I recommend this 9- minute interview to the Community because the argumentation is very focused. I may be proven wrong in my expectations for the Budapest summit, but based on the information available to us the logic is taut. The joker in the deck is what information is being withheld by the statesmen on all sides.
Firstpost is a major Indian broadcaster based in Mumbai. The host is Joshua Barnes.
Transcript submitted by a reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pUbyemlm6s
Diesen: 0:00
Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Gilbert Doctorow, historian and international affairs analyst, to discuss the growing pressure on President Putin, I guess, to give up on some of his restraints and even react more forcefully towards NATO. So thank you for coming on.
Doctorow:
Well, it’s a pleasure, except that I will not be bringing good tidings to the show.
Diesen:
Well, it does appear that we’re moving somewhere quite dangerous. That is, only over the past few days, we’ve seen articles such as the one in “Financial Times” where it’s very open that the US is participating in attacks on Russian refineries. Again, hasn’t been denied by the White House. Even Trump seems to be gloating as he speaks and, well, I would say largely exaggerates the gasoline queues in Russia. We have Hegseth talking about imposing costs on Russia and Trump of course working overtime to sabotage the Russian economy, pressuring countries like India to stop trade.
1:11
But also under Trump’s rule, we see that the nuclear deterrent of Russia was attacked back in June. I saw a report yesterday by FSB, which suggested that the British were directly involved in this attack on Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Trump now openly talking about sending Tomahawks, which again could carry nuclear warheads. We, the Russians, would also not be able to know. And again, if Russia sees a Tomahawk launch towards Russia, They can’t really know if there’s a nuclear warhead, if there’s a first strike. So this must be taken into consideration in terms of how they retaliate and respond.
So I guess for all of these reasons, we now see some more louder voices in Moscow, both from politicians as well as the media, which more or less sees this restraint as appeasement that will only produce a more dangerous situation as we now take further steps towards a direct war. And yeah, no one really has escalation control here. So it doesn’t take that much imagination to see how such an escalation could lead to a nuclear exchange. So I don’t know, I tend to agree with this assessment though, that we’re heading towards a possible direct war, again, with unthinkable consequences. And escalation control is an illusion that may essentially kill us all.
2:44
So on that very dark, pessimistic start, I wanted to address an article you recently wrote on this topic as well, where you discussed the dilemma in terms of how Russia could respond to NATO’s escalations. What are, the way you see it, the arguments for and against restraints on Russia’s part?
Doctorow: 3:08
Well, I will approach this question, shall I say, from a layman’s standpoint, because you are the political scientist who looks at the theoretical considerations around deterrence, and that’s a widely discussed issue. That’s not my metier. But speaking as a layman, I see that Mr. Putin is willy nilly undermining Russia’s deterrence by his restraint. Showing off latest generation missiles and other armaments, where Russia is years ahead of the West and the United States in particular — that isn’t deterrence. Deterrence, finally, is a question of political will to use that arsenal. And it is not at all apparent that Mr. Putin has that will.
His actions, his words in the last few months have spoken exactly the opposite. And in that sense, I say he has weakened Russia’s deterrence. Now, where do I get this notion that there is opposition to Mr. Putin? Who is it? Is it the military? Are they plotting against him? Is the KGB plotting against him? I don’t know. Nobody knows.
4:28
But I can say the issue is not undercover. It is very much in people’s eyes. And when I make reference now to Russian state television, I want to be sure that people understand that this, when I say talk show, I don’t mean a talk show that you have coming out of NBC. This does not “Meet the Nation”. This is the voice of the Kremlin without being the Kremlin.
Now, when people think about the tough voice coming out of Russia, they think about Mr. Medvedev, who was a weakling president and has been very busy the last three years trying to make up for it by super patriotism. Not the only one, there are a number of outstanding Russian political scientists and statesmen who have done the same thing, who are making up for their cuddly behavior towards the West by being overtly xenophobic today. But what am I talking about? I’m talking about Vladimir Solovyov and his show, “The Evening with Solovyov”.
5:32
Who is he? Yes, he’s the host of a talk show, but that doesn’t tell you who he is. He is a close associate of Kiselev, who is the director of all Russian state news on television. He is the protector of the hound dog who follows Putin everywhere, Zarubin. He has been favored by the Russian Defense Ministry to go to the front and to see things that nobody else sees and to get into tanks and to present interviews with people he considers to be special heroes from the front on his television program.
So this is not just a chat show. This is a man who is very closely connected to Putin’s circle, who is part of the circle. And he’s been saying, and I think about, you can find on YouTube, but bizarrely, it appeared yesterday on YouTube. I don’t recall the kind of anonymous sponsor who put it on for Russian television, because Russian television by itself is banned from YouTube. The program of the 14th, it is labeled the program of the 15th, the 15th is when it was posted by this intermediary program of Vladimir Solovyov.
7:01
And what he says will shock you out of your skin. He’s saying that Russia is prepared. Russia has allowed red lines to be crossed. It has not stood for its defense, that it has behaved weakly, and that this has to stop. That, well, let me go on. That this is not, we’re no longer in a special military operation. Let’s face the fact, we are now at war. At war. In that case, we don’t care about humane behavior towards the enemy. The Ukrainians are our enemy.
They’re trying to do everything to destroy us, and we should respond the same way. We should now bomb all of the decision-making centers in Kiev during the daytime to make sure that all the staff goes down with the buildings. Got it? We should also warn European countries, whoever has factories building weapons that are going to Ukraine, to evacuate their cities. Because well, it’s clear, there’s an open threat to destroy European capitals.
I’m in Brussels. We have in downtown Brussels, one such factory. It was formerly a car factory. It’s now making the various types of armaments for Ukraine. So this is a very direct warning.
8:30
The most important thing I’ve considered here was the mention of we are now, let’s stop talking about it, in SMO, we are at war. I’m waiting for Putin to declare war. And I think it will happen as soon as either the Tomahawks are delivered to Ukraine or something similar. That will be the provocation that allows him to do what people like Solovyov are demanding. And once you’re at war, everything goes.
At the same time, I’m sitting here in Brussels where I can tell you from an inside source from Flemish newspaper that our Prime Minister de Wever is shaking in his boots over this business of Euroclear’s 145 billion in Russian state assets being turned into collateral. Because he’s afraid, with good reason, that Brussels will be destroyed. So this is why I do not bring my usual note of encouragement to the audience, but I am as alarmed as you appear to be from your opening remarks. We are at a very serious stage.
Diesen: 9:45
Yeah, just I don’t see how a direct war now can be avoided because again, if Russia shows restraint, then they will see this as a weakness in NATO and the Tomahawks will be delivered, which the Russians would then have to react to in the most fierce way. And if they do respond, then of course, look at the language we have in Europe.
We have some few drones over an airport. And even after we found out that there are Europeans who have been flying them and arrested, we still talk about how this is a hybrid war by Russia. Like we seem so eager to pick a fight. I mean, once the Oreshniks begin to rain upon our production facilities and in logistic centers in Europe, I mean, this is going to be impossible to avoid war. This is, yeah, it seems like we’ve hit the end of the line.
10:40
Otherwise, you mentioned the theories on deterrence. I mean, in deterrence, well, at least when I used to teach it, we focused on the three C’s. You have to have the CAPABILITIES to deter. It has to be, well, obvious. You also need it to be, and the Russians do have this with the, especially the Oreshniks, which allows them to climb up the escalation ladder in a very aggressive way without going nuclear.
The second is that it has to be CREDIBLE that you’re willing to use this weapon, that once you cross a red line, they will be used. And all of this has to be COMMUNICATED. So this kind of three C’s all has to be present if you want a proper deterrent. But as you said, the desire to kind of hope that you can get along with Trump, it’s undermining the credibility. And this is very, I guess, dangerous communication.
I know, you know, in the media, journalists will then hear this and say, well, then you’re supporting the Russians. But this is the problem. It’s not supporting this side or that side. It’s once we go down this road, This is the war. The war becomes the main enemy.
11:48
This is what would possibly destroy everyone. But still, it’s not as if Putin is all naive either. What do you see as being the arguments then for and against these restraints? Because there are reasons why one should also be cautious.
Doctorow:
Cautious he always has been. That has been his byword in almost any policy that you look at. I’d like to just explain that people may be wondering why I am changing my opinion, not just about Mr. Putin, for whom I have great admiration in all he’s achieved in saving Russia from ruin and giving a Phoenix-like rise to a great-power status again. I don’t deny any of that. But his behavior and the conduct of this war leaves many open questions over whether he still has the nerve to and the willingness to take risk that is imposed on you.
12:49
You don’t have a choice; the risk is on all sides. The question is, which risk do you choose to respond to? And what your calculations are. His calculations, I think, at this point are dead wrong, based on his reading of Trump, which I think is wrong. And then the second thing they’ll say is, why am I now turning against Mr. Trump? Because first I was considered to be a dupe of Putin, and then I was considered by people who don’t like what I say or write, to be a dupe of Trump. Well, my answer to those points is very relevant to our discussion. It is that I am one of the few, unfortunately, who changes my views according to what I see in front of me. If the objective facts change, then my opinion changes, and the objective facts have changed.
Mr. Trump with this much-heralded Gaza war solution, heralded by whom? Mostly by the wrong people, meaning the whole EU and all of the other sycophants around him. It is a phony peace settlement. It’s a fraud. But unfortunately, he has been lionized, he’s been, well, he wasn’t given a Nobel Prize, but he came close to that.
And he believes that his method of solving these crises by using maximum American force to compel the warring sides to find, to strike a compromise, he believes that he succeeded. I think he’s dead wrong on that. We’ll find out in the next few weeks when the war breaks out again. But he thinks that worked, and he thinks it’s applicable to the Russia-Ukraine war. That is why he’s maximizing pressure on Russia now by saying, falsely by the way, yesterday that he Mr. Modi had promised to stop buying Russian oil. They haven’t. They will scale it back somewhat, and that was what the meeting today with the Saudis is all about. They’re going to try and raise their purchase of Saudi oil and also of US oil, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop buying Russian oil. Anyway, he believes that he has everybody in his hands, that he is the almighty ruler of the universe and that everyone will follow his dictates.
15:07
Well, up to a point, andhe has reached that point. Russia is not a small patch of desert next to the Mediterranean Sea called Gaza. Russia is not a small Jewish state surrounded by a hundred million Muslims or more, but fighting them off because of superior military capability. Russia is a world super, is a not super power, but a major international power with the world’s largest stock of nuclear weapons and many other defense feats that are ahead of its peers and competitors by 10 years or more. And he cannot compel them to do his bidding or to sacrifice the reasons why they have lost 150,000 dead in this war for the sake of appeasing the vanity of one Donald Trump. That is not going to work.
And instead, it may lead to a war that we will all suffer from. So I think everyone should be following this closely. I go to this prestigious social club here in Brussels which brings together– the main purpose of the club is to celebrate how important we all are and to have a good meal. That’s, well, maybe it’s a good reason for a club. But among these people who are very successful professionals in all areas, there’s no awareness at all of what is going on, none. They pick up and read the newspapers and they know as much as anyone reading “New York Times”. And that frightens me very much.
Diesen: 16:54
Yeah, it’s, no, I often feel incompetence has reached a dangerous level as well. But this restraint, it’s very openly now, this denounced by the Europeans as a weakness. That is, I saw Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, standing on stage, more or less beginning to emulate the kind of language and talk that Trump does.
So he argues, you know, the Russians, they can’t even fly their jets, their ships are useless. So the Russians are weak, they’re pointless, their economy is, you know, smaller than Spain or, you know, the usual talking points. So in other words, you know, with Trump, of course, being one of the key people this message is intended for. And at the same time, Trump is powerful, he’s strong. And if he only treats the Russians like he did with the Palestinians, then they will fall in line.
I mean, this is, you can almost see why Trump has abandoned this position he previously had. Keep in mind back in February, he was condemning Zelensky for playing with World War III. Now this Trump will seemingly trigger this. And also the Dutch foreign minister, sorry, defense minister arguing that, well, yeah, let’s send the Tomahawks. No one’s discussing anymore any of the consequences.
18:21
What do you mean when a Tomahawk, possibly carrying a nuclear warhead from the Russian perspective, heads inwards towards Russian borders? I mean, how are they expected to respond? The only thing we have to respond is to say, well, you know, they should have thought about this. They should get out of Ukraine. It’s all this. It’s so empty and ridiculous. So I just don’t see how it’s possible to negotiate out of this any more.
Doctorow: 18:50
It’s manifestly obvious that Mr. Trump is a bully. It’s less manifestly obvious that most members of the US Congress are also bullies. It is incomprehensible to me that Vladimir Putin doesn’t see this and notice and act the way he said that he did, as a scrappy kid in Leningrad in the courtyards when confronted with bullies. He said, you don’t wait for them to hit you, you hit them first. Where is he now? I hope that he comes to his senses.
I hope for all of us that he comes to his senses because he doesn’t, he will be removed and replaced by people who we really do not want to see in power in Russia because they will be very aggressive, very xenophobic, and very ready to go into nuclear war. So it is to all of our advantage that Mr. Putin looks closely at what he’s facing in Trump, which is a bully who will back down when his bluff is called. Nobody in the US government wants to die from Russian missiles. Nobody.
They just don’t believe that there’s such a threat. They have to be reminded one way or another that the threat is there and will be operated. And I think they will all back down.
Diesen: 20:09
Again, I think that’s the reason why Putin’s been restrained. It’s a big gamble. But other reasons for the restraints possibly being temporary though, because of course one of the reasons in NATO why we would like to do a temporary ceasefire is because all the Ukrainians have to be able to mobilize more men, they have to prepare defensive lines. NATO needs time to ramp up its industrial production. There’s a lot of reasons.
But on the Russian side as well, they’re also, I’m assuming now, preparing for a possible direct clash with Europe as the Europeans are preparing to enter this war. Now, I’m assuming that during this time of restraint, the Russians have been building up plenty of Oreshniks and other weaponry, which is not intended for Ukraine. I mean, there’s been a lot of, a few months ago, there’s a lot of reports in the Western media as well that you had– that the Russians were pumping out a lot of armored vehicles, but few of them were sent to the front, like they’re all building up in the back.
I mean, there looks like there are many indications that there are now preparations for what seems increasingly unavoidable, which is now a direct war between NATO and Russia.
Doctorow: 21:28
Well, let’s look at the timeline. The last week I made the remark that the conversion or the application of Russia’s frozen assets into collateral for loans to Ukraine that will never be repaid, that this was connected with the bigger issue of when Europe is ready to go to war with Russia. And this was confirmed. I was very pleased is the wrong word because what we’re talking about couldn’t please anybody.
But the fact of the matter is that the foreign minister of Poland, Sikorski Adego, said that with these funds from the frozen assets, Ukraine will be able to fight the war for three more years. This is exactly what I was saying. These two things are perfectly linked. This is a bridging loan to keep Russia distracted with Ukraine, the war in Ukraine, while Europe prepares for 2028 or 2029 launch of a war against Russia, because it had bulked up sufficiently. These– I really regret that the intimate linkage here is kept out of sight. But Mr. Sikorsky, he told it all yesterday. They are linked.
Diesen: 22:53
So what is the way here though? I mean, how can World War III now be avoided? I mean, well, of course, if I would give advice to NATO, I would say, you know, de-escalate if you’re European, pick up a phone and talk to Putin. But you know, we can’t talk to the Russians. We seem determined to continue to escalate. But on the Russian side, what can they do at this point? I know the rhetoric in Europe is that, oh, they should just leave Ukraine, but that doesn’t really solve the war because then NATO moves into Ukraine and all the same problems. The war wouldn’t be over.
So what are possible pathways out of this? Because this is pretty much the most pessimistic I’ve been in terms of avoiding another world war since this whole thing began.
Doctorow: 23:53
I think it’s all in Putin’s hands. Let me put this in perspective. I detected a week ago when there was this open conflict between Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov and Oshakov, the advisor to President Putin and Pieskov, the press secretary of Putin, over whether the spirit, the impulse of Anchorage Alaska’s summit still is in effect or whether it’s been dissipated. Ryabkov said it’s over, meaning the diplomatic path towards normalization with the United States is not viable. He was overruled publicly and unusually by these two gentlemen. And then by Putin himself. That never happens.
For casual visitors to this show or to Russian affairs, they would have no sense of this. But those of us who are Russia watchers know this never happens. That the number two man in foreign ministry is put in his place, or man who is supposed to succeed Lavrov, is put in his place in a very undecorous way, indecorous way. That was a tip off, that there’s a big conflict going on at the top in Russia, and in the center of the government.
But then I want to put into perspective what I said about Solovyov and his denunciation of the Go Slow approach and of these SMO, the Special Military Operation approach, as opposed to open war.
I don’t see that as the cat’s paw of an opposition to Putin within the government or outside the government. I’ve already explained how Mr. Solovyov is so very close to Putin and to Putin’s immediate spokespeople, not just his press secretary, but the man who oversees all of Russia’s television programs on the news. So I believe that Putin himself is preparing to make this transition from the SMO to open the declaration of war on Ukraine, which will change dramatically their behavior. They will destroy everything that exists.
26:25
They will turn Kiev into rubble, not just the downtown Bankovaya, where the government offices are. And they will not look back. As Solovyov said, we will show humane consideration after we’ve won the war, not before. So I think the ball is in Putin’s court. I don’t look for any big change here in the West or here in Europe.
I think it will come only after Putin declares war on Ukraine, which could be, as I said, could follow immediately on delivery or rumored delivery of Tomahawks. And that will change in a cardinal fashion the way the war is being prosecuted. That will save us all.
Diesen:
It looks like one of the reasons why Russia’s been more constrained in terms of, as you say, going to an all-out war as opposed to a special military operation is both its, yeah, the domestic situation as well as its partner states. That is, domestically it was assumed that the public would be very critical if this amount of violence was used against Ukraine.
But now, of course, with these last rounds of escalation from NATO, it looks like it would be the contrary that the public would expect or if not demand a harder stance. But you also see some indication from our allies but less common partners that is China, India, I guess, going softer, you know, maintaining only a special military operation was also seen, I think, as not appearing too aggressive and violent in the eyes of the Chinese and the Indians. However, now with again the escalations of NATO, they have a different consideration. Now looking weak in front of their partners is also not ideal because no matter how close partner you are, at some point states will often bet on the winning horse and if it looks that you’re too weak then your partners will turn away from you anyway. So it does seem like, again, all the indicators suggest that we’re heading again towards this very dark place.
28:53
But I guess when the Russian retaliation comes, what do you expect them to go after though? Is it political, military target, the infrastructure inside Ukraine, outside? How do you see the possible climbing up the escalation ladder?
Doctorow:
Well let’s differentiate between what the Russians will do to Ukraine and what the Russians will do to Western Europe or the United States and you differentiate between the last two, of course. Attacking the United States is the last thing that Russia will do as it prepares for World War III.
They have uncertainty about the competence of military and political judgment in Washington, and they know that the two countries can destroy life on earth, so they would prefer any conflict with the United States to be the very last stage in escalation. If the Tomahawks are shipped, I don’t think they’re going to attack if they’re producer is in the United States or any United States military assets outside of the United States. I think the attack will be on the intermediate country, whether it’s Norway or Denmark, whoever decides to carry the water for Washington and be the deliverer of Tomahawks, they will get hit. But as for Ukraine, I think the moment that Mr. Putin declares war on them, which is the first step that he takes, there will be total destruction then.
30:28
All at a conventional level, all using the Oreshnik and all the other means at their disposal to lay waste to Ukraine so it starts to look like Gaza. That’s in their power. And I think the feeling of enmity, of hatred for Ukraine, has reached that point. So as I say, there are three different levels of destruction here, of response.
The most severe will be against Ukraine. That will be immediate, leveling it to the extent that they can or want to. The second will be hitting European military assets in Europe, starting with those directly associated with the Tomahawk or other, because it’s not necessarily a Tomahawk. The United States has a few other long range missiles that it can deliver to Ukraine to do the job quite nicely. So whatever is the country that is cooperating with the States, with NATO and acting as NATO to deliver these to Ukraine they will be struck in one way or another probably in a military way, not civilian centers. And until and unless NATO declares war on Russia. In that case, watch out, because everything will be subject to attack, and it will be subject to nuclear attack.
31:50
That’s another, I didn’t mention that in detail, that Russia has made it plain that any war with NATO will be a nuclear war. They are not going to go into tank formations against Poland or anybody else. They will use their nuclear strength to eradicate the military forces and if necessary, civilian populations of Western Europe.
Diesen: 32:16
So if we enter, I guess, game theory, this would be a bet essentially on a game of chicken, that is, Russia would strike targets. It seems as if Germany would be kind of high on the list in terms of its potential industrial production, as well as its role as a logistics center, also its mere posture in all this.
But once this strike comes, it would then, given that Germany is a non-nuclear state, then it would essentially be a clear signal to the rest of the NATO alliance that the Russians will be, you know, they’re prepared to go all the way. And this is when NATO has the dilemma of either responding in a big way, which would then probably lead to a nuclear exchange or back down. I know if NATO would ever back down, I guess under Trump’s leadership would be the best bet on the Russian side, given that he doesn’t seem to have much problem in terms of flipping his position back and forth.
Doctorow: 33:26
Well, the Article 5, he’s already trashed Article 5. So I don’t think any European defense planners can reckon on the United States automatically coming to their aid if Russia attacks with nuclear or without nuclear.
I don’t think that the United States is going to risk New York, Los Angeles, Washington for the sake of Munich or Lyon. This is a given and I think most people here in Europe and Brussels understand that. As I say, the ball really is in Putin’s court to find a proper answer to what you described in the opening, which is complete condescension and disregard for Russia as a power. That cannot go on. It only can lead to disaster.
Diesen: 34:22
I often make the point how awful the political leadership and media now is. I mean, Imagine during the Cold War, if someone would have done this, say, let’s openly attack key commercial targets, deep inside Russia, military, political targets, again, directly by NATO countries, and any opposition would be dismissed as being pro-Soviet or something along those lines. I mean, the kind of irresponsibility would be unthinkable. But now it’s the only response it seems. I mean, this is the, it just feels like this is really the dumbest way one could possibly stumble into a third world war.
But I guess just as a final question, do you think tomorrow, on Friday, this is when Trump said he would make a decision on the Tomahawks. I guess that’s really a good indication when we know whether or not, yeah, we’re going down this path or not.
Doctorow: 35:28
Well, irrespective of the Tomahawks, the situation is becoming critical. And I think the fact that this Solovyov program is so open as it was, this corresponds to the situation that we see in the massive pressure that Trump is applying to cut, to hurt severely as possible Russia’s economy, the secondary sanctions, the assault he’s made on Brazil, the assault he’s made on the Indians. This is not supportable for a long time by Russia.
You mentioned that the close allies in BRICS can move away from Russia if they feel they’re not winning. I think they also can move away if they fear that the losses that the United States is imposing on them are unsustainable for their economies, too harmful for their population, for them to stand by Russia and then take this beating. And I think that this also figures in to the calculation by Putin’s advisors of when we have to go from an SMO to war. Can we last this out? Can we watch our base, our closest friends abandon us under pressure from Trump?
That would have enormous psychological impact on the Russian population. And it wouldn’t be favorable to the governments in power. So I think that Trump is overplaying his hand. I think you mentioned that on one of the– whether with me or another program in the last week or so, the pressure applied and pressure applied and then the spring releases itself in an unexpected and violent way. And I think that’s what we’re about to see, that Trump has overdone it and has misunderstood the limits to his power vis-a-vis Russia.
Diesen: 37:40
I don’t think he recognized the difference between the large powers and the small power, because a small power can be, like the Palestinians can be forced to stand down or any other, but the large powers, if you’re China, Russia, standing down, it would be the first step towards your destruction. This interesting point that Professor John Mersheimer has. He argues that one of the most fundamental things or dangerous things in the West is the refusal to recognize that Russia sees this war as being an existential threat, including NATO expansion on its borders. But this is quite important, I think, because if you don’t recognize that Russia sees this as existential, then that results in a massive miscalculation and what happens when you mount this much pressure on it, because the assumption or language you hear always from the Americans and Europeans is, “Oh, we just need to put more pressure on Putin. Then he’ll back down.” But again, for the Russians backing down here is an existential threat that would result in their eventual destruction. So there is only escalation here. And again, it looks as if that’s where we’re heading now with, as you said, an actual war. Do you have any final thoughts before we finish off?
Doctorow: 39:01
No, the outlook is not good. But the only comfort I can offer is that the first stage in a Russian escalation will be to annihilate Ukraine. No government in Kiev is not an ideal solution, and the people have written to me saying, oh, that’s not the end of the war. Well, it avoids anything dire coming Russia’s way out of whoever is running Ukraine.
The chaos that will follow in Ukraine after the decapitation is not only of Mr. Zelensky and his immediate entourage, they were saying, they being Mr. Soloviev, to use the Oreshniks and destroy Bankovaia, and well, the parliament with it, it’s the whole political class in Kiev that they will annihilate. So there’ll be chaos after that happens, and there’ll be no opportunity for whatever is left to strike a blow of any consequence against Russia. So that is a comfort not for those who are living in Kiev or for Ukrainians in general, who we’ll probably find here in the streets of Brussels very soon, if any of this happens, but it is a comfort to the rest of us that it’s not [proceeding] to bombing Western Europe, not to mention the United States. I think we’ll end, the whole thing will end with a show of force that destroys Ukraine. End of subject.
Diesen; 40:35
I want to get your opinion on one more thing, which I’ve thought about a lot before. That is, I’m wondering if another miscalculation for us in the West is that we have assumptions about the way Russia escalates. Because when we believe that it doesn’t uphold its red lines, perhaps the Russians just escalate differently.
I mean, often we do this gradual incrementalism where we escalate a little bit, a little bit down based on the extent to which, the responses we get. But with the Russians, you see often that they hold back for a while and then they go really, well, not, well, let’s say overboard, that they react in a big way. So they don’t do the incrementalism that NATO is renowned for. So I often think about the speech, last speech Putin gave around the time they annexed Crimea in 2014. And he used this analogy, he referred to pushing a spring further and further back until it finally shoots out.
41:35
And essentially this was a reference to 20 years of warning, stop expanding NATO on our borders. So we will have to take action at some point. And then he said, this was the spring idea. And then of course, from 2014, we kind of gradually developed a Ukrainian army, almost make it a defacto NATO member, ignore everything that comes out of Moscow. And then again, eight years later, they come with this reaction where they again, launch this invasion where they send in their military.
And again, you can put this with after we began sending the weapons, we didn’t do it, They didn’t do anything. And suddenly they go in and annex four regions. I mean, maybe it’s just, we don’t know. Maybe we escalate. We go up and down the escalation ladder in a very different way than the Russians.
42:26
So, but this is a problem with NATO’s incrementalism as well. The reason why I do small steps forward is because the reason why you started with tanks, then you did HIMARS, then you did F-16s, things which we ourselves recognize could trigger World War III, because once you do another step, it’s so small, it doesn’t really matter. But once the response actually comes, it seems very disproportionate. But I mean, are we fooling ourselves, I guess, is what I’m asking with this incrementalism.
Doctorow: 42:56
Well, I would explain Russian incrementalism. It’s been variable over this 10-year period. But one thing I want to dismiss is the notion that Russia was had by Minsk II, but they were deceived by Merkel and by Hollande, who had no intention of implementing this properly, and Putin more or less agreeing with that. I don’t believe that for a moment on the Russian side. What people pay very little attention to is that Russia, which could have destroyed entirely the Ukrainian armed forces in 2014, didn’t dare do that because it knew what would follow: an attack that didn’t have to be a kinetic war, it could be just an economic attack on Russia, which it was totally unprepared to sustain.
43:47
It took Russia 10 years to prepare for that eventuality and to survive the sanctions from hell. So Russia, maybe Ukraine was preparing its army the whole time, and Russia was preparing its economy the whole time and its army as well. So there was a reason, there was a reason for this restraint because it was busy doing something that it couldn’t talk about. I think the reason for that restraint ended in 2018, 2019 when they were satisfied that their latest offensive weapons and their rearming, their nuclear triad had reached the point where they were superior and ahead of the United States for the first time ever in strategic weapons. And then they were prepared to make a move.
So I would put their restraint in that it is without calculating or other crafty restraints wasn’t a naive and stupid restraint. But what we have seen for the last few years looks more like a stupid restraint. Now I may be missing something. Perhaps they don’t have more than three Oreshniks when you actually count the noses here. There could be a reason for this, that they were lying about the production facility and they don’t have sufficient arms to match their words.
That could be. But if that’s not the case, if they really have been building, as you were suggesting a few minutes ago, a real cache of hardware to be used when needed, then the restraint doesn’t make much sense. Use it or lose it. And if they fail to defend their interests, then they will lose it. So that’s my answer to this question. It’s not a simple question that you were asking.
Diesen: 45:42
Well, no one from Moscow is giving me the facts of what’s happening behind the scenes. But again, it is an hypothesis though that, again, as you suggested, between 2014 and 2022, Russia was making its economy sanctions-proof and also preparing enough military force in case there would be a larger war. And after 2022 to 2025, they similarly went very slow and showed restraint as they do, I guess, perhaps recognize that if Ukraine loses or not if but when Ukraine lose the war that NATO might join in and that appears to be what’s happening now. So having had three and a half years to prepare, I’m guessing that, again, I don’t know what’s happening inside the weapon depots or what kind of hypersonic missiles or Oreshniks they have been building up, but I’m assuming that they are quite aware that NATO would join in on the fight after Russia had exhausted itself a bit on the Ukrainians.
46:49
Anyways, thank you for taking the time. This is a very dark topic, but I’ll be very curious to see what happens tomorrow because is Trump just bluffing, or is he actually going to go through with this, the Tomahawks that is, which can only be interpreted as a declaration of war? So thanks again.
Doctorow: 47:11
All right. Thank you.
I come on at 3.30 minutes
The points made here are in line with the texts I published late last night and this morning in which I tried to make sense of Trump’s latest change of heart about sending Tomahawks to Ukraine and his agreeing to a meeting with Putin in Budapest at which they may jointly define the terms of the peace with Ukraine that Mr. Zelensky will be obliged to accept or face total destruction of his country and likely loss of his own life.
The link below is a continuation of the same discussion
As they say, it is always darkest before the dawn. Though this discussion was recorded at noon, Brussels time today, figuratively speaking it took place before the “dawn” that arrived at 8pm when the Kremlin released a lengthy summary of the just completed two-and-a-half-hour phone call between Presidents Putin and Trump. To all appearances, that phone call draws us back from a pending crisis that would open a clear path to a NATO-Russia war, as the title that Glenn Diesen assigned to our video reads.
When we spoke at noon, we knew that Trump would be receiving a visit from Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House tomorrow at which he was expected to announce his decision to dispatch Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. We also had reason to believe that the Russian reaction to such news could be a dramatic escalation in the conflict.
As I mention in this video, two days ago, on 14 October, talk show host Vladimir Solovyov said on Russian state television that it was time to respond appropriately to the rising threat to Russian security and in particular to the delivery of Tomahawks by declaring war on Ukraine and proceeding to beat the hell out of Kiev by missile strikes on all the decision-making centers in the capital. This decapitation would extend well beyond Zelensky and his circle to virtually the entire political class of Ukraine, while the country would be bombed into ruins. And as I explain, Solovyov is not just a talking head: for reasons I set out here it is fair to say that his threats were cleared with Putin for delivery in this unofficial way. The fact that this show of the 14th was posted on youtube, as virtually never happens, suggests that it was meant as a direct warning to the United States.
If that is so, then today’s phone call indicates that the message was received by the intended audience and Washington is taking a step back from the disaster that was otherwise pending.
We must be grateful for small favors and hope that reason will prevail at the foreseen summit between Putin and Trump at a date still to be announced.
In the meantime, I recommend this conversation with Glenn Diesen to see where we were headed, and may yet be headed, if the summit in Budapest does not result in a breakthrough in the deadlock between Russia and NATO over a conclusion to the Special Military Operation that addresses and resolves the root causes of the conflict as stated by Moscow.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025
As I remarked earlier today, this morning’s interview with NewsX World was very well prepared by the broadcaster’s production team and touched upon issues that are not covered so far in Western media.
I am pleased and not a little surprised that day after day this Indian global broadcaster invites my commentary on the Ukraine war when they know very well that my observations are at variance not only with Mainstream, but also at variance with a goodly number of celebrities in the Alternative Media.
I am being very discreet in my remarks in this interview. Allow me to spell out more clearly what my present thinking is:
In this interview which begins roughly half way through the video at minute 10, I am asked about the latest Russian attacks on the Ukraine energy infrastructure, about Melania Trump’s statements about her communications with Vladimir Putin with respect to Ukrainian children allegedly kidnapped by Russian forces, and about Russian strikes against foreign mercenaries in Ukraine.
Transcript submitted by a reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKx-eUpYDoM
NewsX World: 20:31
Now for this discussion, we’re joined by Gilbert Doctorow. He’s an international relations and Russian affairs expert, joins us live from Brussels. Thank you very much for joining us again. Good to see you. Gilbert, now in response to Ukraine’s increased reliance on gas imports, how might Russia adjust its energy policies as well?
Doctorow:
What we’re talking about is the consequence of exchange of strikes by Russia and Ukraine against the energy infrastructure of the other side. In our news, Western news, they speak only about Ukraine’s strikes on the Russian infrastructure. In the Russian news, they speak only about their own strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.
21:22
And it’s understandable that the broad public does not have any sense of the sequence here. Who did what to whom when, and what was an action, and what was proactive, and what was reactive? From my following this, I would like to call out that the latest Ukrainian remarks on what they have to import, or on how Russia has now lost its refinery capacity, 30, 50 percent or more of Russian production and refining has been stopped. The Russians are importing gasoline and so forth. As typically, the Ukrainians are projecting onto the Russians what is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine is importing, Russia is not importing anything in this regard.
22:15
However, the Russians have had serious losses of refining capacity and of other energy infrastructure due to Ukrainian strikes. And some of those strikes were directed by Americans. Let’s be quite open about this. It isn’t discussed in media, but it is known that the most recent strikes by Ukraine on Russian gas and oil infrastructure [were] using HIMARS, and it was Americans who were directing those HIMARS.
This is a very serious escalation. The damage was considerable. In Russian news you hear nothing about the extensive destruction of their energy infrastructure by Ukrainian attacks. What you do here, and this is mostly in social media, is in this region or that region there is a shortage of fuel. Now, when this comes to a discussion, public discussion, the Russian patriots will tell you, “Ah, this is the season of the harvest. The diesel fuel and other fuel is in short supply for that reason.”
23:28
Rubbish. It’s in short supply because refineries were struck. The issue is very serious. And the Russian response was also serious. They’ve had in the last few days massive attacks by missiles and drones on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure across the country. And the results were devastating, but not in the sense that they were put an end to the war.
NewsX World:
And Gilbert, can you tell us more about the involvement of US in these strikes that you say that it’s not covered enough or it’s not covered at all in media?
Doctorow: 24:11
It’s covered in the alternative media. The question of US firing HIMARS was discussed yesterday on one of the leading YouTube platforms, with highly responsible people, both as panelists and as hosts. So I take that quite seriously.
I assume that the information was coming from inside Russia by people who are, who have some relationship with the panelists who are speaking in the West. Nonetheless, the fact is that Russia is, as is understandable in a state of war, holding back a lot of information about the damage that it is experiencing, and is trumpeting its successes in blowing up everything it can on the Ukrainian side.
NewsX World: 25:01
And do you think that after all this, the US can still act as a mediator? Why do you think the US is leaning towards Ukraine now?
Doctorow:
The US’s role as mediator was rather peculiar from the very start. The United States effectively, the Russians wanted to call it out. They would say what we all know, that the United States has been, is, and for the foreseeable future, even under Donald Trump, a co-belligerent with the Ukrainians against Russia. Russia has not pressed that point, because if you press it, what you have is a war, a war with the United States, which they would prefer to avoid. I think we would be happy if they avoided it, because it probably would be the end of civilization on Earth.
25:45
For that reason, they haven’t done what they have a right to do, which is name the United States as a co-belligerent. Now they’re doing that, or intending to do that, if Europeans follow the United States through the open door of supplying long-range missiles, which they will control, to attack Russian infrastructure, energy infrastructure and otherwise. That they will control it is a blessing in a way, because if these missiles could be operated by the Ukrainians, you could be sure they would not be directed against refineries. They would be directed against Moscow’s and Petersburg’s presidential neighborhoods as a terrorist attack to create havoc in Russian society.
But neither the Germans nor the Americans are very likely to give the Ukrainians free control of where these missiles, which they may supply, which they may deploy, will be used against Russia. It’s not a pretty situation.
NewsX World: 26:49
Yes, indeed, we stay in a very sensitive place now. And also, Gilbert, I’m sure you saw the news yesterday with the confirmation that Ukraine has used domestically made missiles in recent strikes on Russian infrastructures. How does this reflect Ukraine’s growing self-reliance in defense, and what impact might this have on the conflict’s strategic dynamics?
Doctorow:
If there are serious weapons being manufactured in Ukraine, they won’t be manufactured for long, because intelligence will reveal to the Russians where these are, and they’ll be bombed out of existence. They opened an important manufacturing center, Neil Loth, a couple of days ago. The day after it was opened, it was obliterated by Russian bombing attack. So I don’t take this question of the Ukrainians’ ability or technical ability to produce serious weapons as having any determinant in the way the war goes, simply because the Russians can bomb anything they want out of existence on Ukrainian territory. That such weapons might be supplied from the West, that’s another story.
27:58
I do believe that the terrorist missiles that Mr. Scholz was talking about at the end of last year before the elections and the the entry of the still more aggressive Mr. Merz into the chancellorship, I believe that there are Taurus missiles in Ukraine presently. The question is how long before the Germans allow them to be used, and as I say a lot, how long before the Germans themselves use them from the Ukrainian bases against Russia, an act which will probably bring retribution. The Russians are unlikely to do anything about Tomahawks supplied by the United States, because that is a nuclear war to end civilization. But if the Germans try it, you can be sure that the Taurus factory will be bombed the next day.
NewsX World:
Thank you very much, Gilbert Doctorow, for joining us and sharing that insight.
This hourly news summary has a segment dealing with Russia’ latest heavy attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure which has sent Ukrainian officials begging in Europe for a 30% rise in gas supplies to compensate for their loss of production and storage facilities. I link this with the generally underreported Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries using American Himas and other US controlled weapons. My segment begins from minute 20.
Transcript submitted by a reader
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855xgceYwv4
Davis: 0:01
In the very vexing opportunity and effort to try and find an end to the Russian-Ukraine war, there are problems really all around. Russian ones, American ones, European ones, and definitely your Ukrainian ones. But we’re trying to find out here where is the contours of any possible peace? Where are the fault lines of potential opportunities to get rid of the peace and to cause problems that could keep the war going on? And really, just where is all this headed?
We have with us today, I guess we’ve had him with us once before, many of you know him well, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, historian and international affairs analyst, coming to us live from Brussels in in Europe. Doctor, welcome back to the show.
Doctorow: 0:44
Well, good to speak to you again.
Davis:
Well, listen, I wanted to– we were talking about some of the shifting red lines and where some in the West have claimed that various things are Russian red lines, even if the Russians didn’t say them like early on with a lot of the claims were that Russia set– the Western claims were that Russia set red lines with tanks and with artillery, and then with HIMARS and then with a ATACMS, etc., the F-16s. And every time the red line was brought up to, the West passed it and nothing ever happened. There’s some debate over whether Russia actually had red lines on those issues, but now the latest one that’s up for debate right now is this issue of the Tomahawk cruise missile. And some are suggesting that the Russians are actually putting a red line on this one where they haven’t on the previous one.
Here is Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov from earlier today talking first of all that a lot of momentum that appeared to be on the table for the talks between Russia and the United States in Anchorage, Alaska has now been lost. But then he directly interacts the Tomahawk issue.
Ryabkov: 1:51 [Russian, English subtitles]
Unfortunately it must be stated that the powerful momentum from Anchorage in favor of agreements has largely been exhausted. This is the result of destructive activity, primarily by Europeans. As for the Tomahawks themselves, as you understand, without software, without launchers, the rockets on their own are, let’s say, inert objects. Hypothetical use of such systems is possible only with direct involvement of American personnel. I hope that those pushing Washington towards such a decision fully understand the depth and gravity of the consequences of the decisions.
Davis: 2:34
Other news coming out of Reuters today said that some of the Russian members of parliament, of the Duma, said basically if you use these things we are going to destroy the launchers and the launch sites which would almost certainly mean destroy American troops. Do you think that this represents a real red line for Russia, or is this just more rhetoric?
Doctorow:
Look, this issue came up more than a year ago, and Mr. Putin then issued a red line. He was asked by Pavel Zarubin, who is a journalist with Russian state television, what this meant, when it’s discussed that the United States could be sending long-range missiles to Ukraine.
This was about June, July of last year. And Putin said, this was on the spot, outdoors, he answered the question saying that the Tomahawk can only, or didn’t name the Tomahawk, but long-range missiles of this variety could only be operated by the Americans, that all the programming would be American. And the only thing that would be Ukraine would be the finger on the button.
3:47
And in that case, if this happened, that Russia would respond militarily to that attack by any such missile from the source, where it came from, where it originally came from, not where it was launched from. So it’s a bit more, it was a bit more severe back then than even what you mentioned now, because you were describing a Russian attack on the launcher, presumably the launcher being somewhere in Ukraine, when Putin was speaking a year ago about attacking essentially the United States.
4:18
Now, what happened on Thursday when he spoke at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in the city of Sochi in the south of Russia, he was asked about the Tomahawks and his response then was, his first response was this: the delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine would spoil the relations between the United States and Russia. That seemed to be having a light-at-the-end-of the-tunnel characteristic now.
When he was leaving the stage, and after this four-hour session, he was quite relaxed, And he was stopped by Pavel Zerubin, that’s very same journalist whom I mentioned had asked him this question in June or July of last year. He said that the delivery of these Tomahawks to Ukraine would destroy American-Russian relations. Well, destroying relations more or less means you’re at war.
5:29
Then a moment later, he drew that back and he said, I meant to say: it would damage them. Well, Mr. Putin, which is it, damage or destroy? When you’re speaking about an essential matter of Russian national security, this is not a small detail. And it makes you wonder whether he is really in control of the responses that Russia should give to red lines being violated.
Davis:
Well, and let’s just stick on the topic of red lines for a minute. Are there any red lines? Are there actually any red lines that Russia has, whether they were self-imposed or attributed to Russia, there hasn’t been any so far because the war has stayed, thank God, contained within the borders of Ukraine and hasn’t escalated beyond that. But there … there’s a very difficult dynamic that any country would have to face, especially in Russia’s position, that they may not want any outside power to do anything, but if they take some action in there that could spawn drawing that other country in full on, not just with support, but like their armed forces, et cetera, that would be very high level. But to not do it, to not actually ever strike anything in there, is to encourage other sides to take even more action against them. How difficult is it for Russia to actually have a red line that they might enforce?
Doctorow: 6:57
Depends on whom they’re supposed to enforce these red lines against. And you can understand that they are very hesitant to set and then to defend red lines against the United States. The other nuclear power, their peer, which if it enters into a direct conflict, could lead to a nuclear war. That does not mean that Russia has no red lines that it would act upon.
And let’s go back to the Tomahawk issue. I see it as misleading and a distraction from the real issue before us. Let us remember that going back from even before his election, Friedrich Merz, the current chancellor of Germany, had been in favor of delivering, activating Taurus missiles. Unlike the Tomahawk, that is not a 30- or 40- year-old missile. It’s a rather current missile, which has a great deal of capability and which has never been encountered by the Russians. The Russians say that they have well-developed missiles, defense missiles against precisely the Tomahawk, knowing all of its characteristics.
They don’t have defenses against the German Taurus. And the German Taurus could be quite damaging, not the same range, it’s not going to be Moscow or Petersburg, but could do a lot of damage in, I think it’s a 500 kilometer range, which isn’t bad. Now, the situation was that first, Scholz and then Merz have been restrained. They didn’t want to be the first one going against Russia with long-range missiles. The logic was, they were waiting for the United States to go through the door first.
8:55
And what Mr. Trump is doing is walking through the door first. Whether he actually delivers a single Tomahawk or not is almost irrelevant. This opens the door for Merz to use Tomahawks. Now the red lines, the Russians surely will attack Germany. They will bomb the factory that makes the Taurus if they are deployed and directed against Russian targets. That is a red line you can be sure that they will exercise, because Germany is not the United States.
Davis:
Wow that’s a pretty bold statement there and pretty alarming as well, because they may not be the United States, but they are an Article 5- wielding member of NATO. What would be the thought process for the Russian side to take that kind of an action? Because that would … potentially draw in a lot of fighting against them, not just against the Ukraine side.
Doctorow: 9:52
Potentially but unlikely. Their calculation is the Germans would never get Article 5 support from other NATO members. If they are violating essentially violating international law which is what directing a Taurus against Russia would be, they become co-belligerents. And they, Germans, not NATO but Germans, would be subject to retribution from the Russians — which would be all the more logical if it were not directed against Berlin but were destroying the factory producing those missiles. That is the Russian calculation.
Davis: 10:26
Wow, that would be a pretty big issue, which hopefully explains why the Germans haven’t given the Taurus missiles, and hopefully that continues on.
Doctorow:
I’m not sure I agree with you. I think they have given the missiles. I think they went in before Scholz left the chancellorship. They just haven’t been opened to inspection. They haven’t been advertised. When they said under Scholz that in a few weeks we will send them, that is, by the way the whole war has evolved over the last three years, that means they were sent already.
Davis: 10:58
So, but they haven’t been deployed at least as far as we know.
Doctorow:
Exactly right.
Davis:
And one would hope that that permission isn’t given. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not a unilateral decision that Kiev could make. They could only do it with the participation of the German military, is that correct?
Doctorow:
That was the issue in Germany when several, I think it was Air Force generals, complained that deploying the Taurus in Ukraine was only possible with the technical assistance of German personnel.
Davis:
So then that is correct. As long as it hasn’t– in order for it to be deployed, it would have to have authorization, one would imagine, from the very top in Berlin, right?
Doctorow:
Correct.
Davis: 11:50
Well, let’s … hope that doesn’t happen then, because that … would be bad for a lot of cases others. We don’t want to risk any escalation of this. Going back to Trump for a second, when … he was talking about, or the possibility of using the … long range missiles, which … we were under here with the Tomahawk, the question is what is he going to do and what does he want to accomplish? Now, he had come into office obviously saying that he was going to end the war in 24 hours. He knew Putin; he knew Volodymyr Zelensky. It would be easy. He would know how to do it.
12:24
Well since then he’s kind of backed off of that a lot, saying well okay, it was harder than I thought. But he thought going into Anchorage, Alaska that he might be able to make something happen. But as Sergey Rybkov mentioned here, nothing did happen. And there’s not really any difference today than there was before that meeting back in August that took place. And yesterday in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked about that situation now, when he was visiting with Canadian Prime Minister Carney.
Trump: 12:50
Things are happening with respect to Russia-Ukraine. That’s one that last week marked 7,812 people were killed. Soldiers, mostly soldiers. But 7,000, more than 7,000, almost 8,000 soldiers were killed.
It’s a crazy, it’s a crazy thing. I thought that would have been one of the easy ones. I get along very well with Putin and I thought that would have been– I’m very disappointed in him, because I thought this would have been an easy one to settle, but it’s turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East. We’ll see what happens with the Middle East.
Davis: 13:25
Yeah, who would have thought that ending one role would be harder than the Middle East, but who would have thought either one of them were actually simple. But this seems to be an issue to come back to. I know that you’ve written some things, but you seem to be having challenges or differences of opinion, maybe a better way to put it, that Putin seems to be putting too much deference in trying to reach out to Trump. What do you mean by that?
Doctorow: 13:47
Well, his performance last Thursday at the plenary session of this Valdai Discussion Club was very puzzling and disturbing. He, they spent time talking about, Charlie Kirk. They spent time talking about the … American son of a CIA director and a head of a firm, a subcontractor to the US military, who died in Donbass, having volunteered to serve the Russians, because he believed in their Russian traditional values.
That was a lot of time spent flattering the United States, meaning flattering Trump. They also made remarks about what a good conversationalist, interlocutor Donald Trump is. He also talked about the Trump peace plan, the 20-point peace plan for Gaza, saying that he supported it. And he also mentioned in a complimentary way, Tony Blair’s appointment to be on this peace board that Donald Trump would head in the interim period after Hamas left and before the Palestinians were deemed suitable for self-governance.
15:08
This was a lot of flattery for Donald Trump. And it was surprising, and I think it was overdone, because it compromised Russia’s sovereignty. The whole message of Putin the last several years has been sovereignty. And here he was doing his best to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump, not quite calling him Papa, like the Secretary General of NATO did, but it didn’t look good. The countries are at odds, very seriously at odds, and this was not appropriate.
Davis: 15:47
How is that being viewed in the Russian media, in the Russian landscape?
Doctorow:
Well, that particular side of it has not been discussed on Russian state television, for example. But it has blown hot and cold about Donald Trump. The most serious commentary about Trump is, he’s a good guy, but he can’t deliver, because the political balance in Washington is against accommodation with us. And this was what Putin was overlooking. He seemed to be placing too much trust in the personal relationship with Trump that was so much in evidence in Alaska.
And it doesn’t look good for for Russia’s defending its interests. But let’s come back to what Trump is trying to say. And here I have a take on Trump’s message which is different from most of my peers, and I’m ready to defend it. Trump’s been buying time. He has been buying time almost since he took the Oval Office. Buying time for what?
Buying time for Putin to finish up the war, to get it over with. And Putin doesn’t get that message. Trump goes this way and that way. He is pivoting to Zelensky. Then he’s turning back towards Putin and it’s all buying time with Congress not to impose these tough secondary sanctions.
A lot of the difficulty that he would have in dealing in a straight way with Congress and the political establishment of the states, he is avoiding by attacking this way and attacking that way. And Putin doesn’t get it. When Trump said last week, repeated, that he was disappointed in Putin because he thought he would get it over with in the first week of the war. Let’s go back to the start of this special military operation. Most people like yourself were assuming that Russia would go in, in the American fashion of shock and awe, and would finish off Ukraine in a week.
18:08
Everyone knew that the Russian military operation was being done in a backwards way. When you have an attack, you want to take the country, you go in with three times their forces. Instead, Putin would end with one third of their forces. Now that explains why the special military operation got off to such a poor start. And Trump was revisiting that issue today.
Trump is not saying it, but he knows and we know that Putin can end this war tomorrow if he wants to. He has Oreshniks, they know where the government offices are on Bankovskaya Street in downtown Kiev. Well, in one day, they can decapitate Ukraine. And they should do it, but it’s not happening.
Davis: 19:04
And what do you suppose it is? With the capacity to do so, why do you think Russia hasn’t done it?
Doctorow:
One is the indecisiveness of Putin and his unwillingness to take risks. But the risks in … striking against Kiev are much smaller than the risks of this ongoing conflict with the West, where the leaders in Europe have gotten to understand that Ukraine is losing badly, and they are moving from one provocation to another, ever steeper and ever more risky and dangerous, that can lead us into World War III. And Putin does not get it.
Davis: 19:49
–was looking for something here to see if we could pull this up. Gary, if you could possibly pull up the Ursula von der Leyen that we used earlier today, that would be great from her comments this morning. Because I want to kind of go down that path. You say that the delay, and I know I’ve had some conversations with a number of folks that have some contacts on the Russian side themselves, and they have in one hand voiced a lot of frustration because of Leyen. Same thing, because they see people like Emmanuel Macron, who continues to mock Russia as he did last month by saying they’ve only taken 1% in the last two years because that’s all they can, the implication being, the counterclaim being that Russia can take more than that, but they are not using their forces in that regard. One of the arguments is, well, they’re doing that because they perceive that there could be a war with NATO one of these days.
20:41
And so they are, with all of this industrial capacity, they are stockpiling all the key aspects that was necessary for war, training up additional men, so that in the event that that comes in the future, they’re ready for it later on, which apparently they aren’t right now. First of all, just on that aspect of it, what is your understanding of that argument?
Doctorow:
That was good. The war has evolved. The war has changed dramatically over the course of the first three years. When the war started, Russia had a ten-time advantage over Ukraine in artillery shells and artillery tubes. They were waging, from the beginning, an artillery war. That was their war of attrition. Today, the artillery advantage is less important. I don’t mean to say it’s not important, but it’s much less a factor in the way the war is proceeding.
It is now basically a drone war. My peers who appear on programs like yours, they assume because they never name their sources, but I assume that they’re speaking to people in the military or military experts in Russia and are delivering their information on air from that source. They never stop to think whether anybody in the military in Russia would ever dare to give them something confidential, because they’ll be taken to court and they’ll spend the rest of their lives in prison for betraying national secrets. But somehow this little detail doesn’t enter into the minds of my peers.
22:12
What I’m listening to is Russian television. “Oh yes,” people say, “yes, Doctorow only watches television.” But my goodness, the whole of Sovietology in the Cold War was based on that type of expertise. People read Provda and it’s Izvestia. And you might say, why are they reading that junk?
Because in that junk, they found clues as to what comes next. Now, Russian television is much more honest than anybody imagines. I don’t mean RT. RT isn’t Russian television. It’s a special product, devised for the American public, to hold up a mirror to America’s ills.
22:45
That is not Russian television. Russian television interviews– is war correspondents on the front. I watch them every day, and it is extremely interesting and informative. The Russians are now talking about the birdies. The birdies are the attack drones.
Now the Ukrainians are not stupid people. They are very much like Russians in their skills, strengths and weaknesses. They’re very good at computers. They’re very good at video games and they’re very good at operating drones. This is a very big threat.
And it means that the Russians are operating on the field completely differently from what you would expect when the war opened and they had such an advantage in heavy tanks and all of the hardware. No, that’s not what– the tanks are being used as artillery today, just movable artillery, that’s all they are. There are no tank battles in Ukraine. The real issue today is one where the Ukrainians have a much more balanced stand against Russia than they did when the war started and they were a 10-time disadvantage in artillery shells.
Davis; 23:53
And so what is the net-net for that? What does that result in on the battlefield, those dynamics?
Doctorow:
Small movements. However, I disagree with what Macron said. It’s not a 1% increase. That’s nonsense.
When the war started, Russia had– maybe 70% of Lugansk was under Russian control and perhaps 50% of Donetsk. Now it’s 99% of Lugansk under Russian control and 70% of Donetsk under Russian control. That isn’t 1%. So Mr. Macron doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or he’s just giving propaganda. They’re moving. But if it could continue to move at this pace, it’ll be a 10-year war.
Davis:
So is Russia moving at this pace because that’s all they can do, or are they moving at this pace because they’re risk-averse and they’re not using all their capacity?
Doctorow: 24:45
That is true, but that is not the only factor. A bigger factor is how they conceive of this war. They conceive of it in a manner that the German classics of warfare would approve of. Warfare is about knocking out the military force of your opponent. They are killing Ukrainian soldiers at a ratio perhaps of 10 times their own losses. And it is known that when they advance in this place or that, instead of proceeding and marching on and pushing the Ukrainians back further, they are retreating slightly to draw the Ukrainians into a trap and murder still more Ukrainians.
The problem is that Ukraine is still, though it’s dropped from 40 million to maybe 25 million, and though it has several hundred thousand deserters, it still has a military. And my peers who are speaking as if Ukraine is going to roll over and die tomorrow are dreaming. That is wish, that is not fact. And the move that the Russians are taking will bring them maybe in a few months at this pace to the Dnieper, but that’s not the whole of Ukraine. And the Russians have no interest in crossing into really Ukrainian territory where they will be invading, occupying army.
26:08
So the war’s end on the battlefield is questionable. I’ve said for some time the war would end in a political collapse of Ukraine. But if Europe rushes in with a hundred and forty five billion euros of assistance, there will be no political collapse of Ukraine. And there’s the problem.
Davis: 26:30
Well, and in fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to discuss next, because with this delay, if Russia’s military is capable of going much faster pace and achieving a military victory by destroying the units and then taking the territory as well — by going in this slower pace, it may be whittling down slowly at the capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces, but as you say, it keeps alive the possibility that no, we can hold out for a lot longer than this.
That was reinforced by Ursula von der Leyen earlier today, when she seems to go down here continuing path that this is a war, that we are actually in a war with Russia and maybe one we can win.
von der Leyen: 27:10
Something new and dangerous is happening in our skies. In just the past two weeks MIG fighters have violated Estonia’s airspace and drones have flown over critical sites in Belgium, Poland, Romania, Denmark, and Germany.
Flights have been grounded, jets scrambled, and countermeasures deployed to ensure the safety of our citizens. Make no mistake, this is part of a worrisome pattern of growing threats. Across our Union, undersea cables have been cut, airports and logistic hubs paralyzed by cyber attacks, and elections targeted by malign influence campaign. These incidents are calculated to linger in the twilight of deniability. This is not random harassment.
It is a coherent and escalating campaign to unsettle our citizens, test our resolve, divide our union, and weaken our support for Ukraine. And it is time to call it by its name, this is hybrid warfare.
Davis:
And so what do you make of that? Is her characterization accurate, or is the Russian view that they’re not trying to escalate into Europe? What do you think is the case?
Doctorow: 28:37
I think it’s a pile of lies. Von der Leyen is a hawk. She is a warrior. She wants to grab– she’s also virtually a dictator. She has seized as much authority within the European institutions as she could, which was not so difficult, because she’s surrounded by 27 cowards who all have linked arms and are afraid to rein her in. She may be reined in. She may lose a confidence vote in the next few weeks. But the point is: everything that she’s saying is to make the point that Europe is threatened and it needs a strong leader who makes defense federalized under her watch. And it’s all self-serving.
Now these attacks, the incursion on Estonian airspace, I ask you to look at the map. When you look at the overlapping territories that are sovereign territories of the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, which are now all– with the exception of Kaliningrad of Russia, all of the bordering lands of the Baltic Sea are NATO countries. When you extend out into the sea, their territorial rights leave you with almost nil international waters. So this whole claim of Russian infringement is in fact not a Russian aggression, it is a European-NATO aggression against Russia, to create an air and sea blockade on Russia in the Baltic. As they said very nicely, when Finland and Sweden joined NATO, it turns the Baltic into a NATO lake.
Well my friends, if that’s how you feel, we will have World War Three, because the Russians will not be barred from using the Baltic Sea. That is a casus belli. And it takes more than a few cutters from Estonia to stop a Russian oil tanker or Mr. Macron’s little police boats stopping a suspected gray-fleet Russian tanker somewhere off the coast of France. They proceed with this and we have World War III. There’s nothing to talk about. They won’t proceed with it, because the Russians will not allow them to do it.
31:25
However, this “drone attacks” is even more preposterous. All over the place and in everybody’s back yard is a drone attack, all done by the Russians. This is as nonsensical, as absurd as all of the “Russia, Russia, Russia” stories to prevent Trump’s election in 2016 and to impeach him after his election.
This, I would be sure, is all launched and coordinated by MI6 in London who are the main practitioners of dirty tricks, and von der Layen finds this very convenient, a story to establish and justify her stranglehold on power in the European Union.
Davis:
Yeah, I’m not sure what good it is going to be to have power if you end up with, some of your actions end up spawning a global war. Hopefully that will just stay in the rhetoric realm. I mean, you mentioned something a second ago that potentially that Russia could go all the way up to the Dnieper River and that that might still might not end it. That kind of lines up with something that Putin did say a couple of days ago when he talked about what their objectives were right now in the SMO.
Putin: 32:37 [English voice over]
I address the soldiers and officers, the real heroes of our time, with a special feeling. I thank you for your loyalty to your motherland, for your military valor and courage, for every day of your hard combat work. I am sure that, thanks to you, the security of Russia will be reliably ensured, and the long-awaited and strong world will return to the heroic land of Donbas and Novorossia. We are together and this means that all our plans will be realized.
Davis:
So he says all of his plans will be realized, all of Novorossia, which is we talked about on this channel a lot, that’s four additional oblasts besides just the four that are allegedly on the table right now and you’re saying, suggesting though, that that still might not be enough.
Doctorow: 33:25
Well there’s one thing missing in that Novorossia story, and that is Odessa. The French and British interest in Ukraine focuses on Odessa. Odessa, if you look at the map closely, it is very, it is in an easy strike range to Crimea. It is Ukraine’s major port. It’s what prevents Ukraine from being landlocked and is essential to the Ukrainian economy. It is important militarily, for the reason I just mentioned, because it would be a wonderful naval port for the French and the British.
34:10
The Russians understand that. And Russian television– which again I explain I use fairly regularly as a source– they are now calling out Odessa as one more objective before they end their military activities in Ukraine.
Davis:
So where do you see this going, let’s just say by the first quarter, by the spring of next year, so within roughly six months from now? Will this war just keep going on for years, or do you think Russia will finally just put the gas genuinely on the floor and try to achieve a military victory. What is your assessment?
Doctorow: 34:52
As I said, the political victory would be done in one day if Mr. Putin finds the guts to do it. And that is to bomb the hell out of the administrative buildings and use Oreshnik to go down to whatever depth is needed to wipe out Mr. Zalensky and his team in their underground hideouts. They have the missiles to do it, and that would end the war.
Europe will stand and do nothing about it. The Americans, Mr. Trump, will express regrets. That’s what war is all about. And then he’ll go about doing business with Mr. Putin that he’d like to do but cannot do while the war is raging. [It’s] beside my understanding that Putin does not end the war.
Davis: 35:51
And so if he doesn’t do that version where you say it could be over really quickly, what does it look like six months from now, the first quarter of 2026?
Doctorow:
Nothing. It looks like, well, if you want to see what it looks like, you have to go out four years. This bridging loan, which the Europeans want to give to Ukraine, what is it all about? It’s to keep the Ukrainians in play for three years, or four years. Why three or four years? Look at the rest of the program. They are spending now hundreds of billions of euros to build up, to bulk up Europe’s military production.
Germany is a leader in this with a one trillion euro debt that’s taking out mostly for the purpose of building out its armed forces and for, as Mr Merz said openly, to make Germany the biggest defender he calls it, let’s call it by the real name, the biggest military force in Western Europe. That will be ready for when? For 2029. Merz has said that the Russians will attack in 2029.
37:07
Let’s speak not more Orwellian language, but real language. He means that he will attack Russia in 2029. And if he builds out the army as he plans, you know, Europe could just win. This is not my opinion, but again, experts on Russian state television are saying, not that the Germans will win, but they’re saying that German industry should not be disparaged. German industry is quite serious, and if money is put into it, you know, they can build good arms.
So the situation is not a six-month perspective. The situation that Europe is looking at is a four-year perspective. And you know something? It can work like that. And that is precisely why I’ve changed my mind about the wisdom of the “go slow, don’t rock the boat, don’t challenge the West too much” policy of Putin. It’s reached the end of its practical life.
Davis: 38:08
Well, it does seem that there’s going to be a decision to make on a number of different parties here, not the least of which is in Moscow. And I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that’s going to work out.
Because the capacity is there to just a matter of whether the political will is and what the West would do in response. And all of that is, you know, something that’s very, very bad for global stability and global security, because anything that expands this war is bad for everybody.
And I pray to God we never see it, but we appreciate you coming on today giving us this different perspective than what we get from a lot of other places, and we really appreciate it.
Doctorow:
Well, thanks for having me.
Davis:
And we appreciate you guys to be sure, and like and subscribe if you haven’t done that on your way out. And we’ll thank you very much for watching our show today.
38:51
We’ll see you tomorrow on the “Daniel Davis Deep Dive”.
Gilbert Doctorow 