Vladimir Putin’s latest faux pas in relations with Donald Trump to end the war

I am fortunate to have some serious readers of my blog essays who occasionally send me directly very thought-provoking comments.

This happened last week when I got a message from a reader and follower of my appearances on ‘Judging Freedom’ who argued that neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians were truly serious about the peace treaty they initialed in April 2022. The cancellation of that deal has been blown out of proportion by Vladimir Putin in recent months, ever since he waved a copy of the initialed treaty in front of reporters and blamed Boris Johnson for preventing its final approval by the parties. That version of events was later backed up by other witnesses including a former Israeli prime minister.  As we all now ‘know,’ Johnson visited Kiev and persuaded Zelensky to continue the war with full Western backing.

In light of the slaughter that followed over the course of the past three years, with Ukrainian deaths on the order of half a million or more, the decision that Zelensky took in April 2022 looks tragic and the intervention of the British Prime Minister looks especially irresponsible and sinister.

However, when, a couple of months ago, I read very carefully through my essays from the March-April 2022 period in preparation for the publication of my War Diaries, 2022-2023 (availability on Amazon expected in a week or so), I was surprised to find that the peace negotiations of that spring and the scrapping of the draft treaty received almost no attention, exactly one essay to be specific.  What little was said at the time in Russian media played down the peace negotiations, because the concessions in the draft were deemed to be excessive.

The fellow who wrote to me last week argues that the Russians had no intention of returning territory to Kiev, such as was envisioned in the draft, and that, he says, is proven by the Kremlin’s confirmation of civil administrations in some of the newly occupied land, whereas establishment of military rule there would have signaled only temporary occupation. For its part, Ukraine already began staging the Bucha massacre before the arrival of Boris Johnson in Kiev, and as we know, that false flag operation was used by the Ukrainians as their excuse for breaking off talks with Moscow and for beating the drum of Russian villainy before the world, with great effect in terms of the sanctions then applied to the Russian Federation by the EU, following the US example.

Now, this very diligent correspondent has sent me the link to an interview with a former Russian diplomat (1987 – 2003), present day history professor and widely followed blogger on current international developments, Nikolai Platoshkin that presents several important critical comments on how Vladimir Putin has been handling the peace negotiations this past week, and in particular, in the days leading up to the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations in Istanbul last Friday.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0b_yPdy59A   (in Russian only)

‘Widely viewed’? Until youtube cancelled his channels definitively, Platoshkin had 700,000 Russian-speaking subscribers to his you tube video presentations.  So much for the ‘neutral status’ that I recently gave to youtube management! As regards all things Russian, they appear to be indiscriminate in their censorship.

In the given video, Platoshkin makes three important points that I have not seen or heard made in Western media. As for Russian state media, commentary on the Friday talks in Istanbul and on the telephone call yesterday between Putin and Trump have been slavishly praising Vladimir Vladimirovich and saying little else.

Point 1:  Putin should have agreed to go to Istanbul, because then Trump would have gone and the meeting there would have been 2:1, Trump and Putin against Zelensky, a very advantageous situation.

Point 2: When he announced his riposte to the Europeans’ threats of devastating sanctions if he did not immediately agree to a cease-fire, proposing instead a Russian-Ukrainian meeting in Istanbul on 15 May, Putin should have specified then and there at what level (working level) and what the subject for talks would be exactly. By not doing so, he let Zelensky run away with the PR credits by making himself available in Istanbul while Putin refused to come.

Point 3:  Putin should not have suggested Istanbul for these talks, because the host, Erdogan, is pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian on the key points of territorial concessions. He instead should have proposed Minsk, where the 2022 peace talks began before being moved to Istanbul.  Lukashenko would be a pro-Moscow host.

Frankly, what Platoshkin has said speaking as a professional diplomat is vastly better than what any of the half-dozen political science experts had to say yesterday on Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. It proves the worth of an MGIMO diploma and of 16 years in the Russian diplomatic service including foreign postings to Bonn and Houston.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Wladimir Putins jüngster Fauxpas in den Beziehungen zu Donald Trump zur Beendigung des Krieges

Ich habe das Glück, einige ernsthafte Leser meiner Blog-Essays zu haben, die mir gelegentlich direkt sehr zum Nachdenken anregende Kommentare schicken.

Dies geschah letzte Woche, als ich eine Nachricht von einem Leser und Anhänger meiner Auftritte in „Judging Freedom“ erhielt, der argumentierte, dass weder die Russen noch die Ukrainer es mit dem Friedensvertrag, den sie im April 2022 unterzeichnet hatten, wirklich ernst meinten. Die Aufkündigung dieses Abkommens wurde von Wladimir Putin in den letzten Monaten übertrieben dargestellt, seit er vor Journalisten mit einer Kopie des unterzeichneten Vertrags wedelte und Boris Johnson dafür verantwortlich machte, dass die endgültige Zustimmung der Parteien verhindert worden sei. Diese Version der Ereignisse wurde später von anderen Zeugen bestätigt, darunter ein ehemaliger israelischer Ministerpräsident. Wie wir alle inzwischen „wissen“, besuchte Johnson Kiew und überzeugte Selensky, den Krieg mit voller Unterstützung des Westens fortzusetzen.

Angesichts des Gemetzels, das in den letzten drei Jahren mit mindestens einer halben Million Toten auf ukrainischer Seite stattfand, erscheint die Entscheidung, die Selensky im April 2022 getroffen hat, tragisch, und die Intervention des britischen Premierministers erscheint besonders unverantwortlich und finster.

Als ich jedoch vor einigen Monaten meine Essays aus dem Zeitraum März-April 2022 zur Vorbereitung der Veröffentlichung meiner „War Diaries, 2022-2023“ (voraussichtlich in etwa einer Woche bei Amazon erhältlich) sehr sorgfältig durchlas, stellte ich überrascht fest, dass die Friedensverhandlungen in jenem Frühjahr und die Verwerfung des Vertragsentwurfs fast keine Beachtung fanden, genauer gesagt in nur einem einzigen Essay. Das Wenige, was damals in den russischen Medien gesagt wurde, spielte die Friedensverhandlungen herunter, weil die Zugeständnisse im Entwurf als übertrieben angesehen wurden.

Der Mann, der mir letzte Woche geschrieben hat, argumentiert, dass die Russen nicht die Absicht hatten, Gebiete an Kiew zurückzugeben, wie es im Entwurf vorgesehen war, und dass dies durch die Bestätigung der Zivilverwaltung in einigen der neu besetzten Gebiete durch den Kreml bewiesen sei, während die Einrichtung einer Militärverwaltung dort nur eine vorübergehende Besetzung signalisiert hätte. Die Ukraine ihrerseits begann bereits vor der Ankunft von Boris Johnson in Kiew mit der Inszenierung des Massakers von Butscha, und wie wir wissen, wurde diese Operation unter falscher Flagge von den Ukrainern als Vorwand benutzt, um die Gespräche mit Moskau abzubrechen und vor der Weltöffentlichkeit die Trommel für eine Schurkerei Russlands zu rühren, was sich in den Sanktionen niederschlug, die die EU nach dem Vorbild der USA gegen die Russische Föderation verhängte.

Nun hat mir dieser sehr fleißige Korrespondent den Link zu einem Interview mit einem ehemaligen russischen Diplomaten (1987–2003) geschickt, der heute Geschichtsprofessor und vielgelesener Blogger zu aktuellen internationalen Entwicklungen ist, Nikolai Platoshkin. Darin werden mehrere wichtige kritische Kommentare dazu abgegeben, wie Wladimir Putin die Friedensverhandlungen in der vergangenen Woche und insbesondere in den Tagen vor den russisch-ukrainischen Verhandlungen am vergangenen Freitag in Istanbul geführt hat.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0b_yPdy59A   (nur auf russisch)

„Weit verbreitet“? Bis YouTube seine Kanäle endgültig sperrte, hatte Platoshkin 700.000 russischsprachige Abonnenten für seine YouTube-Videos. So viel zum ‚neutralen Status‘, den ich kürzlich der YouTube-Führung zugeschrieben habe! Was alles Russische betrifft, scheinen sie bei ihrer Zensur keine Unterschiede zu machen.

In dem genannten Video bringt Platoshkin drei wichtige Punkte zur Sprache, die ich in den westlichen Medien weder gesehen noch gehört habe. Was die russischen Staatsmedien angeht, so wurden in den Kommentaren zu den Gesprächen am Freitag in Istanbul und zum gestrigen Telefonat zwischen Putin und Trump Wladimir Wladimirowitsch sklavisch gelobt und sonst wenig gesagt.

Punkt 1: Putin hätte zustimmen sollen, nach Istanbul zu fahren, denn dann wäre Trump auch hingefahren und das Treffen hätte im Verhältnis 2:1 stattgefunden, Trump und Putin gegen Selensky, eine sehr vorteilhafte Situation.

Punkt 2: Als Putin auf die Drohung der Europäer mit verheerenden Sanktionen reagierte, hätte er nicht nur eine russisch-ukrainische Begegnung in Istanbul am 15. Mai vorschlagen, sondern auch genau sagen sollen, auf welcher Ebene (Arbeitsebene) und worüber genau geredet werden soll. Weil er das nicht gemacht hat, hat er Selensky PR-Punkte geschenkt, weil der sich in Istanbul bereit erklärt hat, während Putin nicht hingehen wollte.

Punkt 3: Putin hätte nicht Istanbul als Ort für diese Gespräche vorschlagen sollen, da der Gastgeber Erdogan in den entscheidenden Fragen der territorialen Zugeständnisse pro-ukrainisch und anti-russisch ist. Stattdessen hätte er Minsk vorschlagen sollen, wo die Friedensgespräche 2022 begonnen hatten, bevor sie nach Istanbul verlegt wurden. Lukaschenko wäre ein pro-moskauer Gastgeber gewesen.

Offen gesagt ist das, was Platoshkin als professioneller Diplomat gesagt hat, weitaus besser als das, was das halbe Dutzend Politikwissenschaftler gestern in der Sendung „Abend mit Wladimir Solowjow“ zu sagen hatte. Das beweist den Wert eines MGIMO-Diploms und von 16 Jahren im russischen diplomatischen Dienst, einschließlich Auslandsaufenthalten in Bonn und Houston.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pXz7Ap86wo

NewsX: 0:00
our big focus this hour: the Kremlin has confirmed that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could happen, but only if key agreements are reached. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has emphasized that the identity of the Ukrainian signatory to any agreement remains a crucial issue. Meanwhile, talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul lasted for about two hours, with no breakthrough on a ceasefire. However, both sides agreed to a significant prisoner swap of 1,000 prisoners of war.

0:26
In Albania, European leaders attending the European Political Community summit expressed deep concern over the lack of progress in peace talks. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU is preparing a new sanctions package to increase pressure on Russia, targeting entities like the Russian shadow fleet and Nord Stream pipelines. Meanwhile, a Russian drone attack on a Ukrainian minibus has killed nine civilians, mostly elderly women, in the northern Sumi region, sparking further outrage. US President Donald Trump claimed that Putin is tired of the war and is eager for peace talks. Trump said he believes he can facilitate a deal, but stressed the importance of direct talks with Putin to end the conflict.

1:12
Gilbert Doctorow, Russian affairs expert, is joining us live from Brussels in Belgium. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you for being with us today. What is your analysis of the progress made in the peace talks in Turkey? How do you react to the deliberations that happened between the Russian and Ukrainian sides, even though the heads of state did not attend?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, it would be exceptional, in fact, it would be nonsense for the heads of state to attend a preliminary meeting. Heads of state normally come in to sign off on agreements that their assistants, their expert assistants, have arrived at in consultations. That was what was foreseen in March- April of 2022, when the first direct negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian teams met in Istanbul, and it made sense that all the work was done, a 50- or 60-page agreement was prepared and initialed, and there was going to be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin. That’s how these things go. And anyone who says that Putin should have come to a first-time meeting with nothing whatever agreed is only doing it, saying it for propagandistic reasons.

2:33
The people who are saying that are obviously von der Leyen and the EU leaders who have formed a coalition of the willing. The main point is: the likelihood of an agreement being reached between these two sides is nil. Their positions are entirely contradictory. Each side is expecting an agreement that will record the complete defeat of the other side, a capitulation. The Ukrainians want a trial, a tribunal against Mr. Putin and his colleagues. They want reparations. They’re acting as if they won the war, when everyone knows they’ve lost the war.

3:20
The Russians, similarly, only are willing to speak about a ceasefire if the Ukrainians withdraw from the four oblasts or regions in Eastern Ukraine that are now part of the Russian Federation, but are only partially occupied by Russian troops. These positions are contradictory, irreconcilable, and it is pointless to expect a negotiated settlement, which is not to say that I disagree with Mr. Trump. I agree completely with his statement two days ago that he personally can bring peace to end this war. And he can, but not at the negotiating table. He can do it by stopping US deliveries of weapons to Ukraine and by refusing to sell weapons to the EU for further delivery to Ukraine. If he does that, the war will end in weeks or a couple of months, And that will bring peace and an end to the slaughter that we see every day.

NewsX: 4:21
Yes. We are seeing now, Gilbert, that, you know, this new deal has been agreed to. Do you see that as progress on a prisoner swap, thousand, thousand to be exchanged?

Doctorow:
We’re speaking about 2,000 families in Russia and Ukraine, who will have their husbands, their brothers, their fathers, their sons return to their midst. We can only applaud that agreement. It is humane and humanitarian. However, that is not an end to the war. But it’s a good step. It shows that the sides could find something to talk about that is constructive. That’s very good.

NewsX: 5:00
How do you react to this EU package now that it’s being announced to try and pressurize Russia, the EU looking at stepping up sanctions further?

Doctorow:
The only thing that von der Leyen of the EU Commission can do is make packages. She’s a real good packateer, as the Russians are calling her. It’s nonsense to put sanctions on a pipeline that has been destroyed, tells you the level of thinking of Madame von der Leyen and her close colleagues.

5:30
It is nonsense to say, that they will impair the movement of Russian shadow fleet oil tankers is also nonsense, because the latest attempt to do that in the Baltic was ended when Russian jets flew over the, I believe it was Norwegian, and certainly it was Estonian, cutters, that thought they were going to intercept and stop a Russian shadow-fleet tanker. They want war, they’ll get war. But unfortunately for them, they really cannot have a war.

And so this is posturing. Madame von der Leyen is posturing. She is bluffing, and everyone serious knows that. The Russians aren’t moved one inch by all of her threats, because they’re totally empty.

NewsX:
Gilbert Doctorow, thank you for joining us with your perspective on that story.

6:23
Moving on now, Israeli airstrike–

A day has passed in the fast moving reportage on the peace talks from when this video with the Indian broadcaster was recorded, but I remain satisfied with my appreciation of the improbability of these talks producing any results given the wholly irreconcilable positions of the two parties – each side in effect is demanding the capitulation of the other. And, as I say here, that Donald Trump does have the possibility of ending the war if he can muster the courage to do what has to be done – end all military and financial assistance to Ukraine right now and refuse to sell arms to the EU countries for onward delivery to Kiev.

In media coverage of the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine that took place in Istanbul last Friday, we all heard the name of Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky.  From the moment that the Russian negotiating team was named, earlier in the week, Western mainstream media spoke disparagingly of Mr. Medinsky.  Some, like the BBC, had joined Volodymyr Zelensky in calling for Vladimir Putin to come personally to Istanbul for a face-to-face meeting with the Ukrainian leader that surely would have ended in scandal. Accordingly, they denounced the Russians for sending a ‘low level’ team headed by a man they identified only as a former minister of culture.

 In reportage two days ago, the Financial Times was more discerning, less propagandistic, informing its readers that Medinsky had headed the peace negotiations in Istanbul, so his appointment, just like the venue now chosen was a direct signal from Moscow that they viewed the forthcoming talks as a direct continuation of the approach which guided the drafting of a peace agreement in April 2022 that addressed the underlying reasons for the war, not merely the technicalities of a cease-fire as Ukraine and its EU partners have been demanding.

Of course, the FT then lied by saying that the talks of April 2022 ended in recriminations and were stopped without results. Moreover, yesterday the FT put out a new, shall we say ‘cleaned up’ report on the talks Friday in which the Russian team is again spoken of as low level. Period.

Meanwhile, even in Russia, not everyone in the media has understood the game plan.  Last night’s Vesti news program referred to all the assembled negotiators in Istanbul as чиновники (bureaucrats), a denigratory term in Russian parlance. In the case of Medinsky, he is not even a regular ministerial employee; he is a personal advisor to Vladimir Putin on foreign policy and may be called Putin’s emissary, similar in standing to Steve Witkoff vis-à-vis Donald Trump.

                                                                              *****

Medinsky has come to the particular attention of Russia-cheerleaders because of some statements he is alleged to have made in the course of Friday’s two-hour meeting with the Ukrainian delegation that have been disseminated by patriotic Russian news tickers and sound really tough. Among them, that Russia will continue fighting if these talks lead to nothing and that the result will be the further loss of one or two more Ukrainian oblasts to Russia – Somi and Kharkov are named.  He also is said to have remarked that fighting and negotiating normally go on simultaneously, as Napoleon insisted they must.  And he said that Russia is prepared to continue this war as long as needed, with reference to the 21 year long Northern War with Sweden conducted victoriously by Peter the Great.

I understand that statements like these must bring cheer to many Russia sympathizers abroad.  But they are less valuable to understand the official Russian position than an 8-minute comprehensive statement of the Russians’ position on the negotiations that Medinsky set out yesterday in an interview with Sixty Minutes presenter and Duma member Yevgeny Popov which is now available in English voice over:

Here we see the full merit of Vladimir Putin’s mentioning insertion of the ‘historical perspective’ in the talks, which is what Vladimir Medinsky, as a professional historian, represents.  Medinsky makes very good use of the 1878 Congress of Berlin talks at which the European powers revised the settlement of the just ended Russia-Turkish war, effectively depriving the Russians at the negotiating table of the victory they had won on the battlefield that the Turks already had conceded. He also gives all due attention to the 21-year-long  Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden which was drawn out unnecessarily by French and British aid to Sweden and resulted in Sweden’s loss of great power status and Russia’s promotion to Great Power. 

We often hear about the ‘lessons of history.’  Here Medinsky drives home the point about how history repeats itself.

I freely admit that I am impressed by Medinsky’s marshalling his historical arguments so effectively to lead the current talks with Kiev. I say this as someone who actually has sat at a conference table with Medinsky when he joined a working group that I participated in within the context of the annual St Petersburg International Cultural Forum in November 2019. He was then still Minister of Culture and stopped by at various working groups to chat.  At the time, he seemed unprepared and was not the brightest candle in the room.

Later, after he left the Ministry, he was busy overseeing publication of new history books for use in Russian public schools. What was produced seemed to me to try too hard to instill patriotism at the expense of knowledge. His own textual contributions were opaque.

In light of what he achieved in Istanbul in 2022 and in light of his latest interview I take back my critical remarks and salute Medinsky for performing his assignment with real professionalism. This is another demonstration of Vladimir Putin’s fine skills in people management.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Würde der echte Wladimir Medinsky bitte vortreten…

In den Medienberichten über die Friedensverhandlungen zwischen Russland und der Ukraine, die am vergangenen Freitag in Istanbul stattfanden, hörten wir alle den Namen des russischen Verhandlungsführers Wladimir Medinsky. Von dem Moment an, als das russische Verhandlungsteam Anfang der Woche benannt wurde, äußerten sich die westlichen Mainstream-Medien abfällig über Herrn Medinsky. Einige, wie die BBC, schlossen sich Wolodymyr Selensky an und forderten Wladimir Putin auf, persönlich nach Istanbul zu kommen, um sich mit dem ukrainischen Präsidenten zu einem Treffen zu treffen, das sicherlich in einem Skandal geendet hätte. Dementsprechend verurteilten sie die Russen dafür, dass sie ein „niedrigrangiges“ Team unter der Leitung eines Mannes entsandt hätten, den sie lediglich als ehemaligen Kulturminister identifizierten.

In einem Bericht vor zwei Tagen zeigte sich die Financial Times kritischer und weniger propagandistisch und informierte ihre Leser darüber, dass Medinski die vorherigen Friedensverhandlungen in Istanbul geleitet hatte, sodass seine Ernennung ebenso wie die Wahl des Veranstaltungsortes ein direktes Signal Moskaus war, dass sie die bevorstehenden Gespräche als direkte Fortsetzung des Ansatzes betrachteten, der bereits bei der Ausarbeitung eines Friedensabkommens im April 2022 verfolgt worden war, das sich mit den zugrunde liegenden Ursachen des Krieges befasste und nicht nur mit den technischen Details eines Waffenstillstands, wie es die Ukraine und ihre EU-Partner gefordert hatten.

Natürlich hat die FT dann gelogen und behauptet, die Gespräche im April 2022 seien mit gegenseitigen Schuldzuweisungen geendet und ohne Ergebnis abgebrochen worden. Darüber hinaus veröffentlichte die FT gestern einen neuen, sagen wir mal „bereinigten“ Bericht über die Gespräche vom Freitag, in dem das russische Team erneut als „niedrigrangig“ bezeichnet wird. Punkt.

Unterdessen haben selbst in Russland nicht alle Medienvertreter die Strategie verstanden. In der Nachrichtensendung „Vesti“ von gestern Abend wurden alle in Istanbul versammelten Verhandlungsführer als чиновники (Bürokraten) bezeichnet, ein abwertender Begriff im russischen Sprachgebrauch. Medinsky ist nicht einmal ein regulärer Ministerialbeamter, sondern persönlicher Berater Wladimir Putins in außenpolitischen Fragen und kann als Putins Gesandter bezeichnet werden, ähnlich wie Steve Witkoff gegenüber Donald Trump.

                                                                              *****

Medinsky ist den Russland-Befürwortern besonders aufgefallen, weil er während des zweistündigen Treffens mit der ukrainischen Delegation am Freitag angeblich einige Äußerungen gemacht hat, die von patriotischen russischen Nachrichtentickern verbreitet wurden und sehr hart klingen. Unter anderem sagte er, dass Russland weiterkämpfen werde, wenn diese Gespräche zu nichts führen, und dass das Ergebnis der Verlust von ein oder zwei weiteren ukrainischen Oblasten an Russland sein werde – Somi und Charkow werden namentlich genannt. Er soll auch bemerkt haben, dass Kämpfen und Verhandeln normalerweise gleichzeitig stattfinden, wie Napoleon es gefordert habe. Und er sagte, Russland sei bereit, diesen Krieg so lange wie nötig fortzusetzen, wobei er auf den 21 Jahre dauernden Nordischen Krieg mit Schweden verwies, der von Peter dem Großen siegreich geführt wurde.

Ich verstehe, dass solche Aussagen vielen Russland-Sympathisanten im Ausland Freude bereiten müssen. Aber sie sind weniger hilfreich, um die offizielle russische Position zu verstehen, als eine achtminütige umfassende Erklärung der russischen Position zu den Verhandlungen, die Medinsky gestern in einem Interview mit dem Moderator von „Sixty Minutes“ und Duma-Abgeordneten Jewgeni Popow abgegeben hat und die nun mit englischer Synchronisation verfügbar ist:

Hier zeigt sich der volle Wert der Erwähnung der „historischen Perspektive“ in den Gesprächen durch Wladimir Putin, die Wladimir Medinsky als professioneller Historiker vertritt. Medinsky nimmt Bezug auf die Verhandlungen des Berliner Kongresses von 1878, bei denen die europäischen Mächte die Regelung des gerade beendeten russisch-türkischen Krieges revidierten und den Russen am Verhandlungstisch den Sieg nahmen, den sie auf dem Schlachtfeld errungen hatten und den die Türken bereits zugestanden hatten. Er widmet auch der 21 Jahre andauernden Großen Nordischen Krieg zwischen Russland und Schweden gebührende Aufmerksamkeit, der wegen der Unterstützung Schwedens durch Frankreich und Großbritannien unnötig in die Länge gezogen wurde und zum Verlust des Großmachtstatus Schwedens und zum Aufstieg Russlands zur Großmacht führte.

Wir hören oft von den „Lehren der Geschichte“. Medinsky macht hier deutlich, wie sich die Geschichte wiederholt.

Ich gebe offen zu, dass ich beeindruckt bin, wie Medinsky seine historischen Argumente so effektiv einsetzt, um die aktuellen Gespräche mit Kiew zu führen. Ich sage das als jemand, der tatsächlich mit Medinsky an einem Konferenztisch gesessen hat, als er im November 2019 an einer Arbeitsgruppe teilnahm, an der ich im Rahmen des jährlichen Internationalen Kulturforums in St. Petersburg beteiligt war. Damals war er noch Kulturminister und schaute bei verschiedenen Arbeitsgruppen vorbei, um sich zu unterhalten. Damals wirkte er unvorbereitet und war nicht gerade der Hellste im Raum.

Später, nachdem er das Ministerium verlassen hatte, war er damit beschäftigt, die Veröffentlichung neuer Geschichtsbücher für russische Schulen zu beaufsichtigen. Was dabei herauskam, schien mir zu sehr darauf ausgerichtet, auf Kosten des Wissens Patriotismus zu vermitteln. Seine eigenen Beiträge waren undurchsichtig.

Angesichts dessen, was er 2022 in Istanbul erreicht hat, und angesichts seines jüngsten Interviews nehme ich meine kritischen Bemerkungen zurück und zolle Medinsky Respekt für die professionelle Erfüllung seiner Aufgabe. Dies ist ein weiterer Beweis für Wladimir Putins ausgezeichnete Fähigkeiten im Umgang mit Menschen.

The notion that the British Broadcasting Company is an independent news source was proven yet again yesterday morning to be totally false. The top of the hour news bulletin informed viewers that at 10.00 am local time Russian and Ukrainian negotiators would meet in Istanbul “for the first time since the war began.” They then put the accent on the decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin not to come to Istanbul, quoting Volodymyr Zelensky that this was proof positive of the Russians’ unwillingness to make peace.

As anyone with a functioning memory knows, Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams met face to face in Istanbul in March 2022, less than a month into the war, and reached agreement on a peace treaty that both sides initialed. All that remained to do was for the heads of state to meet and agree on several open questions that required decisions at the top. This did not happen precisely because of the intervention of Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson who came down to Kiev and persuaded the Ukrainian leader to toss the document into the waste basket and to proceed with the war in confidence that his country would get full military and financial support from the West.

Put simply, yesterday’s utterly false BBC narrative was handed down to them by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s propaganda team, as is the case in every substantive position taken by the broadcaster. This is not free journalism, this is not even state propaganda. It is the line assigned to the broadcaster by one man who happens to be the country’s top politician of the day.

Happily, not all British media take their lines from the PM. Yesterday’s Financial Times, no fan of Putin that they are, nonetheless, did do a better job setting out the facts even if they were sloppy in places.

They took the time to quote Vladimir Putin on the reasons for his proposing a meeting in Istanbul in the first place, namely “to remove the root causes of the conflict and move towards creating a long-term, durable peace in a historical perspective.” Bravo!

They also quote Zelensky, but his words make him look like an idiot: “Zelensky said he was prepared to attend, but only if Putin also showed up, because ‘everything in Russia depends’ on the Russian leader.” Everything?

Of course, these days, when the American President, head of a country that has been fully engaged in this war on the Ukrainian side for three years, claims to be a peace broker and tells reporters, as he did yesterday, that there will be no peace until he meets with Putin, we can be more generous in grading the claptrap coming from the Kievan dictator.

To their credit, the FT is fairly serious in evaluating the negotiating team that Vladimir Putin is sending to Istanbul. Many media outlets in the West say it is a low-level delegation. Some, are more kind, calling it a medium level delegation. The FT does better.

The FT quotes Putin on his decision to dispatch ‘a delegation led by his adviser, former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky.’ And they bestir themselves to identify Medinsky and the reasons why Putin now selected precisely him: “The move signals that Russia is keen for the talks to pick up where they left off in the spring of 2022, just weeks after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour. Medinsky took the lead in those talks…”

After that, FT heads off into disinformation, telling us that ‘the talks broke down in acrimony and fighting continued.” Well, there were two rounds of negotiations. The second round a week or two after the first ended in the initialed full draft peace treaty as I mentioned above. It was sabotaged by Boris Johnson acting on behalf of Washington.

By the way, Putin’s remark about ‘a durable peace in a historical perspective’ can also be seen as a reference to his selection of Medinsky, who is a professional historian and brings precisely that perspective to the negotiations on an outcome to the war.

****

We are today, Friday, 16 May. There was no meeting between Russians and Ukrainians yesterday. Instead the Ukrainian delegation met with U.S. and Turkish officials. The Russian-Ukrainian meeting is now set for today. If the sides agree that these first talks are constructive, then we may assume that there will be many more in the days and weeks ahead. They will necessarily draw in Donald Trump for photo opportunities and claims to his Nobel Prize for Peace.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

BBC-Morgennachrichten: „Russische und ukrainische Seite treffen sich zum ersten Mal seit Kriegsbeginn zu direkten Gesprächen …“

Die Vorstellung, dass die British Broadcasting Company eine unabhängige Nachrichtenquelle ist, wurde gestern Morgen erneut als völlig falsch erwiesen. In den Top-Nachrichten wurde den Zuschauern mitgeteilt, dass sich russische und ukrainische Unterhändler um 10.00 Uhr Ortszeit in Istanbul „zum ersten Mal seit Kriegsbeginn“ treffen würden. Anschließend wurde die Entscheidung des russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin, nicht nach Istanbul zu kommen, besonders hervorgehoben und Wolodymyr Selensky mit den Worten zitiert, dies sei ein eindeutiger Beweis für die mangelnde Friedensbereitschaft der Russen.

Wie jeder mit einem funktionierenden Gedächtnis weiß, trafen sich die Verhandlungsteams Russlands und der Ukraine im März 2022, weniger als einen Monat nach Kriegsbeginn, in Istanbul zu direkten Gesprächen und einigten sich auf einen Friedensvertrag, den beide Seiten paraphierten. Es blieb nur noch, dass sich die Staatschefs trafen und sich über einige offene Fragen einigten, die Entscheidungen auf höchster Ebene erforderten. Dies geschah jedoch nicht, gerade wegen der Intervention des britischen Premierministers Boris Johnson, der nach Kiew reiste und den ukrainischen Präsidenten davon überzeugte, das Dokument in den Papierkorb zu werfen und den Krieg fortzusetzen, in der Gewissheit, dass sein Land volle militärische und finanzielle Unterstützung vom Westen erhalten würde.

Einfach ausgedrückt: Die völlig falsche Darstellung der BBC von gestern wurde ihnen vom Propagandateam von Premierminister Keir Starmer vorgegeben, wie es bei jeder wesentlichen Position des Senders der Fall ist. Das ist kein freier Journalismus, das ist nicht einmal staatliche Propaganda. Es ist die Linie, die dem Sender von einem Mann vorgegeben wird, der zufällig der derzeitige Spitzenpolitiker des Landes ist.

Glücklicherweise übernehmen nicht alle britischen Medien die Linie des Premierministers. Die gestrige Ausgabe der Financial Times, die zwar kein Fan von Putin ist, hat dennoch eine bessere Arbeit geleistet und die Fakten dargelegt, auch wenn sie an einigen Stellen schlampig war.

Sie nahm sich die Zeit, Wladimir Putin zu den Gründen für seinen Vorschlag eines Treffens in Istanbul zu zitieren, nämlich „die Ursachen des Konflikts zu beseitigen und auf eine langfristige, dauerhafte Frieden in einer historischen Perspektive hinzuarbeiten“. Bravo!

Sie zitieren auch Selensky, aber seine Worte lassen ihn wie einen Idioten dastehen: „Selensky sagte, er sei bereit, daran teilzunehmen, aber nur, wenn Putin auch erscheint, weil ‚alles in Russland‘ vom russischen Präsidenten abhänge.“ Alles?

Natürlich können wir heutzutage, wo der amerikanische Präsident, der seit drei Jahren an der Seite der Ukraine in diesen Krieg verwickelt ist, sich als Friedensstifter ausgibt und Reportern wie gestern erklärt, dass es keinen Frieden geben werde, bevor er sich mit Putin getroffen habe, großzügiger sein, wenn wir die Phrasen des Kiewer Diktators bewerten.

Zu ihrer Ehre muss man sagen, dass die FT das Verhandlungsteam, das Wladimir Putin nach Istanbul entsendet, recht ernst nimmt. Viele westliche Medien bezeichnen es als Delegation auf niedriger Ebene. Einige sind freundlicher und sprechen von einer Delegation auf mittlerer Ebene. Die FT ist da besser.

Die FT zitiert Putin zu seiner Entscheidung, „eine Delegation unter der Leitung seines Beraters, des ehemaligen Kulturministers Wladimir Medinski“, zu entsenden. Und sie bemüht sich, Medinski zu identifizieren und die Gründe zu nennen, warum Putin gerade ihn ausgewählt hat: „Dieser Schritt signalisiert, dass Russland daran interessiert ist, die Gespräche dort wieder aufzunehmen, wo sie im Frühjahr 2022, nur wenige Wochen nach dem Beginn der groß angelegten Invasion Moskaus in seinem Nachbarland, unterbrochen wurden. Medinski hatte bei diesen Gesprächen die Führung übernommen …“

Danach gleitet die FT in Desinformation ab und behauptet, dass „die Gespräche in erbitterten Auseinandersetzungen scheiterten und die Kämpfe weitergingen“. Nun, es gab zwei Verhandlungsrunden. Die zweite Runde, die ein oder zwei Wochen nach der ersten endete, führte zu dem oben erwähnten paraphierten vollständigen Friedensvertragsentwurf. Dieser wurde von Boris Johnson im Auftrag Washingtons sabotiert.

Übrigens kann Putins Bemerkung über „einen dauerhaften Frieden in historischer Perspektive“ auch als Hinweis auf seine Wahl von Medinsky gesehen werden, der ein professioneller Historiker ist und genau diese Perspektive in die Verhandlungen über einen Ausgang des Krieges einbringt.

****

Heute ist Freitag, der 16. Mai. Gestern gab es kein Treffen zwischen Russen und Ukrainern. Stattdessen traf sich die ukrainische Delegation mit Vertretern der USA und der Türkei. Das russisch-ukrainische Treffen ist nun für heute angesetzt. Wenn beide Seiten diese ersten Gespräche als konstruktiv bewerten, können wir davon ausgehen, dass in den kommenden Tagen und Wochen viele weitere folgen werden. Donald Trump wird dabei sicherlich für Fototermine und Ansprüche auf den Friedensnobelpreis herhalten müssen.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bWR-jEgtWc

Prof. Glenn Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome. I’m joined today by Professor Gilbert Doctorow, an international affairs analyst, historian and also an author. Welcome back to the program.

Doctorow:
Thank you very much.

Diesen:
Well, the issue of negotiations to end the Ukraine war, I guess it confuses many people, because after three years of full diplomatic boycotts, not even wanting to talk to the Russians, the Europeans appear to be in a great haste.

They recently issued an ultimatum of a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, which meant not discussing any political settlements before the ceasefire. Indeed, not discussing with the Russians at all. This was all communicated through ultimatums and threats of sanctions, as none of the Europeans are actually picking up the phone to speak with Moscow. How do you make sense of this recent, well this debacle? Within the, I’m not sure if we can even call it diplomacy. But how do you make sense of this?

Doctorow:: 1:02
Well, what the Europeans are doing is hard to understand. We’ll make an attempt at it. But it has to be put in a broader context. What Donald Trump is doing is hard to understand. His method of leading these negotiations is to create a total fog, total confusion so that all of the many opponents to his efforts don’t know what comes next and cannot offer serious opposition to what he may try to be doing. At the same time, it has inherent in it a formula for complete failure.

He is actively backing his two envoys, Steve Witkoff and General Kellogg, who are each embodying a different solution, a contradictory solution. Witkoff is close to the Russian position and Kellogg is very close to the European-Zelensky position. It is impossible to see how this can lead to a settlement. I also come back to the starting point of the basic illogic in one of the co-belligerents, namely the United States, who’s been supplying arms and finance to Ukraine for the last three years. And one of these co-belligerents just stepped forward as a mediator.

2:31
It doesn’t make sense. And that is why we are at this very peculiar situation where everyone’s waiting for news of whether or not Putin and Trump and Zelensky will all be in the same location in Istanbul tomorrow together with their teams and doing something to bring about a peace. I find this very hard to understand.

Diesen:
Well, the Kellogg proposal is interesting because again the main demands of the Russians is restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. Instead he came up with a proposal in which the Russians will pull back, well both sides pull back 15 kilometers each so they can send troops from NATO countries to observe, not considering themselves apparently participants in the conflict also under an unconditional ceasefire.

3:28
So it is a bit perplexing that is the, as you said, the United States plays the role of the mediator, even though it’s been, I guess, one of the leading participants. And Europeans are going to play the role of the objective or neutral peacekeeper. It doesn’t really make that much sense. So do they know that this is dead in the water, or is there any hope you think that the Russians can be pressured into accepting this framework?

Doctorow:
If we have to look for logic in the midst of this fog, the logic that I come to is the following. That Trump is setting up a situation where all parties will be witness to the impossible conditions that Zelensky is proposing, whereby the loser in a military contest is seeking a solution which makes him the victor, and makes the winner on the battlefield the one who is suing for the losers position of paying reparations, of submitting to a war tribunal, and all the rest of it that has appeared in the Ukrainian peace proposals of the last three years and in recent statements by the European leaders.

5:02
So it’s a basic fundamental nonsense coming out of Zelensky. And if Trump wants to be consistent and logical, which is a great effort to accept because he is so illogical in many of his activities, then he will do what comes next, which is to denounce Zelensky, to say that it’s impossible to reach a settlement based on the Ukrainian positions, and he would wash his hands on the whole thing.

If we want to be logical, and if Trump gives the lead to Witkoff and more or less muzzles Kellogg, when, if they all should be in the same room or the same building anyway, then it would be logical for Zelensky to withdraw and to abandon the presidency and to say, “I leave this to my successors to accept a defeat which I will not accept.”

6:09
That would be logical. But for people who are snorting cocaine, I think it’s too much to expect a logical behavior on the part of Mr. Zelensky. So, we’ll see.

Diesen:
What is the recent political stunt by Zelensky? Because he argued, I’ll be flying to Istanbul and I want to meet Putin here on Thursday, which is, usually you don’t give a foreign leader 48 hours to show up. It’s also unclear what kind of negotiations that would be or how basic issues like security could be arranged, but he will only meet with Putin. This comes after three years of saying there’s nothing to talk about, he refuses to even have any negotiations. How do you make sense of this? Is this either panic that the front lines are now collapsing quickly, or is it just knowing that these demands can never be met?

In other words, trying to play the role of the peacemaker to Trump, given that Trump is, well, obviously frustrated with Zelensky’s, Zelensky being opposed to negotiations and peace. How do you make sense of Zelensky’s? Because it’s very hard to take this very serious.

Doctorow: 7:35
I think the whole stage that we’re watching is being managed by Trump. I believe that he told Zelensky, I don’t have to imagine it, in his social site, social media, Trump said directly to Zelensky, “Show up immediately, accept the invitation from Putin to open negotiations, and accept immediately.”

I think that Putin would go to Istanbul only on the condition that Trump is there. And Trump’s latest statements suggest the opposite. He’s going to go to Istanbul because Putin is there. That’s nonsense. Putin would never show his face in Istanbul without Trump being there.

8:33
And the reason for that is that he is confident that Zelensky will make such utterly idiotic statements that the Americans have no choice but to denounce him and to abandon him. And for that reason, Putin will go. The Russian talk shows were saying last night that it is utterly foolish to speak about direct negotiations with Zelensky. That Zelensky is not an independent force, he is dependent on his curators, as Russians call his backers in Western Europe and the United States. And the only people that you can negotiate with are the Americans. So if Trump is there, then the Americans are there and Putin can negotiate with him, while Zelensky is probably in the next room fuming.

Diesen: 9:34
But are you, do you, are you sure or do you– why do you see Trump moving in this direction? Because initially, he was all for, during his campaign, ending the war in 24 hours, but then gradually it appears that he’s been taking more of the neocon position, that he’s been making the war more and more a Trump war, that is, by supplying weapons, continuing the intelligence, instead of just cutting the ties to Ukraine and walking away. But it looked for a while that this was what he was going to do, especially after that big debacle in the Oval office.

But do you see Trump looking for a way of still severing ties with Ukraine? Because there seems to be some optimism among the Europeans that they can pull America back into the war, but you see it differently?

Doctorow:
Well, that, I think, is being seeded. It’s being promoted by Trump to keep them out of his path. If I can give any justification for the confusion that he is spreading, it is, again, to disarm his enemies and to keep them from a direct attack on himself as long as possible until they are faced with a fait accompli and then have to back off and accept what has happened. I think what you were just suggesting is a subject of a lead story in today’s “Financial Times”, in which they’re saying that Trump– they make reference to JD Vance’s statements to the press yesterday that the Russians are overplaying their hand, they’re demanding too much.

11:24
And from that they’re reading that Trump has become much more sympathetic to the cause of the Ukrainians and much less sympathetic to the Russians. This is again, this is part of the confusion that he and his entourage are spreading for tactical reasons. The question is, at what point are you no longer confusing the other side and confusing yourself? I don’t know if Trump is genuinely the owner of a solution or if he is wandering about and changing his mind day to day by what the last person whispered in his ear, which is what Trump detractors say. The point in today’s “Financial Times” article was they interviewed people who would be the natural enemies of anything and everything that Trump has undertaken.

12:17
For example, former Ambassador McFaul. And you hear them say statements when you just cannot believe what you are reading. McFaul saying, “Well, finally, Trump is seeing that the Russians are not friends of America.” My goodness. After three years of war, which United States has repeatedly declared Russia to be an enemy and has done everything possible to break the country.

And McFaul is saying that Trump is just discovering that the Russians are not a friend. This is beyond comprehension. It is a kind of insanity that even the “Financial Times” think this is worth publishing because it looks too stupid for words.

13:04
So, as I said, Mr. Trump’s basic negotiating tactic is spreading confusion. What can come out of this confusion, we don’t know.

Diesen:
Well, If Trump’s tactic is spreading confusion, do you put his somewhat recent statements in that same category? He was given an interview and he argued that Russia doesn’t simply want a strip of Ukraine, it wants all of Ukraine. After all of this, it seems somewhat hard to believe that he actually believes this. Of course, he followed it up with the argument that because of his leadership, Russia is not doing it.

So it’s, I guess, you know, building himself up as someone who can restrain Russia. But do you think he actually believes this? Or is this again to show that he can take a strong line against Russia in order to effectively win forward his political case?

Doctorow: 14:07
I would like to believe that he is canny as a fox, but there are times I admit when I’m uncertain about that. This remark that you’ve quoted is typical of the slightly unbelievable remarks that he makes from day to day, in what looks like flip-flops, again, to make sure that each side believes that he is, or is potentially, can be, on their side if just you get his ear at the right moment.

No, of course he cannot believe the Russians want to take all of Ukraine. As I have commented recently on this, it is, as you say, setting up the public, whoever is listening to these remarks, to believe that he has prevented the Russians from taking all of Ukraine. They’re only taking the four provinces that they now largely occupy, plus Crimea. And so he has saved the rest of Ukraine for Ukraine. Put in the context of all of the Biden administration remarks, and the progressive Democrats today still believe in saying that Putin wants to take the Baltic states, he wants to take Poland.

So against that context, if the Russians only walk away with four provinces in Ukraine, it would look like a great victory for the mediator, Mr. Trump. But that would look like a victory only to children. I don’t think any serious adults can take any of this talk seriously.

Diesen: 15:43
I guess the whole narrative that Russia wants to take all of Ukraine, it can serve two different objectives. I guess the one is the idea that we have to confront the Russians, because they’re after territory, so continue the war. However, that argument that Russia is after all Ukraine, as you said, it can also serve a different purpose, that is by claiming victory by only losing four regions. So again, I’ve been assuming at least for a long time that this is kind of the narrative which the Europeans will start to lean into as well when it becomes evident that a peace settlement is required, a painful one, even humiliating one, that they can at least lean on the idea that “Putin wanted to take all and he only got four. In other words, we won.” Again, if it’s a face-saving measure, I’m all for it, just as long as it leads to an actual peace.

16:40
But I’m nonetheless still confused with how the Europeans are reacting now. The whole concept of an ultimatum. Again, there’s some very big developments taking place on the front line now. They are cracking quite quickly and as this is happening the Russians are mounting more and more pressure across the whole front line. How do you post an ultimatum to the side that’s winning? It is turned on its head, isn’t it?

Doctorow:
You can do that if you have the wherewithall, which they don’t. There is the real delusional nature of their activity. They don’t have the force. They have engaged, they have cleaned out their armory, they’ve shipped everything that could be of any use to Ukraine.

And now they’re threatening with military action, for further economic sanctions, when Russia is already the most sanctioned country on earth. These, this is posturing and nothing more. There’s no, the Russians know there’s no reality behind these threats. They just want to look good to their voting public as if they’re tough guys. And that’s particularly the case with Mr. Merz, whose victory and installment as chancellor was quite hollow when he lost the first vote on his taking power. So I don’t– we are in a situation where Mr. Trump faces many severe challenges, domestically and foreign challenges. Some of these challenges he has created himself by very poor, poorly conceived and implemented actions like his tariff war over the top in respect to China. So he has set for himself many handicaps but didn’t have to be there.

18:34
But that being said, there were handicaps which preceded his arrival on the scene. And they are with him, that is the opposition in Europe of the major countries that we’ve named, and the opposition, both within the Republican Party and, of course, in the whole Democratic Party. He is apparently trying to keep his enemies at bay by making it seem as though one day he will lean this way, as they wish, and the next day he will lean the other way, as they don’t, and they don’t know how it’s all going to end up, but they’re hopeful that he’s still going to be brought around. That seems to be his tactic, but I’m skeptical that he will succeed.

Diesen: 19:20
He seems to be playing a similar game in the Middle East, by the way, in which it goes from being Israel’s biggest supporter to almost looking to embarrass Netanyahu.

But if a peace can’t be made now, how long do you think this war can actually go on? Because it does, as you said, there’s not much more to send. Macron even made that point in the news, I think it was yesterday, he was being interviewed on French television. He was saying, we sent effectively what we had to send, the rest we need for our own security. So if there is no more weapons to send, if we’re recognizing the huge shortage in manpower on the Ukrainian side and also as some Western newspapers have been reporting, the Russian military production is just spewing out more heavy weaponry, but they’re all being sent to the rear, building up a very powerful force.

20:22
All of these indications, wouldn’t it, we still don’t want to negotiate a peace, but where will this end? Do you think we’re reaching the final stages here?

Doctorow:
I think we are, but not for the reasons that most people would imagine. I don’t believe the Russians will win the war and get the capitulation of Ukraine on the battlefield, not in the near term. Over the long term, but over the long term, this can go on for a very long time.

The end of the war will come before the new year, and it will come not from a further victory on the battlefield, it will come from the political collapse of Ukraine when Mr. Trump says that he’s stopping all arms shipments to Ukraine and that he will not provide, sell arms to Europe for delivery to Ukraine. If he has the courage and the logical consistency to do that, then the war is finished in a matter of a few months. That is the end that I see. Not some vast Russian offensive that abolishes the Ukrainian army.

21:33
That is what many cheerleaders of Russia among our peers on YouTube are saying. I don’t believe it for a minute. I believe it will end by the political collapse of Ukraine.

Diesen:
How would that collapse, again, triggered, of course, by the lack of access to weapons, but would it be a struggle, would the military stand up against Zelensky? Would it be the nationalist? Is it an uprising in civil society? Because I guess the dividing lines within Ukraine, there’s quite a few of them. How do you see the regime change playing out if it’s not directly initiated by the Russians?

Doctorow: 22:15
I think that the military will push him out. I don’t think there’ll be a violent coup d’etat. I think he has enough sense of reality to take the plane out when he sees that he’s about to be overthrown and murdered. But I think that the military will come around. The main thing that I want to bring up as to why the war will not end quickly is that Mr. Putin continues his emphasis on the war of attrition. And that is a slow process.

And the Ukrainians are putting their emphasis on their drone warfare which is quite effective. Russians also have drone warfare, these are two countries that are using the latest state-of- development arms effectively, which change the battlefield conditions and put an emphasis on a very few intelligent game players, video game players, who have converted into into operators of drones, versus hundreds of thousands of men in the field.

The Russians no longer can place in the field large concentrations of troops to overrun the enemy. It is not feasible because of the risks inherent in attack by kamikaze drones. So the numbers game where the Russians vastly outnumber the Ukrainians, whose numbers are dwindling, whose best fighters are already being killed, that numbers game is no longer so significant as fielding effective use of drones.

23:56
So the war has changed, and that is why I’m saying precisely the war will not be decided on the battlefield, but in the halls of power in Ukraine. And as you have said, the logical force to precipitate this change is the military.

Diesen:
So if we have this regime change and the war comes to an end, what do you see will happen to the transatlantic partnership that is NATO and, well in general America’s role in Europe? Because it’s often argued these days that one of the key reasons why the Europeans are in panic is because if the war comes to an end now, the Americans will or to some extent act upon what they have said they would, which is to deprioritize Europe. Do you do you see fractions deepening once the war comes to an end?

Doctorow 24:54
No, I see something else. As I’ve just indicated, Donald Trump has it within his power to bring about peace in the Russian-Ukraine war. But not at a negotiating table as we’re seeing now. This is just the antechamber to the real settlement, which is when he when he withdraws all support to Ukraine.

The United States also has the power to end the problem of NATO and to force its Western allies to come to a negoting table with the Russians over revising the continent’s security arrangements, architecture. And that is very simple. If Mr. Trump does what he should do, which is to renounce the Biden agreement with Scholz over installing American nuclear-armed medium-range missiles in Germany. If that is done, then Europe’s defense is finished.

25:57
The logical thing to do would be for him to renounce that upon agreeing with the Russians that they will withdraw all of their nuclear-tipped missiles to the Urals. That is so they’re no longer pode a threat. Let us remember the war started because of Russia’s perception that Ukraine was being used by NATO and by the United States for the soon to be installed medium-range missiles there that can reach Moscow in five minutes. That was unacceptable to the Russians, and it gave them reason to start this war.

That issue has not been addressed. Mr. Trump can address it in the manner I just said, by removing all missiles and all nuclear weapons on this continent, Europe, including French and British. If that is done, the Russians will sign on the dotted line tomorrow, and the whole presence of NATO will be eviscerated. Mr. Trump doesn’t have to quit NATO. He has to remove the threatening elements of NATO that cause us all to lose sleep at night. And he has that within his power. So Mr. Trump is a central figure if he ever reasons logically, which is not guaranteed.

Diesen: 27:22
My final question is just about how the domestic situation in Russia as you see it goes. Well, you just returned from St. Petersburg. How do you explain the economic growth in Russia, not just within the state, but the overall rise in the standard of living? How does this make sense there in the middle of an expensive war and the sanctions which the world has never seen has been launched against them by the collective West. So how do you make sense of, well, what did you observe and how do you make sense of this?

Docrorow:
Well, when you watch the Vladimir Solovyov program regularly, you see a certain Duma member. He’s a deputy chairman of the Duma, Mr. Babakov, who every weekend, every time he’s on the show, is talking about not viewing the horrible 21% interest rates at the Bank of Russia set, which destroy economic growth and so forth. Here we have the the nexus of the issue, how Russia’s economy is prospering, which it definitely is. Not just in the face of the sanctions, which they’ve had eight years to prepare for. From 2014 to present, they were very busy hardening their defenses against this type of sanctions, but because of their own action to protect their exchange rate, to protect, to keep down, tamp down the inflation, which would be natural when many sources of supply were dried up because of sanctions and the inability of producers, manufacturers who had long ties with Russia to deliver the goods. So how do they survive all this?

29:14
I’ve turned that around in my mind quite a bit, and I’m satisfied that the answer I’m about to give you is very relevant to the question that you posed. That is, Russia has both a free economy or market economy approach, which is what Nabuil is introducing, to keep down inflation, and you support your currency by higher interest rates, which are now at the unbelievable level of 21%. At the same time, you have a statist approach going on, where the Minister of Finance is providing subsidies to the banking system, note, to the banking system to dispense credit to specific industries and specific favorite son manufacturers that are producing goods and services that are deemed essential to the country’s growth. That is to say, you have state management of the economy through dispensing cheap credits to favored industries and favored manufacturers. That is what gave Russia its 4% growth rate in the face of interest rates which should have turned it into recession.

30:26
And that– so there’s a very complex management of the economy, which includes elements of trading in the national currencies as opposed to the dollar, which includes the various settlement provisions that have been put in place so that goods from the whole world are available. What I have commented in my writings about what I see in supermarkets, I haven’t gone into this side of it. How do they get the stuff there? Not just logistically, that’s the least of it. But financially, how is this paid for?

How are suppliers receiving due revenue for the exports to Russia? I see celery, green stalk celery, iceberg lettuce, watermelons of fantastic quality from Iran in the supermarkets and the corner stores. The corner greengrocer has these things. They have four varieties of strawberries in the corner store from the Russian Kuban, from Azerbaijan, from Turkey and from Greece. How do they do this?

31:40
It’s fantastic management of payments in the absence of SWIFT. They have mastered this in a most professional way. I’d like to call attention to again, a big issue. Mr. Putin has supervised since 20– well, since he came to power, but most especially after 2008, when the conflict of the United States really took off.

He has managed a reindustrialization of Russia, which is going full blast. Now, this, if Mr. Trump admires, respects, and I would say envies Vladimir Putin and Russia, it’s because they have succeeded in a reindustrialization which Mr. Trump would like to see in the States. Russia has done this thanks to sanctions, and Mr. Trump would like to do this through self-imposed tariffs. The idea is the same, to make it difficult or impossible for foreign suppliers to deprive domestic would-be manufacturers and agriculture participants from growing, from manufacturing what the country needs domestically and not importing these goods. It’s a similar end that is sought by both Trump and Putin.

33:12
Putin has already reached that point, thanks to American sanctions. And Mr. Trump would like to get to that point by way of self-imposed sanctions that are called tariffs.

Diesen:
Yeah, I remember recognizing that when I was working in Moscow, since 2014, how they were essentially sanction-proofing their economy, pursuing some import substitution, developing more technological sovereignty, safeguarding supply chains, having more conservative fiscal policy to be less vulnerable if these things would happen. So it appears to have paid off.

33:52
And always, Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for your time. Always appreciate it.

Doctorow:
Always a pleasure.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://youtu.be/hxF6Iq1YXQg

Napolitano: 0:32
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, May 14th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, excuse me, always a pleasure. Before I ask you about Trump in the Middle East and Trump attempting to resolve the special military operation and the European elites wanting to continue it, I have to ask you about your general impressions from your recent time in Russia.

Now I’ve been the beneficiary of many of your notes about it, but I thought maybe you want to offer general impressions, life in Russia, culture in Russia, economy in Russia, happiness in Russia.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:18
I start with the last point, happiness. What I feel and see around me is generalized prosperity. And in case people are wondering whom I associate with, I am, my friends are, many of them are intellectuals who never were big earners.

But they feel comfortable. When I see the stores which are fully stocked with fresh, very fresh produce, which is coming from what we would consider exotic places, I mean, did you buy iceberg lettuce or celery from Iran? I don’t think so, but the average Russian going to a supermarket does. And I can tell you it’s of fine quality and prices are low. Some things that I’ve seen, inflation, I’ve made remarks in my travel notes that I’ve observed this time, perhaps a 10 percent across-the-board inflation in food products and some consumables since my last visit five months ago.

2:15
But there are reasons for everything. And the main reason driving inflation is: people have a lot more money in their pockets, and that is the scarcity of labor. Labor is paid more now, which is high time, because Russian salaries were disgracefully low going back just a few years. So they are playing catchup, but production does not rise as fast as demand does. And then there are other things that are going on. The Russians had, go back six months, eight months, and they had fresh salmon in the fish section of supermarkets.

That was coming initially, before the sanctions, it came from Scandinavia. Then it came from the Faroe Islands in some kind of little game that was going on, said to be harvested by Russians. Now, they don’t have any imported salmon. The price has shot up to the same price that we had in Western Europe, about 30 euros a kilogram, but it’s all grown in Murmansk. This is Russian homegrown salmon, which never existed before.

3:16
So that is part of the general substitution. Initially, the production quantities are not up to demand, and so there’s inflation. But putting that aside, contentment with cultural life, with the remarkably creative things that are staged in a city like St. Petersburg every day of the year, because they have many theaters, and some have several different stages in which they perform concerts. The cultural life is very rich, and people around me take advantage of it, though the prices for admission have gone up substantially.

Pensioners no longer have the privileges they once did, and so people do complain about prices, but they don’t complain about quality. So also this question of the impact of the war on the average fellow, look, back in October, 2022, when a mobilization of reservists, partial mobilization was put in force, most Russians were very fearful that this meant that their sons, husbands, fathers would be going off to war, that mobilization would be generalized and would become more severe. That’s all gone. As we know, mobilization was replaced by paid recruitment, contract soldiers for the special military operation who were offered increasingly high premiums to sign up and to serve for six months or more in the special area of conflict, the area of fighting, the battlefields.

4:54
They were the last offers. It started out at something like 6,000 euros if you signed up. Going back several months, oh, five, six months, my last visit, the premium was up to 35,000 euros to sign up, which considering the level of salaries in the country, was an enormous amount of money. Not to mention all the privileges of the fast track in higher education, military service, in government administrative posts if you were a veteran. All of these things were very attractive.

In one of our chats about three, four weeks ago, I mentioned that– well, three weeks ago– I mentioned that I was surprised that all of the advertisements which were plastered on every bus stop, which were in all public administration buildings and in supermarkets, calling for recruitment and noting the high premiums paid — disappeared. Now somebody questioned this in the comment section on this talk show and they said, “Oh, it can’t be. Maybe it’s just temporary.” No, it’s not temporary. In the three weeks that I was there, I didn’t see one recruitment poster. I didn’t see any advertisements on television. So the Russians are expecting the war to wind down.

Napolitano: 6:12
I have a few more questions about this, but on conscripts versus volunteers. Here’s President Putin yesterday on this very topic, Chris. cut number six.

Putin: [from English voice over]
I want to draw your attention to the following. Well, the Kiev authorities are carrying out forced mobilization, catching people on the streets like stray dogs. Our guys are joining up voluntarily. They go of their own accord. So as you know, our recruitment, well, they’re managing to round up about 30,000 people now, right? But with us, 50 to 60,000 guys come forward on their own every month, including from your workplaces.

Npolitano: 6:55
50 to 60,000 volunteers a month. That would explain the absence of these posters.

Doctorow:
Yes, they don’t need to call people, because they’re doing it– it’s now word of mouth. It’s people who see their friends go off and can actually come back from the battlefield with many … compensation and honors and promotion in the career paths. So they also sign up.

Napolitano: 7:26
Has Russia, I don’t know if you can answer this with a yes or no. Has Russia prospered economically under the Western sanctions?

Doctorow:
Russia has done what Donald Trump would love to do– and I think this may explain his particular admiration for Putin and for Russia in general– they’ve reindustrialized. Western Europe is deindustrializing, they’re losing their industry, Germany at the head of line for leaving manufacturing without any real replacement. England did this maybe 10, 20 years ago when they turned into a service economy. Europe doesn’t have it. The United States has deindustrialized for the last 20, 30 years.

This is what Donald Trump would like to reverse. It is possible to reverse it. And the class– the most outstanding example of such reversal is what the Russians have been doing since 2008. And they have reaped results.

Napolitano: 8:32
Very interesting. Trump is in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. What is he trying to accomplish there that would be of interest or concern, if at all, to the Russians?

Doctorow:
The Russian discussion of what Trump is doing is a certain admiration for his success, for example, in mediating between Pakistan and India. They are looking closely at what he’s trying to achieve by visiting the Gulf states, trying to achieve by business diplomacy, by looking for deals and looking for economic advantage from foreign policy. This was a complaint that Russian patriots made going back the last 20 years. This was one major point made by the now-deceased leader of the Russian liberal Democratic Party, Zhirinovsky, that the Soviet Union had a foreign policy that was all giveaway, and the Americans had a foreign policy that was all bringing in cash.

9:45
So the Russians are following closely what he is doing in the Gulf states, precisely with that in mind, how he manages to bring in investment in his discussions. One factor that’s mentioned in passing is that nobody wants to buy Treasury notes. So it is possible that part of what we’re seeing is a diversion of Saudi and other Gulf-state holdings, asset holdings, in the States. Not necessarily an increase in their holdings, but a diversion away from treasury notes to solid assets.

Napolitano: 10:22
Interesting. What is your take on Trump’s announcement, actually just a few minutes ago, that the United states would be dropping its sanctions on Syria. They could have done this 20 years ago and saved a million deaths in the civil war.

Doctorow:
I think it’s a wonderful step forward. Mr. Trump … he monopolizes global news. There’s no question about it. I’m sure that he personally takes great pride in that and pleasure in that. But whatever he thinks about it, whatever his personality quirks are, are irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that he’s making news, and this is important news, and very positive news as you’re suggesting. The follow-up and the real acid test of his intentions would be if the next step is to remove American soldiers who are supervising, facilitating the draining of Syria’s natural assets, that is to say, in the eastern province where the Americans are situated, ostensibly to prevent terrorism returning, but in fact supervising the expropriation of the most valuable asset, production asset of Syria, its oil.

So if he removes those forces from the east of Syria and allows the Syrian government to reap the benefits of its own mineral wealth, that will be an enormous benefit to Syria, quite apart from whatever foreign aid the country now gets.

Napolitano: 12:03
Interesting. How is, I know you’re in Brussels, so maybe you don’t have a finger on this, as to how it is greeted by elites that Trump is kowtowing with Mohammed bin Salman, who famously was found by American intel to have butchered while still alive, a reporter from the Washington Post, and Al Jelani, who until two months ago had a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head by the Rubio State Department. Now Trump is sitting down, there he is with the two of them. How is that received in Europe, all past sins are forgiven?

Doctorow:
I think Europeans like Russia, like most anybody else, is stunned at Trump’s ability to break with the recent past and even with the distant past, his disruption of most any institution and policy you can name. So I don’t think anyone’s particularly surprised that he would sit down with a man who in the United States [was] denounced not so long ago as a brutal murderer. The gentleman, the reporter whom you mentioned had been murdered was of course a politically very active person. This was not just a fellow taking down the minutes at government meetings in the public space.

13:37
No, no, he was active politically against the regime. And so they took their revenge on him. But as to the prince and the other rulers in the Gulf states, the Russians are in good terms with all of them. So nobody in Russia would be surprised that an American looking after national interests and not after ideological interests would find common cause with those very same rulers.

Napolitano: 14:07
If you look at the headlines in the American papers this morning, of course there are pictures of the president with Mohammed bin Salman. And of course there are chronicles of the deals that he is cutting. Mohammed bin Salman supposedly offered to invest $600 billion in the United States. I don’t think he has that much cash. Their gross domestic product in 2024 was only $100 billion. So I don’t know how he’s going to get 600 billion to invest, but whatever.

What is the feeling in Europe? Because the second- most important story here is this Qatari jet. What is the feeling in Europe about the Qataris giving a $400 million jet to the Defense Department? Do the Qataris give these things away for free or do they expect to quit pro quo?

Doctorow:
No, I can’t comment on what Europeans are saying because frankly I haven’t seen any comment in the in Euro news this morning or in paper print. The real objections are in the States, where of course it’s a highly political issue. And there are those who are saying, with good reason, both Republicans and Democrats, that it’s inappropriate to accept such gifts. After all, Mr. Trump is going after American universities for receiving donations from abroad. So he’s not the right person to turn around and say that he’s going to take it.

Napolitano: 15:46
The problem doesn’t seem to be a gift to the Defense Department. I mean, the United States and Qatar have a long-standing financial and security relationship. We have a huge base there that we built at our expense from which they profit. I can understand them giving a plane to the Defense Department, but giving it to Trump or some entity he controls, like the Trump Library Foundation, after he leaves office, that is the problem. Don’t you agree?

Doctorow:
Oh, I agree with you. I agree.

Napolitano: 16:17
All right. Does Trump seem to manifest an understanding sufficient to produce an amicable resolution of the special military operation in Ukraine?

Doctorow:
I’m very skeptical. His negotiating methods are peculiar. I don’t see them as being, as coming from the business world. I never saw any top businessmen behave as he does. This is not a corporate business manner. It is very much an individual entrepreneur’s manner. Ever witness Elon Musk’s equally mercurial, unpredictable behavior on the world stage. These are not typical of businessmen.

So that is laid at his door, but I think it’s a false identification. This is his own personality. And what he is doing in spreading confusion is difficult to predict that it’ll have a positive outcome. The most peculiar thing is, in all of this, is that a country that is a co-belligerent, and the United States is a co-belligerent with Ukraine in the war against Russia, should pretend to be a mediator, should pretend to tell Mr. Putin what he can and cannot expect as the end game of this war. It’s most illogical, shall we say.

Napolitano: 17:49
Interesting. I don’t know if you saw the scene on the train with Chancellor Merz, Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron. They were so giddy that social media was suggesting they were drunk or were taking drugs. There’s obviously no evidence for that whatsoever. But I wonder what you think they are up to, this ostentatious train ride to Kiev on the same day or within 24 hours of the victory in Europe celebration in Russia. What kind of a message are they trying to send? Do they really want Kiev and the Russians to believe that if Donald Trump closes the spigot of arms to Kiev, that they, the three of them, can replace it?

Doctorow:
Well, this giddiness that you mentioned actually was identified as all of them sniffing cocaine, identified on Russian television on the Solovyov show last night. So it’s hard to say whether this was fake news, whether the film itself was altered to produce this result, but it was presented on Russian television as if they were in fact sniffing cocaine.

Napolitano: 19:01
That is almost inconceivable, that they would do something like that, knowing that a camera was there, that they would do it to begin with. It’s criminal everywhere.

Doctorow:
Yes, it is. They supposedly were not aware that they were being filmed. In any case, the Russian television viewer last night had every reason to believe that they were sniffing cocaine, all of them, and that would explain their behavior. Mr. Macron’s position, when I say that Donald Trump flip-flops, Macron flip-flops daily also. But whereas Mr. Trump makes news and is a very important person on the world stage, Mr. Macron is a bit … player.

19:47
And his flip-flops are harder to understand, because they don’t bring any credibility to him as the leader of France. The other two, look, Tusk also speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

Napolitano:
All right, so I forgot about this. This is the president of Poland, who was not in the clip on the train, but was on the train, maybe later, and was in Kiev with them. Go ahead, please.

Doctorow:
Right. Well, all four of them in this have behaved very irresponsibly by pretending to pressure Mr. Putin to accept the 30-day ceasefire that Zelensky called for. They set themselves up to look like utter fools. because the Russians rejected it out of hand. At the same time, I want to point out, when I mention that Trump has peculiar negotiating tactics, I find it incredible that he is maintaining up to today two completely separate positions on the end of this war.

20:59
That is, Witkoff, who is Russia-sympathetic, and Kellogg, who is Zelensky-sympathetic. If there is a meeting in Istanbul– to which Trump will be present, and if Trump comes, then Putin has to come– if all of them are in Istanbul, I don’t see how this can be reconciled, that Trump is backing two conflicting positions, giving hope to each of the sides that their position will win. I don’t see the sense of it.

Napolitano: 21:34
I don’t know how Zelensky could possibly consent to Putin’s demands, as rational as they are, as clear as they’ve been, and as consistent as they’ve been going back to before the special military operation, without exposing himself to assassination once he gets back to Kiev. Do you?

Doctorow:
I don’t, well, if he sees which way it’s going, that it’s going against him, I wonder if he’ll go back to Kiev, because nothing but hanging is what awaits him. I don’t see how he can agree to this, and survive. And so it would be senseless for him either to remain as president. The smartest thing he could do would be to resign on the spot and move to one of his foreign residences.

Napolitano: 22:22
If Donald Trump turns off the spigot, how much of it can be replaced by Merz, Macron and Starmer, Or is it such a small amount as to be useless?

Doctorow:
Well, there’s a second step here. You mentioned the first step, that he cuts off American direct assistance to Ukraine. But what does he do when the European powers come to Washington and say, “Sell this to us, so we can give it to Zelensky”? If he is consistent, he will say no to them, and the war is over. If he is inconsistent, then this play-acting is hideous, actually. The Russians are ready for everything.

23:05
But when you look at the commentary, you mentioned the giddiness of these people on the train, I look at the giddiness of the authorities, supposed authorities, pretending authorities in the States, like former Ambassador McFaul and others around him who have been the cheerleaders for Zelensky, as they’re quoted in today’s “Financial Times”. They are saying the most absurd things, that Trump has changed position. Oh yes, there’s an article, the front page of today’s “Financial Times”, that Trump has changed his position and is now leaning towards Zelensky, because according to JD Vance yesterday, yesterday quotation, the Russians, Putin, is asking for too much. And so they’re leaning toward Zelensky. And McFaul, I think, was quoted as saying, “Gee, Trump has actually finally realized that Russia is not a friend.” You wonder what mental gymnastics these people do each day.

Napolitano: 24:12
Right. Professor Doctorow, thank you very much. Thanks for all of this. Thanks for your candid impressions about Russia. I’m glad and happy that you are safely home. Thanks for your analysis about Europe and your observations about the president. Much appreciated, personally enjoyed. Look forward to seeing you next week.

Doctorow:
Well, thank you for inviting me. I really enjoy these sessions. They’re stimulating.

Napolitano:
All the best to you. Thank you. Coming up later today at 11 this morning, Scott Horton of antiwar.com and his book “Provoked”, at 11 o’clock. At one o’clock this afternoon, Professor Glenn Diesen; at three this afternoon, our old pal, Phil Giraldi.

24:56
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

I heartily recommend this interview to the Community because we addressed issues that are skipped over in the very focused commentaries on geopolitical news though they provide an essential context for interpreting this news.

I have in mind for example the whole issue of Trump’s tariff wars.  I put this together with Trump’s obvious respect for, no better to say envy of Vladimir Putin’s using the hardships of U.S. directed sanctions on his country to implement a very successful reindustrialization of Russia.  Trump is self-sanctioning the USA via tariffs with a view to achieving similar results.

Then, when speaking of the successful Russian management of externally created challenges to its economy, we have to consider the challenges that the free market or Liberal economists within the government, within the Central Bank, have created by the sky-high interest rates they imposed.  They should normally lead to recession, which would bring down inflation, but would be counter to the strength needed in the midst of a cruel war that threatens the nation’s existence.  In fact, the economy has survived and even thrived in the face of the 21% Central Bank interest rate because in parallel the Finance Ministry is following an antidote policy that could be best described as dirigisme: it is providing subsidies on the interest rates that bank lenders establish for credits to favored industries and to national champion manufacturers within those industries deemed essential for economic growth in general and for supporting the war effort in particular.

We also discussed what may come out of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks scheduled to be held in Istanbul tomorrow in light of Trump’s tactics of spreading confusion to keep his enemies at bay

These are just three examples of the material in this interview which viewers should find stimulating.

We are all in waiting mode, expecting news on whether Trump is indeed going to be in Istanbul for peace talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war.  The latest word from the White House is that he may be there.  In that case, and only in that case, Vladimir Putin will also come to Istanbul. Zelensky has already said he will be in Istanbul regardless of who will be present from the other side.

In the meantime, my reading of the situation as I explained in this chat with Judge Napolitano is that Trump’s unconventional approach to mediation gives us no confidence of success.  He is sending to the talks his two envoys who hold directly contradictory positions on the preferred outcome:  Steve Witkoff, who is favorable to the Russians’ solution and General Kellogg, who is promoting the joint Ukrainian/European solution.  How this can be resolved is utterly unclear.   But why should it be clear given the fundamental illogic of the entire situation: namely that a co-belligerent aligned with Ukraine over the past three years, the USA, steps forward as a mediator or facilitator of peace.

As I say in the interview, the odd, even bizarre Trump approach to these negotiations cannot be laid at the door of his ‘business’ approach, since no corporate top executive would ever create the confusion that Trump seems to think essential to solving thorny problems. This at best is the behavior of an eccentric entrepreneur, for which I raise Elon Musk as another example, matching Trump. 

Somehow the Trump magic seems to have worked in achieving a cease-fire between India and Pakistan, a situation where the USA is also most closely aligned with one side in the conflict, India.

Of course, other topics also were dealt with in this chat, including the general feeling of prosperity in Russia, the inflation that is resulting from more cash to spend in everyone’s wallet, the very large monthly enlistments of soldiers to fight in the Special Military Operation and much, much more.

Estonian Government: Not just war mongers but sadists as well

In his latest speeches during the 80^th anniversary of Victory Day celebrations, President Putin was careful to distinguish between the ruling elites in “unfriendly countries” and the general population, among whom there may well be many people sympathetic to Russia’s cause.

I apply the same distinction here when I explain why I will NEVER ever travel again to Russia via Estonia.

As readers of my first installment of Travel Notes from the now completed three weeks I just spent in Russia will know, my inbound trip was by plane to Estonia’s capital Tallinn and onwards by bus to what was described by acquaintances as the least stressful border crossing in the south of the country, opposite the city of Pskov on the Russian side.

Whereas at the most commonly used border crossing in the north of Estonia, at the seaside town of Narva, travelers have been experiencing 3 to 5 hour waiting times out on the street for entry to the Estonian passport and customs control building, followed by a 500-meter walk across a bridge to the Russian checkpoint, the southern crossing has no waits for processing and allows you the ‘comfort’ of proceeding directly in your bus to the Russian checkpoint.

I found that this difference was true in practice, but the underlying reality of vicious, shall we say sadistic handling of the travelers by the Estonian border authorities at the southern post was identical to what is going on in the north.

Allow me to explain that the waiting times in Narva are artificially created by unjustified questioning of each traveler as to his or her motive for going to Russia, how much cash they have in their wallets, how old is the computer notebook they are traveling with and the like. Suitcases are opened and inspected very thoroughly. Your Euro cash may be counted, banknote by banknote.

Due to current nonrecognition by the Estonians of tourist visas for travel to or from Russia, the only travelers are in effect dual nationals – of Russia and one or another EU Member State.  Accordingly, the Estonian authorities are inflicting their inquisition on people they have no right to ask about anything. Their go-slow procedures are what create the many hours-long wait of travelers out on the street whatever the weather and whatever the age or physical condition of those in the crowd.

To this I add the obvious fact that the great majority of those traveling this route are poor folks who simply cannot afford the exotic alternative solution of flying down to Istanbul or Dubai to get to Russia. And that solution is all the more absurd for Estonian passport holders from Tallinn or elsewhere in the country who simply want to get across the border to visit relatives on the other side, living perhaps 5 km away. That is what built up the waiting time especially in the days before Easter, This makes a mockery of the whole principle of ‘humanitarian’ travel for family reunions.

My point here is that the maltreatment bordering on sadism is systematic and does not depend on who is in charge on any given day. It is clearly ordered from the central government in Estonia and it stinks to high heaven.  It tells me that the vicious Russophobia that we see daily in the conduct of the former Estonian prime minister, now vice president of the EU Commission for foreign policy Kaja Kallas is just the most visible sign of an Estonian ruling elite that daily tramples on all the “European values” that supposedly, in the words of her predecessor Josip Borrell, make the EU a ‘garden,’ in contrast to the jungle outside its borders

You will note that I am speaking of the ruling elite, not of the Estonian people.  The most striking argument in favor of the humane instincts of the Estonian people also occurred on this latest trip and it happened on our very arrival at Tallinn airport. My wife walks with a cane and when we checked in at the Air Baltic counter in Brussels airport, the attendant asked if we wanted special assistance, meaning a wheelchair, at arrival in Tallinn. We said that it was unnecessary.  However, they knew better: when we debarked in Tallinn just after midnight, we were pleasantly surprised that special assistance had been arranged nonetheless and that the burly Estonian who rendered it was a great fellow and very kindly to my wife despite or perhaps because of her clearly Russian surname of Zalesova.  He not only took us through the changes of floor levels and very long corridors to reach baggage claim but took us out onto the sidewalk and on the strength of his airport uniform jumped the twenty-minute queue so as to install us in a taxi and see us on our way at once.

Let me remind the Community that within Estonia’s 1.37 million population, perhaps 300,000 are Russian speakers and they are heavily concentrated in the capital where they make up perhaps 40% of the population.  That Tallinn is a Russian speaking town will be clear at once to any casual visitor. All hotel and restaurant staff are perfectly fluent in Russian.  The shoppers in the main malls are nearly all speaking Russian. On television they can watch a Russian-language state broadcast station.  The purely Estonian speaking population is concentrated in the hinterland as it always was over centuries past. 

When Estonian academics speak of a Soviet or Russian occupation of their country, they mean the period 1939-1991 which began with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that put an end to the 20 year existence of an Estonian state, the first in the nation’s history.  For the preceding 250 years Estonia, or Estland, had been a constituent part of the Russian Empire as a result not of military conquest but of dynastic marriage, which was widely practiced everywhere in ancien régime Europe. Even the Russophobe government that humiliates those of its citizens traveling to Russia takes no action against the monuments from the period of tsarist domination, because if they did there would be nothing whatever to show tourists.  Latter day Revel (today’s Tallinn) was Russia’s principal port in the 18^th century and a coastal resort playground of the Russian aristocracy in the 19^th century.

To remain fair-minded, I close this essay with a note to Sergei Lavrov that I hope he will pass along to The Boss.  The treatment of travelers entering Russia at border crossings like the one in the south of Estonia across from Pskov is also shameful even if it is not sadistic. You do not wait out on the street, but you lose an hour. They all but disassemble your bus probably searching for hidden drugs. But their sniffer dogs which also are used can do that job in minutes. Why are a couple of controllers deployed to check to see that their colleague correctly applied the entry stamp to your passport?  Russia should be delighted to welcome these visitors and speed them on their way rather than impose lengthy questioning and inspections.  If this nonsense does not go on at Pulkovo airport where middle class passengers are whisked through in both directions, in and out of Russia, why does it go on at the provincial border crossings which process mostly the less privileged?

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025       

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Estnische Regierung: Nicht nur Kriegstreiber, sondern auch Sadisten

In seinen jüngsten Reden anlässlich der Feierlichkeiten zum 80. Jahrestag des Sieges am 9. Mai hat Präsident Putin sorgfältig zwischen den herrschenden Eliten in „unfreundlichen Ländern“ und der allgemeinen Bevölkerung unterschieden, unter der es durchaus viele Menschen geben dürfte, die mit der Sache Russlands sympathisieren.

Ich treffe dieselbe Unterscheidung, wenn ich erkläre, warum ich NIEMALS wieder über Estland nach Russland reisen werde.

Wie die Leser meines ersten Teils der Reiseberichte über meine gerade beendeten drei Wochen in Russland wissen, reiste ich mit dem Flugzeug in die estnische Hauptstadt Tallinn und von dort mit dem Bus zu dem, was mir von Bekannten als der stressfreieste Grenzübergang im Süden des Landes beschrieben wurde, gegenüber der Stadt Pskow auf der russischen Seite.

Während Reisende am meist frequentierten Grenzübergang im Norden Estlands, in der Küstenstadt Narva, drei bis fünf Stunden auf der Straße warten müssen, um in das estnische Pass- und Zollkontrollgebäude zu gelangen, gefolgt von einem 500 Meter langen Fußweg über eine Brücke zum russischen Kontrollpunkt, gibt es am südlichen Grenzübergang keine Wartezeiten und man kann bequem mit dem Bus direkt zum russischen Kontrollpunkt weiterfahren.

Ich habe festgestellt, dass dieser Unterschied in der Praxis zutrifft, aber die zugrunde liegende Realität der brutalen, ja sogar sadistischen Behandlung der Reisenden durch die estnischen Grenzbehörden am südlichen Grenzübergang ist identisch mit dem, was im Norden vor sich geht.

Lassen Sie mich erklären, dass die Wartezeiten in Narva künstlich durch ungerechtfertigte Befragungen jedes Reisenden zu seinen Motiven für die Einreise nach Russland, zum Bargeldbestand in seiner Brieftasche, zum Alter seines Laptops und Ähnlichem verursacht werden. Koffer werden geöffnet und sehr gründlich durchsucht. Ihr Bargeld in Euro kann Banknote für Banknote gezählt werden.

Da Estland derzeit Touristenvisa für Reisen nach oder aus Russland nicht anerkennt, sind die einzigen Reisenden faktisch Doppelstaatsangehörige – Russlands und eines EU-Mitgliedstaats. Dementsprechend unterziehen die estnischen Behörden Menschen einer Inquisition, die sie zu nichts zu befragen berechtigt sind. Ihre schleppenden Verfahren sind der Grund für die stundenlangen Wartezeiten der Reisenden auf der Straße, unabhängig vom Wetter und vom Alter oder der körperlichen Verfassung der Menschen in der Menge.

Hinzu kommt die offensichtliche Tatsache, dass die große Mehrheit der Reisenden auf dieser Strecke arme Menschen sind, die sich die exotische Alternative, nach Istanbul oder Dubai zu fliegen, um nach Russland zu gelangen, einfach nicht leisten können. Und diese Lösung ist umso absurder für estnische Passinhaber aus Tallinn oder anderen Teilen des Landes, die einfach nur die Grenze überqueren wollen, um Verwandte auf der anderen Seite zu besuchen, die vielleicht nur 5 km entfernt wohnen. Das hat insbesondere in den Tagen vor Ostern zu langen Wartezeiten geführt. Das führt das gesamte Prinzip der „humanitären“ Reisen zur Familienzusammenführung ad absurdum.

Mein Punkt ist, dass die an Sadismus grenzende Misshandlung systematisch ist und nicht davon abhängt, wer an einem bestimmten Tag Dienst hat. Sie wird eindeutig von der estnischen Zentralregierung angeordnet und stinkt zum Himmel. Das sagt mir, dass die bösartige Russophobie, die wir täglich im Verhalten der ehemaligen estnischen Premierministerin und jetzigen Vizepräsidentin der EU-Kommission für Außenpolitik, Kaja Kallas, sehen, nur das sichtbarste Zeichen einer estnischen Führungselite ist, die täglich alle „europäischen Werte“ mit Füßen tritt, die laut ihrem Vorgänger Josip Borrell die EU zu einem „Garten“ mache, im Gegensatz zum Zirkus außerhalb ihrer Grenzen.

Sie werden bemerken, dass ich von der herrschenden Elite spreche, nicht vom estnischen Volk. Das auffälligste Argument für die menschlichen Instinkte des estnischen Volkes fand sich ebenfalls auf dieser letzten Reise, und zwar gleich bei unserer Ankunft am Flughafen von Tallinn. Meine Frau geht an einer Gehhilfe, und als wir am Schalter von Air Baltic am Brüsseler Flughafen eincheckten, fragte uns die Mitarbeiterin, ob wir bei der Ankunft in Tallinn besondere Hilfe, also einen Rollstuhl, benötigten. Wir sagten, dass dies nicht notwendig sei. Aber sie wussten es besser: Als wir kurz nach Mitternacht in Tallinn aus dem Flugzeug stiegen, waren wir angenehm überrascht, dass dennoch besondere Hilfe organisiert worden war und dass der stämmige Este, der sie leistete, ein großartiger Kerl war und sehr freundlich zu meiner Frau, trotz oder vielleicht gerade wegen ihres eindeutig russischen Nachnamens Zalesova. Er führte uns nicht nur durch die verschiedenen Etagen und sehr langen Gänge zum Gepäckausgabebereich, sondern brachte uns auch auf die Straße und sprang dank seiner Flughafenuniform über die zwanzigminütige Warteschlange hinweg, um uns in ein Taxi zu setzen und uns sofort auf den Weg zu schicken.

Ich möchte die Gemeinschaft daran erinnern, dass von den 1,37 Millionen Einwohnern Estlands etwa 300.000 russischsprachig sind und sich vor allem in der Hauptstadt konzentrieren, wo sie etwa 40 % der Bevölkerung ausmachen. Dass Tallinn eine russischsprachige Stadt ist, wird jedem Besucher sofort auffallen. Alle Hotel- und Restaurantmitarbeiter sprechen fließend Russisch. Die Kunden in den großen Einkaufszentren sprechen fast alle Russisch. Im Fernsehen können sie einen russischsprachigen staatlichen Sender empfangen. Die rein estnischsprachige Bevölkerung konzentriert sich wie seit Jahrhunderten auf das Hinterland.

Wenn estnische Wissenschaftler von einer sowjetischen oder russischen Besetzung ihres Landes sprechen, meinen sie den Zeitraum von 1939 bis 1991, der mit dem Molotow-Ribbentrop-Pakt begann, der das 20-jährige Bestehen des ersten estnischen Staates in der Geschichte der Nation beendete. In den 250 Jahren zuvor war Estland nicht infolge einer militärischen Eroberung, sondern aufgrund einer dynastischen Heirat, wie sie im Ancien Régime in Europa weit verbreitet war, Teil des Russischen Reiches gewesen. Selbst die russophobe Regierung, die ihre Bürger, die nach Russland reisen, demütigt, unternimmt nichts gegen die Denkmäler aus der Zeit der zaristischen Herrschaft, denn dann gäbe es den Touristen nichts mehr zu zeigen. Das heutige Tallinn war im 18. Jahrhundert Russlands wichtigster Hafen und im 19. Jahrhundert ein beliebter Badeort der russischen Aristokratie.

Um fair zu bleiben, schließe ich diesen Essay mit einer Anmerkung an Sergei Lawrow, die er hoffentlich an den Chef weiterleiten wird. Die Behandlung von Reisenden, die an Grenzübergängen wie dem im Süden Estlands gegenüber von Pskow nach Russland einreisen, ist ebenfalls beschämend, wenn auch nicht sadistisch. Man muss zwar nicht auf der Straße warten, verliert aber eine Stunde. Die Busse werden fast auseinandergenommen, wahrscheinlich auf der Suche nach versteckten Drogen. Aber die Spürhunde, die ebenfalls eingesetzt werden, können diese Arbeit in wenigen Minuten erledigen. Warum werden mehrere Kontrolleure eingesetzt, um zu überprüfen, ob ihr Kollege den Einreisestempel korrekt in den Reisepass gestempelt hat? Russland sollte sich freuen, diese Besucher willkommen zu heißen und sie schnell weiterreisen zu lassen, anstatt sie langwierigen Befragungen und Kontrollen zu unterziehen. Wenn dieser Unsinn nicht am Flughafen Pulkovo stattfindet, wo Passagiere der Mittelklasse in beide Richtungen, nach Russland hinein und aus Russland heraus, schnell abgefertigt werden, warum dann an den provinziellen Grenzübergängen, an denen hauptsächlich weniger privilegierte Menschen abgefertigt werden?