NewsX: 0:00 We now move on once again and stay in the region. Tensions are once again escalating in the Russia-Ukraine border. Ukraine says its forces are still engaged in combat inside Russia’s Kursk region, pushing back against claims from Moscow that the incursion has been repelled. The governor of the Kursk said that Ukrainian drones targeted civilians near the border, killing three and injuring seven others. Ukrainian drones also targeted Moscow for the second night in a row.
Russian air defences said that they intercepted nearly 19 drones approaching the capital from multiple directions. All four of Moscow’s airports were temporarily shut down during the strikes, with operations resuming only after the threat passed. Russia attacked Kharkiv after Ukrainian drones caused the temporary closure of Moscow’s airports. Four people are said to have been injured in this strike. Russia also struck Ukrainian cities of Odessa and of Sumy, which killed four people in total.
1:06 The Russian military also said that it shot down more than 105 drones across the country. Meanwhile, Ukraine reportedly attacked a power substation in Russia’s Kursk region, knocking out electricity in a town and injuring two teenagers. These moves come just ahead of a planned Russian ceasefire to mark the anniversary of the Russian Victory Day. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump, responding to Vladimir Putin’s ceasefire declaration, said that while it doesn’t sound like much, it’s a lot compared to previous efforts. Additionally, Trump remarked that Moscow and Kiev wanted to settle the war and that Putin was more inclined towards peace after recent fall in oil prices. Let’s listen in to Trump’s comments.
Trump: 1:57 Putin just announced a three-day ceasefire, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a lot if you knew where we started.
I think Russia with the price of oil right now, oil’s gone down, I think we’re in a good position to settle. They want to settle. Ukraine wants to settle.
NewsX: We are now joined by Gilbert Doctorow, Russian affairs expert located in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss this in further detail. Gilbert, thank you very much for joining us. I want to get your immediate response and hope and see what you think of the proposed ceasefire by Vladimir Putin, obviously to celebrate Russia’s anniversary of their Victory Day. Do you think that It will go a bit better than the one that occurred at Easter, where there was violations on both sides of the spectrum and on that declared ceasefire. How do you think this one is going to go?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 2:58 Well, it may go in the same manner as the preceding’s one-day ceasefire. There certainly will be violations. But I think we have to put this in the perspective of the overall situation. The overall situation is: the Russians do not anticipate that the Ukrainians will honor the ceasefire. This was a unilateral ceasefire. There were no conditions made on Ukrainian participation. The Russians have prepared for the Ukrainians not to expect it at all, in which case they have prepared to respond to any egregious violations which threaten their security.
At the same time, they’re also talking about proactive strikes against areas that they believe have caches of drones and other attack weapons which they might be using for the period of the Russian-ordered ceasefire. That is to say the Russians hope to wipe out drones that the Ukrainians have prepared to use during the ceasefire. The biggest issue, though, is whether Ukrainians will carry out the threats that they have been making for the last week or more, that they would like to interrupt the parade in Moscow or in some other Russian cities by firing drones or missiles at these places.
4:25 If that were to happen, then the war would escalate in a completely different nature from what we have seen for the last three years. The Russians are prepared to use devastating force against Kiev, including remarks by military leaders that they have a squadron of their Oreshnik hypersonic missiles ready to hit Kiev and, I say, destroy Kiev, if the Ukrainians are mad enough, are crazy enough to try to interrupt the parade in Moscow, which will have 25 or more foreign guests on the reviewing stand.
But just keep in mind that the Ukrainians are under great pressure. The Trump administration is pressing them hard to accept concessions of territory for a settlement with the Russians. The regime in Kiev is unable to do that, as Mr. Zelensky can do that only at the risk of his own life, because he is threatened by the neo-Nazi gangs who have been in control of Kiev since the change in government in 2014. So you have a situation of real panic among leaders in Kiev. They cannot agree to the peace terms that Mr. Trump is proposing, and yet they cannot publicly denounce them. So what they can do is try to attack Russia in a way that will be deeply embarrassing to Mr. Putin’s government, as I said, attacking the parade in Moscow.
NewsX: 6:04 I just want to get your outlook on some of the developments that have been going on on the battlefield. Obviously you’ve mentioned briefly about the drone strikes that attacked the Russian capital today, which included the temporary closure of all four major airports in the Russian capital. There’s also a Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, that region that has been so hotly contested during this conflict, where Ukrainian forces have initiated a new offensive in the region. Reportedly, some reports saying that they’re capturing up to 500 square miles and displacing 130, 000 residents. Can I get your views on those battlefield developments, Gilbert?
Doctorow: 6:55 These are battlefield developments, public-relations developments. The practical value of these repeated incursions into either Belgorod or Kursk border regions of Russia is to get the attention of news agencies like your own and to remind the world that the Ukrainian forces are still active and haven’t been completely demolished by the Russian army. The reality is that this is a partly drone war now, and all the news that you have broadcast is about the drone war. At the same time, it remains a war of attrition and an artillery war in which the Russians continue to make advances of several hundred meters and several kilometers on various parts of the Donbas front every day.
7:39 They have not taken critically important logistics hubs, which have been under attack for months in the Donbas by the Russians. They haven’t succeeded yet, but they’re very cautious, because they try to avoid casualties. The attacking side always has greater casualties than the defending side, and the Russians are going slowly and carefully in their Donbass movements. As regards the border regions that you have mentioned, this is for publicity reasons. You are doing exactly what they expect the world global press to do, calling attention to their remaining attacks.
8:18 And let’s make it clear: the Russians have declared officially that Kursk region is freed of the Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainians suffered 75,000 or 76,000 casualties, meaning both deaths and their soldiers who were removed from from the army because they are maimed and and are incapable of continuing soldierly life. This is the fact. The public relations side of it is to get the attention of the world and to hope to get more aid. On the ground, the Ukrainians are only losers.
NewsX: 8:57 Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for joining us. We now move on to the Indo-Pacif–
In the Travel Notes, Installment Three which I published earlier today, I presented a critique of Russian press censorship coming from the liberal wing of the profession. Here I offer readers an excellent example of how bureaucracy can run amok with unforeseeable consequences that do nothing for national defense while irritating a great many people needlessly.
At noon today Moscow time I gave an interview to the Indian global broadcaster News X regarding the skirmishes now ongoing at the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Kursk region, on the exchange of drone attacks. I broadened the discussion to the Russians’ expectation that their unilateral 3 day cease-fire bracketing the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (9 May) will not be respected by Kiev; and I went on to mention that should Zelensky & Co. do something really stupid on the 9th and attack one or another of the parades in Russian cities, not to mention attack THE PARADE in Moscow, we can expect all hell to break loose in the Russian counter-attack.
I am unable to verify the link which NewsX kindly sent me because THE RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES HAVE SHUT DOWN youtube:com
Over the past year there have been localized go-slow days on youtube services in Russia but this looks like a definitive ban. Meanwhile, LinkedIn, which was shut down for well more than a year, has suddenly come back to life on the Russian internet.
As I see it, there is not much sense in terminating youtube if your objective is to enhance Russian state security. Youtube itself is a neutral platform that is used by those promoting every imaginable political and social position. But there is sense in keeping LinkedIn out of the country because it carries the pesonal data of all kinds of Russian state officials which can be very useful to the intelligence agencies of ‘hostile countries.’ Hence my conclusion above that censorship can be very clumsy if the censors are not kept on a very short leash.
As I noted previously, my reason for traveling to Moscow this past weekend was to visit with Russian friends whom we have known for years but barely seen since the Covid pandemic put social relations on hold and the interruption of travel to Russia due to war sanctions post-February 2022 reduced the frequency of our visits to the country from every second month to just two or three times a year.
In today’s travel notes I will dwell a bit on the personal side to the trip because it turned up material about the state of journalism today in Russia which I am keen to share with the community.
This friend, whom we shall call ‘R,’ had a successful career in the Soviet, later in the Russian Ministry of the Press and within the Union of Journalists. He was always a calm soul, not the person to rock the boat, but that is not to say that he was indifferent to abuse of power, to bureaucratic stupidities and other negative manifestations of Russia’s ‘managed democracy.’ He saw a lot of both during his job-related travels across the length and breadth of the Russian Federation and had a good basis for comparison with world standards during private travels abroad that took in most of the European continent.
In what can be described as semi-retirement, he has cut back his work week to one day in the office. However that work is as a professor in a school of journalism and he also holds a position as senior editor in a journal published by the Union which deals with current issues in the profession. Accordingly I give appropriate weight to what he says about the loss of talent to emigration as a result of the tightening of censorship since the onset of the Special Military Operation. He particularly calls attention to the shutdown of the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 in honor of his championing a free press in Russia.
According to R, Novaya Gazeta was home to some of the country’s most talented journalists and following its closure many of them moved abroad. We may assume that they will find hard times in the West now that Donald Trump had shut down funding for Radio Free Europe and similar democracy promotion agencies.
These Fifth Column crusaders do not deserve better, you may say. However, I understand my friend’s concern for the idealistic and naive souls among them who may be caught in the crossfire of right-minded patriots in East and West.
Respected official that he always was, R tells me that the press as a whole was opposition-minded going back to the 1980s and earlier still. They were kept in line by a vigilant and active contingent of censors who were in regular contact with journalists to review their writings and enforce textual revisions. That was pre-publication coercion. What has developed in the past few years is post publication coercion through enforcement of the so-called ‘foreign agent’ law. Nobel Prize or no, even Dmitry Muratov was finally brought down when in September 2023 he was officially declared to be a ‘foreign agent.’
Censorship is not the only malaise in the profession. According to R, professional standards have been declining. A recent survey of competences of new graduates from Russian schools of journalism indicate very poor levels of performance. Less than 30% of degree holders can write grammatically correct and readable texts while less than 20% know a foreign language. Nonetheless, even with weak skills the graduates do find employment, many of them in the burgeoning social media organizations.
Yes, R is a through and through Liberal, a fine representative of the intelligentsia with all of its positive as well as negative facets. The bookcase lined walls of his apartment attest to his vast readings. He is not blind to the failings of the West and especially to the rise of ill-educated incompetents to the leading government positions in most European countries. He is not blind to neo-fascism in Europe.
However, R is quietly ill-disposed to the ongoing war in Ukraine which he knows far better than most Muscovites because his ‘little homeland,’ as they say here, is in the southwest of this country. That is where he grew up and it is where today he maintains an apartment in a city just 100 km from the Ukrainian border. They have been subjected to frequent drone attacks. Yet, he says, despite the attacks there is a residual sympathy in the native population of Kursk for their Ukrainian neighbors.
I must add that R is a life-long pacifist, which is and always was a rare philosophical position to hold in this country.
We discussed all of the foregoing issues at the dinner table from our arrival at R’s apartment at 2 o’clock in the afternoon till our departure after 10 pm with just a couple of brief breaks when we retired to the couch and armchairs. That is the Russian way, or at least it was the Russian tradition among the intelligentsia. You are offered a succession of courses eaten leisurely and downed with an assortment of alcoholic beverages.
We spent a good long time on the appetizers. Appetizers were always the most prized part of any Russian meal. You find that truth in the early pages of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina when you read about Stiva Oblonsky’s visit to his social club for lunch. Main courses were an after thought. And desserts could be ignored.
At the start of our meal, home cured salmon, thin slices of an elite pork sausage, summer quality green cucumbers and sliced pepper, a variety of potato salad – all begged for a shot of vodka, which we obliged. Then came the wild mushroom soup that is also de rigueur, followed by baked duck legs served with roasted new season potatoes. Next we sampled an assortment of hard cheeses, all Russia-sourced and fairly impressive considering that during the 70 years of Communist rule cheeses came down to a local variant on processed American cheese. The meal ended with a home baked sponge cake accompanied by our hostess’s apricot and almond jam served with strong oriental coffee.
There was a sequence of alcoholic beverages including aged Armenian brandy, a major brand of Scotch, a bottle of French sparkling wine and the 10 year old ‘estate bottled’ Crimean red wine that we brought as the mandatory contribution of guests to any party. All drinks were served in moderation as prompts to toasts, in the Russian manner. They spur on rather than stifle conversation.
Younger Russian readers of these lines will object and say that the times are a-changing, that such social habits have fallen out of vogue. Like journalism, cooking is on the decline and with it the tradition of lengthy table conversations.
A very relevant trend was highlighted in a feature report on Business FM, the radio station that I listen to over breakfast while my wife is still fast asleep and the radio keeps me company. Their real estate experts noted the trend now in Moscow apartment sales NOT to install kitchens. The reason given by prospective buyers is that they don’t know how to cook and they just order their meals from restaurants and fast food providers for delivery to their apartments. Of course, the greater consideration may be to bring down the up-front cost of the apartment by eliminating the fridge, dish washer and related installations.
Wie ich bereits erwähnt habe, war der Grund für meine Reise nach Moskau am vergangenen Wochenende ein Besuch bei russischen Freunden, die wir seit Jahren kennen, aber seit Beginn der Covid-Pandemie kaum noch gesehen haben. Durch die Unterbrechung der sozialen Kontakte und die Reisebeschränkungen nach dem Krieg im Februar 2022 sind unsere Besuche in Russland von alle zwei Monate auf nur noch zwei- bis dreimal im Jahr zurückgegangen.
In dem heutigen Reisebericht werde ich mich ein wenig mit der persönlichen Seite der Reise befassen, da sich dabei Material über den aktuellen Zustand des Journalismus in Russland ergeben hat, das ich gerne mit der Community teilen möchte.
Dieser Freund, den wir „R“ nennen wollen, hatte eine erfolgreiche Karriere in der Sowjetunion, später im russischen Presseministerium und in der Journalistengewerkschaft. Er war immer ein ruhiger Mensch, keiner, der für Unruhe sorgte, aber das heißt nicht, dass ihm Machtmissbrauch, bürokratische Dummheiten und andere negative Erscheinungsformen der „gelenkten Demokratie“ in Russland gleichgültig waren. Er hat während seiner beruflichen Reisen durch die gesamte Russische Föderation viel davon gesehen und hatte durch private Auslandsreisen, die ihn durch den größten Teil Europas führten, einen guten Vergleich zu internationalen Standards.
In einer Art Teilruhestand hat er seine Arbeitswoche auf einen Tag im Büro reduziert. Allerdings arbeitet er als Professor an einer Journalistenschule und ist außerdem leitender Redakteur einer von der Gewerkschaft herausgegebenen Zeitschrift, die sich mit aktuellen Themen des Berufsstands befasst. Dementsprechend messe ich seinen Aussagen über den Verlust von Talenten durch Auswanderung infolge der verschärften Zensur seit Beginn der Sondermilitäroperation großes Gewicht bei. Er weist insbesondere auf die Schließung der liberalen Zeitung Novaya Gazeta hin, deren Herausgeber Dmitry Muratov 2021 für seinen Einsatz für die Pressefreiheit in Russland den Friedensnobelpreis erhielt.
Laut R waren bei Novaya Gazeta einige der talentiertesten Journalisten des Landes beschäftigt, von denen viele nach der Schließung ins Ausland gezogen sind. Es ist zu vermuten, dass sie es im Westen schwer haben werden, nachdem Donald Trump die Finanzierung von Radio Free Europe und ähnlichen Einrichtungen zur Förderung der Demokratie eingestellt hat.
Man könnte sagen, dass diese Kreuzritter der Fünften Kolonne nichts Besseres verdienen. Ich verstehe jedoch die Sorge meines Freundes um die idealistischen und naiven Seelen unter ihnen, die zwischen die Fronten der rechtschaffenen Patrioten im Osten und Westen geraten könnten.
Als angesehener Beamter, der er immer war, erzählt mir R, dass die Presse insgesamt schon seit den 1980er Jahren und sogar noch früher oppositionell eingestellt war. Sie wurde durch eine wachsame und aktive Zensurbehörde in Schach gehalten, die in regelmäßigem Kontakt mit Journalisten stand, um deren Artikel zu überprüfen und Textänderungen durchzusetzen. Das war Zwang vor der Veröffentlichung. In den letzten Jahren hat sich eine Zensur nach der Veröffentlichung durch die Durchsetzung des sogenannten „Auslandsagenten“-Gesetzes entwickelt. Selbst Dmitry Muratov wurde schließlich zu Fall gebracht, als er im September 2023 offiziell zum „Auslandsagenten“ erklärt wurde, trotz seines Nobelpreises.
Die Zensur ist nicht das einzige Übel in diesem Beruf. Laut R sind die beruflichen Standards gesunken. Eine aktuelle Umfrage zu den Kompetenzen von Absolventen russischer Journalistenschulen zeigt ein sehr schlechtes Leistungsniveau. Weniger als 30 % der Absolventen können grammatikalisch korrekte und lesbare Texte schreiben, während weniger als 20 % eine Fremdsprache beherrschen. Trotz ihrer geringen Qualifikationen finden die Absolventen jedoch eine Anstellung, viele von ihnen in den boomenden Social-Media-Unternehmen.
Ja, R ist durch und durch liberal, ein hervorragender Vertreter der Intelligenzija mit all ihren positiven und negativen Facetten. Die mit Bücherregalen gesäumten Wände seiner Wohnung zeugen von seiner umfangreichen Lektüre. Er ist nicht blind für die Schwächen des Westens und insbesondere für den Aufstieg schlecht ausgebildeter Inkompetenter in führende Regierungspositionen in den meisten europäischen Ländern. Er ist nicht blind für den Neofaschismus in Europa.
Allerdings steht R dem andauernden Krieg in der Ukraine, den er weitaus besser kennt als die meisten Moskauer, da seine „kleine Heimat“, wie man hier sagt, im Südwesten dieses Landes liegt, stillschweigend ablehnend gegenüber. Dort ist er aufgewachsen und dort hat er heute eine Wohnung in einer Stadt, die nur 100 km von der ukrainischen Grenze entfernt liegt. Sie sind häufigen Drohnenangriffen ausgesetzt. Dennoch, so sagt er, gebe es trotz der Angriffe in der einheimischen Bevölkerung von Kursk nach wie vor Sympathien für die ukrainischen Nachbarn.
Ich muss hinzufügen, dass R ein lebenslanger Pazifist ist, was in diesem Land eine seltene philosophische Haltung ist und immer war.
Wir diskutierten alle oben genannten Themen am Esstisch, von unserer Ankunft in R‘s Wohnung um 14 Uhr bis zu unserer Abreise nach 22 Uhr, mit nur wenigen kurzen Pausen, in denen wir uns auf das Sofa und in die Sessel zurückzogen. Das ist die russische Art, oder zumindest war es die russische Tradition unter den Intellektuellen. Man bekommt eine Reihe von Gängen serviert, die man gemächlich verspeist und mit verschiedenen alkoholischen Getränken hinunterspült.
Wir verbrachten viel Zeit mit den Vorspeisen. Vorspeisen waren immer der wertvollste Teil einer russischen Mahlzeit. Das findet man auch in den ersten Seiten von Tolstois „Anna Karenina“, wenn man über Stiva Oblonskys Besuch in seinem Club zum Mittagessen liest. Die Hauptgerichte waren Nebensache. Und Desserts konnten ignoriert werden.
Zu Beginn unseres Essens gab es hausgebeizten Lachs, dünne Scheiben einer edlen Schweinswurst, sommerlich-frische Gurken und geschnittene Paprika sowie verschiedene Kartoffelsalate – allesamt Gerichte, die nach einem Schuss Wodka verlangten, dem wir gerne nachkamen. Dann kam die Wildpilzsuppe, die ebenfalls de rigueur ist, gefolgt von gebackenen Entenkeulen mit gerösteten neuen Kartoffeln. Als nächstes probierten wir eine Auswahl an Hartkäse, alle aus Russland und ziemlich beeindruckend, wenn man bedenkt, dass Käse während der 70 Jahre kommunistischer Herrschaft auf eine lokale Variante von amerikanischem Schmelzkäse reduziert war. Das Essen endete mit einem hausgemachten Biskuitkuchen, begleitet von Aprikosen-Mandel-Marmelade unserer Gastgeberin und starkem orientalischem Kaffee.
Es gab eine Reihe alkoholischer Getränke, darunter gereifter armenischer Brandy, eine bekannte Scotch-Marke, eine Flasche französischen Sekt und den 10 Jahre alten „Estate Bottled“ Krim-Rotwein, den wir als obligatorischen Beitrag der Gäste zu jeder Party mitgebracht hatten. Alle Getränke wurden in Maßen serviert und dienten, ganz nach russischer Art, als Anlass für Trinksprüche. Sie regen die Unterhaltung eher an, als dass sie sie hemmen.
Jüngere russische Leser dieser Zeilen werden einwenden, dass sich die Zeiten ändern und solche sozialen Gewohnheiten aus der Mode gekommen sind. Wie der Journalismus ist auch das Kochen auf dem Rückzug und mit ihm die Tradition ausführlicher Tischgespräche.
Ein sehr relevanter Trend wurde in einem Feature-Bericht auf Business FM hervorgehoben, dem Radiosender, den ich zum Frühstück höre, während meine Frau noch schläft und das Radio mir Gesellschaft leistet. Die Immobilienexperten dort stellten fest, dass es in Moskau derzeit Trend ist, in Wohnungen keine Küchen einzubauen. Als Grund gaben die potenziellen Käufer an, dass sie nicht kochen können und sich ihre Mahlzeiten einfach in Restaurants oder bei Fast-Food-Anbietern bestellen und in ihre Wohnungen liefern lassen. Der wichtigere Grund dürfte natürlich sein, dass man durch den Verzicht auf Kühlschrank, Geschirrspüler und ähnliche Einbauten die Anschaffungskosten für die Wohnung senken kann.
Legitimate Targets: 0:00 Welcome back to “Legitimate Targets”, everybody. I hope you’re all having a great day. There are some big shakeups ongoing with these US-Russia peace talks over the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. And I’m really not that surprised. I, well, we’ll get into everything and what’s going on. But things are not going as swimmingly as President Trump initially assumed they would in his plan for a 24-hour peace deal.
So joining me today to break this all down is a very accomplished Russian expert, Gilbert Doctorow. He’s an independent political analyst based in Brussels. He’s got a PhD in history, I believe Russian history in specific from Columbia University and a 25-year career business focus on Russia and Eastern Europe. You can find his books on Amazon, you can find his substack online, which includes a lot of his transcribed conversations and interviews.
And also I’ve seen him on many of our good friends’ shows like the Duran and many other geopolitical shows online. So without further ado, Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:19 I’m very well, thanks. And thanks so much for the invitation.
LT: Of course, it’s great honor to have you here. My first question for you is … we just got news that Trump is planning to roll out the official final proposal for the Ukraine peace deal, as the media is calling it. Who knows if that’s true. But he is only in this peace deal, supposedly rumored to be suggesting a de jure Russian annexation or claim over Crimea, nothing about the Donbass. So what do you think about this deal?
Doctorow: 1:59 I think that Trump has already understood that there will be no deal. And he wants to extricate himself from this. He has, in his statements of the past week, he said and reiterated this was Biden’s war, not his war. His objective was to stop the war.
But I think it’s fairly clear that he hasn’t had much success in bringing the parties together. And even his latest comments a day or two ago, that this week would be definitive and the two sides will agree. This is just a smokescreen. The reality that I see is that Trump is going to walk away from this, which is probably the smartest thing he can do, because there’s no way that the irreconcilable positions can be reconciled. And he is taking up time and energy of his top people on a hopeless mission.
2:57 He doesn’t say that, of course; it’s obvious. But I think the fact that Rubio has cancelled his participation in the meeting of the Brits and I think the Germans and the Kiev representatives in London today is indicative that this is coming to closure and will be acknowledged as unworkable. Why do I say that and why isn’t Rubio coming? Because Zelensky has issued a statement that he, under no circumstances, will recognize Crimea as Russian. This comes against the context of a change situation, particularly called out by yesterday’s “Financial Times”.
They were the most insistent on reporting that Vladimir Putin has dropped his maximum demands and has agreed to stop the Russian advance in Ukraine, to freeze it at the present line of confrontation, and not to pursue what is in the Russian constitution now, the full acquisition of the four oblasts of Eastern Ukraine that Russia has made part of the Russian Federation following referenda there. This refusal by Zelensky to make any compromise, any step back at the very moment when Putin has made a very significant step back and which have moved, which proves the sincerity of Russia’s comments, that they’re not looking for territory. They’re looking for a security arrangement that will … bring them in from the cold.
4:59 That is the end of NATO expansion and the demilitarization, the defanging of the Kiev regime. These are their objectives, above all, not adding one more village or another village to the territory of the Russian Federation.
LT: I will say right before we went live, I saw that Peskov came out and said that that report in the “Financial Times” was fake news, which begs the question then, if the media for the past three years has been telling us that Russia is about to go all the way to London, they’re about to invade all the way across Europe, what does it mean now that the media is putting out news to try and get the sides to come together and stop the bloodshed and stop the losses for Ukraine.
Doctorow: 5:54 I’m not sure that the “Financial Times” front page article was favorable to Russia as such. They were– and I’m not sure that Peskov is telling the truth. I think I rather doubt it. But why should he? These– if such a move, such a compromise were being entertained by the Russians, it certainly was behind closed doors.
How it leaked out and “Financial Times” got it is a separate question. But that Peskov denied it, well, why not? It isn’t an official position. It hasn’t been officially announced. Therefore, they can say it’s fake news. But I don’t believe it was fake news.
LT: 6:31 Well, at this point, I think it would go to show that, like you said, they’re willing to do anything to try and bring common sense back to the table. And even still, Zelensky is not willing to allow for even Crimea to be, quote unquote, liberated or officially recognized [as] Russia. But I do have to ask you, you know, you were talking about how Trump’s going to essentially wash his hands of this, which I think is good.
I think that’s the correct move. But if the US is still supplying intelligence and maybe other things to Ukraine, who knows? I mean, iha this become Trump’s war now, or do you think there’s going to be a complete cessation of US support?
Doctorow: 7:16 I think Trump is feeling his way, because he’s walking through a minefield. He has got the hawks on Capitol Hill, which includes most of his own party at least, and the whole of the Democratic Party, who want to see the war continue, who are not enthusiastic about his rapprochement or détente with Russia.
That is not one of their priorities. Nonetheless, he is intent on pursuing a détente with Russia, for reasons that came out quite evidently in the last two weeks with respect to Iran. I was invited yesterday on Press TV Iran to comment on the final ratification of the 20-year long-term comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, because for Iran it was very important, very significant. For me, the importance of this, looking at it as a Russian observer, is that it showed to Washington how useful the Russians and Mr. Putin in particular can be in guiding their very difficult negotiations with Tehran, difficult, partly made difficult because of Trump himself and his extravagant claims of what he hoped to achieve in talks with Tehran.
8:40 But here you have a situation a bit like 2013 when Putin pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for Obama over the Syrian weapons, chemical weapons, and their eventual destruction on an American naval vessel. Obama didn’t have the depth of thinking or the political maneuver room to make use of that very big assistance he received from Putin in sparing him the need to attack Syria.
In this case with Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff has obviously appreciated fully the value of advice from the Russians in dealing with the Iranians. How to find a solution that will shut up all of the warlocks on Capitol Hill and in Tel Aviv, and yet will not encroach on the sovereignty and the dignity of Iran, which is an essential precondition for their reaching any agreement with the United States. I think also it’s conceivable the Russians will be active in the process of verification that whatever restrictions are made on the Iranian nuclear program will be carried out faithfully.
10:10 My point though is not about Iran as such. It is the usefulness of Russia in a very delicate and important diplomatic challenge that Trump has partly made for himself. This is a good signal why Russia can be of great value if the relations with the United States are somehow normalized and are removed from the context of the Ukraine-Russia war. This is where I think Trump is headed.
Now to answer your question, well, nobody has an answer to this question. I’ve asked myself this as well. What is Trump going to do about the, not just about the materiel, war materiel, still in the pipeline and being delivered to Ukraine, but what is he going to do about the intelligence, which the United States, critical intelligence, which the United States has been providing to Ukraine for its battlefield operations. As you say, if he were to continue this, then it becomes Trump’s war. There’s no way he can evade that. He and the United States will remain co-belligerents.
11:21 The question of what a co-belligerent means has been raised by the very irresponsible comments to the press, to his own Bundestag by the incoming chancellor in Germany, Merz. His idea [is] doing what the Americans have been doing and that the British and the French have been doing, supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine, doing the targeting for them. But the Germans have a weapon which is probably more dangerous for the Russians because they have no experience encountering it. So at least for an initial period, it could be a valuable asset to Ukraine. And Merz is proceeding on this, or says he will proceed on this.
12:19 And the Russians object vehemently and leave us to believe that they would strike against military assets within Germany, NATO membership or no NATO membership. So the situation around the war remains dangerous for all of us, not just for the combatants. The possibility of escalation into a general European war has not been totally removed, even if Mr. Trump’s hints that the United States will not provide Article 5 coverage to Europe have been repeatedly made.
LT: 13:08 Well, I mean, that was what I was thinking this morning, the thorn in the side that is Europe and the UK. I saw a report the Russians are claiming that the EU and the UK want to establish a naval blockade around Russia, which to that I say you and what navy. But really, how much of a thorn in the side is the EU in establishing a lasting peace, bringing an end to this? And do you think that without the United States, the EU and the UK can provide any sort of a filling of the void for Ukraine in their in their proxy conflict against Russia?
Doctorow: 13:50 Well, I’ve seen various military estimates of how long the Ukrainians can maintain the battlefield lines if the United States stops providing assistance, both intelligence and material assistance.
These vary; it could be several months, it could be a year, or it could be a week. Nobody knows for sure. There’s a big debate among experts and I don’t claim to be a military expert, But I do watch closely what they’re saying. And I see a lot of contradictions. Nobody knows for sure.
14:21 One thing is clear, that [in] reporting that you see in many of the YouTube interview programs by some credible people, they have tended to exaggerate the weakness of the Ukrainians and to overestimate the readiness of the Russians to make an all-out assault and to end the war quickly. Mr. Putin is not for that. He does not want to increase greatly the level of casualties, which has a very political sensitivity within Russia. As for Ukraine, I’ve seen reports from bloggers in Russia, or even statements from Russian soldiers in the field being interviewed by state television, indicating that the Ukrainians, despite all the discussion on how futile their recruitment efforts are, are adding young and well-trained soldiers to their battle formations.
15:32 They have not folded, they have not run away from the battlefield, they have taken enormous losses. As for example, those remaining straggling soldiers that are just across the border inside Russian Federation in Kursk and have refused to surrender. They’re being battered. And the Ukrainian losses in the Kursk adventure exceeds 75,000 dead and mutilated soldiers, which is unbelievable considering that these were among the best-trained and best-equipped units in the Ukrainian army.
16:14 Nonetheless, there is no collapse of the front lines. The Russians are advancing, it’s true, but incrementally. We heard a long time ago that Pekrovsk was under, was to be taken. Pekrovsk, or Krasnoyarsk, as the Russians call it, is an important logistics hub, which is said to be a key supplier of all the military materiel to the Ukrainian forces on the line. But it hasn’t been taken yet. The Russians are moving, as I’ve said, with great caution. The reporting that you see again on all these wonderful, often very, I say almost lurid in their, the titles they give the interviews that are appearing on YouTube, they suggest that the Ukrainians are a dollar short of ammunition; they don’t have enough artillery shells, it’s true.
17:15 But the war has evolved. The main threat the Russian forces face in Donbas is not artillery xxx counter fire. It is drones. For drones you don’t need hundreds of thousands of troops. You need a few hundred of well-trained computer programmers, gamers.
These people with latent talent are abundant in Ukraine, just as they are in Russia. And the Ukrainians have been very effectively fielding various reconnaissance and kamikaze drones, which make the Russians very cautious about massing their troops and staging anything resembling an all-out assault on the Ukrainian front.
LT: 18:05 Well, everything that you’re saying is, I think, a hundred percent correct. There’s no other reason why the pace has been as, you know, compared to the start of the conflict, it’s been as slow as it is now. Because I think both sides have been able to really improve their capabilities of drone warfare and other new sorts of warfare. And it’s, you know, you see the maps, they are only extending just several hundred meters. And that’s a huge victory for Russia at this point. It takes a lot of work to get that nowadays.
But moving aside from the front lines, if in fact the front lines were to materialize and there’d be a peace deal like what Peskov may or may not have hinted at today along the current front lines, or if the conflict drags on and the US is not party to it, do you think that there could be a dropping of US sanctions on Russia? Do you think we could see businesses coming back to Russia? I mean, some of these sanctions from the US have been here since 2014, at the start of the Maidan event. So do you think that’s something Trump would flirt with?
Doctorow: 19:31 Actually, the sanctions go back even earlier. Some go back to 2008, but mostly it was a severe package of sanctions imposed in the Magnitsky Act of 2012, about this supposed suppression of human rights and violations of the Russian prison system and so forth.
That was a very heavy set of sanctions. 2014 also was quite serious, as you say. It was serious enough, I looked at my notes recently, my notes from visiting Russia in 2014 in the autumn after the sanctions were imposed. And I can tell you right now, there was severe impact on the Russian economy in 2014, resulting from those sanctions. Indeed, it took eight years for Russia to build up a resilience to survive America’s eventual “sanctions from hell” that Victoria Nuland’s team put together, which they did successfully, but it didn’t happen at once.
20:36 Where do we go? What was the outcome? What can be the outcome if the American attempts at negotiated settlement fail? And incidentally, why would President Putin even entertain the idea of giving up the territory that is legally within the frameworks of the four oblasts that were incorporated into Russia, even if they actually weren’t held completely?
The logic is that Russia would prefer a legally agreed settlement. That will put an end to any discussion of violence, of terrorist attacks coming out of Ukraine. It would put an end to the European sanctions as well as American sanctions. And so for Russia, there is a lot to be gained by a piece of paper with signatures on it, even if I know so many … observers, so many people who may be watching this program have their doubts. “Oh, why should the Russians sign a paper when the United States does not have a commitment to anything for more than a single presidential term?”
21:57 These are all true, but there is a world out there, and the Russians will certainly build into any agreement provisions that protect them from violation. By that I mean the Russians will not accept any West European troops on Ukrainian territory or military infrastructure on Ukrainian territory. Under those circumstances, they have a long lead time before any kind of threat could emerge on the territory of rump Ukraine towards the Russian Federation. So whether Mr. Trump’s word is worth anything, the Russians can secure their own protection by the wording of the agreement and imposing what’s essentially a capitulation on Ukraine, doing that legally.
22:52 If they cannot succeed, if the Europeans continue to prop up Mr. Zelensky, and to motivate him to resist the settlements that the United States is proposing, then, of course, the Russians have their own decision to make: when they will walk away from this conflict, how much of Ukraine do they have to capture to be confident that the whole effort was worth it? I imagine the Dnieper River as a dividing line tells us where they will stop, where they don’t see any further gain for themselves by proceeding. And of course, the threats that they can make to the West European warmongers that any presence of personnel or equipment in Ukraine will be instantly destroyed by Russian bombs, missiles, and so forth. I think the Europeans, even Macron or Starmer, they understand who’s who and who has the power over that territory. So I don’t believe that they will violate the Russian prohibition on entering Ukraine.
LT: 24:19 My last question for you, Mr. Doctorow. A few weeks ago we had Zelensky come out and say, “Oh, you know, I want to do this 30 days ceasefire and hopefully we can get negotiations out of this. We can get some sort of a more lasting peace.” If these reports are true, about halting the front lines as they currently are, who do you think is in Zelensky’s ear pressuring him right now? I mean, is it Starmer? Is it the EU? Is it– who is pressuring him to continue on when this is literally what he asked for just a few weeks ago, maybe two weeks ago. And what do you think their end game is here? Because I don’t see how this could end well for them.
25:09 Well, the question of violations of the ceasefire, which is what Mr. Putin used the 30-hour ceasefire, Easter ceasefire, to exhibit, to explain the violations, the 4,000 or however many violations that they say the Ukrainians committed during this period. That was one side of the issue. But frankly speaking, it’s a lesser side. The Russians are more concerned about something else.
If they were to allow a 30-day unrestricted ceasefire, it would be used by the Western powers supporting Ukraine to move in vast amounts of personnel and equipment to prop up the regime. And they will also have a chance to rotate their military units, which the Russian constant artillery bombardment has made virtually impossible.
So the Russian advance, the Russian advantage on the battlefield, will be given away for nothing. And that is the issue, not whether the Ukrainians are going to lob some more artillery at Donetsk oblast residential areas. That’s the least of it. That’s the easiest to demonstrate.
26:42 The re-equipment of the Ukrainian army will not be easily demonstrable. It’ll all be done at night, in hiding, under forests. But the results will be to change the battlefield position, which is now very favorable to the Russians, to one which will be more balanced or perhaps favorable to the Ukrainians. That would be a very foolish thing. It sounds good, 30 days as a down payment on a peace, but you can be sure that Mr. Zelensky had no intentions of making a peace that resembles compromises or resembles an acknowledgement of who has won the war. And that is what– this refusal to accept the loss of Crimea is the perfect example. There is no flexibility. This regime remains radical, Russia-hating and unreal.
27:36 And the backers, Starmer– you asked who’s behind this. Unquestionably, Starmer is the lead, because the Brits from the very beginning, going back to 2014, have been the most anti-Russian, the most vicious in supporting a regime that they knew would fight to the death against the Russians. And that remains the case. Mr. Macron is in the game only because he as this vain man, superficial, empty chameleon, has seized this as his opportunity to move ahead of Germany as the defender of Europe. In the past, going back to the twin locomotives of the EU, Germany and France, the French had the diplomacy, foreign affairs portfolio, and the Germans had the economic portfolio.
28:35 Now the Germans are vying for the foreign affairs-military leadership of Europe. And Mr. Macron is very keen not to let the Germans run away with that as well.
LT: Well, hopefully, next time we meet and speak, it’ll be under better circumstances and there will be a peace. But given how things are going, I don’t think that’s going to be anytime soon. So Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for joining me today. Where should people follow along with your work and stay up to date with everything that you are publishing?
Doctorow: 29:13 Well, I’m very hopeful that they will go to my Substack platform, because that is my primary platform. I am delighted to be on a couple of rather well-viewed weekly interview programs. I’m still more delighted that those, that this one in particular is, four hours after transmission in the States, finds itself in a perfect Russian translation voiceover on the RuTube.ru internet site.
29:46 So the Russians are also watching this, but my primary audience, of course, not Russia. It is the world at large. And I find a great satisfaction that there are so many people out there who are following, looking for information and views in the alternative media, which the mainstream generally does not provide. I don’t want to say never provides, it does. Even the “Financial Times”, Russia-hating as they are in their editorial positions, does occasionally provide some useful and true information about the Russian situation. But the alternative media is of course a better source.
LT: Well thank you so much for joining me, and I really appreciate your work. So hopefully we can speak again soon.
I open this installment of my travel notes with remarks on my experience in arranging and enjoying the past three days in Moscow. What I have to say is not intended to give tips to the Community which might be useful on any future travel to and in Russia that you may be considering. All the cutting edge services I mention are accessible only if you have a Russian bank account and credit cards, from which follows the possibility to put bank Apps on your telephone and enjoy the conveniences I outline here.
My purpose is rather to share my observations on how ordinary Russians live – which, to put it succinctly, is very well indeed. For those who occupy management positions in business or even are just employees with skills in demand, their salaries support the good life I describe here. For pensioners, whose monthly allowance is very meager, there are non-monetary allotments from the government, like a couple of train trips cross country for free each year or greatly reduced airline ticket prices that make it possible to enjoy the good life even on a very small nominal budget.
I must explain here that a few very large Russian corporations see you through many different sides of consumer life. One of them now is Sber, formerly Sberbank, which has its finger in all kinds of pies and offers their Russian customers many services quite remote from banking such as shopping for and home delivery of groceries. But the single biggest helper in the travelers’ needs is Yandex, Russia’s equivalent to Google.
Yandex began life as THE search engine of Russia and then used its skills and proprietary software to take over the lives of its countrymen as a benevolent monopolist. Occasionally you encounter the downsides of its lacking competition in management failures. But nearly all the time Yandex subsidiaries do a commendable job.
Had I so desired, I could have bought our train tickets to Moscow online from Yandex Travel (Puteshestvie) but we have an old fashioned instinct and wanted to consult with a railways sales person about our choice of train and the discount that suited us best, so we made the purchase at the main railway station in Petersburg.
What it was like on the Sapsan high speed train connecting the two capitals and covering the 700 km route in exactly 4 hours I will explain below. There were several pleasant surprises for us at the level of on board service even in the Economy railway car that I will share below.
As regards reserving a hotel in Moscow, I used Yandex Travel, which served as a very efficient substitute for booking.com. I quickly waded through their list of 4 and 5 star hotels in the city center, deciding finally on a Movenpick which is managed by the French hospitality services giant Accor, and is managed very well as our stay there proved.
For those who follow the money, I inform you that since I dithered in placing our booking in what is a peak travel period, the Standard rooms were sold out and we necessarily moved up to a Superior room for the ruble equivalent of 120 euros per night without breakfast. If that sounds like a lot, bear in mind that a 22 meter very well appointed room such as we received would cost the double in any European capital and probably the triple in New York. No breakfast, but if you use your wits and order breakfast from the menu, you can nicely get by for 10 euros per person, enjoying a royal omelet and a double espresso worthy of Milano. If you are indifferent to prices, a buffet breakfast with shampanskoye is on offer for 30 euros per person. When you come after 10 am on weekends, you are treated to live piano music over breakfast. But the little secret which reception does not share with everyone, is that at level -2 the hotel has a splendid swimming pool, sauna and well-equipped workout gym available for free to guests.
Who, you may wonder, are the guests? With the exception of myself, the hotel guests this weekend were 100% Russians, nearly all couples, many with young children. I would estimate the age band of the adults as running from 25 to 35.
The Movenpick is situated 200 meters from the Taganka Theater, a landmark in Russian cultural and social history going back to the 1970s when it was directed by the free spirit Yuri Lubimov who gained special renown for staging Hamlet with the bard Vladimir Vysotsky in the title role (which I saw together with my future wife seated on stairs leading to the balcony since all seats were sold out).
In the early 1980s, Lyubimov fell afoul of the authorities due to caustic productions including Brecht’s Threepenny Opera and Good Person of Szechwan. He was compelled to emigrate, first to Israel as a refuge of convenience. He then traveled around Europe and the USA directing operas, which was an entirely new domain. Finally in the 1990s he returned home to Moscow. His theater was returned to him and he became a celebrity among Russia’s freedom fighters and a close friend of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose 80th birthday was feted in the theater in the presence of notables including foreign ambassadors and the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. I know. I was there, and strolling around this quiet corner of Moscow brought back these recollections. Moreover; Solzhenitsyn’s Museum of the Russian Emigration Abroad is just across the street from the theater, while a monument to Vladimir Vysotsky is around the corner.
It is now typical of Moscow that such small oases of culture and desirable residential buildings are to be found on one side or another of the 8 lane ‘boulevards’ like Zemlyanoi Val on which the hotel is situated that run through the center of Moscow and set this city apart from all other European capitals. Called boulevards, they are in fact highways and the only way to get across them as a pedestrian is via underground passages.
Returning to the subject of Yandex, I note that their taxis swarm the streets of Moscow and wherever in the city you may be, when you order a taxi on your telephone App, you are likely to be picked up within 5 minutes or so. The operator finds you by geolocation software and their system remembers where they delivered you recently so that when you type in the first letters of your destination they identify a driver and show you the price for various categories of car, from Economy on up.
Yandex Go, as the taxi service is called, covers the entire Russian Federation. When we arrived in Pskov on 29 April having crossed over from Estonia, my Yandex App instantly found me a driver ready to take us to our home in Petersburg 290 km to the north.
Yandex also provided us with our entertainment for Friday evening in Moscow. Their search engine listed the very few concerts being presented on this first day of a long holiday weekend when most theaters are closed. We chose the Zaryad’ya Concert Hall where Mariinsky and Bolshoi theater chief conductor Valery Gergiev was putting on Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. Then we bought our tickets via the Yandex theater ticketing system.
Bruckner is not a favorite composer of ours, but we were keen to discover the concert hall which dates from 2018 and is where Gergiev holds his Easter Festival each year.
The concert itself was less than enjoyable. The symphony seemed disconnected and going nowhere, though there were some glorious moments of rich polyphonic sound. Saying that, I think of the comment by Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer to those of us who came to the final rehearsal of Dvorak’s Rusalka in the Brussels opera house some years ago: ‘This opera is magnificent and if you don’t enjoy the show you have me to blame for a poor presentation of the score.’
It could well be that Gergiev gave a poor reading of the score. Boring or not, over its two hours of uninterrupted music, his rendition of the Eighth Symphony left no one snoozing. Gergiev loves FULL volume and his combined double orchestra from the two opera theaters blasted us a good deal. On the positive side, we learned that the acoustics of the Zaryad’ya concert hall are wonderful.
The Zaryad’ya seats 1,600 and it is notable for the seating configuration which wraps around the orchestra from all sides. I know of nothing similar in our part of Europe.
Another unusual aspect of the Zaryad’ya is security. When buying tickets online you are obliged to enter your passport number, issuing country, etc. And when you come to the hall, you must produce your passport together with your ticket to gain entry. I have not seen such tight control anywhere in Petersburg venues.
*****
I close these Travel Notes with some observations on the Siemens-built Sapsan trains that operate on the Moscow-St Petersburg route.
They are in perfect condition, withdrawal of the manufacturer from the Russian market notwithstanding. Punctuality is remarkable, as are cleanliness and high quality service even in Economy Class. Security is uppermost: your passport is entered into the system with your ticket; and you are allowed to board the train only after the attendant standing at the door to each wagon checks your passport against the data shown on the electronic gadget in her hands. Inside the train, it is clear that there are not only attendants to serve you but also guards to maintain order.
Our train mostly cruised at 200 km per hour. For much of the route, there was little sway or vibration, but in places there were both phenomena. The reason is that the Sapsan is running on normal Russian railway track, which is all welded to eliminate the clack-clack but is not of such precision as the French TGV rail beds, that are segregated from ordinary train tracks.
Though every seat was taken in our rail wagon, there was dead silence. Nearly all passengers were looking only at their mobile phones but no one was conversing. The reason? The train offers a broad selection of movies in all imaginable genres that you can choose to watch via their wifi channels on board. All films are Russian: there is not a single foreign film. And the majority of films are about war. There were only a couple of romances or situation comedies and a few cartoons for the kids, including the ever present Masha and the Bear. When watching, you are obliged to use earphones so that you do not disturb others.
The wifi also offers a direct connection with the bistro car so that you can order sandwiches or beverages that an attendant will bring to your seat.
As for price, in Economy it was about 50 euros per person for a round trip ticket.
Ich beginne diesen Teil meiner Reiseberichte mit einigen Anmerkungen zu meinen Erfahrungen bei der Organisation und dem Genuss der letzten drei Tage in Moskau. Was ich zu sagen habe, soll keine Tipps für die Community sein, die Ihnen bei einer möglichen zukünftigen Reise nach Russland nützlich sein könnten. Alle von mir erwähnten hochmodernen Dienstleistungen sind nur zugänglich, wenn Sie über ein russisches Bankkonto und Kreditkarten verfügen, wodurch Sie Bank-Apps auf Ihrem Telefon installieren und die hier beschriebenen Annehmlichkeiten nutzen können.
Mein Ziel ist es vielmehr, meine Beobachtungen über das Leben der einfachen Russen zu teilen – das, kurz gesagt, sehr gut ist. Für diejenigen, die Führungspositionen in Unternehmen bekleiden oder auch nur Angestellte mit gefragten Fähigkeiten sind, reichen ihre Gehälter für das gute Leben, das ich hier beschreibe. Für Rentner, deren monatliche Rente sehr gering ist, gibt es nicht-monetäre Zuwendungen von der Regierung, wie zum Beispiel ein paar kostenlose Zugfahrten pro Jahr quer durch das Land oder stark ermäßigte Flugtickets, die es ihnen ermöglichen, auch mit einem sehr geringen nominalen Budget ein gutes Leben zu führen.
Ich muss hier erklären, dass einige sehr große russische Unternehmen viele verschiedene Aspekte des Verbraucherlebens abdecken. Eines davon ist Sber, ehemals Sberbank, das seine Finger in vielen Bereichen im Spiel hat und seinen russischen Kunden zahlreiche Dienstleistungen anbietet, die nichts mit Bankgeschäften zu tun haben, wie beispielsweise den Einkauf und die Lieferung von Lebensmitteln nach Hause. Der größte Helfer für Reisende ist jedoch Yandex, das russische Pendant zu Google.
Yandex begann als DIE Suchmaschine Russlands und nutzte dann seine Fähigkeiten und seine proprietäre Software, um als wohlwollender Monopolist das Leben seiner Landsleute zu übernehmen. Gelegentlich stößt man auf die Nachteile des mangelnden Wettbewerbs in Form von Managementfehlern. Aber fast immer leisten die Tochtergesellschaften von Yandex hervorragende Arbeit.
Hätte ich gewollt, hätte ich unsere Zugtickets nach Moskau online bei Yandex Travel (Puteshestvie) kaufen können, aber wir sind altmodisch und wollten uns lieber bei einem Bahnmitarbeiter über die Zugverbindung und den für uns günstigsten Rabatt beraten lassen, also kauften wir die Tickets am Hauptbahnhof in Petersburg.
Wie es in dem Hochgeschwindigkeitszug Sapsan war, der die beiden Hauptstädte verbindet und die 700 km lange Strecke in genau 4 Stunden zurücklegt, werde ich im Folgenden erläutern. Selbst in der Economy-Klasse gab es für uns einige angenehme Überraschungen beim Service an Bord, über die ich im Folgenden berichten werde.
Für die Hotelreservierung in Moskau habe ich Yandex Travel genutzt, das sich als sehr effizienter Ersatz für booking.com erwiesen hat. Ich habe mich schnell durch die Liste der 4- und 5-Sterne-Hotels im Stadtzentrum gewühlt und mich schließlich für ein Mövenpick entschieden, das vom französischen Hotelriesen Accor geführt wird und, wie unser Aufenthalt dort gezeigt hat, sehr gut geführt ist.
Für diejenigen, die auf den Preis achten: Da ich mit der Buchung in der Hochsaison gezögert habe, waren die Standardzimmer ausgebucht und wir mussten für den Gegenwert von 120 Euro pro Nacht ohne Frühstück in ein Superior-Zimmer umziehen. Das klingt vielleicht viel, aber bedenken Sie, dass ein 22 Quadratmeter großes, sehr gut ausgestattetes Zimmer wie das unsere in jeder europäischen Hauptstadt doppelt so viel und in New York wahrscheinlich dreimal so viel kosten würde. Es gibt kein Frühstück, aber wenn man sich etwas einfallen lässt und vom Menü bestellt, kommt man für 10 Euro pro Person gut zurecht und genießt ein königliches Omelett und einen doppelten Espresso, der Milano würdig ist. Wenn Ihnen die Preise egal sind, gibt es ein Frühstücksbuffet mit Shampanskoye für 30 Euro pro Person. Wenn Sie am Wochenende nach 10 Uhr kommen, werden Sie beim Frühstück mit Live-Klaviermusik verwöhnt. Das kleine Geheimnis, das die Rezeption nicht jedem verrät, ist, dass das Hotel in der zweiten Untergeschossetage über einen herrlichen Swimmingpool, eine Sauna und einen gut ausgestatteten Fitnessraum verfügt, die den Gästen kostenlos zur Verfügung stehen.
Sie fragen sich vielleicht, wer die Gäste waren? Mit Ausnahme von mir waren alle Hotelgäste an diesem Wochenende zu 100 % Russen, fast ausschließlich Paare, viele davon mit kleinen Kindern. Ich würde das Alter der Erwachsenen auf 25 bis 35 Jahre schätzen.
Das Mövenpick liegt 200 Meter vom Taganka-Theater entfernt, einem Wahrzeichen der russischen Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte, das bis in die 1970er Jahre zurückreicht, als es von dem Freigeist Juri Lubimow geleitet wurde, der sich durch die Inszenierung von Hamlet mit dem Dichter Vladimir Vysotsky in der Titelrolle einen Namen machte (die ich damals zusammen mit meiner zukünftigen Frau auf den Treppen zum Balkon sah, da alle Plätze ausverkauft waren).
Anfang der 1980er Jahre geriet Lubimow aufgrund seiner bissigen Inszenierungen, darunter Brechts „Die Dreigroschenoper“ und „Der gute Mensch von Sezuan“, in Konflikt mit den Behörden. Er war gezwungen, zunächst nach Israel als Zufluchtsort zu emigrieren. Anschließend reiste er durch Europa und die USA und inszenierte Opern, was für ihn ein völlig neues Gebiet war. In den 1990er Jahren kehrte er schließlich nach Moskau zurück. Sein Theater wurde ihm zurückgegeben, und er wurde zu einer Berühmtheit unter den russischen Freiheitskämpfern und ein enger Freund von Alexander Solschenizyn, dessen 80. Geburtstag im Theater in Anwesenheit von Persönlichkeiten wie ausländischen Botschaftern und dem Moskauer Bürgermeister Juri Luschkow gefeiert wurde. Ich weiß das, weil ich dabei war, und ein Spaziergang durch diese ruhige Ecke Moskaus hat diese Erinnerungen wieder wachgerufen. Außerdem befindet sich Solschenizyns Museum der russischen Emigration im Ausland direkt gegenüber dem Theater, und um die Ecke steht ein Denkmal für Wladimir Wyssozki.
Es ist mittlerweile typisch für Moskau, dass solche kleinen Oasen der Kultur und begehrten Wohngebäude an der einen oder anderen Seite der achtstreifigen „Boulevards“ wie dem Zemlyanoi Val zu finden sind, die durch das Zentrum Moskaus verlaufen und diese Stadt von allen anderen europäischen Hauptstädten unterscheiden. Obwohl sie Boulevards genannt werden, handelt es sich tatsächlich um Schnellstraßen, die als Fußgänger nur über Unterführungen überquert werden können.
Um auf Yandex zurückzukommen: Die Taxis dieses Unternehmens schwärmen in den Straßen Moskaus, und egal, wo man sich in der Stadt befindet, wenn man über die App ein Taxi bestellt, wird man in der Regel innerhalb von etwa fünf Minuten abgeholt. Der Betreiber findet Sie mithilfe einer Geolokalisierungssoftware, und das System merkt sich, wo Sie zuletzt abgeholt wurden, sodass bei Eingabe der ersten Buchstaben Ihres Zielortes ein Fahrer ermittelt und Ihnen der Preis für verschiedene Fahrzeugkategorien, von Economy aufwärts, angezeigt wird.
Yandex Go, so heißt der Taxidienst, deckt die gesamte Russische Föderation ab. Als wir am 29. April aus Estland kommend in Pskow ankamen, fand meine Yandex-App sofort einen Fahrer, der bereit war, uns zu unserem 290 km nördlich gelegenen Zuhause in Petersburg zu bringen.
Yandex sorgte auch für unser Unterhaltungsprogramm am Freitagabend in Moskau. Die Suchmaschine listete die wenigen Konzerte auf, die an diesem ersten Tag eines langen Feiertagswochenendes, an dem die meisten Theater geschlossen sind, stattfanden. Wir entschieden uns für die Zaryad’ya-Konzerthalle, wo Valery Gergiev, Chefdirigent des Mariinsky- und Bolschoi-Theaters, Bruckners Achte Symphonie aufführte. Dann kauften wir unsere Tickets über das Theater-Ticketingsystem von Yandex.
Bruckner gehört zwar nicht zu unseren Lieblingskomponisten, aber wir wollten unbedingt die Konzerthalle aus dem Jahr 2018 entdecken, in der Gergiev jedes Jahr sein Osterfestival veranstaltet.
Das Konzert selbst war nicht besonders unterhaltsam. Die Symphonie wirkte unzusammenhängend und ziellos, obwohl es einige glorreiche Momente mit reichhaltigem polyphonem Klang gab. Dabei fällt mir der Kommentar des ungarischen Dirigenten Ivan Fischer ein, den er vor einigen Jahren zu uns sagte, die wir zur Generalprobe von Dvoraks „Rusalka“ in der Brüsseler Oper gekommen waren: „Diese Oper ist großartig, und wenn Ihnen die Aufführung nicht gefällt, bin ich schuld, weil ich die Partitur schlecht präsentiert habe.“
Es könnte durchaus sein, dass Gergiev die Partitur schlecht gelesen hat. Langweilig oder nicht, während der zwei Stunden ununterbrochener Musik ließ seine Interpretation der Achten Symphonie niemanden einschlafen. Gergiev liebt volle Lautstärke, und sein kombiniertes Doppelorchester aus den beiden Opernhäusern hat uns ordentlich beschallt. Positiv zu vermerken ist, dass wir gelernt haben, dass die Akustik des Zaryad’ya-Konzertsaals wunderbar ist.
Das Zaryad’ya bietet Platz für 1.600 Zuschauer und zeichnet sich durch seine Sitzanordnung aus, die das Orchester von allen Seiten umgibt. Ich kenne nichts Vergleichbares in unserem Teil Europas.
Ein weiterer ungewöhnlicher Aspekt des Zaryad’ya ist die Sicherheit. Beim Online-Kauf der Tickets muss man seine Passnummer, das Ausstellungsland usw. angeben. Und wenn man in den Saal kommt, muss man seinen Pass zusammen mit dem Ticket vorzeigen, um Zutritt zu erhalten. Eine so strenge Kontrolle habe ich in Petersburg noch nirgendwo erlebt.
*****
Ich schließe diesen Reisebericht mit einigen Beobachtungen zu den von Siemens gebauten Sapsan-Zügen, die auf der Strecke Moskau-St. Petersburg verkehren.
Sie sind in einwandfreiem Zustand, trotz des Rückzugs des Herstellers aus dem russischen Markt. Die Pünktlichkeit ist bemerkenswert, ebenso wie die Sauberkeit und der hochwertige Service, selbst in der Economy Class. Sicherheit wird großgeschrieben: Ihr Reisepass wird zusammen mit Ihrer Fahrkarte in das System eingegeben, und Sie dürfen erst in den Zug einsteigen, nachdem das Zugpersonal an der Tür jedes Waggons Ihren Reisepass mit den Daten auf dem elektronischen Gerät in der Hand verglichen hat. Im Zug ist deutlich zu erkennen, dass es nicht nur Zugbegleiter gibt, die Ihnen zur Verfügung stehen, sondern auch Sicherheitspersonal, das für Ordnung sorgt.
Unser Zug fuhr meist mit einer Geschwindigkeit von 200 km/h. Auf einem Großteil der Strecke gab es kaum Schwankungen oder Vibrationen, aber an einigen Stellen traten beide Phänomene auf. Der Grund dafür ist, dass der Sapsan auf normalen russischen Gleisen fährt, die zwar alle verschweißt sind, um das Klackern zu vermeiden, aber nicht so präzise sind wie die Gleise des französischen TGV, die von den normalen Zuggleisen getrennt sind.
Obwohl unser Zugabteil bis auf den letzten Platz besetzt war, herrschte absolute Stille. Fast alle Passagiere starrten auf ihre Handys, aber niemand unterhielt sich. Der Grund? Der Zug bietet eine große Auswahl an Filmen aller erdenklichen Genres, die man über das WLAN an Bord auswählen und ansehen kann. Alle Filme sind russisch, es gibt keinen einzigen ausländischen Film. Und die meisten Filme handeln vom Krieg. Es gab nur ein paar Liebesfilme oder Situationskomödien und ein paar Zeichentrickfilme für Kinder, darunter die allgegenwärtige „Mascha und der Bär“. Beim Anschauen muss man Kopfhörer benutzen, um andere nicht zu stören.
Das WLAN bietet auch eine direkte Verbindung zum Bistro-Wagen, sodass man Sandwiches oder Getränke bestellen kann, die einem dann an den Platz gebracht werden.
Was den Preis angeht, so kostete die Hin- und Rückfahrt in der Economy-Klasse etwa 50 Euro pro Person.
This brief article to which I was one of two contributors is a useful antidote to the Trump administration’s self-congratulatory public statements on the minerals deal with Ukraine.
I note in particular Treasury Secretary Bessent’s play on Trump’s use of poker terminology. In their heated exchange during Zelensky’s visit to the Oval Office, Trump had insisted that the Ukrainian leader ‘had no cards,’ meaning that he was a loser in thi round of poker and should take instructions from the winners. Now Bessent claims that the minerals deal gave Zelensky a ‘royal flush,’ i.e. a winning hand. This is pure nonsense.
Sputnik Globe: Geopolitischer „Royal Flush“ oder leere Versprechungen? Was steckt hinter Trumps Mineralienabkommen mit Selensky?
Dieser kurze Artikel, zu dem ich als einer von zwei Autoren beigetragen habe, ist ein nützliches Gegenmittel zu den selbstbewussten öffentlichen Erklärungen der Trump-Regierung zum Mineralienabkommen mit der Ukraine.
Ich weise insbesondere auf das Spiel von Finanzminister Bessent mit Trumps Verwendung von Pokerbegriffen hin. In ihrer hitzigen Auseinandersetzung während Selenskys Besuch im Oval Office hatte Trump darauf bestanden, dass der ukrainische Staatschef „keine Karten“ habe, womit er andeutete, dass er in dieser Pokerrunde der Verlierer sei und sich den Anweisungen der Gewinner fügen müsse. Nun behauptet Bessent, der Mineralien-Deal habe Selensky einen „Royal Flush“ beschert, also ein Gewinnerblatt. Das ist völliger Unsinn.
Finanzminister Bessent sagt, Präsident Trump habe Selensky mit dem Mineralienabkommen zwischen den USA und der Ukraine „einen Royal Flush“ in die Hand gegeben, den er in den Verhandlungen mit Russland nutzen könne, und damit signalisiert, dass es „keine Differenzen zwischen dem ukrainischen Volk, dem amerikanischen Volk und unseren Zielen“ gebe. Experten sehen jedoch ein Problem: Das gesamte Abkommen wirkt wie ein Propagandagag.
Die Trump-Regierung braucht angesichts des Chaos und der Unsicherheit, die sie umgeben, dringend einen außenpolitischen Erfolg. Daher prahlen ihre Vertreter mit dem Mineralienabkommen in „einem typischen Fall von spekulativer Werbung“, erklärte der erfahrene französische Geopolitik-Analyst Come Carpentier de Gourdon gegenüber Sputnik.
Was Selensky angeht, so kann er nun behaupten, das Abkommen werde „die Ukraine retten“, in der Hoffnung, „dass Trumps Amerika nun verpflichtet sein wird, sein Regime militärisch zu unterstützen, im Austausch für das Monopol auf die Ausbeutung einiger wertvoller ukrainischer Bodenschätze“.
Die eigentliche Frage ist, ob die USA in der Lage sein werden, der Ukraine genügend Unterstützung zu gewähren, „um der erschöpften ukrainischen Armee zu ermöglichen, einen militärischen Vorteil zurückzugewinnen“, was Carpentier für zweifelhaft hält.
Darüber hinaus lassen die Zugänglichkeit der Mineralien und die Tatsache, dass ein Großteil der nachgewiesenen Reserven nun zu Russland gehört, wichtige Fragen offen.
„Wie will Trump der Ukraine helfen, die ‚verlorenen Gebiete‘ zurückzugewinnen? Das würde einen umfassenden Militäreinsatz der USA zur Unterstützung der Ukraine erfordern, ohne dass ein Erfolg garantiert wäre, und würde Trumps wiederholte Zusage, ‚jetzt‘ Frieden zu schaffen, zunichte machen.“
In diesem Zusammenhang sei die „Royal Flush“-Bemerkung von Finanzminister Scott Bessent „ein Zeichen dafür, dass die Aufregung über den Inhalt triumphiert“, betonte der Beobachter.
Propaganda triumphiert über die Realität
„Der Deal ist nichts weiter als ein Vorwand für Washington, um der Ukraine keine Sicherheitsgarantien zu geben und gleichzeitig Einnahmen aus der möglicherweise entstehenden Rohstoffindustrie abzuschöpfen“, sagt der erfahrene Experte für internationale Beziehungen Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.
Bessents Äußerungen seien „eher propagandistisch als sachlich“, und was als „Royal Flush“ angepriesen werde, sei in Wirklichkeit ein Abkommen, das „die Ukraine in die Position eines Bettlers versklavt“, so Doctorow.
„Die tatsächlichen Fakten spielen in dem Spiel, das Washington spielt, nämlich sich aus dem Krieg herauszuhalten, keine Rolle“, fasste der Beobachter zusammen.
‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 30 April: (Live from St Petersburg): Can Trump Negotiate for Peace?
Today’s chat started out with some observations on what ordinary Russians are saying about their quality of life now that the war in Ukraine has entered its fourth year. My comments were drawn from table talk with four friends who joined us for dinner in our apartment yesterday evening. The most memorable remark bearing on Judge Napolitano’s question was made by the oldest person in the room, Volodya, who celebrated his 90th birthday a couple of months ago: “I have never lived so comfortably as I do today.” His pension is more than adequate to his needs and there is much social assistance with shopping and other chores available from the city administration. So much for the sanctions breaking the spirit of the Russian people!
When asked what the Russians I meet make of Witkoff and Kellogg, I had to admit that they look to me to make sense out of it for them because they are confused by the contradictions in the Team Trump. However, all of our contacts are both patriots while they remain hopeful that a rapprochement with the States will proceed and result in true detente. They do not think in terms of the desiderata for a peace treaty that Sergei Lavrov set out during his ‘Meet the Press’ interview this past weekend. They just want the war to end and they expect Russia to be victorious so as to dictate the peace.
Our chat ended with the fool’s errand that the prime minister of Belgium has undertaken in his bid to raise the country’s budget for defense to 2% of GDP.
Judge Andrew Napolitano: 0:31 Hi there everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, April 30th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us from St. Petersburg, Russia. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for taking the time to chat with us.
You are in St. Petersburg, Russia, truly one of the most captivating cities in the world. Have you been able to grab a sense of the Russian people, their attitude about the war, their economic prosperity, their level of happiness, whether the military is still recruiting, the expectations about Ukraine?
Golbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:21 Well, I’ll answer the easiest question among that group, their feelings about prosperity. We had a dinner party with some old friends, old in the dual sense of the word. One of the couples was old, they’re friends of a long period, and the gentleman celebrated his 90th birthday a few months ago. He told us over dinner that this is the most prosperous and the most comfortable time in his whole life. And they’re doing well. He worked until age 85 or so. He was a key person in one of these military institutes doing something with rockets. I don’t know what. He wasn’t firing, that’s for sure. He was in the design bureau.
2:10 The situation is genuinely one of a lot of money coming into people’s hands, and that partly explains the inflation rate, rather largely explains it. They’re not printing money. The problem is that people have been receiving big increases in their salaries as there’s been a labor shortage. And so it’s kind of a vicious cycle. The labor shortage means that they can’t produce goods and services to the level that meets the demand of a more prosperous population. That’s where we are now.
Napolitano: 2:50 What about military recruiting? You mentioned to me in one of your notes you didn’t see a single military recruitment poster. What does that tell you?
Doctorow: Well, I was corrected by one of our dinner guests last night. I could be wrong about this. The military, like all advertising, the advertising is done in cycles and it could be that we’re at a pause between the end of one contract for advertising and another. But I think it’s more likely something else, which was my interpretation of a day ago, namely that they have decided at the federal and local levels to call a halt to promotion of new recruitment because I think the war is coming to an end. They have been paying more recently a lot of money, up to, say, 35,000 euros to anyone who would sign up now for the war in Ukraine. And that would be unjust to those who have been fighting until now, if people were to receive that money and they never get to the front line because the war has stopped before that.
4:01 So I think they have called a pause at least in the recruitment, and I don’t see anybody noticing that. Well, it should be noticed, and I hope that others will join in and try to find an explanation if they disagree with my interpretation.
Napolitano: How do your friends who are either military ex-military academics, I’m talking about the gentleman who just turned 90, how do people like that perceive Mr. Witkoff having the presidency or spending now by my count a total of 10 hours, one on one, although I imagine others were in the room with President Putin, but not an official of the United States government in any sense.
Doctorow: 4:44 It’s a bit embarrassing to say it, but they were waiting to hear from me, how to interpret it. Because they are–
Napolitano: Well, they probably have not seen anything like this before.
Doctorow:4:53 No, no, they’re puzzled. They are hopeful. Look, among the intelligentsia, among the educated people who are in public relations or in creative domain, the people were always very pro-Western and very hopeful that the good old days will return. In that sense, they would like to read into Mr. Witkoff the most positive possibilities, that indeed there will be not just a reset but a genuine rapprochement or détente with the United States and that all these restrictions will be lifted. This is a widespread hope. And it’s understandable because they were so proud that they could travel the world but they had no problems. And now, well, one of our dinner guests just came back from six months in the States where she was staying with her brother who lives in Queens.
5:55 And she got there, she got to the States by flying to the other side of the moon. She had to go to Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia, to get a US visa. Then to get to New York, she had to fly to Qatar and have a 16-hour flight to New York from Qatar. So they have experienced all the inconvenience that the sanctions, particularly on travel, have caused the general population.
But she went through the 16-hour flight and all the other hurdles she had to pass over to spend this time in the States, which was very valuable to her. I don’t mean that she was in love with the States. She was there to see relatives, to see her grandchildren, and so forth. But she was very pleased to have had the opportunity to be in the States. I think everyone at the table felt the same way.
6:52 They would like there to be something like normal relations and return to where things were before, say before 2008.
Napolitano: You know, I wonder if one of the cards Trump believes he’s holding in negotiations with Putin is the sanctions. Obviously, Putin’s not crazy about the sanctions, but people forget– and I’m going by Foreign Minister Lavrov’s figures– American industry has lost over $350 billion in revenue during these sanctions.
I don’t know what the Russians have lost. They actually seem statistically more prosperous, notwithstanding this inconvenience. And of course, the inconvenience is bilateral. When I interviewed Prime Minister, forgive me, Foreign Minister Lavrov, I had to fly JFK, Dubai, 12 and a half hours, wait a little bit, and then Dubai, Moscow, five and a half hours. And then because I’m an American, I was stopped and interrogated for an hour at the airport, and then everything was fine.
But it’s a long, arduous trip. So the sanctions. Did Joe Biden inadvertently do a favor to Donald Trump by handing him this card to play or is this not a big deal, sanctions to President Putin and the Kremlin?
Doctorow: 8:21 The sanctions are a very big deal. I’ve been looking over my notes going back to 2014 because I’m preparing a third volume of memoirs during the time that I’ve been in the opposition, so to speak, to US foreign policy and publishing articles.
And I found in 2014, in the early autumn of 2014, after the first very serious sanctions were imposed, The Russian economy was not doing well, not doing well at all. These are in my notes, what I saw around me, shortages and so forth. So it took them eight years to become sanction proof. And that’s why the war broke out in February ’22. Not just because in 2018 they became, they had more advanced offensive weapons, strategic weapons than the United States possesses.
9:14 That was point number one. But point number two, they made themselves sanction proof. Having said that, there’s no question that Mr. Putin and his colleagues would like to see the sanctions lifted. There are distortions in the Russian economy that are caused by the sanctions.
You don’t have to produce everything at home. Before they produced too little at home, they were content with very big energy exports. But let’s look at the figures. There was a proficit of 135 billion dollars in Russian foreign trade last year. That’s to say, they were exporting a lot more than they were importing, and that is a consequence of the sanctions.
9:58 Was this good for the economy? Well, it’s a questionable thing. It depends on which school of economics you’re in. But it was a bit abnormal to have this whopping proficit and at the same time the market is starved. Look, I went to the, not just to supermarkets, but to electronics stores, the people who are selling the gadgets, selling the computers.
I can tell you in the six months that I was away, all Western computers have disappeared from the mass market. I don’t mean to say they’ve disappeared from the market, because small shops specializing in parallel trading and serving very wealthy clientele are selling, you can be sure, anything that’s available in New York. However, the big retailers, the ones that have stores across the country, they cannot do business on this lot or that lot coming by parallel trade. They need large supplies and reliable supplies. And so what I saw on the shelves were Chinese no names.
11:05 There was no Huawei. They were companies that are able to defy American sanctions because they have no American business. But are these the best computers for the consumer? I don’t know. I doubt it.
Napolitano: 11:22 How does the Kremlin perceive General Kellogg? I mean, the proposal that he came up with is so absurd, it’s such a non-starter, one wonders if he even ran it past Donald Trump first, that NATO — NATO — would supervise the partitioning of Ukraine, much like Germany was partitioned in 1945.
Doctorow: I don’t think the Kremlin puts Kellogg as very distant and contradicting the proposals that Witkoff brought. In point of fact, as you know from Sergei Lavrov’s, I think it was Meet the Press interview over the weekend, he set out very clearly the Russians’ desiderata, what they want in a peace, and that is very far from Witkoff. So from the Russian, the Kremlin–
Napolitano: Very far from Witkoff, or very far from Kellogg?
Doctorow: 12:29 From both, because they want, essentially they want the de-nazification, the demilitarization. They do not want Ukraine to have an army capable of staging a new offensive. And clearly, they want regime change in Kiev. They don’t want Budanov to stay in power and to do what he has threatened over the last few days, to have 20 years of terrorism against Russia and to try to kill any Russians they can find, they can get their hands on. They don’t want that.
Napolitano: This is the head of the Ukrainian Intel who probably is responsible for the murder of the Russian general last week.
Doctorow: Exactly.
Napolitano: 13:11 Do you believe, you Gilbert Doctorow, do you believe that Trump can close the gap and bring about an amicable resolution of this, or are the parties so far apart that only a military victory will bring an end to the war?
Doctorow: I don’t believe that Trump can succeed. And as I have said in the last ten days, the smartest thing he could do would be to pull out now. I think what he’s looking for is a reason that will shut up his critics in the Congress, critics in the Republican Party as well as the Democratic Party, that will satisfy them that Kiev is not capable of arriving at a peace, because Kiev is insisting on a Russian capitulation when they are the losing party.
14:00 So if Trump were to abandon this project, walk away from it, it would be the best for his own personal standing, and it would lead to a peace much faster than anything else [that] could happen. But what I believe is that that will happen without affecting the rapprochement with Russia, because the rapprochement with Russia has its own justification quite separate from the whole story of the Ukraine war.
Napolitano: 14:28 Well, the rapprochement with Russia is what both Trump and Putin want, as I understand it, which is a reset, an amicable commercial cultural reset without any sanctions whatsoever. Chris, can you put up the picture from St. Peter’s Basilica of President Trump and President Zelensky? I wonder what value could come from this or if it was just for political purposes. I mean, to have no one else there, for the Americans to rely on just Trump’s memory or Trump’s spin on one hand. On the other hand, can Zelensky concede anything material, like Crimea, and expect to stay alive, Professor?
Doctorow: 15:25 Yes, you put your finger on it. It’s not his whim or his arbitrariness or he has a nasty personality. These are irrelevancies. The point is that the people behind him, people behind the throne, will not let him or anyone else in that position make concessions, territorial concessions, de jure to Russia. The meeting that you’re showing here, they were alone because Trump had chased away Macron. Macron was hanging around with his hands over the shoulder of either Trump or Zelensky. That’s his usual habit. He’s got to have, press the flesh. And Trump got rid of him. And that’s why it was one on one.
Napolitano: 16:12 But I mean, the weren’t even Secretary Rubio or MikeWaltz or even some person whose name we don’t know to record what was said. You know, I know Trump, he’s going to remember this the way he wishes it happened. That’s going to be two vastly different versions of this. Do you think Zelensky said to him, “Hey, Donald, I can’t concede Crimea, or you’ll be coming to my funeral.”
Doctorow: No, I don’t think that any distortion that Trump would give to this conversation would be greater than distortion which the Ukrainians have given to it. I was asked about this in another interview a few days ago.
16:53 Oh yes, it was with the Indians who were presenting the Ukrainian argument that this was so important, that they had a, that Trump during the meeting had spoken critically of Putin and that gave hope to Zelensky that he was coming around to see the truth.
And this is rubbish. The meeting was 15 minutes long, and the second meeting that Zelensky had asked for later in the day, was refused by the White House. Compare that with the four hours that Witkoff had the preceding Friday, that’s two days earlier, sorry, one day earlier, on his stay with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. What are we talking about? Who has Trump’s ear? Zelensky or Putin? There’s nothing to talk about. The Ukrainians were putting lipstick on a pig. There’s nothing there with Trump.
Napolitano: So how do you see this ending on the battlefield?
Doctorow: It’s unpredictable. As I’ve said, this is a new war. The Ukrainians keep on repeating this, that they are working hard on expanding their own production of drones. The drones, we know, are getting through into Russia and are causing damage. This is clear as day.
18:09 And the number of people that you need to have this drone warfare is measured in tens of thousands or maybe just in single thousands, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the front line. So it serves the Ukrainians very well as a kind of leveler for the weaker side against the Russians, to have this drone war so prominent. Nonetheless, the Russians are advancing every day. That’s also clear.
Napolitano: Right.
Doctorow: 18:38 So how long will it take? I think that the psychological issue, that when Trump turns his back on Ukraine, I think the Ukrainians will fold, not because they have to, but because they will have lost their, their elan, their spirit.
Napolitano: 18:55 Let’s switch focus for a moment. If Donald Trump turns off the spigot, will the Europeans attempt to replace it?
Doctorow: They will, but they can’t. How much– everyone talks about, “Oh yes, and Trump is there to sell arms to the Europeans.” Is he really? I think this is also a misreading. He already turned down the request of Zelensky to buy, what was it, 50 billion dollars of patriots. He turned that down. I don’t know how he will respond to European requests to buy American equipment to supply to Ukraine. I would not take it for granted that he will acquiesce in that. So the ability of Europeans without American equipment to keep Ukraine afloat is very, very limited.
Napolitano: 19:49 What are the Belgians doing?
Doctorow: The Belgians are doing very stupid things. We have a Flemish nationalist prime minister who has been a force behind the throne of Belgian governments for the last 10 years. He didn’t rush to become a prime minister because a person who made his career talking about breaking up the monarchy was not an ideal candidate to be the king’s prime minister. However, they finally found terms to make this acceptable. And in February, he became the prime minister, after eight months were spent trying to put together a coalition that would have a majority in the parliament.
20:33 He succeeded. But what he’s been doing with respect to Ukraine and defense is a fool’s errand. He– the French speaking newspaper, Le Soir, the main newspaper for half the population, came out with a two-page, three-page article, last Thursday, I believe, in which they set out the ideas of De Wever, how he’s going to raise the Belgian contribution to defense to two percent, raise it to two percent. Just keep in mind that Belgium is the home of the NATO headquarters, and it is together with Spain at the bottom of the pile in its contributions to defense.
21:16 How was he going to do it? By theft, by theft and deception, and this is not my interpretation, it comes out perfectly clear from what “Le Soir” was saying. That is, they will take 500 million dollars, stealing it from Russia. These are the, this is the interest on the 200 billion or whatever in Russian state assets that are frozen in Euroclear, which is a European-wide organization that has its headquarters in Belgium. So the money is in Belgium, and the Belgians are saying that they will steal that money to raise the three and a half billion that’s short in the budget, to bring their general finances of defense up to two percent.
Napolitano: 21:57 Is this part of the von der Leyen, Mertz, Starmer, Macron coalition of the willing? What a poor choice of words given recent history. But anyway, is this part of the whole thing?
Doctorow: It is part of it. And just keep in mind that two to three weeks ago, Wever and his minister of defense and commerce, Theo Franken, visited Kiev together with the heads of the Belgian arms suppliers and manufacturers. And the prime minister committed to making a one-billion-euro contribution to Ukraine this year in military supplies.
22:42 They’ve also said that they’re ready to join the coalition of the willing to enforce any ceasefire. This is utter madness, because the money isn’t there, and only can be taken from social welfare, where it will destabilize the government.
Napolitano: 23:01 Unbelievable. Professor Doctorow, enjoy your time in St. Petersburg. We look forward to chatting with you again. Thank you very much for all your incredible first-person insight. Extremely helpful. And to me and to our audience, fascinating. All the best to you. We’ll see you next week.
Doctorow: Thanks. Bye bye.
Napolitano: Bye bye. And coming up later today at 12:30 from Shanghai, Pepe Escobar; from Brussels, Professor Glenn Diesen; from somewhere in the bowels of Washington, D.C., Max Blumenthal; and from good old Virginia, Phil Giraldi.
The 24 April edition of Belgium’s main French-speaking daily newspaper, Le Soir, had on its front page and on most of pages 2 and 3 an article entitled “Defense. Billions promised…but not financed.”
Reading through this fairly transparent account of Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s ideas on how to raise the funds needed, I was reminded of the old Italian joke about the family recipe for making a sponge cake. It opens with “steal a dozen eggs.”
Indeed, De Wever’s proposals amount to 1) stealing 1.2 billion euros in interest on the 200 billion in Russian state assets frozen in Euroclear, headquartered in Belgium and 2) falsifying the bookkeeping entries to say that the investments of several hundred million in renovation and improvements to bridges and other logistics infrastructure count as defense spending since they facilitate the movement of foreign (American) forces landing in Europe on their way eastward. Since these tricks cover only part of the missing billions of euros to raise Belgian military spending in 2025 to the mandatory NATO figure of 2% of GDP or 3.5 billion, the newspaper asks where will the rest come from? Moreover, a total of 5 billion has to be raised up to the year 2029.
Part of the new expenses will be to cover the purchase of F-35s. Those who say that the main beneficiary will be the U.S. military industrial complex have to look more closely- those planes will be built in Italy. Fully European fighter planes are a possibility but in the more distant future, meaning ten or twenty years hence.
In general the De Wever government is committed to making the biggest investment in defense in 40 years. They believe that this sends a signal to the international community, per the newspaper. What they do not say is that these new budgets are being set in the context of a flagrant contradiction: Belgium is home to NATO headquarters. The new NATO buildings near the Zaventem airport cost well more than a billion euros when opened several years ago. Yet Belgium has ranked at the bottom of the list, alongside Spain, in terms of its defense spending as a percentage of GDP. One wonders how they will cope with imposition of a 3% minimum contribution as is now being discussed by other NATO member states.
As for the ongoing war in Ukraine, De Wever and his minister of defense Theo Francken visited Kiev several weeks ago and pledged a one billion euro military contribution this year. How that will be financed is still less clear. But the prime minister has no difficulty making utterly irresponsible statements: this same Soir article tells us that “ Belgium is ready to participate in a possible coalition of the willing in Ukraine if the negotiations for a cease-fire come to conclusion in the days or weeks ahead.”
*****
Soir does not say it, but the only possible source for financing the rise in military budgets is at the expense of social welfare, and that is politically very dangerous.
The reality is that Belgium has done much better than neighbors France and Germany in maintaining standards of excellent medical care and higher education, all of which are either free or priced at nominal levels to the population. It has maintained labor peace through application of the automatic adjustment of salaries in keeping with inflation. The question is at what risk to political stability can the De Wever government now attack these costly benefits for the sake of meeting NATO targets.
Belgiens Pläne, sein Militärbudget auf 2 % des BIP zu erhöhen: ein sinnloses Unterfangen
Die Ausgabe der wichtigsten französischsprachigen Tageszeitung Belgiens, Le Soir, vom 24. April enthielt auf ihrer Titelseite und auf den meisten Seiten 2 und 3 einen Artikel mit dem Titel „Verteidigung. Milliarden versprochen … aber nicht finanziert“.
Beim Lesen dieses recht transparenten Berichts über die Ideen von Premierminister Bart De Wever zur Beschaffung der erforderlichen Mittel musste ich an den alten italienischen Witz über das Familienrezept für einen Biskuitkuchen denken. Er beginnt mit „Man stiehlt ein Dutzend Eier“.
Tatsächlich laufen De Wevers Vorschläge darauf hinaus, 1) 1,2 Milliarden Euro an Zinsen für die 200 Milliarden Euro an russischen Staatsvermögen zu stehlen, die bei Euroclear mit Sitz in Belgien eingefroren sind, und 2) die Buchhaltung so zu fälschen, dass die Investitionen in Höhe von mehreren hundert Millionen Euro für die Renovierung und Verbesserung von Brücken und anderer logistischer Infrastruktur als Verteidigungsausgaben gelten, da sie den Transport ausländischer (amerikanischer) Streitkräfte, die in Europa landen und weiter nach Osten vorrücken, erleichtern. Da diese Tricks nur einen Teil der fehlenden Milliarden Euro abdecken, um die belgischen Militärausgaben bis 2025 auf die von der NATO vorgeschriebenen 2 % des BIP oder 3,5 Milliarden Euro anzuheben, fragt die Zeitung, woher der Rest kommen soll. Darüber hinaus müssen bis zum Jahr 2029 insgesamt 5 Milliarden Euro aufgebracht werden.
Ein Teil der neuen Ausgaben wird für den Kauf von F-35-Kampfflugzeugen verwendet werden. Diejenigen, die behaupten, dass der Hauptnutznießer der militärisch-industrielle Komplex der USA sein wird, müssen genauer hinschauen – diese Flugzeuge werden in Italien gebaut werden. Vollständig europäische Kampfflugzeuge sind eine Möglichkeit, aber erst in ferner Zukunft, also in zehn oder zwanzig Jahren.
Generell hat sich die Regierung De Wever dazu verpflichtet, die größten Investitionen in die Verteidigung seit 40 Jahren zu tätigen. Sie glaubt, dass dies ein Signal an die internationale Gemeinschaft sendet, so die Zeitung. Was sie nicht sagt, ist, dass diese neuen Budgets vor dem Hintergrund eines eklatanten Widerspruchs festgelegt werden: Belgien ist Sitz des NATO-Hauptquartiers. Die neuen NATO-Gebäude in der Nähe des Flughafens Zaventem kosteten bei ihrer Eröffnung vor einigen Jahren weit über eine Milliarde Euro. Dennoch liegt Belgien zusammen mit Spanien am Ende der Liste, was die Verteidigungsausgaben im Verhältnis zum BIP angeht. Man fragt sich, wie das Land mit der Einführung eines Mindestbeitrags von 3 % zurechtkommen wird, der derzeit von anderen NATO-Mitgliedstaaten diskutiert wird.
Was den anhaltenden Krieg in der Ukraine betrifft, so haben De Wever und sein Verteidigungsminister Theo Francken vor einigen Wochen Kiew besucht und für dieses Jahr einen Militärbeitrag in Höhe von einer Milliarde Euro zugesagt. Wie das finanziert werden soll, ist noch unklarer. Aber der Premierminister hat keine Schwierigkeiten, völlig unverantwortliche Aussagen zu machen: In demselben Artikel in Soir heißt es, dass „Belgien bereit ist, sich an einer möglichen Koalition der Willigen in der Ukraine zu beteiligen, wenn die Verhandlungen über einen Waffenstillstand in den kommenden Tagen oder Wochen zu einem Abschluss kommen“.
*****
Soir sagt es nicht, aber die einzige mögliche Quelle für die Finanzierung der Erhöhung der Militärbudgets geht zu Lasten der Sozialleistungen, und das ist politisch sehr gefährlich.
Tatsächlich hat Belgien im Vergleich zu seinen Nachbarn Frankreich und Deutschland viel besser bei der Aufrechterhaltung eines hervorragenden Gesundheitswesens und eines hohen Bildungsniveaus abgeschnitten, die für die Bevölkerung entweder kostenlos oder zu symbolischen Preisen angeboten werden. Durch die automatische Anpassung der Löhne an die Inflation wurde der soziale Frieden gewahrt. Die Frage ist, mit welchem Risiko für die politische Stabilität die Regierung De Wever nun diese kostspieligen Sozialleistungen angreifen kann, um die NATO-Ziele zu erreichen.
In this report, I present a potpourri of impressions from this first trip back to Russia since last November. Some of these comments are about real changes in what I see around me. Others are simply first observations of sides to life that I did not experience on my most recent visits.
Given that the primary focus of our Community of subscribers is international relations, I open this report with the observation that the previously ubiquitous army recruitment posters have disappeared!
There is not a single poster in public transport, meaning the city subways, trams, busses and bus stops, where they were still legion just 5 months ago.
How do we explain this?
One could imagine that the authorities, both local and federal; expect the war to end either in a negotiated settlement or in Ukrainian capitulation on the battlefield rather soon and they have decided that it is senseless to continuing paying out as much as 35,000 euros to new sign-ons when there will be no war to fight when they complete their basic training.
As usual, I am surprised that none of our journalists, either in mainstream or in alternative media have caught this remarkable cessation of recruiting when just a few months ago the Financial Times and other media belatedly reported on how well new recruits were being paid for their signature on the Special Military Operation contract.
Another clearly new development is labor shortages everywhere. Public transport, retailers, service companies – all have signs offering training and jobs to any and all. In supermarkets of various retail chains, I see that only one of several cash registers are being manned and the electronic device for your credit card has on its face the number to call if you want to inquire about employment opportunities.
Without a doubt the labor shortage is a factor in the 10 per cent inflation rate. Money in people’s pockets is simply rising faster than goods and services are being made available.
So far, this rising prosperity is not really visible when you drive cross country as I did in Friday’s 290 km drive by taxi from Pskov to Petersburg. The road is greatly improved compared to what it was just a few years ago. The asphalt is in good condition. In part, this old north-south route called the Kiev Highway has been upgraded from two lanes to four. But the dilapidated little wooden houses by the roadside are shabby as ever until you come within 50 km of Petersburg where the new country residences of urban wealthy first appear. It also seems that many of the poorer dwellings farther out are empty. This sad reality contrasts with the orderly and comfortable dwellings in the little Estonian towns in the south of that country stretching from Tartu to the Russian border that I passed through on my way here.
Speaking of transportation, I am obliged to say a word or two about the important investments that Russian State Railways have made in the rolling stock and other infrastructure of commuter train traffic.
Going back a dozen years or more, the commuter trains, or ‘elektrichki’ as they are known, could have been used to film the opening scenes of Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, in which the hero, Prince Myshkin is seen traveling in a third class rail wagon – seated on hard wooden benches and with no heating in winter. In a first wave of modernization here in Petersburg six or eight years ago the wooden benches of the rail cars were replaced by individual plastic and metal seats. Now, as I noted yesterday on our trip from the Petersburg city center to our outlying borough of Pushkin/Tsarskoye Selo, the seats have improved upholstery and are reasonably comfortable. They are not as sleek as our commuter trains in Belgium, but they have absolutely no graffiti on them, whereas most every local and many international trains in Belgium are hideously painted over by vandals.
But let us look at the acid test of modernizing management: public toilets. I was stunned yesterday to visit the gents’ room inside the complex of the Moscow Railway Station by the intercity ticketing office and to find that by cleanliness; up to date toilet fixtures, the presence of liquid soap in the dispensers and working hand dryers the facility was as good as you would find in a 4-star hotel, if the staff there were to let you in off the street to answer the call of nature. And – the railway toilets were free of charge. No need to fumble through your pockets to find the right change or to try to crawl under the bar to sneak in without paying. I say ‘bravo’ to the РЖД.
As for intercity trains, the demand for the high speed trains between Moscow and Petersburg is high, expecially in this holiday period. The Russians have long weekends around May 1 (European Labor Day) and around May 9 (Victory in Europe Day) and many are using this to make the ‘bridge,’ take vacation and to get away.
Getting away makes special sense if you consider the ongoing preparations for the Big Parade on the 9th which can spoil your travel around the city now already, two weeks before the event. Twice yesterday we were stuck in our taxi for 20-30 minutes at a time when the policy halted all traffic in rehearsal for procedures on the 9th. At the same time, when I wanted to order a taxi after finishing the meeting I had in town, the phone app for taxis (Yandex) was inoperative since the police were playing games with the satellite GPS signals and indicating false addresses to the taxi drivers.
What was most surprising to me is that while we were all stuck and waiting for the red light at the crossroads before us to turn green, there was not a single car honking its horn. Not one car tried to mount the grass road divider and turn around. In a word, the patience around me was a revelation. My Russia from the 1990s was a chaotic place where no one followed the rules of the road. The heroes of the day then were the ‘dzhigits’ (Central Asian folklore) who systematically ran red lights.
Now it appears that is history. But then again it is worth noting that today you are safe as a pedestrian entering the zebra crossings whereas in the ’90s you were fair game for the hotshots who would bear down on pedestrians to see them scurrying off the road like chickens.
Since I already mentioned my forthcoming trip to Moscow this weekend to spend a couple of days with old friends from the journalist and academic world, I can add a word about what I learned making my botel booking on the Yandex Travel website. After the departure from the Russian market of booking.com and other online Western travel agents, Yandex has taken the lead role in Russia. It is as dominant in this domain as it is in taxi services or in its search engine business.
Comparing the offers from the many, many stand-alone hotels on Yandex in the 3-5 star categories and looking closely at customer comments, it became clear to me that there is negligible price difference between the stand-alones and the several hotels that carry the name of international hotel chains like Movenpick or Novotel or Ibis. But there evidently is a big difference in managerial competence if you judge by the very condemnatory comments of people who stayed in the no-names versus those who stayed in the hotels flying the colors of international chains. Import substitution in this domain has its limitations.
In diesem Bericht präsentiere ich Ihnen eine bunte Mischung von Eindrücken von meiner ersten Reise nach Russland seit November letzten Jahres. Einige dieser Kommentare beziehen sich auf reale Veränderungen, die ich in meiner Umgebung wahrgenommen habe. Andere sind lediglich erste Beobachtungen von Aspekten des Lebens, die mir bei meinen letzten Besuchen nicht aufgefallen sind.
Da der Schwerpunkt unserer Community auf internationalen Beziehungen liegt, möchte ich diesen Bericht mit der Beobachtung beginnen, dass die zuvor allgegenwärtigen Plakate zur Rekrutierung für die Armee verschwunden sind!
In den öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln, also in der U-Bahn, den Straßenbahnen, Bussen und an Bushaltestellen, wo sie noch vor fünf Monaten zuhauf zu sehen waren, gibt es kein einziges Plakat mehr.
Wie lässt sich das erklären?
Man könnte sich vorstellen, dass die lokalen und föderalen Behörden davon ausgehen, dass der Krieg entweder durch eine Verhandlungslösung oder durch die Kapitulation der Ukraine auf dem Schlachtfeld bald beendet sein wird, und dass sie beschlossen haben, dass es sinnlos ist, weiterhin bis zu 35.000 Euro an neue Rekruten zu zahlen, wenn es nach Abschluss ihrer Grundausbildung keinen Krieg mehr zu führen gibt.
Wie üblich bin ich überrascht, dass keiner unserer Journalisten, weder in den Mainstream- noch in den alternativen Medien, diese bemerkenswerte Einstellung der Rekrutierung bemerkt hat, obwohl erst vor wenigen Monaten die Financial Times und andere Medien verspätet darüber berichteten, wie gut neue Rekruten für ihre Unterschrift unter den Vertrag für die „Sonderoperation“ bezahlt wurden.
Eine weitere eindeutig neue Entwicklung ist der überall herrschende Arbeitskräftemangel. Öffentliche Verkehrsbetriebe, Einzelhändler, Dienstleistungsunternehmen – alle bieten Schulungen und Arbeitsplätze für jedermann an. In Supermärkten verschiedener Einzelhandelsketten sehe ich, dass nur eine von mehreren Kassen besetzt ist und auf dem elektronischen Gerät für Kreditkarten die Telefonnummer steht, unter der man sich über Beschäftigungsmöglichkeiten erkundigen kann.
Zweifellos ist der Arbeitskräftemangel ein Faktor für die Inflationsrate von 10 Prozent. Das Geld in den Taschen der Menschen steigt einfach schneller als das Angebot an Waren und Dienstleistungen.
Bislang ist dieser wachsende Wohlstand nicht wirklich sichtbar, wenn man wie ich am Freitag mit dem Taxi die 290 km von Pskow nach Petersburg gefahren ist. Die Straße ist im Vergleich zu vor einigen Jahren deutlich verbessert worden. Der Asphalt ist in gutem Zustand. Teilweise wurde diese alte Nord-Süd-Verbindung, die als Kiewer Autobahn bezeichnet wird, von zwei auf vier Fahrspuren ausgebaut. Aber die baufälligen kleinen Holzhäuser am Straßenrand sind nach wie vor heruntergekommen, bis man 50 km vor Petersburg kommt, wo die neuen Landhäuser der städtischen Wohlhabenden zum ersten Mal in Sicht kommen. Es scheint auch, dass viele der ärmeren Häuser weiter draußen leer stehen. Diese traurige Realität steht im Kontrast zu den ordentlichen und komfortablen Häusern in den kleinen estnischen Städten im Süden des Landes, die sich von Tartu bis zur russischen Grenze erstrecken und die ich auf meinem Weg hierher durchquert habe.
Was den Verkehr angeht, muss ich ein paar Worte zu den bedeutenden Investitionen sagen, die die Russische Staatsbahn in den Fahrzeugpark und andere Infrastrukturen des Nahverkehrs getätigt hat.
Vor mehr als zehn Jahren hätten die Nahverkehrszüge, die sogenannten „Elektritschki“, als Kulisse für die Eröffnungsszenen von Dostojewskis Roman „Der Idiot“ dienen können, in denen der Held, Fürst Myschkin, in einem Zug der dritten Klasse reist – auf harten Holzbänken sitzend und ohne Heizung im Winter. In einer ersten Modernisierungswelle hier in Petersburg vor sechs oder acht Jahren wurden die Holzbänke in den Waggons durch einzelne Plastik- und Metallsitze ersetzt. Jetzt, wie ich gestern auf unserer Fahrt vom Stadtzentrum Petersburgs in unseren Vorort Puschkin/Zarskoje Selo festgestellt habe, sind die Sitze besser gepolstert und recht bequem. Sie sind nicht so elegant wie unsere Nahverkehrszüge in Belgien, aber sie sind völlig frei von Graffiti, während fast alle lokalen und viele internationale Züge in Belgien von Vandalen mit hässlichen Sprühfarben verunstaltet sind.
Aber kommen wir zum Härtetest für die Modernisierung des Managements: den öffentlichen Toiletten. Ich war gestern verblüfft, als ich die Herrentoilette im Komplex des Moskauer Bahnhofs neben dem Intercity-Fahrkartenschalter besuchte und feststellte, dass die Anlage in puncto Sauberkeit, moderner Toilettenausstattung, Vorhandensein von Flüssigseife in den Spendern und funktionierenden Händetrocknern so gut war wie in einem 4-Sterne-Hotel, wenn das Personal einen von der Straße hereinlassen würde, um der Natur zu folgen. Und – die Toiletten im Bahnhof waren kostenlos. Man musste nicht in den Taschen nach Kleingeld suchen oder versuchen, unter der Stange hindurchzukriechen, um sich ohne zu bezahlen hineinzuschleichen. Ich sage „Bravo“ zur РЖД [für die deutschen Leser: Российские железные дороги (Russische Eisenbahnen)].
Was die Intercity-Züge angeht, so ist die Nachfrage nach Hochgeschwindigkeitszügen zwischen Moskau und St. Petersburg besonders in dieser Urlaubszeit sehr hoch. Die Russen haben um den 1. Mai (europäischer Tag der Arbeit) und um den 9. Mai (Tag des Sieges in Europa) lange Wochenenden, und viele nutzen diese Zeit, um eine Brücke zu schlagen, Urlaub zu machen und dem Alltag zu entfliehen.
Eine Reise ist besonders sinnvoll, wenn man bedenkt, dass die Vorbereitungen für die große Parade am 9. Mai bereits laufen und schon jetzt, zwei Wochen vor dem Ereignis, den Stadtverkehr beeinträchtigen. Gestern saßen wir zweimal 20 bis 30 Minuten lang in unserem Taxi fest, weil der Verkehr wegen Proben für den 9. Mai gesperrt war. Als ich nach einem Termin in der Stadt ein Taxi bestellen wollte, funktionierte die Taxi-App (Yandex) nicht, da die Polizei mit den GPS-Signalen spielte und den Taxifahrern falsche Adressen anzeigte.
Am meisten überraschte mich, dass, während wir alle feststeckten und darauf warteten, dass die Ampel an der Kreuzung vor uns auf Grün sprang, kein einziges Auto hupt. Kein einziges Auto versuchte, auf den Grünstreifen zu fahren und zu wenden. Mit einem Wort: Die Geduld um mich herum war eine Offenbarung. Mein Russland der 1990er Jahre war ein chaotischer Ort, an dem sich niemand an die Verkehrsregeln hielt. Die Helden des Tages waren damals die „Dschigits“ (aus der zentralasiatischen Folklore), die systematisch rote Ampeln überfuhren.
Nun scheint das Geschichte zu sein. Aber es ist dennoch erwähnenswert, dass man heute als Fußgänger an Zebrastreifen sicher ist, während man in den 90er Jahren Freiwild für die Draufgänger war, die Fußgänger anfuhren, um sie wie Hühner von der Straße zu jagen.
Da ich bereits meine bevorstehende Reise nach Moskau erwähnt habe, wo ich dieses Wochenende ein paar Tage mit alten Freunden aus der Welt des Journalismus und der Wissenschaft verbringen werde, kann ich noch etwas zu meinen Erfahrungen bei der Buchung meines Hotels auf der Website von Yandex Travel hinzufügen. Nach dem Rückzug von booking.com und anderen westlichen Online-Reisebüros aus dem russischen Markt hat Yandex die Führungsrolle in Russland übernommen. Das Unternehmen ist in diesem Bereich ebenso dominant wie im Taxigeschäft oder im Suchmaschinenbereich.
Als ich die Angebote der vielen, vielen Einzelhotels in der 3- bis 5-Sterne-Kategorie auf Yandex verglichen und mir die Kundenkommentare genauer angesehen habe, wurde mir klar, dass es kaum Preisunterschiede zwischen den Einzelhotels und den Hotels gibt, die zu internationalen Hotelketten wie Mövenpick, Novotel oder Ibis gehören. Aber es gibt offensichtlich einen großen Unterschied in der Managementkompetenz, wenn man die sehr vernichtenden Kommentare der Gäste, die in den No-Name-Hotels übernachtet haben, mit denen der Gäste vergleicht, die in den Hotels internationaler Ketten übernachtet haben. Die Importsubstitution in diesem Bereich hat ihre Grenzen.
Yesterday afternoon’s interview with News X focused on the fake news coming from Kiev: that Zelensky’s 15 minutes chat with Donald Trump in Rome signified a change in relations with the American President, who allegedly now is favoring Ukraine over Russia in any peace settlement.
As they say, Zelensky was putting lipstick on a pig. They fail to mention that a second meeting with Trump after the funeral was refused by the White House: They fail to compare the 15 minutes Zelensky was accorded with the 3 hours that Trump’s personal emissary Steve Witkoff spent with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow the day before, on Friday.
As of last night, Russian state television remains cautiously optimistic that a full detente with the United States is possible, regardless of whether the Trump-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine succeed or fail.
NewsX: 0:00 Donald Trump’s standing amongst Ukrainians is poor, but a shift has come after his meeting with President Zelensky during Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome. Trump has posted doubts about Vladimir Putin’s sincerity, writing, “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, just tapping me along.” Quote unquote. Well, the meeting was brief but meaningful. Photos show Trump and Zelensky leaning in, speaking as equals, a stark contrast to their disastrous February encounter.
Some Ukrainians saw hope. “Maybe Trump finally understands Putin can’t be trusted”, said Ole Karas, a volunteer gathering donations in Kiev. Trump’s skepticism follows Russia’s latest missile attack that killed 12 and injured nearly 90 in Kiev, deepening Ukraine’s distrust of Moscow’s intentions. Despite Trump’s earlier push for Ukraine to accept a lopsided peace deal, Saturday’s tone suggested he may rethink forcing concessions on Kiev. Meanwhile, Russia has launched new attacks across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring many more with missiles and drones.
0:56 Russia also claimed full control of Ukraine’s gains in the Kursk region, though Ukrainian officials insist fighting there continues. Trump hinted at tougher sanctions on Russia, even as he emphasized wanting quick progress towards peace. At the same time, European leaders have reaffirmed support for Ukraine, pushing back against any deal favoring Moscow. Zelensky and European Commission President von der Leyen has agreed to coordinate pressure on Russia through new sanctions and stronger security ties.
Though pressure on Ukraine is mounting, Zilensky insists on a ceasefire tied to lasting security guarantees, not surrendering territory without future recovery plans. The path to peace remains uncertain, but after Saturday, Ukraine sees a small opening with Trump that did not exist before.
Gilbert Doctorow, Russian affairs expert, is joining us live from Brussels in Belgium. Thank you for being with us today, Gilbert. What do you make of this latest statement by President of the United States Donald Trump criticizing Russia?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:56 I don’t think it means anything, frankly. Mr. Trump has been rocking back and forth, praising or criticizing each of the sides in turn in an effort to confuse all of us. And I must say he succeeded very well. All commentators, all of them, whether they are in the alternative media or they are in major Western media, are totally confused about his intentions.
The remarks that you have quoted, coming essentially from Ukrainian sources, make reference to this short chat that they had prior to the funeral service for Francis in Rome. The Ukrainians requested a second meeting that same day, and it was turned down by the White House. So as for their rejoining closer together, I think that’s an exaggerated interpretation coming from Kiev and is hopeful, but doesn’t express reality. It is pretty obvious to me that Mr. Trump favors the Russian side.
3:01 His direct emissary, Steve Witkoff, was a week ago Friday in Moscow. He had a long walk and chat with Mr. Dmitriyev, who is his counterpart, that is to say Vladimir Putin’s emissary, to these talks about a peace in Ukraine war. They had a long walk down the center of Moscow in a pedestrian zone called the Arbat, which is an expression of friendliness, of rapprochement on a personal level between the people who are responsible for ending the war.
3:47 Mr. Putin received Witkoff, and they had three or four hours of discussions, which were not chit-chat. What is at issue here is that the Russians and the United States are discussing points for the end game, for how the war will end, while Mr. Zelensky is only interested in discussing his 30-day ceasefire, because when push comes to shove, he does not agree to make any concessions, any compromises to enable a peace. And he tries to disguise that and hide it by talking only about ceasefire. For the Russians, a ceasefire is meaningless and will lead nowhere.
I wrote a week ago, the last few days, that Mr. Trump, the best thing he could do would be to walk away from these talks. It is possible, but I would say unlikely, that they will end in a peace agreement. It is more likely that Mr. Trump is building an argument for dumping Ukraine.
And the argument is based on the unwillingness or inability of the Ukrainian side to negotiate a peace that involves anything other than forcing a capitulation on the winner, the Russians. So the end of these discussions, nobody could foretell. As I said, Mr. Trump has done an excellent job of confusing everybody. I just am not certain whether he isn’t also confusing himself. That remains to be seen.
NewsX: 5:12 Gilbert, do you believe that there has been any breakthrough based on this meeting that Trump had with Zelensky in the Vatican, this one-on-one meeting that happened there?
Doctorow: First of all, it was very brief. And second of all, the best indicator was the White House’s refusal to have a second meeting that same day requested by Zelensky. So I think it’s entirely understandable that the Ukrainians would want to make a great deal about this little mini-summit, as they would call it, between Trump and Zelensky.
5:48 But I don’t think anything is achieved except their behaving for once in a civilized way, as opposed to the real spat that they had before the whole world at their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, when Zelensky came calling.
NewsX: Yes. Gilbert, do you believe that this conflict then is likely to continue for the long term? You believe there is no short-term breakthrough likely, looking at these fresh developments?
Doctorow: 6:22 I don’t believe in a short-term end to this war. As I said, these parties are quite far removed, And the Europeans are doing everything possible to sabotage the talks by giving Zelensky the false hope that they can support his war effort if the United States leaves and walks away from it. They cannot. They don’t have the men. They don’t have the materiel.
Without US participation, the Ukrainians will find themselves short of everything they need to continue the war, as it has been for the last three years, holding up the line, not crumbling, not capitulating. That will be very difficult for them if the United States leaves. And I think that is just a question of a few weeks when these latest talks result in what? What can you expect? They result in zero, because the Ukrainians refused to accept reality on the ground.
7:22 They’re arguing about the moral stance, as they are the victims of aggression, as if that gives them the right to reverse the battlefield results that everybody sees, that they are losing and the Russians are winning. The losers never dictate the terms of capitulation to the winners. That is against the laws of gravity. So in this sense, unless Mr. Trump can summon the strength and the determination, and I would say the courage, to beat down Europe and to remind them of who is who and what is what, namely the United States leaves and the United States can also leave Europe.
7:59 If he does that and reads the riot act to Messrs. Starmer and Macron, then the war will end. If he cannot do that, then he will have to walk away from the talks.
NewsX: All right, Gilbert Doctorow, thank you for joining us with your perspective on that story. Meanwhile, efforts to end the Israel-Hamas conflict continue with some–
Gilbert Doctorow 