Questions not being asked about the Mariupol die-hards, about the availability from today of Euro and dollar cash withdrawals at Russian banks, and much more

As I have remarked in earlier diary entries, the Russians are very sparing in the information they release daily on the status of the war effort.  A couple of days ago, we were shown the 1300 or so Ukrainian marines who surrendered in Mariupol. Yesterday, Russian television devoted a lot of time to brief interviews with some of these prisoners of war, all of whom were Russian speakers, by the way.  No surprises there, of course, since the whole region is basically Russian speaking, which is why there is a civil war going on against the extreme nationalist government in Kiev which has sought from the beginning to wipe out the language, the culture and all Russian ethnic identity.

There was another curious news item yesterday on Russian television: a video report on the capture of the latest mobile air defense system produced in Ukraine, which was abandoned by its technical crew in mint condition, with all of the manufacturer’s technical brochures still intact.  Here again, most peculiarly, all of the technical documentation is in Russian!  This would be amusing if the broad context were not tragic, set alongside the number of Ukrainian servicemen whom the Russians have listed as killed in action:  over 23,700.  That is approximately eight times the number Zelensky gave to the press the day before.

Finally, Russian news in the past day recounted how a Ukrainian freight plane loaded with Western military supplies was shot down by Russian forces as it approached Odessa from the sea.

Aside from these feature items in the news, Russian authorities continue to give no overall picture of how the campaign is proceeding.  Strangely, Ukrainian news sources from the field can be more informative.  Among the items today posted on www.news.google.ru  are reports from the Ukrainian controlled administration of what remains of Lugansk under their control.  They speak of Russian artillery attacks, on the damage being done to houses in hamlets, on the evacuation of civilians to the West ahead of Russian advances on the ground. All of this is in anticipation of the full-scale Russian onslaught on Donbas expected imminently.

Western media have been featuring today the “brave” decision of the remaining Ukrainian forces in Mariupol, holed up in the underground fortress of the Azovstal works, to refuse the Russian offer of their lives in exchange for unconditional surrender.  But Western coverage asks no questions whatsoever about the decision and what it tells us about the regime in Kiev that these thousand or so die-hards are serving, seemingly heroically.  Russian talk shows today shine a spotlight on that very question and produce some interesting interpretations.  We are told that Kiev instructed the Azov battalion leaders and those aligned with them in Mariupol to fight to the end and not to negotiate with the Russians over surrender. From within the ranks of the desperate troops underground, whose ammunition, food and water are all depleted, we are told that anyone daring to speak in favor of surrender is being shot on the spot. We are also told that among the 1,000 or so hold-outs are 400 foreign mercenaries including a goodly number of high ranking NATO instructors.  Since from the standpoint of Kiev those instructors are better dead than taken alive, we may assume they are from Member States lower in the pecking order than the British pair of cut-throats taken several days ago who may yet be saved by intervention of Boris Johnson in a prisoner exchange.  Shall we assume that the NATO instructors in the lower tunnels of Azovstal are Polish or Lithuanian?  I think that would be a fair guess. 

So much for easy questions that go unasked, let alone unanswered by Western media, by Russian media or by both.  Now I will raise a different question just to demonstrate how the news and analysis flow on  this ‘special military operation’  or war, if you will, runs in a narrow rut.  The net result is that we have very limited ability to understand what is going on and where we are all headed.

I will just turn attention to the announcement in Russia that as of today the public can make cash withdrawals of dollars and euros in substantial amounts, and also can order foreign currency transfers abroad, up to $5,000 if I understood properly.  This means that poor Mr. Piotr Aven, the billionaire banker and Russian wheeler dealer sitting in London at present with his vast assets frozen under sanction rules, may yet be able to pay his chauffeur by ordering a transfer from his Sberbank account in Moscow. 
Curiously no one is asking how and why Russia has reopened nearly free currency exchange and cash withdrawals after a month of strict clampdown.  Where are the dollar bills and euro notes coming from?  Surely the question is begging to be asked. It is not coming in from tourists to Russia since there are virtually no foreign tourists in Russia at present.  It is not being carried by foreign business visitors for the same reason.  So let us guess.  Could it be that Germany and other select EU Member States are delivering plane loads of cash to Moscow to pay for their gas, oil and coal deliveries? Yes, this would allow them to claim they are defying Putin over payment in rubles while respecting the terms of their long term contracts with Gazprom. But it is a pretty picture that they would not want made public, since the European Parliament would make the life of them all quite unbearable if the word got out.  Perhaps readers can offer better explanations.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

Sometime in the distant future, when the Russian internal documents relating to the conduct of this war in Ukraine are made public, one of the great conundrums of our time may finally receive a definitive answer:  why Russia has been prosecuting its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine with one hand tied behind its back, always holding back the vast destructive forces at its command, and so drawing out the operation and suffering losses of its soldiers in a way which a more cruel, ‘American style’ campaign would largely have avoided. 

At the very start of the armed conflict, I remarked on the specifics of what I called ‘the Russian Way of War’ now being applied in Ukraine. This approach does not inflict death on huge numbers of civilians, does not count on a ‘shock and awe’ initial attack to demoralize and overrun the enemy.  I said at the time that the overriding considerations on the Russian side were the traditional ‘brotherly’ relations between Ukrainians and Russians, who were extensively intermarried and had relations on both sides of the national frontiers. The intent of Vladimir Putin and his war collegiums was to do minimal damage to the Ukrainian people, to try to separate the ‘healthy’ elements in the Ukrainian military command from the rabid nationalist Azov and similar irregular forces that had become embedded in the army over the past eight years. If the two could be separated, the war could be won with absolute minimum expenditure of materiel and loss of life.

However, in the early weeks of the operation, after it had become manifestly clear that these were illusions, that Russia was facing a unified military force supported by widespread popular civilian backing, still there was no change visible in how Russia was operating on the ground.  The only hint of change to come was the refocusing of available forces on the capture of Mariupol, to secure the whole Azov Sea littoral and the progressive redirection of the ground forces to the encirclement of the major part of the Ukrainian army that was entrenched just to the west of the line of demarcation with Donbas. In compensation, there was the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev and Chernigov, in the north.

There has been a lot of supposedly expert analysis of the war from British, American and other retired generals.  Add to that the ignorant but voluble speculations of simple Western journalists, especially ladies, who have never held firearms of any kind let alone drawn up battle plans.  All of these Western commentators begin with assumptions on how an invasion of Ukraine should be fought, assuming the war was unleashed by the USA or Britain.  Any deviation by the Russian forces from the timetable or scope of such a Western style assault aimed, of course, at overthrowing the regime in Kiev and subjugating the entire country, is deemed to be a failure of morale or ability to coordinate air cover, artillery and other elements of the battle. Full stop. The conclusion they reach is that the Russian armed forces are far less ominous than we had feared, and we should not hesitate to expand NATO and push them back.

At the same time, no one, NO ONE, in the West has commented on a few obvious facts that place the Russian ‘military operation’ totally outside the traditions of invasions or other acts of aggression.  The Russians’ choice of words to describe what they were about to do was anything but arbitrary. They had specific objectives of ‘demilitarization’ and ‘denazification,’ to which was added in the past couple of weeks, almost as an afterthought, to secure the Donbas from any further attacks by Ukrainian forces positioned on the other side of the line of demarcation.  The importance of the last-named would not be obvious to Western readers, because the only war pictures put up on Western media are those showing suffering of residents of Mariupol or Khamatorsk.  However, Russian television viewers are shown daily the consequences of Ukrainian missile and artillery barrages on the civilian population of Donetsk and surrounding villages, with a daily death toll and casualties requiring hospitalization. This is only the tail of a story of vicious attacks in violation of the Minsk Accords that goes back eight years and produced more than 14,000 civilian deaths, of which the West has chosen to be oblivious to this very day.

The appointment several days ago of General Dvornikov to head the next phase of the war, the full liberation of the Donbas and liquidation of the main concentration of the Ukrainian ground forces, received immediate comment in the Western media.  Russian media are just beginning to catch up and publish their evaluation of what changes in the conduct of the war may result. 

Dvornikov distinguished himself as commander of Russia’s very successful military operation in Syria. He was known for effective coordination of air and ground forces, something for which the first phase of the war did not seem impressive, whether because of incompetence, as Western analysts insisted, or because of avoidance of collateral damage and loss of civilian life within the constraints of a geography where the enemy troops were intermixed with residential housing, as the Russian narrative insisted.  The new battlefield in Donbas would be far better suited to “technical” solutions of artillery and missile strikes.

However, the appointment of Dvornikov is only one sign that the Russian Way of War is being reconsidered at present in the highest levels of the Russian command.  In part, this is so because of the ever more daring, or shall we say reckless American and NATO promises to supply heavy armaments to Kiev. The alarm bells rang in Moscow yesterday over statements by a Deputy Secretary of Defense in Washington that the next level of support to Kiev would include intermediate range missiles capable of striking at airfields within Russia.

The Russian response to that threat was immediate.  General Konashenkov, the spokesman of the Russian military throughout the campaign, issued a special announcement that any attacks on Russian territory coming from Ukraine would result in Russia’s directing strikes at the decision-making instances in Kiev, which the Russian command had so far chosen not to do.  This obviously means the Ministry of Defense, Zelensky’s presidential administration, perhaps the Rada, as well as their handmaidens including Ukrainian television towers would now be instantly destroyed.  De facto regime change would be the direct consequence.

While the leaders of several European countries have in the last couple of days publicly discussed whether Russian actions in Ukraine constitute “genocide,” as Joe Biden blithely declared, no one seems to remark on the most glaring contradictions to any notion of Russia’s presently staging an all-out war in Ukraine. 

Ursula van der Leyen, Boris Johnson and the prime ministers of Poland and several Baltic States calmly travel to Kiev, stroll down the boulevards of central Kiev together with Zelensky, as if no war existed.  To be sure, they are surrounded by security escorts, but these are only of value should there be some violent passersby on their route.  The possibility of a Russian missile attack seems not to cross anyone’s mind.  In light of Konashenkov’s remarks, all that may change abruptly at any moment.

Finally, I am obliged to mention that not all military professionals in Russia have remained silent over how the ‘military operation’ is being conducted. Last week, reporting live from Mariupol and surveying the scene of utter destruction around him, Yevgeny Poddubny, the most experienced war correspondent of Russian state television, veteran of the Syrian war and other hotspots, quietly muttered, as if spontaneously: “in a military campaign you normally bring in forces six times the numbers of your opponent and here we were nearly matched in numbers.” Surely therer was nothing “offhanded” about that.

The point was repeated in yesterday’s edition of the semi-official newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta in an interview with Lieutenant General Leonid Reshetnikov, a retired officer of the foreign intelligence service. Reshetnikov said:

“When on the attack, military science tells you that you should have a minimum of three times the numbers of the defending side. But on the ground, according to available information, we are artacking from a minority position. We are achieving results that come very rarely in history, in Izyum, in Novaya Kakhovka and in other territories. This shows the mastery of our soldiers and command.” Yes, Reshetnikov has cast his remarks as a compliment, but the hidden criticism is there for anyone who cares to look closely.

                                                                     *****

From the beginning, I have directed attention to what Russian social, academic and political elites have to say about the ‘special military operation.’  One of my key markers has been the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov political talk show and yesterday’s edition provided a lot of food for thought.

First, with regard to sanctions, there was near unanimity among the panelists that it is time for Russia to respond directly and strongly to the full economic and hybrid war that the United States and Europe are now waging against their country.  They call for an immediate cut-off of gas supplies to Europe, to an embargo on export of titanium and other essential raw materials for advanced industrial production in the West.  One alternative to these cruel and devastating moves against Europe would be to try it all out first on Japan, which has been a fervent enforcer of the trade war on Russia and even in the past few days publicly came out in support of the Azov ultranationalists, by removing them from the list of global terrorists.  Russia should impose a total commercial embargo on Japan, beginning with hydrocarbons and extending into all spheres, such as fishing concessions. Moreover, Russia should position tactical nuclear weapons and other significant armaments on the Kurile Islands as a firm reminder of who owns these territories now and forever.

As regards military action, the consensus of the panelists was also in favor of all-out war on Ukraine, to hell with collateral civilian casualties. The war must be ended quickly, decisively and with minimum further Russian casualties. Period.  As several noted, it is highly likely that television viewers are also confused by Russia’s ‘softly, softly’ approach till now.  While they trust the Commander in Chief, they want more decisive action in the air and on the ground.  It is worth mentioning that the panelist who represents Russia’s ‘creative’ classes, director general of the Mosfilm studios, Karen Shakhnazarov, who had been wavering in his support for the war a couple of weeks ago, was now ‘all in’ and doing his best to find solutions to winning the kinetic war at once.

Then there was also the question of war mobilization. The consensus of panelists was that the Russian economy has to be put on a full war footing, with decision making concentrated in the Executive and removed from the hands of entrepreneurs.  This is required not for the ongoing conflict with Ukraine but for continuation of the wider war with the U.S.-led West that constitutes the context for the conflict.  Dispatch of longer range missiles to Kiev would make the USA a cobelligerent and Russia should be prepared to strike at the ‘decision making’ institutions there.

In short, the logic of the discussion on Solovyov’s show was that the Russians should make perfectly plain to Washington that it is courting disaster, that we are not in a video game but in a life and death struggle in which Americans do not enjoy immortality.

How much of this feistiness will influence the next moves from the Kremlin remains to be seen. But American analysts would do well to cast an eye on programs like Solovyov’s lest we all move on to end of the world scenarios out of ignorance and miscalculation.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

The Russian operation to take the port city of Mariupol is drawing to a successful conclusion.  “Success”  has to be understood today in a qualified sense, since large parts of the city now lie in ruins and as many as 4,000 civilians may have been killed in the fighting, largely victims of trigger happy Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. The Azov battalion soldiers and other irregulars holding the city from fortified positions in residential communities of this city of 460,000 shot wantonly at those who tried to escape from the basements of apartment houses to fetch water or who dared attempt to join the humanitarian corridors and exit the city. The civilian population was held hostage and constituted a “human shield.” They protected the Ukrainian forces from the full fury of Russian artillery and precision air strikes, which otherwise would have been deployed.

All of the fighting over Mariupol has gotten very little coverage in the Western media. All that we heard about was the difficulty in establishing humanitarian corridors and interviews with the few terrorized civilians who managed to get out to the West.  To be fair, the situation on the ground in Mariupol has been reported only partially by the Russians because it has been very much a work in progress that they kept under rules of secrecy in line with their entire ‘special military operation.’

Now that the capture of Mariupol is in its final phase, some information of value has been published in alternative Russian media and I propose to present that here to give readers a sense of how this war is being prosecuted and why.  Main source:  https://www.9111.ru/questions/7777777771838727/

In effect, most of the city proper has been taken by the Russian army and Donetsk militias, with significant assistance from a battalion of Chechens headed by their leader Kadyrov.  As the routes out of the city heading east were freed and as the snipers and other Azov forces were pushed back to provide some level of safety in the streets, large numbers of civilians have left the city in the past week. It is estimated that the civilian population remaining in Mariupol at present is about one third what it was at the start of the conflict.

The Azov fighters, other irregulars and Ukrainian army forces numbered about 4,000 at the start and have been reduced due to casualties. They include among them “foreign mercenaries” as the Russians have said for some time.  Now from intercepted phone conversations of these belligerents, it appears that among the foreigners are NATO instructors. This means that the proxy war between Russia and the USA/NATO begins to approximate a direct confrontation, contradicting the public pronouncements coming from the Biden administration. Should the Russians succeed in taking these NATO instructors alive, which is one of their priority tasks, the next sessions of the UN Security Council could be very tense.

To be sure, the 4,000 enemy forces mentioned above were only those within the city. Ukrainian forces numbering six times more were positioned to the west of the city at the start of hostilities. Presumably they have been pushed back to the West.

As we have known for a week or so, the remaining Azov and other Ukrainian forces have retreated from the city proper to two locations on the outskirts of Mariupol:  the port and the Azovstal industrial territory. The Russians have now entirely encircled both.

The port runs for about 3 kilometers along the sea and reaches inland about 300 meters. It is from here that in the past week, the Azov group tried to send out by helicopter a dozen or more of its top officers. The helicopter was shot down by the Russians, killing all aboard.  A relief helicopter also was destroyed by the Russians, but here one Ukrainian survived and he was interrogated about the failed operation.

The port is now being cleared of enemy forces, with the Donbas militia taking the lead.  

The Azovstal industrial complex is a much tougher nut to crack. It consists of two steel works. Their specific feature is underground levels going down as much as six to eight stories, where the enemy has to be flushed out by siege methods not by artillery barrage or bombing.  As many as 3,000 nationalists and Ukrainian army soldiers may be there. The main task for the Russians is to watch all entrances and exits to the underground.

The Russians are not bombing for two reasons:

First, there is no sense in destroying the infrastructure above the ground level if the enemy is holed up below.  Moreover, there are some residential buildings in the vicinity.

Second, if you bomb and bury the nationalists underground, then there will be no witnesses to bring to court to talk about the atrocities which these people have committed in the Donbas. And there may well be in these underground bunkers still more biological laboratories which were till now very carefully kept out of view. The Russians want to get their hands on proof.

Whatever the level of destruction may be, the pending Russian victory over Ukrainian forces in Mariupol is anything but Pyrrhic.  It is a full-blooded victory with great strategic importance insofar as it gives the Russians full control of the Azov Sea littoral. It seals the land bridge connecting the Russian Federation mainland with Crimea. It also is a key piece in ensuring water supplies to Crimea, which had been cut off by Ukraine in order to inflict maximum pain on Russian Crimea. With water now flowing once again from the Dnieper, there is a solid basis for resuming farming on Crimea in its traditional levels and also to support tourist inflows, a key source of income for the region. Add to that the likelihood that with some time and investment, Mariupol will reassume its important economic role as seaport and industrial town.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

Postscript, 21 May 2022 In the past week approximately 500 civilians, mostly women, children and pensioners were released from the Azovstal complex via a humanitarian corridor supervised by international organizations and were permitted to move on east or west as they wished. In the past three days nearly 2,500 Azov fighters in the steelworks raised the white flag and surrendered to Russian authorities. Among them were 100 seriously wounded or ill soldiers who were taken to medical facilities for care while remaining in Russian custody. In short, there has been a total capitulation by the most determined and ‘heroic’ fighters on the Ukrainian side, including foreign mercenaries. Kiev has put a brave face on this defeat, calling it an “evacuation” and insisting that the fighters had successfully completed the mission assigned to them, which was to pin down large numbers of Russian troops for three weeks. The Russians do not mince words: they speak of their victory setting the stage for much larger surrender of Ukrainian troops in the Donbas as they close several ‘cauldrons’ and crush the resistance of the enemy in foritifed concrete bunkers by application of heavy artillery. During the coming weeks, the Russians will be conducting interrogations of all the POWs to separate out the neo-Nazi ringleaders whom they intend to bring to trial for war crimes against the civilian population of Donbas over the past eight years. Those tried in Russian courts will face sentences of up to 25 years imprisonment. Those tried in Donbas courts will face the death penalty. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already appealed to Moscow “to show mercy” to British warriors who are among the captives. Such requests may soon turn to demands as Western governments and media raise the alarm over the trials in due course.

“Short and to the point.”  With those words I would characterize the 12 minute news bulletin on Iran’s Press TV yesterday in which I was given the microphone to place the Bucha scandal in the broader context of the ongoing vicious Information War. The United States and the United Kingdom are conducting precisely such a hands-off operation due to  their animal fear of confronting Russia in a kinetic war.  Moreover, it is the only kind of war they have any chance of winning, for all that is worth. The hasty, indecent withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan last August capped a series of disastrous military adventures by the US and NATO forces in Iraq, Syria and Libya over the course of the past two decades that left millions of civilians dead and these given unfortunate countries in ruins economically and politically.

The result of the present Washington policies is a vast discrepancy between the “virtual world” being disseminated by the U.S. led Collective West and a “boots on the ground” reality from the Russians. 

As I note, for reasons of military secrecy, the Russians are divulging very little about their troop concentrations and immediate plans.  Consequently, we will have to wait some time to see the outcome. I anticipate it will be the utter destruction of the bulk of the Ukrainian military parked to the West of the Donbas demarcation line. Such an outcome will obviate the need for a negotiated peace treaty. Facts speak louder than words.

With regard to Press TV:  I draw your attention to the moderate and rather fair handed news management.  This drives home the fact that even in present day massive censorship in the USA and Western Europe and propagandistic manipulation of the media facilitated by a blackout on Russian news sources of all kinds (not just Sputnik and RT), the curious and open-minded public can find the “other side” or sides of issues making the headlines by tapping into the English language broadcasts of major global players like Turkey, Iran, India.

www.urmedium.com/c/presstv/107681

By good fortune, I turned on our satellite receiver of Russian state television today just in time to catch key moments from the Prime Minister’s annual report to the State Duma on the work of the Government in the year gone by. Mishustin described in substantial detail the Government’s funding for domestic social and economic needs in 2021, but went on to say how the appropriations are being greatly increased in the current year to counter the negative effects of the “sanctions from hell” which the USA and the EU unleashed after the start of the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine on 24 February.

Mikhail Mishustin is a heavy-set man but radiates energy, mastery of the subject matter of the day and enormous confidence in the ability of his team to manage effectively all of the challenges, challenges which would have already sunk most every other nation on earth save China. Instead, Russia recovered from a brief collapse of the ruble exchange rate, attaining once again in the past few days the level from before the sanctions. Of course, the exchange rate is not the only measure of success in coping with the sanctions, but it is a good initial barometer of business and public confidence in the government’s financial management.

At his appointment by Putin a couple of years ago, Mikhail Mishustin had going for him a reputation as what the Russians call a хозяйственник, meaning a technocratic manager who can keep tight reins on government spending and get things done.  Following the trials of seeing Russia through the Covid crisis, Mishustin has filled out his inventory of skills to be a very impressive manager of men as well as means. He is a good public speaker.  What he is not is a politician: he does not pose a threat to the occupant of the Kremlin; instead he is deferential and mentioned at every turn how this or that initiative of the Government or the legislature is made in response to directives from the Head of State.

He spoke a good deal about support for the people in these trying times, in particular about subsidies for mortgage loans to ensure that housing construction remains at the highest levels of output ever seen in modern Russian history. This is good for employment and good for people’s well being. In farming communities, the mortgage will be held at 3%.

He spoke about the massive funding being realized for infrastructure build-out, in particular for roads having regional importance.  He talked about several industries having national importance which are being given special assistance – ship-building and civil aircraft production. The latter is being given every support to complete import substitution of all critical components, a task which began already several years ago following earlier waves of sanctions against Russia when Russia was denied supplies of the materials for composite wings on its newest passenger airliners.

But the greatest attention appeared to be to assist industry and commerce with subsidized credit for both investment and working capital. This takes on special importance under conditions of the very high prime rate (20%) which the Bank of Russia recently imposed to rein in inflation. The inflation was sparked by the sanctions and pull-out of foreign suppliers and manufacturers from the Russian market.  It also related to the collapse of the ruble in the early days of the ‘special military operation.’

Such high prime rates would normally put a halt to the currency exchange crisis which it did very nicely. However, it would normally also starve the economy of capital and so lead to sharp reduction of supply as well as of demand.  The measures that Mishustin set out, feeding capital at affordable rates directly to enterprises through subsidy arrangements with the banks, provides oxygen where it is needed at this critical moment.  The objective is to keep enterprises afloat, workers employed, and give a breathing space for the enormous challenges of import substitution to be resolved.  It all makes good sense.

In general, despite its statist overarching policies, which include, in present circumstances, naming champions in the target industrial sectors for import substitution, the government’s emphasis remains on encouraging private entrepreneurship at all levels, from small and medium sized enterprises, to the industrial giants, which are also under great stress from the sanctions.  That is to say, Russia remains predisposed to free markets as the best response to foreign pressure.

The statist, interventionist side of the present Government shows itself in the measures Mishustin listed with respect to facilitating closer cooperation between universities and other centers of research on the one side and industry on the other.  Going back to Soviet times, this was always a weak point in the Russian economy.  Now, listening to Mishustin, it appears that there are people in charge who know how to fix the problem just when the Russian economy will be in greatest need of innovation and new technological talents.

My take-away from Mishustin’s speech is that Russia has in place a world class management of the economy and finance.  Those in Washington who thought the country could be crushed misunderstood Russians and underestimated the capabilities, determination and sang froid of their Government.

But then there is nothing to be surprised at in this state of affairs.  Russian studies in the United States have been virtually useless to anyone for at least two decades.  Taking the well known and respected Harriman Institute of Columbia University as a marker, I can say that apart from LGBTQ issues in Russia or Ukrainian films, the monthly program of events for the student body has zero on offer. The lectures and round tables on the Ukraine war today are talk between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, with all panelists reading from State Department briefings, no different from what the journalists in mainstream media are doing.  Not an original perspective or thought to be found there. The field has been totally politicized into an anti-Putin street party and otherwise trivialized.  There is no way that this esteemed institution could help anyone in Washington planning economic warfare on Russia to understand the resilience of the Russian side and the futility of their mission.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

P.S. – On the issue of the failure of Russian Studies in the United States to produce anything of value, I refer the reader to my 2013 essay in The Moscow Times: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2013/11/18/defunding-russian-studies-may-be-a-blessing-a29668

I met Vladimir Zhirinovsky just once, in the autumn of 2016 when I was a ‘hot property’ on the Russian political talk shows and took part in Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, where Zhirinovsky was one of the ‘regulars.’  My making the rounds of the talk shows was due to the keen interest just then of the production teams, and presumably of their domestic Russian audiences, in views of the Trump candidacy from bona fide Americans. This is all well before Covid and the Zoom era:  panelists on these shows had to be based in Moscow, or no further away than St Petersburg, where I was at the time, and had to be on call for invitations on a moment’s notice. There were very few Russian-speaking Americans with tested on-air political analytical skills who met those criteria. I was one.

In any case, my shared time with Zhirinovsky on a segment of the Solovyov show did not leave a pleasant aftertaste. Zhirinovsky made one of his typically outrageous remarks, which I countered when my microphone was turned on. He then pounced, asking rhetorically: “What is this CIA agent doing on the show.”

That vitriolic statement was classic Zhirinovsky.  It was a sign of why he had so many enemies and…so many devoted supporters.

I had first become aware of Zhirinovsky’s existence back in the fall of 1995, when he was running for the State Duma elections in December and was making waves.  He was then the leading figure in the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) which he founded in the closing years of the Soviet Union and then re-registered as the first non-Communist party in the new, sovereign state of the Russian Federation. 

My favorite English-language newspaper, The Financial Times, called him a fascist in 1995. That designation stuck for a while, though even the FT understood it was a gross misrepresentation, and quickly changed to “far-right” the adjective that it regularly attached to his name.  At the time, it was widely recognized that the LDPR led by Zhirinovsky and the Communist Party led Gennady Zyuganov shared ultra-patriotic views and antipathy to the American-led West that was busily buying up Russia and installing its representatives in Russian ministries. Both parties rallied the general electorate behind an anti-West electoral revolt that claimed many Duma seats in December 1995.  Though it is largely ignored, that tidal wave of nationalism set off alarm bells in Washington, where it now became clear that the pro-Western government of Boris Yeltsin could be replaced by politicians who were not friendly at all.  Thus, the nationalist wave in Russia put wind in the sails of those in the United States who were pressing for NATO expansion to the East.  I discuss this in some detail in my diaries of the period that were published a year ago in Memoirs of a Russianist, Volume II:  Russia in the Roaring 1990s. (see amazon.com and all other online book sellers; available in ebook, hardbound and paperback formats).

When the Soviet Union was disbanded by the Belovezh Accords in December 1991, Zhirinovsky denounced the dissolution.  However, over time he revised his views substantially and in the last decade of his life spoke out repeatedly against any attempt to reconstitute the Soviet Union and its empire in Eastern Europe. This is a point that most Western analysts overlook entirely when they speak of supposed Russian nostalgia for its Soviet past especially among the patriotic Right.  Zhirinovsky explained his position in the entirely rational arguments of economic nationalism:  the Soviet republics had been a net drain on its core political entity, Russia. Similarly, the East European countries in the Soviet bloc were also a net drain on Russia. Zhirinovsky spoke in favor of the American practice of extracting financial benefit from foreign policy instead of the Soviet pattern of throwing good money after bad by trying to buy friends abroad.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, or “Volfovich” as he was familiarly called on the talk show that promoted him and his ideas the most, that of Vladimir Solovyov, was during the Putin years a regular contestant in the presidential elections, mostly polling less than 10% but nonetheless a force that was felt around the country, in particular, in the Far East, where LDPR had especially strong local presence. He was intentionally colorful, both in the loud sports jackets he wore on occasion, and in the unspeakable proposals he made regarding the exercise of Russian power abroad. 

It is commonplace in Western journalism to say there are no “opposition parties” in Russia but that is a gross oversimplification.  It is true that Zhirinovsky’s LDPR voted regularly with the Government on nearly all foreign policy issues.  However, in domestic policy the party had its own programs which it consistently defended in legislative initiatives, quite distinct from those of United Russia.

In the new millennium, Zhirinovsky played the fool in his television appearances, but it was all very well calculated to remain in the public eye while not arousing repression from the powers that be.  When his 75^th birthday was celebrated on television, he dropped the clown’s mask and spoke honestly about the challenge of remaining at the top of Russian politics in the face of a very strong and dominant United Russia party.

Otherwise, it bears mention that Zhirinovsky was well educated and a skillful linguist. His Ph.D. in the humanities focused on the Turkish language and culture. He is said to have been fluent in Turkish even to the end and he always was a knowledgeable commentator on political developments in the Middle East and Central Asia, where he was born.

As part of the feature programs on Russian television dedicated to his life that are being put on air now that his demise was announced in the morning, we are shown snippets from his predictions of political events to come year by year.  In the midst of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, we are all reminded that Zhirinovsky foresaw this proxy war between the United States and Russia.  He was a leader among the patriotic Russian elites in being ready to stand up to the United States militarily in the confident expectation that Russia will be victorious.

The leadership position in his LDPR party that Zhirinovsky held for most of three decades cannot be filled by anyone else. But the patriotic Right that he represented will in one form or another remain a major current in Russian politics.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

Several weeks ago, US President Joe Biden warned gravely that Russia would soon be making a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine, thereby violating international conventions and exposing itself to the severest punishment of the world community. Alternatively, the Russians would arrange a radiation leak by attacking one or another of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

Happily, neither dastardly act was carried out by the Russians to cover up their supposed losing position in the war being waged against the brave Ukrainians, who enjoy the unstinting support of the NATO alliance.

Instead, a very different kind of war crimes scandal has been promoted in the past two days to achieve the very same objective of universal outrage. The consequence is demands by French President Macron and Chancellor Scholz of Germany for still more draconian measures against the barbarians to the East, namely a full embargo on Russian hydrocarbons, even if it spells suicide for European industry and economies generally. These two birds sang before the microphones almost simultaneously yesterday afternoon denouncing the atrocities supposedly committed by Russian soldiers as they withdrew from their siege of Kiev.

Yes, my commentary introduces a note of sarcasm in speaking about a propaganda operation that is obvious as day to anyone with half a wit and half a memory.  It all takes us back to 2014 and the MH17 catastrophe which was laid at the door of Russia within minutes of its occurrence, without any need for an investigation.

As to the murder of civilians in the city of Bucha, a northern suburb of Kiev, and similar photographic accounts from several other settlements evacuated by Russian troops in the past few days, the vicious propaganda narrative coming from Kiev, but surely scripted in Washington and London, raises no alarm bells in the Western media.  But then again, there is no collective memory in Western media of what happened on the Maidan, when U.S. backed neo-Nazi units employed snipers to murder peaceful street demonstrators and police in support of a totally fabricated story of police violence by the Yanukovich government to justify its illegal ouster in a coup d’etat. Those same cynical murderers have been in control of Ukrainian politics up to the present day.

It has been reported extensively by Russian television crews traveling with the Donbas republic forces how departing Ukrainian troops fired wantonly on the towns they had been occupying for the past eight years but now were forced to give up.  It has been extensively reported by Russian press teams interviewing refugees leaving Mariupol via humanitarian corridors how the Azov battalion and other nationalist radical troops attached to the Ukrainian army were shooting anyone daring to come out of the basements to risk joining the escape routes out of the city.  None of this was picked up by Western media. But it surely was picked up by the Kiev propagandists, who decided to turn it inside out and sell it further.

In summation, there are reasons why wars are fought to the death, why many crucial disputes between nations are not amenable to diplomacy until one of the sides has been utterly destroyed.   We are living through such a moment in history.  And it is most sad, here in Europe, to see elected leaders like Macron, like Scholz play along with the villains to gain favor with the overlord in Washington, D.C.  May their cowardice and betrayal of the interests of their own peoples be recorded here and now for posterity.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

My colleague Paul Lookman has very kindly embedded in the latest posting on his website the link to a panel discussion on RT devoted to the Ukraine war. 

My fellow panelists on the program were two prominent speakers on the subject who are very much in demand in the States and internationally:  professor Nicolai Petro, a Ukraine expert at the University of Rhode Island, and Scott Ritter, a military intelligence and security expert with much relevant experience from his past government service.

The host, Peter Lavelle, has been the lead personality of Cross Talk since its inception 17 years ago. 

Since the onset of the Great Censorship that Western governments and major media companies put in place in February, all of Cross Talk programs are no longer carried by youtube.com  which is where most of their audience was concentrated.  Live reception of RT is, of course, impossible in Europe and North America due to the prohibition on this channel.  In the meantime, RT production people are preparing to place the shows on a new internationally accessible platform.

 Paul Lookman has done us all a great service by finding the key to the door, and posting the show.

https://geopolitiekincontext.wordpress.com/crosstalk/

Yesterday, after the Ukrainian and Russian delegations ended their several hours of negotiations in Istanbul under the watchful eye of Turkish president Erdogan, the parties released information on the proposals that Kiev made and which Moscow acknowledged were a possible working document for their eventual peace treaty. Meanwhile, the Russians announced that as a token of good faith to encourage the further rounds of negotiations, they would “drastically cut back” their attack on Kiev.

Immediately, global financial markets took heart and marked gains.  In Russia, the currency market strengthened significantly, reaching exchange rates against the dollar and euro that are within 10-15% of where they were before Russia’s “special military operation” got underway on 24 February.

What do we know about the points on the negotiating table and can they serve as the basis for a definitive peace?

The most important concession which Kiev is offering is to declare “neutral” status, to give up any plans to join military alliances or to allow foreign military to establish bases on its territory. The latest proposal fleshes out the list of guarantors of Ukraine’s security. These could include the UK, China, the USA, Turkey, France, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel. In return, Russia will not object to Ukraine joining the European Union. 

The talking points remain wide open as regards territory.  The future status of Crimea would be decided by 15 years of consultations.  The two presidents would discuss the future of the Donbas republics.

One thing that Western media have not noticed is the reaction of Russia’s leading talk show panelists and hosts to these draft points for a treaty.  As usual, I take for my point of reference Vyacheslav Nikonov’s Great Game and Vladimir Solovyov’s Evening show. I think the message was clear yesterday: patriotic panelists were disheartened by what they construed to be the too soft line being taken by the Kremlin’s negotiators. A peace treaty is being drafted when none of Russia’s war objectives has been met. No de-Nazification.  No regime change: the same Russophobe government would remain in power. No significant territorial gains consolidated in the terms of the proposed settlement.  However, the hosts were careful to remind the panelists that this was not end game, just a stopping place on the way. 

What do I foresee?

I believe that the Russians will continue to negotiate while using all available firepower to change the situation on the ground in Ukraine dramatically in their favor.  The Kremlin remarked several days ago, before the last round of negotiations, that it was about to concentrate its forces in the Donbas to liberate still occupied territories of the two republics and restore their boundaries from before 2014.

As regards, Lugansk, there is not much to do. Latest information suggests that 93% of the former Lugansk oblast is now in separatist hands.  However, in the Donetsk People’s Republic there is still a great deal to do. The separatists are holding only 50% of what had been the territory of their oblast in 2014. There are reasons for this.  First, the main concentration of the Ukrainian army, perhaps as many as 100,000 troops are still dug into hardened positions directly opposite Donetsk that  they created over the last eight years. They have been firing artillery shells and rockets into Donetsk city and its suburbs on a daily basis, causing multiple deaths and wanton destruction of residential buildings and civil infrastructure.  The Donetsk forces alone are no match for this concentration; moreover, some of the Donetsk troops have been diverted from attacking across the line of demarcation by the assignment given to them by Moscow from the start of the operations: to assist with the taking of Mariupol.  Donetsk units moved south to Mariupol to meet up with Russian troops moving north from Crimea. But the operation has been very difficult and time consuming.  Still now there are a couple of thousand die-hard Azov battalion soldiers holed up in the steel mill and in the port area. Their numbers are falling either to Russian assault teams or by melting into the civilian population and heading out via humanitarian corridors.  As soon as this operation is completed, the Donetsk forces and Russians can head north to attack the main mass of Ukrainians to the west of the Dniepr.

The Russians are running out of time and out of resources to smash the Ukrainian troops west of the Dniepr. It may be that to get the job done, they will finally resort to the “American way of war” and carpet bomb the Ukrainian positions. We will see shortly.

If the Russians succeed in liberating the 50% of Donetsk oblast still held by Kiev, then they will be ready for a cease fire and for definitive peace talks.  By smashing the greatest concentration of Ukrainian forces they will achieve two of their original objectives with one stroke:  de-Nazification and demilitarization.   The question will remain whether Zelenski can sign a peace based on the new realities. It may be in his interest to go to Istanbul for talks with Putin and then to keep on flying to freedom.  His associates in Kiev will surely be ready to lynch him for a bad peace.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

This edition of the Spotlight interviews Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst from Brussels, and Daniel Lazare, journalist and author from New York to discuss the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on global energy supply. 

 

www.urmedium.com/c/presstv/107036