Transcript submitted by a reader

NewsX: 0:00
On New Year’s Day, Russia launched a drone strike on Kiev, killing two and injuring six while damaging buildings in two districts, including a residential building. President Zelenskyy confirmed Russia’s actions, emphasising that even on New Year’s Eve, Russia’s focus was solely on harming Ukraine. In a related development, Russian gas exports through a Soviet-era pipeline running across Ukraine were halted on New Year’s Day. This marks the end of Moscow’s decades-long dominance over Europe’s energy markets. Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned company, confirmed the stoppage at 5 o’clock GMT after Ukraine refused to renew the gas transit agreement.

0:38
While this was widely anticipated, experts suggest that the suspension will not affect European Union gas prices in contrast to the sharp price hikes experienced in 2022 when Russia’s reduced gas supply triggered an energy crisis. First we’re going to be joined by our correspondent Aditya Wadwan. Aditya, I’d like to bring back to the strikes themselves that we saw over the New Year’s period. We know two people have died, six people have been injured. What else do you know?

NewsX correspondent Waghwan: 1:07
Well Josh, absolutely as you rightly pointed out, Russia retaliated to the Ukrainian drone strikes that took place in the Russian city of Kazan, you know, I mean, you know, I mean Russia launched the series of missiles and drones and you know the first explosion was heard at around 3 AM in Kiev and the second explosion was heard around 8 AM in the morning. So, you know, this is you know, this seems to be an unending war, you know, the war has been going on for quite some time now since 2022, the last year Ukraine war started and there has been no stopping since then, you know.

On the other side, if you see, you know, let’s put this into perspective, you know, Russian president, on one hand Russian president Vladimir Putin says that he’s ready to make compromises on the Ukraine war on the position of strength and not on weakness. But on the other hand, the other side, Russia is retaliating, is attacking Ukrainian cities again and again. And you know, so this needs to be seen as to how this entire scenario is, you know, going forward.

It is not clear as of now that after Donald Trump takes office as a US President on 20th January, whether this war will stop or not. So this needs to be seen, George. As we mentioned, the result of this, what has happened is that the Ukraine has stopped the flow or the gas supply to the European this will make really impact Russia’s position as a monopoly and energy supplier to the European also this needs to be seen yes George back to you in the studios.

2:45
Thank you Aditya I’m going to bring it back to the gas flow and I’m going to go to Gilbert Doctorow, a Russian affairs expert who joins us now. Gilbert Doctorow, in terms of the impact that this could have on Russia, we’ve seen, of course, that Zelensky has hailed it as a defeat for Moscow, but what will the impact be felt in Russia and what could be the financial impact?

Doctorow: 3:10
Well, the impact on Russia is likely to be negligible. To put a dollar sign next to this action, Russia has been supplying six and a half billion dollars per year in gas via the Ukrainian pipelines. That will now be zero.

At the same time, Ukraine will lose its transit fees, which have been one billion dollars per year. So both sides will be taking a cut. But I think the Ukrainian economy is vastly weaker than the Russian economy. The Russian economy, just to give you an example, Russia has imposed on itself a deprivation of export sales for its military equipment, for all of its tanks and artillery and whatever else that is purchased by India, by many countries around the world, because this equipment is needed for Russia’s continuing the military action in Ukraine. Russia has been by–

NewsX: 4:15
Sorry, Gilbert, to interrupt. I want to bring it back though to the impact that has been there on Russian businesses. We’ve seen of course that many Western companies have taken business away from Russia even though some are still operating on a smaller scale, but there must be some impact on this. It can’t be nothing. We’re looking at many, many businesses that have stopped trading with Russia. Experts have said that Russia in their current state can’t carry out a continued war for more than maybe one or two years at this rate. So there must be some impact. It can’t be negligible.

Doctorow: 4:46
Those same people who are saying what you just quoted expected that Russia would run out of artillery shells after a few months following the entry into the war in February 2022. So those same people are not to be taken as experts; they are propagandists. As regards money, as I was saying, Russia has cut off 35 billion dollars in its own military exports for a year. So what difference will a six and a half billion dollar loss [make]? And part of that is not a loss, because Russia will replace these pipeline sales by more LNG sales. The European Union imported more LNG from Russia in 2024 than in 2023. There are a lot of complications to this story, and a simple approach that Russia’s a loser is just propaganda from Kiev.

NewsX: 5:40
Ambassador Suresh Goel, I’m going to come to you next, because I really want to look at the impact that this is going to have on the rest of Europe. We saw when the war started– or when the war at least escalated past the 2014 Crimea annexation– we saw gas prices across the continent of Europe rise dramatically, and that is still being felt across Europe. But in terms of the financial impact, the EU are saying it’s not going to [be] that big of an issue. So can you provide some more context potentially on that for us?

Ambassador Goel:
My own sense is that if you look at the overall performance of pressured economy ever since the war with Ukraine began and also from the context of financial instruments to put pressure on any country, most often this pressure or the impact of any kind of financial pressures or the trade or sanctions has the impact only as far as the country subject to this pressure allows it to take it.

6:45
Let me explain what I mean. Iran, I am just giving a context here really. The USA had thought that Iran after all the trade sanctions, all the economic sanctions or the gas on the oil trade etc etc would be subjugated after some time and would actually [submit] to the USA demands on nuclear program. It didn’t happen. They continued with the nuclear enrichment, uranium enrichment.

Russia are in with the beginning of the Ukraine war there has been enormous pressure, and now there is no doubt that the Russian economy has been impacted. And it has been analyzed in the various articles of public domain, but not to the extent that the world thought it would happen.

7:39
They have been able to continue with the war effort despite all the pressure, and there are buyers of the oil, as unanticipated before. So my own sense would be that there would be an impact, but who will suffer from this? Moldova has had to cut down on their own energy xxxxxxx, and they are suffering from heat, a lack of heat. Therefore the countries which could be impacted by gas supply stoppage at this time, at this severe winter, would of course be only the also the countries who were actually buying gas earlier. Therefore, while the impact of Russia could be temporary for a few months till they find alternative buyers, impact on the European economies and people would be far more. And that is my sense.

NewsX: 8:37
Thank you very much, and we will continue to bring you the latest updates from across the Russia-Ukraine war, and any further developments that we have across the EU, with the continuation of the fuel crisis.

Transcript submitted by a reader

‘Napolitano: 0:33
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, January 2nd, 2025. Happy New Year to everyone. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us in just a moment on how will the special military operation in Ukraine end.

2:21
Professor Doctorow, a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome here. Happy New Year to you and your family. What do you think is the state of Russia today, its economy, its political stability, its perception of itself?

Doctorow: 2:42
Well, wars make nations, and Russia is no exception. From the start of the special military operation, there has been a dramatic change in Russia’s self-perception, that is of the large majority of the population, extending to the most critical and difficult stratum of the population, the intelligentsia. They have become patriots, which was not the case before. They have a lot of self-confidence and the economy is helping them.

I was noting with interest the usual critical remarks made about Russia, whatever they do there, in the “Financial Times” saying that Mr. Putin has a hard time recruiting people for his armed forces now, because they’ve had to raise the level of pay for odd sign-up. Yes, of course they have, because the salaries of working men have doubled in the last year. So of course they would have to make an incentive to those who are leaving work and taking on the risks of war, that much higher. The economy is doing very well. The Russian average person, as I say, is enjoying wealth that he did not have before, and that is driving inflation.

4:00
It is more money chasing– in the hands of people who spend what they receive, not save it and spend it because they always were hand to mouth. Well, now they have more in their hands and they’re spending it on goods, and the goods have not increased in volume sufficient to keep pace with the money in their hands. So that explains the inflation, which still is nine percent. There’s nothing dramatic. And the Russian central bank is doing what it can to control it.

But the mood is optimistic. The feeling is that the war is coming to its conclusion, meaning to a successful Russian victory on the ground. And there hasn’t been too much news these past couple of days because it is a holiday, because people were celebrating the New Year in Russia, which has all the power of Christmas and New Year’s combined there. But what has come out is, for example, today the announcement by the Ministry of Defense that they have taken full possession of the town of Korokulov, which was one of the important towns under contention for the last month or more. And we can see and expect that they will take the still more decisive logistical hub of Pokrovsk in the coming weeks.

5:18
What this means is, that they have crossed the 50 percent line in how much of the Donetsk region they possess, and they’re going for the finish line, which is at Dnieper River. I think that is within grasp, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they reached the Dnieper before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

Napolitano: 5:40
President Putin has indicated a desire to speak with President-elect Trump after he’s inaugurated, and Donald Trump has indicated a reciprocal desire. What do you think Putin wants from Trump? What will he ask for? What will his goal be in whatever conversations they have?

Doctorow:
The Russian goal is to put the discussion of a peace in Ukraine in the broader context of a revised security architecture for Europe. And that can only be discussed between Putin and Trump. They do not have an interest in Moscow in talking to the European Union or NATO member states in Europe, because they consider them all to be the proxies for the United States. They consider them all to be taking direction from the United States.

So they want to go to the source, which is not surprising. If you were a student of the Soviet Union as I was, you know that the Russians never put much, had much interest in dealing with individual West European countries. They always compared themselves and looked for doing a deal, cutting a deal with the United States. That’s the case today.

I think that Mr. Putin wants to discuss with Donald Trump how, what NATO will look like going forward, how all sides, European and Russian, can find security if the role of NATO is redefined or if it’s dissolved. This will be the subject. And here, when you speak about dissolution or downscaling NATO, I think Mr. Trump is the right person.

He’s made it plain that he’s not a fan of NATO. So that is the subject. And that is why, despite everything that Mr. Kellogg has put out and other spokesmen for the incoming Trump administration have said, all of which the Russians do not take seriously, particularly the notion that a deal could be done by extending the suspension period for Ukraine’s joining NATO. Absolutely excluded. Mr. Lavrov said that flat out in his press conference last week. So that is excluded. So why would they bother to see Trump? Because they have something different to talk to him about.

Napolitano: 8:08
I guess the war cannot really be ended without a resolution of NATO’s role in Europe, without a recasting of NATO’s role in Europe. That’s how I read what you just said. And you’ve also stated, I think quite correctly, that Donald Trump is the person to do it.

Doctorow:
Yes. No, they understand that, and they’re not put off by these various proposals that have been produced by Kellogg and have gone to the press. They understand that this is not coming from number one, it’s coming from his advisors, and that in fact Mr. Trump takes counsel of himself, or perhaps with Elon Musk.

Napolitano: 9:00
You know, one wonders about General Kellogg, because he sounds as bellicose as Tony Blinken. He doesn’t hold any portfolio. He’s not even going to be nominated to a position that requires Senate confirmation.

And the soon-to-become Secretary of State, who’s still a United States Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, hasn’t uttered a peep about any of this. Kellogg is confusing people. It doesn’t sound the way Trump sounded during the campaign, and the Russians are wise to dismiss it. One wonders why the general is a retired four-star general, why General Kellogg is even in the mix. I mean, there cannot be a resolution, a peaceful resolution of the special military operation if NATO has any future claim to Ukraine. So the idea that it ould happen in the future is just something that Lavrov and Putin won’t accept, no matter how far in the future it is. Am I right?

Doctorow: 10:06
Yes, and I don’t think they have a choice. Russia is not a dictatorship. Russia is a democracy of a sort, not the same as ours, but it is a democracy. It has votes that are not forced. It has legitimacy in casting ballots. And it also has Mr. Putin is a politician. He’s a statesman, but he’s a politician.

And he has to face pressures within his entourage and further afield. This war has gone on much longer than anybody anticipated, for a number of reasons that most of the critics in the West, including some very sincere and well-respected people like [Paul] Craig Roberts, don’t quite get: that Putin has not had a general mobilization; he has sought to carry out his special military operation with a relatively low number of troops assigned to the task. Certainly not adequate to storm Ukraine and run through it in a matter of days or weeks. No, no.

11:17
He’s doing it in a deliberate way, which keeps the public at home out of the war, in the sense that there is no draft. Mothers aren’t up in arms, Wives are not up in arms about their loved ones being sent off to the war. It is a political solution by a supremely experienced political operator, which is what Mr. Putin is. He has to consider the realities.

If he were to have a general mobilization, there would be a lot of political disturbance, just what the United States would like to happen. But he isn’t allowing that. By playing it slow, by working his way steadily with the limited forces that he can muster by means of the sign-up volunteers.

Napolitano: 12:17
So how does the war end, Professor?

Doctorow:
With the collapse of the Ukrainian army. I think that once the army goes, then the political establishment around Mr. Zelensky will crumble, and they’ll all be looking for their first plane out. They are there because the army has resisted and resisted valiantly. I think the audience has to appreciate that this is not Russia flattening Ukraine in one blow. And that the Ukrainians, despite everything, are mostly not running from the front.

Every day the Russian forces in one place or another find themselves in counter-offensive, small ones, which they defeat, and nonetheless the enemy is not running away. The enemy is being pushed back, and the momentum on the Russian side is precisely to prevent the Ukrainians from having the time or the engineering possibilities to build protections, to defend themselves through earthworks or concrete bunkers or whatever. The Russian army keeps on moving, advancing, and does not allow the Ukrainians to establish defensive positions. That is the first and most obvious reason why Russia cannot agree to a ceasefire.

Napolitano: 13:53
Can you foresee a division of Ukraine, like Germany was divided after World War II?

Doctorow;
Well, this question is very topical, and it was raised and brought to the attention of all of us in the West by Dmitry Trinin, who is a senior military analyst, think tank person, a member of the highest and most respectied consultative groups on foreign and military issues in Russia, in the Kremlin. And Trinin published an article less than two weeks ago in which he was proposing various outcomes for this war, including the division of Ukraine into a good Ukraine, which would be the territory east of the Dnieper River, minus those parts of this geography that Russia considers strategically essential for its security. And other substantial withdrawals: precisely, we’re speaking about Odessa and Nikolaevs and Kherson. These territories pose a threat to Russia if they are inhabited by hostile forces. So they would be taken out.

But what would be left in this land east of the Dnieper could be our Ukraine, a friendly Ukraine, a country with sovereignty, but disposed towards Russia and receiving assistance from Russia in reconstruction. Then all of the nasties, the neo-Nazis, the Bandera fans that are determining the policies in Kiev today, they would be pushed west into the Lvov area, the area of Ukraine that was, if you look back historically, never part of Russia. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and always was fomenting anti-Russian, Ukrainian nationalism from the end of the 19th century. This part of Ukraine missed her train. We could cede to, let Europeans look after it, let them pick up the pieces. We don’t want it. It costs us too much to administer, so let’s leave that alone.

16:19
Well, that is one proposal by a very well-respected and intelligent military expert, that has been making the circles of discussion. And I and some of our peers have been addressing it. My particular view is that a divided Ukraine in that respect is not workable for the same reason that you have to consider what happened to divided Germany. It reunited. So what would prevent the pro-Russian, free, independent, sovereign Ukraine to decide to reunite with the baddies on the other side of the Dnieper River? Nothing.

And so I think that is a faulty notion, that Ukraine can be divided. And as I said, the nature of Ukraine, where its borders are, is a minor part of the big story. The big story is NATO and Russia’s relations with NATO. Ukraine is a threat to Russia only if NATO exists and is able to use Ukraine against Russia as it has been doing the last 14 years.

Napolitano: 17:32
What happens if Donald Trump closes the spigot of military supplies and ammunition and cash on January 21st?

Doctorow:
I think the capitulation of the Ukrainian army would follow in a few weeks. The Europeans are in no position to provide the artillery shells, the new artillery pieces, the rapid-fire missile launchers, like HIMARS, they don’t have that. So the ability of the Ukrainian army to defend itself would be reduced to nil in a very few weeks. And the ultimate result would be capitulation.

Napolitano; 18:23
Can President Putin, excuse me, can President Zelensky survive capitulation? I mean, literally survive it? Or would he be killed or forced into exile by the nationalists?

Doctorow:
Well, I think you just identified it. It’s not a secret issue. Every time that there was a possibility of a negotiation and a peaceful solution, the people around Zelensky, these, what they call the Rednecks, the neo-Nazis, they made it plain that he would be lynched, and he’s not a stupid man. So I think that he would find his way on the first plane out, if it looked like capitulation is coming.

Napolitano: 19:14
Can you explain to us, Professor Doctorow, the situation with the Russian sale of natural gas to Europe, which passes through, I think I have this correctly, Ukraine, and which has now been turned off and which has resulted in skyrocketing petrol prices at the pump in Europe, from the people from whom President Zelensky has sought help. Is he biting the hand that he wants to feed him?

Doctorow:
Well, it is an anomaly, of course, that Ukraine continued to supply Russian gas to Europe, taking its tips. Well, the tips are not so bad. There’s about 20 percent or 15 percent tip they were getting for the transit fees. The latest estimate is that Russian gas traveling through Ukraine was being delivered to Europe at a level of six and a half billion dollars a year, of which one billion dollars, between 800 million and one billion dollars, was paid back to Ukraine for its services. As to Russia, the loss of six billion dollars in sales of gas is not a big deal. The likelihood is that some of this gas will nonetheless be delivered to Europe by further expanded LNG deliveries from Russia. Despite everything in 2024, Europe imported more liquefied natural gas from Russia than it did in 2023.

20:48
So that is … the economic loss to Russia is not great. And let’s consider going back to 2000, 2005, 2006, especially in 2009, there were very bitter conflicts between Moscow and Kiev over Ukrainians siphoning off gas from the pipelines, gas that should have been sent onto Europe and taking it into their own distribution system for their domestic needs, illegally. There was also a major dispute which caused a shutdown of Russian deliveries of gas into Ukraine over the non-payment for gas by Ukraine. So there, these relations were very difficult going back, as I say, to 2005.

But it should end now. It’s only logical. It is an anomaly for Zelensky to be demanding daily more sanctions on Russia. We shouldn’t be buying anything from them when his own country is facilitating this $6 billion sale of Russian gas.

Napolitano: 21:59
What are the consequences to consumers and industries in Europe, to Zelensky’s decision to close down that pipeline, literally in the past 48 hours?

Doctorow:
Well, the most vulnerable country is Slovakia, and That’s why Fico made this unexpected visit to Moscow– this is what, comes back a week– to discuss with Vladimir Putin what his alternative sources of gas may be and what action he could take or Russia would take to ensure that he gets gas. There are three countries in Central Europe that are affected by this. There’s Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. Slovakia is the most exposed.

22:43
Austria has found alternative sources, mostly coming, this is LNG gas, that is sent on through the European-wide gas pipelines to Austria. Some of the same solution has been found by Mr. Orban, though he seems to be receiving substantial deliveries of Russian gas through the Turkish pipelines. I don’t know whether that can be extended to Slovakia to help Mr. Fico out of his problem.

But if there is this very big inflation in cost of gas at the pump in Europe or elsewhere, it is a speculative bubble, which I don’t believe has any justification. Because we’re speaking about a five-percent shortfall in European gas that could result from the turnoff of the Ukrainian pipelines, and that can possibly be compensated for by other means, either increased LNG deliveries for other providers.

Napolitano: 23:54
I don’t mean this to sound in a snarky way, but has the Nord Stream pipeline been repaired?

Doctorow:
I’ve seen various accounts that– they are not substantiated, and I can’t say that they are reliable– that the Russians have linked up the Nord Stream pipeline with Kaliningrad. So they would get some benefit from their own gas. Otherwise, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is still workable. It’s the Nord Stream 1 that was destroyed, and really not destroyed in a way that is irreparable. I’ve heard your discussions that for a billion dollars or something like that, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline can be returned to service. So if and when this war ends, if and when Europeans come to their senses, if and when the elites that are presently pursuing these self-destructive policies of isolating and cutting off Russia, if one [day] they are pushed to the side, then it’s entirely thinkable that the Russian supplies of gas could be increased very substantially, very quickly.

Napolitano: 25:13
President Trump has invited President Xi of China to his inauguration. As far as I know, President Xi has not yet responded. If he invites President Putin, do you think President Putin will come?

Doctorow:
Not if he’s going to be arrested. No, the United States is not part of it, the International Court, but I don’t think that his security would be very promising, considering the state-to-state relations. But anything is possible. Mr. Trump pulls more than one rabbit out of [the hat].

Napolitano:
Professor Doctor, a pleasure my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Happy new year to you and your family. I hope you’ll join us again next week.

Doctorow:
Well, great kind of you, and I look forward to it.

Napolitano:
All the best, and thank you. And coming up later today at one o’clock Eastern this afternoon, Scott Ritter. At three o’clock, Professor John Mearsheimer; at five o’clock, Max Blumenthal.

26:21
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

On this second day of the New Year, Russians are vacationing or watching the classic Soviet movies running on state television, if they are not taking the kids to see the just released blockbuster film Bogatyri, about fabled Russian heroes of yore in which all the latest Western action movie cinematic tricks are deployed.

That is to say all Russians are relaxing except those on the battlefields of the Special Military Operation. As for the soldiers, they continued their advances on the line of confrontation, taking the important logistical hub of Kurakhovo in the Donetsk republic after a couple of months of slowly pummeling the city with artillery and bombs.

However, Russia made news in our Western media today for reasons having nothing to do with the battlefield. It was rather due to the shutdown after midnight on the 1st of their gas deliveries to Ukrainian pipelines, which no longer were providing transit to Western Europe now that the 5 year contract between Russia and Ukraine had expired. In effect, Russia’s annual sales of 6.5 billion dollars of gas to its customers in Central Europe via the Ukrainian gas system came to an end. 

Zelensky claimed that this shutdown represented a major defeat for Russia. Whether that corresponds to reality was the subject of this brief panel discussion on News X, a program on India’s English language broadcaster ITV.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

NewsX World: Russland stoppt Gaslieferungen an die Ukraine

Am zweiten Tag des neuen Jahres machen die Russen Urlaub oder schauen sich die sowjetischen Filmklassiker im staatlichen Fernsehen an, wenn sie nicht gerade mit ihren Kindern den gerade erschienenen Blockbuster „Bogatyri“ („Bogatyr“) über die sagenumwobenen russischen Helden von einst anschauen, in dem alle neuesten filmischen Tricks der westlichen Actionfilme zum Einsatz kommen.

Das heißt, alle Russen entspannen sich, außer denen auf den Schlachtfeldern der militärischen Spezialoperation. Die Soldaten setzten ihren Vormarsch an der Konfrontationslinie fort und eroberten nach einigen Monaten, in denen sie die Stadt langsam mit Artillerie und Bomben beschossen hatten, das wichtige Logistikzentrum Kurakhovo in der Republik Donezk.

Russland machte jedoch heute in unseren westlichen Medien aus Gründen Schlagzeilen, die nichts mit dem Schlachtfeld zu tun haben. Es lag vielmehr an der Einstellung der Gaslieferungen in die ukrainischen Pipelines nach Mitternacht am 1. Januar, die nun, da der Fünfjahresvertrag zwischen Russland und der Ukraine ausgelaufen war, keinen Transit mehr nach Westeuropa ermöglichen. Damit endet Russlands jährlicher Verkauf von 6,5 Milliarden Dollar Gas an seine Kunden in Mitteleuropa über das ukrainische Gassystem.

Zelensky behauptete, dass diese Abschaltung eine große Niederlage für Russland darstelle. Ob dies der Realität entspricht, war Gegenstand dieser kurzen Podiumsdiskussion auf News X, einer Sendung des englischsprachigen indischen Senders ITV.

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 2 January:  How the War in Ukraine Will End

The title which Judge Napolitano assigned to this chat says it all. We discussed in particular why Vladimir Putin is amenable to meeting with Donald Trump given the bellicose statements that General Kellogg and others whom Trump is bringing into his administration have been making and their nonstarter proposals for simply postponing Ukraine’s accession to NATO for some more years, which the Russians have rejected outright. 

The Russians may have no illusions about the United States but they know, as the Soviets once did, that all of the European leaders count for nothing, that they are all underlings or proxies for the USA. 

In short, the Russians can pulverize the Ukrainian army and may do so in the coming weeks before the inauguration in Washington.  But to find peace in Europe they must strike a deal with Washington over the downsizing or dissolution of NATO.

I appreciated the opportunity to remind viewers that Russia is a democracy, in its own fashion, and that Mr Putin is not only a statesman but also a politician who has to deal with pressures from various strata of the population. And that is why this war has been drawn out so long: for the Kremlin to overpower Ukraine at a stroke, they would have had to bring into play far more troops than were available in February 2022, meaning through mass mobilization.  And such a mobilization would have been very unpopular.  This political stress was avoided by using the war of attrition method that Russia has applied.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Judging Freedom”-Ausgabe vom 2. Januar: Wie der Krieg in der Ukraine enden wird.

Der Titel, den Judge Napolitano diesem Chat gegeben hat, sagt alles. Wir haben insbesondere darüber diskutiert, warum Wladimir Putin zu einem Treffen mit Donald Trump bereit ist, angesichts der kriegerischen Äußerungen von General Kellogg und anderen, die Trump in seine Regierung holt, und ihrer untauglichen Vorschläge, den NATO-Beitritt der Ukraine einfach um einige Jahre zu verschieben, was die Russen rundheraus abgelehnt haben.

Die Russen mögen sich keine Illusionen über die Vereinigten Staaten machen, aber sie wissen, wie einst die Sowjets, dass alle europäischen Staats- und Regierungschefs nichts zählen, dass sie alle Untergebene oder Stellvertreter der USA sind.

Kurz gesagt, die Russen können die ukrainische Armee vernichten, und das möglicherweise in den kommenden Wochen vor der Amtseinführung in Washington. Aber um Frieden in Europa zu finden, müssen sie mit Washington eine Einigung über die Verkleinerung oder Auflösung der NATO erzielen.

Ich habe die Gelegenheit genutzt, um die Zuschauer daran zu erinnern, dass Russland auf seine eigene Art und Weise eine Demokratie ist und dass Herr Putin nicht nur ein Staatsmann, sondern auch ein Politiker ist, der sich mit dem Druck verschiedener Bevölkerungsschichten auseinandersetzen muss. Und deshalb hat sich dieser Krieg so lange hingezogen: Um die Ukraine mit einem Schlag zu überwältigen, hätte der Kreml weitaus mehr Truppen ins Spiel bringen müssen, als im Februar 2022 verfügbar waren, d.h. durch eine Massenmobilisierung. Und eine solche Mobilisierung wäre sehr unpopulär gewesen. Dieser politische Stress wurde durch die von Russland angewandte Zermürbungskrieg-Methode vermieden.

Several comments on my latest essay and an essay on the same subject posted on the substack account of Karlof 1 prompt me to return to this subject with a few fresh observations of my own.

In particular, I have further remarks on Trenin’s preferred solution, which was to divide what is left of Ukraine after Russia takes those regions it considers to be of strategic importance for its own security into two parts: a westernmost ‘Free’ part that would be the dumping ground for neo-Nazi riff-raff now in Kiev and protected and/or controlled by Poland, Hungary and Romania – and a second, ‘good Ukraine’ that would be rehabilitated and find itself in the Russian sphere of influence, eventually becoming a Russian ally.

I already called out how ceding the westernmost part of Ukraine to NATO powers compromises the reason that the war was initiated by Russia. That was to expel NATO from all of Ukraine, thereby starting the process of rolling-back the Alliance to its West European member states such as existed before the expansion begun during the Clinton administration.

However, there are other points which I neglected to make.  The most important is that the Ukraine problem cannot be solved definitively until and unless the NATO problem is solved definitively by redrawing the security architecture of Europe.  A NATO in its present form, with some foothold in Ukraine, a NATO that has not been publicly humiliated and reined in, if not dissolved here and now will continue to be an existential threat to Russia. It will persist in its ‘mission’ of bringing Russia to its knees via Moldova, or Georgia, or Kazakhstan, or, if need be, the Baltics, Sweden and Finland.

Those who say that NATO will collapse on its own overestimate the differences between the overwhelming majority of member states and two dissident members, Hungary and Slovakia. NATO’s collapse can only be engineered by the United States and Russia acting in agreement over what security arrangements will follow.

Meanwhile, Trenin’s preferred solution of two Ukraines fails to consider the possibility that they will eventually decide on their own to reunite, as the GDR and the FRG did.  Given the level of hostility that the Ukrainian nation feels towards Russia now after 10 years of indoctrination by the ultra-nationalists who have been in power since 2014, given the vast suffering that Russia has inflicted on the population through destruction of the energy infrastructure that will take years to restore and the vast numbers of Ukrainian soldiers killed or severely wounded, I find it improbable that any part of that nation will join hands with Russia for a better future together.  Their possible threat to Russia can only be neutralized if NATO is removed from the equation, not only on their territory but in Europe as a whole.

At present, it is only by the will of the United States that NATO can be de-fanged.  This should be the proper subject for any Trump-Putin summit, not some cease fire or even some peace treaty with Ukraine.

                                                                           *****

In closing, I point out that essentially what Trenin is recommending is a division of the Ukrainian nation into two political camps roughly along lines that go back further in time than WWII.  Before WWI, the Lvov region, Volhynia and Galicia were all part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and everything to the east was part of the Russian empire.  The Austrians encouraged use of the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian ambitions as a battering ram against the part of Ukraine east of the Dnieper that was the Russian Empire, where the Ukrainian national feelings were tamped down by the ruling dynasty. That was not a solution that survived 1914 and it is not a solution for today. Not local but Europe-wide solutions are needed.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Weitere Gedanken zu Trenin und dem Kriegsende

Mehrere Kommentare zu meinem neuesten Essay und einem Essay zum gleichen Thema, die auf dem Substack-Account von Karlof 1 gepostet wurden, veranlassen mich, mit ein paar eigenen frischen Beobachtungen auf dieses Thema zurückzukommen.

Insbesondere habe ich weitere Anmerkungen zu Trenins bevorzugter Lösung, nämlich die Aufteilung dessen, was von der Ukraine übrig bleibt, nachdem Russland die Regionen eingenommen hat, die es für seine eigene Sicherheit als strategisch wichtig erachtet, in zwei Teile: einen westlichsten „freien“ Teil, der als Sammelbecken für das Neonazi-Gesindel, das sich derzeit in Kiew aufhält und von Polen, Ungarn und Rumänien geschützt und/oder kontrolliert wird, und eine zweite, „gute Ukraine“, die rehabilitiert würde und sich im russischen Einflussbereich wiederfände, um schließlich ein Verbündeter Russlands zu werden.

Ich habe bereits darauf hingewiesen, dass die Abtretung des westlichsten Teils der Ukraine an die NATO-Mächte den Grund dafür, dass der Krieg von Russland initiiert wurde, in Frage stellt. Russland wollte die NATO aus der gesamten Ukraine vertreiben und damit den Prozess einleiten, das Bündnis auf seine westeuropäischen Mitgliedstaaten zurückzufahren, wie es vor Beginn der Erweiterung unter der Clinton-Regierung der Fall war.

Es gibt jedoch noch andere Punkte, die ich nicht angesprochen habe. Der wichtigste ist, dass das Ukraine-Problem erst dann endgültig gelöst werden kann, wenn das NATO-Problem durch eine Neugestaltung der Sicherheitsarchitektur Europas endgültig gelöst ist. Eine NATO in ihrer jetzigen Form, mit einem gewissen Standbein in der Ukraine, eine NATO, die nicht öffentlich gedemütigt und gezügelt, wenn nicht sogar aufgelöst wird, wird auch weiterhin eine existenzielle Bedrohung für Russland darstellen. Sie wird an ihrer „Mission“ festhalten, Russland über Moldawien, Georgien, Kasachstan oder, wenn nötig, die baltischen Staaten, Schweden und Finnland in die Knie zu zwingen.

Diejenigen, die sagen, dass die NATO von selbst zusammenbrechen wird, überschätzen die Differenzen zwischen der überwältigenden Mehrheit der Mitgliedstaaten und den beiden abtrünnigen Mitgliedern Ungarn und Slowakei. Der Zusammenbruch der NATO kann nur von den Vereinigten Staaten und Russland herbeigeführt werden, die sich über die nachfolgenden Sicherheitsvereinbarungen einig sind.

Unterdessen berücksichtigt Trenins bevorzugte Lösung von zwei Ukrainen nicht die Möglichkeit, dass sie sich irgendwann von selbst für eine Wiedervereinigung entscheiden, wie es die DDR und die BRD getan haben. Angesichts der Feindseligkeit, die die ukrainische Nation Russland gegenüber empfindet, nach zehn Jahren Indoktrination durch die Ultranationalisten, die seit 2014 an der Macht sind, angesichts des enormen Leids, das Russland der Bevölkerung durch die Zerstörung der Energieinfrastruktur, deren Wiederherstellung Jahre dauern wird, und die große Zahl getöteter oder schwer verwundeter ukrainischer Soldaten zugefügt hat, halte ich es für unwahrscheinlich, dass sich ein Teil dieser Nation mit Russland zusammenschließen wird, um gemeinsam eine bessere Zukunft zu schaffen. Ihre mögliche Bedrohung für Russland kann nur neutralisiert werden, wenn die NATO aus der Gleichung entfernt wird, nicht nur auf ihrem Territorium, sondern in ganz Europa.

Derzeit kann die NATO nur durch den Willen der Vereinigten Staaten entschärft werden. Dies sollte das eigentliche Thema eines Trump-Putin-Gipfels sein, nicht irgendein Waffenstillstand oder gar ein Friedensvertrag mit der Ukraine.

                                                                           *****

Abschließend möchte ich darauf hinweisen, dass Trenin im Wesentlichen eine Aufteilung der ukrainischen Nation in zwei politische Lager empfiehlt, die in etwa auf eine Zeit vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zurückgeht. Vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg gehörten die Region Lemberg, Wolhynien und Galizien alle zum österreichisch-ungarischen Reich und alles östlich davon zum russischen Reich. Die Österreicher förderten die Verwendung der ukrainischen Sprache und ukrainische Ambitionen als Rammbock gegen den Teil der Ukraine östlich des Dnepr, der zum Russischen Reich gehörte, wo die ukrainischen Nationalgefühle von der herrschenden Dynastie unterdrückt wurden. Diese Lösung war 1914 nicht mehr tragbar und ist es auch heute nicht. Es sind keine lokalen, sondern europaweite Lösungen erforderlich.

I open with a word of appreciation to a colleague for directing my attention to the latest essay on possible outcomes of the Special Military Operation published by the leading Russian political scientist and military expert, Dmitry Trenin.  A ‘full’ version of his essay in Russian came out on the website of the authoritative Russian Council on International Relations on 18 December:

https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/comments/kakoy-dolzhna-stat-ukraina-posle-zaversheniya-rossiyskoy-spetsoperatsii/

A slightly shorter English language version published two days later is available here:

Dmitry Trenin: What Ukraine should look like after Russia’s victory

For those who are not acquainted with Trenin’s background, I offer some relevant information: He had a distinguished 20-year career as a Soviet, then Russian military officer reaching the grade of lieutenant colonel. Five of these years he spent in East Germany, based in Potsdam, presumably in intelligence work. The next five years he taught in the Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense, while also completing a doctoral program within the Institute of the USA and Canada. From 1985 to 1991 he was a member of the Soviet delegation to the US-Soviet negotiations over arms control in Geneva.

In the new millennium, Trenin positioned himself as a genial intermediary in Russian-US relations by serving from 2008 to 2022 as the head of the Carnegie Center Moscow. This US financed think tank in fact was a prestigious refuge for seditious anti-Putin, anti-Russia members of the Moscow intelligentsia.

With the launch of the SMO, the Carnegie Moscow was finally shut down and Dmitry Trenin had an epiphany moment; as did other long-time intermediaries between East and West like Dmitry Simes Sergei Karaganov and Dmitry Medvedev.  All of these converts to strongly formulated Russian patriotism have been said in the West to speak for Putin today, however I believe that their supposed closeness to the Russian president is grossly exaggerated.

                                                                     *****

In this essay, Trenin sketches four possible outcomes of the war:

1. Conquest of the entire country and its full integration into the Russian Federation which will then assume its reconstruction and rehabilitation. This he rejects as imposing too great financial and administrative burdens on Russia

2   A Western oriented Ukraine  – which he believes would be the worst outcome, since it would constitute  a large and populous country with revanchist and hostile intentions towards Russia supported by its friends abroad.

3. A failed state, wrecked Ukraine left to dry in the wind. This also would be dangerous for Russia because the internal chaos of contending parties on Ukrainian territory would spill over into Russia.
4. A divided Ukraine.  I quote:

Anti-Russian forces could be pushed into the western regions under NATO protection, possibly splitting the country into a “Free Ukraine” controlled by Poland, Hungary, and Romania, and a new Ukraine. Let the West console itself with this Cold War-style buffer state.

 This Trenin calls ‘the most realistic and advantageous outcome.”

Trenin seems content for the rump Western Ukraine consisting of former Polish (Volhynia, Galicia), Hungarian and Romanian territory from before WWII be protected by NATO. I call this peculiar logic, since the whole purpose of the Special Military Operation was to remove NATO from all of Ukraine, as the first step towards an overall roll-back of NATO installations to their pre-1994 borders, before its expansion eastward began in the Clinton years. That was precisely the objective stated by Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov in December 2021, when Russia officially demanded that its security concerns finally be dealt with by the USA and NATO.

Trenin does not tell us where the borders between the two Ukraines would be drawn. Nor does he say where the borders of the Russian Federation would be with the ‘New Ukraine’ that is nominally independent but clearly in the Russian sphere of influence. Over time he expects the ‘New Ukraine’ to pass from being pacified, to being peaceful to being an ally of Russia. Russia will assist the reconstruction of the ‘New Ukraine.’

All that Trenin says about borders is the following:

Crimea, Donbass, and two other regions have already returned to Russia through referendums. More will likely follow – perhaps Odessa, Nikolayev, Kharkov, or Dnepropetrovsk. But not all of them. We will take only what can be integrated and defended. Expansion must be strategic, not emotional.

If strategic considerations indeed will be the basis for defining new borders, then Russia surely will take and keep Kharkov, Nikolayev and Odessa.

I stress that the reasons for taking and keeping these cities will not depend on the fact that they were always populated predominantly by Russians and have large Russian populations today.  No, the strategic logic for each is as follows:

Kharkov borders on three Russian Federation oblasts and has been used as the launching grounds for Ukrainian artillery and missile attacks as well as for armed incursions.  It must be pacified and held.

Nikolayev is on the route to Odessa. And Odessa is the essential outpost consolidating Russian access to the Transdnistria, the break-away Russian populated enclave in Moldova that now may become the next flashpoint between Russia and NATO as its president Sandu draws ever closer to the EU and NATO, and as she prepares for an armed assault on the Transdnistria. If taking this stretch of the Black Sea littoral deprives Ukraine of a seaport, so much the better.

In conclusion, Trenin’s paper raises more questions than it answers. Vladimir Putin’s in-house team will have to do a great deal of work in coming weeks to have in hand its negotiating positions for any discussions with Donald Trump over an eventual peace.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Dmitry Trenins Gedanken zum möglichen Ende des Ukraine-Krieges

Zunächst möchte ich einem Kollegen dafür danken, dass er mich auf den neuesten Aufsatz über mögliche Ergebnisse der militärischen Sonderoperation aufmerksam gemacht hat, der von dem führenden russischen Politikwissenschaftler und Militärexperten Dmitry Trenin veröffentlicht wurde. Eine „vollständige“ Version seines Aufsatzes in russischer Sprache wurde am 18. Dezember auf der Website des maßgeblichen russischen Rates für internationale Beziehungen veröffentlicht:

https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-comments/comments/kakoy-dolzhna-stat-ukraina-posle-zaversheniya-rossiyskoy-spetsoperatsii/

Eine etwas kürzere englische Version, die zwei Tage später veröffentlicht wurde, finden Sie hier: https://thecrudetruth.com/dmitry-trenin-what-ukraine-should-look-like-after-russias-victory/

Für diejenigen, die mit Trenins Hintergrund nicht vertraut sind, möchte ich einige relevante Informationen geben: Er hatte eine 20-jährige Karriere als sowjetischer und später russischer Militäroffizier, in der er den Rang eines Oberstleutnants erreichte. Fünf dieser Jahre verbrachte er in Ostdeutschland, mit Sitz in Potsdam, vermutlich im Bereich der Geheimdienstarbeit. Die nächsten fünf Jahre unterrichtete er am Militärinstitut des Verteidigungsministeriums und absolvierte gleichzeitig ein Promotionsprogramm am Institut der USA und Kanada. Von 1985 bis 1991 war er Mitglied der sowjetischen Delegation bei den Verhandlungen zwischen den USA und der Sowjetunion über Rüstungskontrolle in Genf.

Im neuen Jahrtausend positionierte sich Trenin als genialer Vermittler in den russisch-amerikanischen Beziehungen, indem er von 2008 bis 2022 als Leiter des Carnegie Center Moscow fungierte. Diese von den USA finanzierte Denkfabrik war in der Tat ein angesehener Zufluchtsort für aufrührerische Anti-Putin- und Anti-Russland-Mitglieder der Moskauer Intelligenz.

Mit Beginn der SMO wurde das Carnegie-Zentrum in Moskau schließlich geschlossen und Dmitry Trenin hatte eine Art Offenbarungserlebnis; ebenso wie andere langjährige Vermittler zwischen Ost und West wie Dmitry Simes, Sergei Karaganov und Dmitry Medvedev. All diese Konvertiten zum stark ausgeprägten russischen Patriotismus werden im Westen als Fürsprecher Putins bezeichnet, doch ich glaube, dass ihre angebliche Nähe zum russischen Präsidenten stark übertrieben ist.

                                                                     *****

In diesem Essay skizziert Trenin vier mögliche Kriegsausgänge:

1. Eroberung des gesamten Landes und seine vollständige Integration in die Russische Föderation, die dann den Wiederaufbau und die Rehabilitation übernehmen würde. Dies lehnt er ab, da es Russland eine zu große finanzielle und administrative Belastung auferlegen würde.
2. Eine westlich orientierte Ukraine – was seiner Meinung nach das schlechteste Ergebnis wäre, da es sich um ein großes und bevölkerungsreiches Land mit revanchistischen und feindlichen Absichten gegenüber Russland handeln würde, das von seinen Freunden im Ausland unterstützt würde.
3. Ein gescheiterter Staat, eine zerstörte Ukraine, die sich selbst überlassen ist. Dies wäre auch für Russland gefährlich, da das interne Chaos der sich bekämpfenden Parteien auf ukrainischem Gebiet auf Russland übergreifen würde.
4. Eine geteilte Ukraine. Ich zitiere:

Die antirussischen Kräfte könnten unter dem Schutz der NATO in die westlichen Regionen gedrängt werden, wodurch das Land möglicherweise in eine „Freie Ukraine“, die von Polen, Ungarn und Rumänien kontrolliert wird, und eine neue Ukraine aufgeteilt würde. Der Westen kann sich mit diesem Pufferstaat im Stil des Kalten Krieges trösten.

Trenin bezeichnet dies als „das realistischste und vorteilhafteste Ergebnis“.

Trenin scheint damit zufrieden zu sein, dass der Rest der Westukraine, der aus dem ehemaligen polnischen (Wolhynien, Galizien), ungarischen und rumänischen Gebiet vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg besteht, von der NATO geschützt wird. Ich nenne das eine seltsame Logik, denn der eigentliche Zweck der militärischen Sonderoperation bestand darin, die NATO aus der gesamten Ukraine zu entfernen, als ersten Schritt hin zu einer allgemeinen Rückführung der NATO-Einrichtungen auf die Grenzen von vor 1994, bevor die Osterweiterung in den Clinton-Jahren begann. Genau das war das Ziel, das der stellvertretende Außenminister Ryabkow im Dezember 2021 formuliert hat, als Russland offiziell forderte, dass seine Sicherheitsbedenken endlich von den USA und der NATO geachtet werden.

Trenin sagt uns nicht, wo die Grenzen zwischen den beiden Ukrainen verlaufen würden. Er sagt auch nicht, wo die Grenzen der Russischen Föderation zur „Neuen Ukraine“ verlaufen würden, die nominell unabhängig ist, aber eindeutig im russischen Einflussbereich liegt. Er geht davon aus, dass die „Neue Ukraine“ im Laufe der Zeit von einem befriedeten Land zu einem friedlichen Land und schließlich zu einem Verbündeten Russlands wird. Russland wird den Wiederaufbau der „Neuen Ukraine“ unterstützen.

Trenin sagt über die Grenzen nur Folgendes:

Die Krim, der Donbass und zwei weitere Regionen sind bereits durch Referenden zu Russland zurückgekehrt. Weitere werden wahrscheinlich folgen – vielleicht Odessa, Nikolajew, Charkiw oder Dnepropetrowsk. Aber nicht alle. Wir werden nur das übernehmen, was integriert und verteidigt werden kann. Die Erweiterung muss strategisch und nicht emotional erfolgen.

Wenn strategische Überlegungen tatsächlich die Grundlage für die Festlegung neuer Grenzen bilden, dann wird Russland Charkiw, Nikolajew und Odessa mit Sicherheit einnehmen und behalten.

Ich betone, dass die Gründe für die Einnahme und den Besitz dieser Städte nicht davon abhängen, dass sie immer überwiegend von Russen bewohnt waren und heute eine große russische Bevölkerung haben. Nein, die strategische Logik für jede einzelne Stadt ist wie folgt:

Charkiw grenzt an drei Oblaste der Russischen Föderation und wurde als Startplatz für ukrainische Artillerie- und Raketenangriffe sowie für bewaffnete Übergriffe genutzt. Sie muss befriedet und gehalten werden.

Nikolajew liegt auf der Route nach Odessa. Und Odessa ist der wesentliche Außenposten, der den Zugang Russlands zu Transnistrien, der von Russland besiedelten abtrünnigen Enklave in Moldawien, konsolidiert. Transnistrien könnte nun zum nächsten Krisenherd zwischen Russland und der NATO werden, da seine Präsidentin Sandu sich immer näher an die EU und die NATO annähert und sich auf einen bewaffneten Angriff auf Transnistrien vorbereitet. Wenn die Ukraine durch die Übernahme dieses Küstenabschnitts am Schwarzen Meer einen Seehafen verliert, umso besser.

Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass Trenins Artikel mehr Fragen aufwirft als beantwortet. Wladimir Putins internes Team wird in den kommenden Wochen viel Arbeit leisten müssen, um seine Verhandlungspositionen für etwaige Gespräche mit Donald Trump über einen möglichen Frieden festzulegen.

Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:33
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Tuesday, December 24th, 2024, Christmas Eve throughout the world. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure and thank you very much for joining us.

You have a very interesting and fascinating piece out on the new sovereignty and how the new sovereignty of the EU is creating tensions between national sovereignty and the sort of collective group sovereignty. But before we get there, how desperate is the Ukraine government that it has resorted to the assassination of a general in Moscow and now attacks on civilians 500 miles east of Moscow. What is the message that Ukraine is trying to send, and how is that message received in the Kremlin?

Gilbert Doctorow:
There’s an old rather nasty expression, “If you can’t do, teach.” And there’s also, I think, if you can’t do it on the battlefield, then use terrorism. This is, you’ve used the word “desperate”, and I think it’s appropriate to define that, although the Ukrainians were doing this some time ago, even before they became desperate, on the front lines of Donbass. They have been engaged in terrorism, if we take the classic definition that that is what you do when you attack civilians to create terror, to create havoc and concern, and you are not fighting in the traditional military fashion of engaging the enemy on the battlefield. The Ukrainians are being slaughtered in the battlefield, or they are, as most recently, following the advice of leaflets that have been dropped to them and are surrendering en masse to the Russian forces ahead of what will likely be a very big attack by the Russians in the days ahead in advance– I just would like to call it out– in advance of Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

2:44
The situation is continuing, loss of 30 square kilometers or more per day on the battlefield. And in this context, what do the Ukrainians do? They fire missiles at civilian targets, and they fire drones. Drones, of course, have longer range than the missiles in their present arsenal coming from the United States, and that’s how they reached Kazan, which is, I think, a thousand kilometers away from the Ukrainian launch point.

And in Kazan, they staged something they knew would be very impressive on social media. That is, they had a drone with explosives fly straight into the middle of a high-rise residential building in downtown Kazan, creating an image of 9-11 terror, which was of course unjustified because when you looked at images after the fire went out, the damage to the building was rather slight, shall we say. This was not an airliner after all. There weren’t 300 people on board and it wasn’t loaded with jet fuel. So the damage was small, but the impression on social media was very big, which is about all they can achieve, just as the assassination of the general is not going to change the course of the war. But it creates a big provocation, an embarrassment for Vladimir Putin. Well, embarrassments don’t cost you wars. Losing 2,000 people a day for ad infinitum on the battlefield, as Ukraine has done, that loses you wars.

Napolitano: 4:20
What is the impression that all of this has created in the Kremlin other than, as you’ve just indicated, a determination for some massive use of air power before January 20th?

Doctorow:
I think not only air power, I think ground power. I think they had been holding, I’ve heard something, 150,000 infantry were held in reserve for an assault and that may be what we may witness before Trump takes office, to make the negotiations with him all that more substantial and productive.

So he will not be listening any more to the completely false reports that he’s been getting from the security team of Biden, but we’ll be listening to the actual reports of devastating results on the battlefield that we’ll be getting from Tulsi Gabbard.

Napolitano: 5:16
I wonder if General Kellogg is getting false reports. He, the emissary already appointed by Donald Trump and apparently already engaged in some sort of diplomacy, has been telling people that the Russians have suffered six times as many casualties as the Ukrainians, whereas the truth is the opposite. Where would General Kellogg be getting those numbers from?

Doctorow:
Well, from the same intelligence agencies in the States, from the CIA and elsewhere, and they’re getting it from the Ukrainians. And I can say right now that any Ukrainian you touch, who in any sense represents his government, is saying the same absolute denial of reality that you hear. I’ve been in debates with two Ukrainians, one xxxxxx, two representatives of the regime in the last three days on an Indian television station. One of them was a member of parliament, the Rada, and the other was a British lieutenant colonel who has been an advisor to the Ministry of Defense in Ukraine. And they both were spouting the same utter nonsense about the way the war is going. So anybody that CIA or embassy people from the States in Kiev would be consulting, would be hearing exactly the same from the top and from the bottom of Ukrainians whom they meet.

Napolitano: 6:41
In your recent article on the new sovereignty, you advance the idea that there may very well be tension between the foreign policy and defense unity of the EU on one hand and the sovereignty of individual member states on the other. Can you elaborate on that please?

Doctorow:
Well, going back to 1992, there was a trade, there were various, let’s say, abandonment or surrender of or ceding of sovereignty in various dimensions from individual member states of the EU to the European institutions in Brussels. And the foreign policy and defense policies were the first of these important normal attributes of a sovereign state which were transferred from these nation-states to a super-national organization, the European Union institutions in Brussels.

The consequence of that did not seem to be very great when this was going forward in 1992. These compromises were made to provide the way for a unified European currency and for the free travel and right to work of European citizens of separate states throughout the whole geography of the European Union. Very positive gains and didn’t seem too much of a compromise, of a loss.

8:11
The losses have become clear now, when 27 nations or 25 of the 27 nations stand up and all repeat the same utter delusional statements about the Russian threat that they face, about the state of the war and prospects for Ukrainian victory. Now we understand that these states do not have the competent bureaucracies. They don’t have their own personnel who are sufficiently trained to give them the basis for opposing what the people in the European Commission, the people who are serving Ursula von der Leyen, have usurped as the powers of 400 million people.

Napolitano: 8:57
Well suppose it is clear that, and I’m just going to make a hypothetical here, that the people of Italy and the government of Italy want to have nothing to do with arming Ukraine, that in fact they support the special military operation for various cultural, social, and historical reasons. What can they do about it? Can they hold back their share of monies that go to the European Union to crimp its ability to fund the Ukrainian war?

Doctoorow:
I think they can go across the party lines in the European parliament, for example, and join the forces of Viktor Orban’s Patriots for Europe and vote as you just suggested, against what the European Commission has been foisting on them, a commission that is headed by Ursula von der Leyen. That is within– to keep in mind, that the European Parliament is not a full legislative institution in the sense of the US Congress. It has no power of initiative, its resolutions are not binding and so forth. But nonetheless, by taking a stand, if the one-third of members of parliament who are in the fraction you can call Orban’s grouping were to pick up more, then they could, by moral strength, take power away from Von der Leyen without her actually being impeached or removed for crimes against the Constitution. They have so far not done that, but I think it will be coming, particularly if Mr. Trump pursues a peace policy in his early days in office.

Napolitano: 10:57
Is the snuffing-out of the foreign policy of nation states in deference to the collective will, a step toward peace or a step toward totalitarianism, or just depend which side of the aisle you’re on.

Doctorow:
We’re speaking ideology now, and that is very important to bear in mind. Just as in the States, it is commonly accepted that nationalism breeds aggressiveness, that totalitarian or autocratic governments are fragile and therefore look to maintain their population under their control by waging wars. These are assumptions that are not backed by any facts, but they are assumed by 99 percent of the American political science community.

11:46
So it is here in Europe that the assumption was that individual states and the tensions that come out of them, the ambitions that come out of them, were the cause of two civil wars in Europe that were completely self-destructive. The first civil war was called World War I, and the second civil war in Europe was called World War II. And that the way to get out of this trap is for the states to pool their sovereignty in a supranational organization. All of this was wonderful when the constitution of the EU was written by some very intelligent, very progressive, very well-read and very humane political scientists and statesmen. They did not anticipate that the institutions [that] were created would be taken over by the very primitive and warlike people who run the EU today. So the institutions have no checks and balances.

Napolitano: 12:46
What happens to the EU and what happens to NATO if Donald Trump, after he becomes president, says “Forget about it. I’m not giving you guys a nickel”?

Doctorow:
I think Trump could have a very big impact on the evolution of the EU institutions. First of all, just taking the case of Viktor Orban, like it or not, he is perceived within European institutions as their link to Trump. And any attempt by Ursula von der Leyen to suggest that she’s just chattered up Trump and that she can bring the latest word, will be viewed with very great skepticism by all of her colleagues, because they all know the facts. Orban is Trump’s representative within Europe, and the power balance will change accordingly.

Napolitano: 13:37
What about the economics of funding Ukraine? So we’ve got two different stories here. One is, you probably know this, Professor, yesterday’s “Financial Times” reported that the Trump transition team has told Kiev and has told European leaders that he will continue the flow of arms, at least in the short term, after he’s inaugurated, contrary to what he promised many, many times during the campaign. And two, Russian impatience at the understandable at the use of a British, American, and other Western projectiles landing inside the Russian land mass.

Doctorow:
I’ll take the second part of your question first. The Russian reaction to Trump in the first weeks after his victory at the ballot box was quite negative. As I’ve said on various programs since, it was perceived that he could be no friend. He appointed these neocon personalities to what the Russians call the power ministries, the most important defense and intelligence positions.

14:59
And so they were very skeptical, and they were saying, why should we wait? Let’s do what we have to do in Ukraine. We’re not going to wait and be nice to Trump, because it doesn’t look like we can expect anything good. And then about 10 days ago, Trump came out with a statement that the use of American HIMARS and ATACMS missiles or the use of British Storm Shadow missiles with American permission to strike deep into Russia was a foolish and very dangerous decision by Joe Biden. And then the Russians sat up and listened closely. And they said, “Hey, look, maybe we should be a little bit more cautious with Trump. Maybe we can reach an understanding.”

Napolitano: 15:44
What is your view on the report in the “Financial Times”? Is that likely accurate, or do we just don’t know?

Doctoorow:
The British have a wonderful expression for that. “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”

Napolitano:
Okay. All right. Is it true that President Fico of Slovakia was offered this number, staggering, Professor Doctorow, a $500 million bribe by President Zelensky of Ukraine to side with the Ukrainians?

Doctorow: 16:22
Well, I don’t know how extensively this was reported in US media. I can say that it was reported in Russian media. And knowing Mr. Fico, knowing he had a near-death experience, and that he is remarkably brave, he had no reason to exaggerate or even to present something that never happened. So let’s assume that he said the truth, but let’s go beyond that. What does that mean? It means that when Elon Musk gets going on the audit of US spending in Ukraine, expect to see a lot of dirt coming out.

American political commentators are in large agreement that the Israeli lobby has an unreasonable and very unfortunate control over the U.S. Congress and over U.S. foreign policy. I haven’t heard anyone raise the question of what kind of control Mr. Zelensky has had over certain of our senators who are loudmouth enthusiasts for a war, Lindsey Graham for example. These people, have they been on the take? Would it surprise you on if they were on the take? I don’t think so. There’s a reason for everything.

Napolitano: 17:40
Senator Rand Paul, libertarian in the Senate, and Congressman Thomas Massie, libertarian in the House, each introduced legislation that would have accompanied the largess coming from the United States to Ukraine, that would have imposed an inspector general on the ground in Ukraine, American team auditing how every dollar was spent. What do you think happened to those two proposals? They never even made it to the floor for a vote.

Doctorow: 18:11
Well, this more or less confirms the kind of suspicions that I’m putting on the table, that there were interested parties in this. There’s no need to be surprised. I mean, politics is dirty, it always was. And here in Europe– just to give you an example of what’s likely to happen when this inspection comes through– I think we’ll find a lot of European politicians were on the take.

I’m speaking to you from Brussels. In Brussels, the latest news since December 1st has been the charges raised by the state prosecutors against Didier Raynders, who was for 20 years a minister in one portfolio or another portfolio of the various coalition governments we’ve had. And he was, together with Charles Michel of the same party, the Reform Movement party, they moved from their positions in the Belgian government, through a whole succession of coalition governments, into the European institutions. They left because they more or less, the Flemish majority had enough of these characters running the government.

19:15
Well, they moved to nice positions. A cushy job, you know, that Charles Michel, until December 1st, was the president of the European Council, where all 27 heads of state and government convened, regulated to form EU policy. And Mr. Reynders, who had been in Belgium various ministerial responsibilities, eight years long finance minister, several years foreign minister, and he was given the wonderful post of justice minister, which is particularly attractive to remember, now that he’s being charged with money laundering. He’ll probably spend the rest of his life in jail. He was on the take.

Napolitano: 19:50
Well, let me tell you a little bit about money laundering. Well, first of all, what is the source of the information that President Zelensky offered a bribe to President Fico. Is it from President Fico’s mouth himself?

Doctorow:
Exactly.

Napolitano:
Oh boy. Well, under fed– where would that money have come from to bribe him? Let’s say he accepted the bribe. Where would Zelensky get that cash from? From the United States. And under federal law, that makes Zelensky’s offer to Fico a felony. So if the feds want to kidnap President Zelensky in Kiev and bring him to Arlington, Virginia, their favorite place to bring people from overseas that they kidnap. That’s where Dulles Airport is. He could very well be charged with offering a bribe of American funds that’s punishable by 20 years in a federal prison.

Doctorow:
No, he could get the Noriega treatment.

Napolitano:
He could get the what?

Doctorow:
The Noriega treatment. The Panama–

Napolitano:
What is that? The Panama leader who was–

Napolitano:
Oh, Noriega, yes, I’m sorry I misheard you.

Right, right, right. But Panama’s back in the news, and it’s reminded people about George H.W. Bush turning on his important and valuable CIA asset Manuel Noriega because he knew too much and had to be locked up in Florence, Colorado. That’s the American supermax prison that’s 250 feet below the surface of the earth.

Did you want to talk to me about Azerbaijan and its relationship to Russia? Is there something there we need to know about, Professor Doctorow?

Doctorow: 21:35
Yes, for a number of reasons, but let’s start with my source. A day ago, the Russian state television released an interview, an hour-long interview, that the head of Russia today, Dmitry Kiselyov, took with the president of Azerbaijan, Aliyev. And they touched on a variety of things. The most important, there were two important points to come out of this.

One is that Mr. Aliyev, who has been sitting on the fence, was sitting on two chairs between East and West for a large part of his tenure as president, which began in 2003. He has clearly come down on the side of Mr. Putin, because in that interview he repeated verbatim the argumentation and the language that Putin has used steadily as this special military project has gone on, the operation has gone on. That is the importance of national sovereignty and that the– and looking after national interests and opposition to the neo-colonialism of France and other European powers.

22:47
The interesting thing here was secondly, his relations with Turkey, because this answers the question that many of us have had: what is Russia going to do with Turkey after what seems like a stab in the back over Syria for their failure to follow the agreements that these countries, Russia and Turkey, had agreed with respect to Syria and its post-Civil War arrangements?

23:17
Well, I think that considering what Mr. Aliyev said, Russia and Turkey will find an accommodation maybe a year down the road, two years, and that finally Turkey will be invited into BRICS. And why do I say that? Because Aliyev was explaining that since 1992, he has had a, that is his father signed a cooperation agreement that included a military agreement, military defense, mutual defense pact, and that Turkey has played a very large role in modernizing the Azerbaijani military forces, provided it with equipment. We know that it was Turkish equipment and drones that enabled Azerbaijan in one or two days to defeat the forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh and retake this land.

24:13
So they have a close relationship in defense with, as the only country that has good relations with Russia, which also has a defense treaty with a NATO country, that is Turkey. This rather complicated set of relations where the man himself, Aliyev, is very sympathetic to Russia, where he got his degree, undergraduate and his PhD degree in Moscow, and where he taught for five years, and is a perfect fluent Russian speaker, and he was sitting on the fence and he no longer sits on the fence. He actually uses the very terminology, particularly use of the word “national sovereignty”, that Mr. Putin has made the rallying cry of the global south against the US global hegemony.

Napolitano: 25:09
Wow. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. One last question: will [Vlodymyr] Zelensky still be the president of Ukraine in Christmas of 2025, a year from now?

Doctorow:
He’ll be lucky to make it past January, if indeed. It all depends really on how quickly Trump finds common language with Putin. The Russians will not accept to do a deal with Zelensky. They don’t consider him to be a legitimate head of state. And so his departure would depend on how quickly Trump and Putin agree to meet and to proceed jointly without the Ukrainians present to decide the fate of Ukraine.

Napolitano: 26:01
Professor Gilbert Doctorow, a pleasure my dear friend. Thank you for all of the time you have given us in 2024. I hope that we can continue to work together in the new year. Merry Christmas to you and to your family.

Doctorow:
Thanks, most kind of you. And to you a Merry Christmas as well.

Napolitano:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Coming up later today, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at nine o’clock in the morning, Aaron Maté at 10. And our cleanup hitter at the end of the day and the end of the week and the end of the year, at 11 o’clock Scott Ritter.

26:36
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Transkript von ‘Judging Freedom’, Ausgabe vom 24. Dezember

Transkript eines Lesers

Napolitano: 0:33
Hallo zusammen. Hier ist Judge Andrew Napolitano mit „Judging Freedom“. Heute ist Dienstag, der 24. Dezember 2024, Heiligabend auf der ganzen Welt. Professor Gilbert Doctorow ist jetzt bei uns. Professor Doctorow, es ist mir immer eine Freude und vielen Dank, dass Sie bei uns sind.

Sie haben einen sehr interessanten und faszinierenden Beitrag über die neue Souveränität veröffentlicht und darüber, wie die neue Souveränität der EU zu Spannungen zwischen der nationalen Souveränität und der Art der kollektiven Gruppensouveränität führt. Aber bevor wir darauf eingehen, wie verzweifelt ist die ukrainische Regierung, dass sie auf die Ermordung eines Generals in Moskau zurückgegriffen hat und nun 500 Meilen östlich von Moskau Zivilisten angreift. Welche Botschaft versucht die Ukraine zu senden, und wie wird diese Botschaft im Kreml aufgenommen?

Gilbert Doctorow:
Es gibt einen alten, ziemlich bösen Ausdruck: „Wenn du es nicht kannst, dann lehre es.“ Und es gibt auch, glaube ich, den Ausdruck: „Wenn du es nicht auf dem Schlachtfeld tun kannst, dann setze Terrorismus ein.“ Sie haben das Wort „verzweifelt“ verwendet, und ich denke, es ist angebracht, dies zu definieren, obwohl die Ukrainer dies vor einiger Zeit taten, noch bevor sie verzweifelt waren, an der Frontlinie von Donbass. Sie haben sich dem Terrorismus verschrieben, wenn wir die klassische Definition zugrunde legen, dass man das tut, wenn man Zivilisten angreift, um Terror zu verbreiten, um Chaos und Besorgnis zu stiften, und man kämpft nicht auf traditionelle militärische Weise, indem man den Feind auf dem Schlachtfeld angreift. Die Ukrainer werden auf dem Schlachtfeld abgeschlachtet, oder sie folgen, wie zuletzt, dem Rat von Flugblättern, die über ihnen abgeworfen wurden, und ergeben sich massenhaft den russischen Streitkräften, bevor es in den kommenden Tagen zu einem wahrscheinlich sehr großen Angriff der Russen kommen wird – ich möchte es nur ansprechen – vor der Amtseinführung von Herrn Trump.

2:44
Die Situation hält an, mit einem Verlust von 30 Quadratkilometern oder mehr pro Tag auf dem Schlachtfeld. Und was tun die Ukrainer in diesem Zusammenhang? Sie feuern Raketen auf zivile Ziele ab und sie feuern Drohnen ab. Drohnen haben natürlich eine größere Reichweite als die Raketen in ihrem derzeitigen Arsenal, die aus den Vereinigten Staaten stammen, und so haben sie Kasan erreicht, das, glaube ich, tausend Kilometer vom ukrainischen Abschussort entfernt ist.

Und in Kasan inszenierten sie etwas, von dem sie wussten, dass es in den sozialen Medien sehr beeindruckend sein würde. Das heißt, sie ließen eine Drohne mit Sprengstoff direkt in die Mitte eines Hochhauses in der Innenstadt von Kasan fliegen und erzeugten so ein Bild des 11. September, das natürlich ungerechtfertigt war, denn als man sich die Bilder nach dem Löschen des Feuers ansah, war der Schaden am Gebäude eher gering, um es mal so zu sagen. Es handelte sich schließlich nicht um ein Verkehrsflugzeug. Es waren keine 300 Menschen an Bord und es war nicht mit Kerosin beladen. Der Schaden war also gering, aber der Eindruck in den sozialen Medien war sehr groß, was so ziemlich alles ist, was sie erreichen können, so wie die Ermordung des Generals den Verlauf des Krieges nicht ändern wird. Aber es ist eine große Provokation, eine Blamage für Wladimir Putin. Nun, durch Peinlichkeiten verliert man keine Kriege. Wenn man wie die Ukraine auf dem Schlachtfeld Tag für Tag 2.000 Menschen verliert, dann verliert man Kriege.

Napolitano: 4:20
Welchen Eindruck hat das alles im Kreml hinterlassen, abgesehen von der Entschlossenheit, wie Sie gerade angedeutet haben, vor dem 20. Januar massiv Luftstreitkräfte einzusetzen?

Doctorow:
Ich denke nicht nur an Luftstreitkräfte, sondern auch an Bodentruppen. Ich glaube, sie haben sich zurückgehalten. Ich habe gehört, dass 150.000 Infanteristen für einen Angriff in Reserve gehalten wurden, und das könnte uns noch vor Trumps Amtsantritt bevorstehen, um die Verhandlungen mit ihm umso substanzieller und produktiver zu gestalten.

Er wird also nicht mehr auf die völlig falschen Berichte hören, die er vom Sicherheitsteam von Biden erhalten hat, sondern auf die tatsächlichen Berichte über verheerende Ergebnisse auf dem Schlachtfeld, die wir von Tulsi Gabbard erhalten werden.

Napolitano: 5:16
Ich frage mich, ob General Kellogg falsche Berichte erhält. Er, der bereits von Donald Trump ernannte Abgesandte, der offenbar bereits in irgendeiner Form diplomatisch tätig ist, hat den Leuten erzählt, dass die Russen sechsmal so viele Opfer zu beklagen hätten wie die Ukrainer, während die Wahrheit das Gegenteil ist. Woher hat General Kellogg diese Zahlen?

Doctorow:
Nun, von denselben Geheimdiensten in den USA, von der CIA und anderen, und die bekommen es von den Ukrainern. Und ich kann jetzt schon sagen, dass jeder Ukrainer, den Sie treffen, der in irgendeiner Weise seine Regierung vertritt, die gleiche absolute Realitätsverweigerung äußert, die Sie hören. Ich habe in den letzten drei Tagen mit zwei Ukrainern, einem xxxxxx, zwei Vertretern des Regimes, in einem indischen Fernsehsender debattiert. Einer von ihnen war Abgeordneter der Rada und der andere war ein britischer Oberstleutnant, der als Berater für das Verteidigungsministerium in der Ukraine tätig war. Und beide haben denselben völligen Unsinn über den Verlauf des Krieges verbreitet. Jeder, den die CIA oder Botschaftsangehörige aus den USA in Kiew konsultieren würden, würde von Ukrainern, die sie treffen, genau dasselbe von oben und von unten hören.

Napolitano: 6:41
In Ihrem jüngsten Artikel über die neue Souveränität vertreten Sie die Ansicht, dass es durchaus zu Spannungen zwischen der Außenpolitik und der Verteidigungseinheit der EU einerseits und der Souveränität einzelner Mitgliedstaaten andererseits kommen könnte. Können Sie das bitte näher erläutern?

Doctorow:
Nun, im Jahr 1992 gab es einen Handel, es gab verschiedene, sagen wir, Aufgeben oder Abtreten oder Abtreten von Souveränität in verschiedenen Dimensionen von einzelnen Mitgliedstaaten der EU an die europäischen Institutionen in Brüssel. Und die Außen- und Verteidigungspolitik waren die ersten dieser wichtigen normalen Attribute eines souveränen Staates, die von diesen Nationalstaaten an eine supranationale Organisation, die Institutionen der Europäischen Union in Brüssel, übertragen wurden.

Die Folgen schienen nicht besonders groß zu sein, als dies 1992 voranschritt. Diese Kompromisse wurden eingegangen, um den Weg für eine einheitliche europäische Währung und für die Freizügigkeit und das Recht auf Arbeit der europäischen Bürger aus verschiedenen Staaten in der gesamten Geographie der Europäischen Union zu ebnen. Sehr positive Gewinne und es schien kein allzu großer Kompromiss, kein allzu großer Verlust zu sein.

8:11
Die Nachteile sind jetzt deutlich geworden, wo 27 Nationen oder 25 der 27 Nationen aufstehen und alle die gleichen wahnwitzigen Aussagen über die russische Bedrohung, der sie ausgesetzt seien, über den Kriegszustand und die Aussichten auf einen Sieg der Ukraine wiederholen. Jetzt verstehen wir, dass diese Staaten nicht über die kompetenten Bürokratien verfügen. Sie haben kein eigenes Personal, das ausreichend geschult ist, um ihnen die Grundlage zu bieten, sich dem zu widersetzen, was die Leute in der Europäischen Kommission, die Leute, die Ursula von der Leyen dienen, als die Macht von 400 Millionen Menschen an sich gerissen haben.

Napolitano: 8:57
Nehmen wir einmal an, es ist klar, dass – und ich stelle hier nur eine Hypothese auf – die Menschen in Italien und die italienische Regierung nichts mit der Bewaffnung der Ukraine zu tun haben wollen, dass sie die spezielle Militäroperation aus verschiedenen kulturellen, sozialen und historischen Gründen unterstützen. Was können sie dagegen tun? Können sie ihren Anteil an den Geldern, die an die Europäische Union gehen, zurückhalten, um deren Fähigkeit, den Krieg in der Ukraine zu finanzieren, zu schmälern?

Doctorow:
Ich denke, sie könnten beispielsweise über die Parteigrenzen im Europäischen Parlament hinweggehen und sich den Kräften von Viktor Orbans „Patrioten für Europa“ anschließen und, wie Sie gerade vorgeschlagen haben, gegen das stimmen, was die Europäische Kommission ihnen aufgedrängt hat, eine Kommission, die von Ursula von der Leyen geleitet wird. Das ist möglich – man darf nicht vergessen, dass das Europäische Parlament keine vollwertige gesetzgebende Institution im Sinne des US-Kongresses ist. Es hat keine Initiativbefugnis, seine Entschließungen sind nicht bindend und so weiter. Aber dennoch, wenn das eine Drittel der Abgeordneten, die in der Fraktion sind, die man Orbans Gruppierung nennen kann, Stellung beziehen und mehr Rückhalt gewinnen würde, dann könnten sie durch moralische Stärke Von der Leyen die Macht entziehen, ohne dass sie tatsächlich wegen Verbrechen gegen die Verfassung angeklagt oder abgesetzt wird. Bisher haben sie das nicht getan, aber ich denke, es wird kommen, insbesondere wenn Herr Trump in seinen ersten Tagen im Amt eine Friedenspolitik verfolgt.

Napolitano: 10:57
Ist das Auslöschen der Außenpolitik der Nationalstaaten zugunsten des kollektiven Willens ein Schritt in Richtung Frieden oder ein Schritt in Richtung Totalitarismus, oder hängt es einfach davon ab, auf welcher Seite man steht?

Doctorow:
Wir sprechen jetzt über Ideologie, und das ist sehr wichtig zu bedenken. Genau wie in den USA wird allgemein angenommen, dass Nationalismus Aggressivität fördert, dass totalitäre oder autokratische Regierungen fragil sind und daher versuchen, ihre Bevölkerung durch die Führung von Kriegen unter ihrer Kontrolle zu halten. Dies sind Annahmen, die durch keinerlei Fakten gestützt werden, aber von 99 Prozent der amerikanischen Politikwissenschaftler angenommen werden.

11:46
Hier in Europa ging man also davon aus, dass einzelne Staaten und die daraus resultierenden Spannungen und Ambitionen die Ursache für zwei Bürgerkriege in Europa gewesen seien, die völlig selbstzerstörerisch waren. Der erste Bürgerkrieg wurde als Erster Weltkrieg bezeichnet, und der zweite Bürgerkrieg in Europa wurde als Zweiter Weltkrieg bezeichnet. Und dass der Weg aus dieser Falle für die Staaten darin bestehe, ihre Souveränität in einer supranationalen Organisation zu bündeln. All dies war wunderbar, als die Verfassung der EU von einigen sehr intelligenten, sehr fortschrittlichen, sehr belesenen und sehr humanen Politikwissenschaftlern und Staatsmännern verfasst wurde. Sie haben nicht damit gerechnet, dass die geschaffenen Institutionen von den sehr primitiven und kriegerischen Menschen übernommen werden würden, die heute die EU leiten. Daher gibt es in den Institutionen keine gegenseitige Kontrolle.

Napolitano: 12:46
Was passiert mit der EU und was passiert mit der NATO, wenn Donald Trump nach seiner Wahl zum Präsidenten sagt: „Vergesst es. Ich gebe euch keinen Cent“?

Doctorow:
Ich denke, Trump könnte einen sehr großen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der EU-Institutionen haben. Nehmen wir zunächst einmal Viktor Orban, der in den europäischen Institutionen, ob es einem gefällt oder nicht, als Bindeglied zu Trump wahrgenommen wird. Und jeder Versuch von Ursula von der Leyen, zu suggerieren, dass sie nur mit Trump geplaudert hat und die neuesten Informationen liefern kann, wird von all ihren Kollegen mit großer Skepsis aufgenommen werden, weil sie alle die Fakten kennen. Orban ist Trumps Vertreter in Europa, und das Kräfteverhältnis wird sich entsprechend ändern.

Napolitano: 13:37
Wie sieht es mit der Finanzierung der Ukraine aus? Wir haben es hier also mit zwei verschiedenen Geschichten zu tun. Zum einen, und das wissen Sie wahrscheinlich, Professor, hat die gestrige „Financial Times“ berichtet, dass das Übergangsteam von Trump Kiew und den europäischen Staats- und Regierungschefs mitgeteilt hat, dass er den Waffenfluss zumindest kurzfristig nach seiner Amtseinführung fortsetzen wird, was im Widerspruch zu dem steht, was er während des Wahlkampfs viele, viele Male versprochen hat. Und zweitens, die russische Unzufriedenheit über den verständlichen Einsatz britischer, amerikanischer und anderer westlicher Geschosse, die auf russischem Boden landen.

Doctorow:
Ich werde zuerst auf den zweiten Teil Ihrer Frage eingehen. Die Reaktion Russlands auf Trump in den ersten Wochen nach seinem Wahlsieg war ziemlich negativ. Wie ich seitdem in verschiedenen Programmen gesagt habe, wurde er als Feind wahrgenommen. Er ernannte diese Neokonservativen zu den, wie die Russen es nennen, Machtministerien, den wichtigsten Positionen in den Bereichen Verteidigung und Geheimdienste.

14:59
Und so waren sie sehr skeptisch und sagten: Warum sollten wir warten? Lasst uns in der Ukraine tun, was wir tun müssen. Wir werden nicht warten und nett zu Trump sein, denn es sieht nicht so aus, als könnten wir etwas Gutes erwarten. Und dann, vor etwa zehn Tagen, gab Trump eine Erklärung ab, dass der Einsatz amerikanischer HIMARS- und ATACMS-Raketen oder der Einsatz britischer Storm-Shadow-Raketen mit amerikanischer Genehmigung für einen Angriff tief in Russland eine dumme und sehr gefährliche Entscheidung von Joe Biden sei. Und dann horchten die Russen auf. Und sie sagten: „Hey, vielleicht sollten wir mit Trump etwas vorsichtiger sein. Vielleicht können wir eine Einigung erzielen.“

Napolitano: 15:44
Was halten Sie von dem Bericht in der „Financial Times“? Ist das wahrscheinlich zutreffend oder wissen wir es einfach nicht?

Doctoorow:
Die Briten haben dafür einen wunderbaren Ausdruck. „Das würden sie sagen, oder?“

Napolitano:
Okay. In Ordnung. Stimmt es, dass Präsident Fico von der Slowakei diese Zahl angeboten wurde, Professor Doctorow, eine schwindelerregende Bestechungssumme von 500 Millionen Dollar von Präsident Zelensky von der Ukraine, um sich auf die Seite der Ukrainer zu stellen?

Doctorow: 16:22
Nun, ich weiß nicht, wie ausführlich darüber in den US-Medien berichtet wurde. Ich kann sagen, dass darüber in den russischen Medien berichtet wurde. Und da ich Herrn Fico kenne, weiß, dass er eine Nahtoderfahrung hatte und bemerkenswert mutig ist, hatte er keinen Grund, zu übertreiben oder gar etwas zu präsentieren, was nie passiert ist. Nehmen wir also an, dass er die Wahrheit gesagt hat, aber gehen wir noch einen Schritt weiter. Was bedeutet das? Es bedeutet, dass, wenn Elon Musk mit der Prüfung der US-Ausgaben in der Ukraine beginnt, mit einer Menge Schmutz zu rechnen ist.

Amerikanische politische Kommentatoren sind sich weitgehend einig, dass die israelische Lobby eine unangemessene und sehr unglückliche Kontrolle über den US-Kongress und die US-Außenpolitik ausübt. Ich habe noch niemanden die Frage stellen hören, welche Art von Kontrolle Herr Selensky über einige unserer Senatoren hatte, die sich als Kriegsbefürworter hervortun, wie zum Beispiel Lindsey Graham. Waren diese Leute bestechlich? Würde es Sie überraschen, wenn sie bestechlich wären? Ich glaube nicht. Es gibt für alles einen Grund.

Napolitano: 17:40
Senator Rand Paul, ein Libertärer im Senat, und der Kongressabgeordnete Thomas Massie, ein Libertärer im Repräsentantenhaus, haben jeweils einen Gesetzesentwurf eingebracht, der die Großzügigkeit der Vereinigten Staaten gegenüber der Ukraine begleitet hätte und der einen Generalinspekteur vor Ort in der Ukraine eingesetzt hätte, ein amerikanisches Team, das prüft, wie jeder Dollar ausgegeben wurde. Was glauben Sie, ist mit diesen beiden Vorschlägen passiert? Sie haben es nicht einmal bis zur Abstimmung geschafft.

Doctorow: 18:11
Nun, das bestätigt mehr oder weniger die Art von Verdacht, den ich hier äußere, dass es hier interessierte Parteien gab. Das muss einen nicht überraschen. Ich meine, Politik ist schmutzig, das war sie schon immer. Und hier in Europa – nur um Ihnen ein Beispiel dafür zu geben, was wahrscheinlich passieren würde, wenn diese Inspektion durchgeführt würde – denke ich, dass wir feststellen würden, dass viele europäische Politiker bestechlich waren.

Ich spreche zu Ihnen aus Brüssel. In Brüssel waren die neuesten Nachrichten seit dem 1. Dezember die Anklage der Staatsanwaltschaft gegen Didier Raynders, der 20 Jahre lang Minister in dem einen oder anderen Ressort der verschiedenen Koalitionsregierungen war, die wir hatten. Und er war zusammen mit Charles Michel von derselben Partei, der Reformbewegung, die von ihren Positionen in der belgischen Regierung durch eine ganze Reihe von Koalitionsregierungen in die europäischen Institutionen wechselten. Sie sind gegangen, weil die flämische Mehrheit mehr oder weniger genug von diesen Charakteren hatte, die die Regierung führten.

19:15
Nun, sie haben gute Positionen bekommen. Einen bequemen Job, wissen Sie, wo Charles Michel bis zum 1. Dezember Präsident des Europäischen Rates war, wo alle 27 Staats- und Regierungschefs zusammenkamen, um die EU-Politik zu regeln. Und Herr Reynders, der in Belgien verschiedene Ministerämter innehatte, acht Jahre lang Finanzminister und mehrere Jahre Außenminister war, erhielt den wunderbaren Posten des Justizministers, was besonders attraktiv ist, wenn man bedenkt, dass er jetzt wegen Geldwäsche angeklagt ist. Er wird wahrscheinlich den Rest seines Lebens im Gefängnis verbringen. Er war bestechlich.

Napolitano: 19:50
Nun, lassen Sie mich ein wenig über Geldwäsche erzählen. Zunächst einmal, woher stammt die Information, dass Präsident Zelensky Präsident Fico bestochen hat? Stammt sie aus Präsident Ficos eigenem Mund?

Doctorow:
Genau.

Napolitano:
Oh Mann. Nun, unterernährt – woher sollte das Geld kommen, um ihn zu bestechen? Nehmen wir an, er hätte das Bestechungsgeld angenommen. Woher sollte Zelensky das Geld nehmen? Aus den Vereinigten Staaten. Und nach Bundesrecht macht das Zelenskys Angebot an Fico zu einem Verbrechen. Wenn die Bundespolizei also Präsident Zelensky in Kiew entführen und nach Arlington, Virginia, bringen will, ihrem Lieblingsort, um Menschen aus dem Ausland, die sie entführt haben, dorthin zu bringen. Dort befindet sich der Flughafen Dulles. Er könnte sehr wohl wegen Bestechung mit amerikanischen Geldern angeklagt werden, was mit 20 Jahren Gefängnis bestraft werden kann.

Doctorow:
Nein, er könnte die Noriega-Behandlung bekommen.

Napolitano:
Er könnte was bekommen?

Doctorow:
Die Noriega-Behandlung. Der Panama-

Napolitano:
Was ist das?

Doctorow:
Der Anführer Panamas, der …

Napolitano:
Oh, Noriega, ja, tut mir leid, ich habe Sie falsch verstanden.

Richtig, richtig, richtig. Aber Panama ist wieder in den Nachrichten und erinnert die Menschen daran, dass George H.W. Bush seinen wichtigen und wertvollen CIA-Agenten Manuel Noriega verraten hat, weil er zu viel wusste und in Florence, Colorado, eingesperrt werden musste. Das ist das amerikanische Supermax-Gefängnis, das 250 Fuß unter der Erdoberfläche liegt.

Wollen Sie mit mir über Aserbaidschan und seine Beziehung zu Russland sprechen? Gibt es etwas, das wir darüber wissen sollten, Professor Doctorow?

Doctorow: 21:35
Ja, aus mehreren Gründen, aber lassen Sie uns mit meiner Quelle beginnen. Vor einem Tag hat das russische Staatsfernsehen ein einstündiges Interview ausgestrahlt, das der Leiter von Russia Today, Dmitry Kiselyov, mit dem aserbaidschanischen Präsidenten Aliyev geführt hat. Dabei wurden verschiedene Themen angesprochen. Das Wichtigste ist, dass sich daraus zwei wichtige Punkte ergeben haben.

Einer ist, dass Herr Alijew, der sich auf die Seite der Neutralität gestellt hat, während eines Großteils seiner Amtszeit als Präsident, die 2003 begann, zwischen Ost und West auf zwei Stühlen saß. Er hat sich eindeutig auf die Seite von Herrn Putin gestellt, denn in diesem Interview wiederholte er wörtlich die Argumentation und die Sprache, die Putin im Verlauf dieses speziellen Militärprojekts und der Operation immer wieder verwendet hat. Das ist die Bedeutung der nationalen Souveränität – und die Wahrung der nationalen Interessen und die Opposition gegen den Neokolonialismus Frankreichs und anderer europäischer Mächte.

22:47
Das Interessante hier war zweitens seine Beziehung zur Türkei, denn dies beantwortet die Frage, die sich viele von uns gestellt haben: Was wird Russland mit der Türkei machen, nachdem es den Anschein hat, dass die Türkei in der Syrienfrage Russland in den Rücken gefallen ist, weil sie die Vereinbarungen, die diese Länder, Russland und die Türkei, in Bezug auf Syrien und die Regelungen nach dem Bürgerkrieg getroffen hatten, nicht eingehalten hat?

23:17
Nun, ich denke, dass Russland und die Türkei, wenn man bedenkt, was Herr Aliyev gesagt hat, vielleicht in einem Jahr oder in zwei Jahren eine Einigung finden werden und dass die Türkei schließlich in die BRICS aufgenommen wird. Und warum sage ich das? Weil Aliyev erklärte, dass sein Vater seit 1992 ein Kooperationsabkommen unterzeichnet hatte, das ein Militärabkommen, eine Militärverteidigung und einen gegenseitigen Verteidigungspakt beinhaltete, und dass die Türkei eine sehr große Rolle bei der Modernisierung der aserbaidschanischen Streitkräfte gespielt und sie mit Ausrüstung versorgt hat. Wir wissen, dass es türkische Ausrüstung und Drohnen waren, die es Aserbaidschan ermöglichten, die Streitkräfte von Bergkarabach innerhalb von ein oder zwei Tagen zu besiegen und dieses Land zurückzuerobern.

24:13
Sie haben also eine enge Beziehung zur Verteidigung mit der Türkei, dem einzigen Land, das gute Beziehungen zu Russland unterhält und das auch einen Verteidigungsvertrag mit einem NATO-Land, nämlich der Türkei, hat. Diese recht komplizierten Beziehungen, in denen der Mann selbst, Aliyev, Russland sehr wohlgesonnen ist, wo er seinen Bachelor- und seinen Doktorgrad in Moskau erworben hat, wo er fünf Jahre lang gelehrt hat, wo er perfekt Russisch spricht und wo er zwischen den Stühlen saß und jetzt nicht mehr zwischen den Stühlen sitzt. Er verwendet tatsächlich genau die Terminologie, insbesondere das Wort „nationale Souveränität“, die Herr Putin zum Schlachtruf des globalen Südens gegen die globale Hegemonie der USA gemacht hat.

Napolitano: 25:09
Wow. Faszinierende, faszinierende Dinge. Eine letzte Frage: Wird [Wladimir] Selensky in einem Jahr, also Weihnachten 2025, noch Präsident der Ukraine sein?

Doctorow:
Er wird froh sein, wenn er den Januar übersteht, wenn überhaupt. Es hängt wirklich alles davon ab, wie schnell Trump eine gemeinsame Sprache mit Putin findet. Die Russen werden kein Abkommen mit Selensky akzeptieren. Sie betrachten ihn nicht als legitimes Staatsoberhaupt. Und so würde sein Abgang davon abhängen, wie schnell Trump und Putin sich auf ein Treffen einigen und gemeinsam vorgehen, ohne dass die Ukrainer anwesend sind, um über das Schicksal der Ukraine zu entscheiden.

Napolitano: 26:01
Professor Gilbert Doctorow, es ist mir eine Freude, mein lieber Freund. Vielen Dank für all die Zeit, die Sie uns im Jahr 2024 gewidmet haben. Ich hoffe, dass wir auch im neuen Jahr weiter zusammenarbeiten können. Ich wünsche Ihnen und Ihrer Familie frohe Weihnachten.

Doctorow:
Vielen Dank, das ist sehr freundlich von Ihnen. Und auch Ihnen frohe Weihnachten.

Napolitano:
Vielen Dank. Vielen Dank. Später heute kommen Professor Jeffrey Sachs um neun Uhr morgens und Aaron Maté um 10 Uhr. Und unser Schlussmann am Ende des Tages, der Woche und des Jahres, um 11 Uhr Scott Ritter.

26:36
Judge Napolitano für „Judging Freedom“.

Transcription submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:05
Hi everybody, today is Tuesday, December 24th, and our friend Gilbert Doctorow is back with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, thank you, Nima. I hope I have a few Christmas presents for all the listeners.

Alkhorshid:
Let’s get started with this type of rumor that it seems that Zelensky tried to bribe Fico. What’s the story behind this?

Doctorow:
Well, your listeners of this program certainly know that Fico has been in the news. Yesterday’s papers, today’s papers in the West are speaking about his two-hour meeting, tete-a-tete with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a meeting that was called, according to Peskov, when he was asked by Pavel Zarubin, the journalist who is always two steps behind Putin, he was asked when the meeting was arranged, because usually meetings with Putin are arranged way in advance. And Peskov said off the cuff, “Well, a few days ago”. This was picked up by the “Financial Times” to suggest, well, it was arranged a few days ago, meaning that it had plenty of time for preparation.

1:29
It caught everyone by surprise, in fact. And he was coming precisely before the deadline expires on the pipeline that carries Russian gas across Ukraine and serves markets in three central European states, his own Slovakia, plus Hungary and Austria. That pipeline is going to be shut down on December 31st by Ukrainians as part of their their war on Russia, economic side of it, and also playing into the hands of the European institutions who want to shut off Russian hydrocarbons to the EU. Well, so this was an issue of very big importance to Mr. Fico, enough for him to fly in and discuss the consequences and what could be done about it with Vladimir Putin.

2:24
But preceding that, in the last week, he Fico was in public exchanges of what you can call insults, trading insults, with Vladimir Zelensky. And that was about this issue. And also as part of his payback to Zelensky, he mentioned in passing that Zelensky had offered him a $500 million, now I got the zeros correct, $500 million bribe for for he and Slovakia to change their position on Kiev’s application to join NATO, and instead of opposing it– which kills it in effect, because there has to be 100 percent unanimity on the admittance of any new country– instead of opposing it, to join with everybody else and greet Ukraine as a newest member. Well, he says he declined that. Now this may have been covered somewhere in page 20 of one of our newspapers, or maybe it wasn’t covered, but it was noted by the Russian news agencies and was mentioned on air.

3:40
So I take it for accurate. There’s no reason for a person who’s honest, who has come through as much threat in his public life as Mr. Fico, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt less than six months ago, for him to exaggerate or misstate his relations with Zelensky. Now, let’s just consider what this means, because even if they barely covered it or didn’t cover it, Western media, they should be considering what it means or what is gonna come out when Mr. Musk does his house cleaning job and starts to audit the monies that have been sent through Kiev without any controls.

4:29
What could be going on was suggested in a kind of cartoon fashion by Donald Trump in the last week when he showed that we ship money to Kiev and it goes to this and that and finally comes back to what? Comes back to Biden’s pocket. Well, that is a crude way of looking at it. But why just Biden’s pocket? There are a lot of senators, including some real loudmouths, who are demanding Russian blood and who want to fight Russia through Ukraine to the bitter end, the bitter end that they hope will be for all the parties who engage in the battle. Isn’t it reasonable to think maybe they have a material interest and are receiving a few deposits to celebrate the holidays better?

5:20
I’m on side. And Americans in general, just to take the case of American exceptionalism, our commentators who don’t subscribe, in the alternative media, who don’t subscribe to that notion in general, may be subscribing to it when they call out the Israeli lobby as as having unusual exercise of power over US Congress and therefore over US foreign policy. I haven’t heard anybody raise a peep about the possibility that American foreign policy on Ukraine is being bought with bribes coming from the funds that the US and the EU have extended to Kiev. And that is something which I expect will come out when Musk goes after the money, the money trail, to find out where it actually ended up. So there should be some interesting news in our papers in the months ahead when this activity gets going.

Alkhorshid: 6:26
How do they feel in Russia right now? Recently we’ve learned that Putin is talking about this is a war against Russian world. What does that mean in your opinion?

Doctorow:
I’m sorry, I didn’t catch it. What is he talking about?

Alkhorshid:
He’s talking about that the way that the West is treating Russia right now is a war against the Russian world. And it seems that he sees some sort of aggression in all dimensions.

Doctorow:
Well, yes, so this is a variation of the theme that he has been playing for some time now. He varies the narrative a little bit here and there, but that Russia is at war with the West, that has been part of his overarching view, as I say, expressed in one form or another, since the start of the special military operation. So I don’t see a great change in that respect.

7:21
What has changed in Mr. Putin’s narrative in the last week or two, has been this concession that he made on the 19th of December, when he had this combined annual press conference and direct line communication exchange with the whole Russian nation by a special call center. And at that meeting, he said that he regretted that he didn’t start moving on Ukraine earlier, and that he waited too long. This is a very debatable point, but it raises something that is in the background here in US alternative media and is championed by somebody as well known and widely followed as Paul Craig Roberts, that Putin has been too mild, has turned the cheek, has been too much of a good Christian and not enough of good statesmen to do what should have been done in time and not to allow Russia’s adversaries or enemies abroad to misinterpret his restraint as a sign of weakness, which could only encourage still greater provocations and encroachments on Russian national interests. That is an issue that he just barely touched upon when he said that he regretted it didn’t start earlier.

8:51
Nonetheless, he’s doing a pretty good job of catch-up, because what Russia’s been saying in the last, what Mr. Putin has been saying in the last couple of weeks is really reading the riot act to the United States and the West. The stress on the power of the Oreshnik middle-range hypersonic ballistic missile, that has been a large part of the change. And it makes me ask how serious he is in saying that everything should have been started earlier.

9:30
There wasn’t any Oreshnik two years ago. Russia’s stepping out on the stage and acting in its own self-defense at the risk of enraging the global hegemon, that has coincided with Russia’s ability to produce and to field new, decisive, strategic weapon systems. And that is all very current. As I’ve said in the past, the notion that all the problems could have been solved if Russia had been tough in 2014 is utter nonsense, because Russia was unprepared to withstand a US economic assault. I don’t mean a military assault, that’s a separate question, but an economic assault. All the sanctions from hell Russia would have gone under in 2014, if it had had a military victory over Ukraine, it would have been a Pyrrhic victory.

10:33
So going back to 2014, out of the question; going back a little bit, maybe, but not very far. 2018 is the year when he rolled out all these systems and rolling them out and showing them to the public because they had passed tests and were going into production. Going into production is not the same thing as having them in the field. And some of this equipment obviously takes time to produce.

The Oreshnik is said to have entered serial production and estimates coming from the States– because the Russian Ministry of Defense naturally says nothing about its production capabilities– but from the States, where I’ve heard estimates that 25 Oreshniks can be produced per month. That’s 300 per year. Well, you don’t start threatening to use the Oreshnik until you’ve got at least a few in your hands, because your bluff might be called. And so it is with the other weapons systems; not all of them have been put into production. I mean, there were six or seven different strategic weapons systems that Putin showed in March of 2018.

11:49
This was the last stage of the presidential election campaign at that time. Putin had foregone participation in the televised debates. And he made his presentation to the public in the form of the large segment, large section of his speech that we call the state of the nation speech, the annual speech that he makes to the bicameral legislature. And he rolled out these systems, and he had them shown, theoretical diagrams of how they work, on the screen. But that’s not the same thing as having them in hand and ready to use them if need be. So I don’t think he could have backed up very far to launch the special military operation.

12:38
What he could have done actually is to prepare the forces that were going to go and invade Kiev, Ukraine, better. Because all reports that I’ve seen, or that I heard, just to say accidentally, from a taxi driver who was a retired member of the military intelligence in Moscow, and who was complaining about what he heard from his former colleagues. This is two months into the special military operation, that the initial steps were disastrous because the troops weren’t prepared. They didn’t have all they needed. They were just rushed in, they were on military exercises and they were moved from exercises straight into an invasion.

13:29
So there things were rather sloppy, but how much better it would have been if the preparations were begun earlier? Well that’s a debatable, interesting question.

Alkhorshid: 13:43
I think at the end of the day, we have to consider how much this conflict in Ukraine was important for the Russian military-industrial complex. The army has totally changed during this conflict from a defensive army, right now an army that is prepared to fight any sort of war with the West. And the way that right now the nature of the relationship between Russia and China, Russia and Iran, Russia and North Korea, they’re going to sell a lot of arms to these countries.

This is a huge win for the Russian industry. And how do you see in that direction? Do you think that they’re going to continue with this mindset of selling? Before that, if you remember, even Turkiye is part of NATO, but they’re asking for weapons, they’re trying to buy weapons from Russia. And right now it seems that Russia feels much– it would be much easier for Russia to sell the arms to these countries.

Doctorow: 14:50
Well, I’m glad you put your question in the future case, because you said, will they be selling? They are not selling now, and they haven’t been selling to anyone exports of arms since the start of the special military operation. All of the production of the Russian military-industrial complex has gone to the Russian front. And so the immediate impact of the war on the Russian military complex was exactly the opposite of what you’re saying. The Russian exports, I think they were $35 billion a year, went to zero.

This kind of fact comes up in the “Financial Times” as if to say Russia can’t do it. They have– no, what would you do in a wartime when you’re facing the whole of NATO? And, and this is a war of attrition, which means you better, well, you better have what you need in the field the whole time, because your advantage is precisely that you have it, and the adversary doesn’t. So Russian sales abroad have collapsed, well collapsed, they simply stopped selling, and they stopped fulfilling pre-existing contracts. Now I’m not pulling this down from nowhere.

16:04
I was listening this morning to an interview, a very important interview, which maybe we have an opportunity to discuss a little bit later in this program. An interview that Russia Today’s managing director, Dmitry Kiselyov, took with the Azerbaijan Prime Minister, Aliyev. And Aliyev was at one point in this. Kiselyov asked him, well, how do you see military purchases from Russia going forward? And what he has said is what I’ve explained now, that pre-existing contracts are not being fulfilled and the Russians asked for and received from Azerbaijan permission to delay delivery.

16:53
So that’s the present situation. Of course, the evidence that Russian tanks are equal, superior to the best Western tanks, that Russian air defenses are superior to the best that the Americans have, whether it’s Patriot or this still more advanced system that arguably they’re taking to Israel and maybe also to Ukraine. Anyway, the point is that the Russian arms are demonstrated to be superior to the NATO arms against which they are sent. And that is watched closely by all of the world’s procurement officers. So yes, Russian sales of arms will spiral once the war is over.

Alkhorshid: 17:47
And right now, in your opinion, the way that they see in Russia, they see Donald Trump and his administration, do they really think that there has to be some sort of patience on their part until this government, this administration, the Biden administration leaving office in Washington, leaving office and Donald Trump takes power? How do they feel about it? Because we did drone attack on the part of Zelensky and on a city called Kazan, which was, she’s not of strategic importance in terms of military I’m talking about. But they did that out of desperation, in my opinion. How do they feel about it right now?

Doctorow: 18:37
This is discussed, what you are asking me now is discussed every day on these political talk shows, and I can tell you that the mood rocks back and forth between feeling it’s utterly useless to wait for Trump, because look at who he has appointed and what they’re saying, what Kellogg is saying, why would we wait a minute for Mr. Kellogg too? I’d say the latest mood seems to be, all right, let’s give them a break. Let’s see what Kellogg can do. Don’t take it too seriously that what he has said till now is what he’s going to bring to us when he comes to Moscow.

19:17
So I think that they are being cautious, prudent, responding, as Putin said, going back more than a month, they will, Russians are now reacting to the threats that they see from any given action by Ukraine, thought to be in line with their own exposure to these assaults from Ukraine. Now as for the wonderful, the executed 9-11 type attack on a high-rise residential building in Kazan, which was caught on video and became viral on social media. That was, let’s say, very representative of the way that the Kiev regime and military there has been conducting the war from the beginning. It has been big public relations and a small military kinetic warfare activity. As you say, the military value of the attack on Kazan was close to nil.

20:37
Certainly the attack on the residential building is by all classic measures pure terrorism. That is what terrorism is defined as, an attack on civilian targets for political leverage. So that was all very indicative of weakness on the part of Ukraine. And at the very same time that their troops are being battered on the ground, both in Kursk and on the front lines of Donbass, where day by day you see significant changes in the map of the line of confrontation in the favor of the Russians who are advancing. Pakrovsk, a city which is said to be a logistics hub of great importance, is about to fall.

Further afield to the west, the, let’s say, the historically important towns of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, this is dead in the middle of the Donetsk People’s Republic, they are evacuating the archives, the personal records and so forth, from the city’s offices. The Ukrainians are doing that, which is a perfect indication they expect it to fall, to be besieged and to fall. What Putin has said about any ceasefire: that is unacceptable to the Russians because the Ukrainians are presently reeling. They don’t have the time to fall back and build defensive structures to an advance of the next wave of Russian advance. And for Russia to agree to a ceasefire would be to give them exactly that possibility, to actually form a line that they could hold.

22:31
And Russia doesn’t want that to happen. It wants to take full advantage of the strength that it has in moving on, encircling the vastly weakened and demoralized Ukrainian frontlines. So the Russian enthusiasm for meeting with Trump is tempered by this fact. No, they will not, under any circumstances, accept a ceasefire as an immediate measure. A ceasefire would come when there is agreement on a global settlement.

Alkhorshid: 23:14
When they’re talking about freezing the battlefield in order to negotiate, it doesn’t make sense, because when you look at World War II, they were talking, they were negotiating while the war was continuing in those days. And right now that could be the case. They can start negotiating, but as war continues on the battlefield. Is that the case in the mind of Russians in your opinion right now?

Doctorow:
There is something of a similarity with the World War II case at the very, very end. The Russians will not pause now to negotiate, with whom? They do not accept the government of Zelensky to be legitimate. And so it is, they only will make a halt or enter in negotiations with the United States. That is– and that can happen only after after meetings. And preferably a summit meeting between Trump and Putin.

Alkhorshid: 24:30
Two cases, Gilbert. And if you remember in 2020, the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Joe Biden was hammering Donald Trump with JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between the United States and Russia which Donald Trump decided to withdraw from. And he said that he’s going to revive the nuclear deal and all of that, and all of those rhetorics in those days. And right now, it seems to me that could be the same in the mind of Russians. They’re thinking, is Donald Trump going to negotiate, going to have a clear mind when it comes to Ukraine to understand the reality of the battleground, to find some sort of permanent solution for the conflict, or he’s going to be just like Joe Biden in terms of the way that he was bragging about, I’m going to revive the nuclear JCPOA between the United States and Iran, which he didn’t do that. And even beyond that, he started all of these conflicts and this dangerous world that we’re living in right now. How do you feel about Donald Trump?

Doctorow: 25:48
Well, what Donald Trump has been quoting for the casualty rates of Russia and Ukraine is utterly absurd. His statements about the disposition of forces is just reflecting the same rubbish that the Biden administration has been putting out. Now, what I’m waiting to see is what happens when Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed as the most senior intelligence officer of the United States, and she becomes a daily reporter to Trump on what is going on.

26:29
She doesn’t have any such position now. We don’t know that she meets him at all. And certainly she isn’t, as a private person still, she has no access to intelligence that only goes to the presidential candidate. And who’s providing that information to the candidate? The same people providing the rubbish to Joe Biden. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the script that we’ve heard coming from Trump is a very misinformed script, which does not promise much for his leading a way out of this crisis.

27:07
What the Russians are taking comfort from and the reason why they want to be cautious and to leave options open to meeting with Trump and to negotiating with him over this crisis, that is the remarks he’s made in the last week in which he called the use of these American-built medium– attack missiles, the ATACMS, the HIMARS, or with US permission, the British Storm Shadow, to penetrate deep into the Russian heartland. He has called this foolish and very dangerous.

The Russians took heart, because for the first time they’re listening to some normal observations of risks in this war, and not to the rubbish, as I say, that Trump has obviously been handed by the security personnel of the Biden administration in his capacity as the weight-in president. So that’s what gives them some hope and has tempered their remarks about Trump being a change without a difference, going back two or three weeks.

Alkhorshid: 28:40
And we are witnessing Medvedev in China, Shoigu in Iran, and Belosov in Pyongyang. What’s going on with the foreign policy of Russia right now? What are they trying to do with their friends?

Doctorrow:
Well, they’re trying to do exactly what America is worried about. They’re putting meat on the bones of this new axis, that is Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. The meat is being put on the bones. And I think it’s forming in quite a solid way. The Biden administration has only added to the problem by its continued threats against China.

29:29
And Trump hasn’t yet made any moves or suggested any moves that would lessen the solidarity between these four countries in opposing the American hegemony. So they xxx traveling a lot, they’re meeting with their new friends. There may be, as you and I discussed before the show, a signature on a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Iran during January, which includes a large segment on mutual defense. And the Russian military position will be that much better consolidated. As for the North Korean presence, our Western media speak as if they’re out there fighting on the front lines in Donetsk, they’re not.

Any forces that have been made available by North Korea for use in Russia are being used in Russia. They’re being used in the cleanup operation of the Kursk oblast or region that is part of the Russian Federation. And it’s perfectly in line with the mutual defense pact. It is– they are not moving into the the front in Donbass.

Alkhorshid: 30:59
It seems to me that the way that– I have learned from the Iranian media that this agreement is beyond what we’ve seen so far. It’s not just economic. It’s some sort of advanced military agreement between Iran and Russia. It seems if something big happens in terms of any sort of world war, they’re going to be on the same side fighting the enemy. Do you think that right now in the European Union, and we’ve seen that Fico, Orban today said they’re going to reconsider their policy towards Russia. How do they feel, the Western European countries?

And I’m talking about Germany specifically, United Kingdom and France. How do they feel right now about the situation in Ukraine? Are they getting to the point that this is going to get, we know that Donald Trump at the end of the day, he knows, he has some sort of connection with the economy. His main concern is the economy of the United States, let’s put it that way. And the policy in Ukraine wouldn’t help that sort of mindset. How do they feel about it in the European Union right now?

Doctorow: 32:23
Well, as you were pointing out, the European Union is now sharply divided. You called attention to those two states, Slovakia and Hungary, who are the vanguard of resistance to the diktats coming from Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission, telling everyone to “shut up and just follow my orders” in conducting, proceeding in relations or absence of relations with Russia. I doubt that these two states are the only ones. There will be more dissent made public as the crisis, political crisis, in the two traditional lead countries of the European Union, Germany and France, proceeds.

33:10
Germany now doesn’t have a government; it’s a caretaker government under Scholz, because the government lost its vote of no confidence. And France is reeling from crisis to crisis with a newly-installed government. And we count the days, how many days this one will last, before Macron is forced out, not by demonstrations in the streets, I don’t expect that, but by the people who put hiim into power, the bankers. The lack of government, the failure to take any measures to reduce the unacceptably high debt that’s being incurred annually in the existing budget, what, six percent or more of GDP, is untenable and in complete violation of the rules of the EU. These factors and the fact that the French government paper now is trading worse than Greek means that the finance people are going to be looking for his head.

34:18
And I think they’re the ones who drive him out of office. It’s, I mean, it is impossible to consider that he will stay in office if this latest government also falls. And there’s every interest in the socialists, in the Le Pen movement, to bring down this government as well, knowing what I just said, that the disturbance to financial markets will be such that he can’t hold onto power.

Alkhorshid: 34:52
Do they see any sort of future for their relationship with Russia, or they’re not considering that right now?

Doctorow:
I’m sure they’re considering it, but not talking about it. Because it would be in strict violation of everything they’ve agreed to up till now. I don’t think that Slovakia and Hungary are the only ones hurting from the shutdown of this pipeline or from the curtailment of their procurements of Russian oil in general, and of the trading relationship. And Slovakia is not the only country. Hungary also in this situation, where the attempt of Von der Leyen and her gang to include in future sanctions a ban on dealing with Rosatom and the Russian nuclear industry, that would be of enormous negative impact on the economies of these countries. And that, if it proceeds, will lead to a serious breakdown in dialogue within the European institutions.

36:06
I have to admit– I mean we all should be transparent, and I will be transparent now and say that– I’m a cheerleader for the deconstruction of the European Union into something resembling what it was in 1992, the European Economic Community, because this particular structure where the member states have voluntarily sacrificed a large part of their sovereignty to Brussels is working out very, very badly.

36:43
They have, the member states no longer have the competence nor the will to explore alternatives to their present foreign and military policies, which are convincingly failures. So, that’s a discussion for another day. The European Union is doing very badly. And I think it will be doing still worse when Mr. Musk’s audit takes place and we find out which European partisans have been on the take.

Alkhorshid: 37:22
Russia has revealed the list of nine countries to be BRICS partners on January 1, 2025. When you look at this list, it’s Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Uganda and Uzbekistan. You don’t see Turkiye being part, being among these countries. What’s going on with the case of Turkiye, in your opinion?

Doctorow:
Well, Turkey wasn’t, going back to the BRICS summit. Basically the BRICS summit in Kazan introduced the principle of a two-tier BRICS. Those that are core members for whom they have voting rights and a complete agreement is required of all of these members for any new policy to be adopted. Then there are the partners who are not in the inner core, don’t have voting rights, don’t determine the policies, but are eligible to profit from the infrastructures, financial and other infrastructures that BRICS creates. Turkey was named to be in that category. So you wouldn’t have seen them in any case on the list for membership beginning January, 2025.

38:52
I think it may be early to say that they are out completely because of their double-cross on the Astana agreements relating to managing the civil war, or the ended civil war, in Syria and their position of support for the Idlib rebels or insurgents, [whatever] you want to call them, who brought about the removal, the replacement of the Assad regime. I have said already that Russians are not going to turn their back on Turkey, because the two countries have very significant projects, of great financial, economic value to their respective countries. And it would be harming themselves to use their difference over Syria and to break off relations. At the same time, I’d like to point out that there is room for complex agreements, for complex relations. They don’t have to look for black and white. There are various grades in between.

40:16
And again, listening to this interview that I mentioned earlier, that Mr. Aliyev gave to Russia Today, and which was published yesterday, it’s a one-hour interview, he was discussing the relations between his country and Turkey, which have a military, well, semi-alliance, going back to 1991, 92 rather, after the fall of Sevigin, and that they have received extensive training and upgrading of his countries, of Azerbaijan’s military forces, thanks to Turkish participation, that they have 10 military exercises jointly and that his is the only country that has close relations with a NATO member state, as Turkey, and also has a comprehensive cooperation with Russia. So there you have it. Azerbaijan has a close military relationship with Turkey, which is a NATO member. And it also has a very close relationship with Russia, including a purchase a lot of military equipment from Russia.

41:38
In his latest, in this interview, as I’ve noted in an analysis of it, the language that Aliyev uses is precisely Putin’s language to discuss geopolitics. He speaks about the neo-colonialism of France and Western and European countries, about the need for independence, sovereignty and so forth. This is Putin’s language. And yet, he still has this relationship with Turkey. So I believe that some accommodation with Turkey and BRICS will come about. Not today, because of this unpleasantness over Syria. But in a year or two, yes, I think Turkey will be in the partner category.

Alkhorshid:
Yeah. Thank you so much Gilbert for being with us today. Great pleasure as always and Merry Christmas.

Doctorow:
And to you and to our listeners.

Alkhorshid: 42:37
Thank you.

Doctorow:
Bye bye.

Alkhorshid:
Bye bye.

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 24 December: The New Sovereignty

On this day before Christmas, Judge Napolitano had a very full schedule of interviewees to compensate for his being off the air for a week starting tomorrow. Accordingly, I consider myself lucky to have been given time to review with him several of the key issues in Russian-US relations.

We spoke about the interview of Azerbaijan president Aliyev with RT released a day ago, about how Azerbaijan’s ability to remain a fast ally of both Russia and of NATO member Turkey over the course of 30 years suggests a future for Ankara in BRICS notwithstanding bad feelings in the Kremlin over Turkey’s assisting the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. We talked about Ron Paul’s failed effort in the Senate to introduce legislation establishing a watchdog in Kiev to monitor closely the disbursement of American funds by the Zelensky regime. And our chat moved further afield to topics I have not covered in my recent published essays, The Judge’s questions were probing and thought provoking

This chat with host Nima Alkhorshid covered several important developments in the past week with respect to Russia’s relations with Slovakia, Zelensky’s slush fund for bribing Western politicians and the latest thinking in Moscow about the chances for reaching some accommodation with Donald Trump.

As I mention in this discussion, Russian thinking about Trump has rocked back and forth over the past month. Trump’s list of nominees for the ‘power ministries’ in his new administration aroused consternation in Moscow, since they are nearly all Neocon in outlook. The chattering classes were all saying that there is no need to show restraint and wait patiently for the Trump inauguration, because nothing good will come out his administration.  Trump’s statements on the war, his insistence that Russian losses are six times greater than Ukrainian losses, confirmed the conviction in Moscow that Trump is receiving the same worthless intelligence reporting as Biden received and will reach the same conclusions about the need to continue to provide arms and money to Ukraine after he takes office. However, Trump’s most recent statements in the past week largely swept away skepticism about him. The key point was Trump’s declaring that the decision to authorize use of American ATACMS and HIMARS missiles by Ukraine to strike deep into the Russian heartland was ‘foolish and very dangerous.’ This persuaded Russian elites, and likely the Kremlin as well, that Trump may have a realistic understanding of the seriousness of Russian resolve and of its military capabilities, all of which augurs well for reaching some accommodation with the USA to end the war on acceptable terms.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaZjg5pvQ8U