went to India. India relies on Russia for about a third of its oil imports.

2:11
For the first 11 months of last year, India’s Russian crude imports rose 4.5% on year to 1.7 million barrels per day. This makes up 36% of India’s total imports. For China, the volume including pipeline supply was up 2% at 2.1 million barrels per day, which is about 20% of its total imports. Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia began diverting oil and fuel shipments from Europe to Asia, and both India and China have been the main beneficiaries of discounted Russian crude. But to step up in punitive measures including sanctions targeting Russian producers, insurers and vessels has thrown the trade of discounted crude into disarray.

3:03
Now these tougher sanctions on Russian oil will force Indian and Chinese refiners to diversify and to source more from the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. In December, India’s crude oil imports from West Asia, specifically Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, surged. New Delhi is already looking to replace the shortfall in supplies from its largest source market, Russia. In the same month, India’s imports of Russian crude dropped nearly 17%, sequentially to 1.4 million barrels per day, which is the lowest level in 2024. Now, harsh measures are also pushing both oil prices and freight costs up.

3:47
Earlier today, oil prices jumped after US announced new sanctions to curb Russian oil supply. Reports say that refiners, tankers, operators and traders across Asia were scrambling to manage the fallout from the latest round of sanctions that impact major importers in India and China too. So far hundreds of ships and many Russian oil traders managed to escape US sanctions. This is because the Biden administration sought to strike a balance between the case for tighter sanctions and averting a global oil price rally. But in a week from now, President-elect Donald Trump will take office and the Republican has promised to end the war in Ukraine.

4:32
Moscow depends on oil exports to not just sustain its economy but also to fund the ongoing conflict. So will harsher sanctions find a place in Trump’s strategy to achieve this goal? Now for more on this we have with us international relations and Russian affairs expert Dr. Gilbert Doctorow who is joining us live from Brussels. Welcome to Firstpost.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Yes, good day to you.

Firstpost:
Now Dr., how will the new US sanctions on Russian oil producers and maritime services affect India’s and China’s ability to secure stable oil supplies? And What challenges might they face in diversifying their supply chains to countries like the Middle East, Africa or the Americas?

Doctorow: 5:28
I appreciate the need to investigate alternative supplies. That is prudent and it may prove to be essential. However, there’s another side to the story. The sanctions that Mr. Biden has just imposed are difficult to remove. They are embedded in American legislation, and it would require an act of Congress for Mr. Trump to overturn these sanctions. However, it is also possible, and I’d say likely, that Mr. Trump will simply not enforce these sanctions. There is no ability of Congress or of any American entity to compel him to enforce these. If he were to go the way through Congress and override or reject the sanctions, then he would have a fight with Congress and he would be expending his political capital for an uncertain result.

6:32
If he simply doesn’t enforce them, then he has no problems, and he keeps on moving with the rest of his political agenda. The actions taken by Biden in the closing days of his administration are vicious, but they also are founded on very poor intelligence. It may sound peculiar to your audience, but the United States CIA and other intelligence agencies that are supplying the White House with the basic information that it uses to draw up tactical and strategic plans for its foreign affairs, foreign affairs management, they are faulty. The head of the CIA, Mr. Burns, has been denounced by CIA ex-experts, ex-employees, as lying through his teeth about the nature and status of the Ukraine war.

7:27
The plans that Mr. Biden has set down would make sense if this war will proceed to ’27 or later, which is what American plans are, as we saw at the meeting in Ramstein last week. However, the Russians will very likely complete the war in the coming months.

Spotlight: 7:46
Right. Doctor, with the sanctions targeting over 180 tankers and Russia-based maritime insurance providers, how significant is the anticipated rise in oil prices and freight costs likely to be for major consumers like India and China?

Doctorow: 8:06
I think that we have to wait a week or two. I understand that the market reacts, and must react to this very significant news that you have just described. The “Financial Times”, for example, gave a very lengthy and detailed explanation of the different aspects of these sanctions, both those that are intended to curtail Russian production by sanctioning the companies that are based in Russia, that is foreign companies that are acting in Russia, to facilitate production; and more importantly, to sanction the ships and the insurers, as you mentioned. The net result could be drastic, But I don’t believe that there will be such a net result, for the reasons I just mentioned. Mr. Trump wants to end the war.

Spotlight:
All right. Absolutely. Doctor, thank you very much for being with us on Firstpost and for your valued insights and analysis.

Doctorow: 9:04
Well, thanks for having me.

Transcript submitted by a reader

NewsX – Porteous: 0:00
Hello and welcome. I am Thomas Porteous, and today we will be diving into a discussion on the USA and the United Kingdom tightening sanctions on the Russian oil industry. Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region have captured two North Korean soldiers, marking the first time Kiev has detained North Korean military personnel. Despite being wounded, the soldiers survived and are currently in Kiev, where they are being interrogated by Ukraine’s security service. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has imposed stringent sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector, aiming to cut off funding for Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

0:38
These measures come as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Senior US officials hope to strengthen Ukraine’s position before Trump’s inauguration and ensure that the incoming administration continues to enforce these sanctions. Thank you for joining us for this debate. In this discussion we are joined by Professor Arvind Mahajan, Lamar Savings Professor of Finance at Texas A&M; Professor Rohan Gunaratna, international affairs expert from Singapore; Daniel Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions from Portland, Oregon and Professor Madhav Nalapat, Editorial Director of The Sunday Guardian.

1:19
Thank you for joining us for this discussion. My first question to you is for Professor Arvind Mahajan. Do you see the sanctions from the US and the UK affecting Russia’s economy both in the short term and the long term?

Mahajan:
Well the jury is still out, primarily because we have a new administration coming in, in a couple of weeks, and it really will depend upon the attitude which the new administration takes against Russia in particular regarding the enforcement of these actions. If the enforcement is serious, I think it can have a meaningful impact on the cash flows generated by these oil exports to Russia. And in that case, there might be some meaningful marginal effect on the stance which Russia takes vis-a-vis Ukraine. But it’s unclear what the new administration’s attitude will be towards it.

NewsX: 2:20
Professor Gunaratna, I wanted to come to you next. How do these sanctions compare to the previous ones that were imposed on Russia?

Gunaratna:
Russia was able to overcome the impact of those sanctions. During a visit that I made to Russia, I did see the impact, But it did not in any way affect their capacity to sustain their military campaign in Ukraine. What is so important today is that with a new administration coming to office, they must try to resolve this conflict through dialogue and discussion. Even India can play a very important role, because India has very good relations with Russia and also with the United States. So we should look beyond the continuity of this conflict and try to resolve it because through, by sanctions and by war, this conflict is not going to end. It’s going to affect the entire world

NewsX: 3:34
Daniel Wagner, Professor Gunaratna was talking about resolution to this war, but do you think that these sanctions will make the situation harder to negotiate a peace deal?

Wagner:
No, to the contrary, I think these sanctions are going to make it easier to negotiate a peace deal, because the pressure that’s being put on Putin and the Russian government right now as a result of these sanctions is truly significant. And I think what in essence is happening is that the Biden administration is giving a gift to the Trump administration for its future negotiations to try to end this war. And I think it won’t take long for Putin to feel the pressure, because these sanctions are truly significant. You might ask why they weren’t done sooner and the reason is, of course, politics.

4:27
They didn’t, the Biden administration didn’t want to have a spike in oil and gas prices in America as a result of these sanctions during the election cycle, which basically means for the past two years, that was not going to be in the cards. So I think there’s every reason to believe that this will make a difference.

NewsX: 4:48
Professor Nalapat, Trump has spoken about a possible meeting with Putin. What can we expect from this and what actions do we expect President Trump to take within his first few days of office in regard to this conflict?

Nalapat:
Let me tell you quite clearly that in my view these sanctions are not going to make any impact on Russia’s war capacity. Ukraine is supposed to have been winning the war right from February 2022 onwards and it has lost people, it has lost territory continuously since then.

5:24
The small incursions that are made into Russia can be mopped up at any time. The reality of the situation is that if oil prices go up, it’s a gift to Putin. Putin is very dependent on oil and gas for a lot of the money that he is making and he would be delighted by it. And quite frankly, this war is creating a rift between the West and the rest of the world to the benefit of China. Again, this is– this war is because of an obsessive focus on Europe on the part of the Biden administration and I’m sorry to say by too many scholars in the United States and in other parts of North America.

6:05
The reality of the situation is, if Ukraine were that important to European security, during all the decades it was part of the USSR, was there an impact on European security? Nothing at all. The fact is, this is a Eurocentric approach to the world, and that approach could have been wonderful in the 17th and 18th, 19th century, but in the second half of 20th century the winds began shifting, and now it is firmly in the Indo-Pacific and firmly the main adversary is no longer Russia but China. By keeping on sounding the war drums against Russia, you are diverting the attention away from China to the benefit of China. So very frankly– and supposing let’s say that Trump comes in, and supposing some people say all right they’re going to increase. I mean, Britain and the US are gas exporters; other countries in Europe are importers. They will suffer. The German economy is already significantly weakened. Other European economies have been significantly weakened.

And every single political leader in the West, as Keir Starmer is going to find out in the next election, has been weakened if he has supported the Ukraine war, where you talk about Biden, you talk about Sunak, you talk about Johnson, you talk about Macron, you talk about Trudeau, you talk about any of these people. They’ve all been weakened, because the people of these countries have more common sense than some of the leaders have to have.

7:40
My point is, this is a trap laid for Donald Trump. This is a very clever trap laid for Donald Trump, a minefield that if he steps on, it will blow to bits any chance of a detente with Russia. And in the view of some of us, the fact is, Russian neutrality during this new ongoing Cold War 2.0 with China is essential. If you don’t get Russian support, just as the West got Chinese support during Cold War 1.0, if you don’t get Russian support, at least Russian neutrality. And by making it much more difficult to do so because of this obsession with the European country, Ukraine, which frankly makes very little strategic difference to either Europe or Asia or the United States, wherever it goes. I think quite frankly, the Biden, whoever in the Biden administration is behind this. And so far the UK is concerned. Kier Starmer is marching in lockstep with Boris Johnson and Sunak. And if he’s going to continue, he’ll go the same way.

8:45
Already the Reform Party is gathering speed in Britain. What I understand is, it’s got more people than the Conservatives. But the Conservatives also jumped on the Ukrainian bandwagon. And Labour is going to pay a price for it. So I just want to say this war has to be ended now. And if it’s not ended, the West is in danger of losing the rest to China, and that is to the benefit of only one country, the present biggest threat to the West, which is China.

NewsX: 9:17
Thank you. Gilbert Doctorow, Russian affairs expert, also joins us. How would you respond to Madame Nalepat’s statement there calling this a minefield for the upcoming Donald Trump administration?

Doctorow:
I don’t agree. In war, in politics, timing is everything. The timing is based, is useful when you have good intelligence and understand the world around you. The administration of Washington has bad intelligence. It has a defective CIA, defective other intelligence agencies within Washington, and they have been feeding the president and the Congress completely misleading information or disinformation about the conduct of the war. If this measure had been introduced two years ago, it might have had an impact on Russia’s ability to conduct the war. However, it is being introduced at a time when Russia is close to dealing a knockout blow to Ukraine.

10:21
We are at the war’s end, in terms of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. We are close to a capitulation of the Ukrainian forces. The only possible practical effect of these new sanctions, should they be implemented by the Trump administration, which is questionable, the only possible impact would be to hasten the Russian move for the knockout blow and to motivate Mr. Putin to hasten the war and to finish it up. And it means that these measures have an escalatory impact.

Wars are fought not only on the ground, but by economics. And this economic approach is wrongly timed because of the misinformation, as I said, and because of the cowardice of the Biden administration, which is the other side of the viciousness of this administration. These people, Blinken, Sullivan, and Biden are hateful people, and they think that they are giving a poison chalice to Mr. Trump. But it’s only because they’re misled. You can fool the other party, but you should not fool yourself with propaganda. And regrettably for them, the Biden administration is subject to its own propaganda.

NewsX: 11:46
Gilbert, I wanted to track back a little bit on this, and I was wondering how ordinary Russians will respond to these sanctions and the feeling in Russia about the war currently.

Doctorow:
To give a certain response to that question, because Russia has been on vacation for two weeks. The Russian news agencies, the Russian prime talk shows, the indications of what the elites around the Kremlin think, are only coming back on air on Monday and Tuesday, after the Russian New Year.

12:21
But I can tell you from the latest news bulletins, it is evident that the Russians appreciate the seriousness of these sanctions, but they expect to muddle through and to continue to prosecute the war. No one in Russia has been enthusiastic for this war. Let us be clear, it is a major war. Anyone who thinks that the fighting forces of Ukraine have not been valiant and have not given it their best effort is mistaken. This is a serious war, the largest in Europe since World War II.

And yet [Russia], acting on their own with minor logistical support from their allies, has beaten back everything that the United States and NATO have been able to throw at it. Ukraine is simply the space in which this war between NATO and Russia is being fought. So the Russians have, in the last several weeks, have increased confidence that they are winning this war and the end is near.

NewsX: 13:33
Professor Arvind Mahajan, I wanted to ask you, Russia currently faces around 13,000 international sanctions. With all these sanctions, how might Russia redirect its exports?

Mahajan:
Well, I think– I’m not a huge fan of sanctions, because as a generality, I have not seen them work very effectively in most of the cases. And it’s unclear to me really how effective these sanctions might be, even though the Department of Treasury has certainly ratcheted up what it has been doing over the last couple of years. So, I mean, frankly, from my viewpoint, our view of this war, to a large extent, is dictated by where we are situated. Clearly, the American view is slightly different than the Russian view, slightly different than the Indian view, slightly different than the Ukrainian view. And we are subject to our own biases and perspectives.

14:38
Unfortunately, we don’t really get a clear, unbiased information. None of us get them clearly because it’s kind of colored by where we are located and the echo chamber in which we exist. So I think our views on the war accordingly are determined by our position. As a generality, like I said earlier, I don’t think sanctions are usually a very effective tool. In this case, a negotiated settlement really is the only solution here. I am not sure, as I said earlier, I’m not sure how vigorously the Trump administration is going to implement and enforce the changes proposed by the Department of Treasury.

15:26
It’s also unclear to me how the OPEC countries are going to respond, in as far as changing the supply of oil in the markets is concerned. As was mentioned by someone else, there is enough oil in the market that this was an opportune time to put the sanctions on without the fear that the prices will spike up in a significant way, although we did see some increase in the price of oil yesterday. But it’s not going to be impactful as it would have been a couple of years ago when the global supplies were somewhat limited. So the long-winded answer to your clear question really is, one, the jury is out, and two, I don’t think these sanctions are going to be the determinant of how the war ends and on what terms it ends. I think these sanctions are a small part of the larger issues which the countries are dealing with to determine how it will be resolved. I just don’t see them as breaking the back of Russia, so that it will come running to the negotiating table.

NewsX: 16:33
Professor Gunaratna, I wanted to ask, as the UK and the US and Europe wean themselves off of Russian gas, how might Ukraine benefit from new energy deals or pipelines?

Gunaratna:
Ukraine certainly is challenged at this point. So my personal view is that it is so important for there to be a resolution to this conflict, because the threats are going to spread. Already Europe is witnessing so much of threats coming from Russia. And of course, Ukraine itself is mounting attacks deep into Russia.

So this escalation is going to cripple the economy of Europe, Ukraine and Russia. It’s going to create a big conflict and eventually the threat is going to spread beyond Ukraine. That is why I said that it is a great opportunity for the new administration to pursue a different path.

NewsX: 17:44
Daniel Wagner, I want to come to you on this next one. Let’s say this war does end after Trump takes office. How can the US and the UK assure that Ukraine won’t be threatened again?

Wagner:
Right, well, of course, we have to get to that point before we can have such a discussion. And a lot of people are very skeptical that this is actually going to be resolved quickly. It may take quite a few months to do so if all the parties are willing to go to the table. But at the end of the day, NATO is in a much better position than it was to protect itself.

It’s much better funded. It’s much better armed. And Ukraine itself, should it ever become a member of NATO, ultimately would be the best-experienced and best-armed country of NATO among them. So I think part of it will be to keep NATO armed, somehow keep it well funded in the recovery process, and for the NATO countries to step up to the plate and devote even a greater percentage of their GDP to NATO going forward. Two percent isn’t going to do it any more.

And as we know, Trump has talked about ramping that up to 5%. I don’t even think the US is gonna reach that point. So it all remains to be seen, but I do think Europe is in a much better position than it was previously.

NewsX: 19:19
Professor Nalapat, did these sanctions strengthen Russia’s push to build closer ties with countries like China and India?

Nalapat:
Well, I’m afraid the Russians have been pushed completely into the Chinese camp, thanks to these sanctions and thanks to this Ukraine war. And may I point out very, very, very respectfully that NATO has lost every single war it has fought. Frankly it has hardly fought a war in the European continent. There was no kinetic war between the USSR and the US and European countries. You take Libya, you take Iraq, you take Syria, you take Afghanistan, the NATO went in there and created a royal mess, a complete royal mess. So very frankly in Asia we are not very, what do I say, admiring of the great capabilities of NATO in conducting operations in actuality rather than computer simulations or battlefield simulations.

20:31
I think we’re very frankly, the record in Libya, the record in Afghanistan, the record in Syria, the record in Iraq, that all these records speak for themselves. I don’t know who is going to argue with these records. I want to say very clearly, we need to shift the focus back to the Indo-Pacific. We need to shift from Europe, we need to shift the focus back from Ukraine, I mean from Russia to China. And that is the reality that we are confronting today. So quite frankly we can do chest thumping about the immense strength of NATO. But try telling that to the people of Libya, to the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, to the people of Afghanistan and you may hear a bit of polite dissonance coming from them. Thank you.

NewsX: 21:23
Gilbert Doctorow, if Russia is shut out of Western markets, how might this reshape the global economic order, especially with Chinese involvement?

Doctorow:
Western markets, since shortly after the start of this special military operation in February 2022, that’s not a new development. They have found various ways of circumventing the sanctions and finding new markets. That took them perhaps four to six months from the start of the war till they found their feet and resolved the challenges that the United States was posing.

22:07
Those solutions are what are now being attacked by the latest sanctions that Yellen and others in the Biden administration have cooked up. I have in mind the question of the black fleet, the 150 ships or whatever that are being used by Russians to evade the sanctions concerning insurance requirements and other requirements on vessels carrying Russian oil around the world. They have succeeded, and I think they will be equally inventive in finding new solutions to counter the sanctions that are being produced. But the more important thing is not Russian evasion of the sanctions. They will be, as your first speaker mentioned, it will be the readiness and the ability of the incoming Trump administration to implement and to execute the intentions of these sanctions. And I don’t believe that the interest in Mr. Trump is to do that.

23:12
On the contrary, as I said a moment ago, full implementation of these sanctions, if they were to have the impact, the negative consequences for Russian exports of petroleum, would be, would push us in an escalatory direction. One has to remember that when countries are pressed in an existential way, as Japan was before World War II, what starts out economic becomes kinetic. And therefore the ultimate result, if Mr. Biden’s measures were to be successful, which they will not be, would be to escalate this war in the direction of a nuclear war. For that reason, I think we all should condemn what Biden has done. It is, as I said, a poison chalice and it comes from people who know no better.

NewsX:24:12
We have run out of time. That is all we have time for, unfortunately. Thank you very much [to] all our guests for joining us today in this discussion. We will continue to bring more news updates from the war and the rest of the world. Thank you for watching NewsX,

As they used to say at the betting parlors, ‘five will get you ten.’    Once you appear on one television station, the others also want some fresh blood.  And so I was not surprised to be invited this morning to appear on a new giant in Indian global broadcasting which calls itself Firstpost. They boast a subscriber base of over 13 million across leading platforms and in the past 90 days they reached over 350 million viewers worldwide.  Looking at the comments on my session with them today, it is clear that they have an open-minded audience: not a single viewer yet has complained that they are disseminating Putin propaganda…

As you expect from a global broadcaster Firstpost have operating centers in various major cities abroad. Indeed, the presenter for my interview was speaking to me from their Durban, South Africa offices. She opened our session with some well-chosen video spots from Joe Biden’s public announcement of the new drastic sanctions he imposed Friday on the Russian energy sector.

Since we all need a bit of comic relief in these difficult times, it was charming to hear Joe say his measures will work against ‘Putin’s wars.’ Note the plural coming from the mouth of a record-beating fomenter of wars and chaos during his own term in office.  Still better was Joe’s remark that ‘Putin is in tough shape.’ Seems that Joe spent too much time looking in the mirror when shaving this morning.

In my limited time on air, I focused attention on the wrong assumptions that underlie Joe Biden’s imposition of sanctions now, when the war is approaching its climax and conclusion, about which he knows nothing thanks to Lying Bill Burns at the CIA.

To calm the nerves of Indian oil traders who are now getting 32% of the country’s imports from Russia, I called out the likely refusal of Trump to enforce the unwanted sanctions which would only complicate his task of finding common language with Putin and bringing the war to closure.

There have been some readers questioning what I wrote earlier today about how Russian elites now believe that Trump will deliver a Yalta-like settlement with Moscow, as Vladimir Putin demands. Given that what I was citing came from the Vladimir Solovyov show and given that Solovyov has been deeply skeptical that anyone can overrule the Deep State and retrieve U.S.-Russian relations from the hell-hole where they now are trapped, I firmly believe that some kind of backchannel has been established between Trump and the Kremlin which accounts for the changed mood in Moscow and jollity that I saw on air.

See   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DPMzZ1tvFU

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Firstpost (Indien) Spotlight-Programm: US-Sanktionen gegen Russlands Öl treffen Indien

Wie man in den Wettbüros zu sagen pflegte: „Fünf werden dir zehn bringen.“ Sobald man in einem Fernsehsender auftritt, wollen auch die anderen frisches Blut. Und so war ich nicht überrascht, heute Morgen eingeladen zu werden, in einem neuen Giganten des indischen globalen Rundfunks aufzutreten, der sich Firstpost nennt. Sie verfügen über einen Abonnentenstamm von über 13 Millionen auf führenden Plattformen und haben in den letzten 90 Tagen weltweit über 350 Millionen Zuschauer erreicht. Wenn man sich die Kommentare zu meiner heutigen Sitzung mit ihnen ansieht, wird deutlich, dass sie ein aufgeschlossenes Publikum haben: Noch hat sich kein einziger Zuschauer darüber beschwert, dass sie Putin-Propaganda verbreiten …

Wie man es von einem globalen Sender erwarten kann, hat Firstpost Betriebszentren in verschiedenen Großstädten im Ausland. Tatsächlich sprach die Moderatorin meines Interviews mit mir aus ihrem Büro in Durban, Südafrika. Sie eröffnete unsere Sitzung mit einigen gut ausgewählten Videoclips von Joe Bidens öffentlicher Ankündigung der neuen drastischen Sanktionen, die er am Freitag gegen den russischen Energiesektor verhängt hatte.

Da wir in diesen schwierigen Zeiten alle ein wenig Aufheiterung brauchen, war es charmant zu hören, wie Joe sagte, dass seine Maßnahmen gegen „Putins Kriege“ wirken werden. Beachten Sie, dass der Plural aus dem Mund eines Rekordbrechers in Sachen Krieg und Chaos während seiner eigenen Amtszeit kommt. Noch besser war Joes Bemerkung, dass „Putin in einer schwierigen Verfassung ist“. Anscheinend hat Joe heute Morgen beim Rasieren zu viel Zeit damit verbracht, in den Spiegel zu schauen.

In meiner begrenzten Sendezeit habe ich mich auf die falschen Annahmen konzentriert, die Joe Bidens Verhängung von Sanktionen jetzt zugrunde liegen, wo der Krieg seinem Höhepunkt und Ende entgegengeht, worüber er dank des lügenden Bill Burns von der CIA nichts weiß.

Um die Nerven der indischen Ölhändler zu beruhigen, die inzwischen 32 % der Importe des Landes aus Russland beziehen, wies ich auf die wahrscheinliche Weigerung Trumps hin, die unerwünschten Sanktionen durchzusetzen, was seine Aufgabe, eine gemeinsame Sprache mit Putin zu finden und den Krieg zu beenden, nur erschweren würde.

Einige Leser haben meine heutige Aussage in Frage gestellt, dass die russischen Eliten nun glauben, Trump werde eine Jalta-ähnliche Einigung mit Moskau erzielen, wie Wladimir Putin es fordert. Da das, was ich zitiert habe, aus der Sendung von Wladimir Solowjow stammt und Solowjow zutiefst skeptisch ist, dass irgendjemand den Schattenstaat ausschalten und die amerikanisch-russischen Beziehungen aus dem Höllenloch befreien kann, in dem sie jetzt gefangen sind, glaube ich fest daran, dass es eine Art Geheimkanal zwischen Trump und dem Kreml gibt, der für die veränderte Stimmung in Moskau und die Heiterkeit, die ich in der Sendung gesehen habe, verantwortlich ist.

During an on-air conversation last Thursday with Judge Andrew Napolitano on ‘Judging Freeedom,’ I was asked how the Kremlin and Russian elites view the announcement by Donald Trump at his Mar a Lago press conference that he plans to take possession of Greenland and is prepared to use military force or economic pressure, as necessary, to wrest the island from its legal owner, Denmark.  I replied that no definitive answer is yet possible, because Russian news and commentary programming was shut down for the country’s two-week winter break that began on 31 December and will mostly return following the celebration of New Year’s according to the Gregorian calendar, 14 January as the world reckons today.

However, several Russian shows have returned to life ahead of their ‘old style’ New Year’s. Sixty Minutes was back on Friday, and the widely watched Evening with Vladimir Solovyov was again on air last night, Sunday. That show was almost entirely devoted to discussion of Trump’s Mar a Lago press conference and to the latest antics of Elon Musk operating as Trump’s attack dog against Left-leaning governments in Europe and Canada. The several panelists and the host were all delighted with Trump and confident that he will quickly drive a stake through the heart of the Biden legislative and policy legacy, leading to a 180 degree turn from hostile confrontation to live and let live in U.S. relations with Russia.

Last night’s Solovyov show took me back down memory lane. In November 2016, both before and after the U.S. presidential election, I was in Moscow. Just ahead of the election I was invited on to the Solovyov show to comment on Trump for the benefit of his Russian audience which was keen to hear from a Russian-speaking American who happened to be a Trump backer. In the break during that show, when Solovyov circulates among panelists while they take coffee, I asked him directly what he thought about Trump and he replied without a moment’s hesitation that he preferred for Hillary to win:  ‘better to get the devil we know than this volatile and unpredictable Trump.’

Of course, following the election, Russian state television suppressed doubts and celebrated Trump’s victory.  I joined RT host Peter Lavelle in his Cross Talk studio for a round table discussion of the good days to come.

For their part, as 2017 arrived Vladimir Solovyov and other representatives of Russia’s chattering classes were willing to give Donald the benefit of the doubt and see if he could implement the Russia-friendly policies he talked about in the electoral campaign.  As we now know, from the get-go Trump did not deliver on those promises. Indeed, bilateral relations deteriorated during the entire period of his presidency.

Heading into this year’s American elections, Solovyov and other Russian commentators took the position that it would make no difference who wins because the Deep State controls American policy so that the venomous hostility to Russia that has flourished during the Biden years will continue. The main thing, they all said, was for Russia to continue down its own path, smash Ukraine and NATO, and look after its own security by armed force.

Following the election, there was no change in the skepticism with which Russian elites met the Trump victory. In the first weeks, the nomination by Trump of numerous hawks and Neocons to man the top security, foreign policy and military posts in his administration did not augur well.  But then two weeks ago one remark by Trump when speaking to reporters caught Moscow’s attention.  He had called the decision by Joe Biden to allow Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia using American made ATACMS missiles ‘foolish and dangerous.’ Moreover, other little signs indicated that perhaps the new administration would make changes in policy from the outset. Moscow perused with interest the invitation list to the inauguration, which did not include either Volodymyr Zelensky or EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen, the Ukrainian’s greatest supporter.

Then in this past week, Trump’s Mar a Lago remarks to the assembled press changed entirely Moscow’s estimation of what the Trump presidency may bring.

Russia’s experts are very happy to see Trump espousing a policy of naked aggression, of pure imperialism to further American interests, which is what his plans for Greenland and for retaking the Panama Canal illustrate. This marks a stark departure from the sweet talk of values based foreign policy that the Democrats have used as their smoke screen to spread chaos globally and enforce American hegemony. It is pure Realpolitik, or interests based foreign policy, and is music to the ears of the Russians.

Accordingly, Biden’s ‘rules-based order’ is kaput, spheres of influence are back in favor. The Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine assumes an entirely legitimate nature if, as Trump was saying at Mar al Lago, it had been provoked by Biden’s crossing red lines that had been set down back in 2008 by pushing for Ukraine’s admission to NATO.

Panelists on the Solovyov show said last night that they expect Trump to diminish or entirely cut off aid to Kiev. Talk about defending Ukraine’s 1992 borders, about it dealing a humiliating blow to Russia on the battlefield has ceased. From Trump’s words, Moscow believes that the USA will be indifferent to that actual borders that Ukraine retains at the conclusion of a peace, nor does it wish to provide security guaranties to Ukraine or to envisage its joining NATO at some date in the future.  All that counts is for there to be some semblance of sovereignty in the remaining territory when the Russians are through with it that will call itself Ukraine.

Obviously, from the words of the panelists, they do not expect Trump to enforce the crushing sanctions that Biden has just imposed on the Russian energy sector.

Most importantly, they expect that the eventual Trump – Putin summit, which may come soon or may come in April or in August, will not be about Ukraine but about a revision of the global security architecture. The word was not used, but they are clearly looking for a kind of Yalta-2 negotiation. The negotiation will be with Russia, and not with China, because it is Russia that has been the first to directly challenge U.S. global hegemony and it is Russia that remains the intellectual leader of the Global South towards BRICS and a multipolar world.

As for Elon Musk, Vladimir Solovyov’s panelists have greatly enjoyed his blunt and insulting words addressed to heads of government in Europe and further afield who have been Biden’s willing agents in the hybrid and kinetic war against their country over Ukraine. Musk’s publicly calling German chancellor Olaf Scholz a ‘stupid fool.’  His addressing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau as ‘a little girl’, which is a snide reference to his ambiguous sexual orientation. Moscow takes great pleasure in such scandalous treatment of its enemies. Moreover, the Solovyov panelists see in all of Musk’s recent doings, including his X interview with Alternative for Germany co-chair Alice Weidel, an exercise in regime change that has a clear ideological dimension: to replace corrupt and cowardly Left-oriented governments in the European Union with friendly to Russia Rightist and populist led governments.  All of this they see as closely coordinated with Donald Trump, and it reinforces their newfound enthusiasm for Donald.

Let us hope that Russia’s elites are not mistaken this time about Trump. Their confidence appeared to be so solid that it is tempting to believe that some backchannel between the incoming American president and the Kremlin has been established, confirming the radical policy changes ahead. In the meantime, let us breathe easier.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Russische Eliten sind begeistert von Donald Trumps Pressekonferenz in Mar a Lago

Während eines On-Air-Gesprächs mit Judge Andrew Napolitano am vergangenen Donnerstag in der Sendung „Judging Freedom“ wurde ich gefragt, wie der Kreml und die russischen Eliten die Ankündigung von Donald Trump auf seiner Pressekonferenz in Mar a Lago sehen, dass er plant, Grönland in Besitz zu nehmen und bereit ist, militärische Gewalt oder wirtschaftlichen Druck einzusetzen, um die Insel ihrem rechtmäßigen Eigentümer Dänemark zu entreißen. Ich antwortete, dass eine endgültige Antwort noch nicht möglich sei, da die russischen Nachrichten- und Kommentarsendungen wegen der zweiwöchigen Winterpause des Landes, die am 31. Dezember begann, eingestellt wurden und größtenteils nach den Feierlichkeiten zum Neujahrstag nach dem Gregorianischen Kalender, dem 14. Januar, wie die Welt ihn heute festlegt, wieder ausgestrahlt werden.

Einige russische Sendungen sind jedoch vor ihrem Neujahrsfest im „alten Stil“ wieder auf Sendung gegangen. Sechzig Minuten war am Freitag wieder auf Sendung, und die vielgesehene Sendung Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov war gestern Abend, am Sonntag, wieder auf Sendung. Diese Sendung war fast ausschließlich der Diskussion über Trumps Pressekonferenz in Mar a Lago und den jüngsten Eskapaden von Elon Musk gewidmet, der als Trumps Kampfhund gegen linksgerichtete Regierungen in Europa und Kanada agiert. Die verschiedenen Diskussionsteilnehmer und der Moderator waren alle begeistert von Trump und zuversichtlich, dass er Bidens politisches und legislatives Erbe schnell zunichte machen und zu einer 180-Grad-Wende von feindseliger Konfrontation zu einem „leben und leben lassen“ in den Beziehungen der USA zu Russland führen wird.

Die Solowjow-Sendung von gestern Abend hat mich in Erinnerungen schwelgen lassen. Im November 2016, sowohl vor als auch nach der US-Präsidentschaftswahl, war ich in Moskau. Kurz vor der Wahl wurde ich in die Solowjow-Sendung eingeladen, um Trump zu kommentieren, und zwar zum Nutzen seines russischen Publikums, das unbedingt von einem russischsprachigen Amerikaner hören wollte, der zufällig ein Trump-Anhänger war. In der Pause während dieser Sendung, als Solowjow sich unter den Diskussionsteilnehmern bewegt, während sie Kaffee trinken, fragte ich ihn direkt, was er von Trump halte, und er antwortete ohne zu zögern, dass er es vorziehen würde, wenn Hillary gewinnt: „Besser den Teufel, den wir kennen, als diesen launischen und unberechenbaren Trump.“

Natürlich unterdrückte das russische Staatsfernsehen nach der Wahl jegliche Zweifel und feierte Trumps Sieg. Ich schloss mich RT-Moderator Peter Lavelle in seinem Cross Talk-Studio zu einer Diskussionsrunde über die guten Tage, die vor uns liegen würden, an.

Als das Jahr 2017 anbrach, waren Wladimir Solowjow und andere Vertreter der russischen Klatschpresse ihrerseits bereit, Donald im Zweifelsfall zu vertrauen und abzuwarten, ob er die russlandfreundliche Politik, von der er im Wahlkampf gesprochen hatte, umsetzen würde. Wie wir heute wissen, hat Trump diese Versprechen von Anfang an nicht eingehalten. Tatsächlich haben sich die bilateralen Beziehungen während seiner gesamten Präsidentschaft verschlechtert.

Im Vorfeld der diesjährigen amerikanischen Wahlen vertraten Solowjow und andere russische Kommentatoren die Ansicht, dass es keinen Unterschied machen würde, wer gewinnt, da der Schattenstaat die amerikanische Politik kontrolliert und die giftige Feindseligkeit gegenüber Russland, die in den Biden-Jahren aufgeblüht ist, anhalten wird. Das Wichtigste sei, so sagten sie alle, dass Russland seinen eigenen Weg weitergeht, die Ukraine und die NATO zerschlägt und seine eigene Sicherheit mit Waffengewalt gewährleistet.

Nach der Wahl änderte sich nichts an der Skepsis, mit der die russischen Eliten dem Sieg von Trump begegneten. In den ersten Wochen ließ die Ernennung zahlreicher Falken und Neokonservativer durch Trump für die obersten Posten in den Bereichen Sicherheit, Außenpolitik und Militär in seiner Regierung nichts Gutes ahnen. Doch dann erregte vor zwei Wochen eine Bemerkung Trumps in einem Gespräch mit Reportern die Aufmerksamkeit Moskaus. Er hatte die Entscheidung von Joe Biden, ukrainische Angriffe tief in Russland mit in den USA hergestellten ATACMS-Raketen zuzulassen, als „dumm und gefährlich“ bezeichnet. Darüber hinaus deuteten andere kleine Anzeichen darauf hin, dass die neue Regierung möglicherweise von Anfang an Änderungen in der Politik vornehmen würde. Moskau nahm die Einladungsliste zur Amtseinführung mit Interesse zur Kenntnis, auf der weder Wolodymyr Selenskyj noch die Präsidentin der EU-Kommission Ursula von der Leyen, die größte Unterstützerin der Ukraine, standen.

In der vergangenen Woche haben Trumps Äußerungen gegenüber der versammelten Presse in Mar a Lago die Einschätzung Moskaus darüber, was die Präsidentschaft Trumps bringen könnte, völlig verändert.

Russische Experten sind sehr erfreut darüber, dass Trump eine Politik der nackten Aggression und des reinen Imperialismus zur Förderung amerikanischer Interessen befürwortet, wie seine Pläne für Grönland und die Rückeroberung des Panamakanals zeigen. Dies ist eine deutliche Abkehr von dem Gerede über eine wertebasierte Außenpolitik, das die Demokraten als Vorwand benutzt haben, um weltweit Chaos zu verbreiten und die amerikanische Hegemonie durchzusetzen. Es ist reine Realpolitik oder interessenbasierte Außenpolitik und Musik in den Ohren der Russen.

Dementsprechend ist Bidens „regelbasierte Ordnung“ kaputt, und Einflusssphären sind wieder in Mode. Die russische „Invasion“ der Ukraine ist völlig legitim, wenn sie, wie Trump in Mar al Lago sagte, durch Bidens Überschreitung der roten Linien provoziert wurde, die 2008 durch das Drängen auf die Aufnahme der Ukraine in die NATO festgelegt worden waren.

Die Diskussionsteilnehmer in der Solowjow-Sendung sagten gestern Abend, dass sie erwarten, dass Trump die Hilfe für Kiew verringern oder ganz einstellen wird. Die Rede davon, die Grenzen der Ukraine von 1992 zu verteidigen und Russland auf dem Schlachtfeld eine demütigende Niederlage zuzufügen, ist verstummt. Aus Trumps Worten geht hervor, dass Moskau glaubt, dass die USA gleichgültig gegenüber den tatsächlichen Grenzen sein werden, die die Ukraine nach Abschluss eines Friedensabkommens behält, und dass sie auch keine Sicherheitsgarantien für die Ukraine abgeben oder einen NATO-Beitritt zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt in Betracht ziehen wollen. Alles, was zählt, ist, dass sich auf dem verbleibenden Territorium, das sich Ukraine nennen wird nachdem die Russen die militärischen Aktionen abgeschlossen haben, einen Anschein von Souveränität gibt.

Aus den Worten der Podiumsteilnehmer geht eindeutig hervor, dass sie nicht erwarten, dass Trump die vernichtenden Sanktionen durchsetzen wird, die Biden gerade gegen den russischen Energiesektor verhängt hat.

Am wichtigsten ist, dass sie erwarten, dass es bei dem möglichen Trump-Putin-Gipfel, der bald oder im April oder August stattfinden könnte, nicht um die Ukraine, sondern um eine Überarbeitung der globalen Sicherheitsarchitektur gehen wird. Das Wort wurde nicht verwendet, aber sie streben eindeutig eine Art Jalta-2-Verhandlung an. Die Verhandlungen werden mit Russland und nicht mit China geführt, da Russland das erste Land war, das die globale Hegemonie der USA direkt in Frage gestellt hat, und Russland nach wie vor der intellektuelle Anführer des globalen Südens gegenüber den BRICS-Staaten und einer multipolaren Welt ist.

Was Elon Musk betrifft, so haben die Diskussionsteilnehmer von Wladimir Solowjow seine unverblümten und beleidigenden Worte an die Regierungschefs in Europa und darüber hinaus, die Bidens willige Agenten im hybriden und kinetischen Krieg gegen ihr Land wegen der Ukraine waren, sehr genossen. Musk bezeichnete den deutschen Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz öffentlich als „dummen Narren“. Den kanadischen Premierminister Justin Trudeau nannte er „ein kleines Mädchen“, was eine abfällige Anspielung auf seine zweideutige sexuelle Orientierung ist. Moskau hat große Freude an einer solch skandalösen Behandlung seiner Feinde. Darüber hinaus sehen die Solowjow-Panelisten in allen jüngsten Handlungen von Musk, einschließlich seines X-Interviews mit der Co-Vorsitzenden der Alternative für Deutschland, Alice Weidel, eine Übung in Sachen Regimewechsel, die eine klare ideologische Dimension hat: korrupte und feige linksorientierte Regierungen in der Europäischen Union durch Russland-freundliche rechtsgerichtete und populistisch geführte Regierungen zu ersetzen. All dies wird von ihnen als eng mit Donald Trump abgestimmt angesehen und bestärkt sie in ihrer neu entdeckten Begeisterung für Donald.

Hoffen wir, dass sich die russischen Eliten dieses Mal in Bezug auf Trump nicht irren. Ihr Vertrauen schien so gefestigt zu sein, dass man geneigt ist zu glauben, dass es einen geheimen Draht zwischen dem neuen amerikanischen Präsidenten und dem Kreml gibt, was die bevorstehenden radikalen politischen Veränderungen bestätigen würde. In der Zwischenzeit können wir aufatmen.