Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/133199

PressTV: 0:00
For more on that ,we’re joined by independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow who’s with us from Brussels. Mr. Doctorow, welcome to the program. First of all, how do you read into these recent drills carried out by Beijing, specifically given all the tensions that already exist in the global political scene?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
[muted start] –the global political scene, because I agree with that formulation of how we interpret the military exercises. I do not take at face value Beijing’s remarks that these are to frustrate the president of Taiwan for his remarks recently that are condemnatory towards China, and condemning him for independence policies.

Now, these present exercises, I would link directly to the situation in and around Iran. But my point is, the question has been raised among commentators in the United States, in groups that I participate in, how would Russia and China react if the United States and Israel were to make bombing raids on Iran? And it’s generally viewed that Russia will not react directly, because it’s very occupied in this European conflict today.

1:27
As regards China, the situation is rather different. China would be much more affected economically by any attacks on Iran, which has a consequence of the cessation of shipments of oil from the Gulf and from Iran in particular, to China, which as I understand, receives 30 percent of its oil imports from Iran at present. China has a way of reacting, and we are watching it right now. Just as the Americans positioning their B-2 bombers on the island of Diego Garcia, seemingly prepared for attacking either the Houthis with massive bombing or Iran to bomb its nuclear facilities. I think that what China’s now doing is a direct signal to Washington that if you should proceed to attack Iran, you will lose Taiwan the next day.

2:25
This is a serious threat. The United States may have plans to fight several wars at once, but I don’t think they’re ready to fight on three fronts, the Iranian front, the Chinese front, and frankly speaking, the Russian front, because you can imagine very well that the visit of the Chinese foreign minister that’s ongoing in Moscow with Lavrov, with Putin — they are discussing precisely this question of how to respond to an American attack on Iran. The Chinese [have said what they would do]. I think the Russians have the ability to do something massive in their ongoing war with Ukraine, possibly even to strike one or another of the European countries that are providing the basis of support for Ukraine. They haven’t done so. That would be an escalation.

3:16
But if the United States goes rogue and attacks Iran, then I think all bets are off. We will see a response; that will be a military response from China and something significant from Russia.

PressTV:
Okay, we’re going to leave it there. That was independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow joining us from Brussels, and also brings us to an end here on this edition of PressTV’s world news.

3:42
Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time.

In recent weeks, the ‘Judging Freedom’ program has asked me and other interviewees how the Russians might react to a possible US-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. My own response was that direct Russian intervention to defend Iran is not foreseen by their recently concluded comprehensive cooperation agreement and, in fact, Russia is too deeply engaged in its war with Ukraine to get involved militarily elsewhere. However, I pointed to China as having greater reason to intervene on behalf of Iran, given that it receives a large percentage of its oil imports from that country and would risk still greater threat to its oil supplies from any closing of the Straits of Hormuz which Iran would likely carry out if under attack.

In this chat with Press TV yesterday, I developed this idea of Chinese responding to threats against Teheran presently emanating from Washington. Indeed, I am calling the just started Chinese military exercises around Taiwan as a clear signal to Washington to desist with its planning an attack on Iran lest China create a ‘second front’ by laying siege to Taiwan.

In this context, it is also conceivable that Russia would create a ‘third front’ against Washington by responding to any US attack on Iran as cause for some major escalation in its war on Ukraine.

In the past two days, the Chinese Foreign Minister has been visiting Moscow and met not only with his Russian counterpart Lavrov but also with President Putin. What is said about their talks publicly is that they deal with preparations for Chairman Xi’s visit to Moscow for the 9 May celebrations of the 80^th anniversary of Victory in Europe day. Surely they also have discussed joint action to prevent and/or to respond to a US attack on Iran.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/133199

Looking at the to and fro among the main actors in preparations to end the Ukraine-Russia war, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, it is obvious that only one of the three is in a rush: Trump. Zelensky is biding his time in the (vain) hope that he will be bailed out by the Europeans, who have made great promises of support, but so far have not put much on the table in terms of further financial or military aid while they bicker among themselves over whether to align with Kiev or to align with Washington.  Putin is also in no rush to conclude a poorly framed cease-fire agreement that does nothing to assure the security concerns that prompted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are being properly addressed or that the cease-fire is properly monitored so as to exclude violations by either side. Indeed, Vladimir Putin already issued on 27 March an alternative scenario for the war’s conclusion in case Trump’s efforts fail due to opposition from the EU to sanctions relief for Russia or to persistent violations of the prohibition on attacking Russia’s energy infrastructure that are reported day after day. That solution would be to place Ukraine under temporary external governance by the United Nations while elections can be held to put in place a legitimate government that has the confidence of the peopled to negotiate a peace.

So why is Trump in such a rush? Why has he set a final date of 20 April for conclusion of the general cease-fire and threatened both the Russians and the Ukrainians with severe punishment if they do not come to the table and sign on the dotted line by the specified date?

While it is tempting to place 20 April in the context of the Christian holiday of Easter, which this year is celebrated on the same date by both the Eastern and Western churches, that misses the point. The point is that 20 April marks the end of Trump’s first 100 days in office, the end of the relative ‘honeymoon’ period of any new administration after which he can expect heavy attacks from his opponents on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Trump has done very well imposing his political agenda on domestic American affairs. He has used Executive Orders extensively to get his way  to seal the southern border, on deportations of illegal migrants and, as from today, on tariffs against all of America’s trading partners.  However, Executive Orders can solve very little in international affairs. Thus, his threats against Iran to agree to dismantle its nuclear program, to stop building missiles and to stop supporting the Axis of Resistance by 20 April appears to be stymied. The Supreme Leader in Teheran has told him flatly ‘no.’  His attacks on the Houthis in Yemen so far have yielded no results, though the heavy bombing that may yet come cannot be second-guessed.  And his efforts with Russia and Ukraine have yielded paltry results so far.

These disappointments in the foreign policy arena have arisen because the issues are far more complicated, read intractable than Team Trump probably assumed before he took office. This, despite the fact that Trump’s tidal wave of initiatives, both domestic and foreign, have confused his opponents, who did not know how to respond and have given him breathing space.  But with time, the opponents surely will find responses appropriate to the challenges and Trump will face serious problems not only with Iran, Russia and Ukraine, but with his domestic opponents and their allies in the European Union.

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I close this brief essay with a few remarks about the global trade war that Donald Trump will be unleashing when he delivers his speech this afternoon in the Rose Garden.

BBC News this morning had substantial reportage on the issue during which some points were made that we have not heard in mainstream till now.  What we have heard is the opinion of globalist economists on how tariffs are useless, how they will not bring about reindustrialization in the USA, how the American consumer will pay the price and inflation will rise, frustrating the ability of the Federal Reserve to continue bringing down the prime interest rate that business watches so closely.

When discussing whether the tariffs announced this afternoon will be subject to further negotiation and to relaxation for some countries at least, the expert consulted said ‘no,’ it is unlikely that the tariffs will be reduced because they have been set at the levels to be announced based on what revenue they will bring into the U.S. Treasury.  That is of utmost importance to Team Trump as they proceed with their income tax-cutting initiatives both for private individuals and for businesses.  Those income tax cuts have to be offset somehow and the revenue to be collected from tariffs is the solution that Team Trump settled upon.

In the final analysis, how will this trade-off between income taxes on individuals and businesses versus high tariffs play out?

If I may hazard a guess, the tariffs will not greatly affect the shopping basket that the Treasury uses to gauge inflation.  Cars and carrots have very different consumers in socioeconomic terms.  Possibly the most adversely affected will be the upper middle classes who spend heavily on luxuries compared to their incomes.   However, we will have to wait some months to see the actual consequences.

In any case, what we have heard till now about the adverse effects of introducing tariffs has been off the mark and has ignored the true intentions of Team Trump.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Warum hat es Donald Trump so eilig, einen Waffenstillstand in der Ukraine zu schließen?

Wenn man sich das Hin und Her zwischen den Hauptakteuren bei den Vorbereitungen zur Beendigung des Ukraine-Russland-Krieges, Donald Trump, Wladimir Putin und Wolodymyr Selensky, ansieht, so ist es offensichtlich, dass nur einer der drei es eilig hat: Trump. Selensky wartet in der (vergeblichen) Hoffnung ab, dass die Europäer ihm aus der Patsche helfen, die zwar große Versprechen gemacht haben, aber bisher nicht viel in Form von weiterer finanzieller oder militärischer Hilfe auf den Tisch gelegt haben, während sie untereinander darüber streiten, ob sie sich Kiew oder Washington anschließen sollen. Putin hat es auch nicht eilig, ein schlecht ausgearbeitetes Waffenstillstandsabkommen abzuschließen, das nichts dazu beiträgt, die Sicherheitsbedenken, die den Einmarsch Russlands in die Ukraine ausgelöst haben, angemessen zu berücksichtigen oder den Waffenstillstand ordnungsgemäß zu überwachen, um Verstöße von beiden Seiten auszuschließen. Tatsächlich hat Wladimir Putin bereits am 27. März ein alternatives Szenario für den Kriegsabschluss vorgelegt, falls Trumps Bemühungen aufgrund des Widerstands der EU gegen die Aufhebung der Sanktionen gegen Russland oder aufgrund anhaltender Verstöße gegen das Verbot von Angriffen auf die russische Energieinfrastruktur, über die Tag für Tag berichtet wird, scheitern sollten. Diese Lösung bestünde darin, die Ukraine vorübergehend einer externen Verwaltung durch die Vereinten Nationen zu unterstellen, während Wahlen abgehalten werden können, um eine legitime Regierung einzusetzen, die das Vertrauen der Bevölkerung genießt, um einen Frieden auszuhandeln.

Warum also hat es Trump so eilig? Warum hat er den 20. April als endgültiges Datum für den Abschluss des allgemeinen Waffenstillstands festgelegt und sowohl den Russen als auch den Ukrainern mit schweren Strafen gedroht, wenn sie nicht an den Verhandlungstisch kommen und bis zum festgelegten Datum unterschreiben?

Es ist zwar verlockend, den 20. April in den Kontext des christlichen Osterfestes zu stellen, das in diesem Jahr sowohl von den östlichen als auch von den westlichen Kirchen am selben Tag gefeiert wird, aber das geht am Thema vorbei. Der 20. April markiert das Ende von Trumps ersten 100 Tagen im Amt, das Ende der relativen „Flitterwochen“ jeder neuen Regierung, nach denen er mit heftigen Angriffen seiner Gegner auf beiden Seiten des Kongresses rechnen muss.

Trump hat seine politische Agenda in Bezug auf innenpolitische Angelegenheiten in den USA sehr gut durchgesetzt. Er hat sich mit Hilfe von Durchführungsverordnungen durchgesetzt, um die südliche Grenze abzuriegeln, illegale Migranten abzuschieben und, ab heute, Zölle gegen alle Handelspartner Amerikas zu verhängen. Durchführungsverordnungen können jedoch in internationalen Angelegenheiten nur sehr wenig lösen. Daher scheinen seine Drohungen gegen den Iran, bis zum 20. April einer Demontage seines Atomprogramms zuzustimmen, den Bau von Raketen einzustellen und die Unterstützung der Achse des Widerstands zu beenden, ins Leere zu laufen. Der Oberste Führer in Teheran hat rundheraus „Nein“ dazu gesagt. Die Angriffe auf die Huthis im Jemen haben bisher keine Ergebnisse gebracht, auch wenn schwere Bombenangriffe, die noch kommen könnten, nicht auszuschließen sind. Und seine Bemühungen um eine Annäherung an Russland und die Ukraine haben bisher nur dürftige Ergebnisse gebracht.

Diese Enttäuschungen in der Außenpolitik sind darauf zurückzuführen, dass die Probleme weitaus komplizierter, ja unlösbar sind, als das Team Trump vor seinem Amtsantritt wahrscheinlich angenommen hatte. Und das, obwohl Trumps Flutwelle an Initiativen, sowohl im Inland als auch im Ausland, seine Gegner verwirrt hat, die nicht wussten, wie sie reagieren sollten, und ihm eine Atempause verschafft haben. Aber mit der Zeit werden die Gegner sicherlich Antworten finden, die den Herausforderungen angemessen sind, und Trump wird nicht nur mit dem Iran, Russland und der Ukraine, sondern auch mit seinen innenpolitischen Gegnern und deren Verbündeten in der Europäischen Union ernsthafte Probleme bekommen.

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Ich schließe diesen kurzen Aufsatz mit einigen Bemerkungen über den globalen Handelskrieg, den Donald Trump entfesseln wird, wenn er heute Nachmittag seine Rede im Rosengarten hält.

BBC News hat heute Morgen ausführlich über dieses Thema berichtet und dabei einige Punkte angesprochen, die wir bisher noch nicht in den Mainstream-Medien gehört haben. Was wir gehört haben, ist die Meinung globalistischer Ökonomen darüber, dass Zölle nutzlos seien, dass sie keine Reindustrialisierung in den USA bewirken werden, dass der amerikanische Verbraucher den Preis dafür zahlen wird und dass die Inflation steigen wird, was die Fähigkeit der Federal Reserve, den Leitzins weiter zu senken, den die Wirtschaft so genau beobachtet, zunichte machen wird.

Auf die Frage, ob die heute Nachmittag angekündigten Zölle Gegenstand weiterer Verhandlungen sein werden und ob sie zumindest für einige Länder gelockert werden, antwortete der befragte Experte mit „Nein“. Es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass die Zölle gesenkt werden, da sie auf der Grundlage der Einnahmen, die sie in die US-Staatskasse bringen werden, auf einem bestimmten Niveau festgelegt wurden. Dies ist für das Team Trump von größter Bedeutung, da es seine Initiativen zur Senkung der Einkommenssteuer sowohl für Privatpersonen als auch für Unternehmen fortsetzt. Diese Einkommenssteuersenkungen müssen irgendwie ausgeglichen werden, und die Einnahmen aus Zöllen sind die Lösung, auf die sich das Team Trump geeinigt hat.

Wie wird sich letztlich dieser Kompromiss zwischen Einkommenssteuern für Privatpersonen und Unternehmen und hohen Zöllen auswirken?

Wenn ich eine Vermutung äußern darf, werden die Zölle den Warenkorb, den das Finanzministerium zur Messung der Inflation verwendet, nicht wesentlich beeinflussen. Autos und Karotten haben in sozioökonomischer Hinsicht sehr unterschiedliche Verbraucher. Am stärksten betroffen sein werden wahrscheinlich die oberen Mittelschichten, die im Vergleich zu ihrem Einkommen viel Geld für Luxusgüter ausgeben. Allerdings werden wir noch einige Monate warten müssen, um die tatsächlichen Folgen zu sehen.

Auf jeden Fall waren die bisherigen Aussagen über die negativen Auswirkungen der Einführung von Zöllen unzutreffend und ignorierten die wahren Absichten des Trump-Teams.

About nine months ago, I alerted readers of these pages to a feature length article in The Financial Times which described the generalized prosperity in Russia since the start of the Special Military Operation and transition to a war economy. That article quoted extensively from Rosstat and other Russian official sources. It highlighted the fact that truck drivers were now earning four times what they made before the war and how Russia’s lower classes did especially well under conditions of full employment that even penetrated to the one-factory towns that languished as from the Yeltsin years of the mid-1990s when that factory shut its doors. Considering that over-all the FT is notoriously anti-Putin, anti-Russian that one article was something to celebrate.

Now in today’s online edition of the FT we find another feature article entitled ‘Russia’s war economy fuels rustbelt revival” that is more focused geographically in long deprived regions and focused topically on the consumer sector of goods and services.

See https://www.ft.com/content/559ca59f-7fdc-4c47-8e87-edb562acdc7b

Given that many of you may not have subscriptions to the FT and cannot access the article, I will provide here some indicative information that it carries.

The opening couple of paragraphs set our expectations:

Russian retailers are rushing to set up shop in the country’s rustbelt, tapping into new wealth flowing from soldiers’ bonuses and rampant military production.

Shops, restaurants and gym chains have opened up in Russia’s most deprived regions, which serve as recruiting pools for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The country’s war economy has also created jobs, increased salaries for factory workers and injected unprecedented sums of money into historically poor towns and cities.

The regions used for this study include Kirov oblast, Tyumen oblast, Penza oblast, Kabardino-Balkarian, Irkutsk oblast, Khabarovsk krai, and Khanty-Mansia. The geography stretches from Central Russia out to the Far East.

The reporter actually did some independent research, as we see in the following:

The number of retail and hospitality jobs advertised in the southeastern Khabarovsk region almost doubled in the year to January 2025, according to Financial Times analysis of vacancies posted by a sample of Russian businesses.

The FT also relied on official Russian statistics (Rosstat), as for example, the chart on nationwide unemployment from 2017 to 2025.

The remarks about how army enlistment has affected family budgets is precise to a given sample region, Mari El, which offers $35,600 as the starting bonus for army recruits. That sum is three times the annual salary in the region. To be sure, the sign-up bonus varies from region to region. Then there is the pay-out in case of death while on active duty. That comes to 12 million rubles, or $140,000.

Yes, there is heightened inflation ever since the SMO began, jumping from perhaps 4% to the near 10% per annum now.

On the one hand, the journalist tells us that “wage increases are being undermined by high inflation.” On the other hand, we read that “Nominal incomes in the traditionally disadvantaged republic [Mari El] have grown by almost 80 per cent from December 2021 to 2024 compared to a roughly 60 per cent increase in Moscow, according to Rosstat…”  You can buy a lot of prime steaks when your salary goes up by 80% and food only goes up by 10%.

What are the signs of prosperity that the article points to?  They are the opening of beauty salons, the trend for all women to go to manicurists, the entry of national chain supermarkets and fast-food outlets, the long waiting times to reserve a table at quality restaurants, the opening of a private dog grooming service in one town.  In short, the generalizations are based on examination of how people are living their daily lives.

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Note that Max Seddon and the other Russia-bashing FT reporters based in their Riga, Latvia offices had no role in preparing this article. Riga was an anti-Russia center when George Kennan did his language studies there prior to entering the U.S. diplomatic service and it remains precisely that today.

The lead author of this article, Daria Mosolova, is a relatively recent hire. Her LinkedIn entry tells us that she got her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature (French) at University College London and then took an advanced degree in international relations at the London School of Economics. While at LCU, she was for one year editor in chief of Pi Media, which is their student journalism society.

Mosolova joined the FT in 2022 as a trainee and is in rotating 6-month assignments to various FT desks. She served one term in Brussels and now is based in London, assisting with Russia coverage in the area of economics and business. It will be interesting to see how long Mosolova remains at the FT. But she likely has a promising career ahead of her if the editors have tolerated her dollop of truth amidst their general Russia-bashing.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Manchmal sagen die Mainstream-Medien die Wahrheit …

Vor etwa neun Monaten machte ich die Leser dieser Seiten auf einen ausführlichen Artikel in The Financial Times aufmerksam, in dem der allgemeine Wohlstand in Russland seit Beginn der militärischen Spezialoperation und dem Übergang zu einer Kriegswirtschaft beschrieben wurde. In diesem Artikel wurde ausführlich aus Rosstat und anderen offiziellen russischen Quellen zitiert. Er hob die Tatsache hervor, dass Lkw-Fahrer jetzt viermal so viel verdienten wie vor dem Krieg und dass es den unteren Schichten Russlands unter den Bedingungen der Vollbeschäftigung besonders gut gehe, die sogar in die Ein-Fabrik-Städte vorgedrungen sei, die seit den Jelzin-Jahren Mitte der 1990er Jahre, als diese Fabrik ihre Tore schloss, darbten. Wenn man bedenkt, dass die FT insgesamt notorisch anti-Putin und anti-russisch eingestellt ist, war dieser eine Artikel ein Grund zum Feiern.

In der heutigen Online-Ausgabe der FT finden wir einen weiteren Leitartikel mit dem Titel „Russlands Kriegswirtschaft befeuert die Wiederbelebung des Rostgürtels“, der sich geografisch stärker auf lange benachteiligte Regionen und thematisch auf den Konsumsektor für Waren und Dienstleistungen konzentriert.

Siehe https://www.ft.com/content/559ca59f-7fdc-4c47-8e87-edb562acdc7b

Da viele von Ihnen möglicherweise kein Abonnement für die FT haben und nicht auf den Artikel zugreifen können, werde ich hier einige Informationen aus dem Artikel wiedergeben.

Die ersten Absätze setzen unsere Erwartungen:

Russische Einzelhändler beeilen sich, Geschäfte im Rostgürtel des Landes zu eröffnen, und erschließen sich neuen Wohlstand, der aus den Soldzulagen und der zügellosen Militärproduktion stammt.

In den am stärksten benachteiligten Regionen Russlands wurden Geschäfte, Restaurants und Fitnessketten eröffnet, die als Rekrutierungspools für Wladimir Putins Invasion in der Ukraine dienen. Die Kriegswirtschaft des Landes hat auch Arbeitsplätze geschaffen, die Gehälter der Fabrikarbeiter erhöht und historisch armen Städten und Gemeinden beispiellose Geldsummen eingebracht.

Zu den für diese Studie herangezogenen Regionen gehören die Oblast Kirow, die Oblast Tjumen, die Oblast Pensa, die Kabardino-Balkarische Republik, die Oblast Irkutsk, die Region Chabarowsk und die Region Chanty-Mansijsk. Die geografische Lage erstreckt sich von Zentralrussland bis in den Fernen Osten.

Der Reporter hat tatsächlich einige unabhängige Recherchen durchgeführt, wie wir im Folgenden sehen werden:

Die Zahl der ausgeschriebenen Stellen im Einzelhandel und Gastgewerbe in der südöstlichen Region Chabarowsk hat sich im Jahr bis Januar 2025 fast verdoppelt, wie aus einer Analyse der Financial Times über die von einer Stichprobe russischer Unternehmen ausgeschriebenen Stellen hervorgeht.

Die FT stützte sich auch auf offizielle russische Statistiken (Rosstat), wie zum Beispiel die Grafik über die landesweite Arbeitslosigkeit von 2017 bis 2025.

Die Ausführungen darüber, wie sich die Rekrutierung in die Armee auf die Familienbudgets ausgewirkt hat, beziehen sich auf eine bestimmte Beispielregion, Mari El, die 35.600 US-Dollar als Einstiegsbonus für Rekruten in der Armee bietet. Diese Summe entspricht dem Dreifachen des Jahresgehalts in der Region. Natürlich variiert der Anmeldebonus von Region zu Region. Hinzu kommt die Auszahlung im Todesfall während des aktiven Dienstes. Diese beträgt 12 Millionen Rubel oder 140.000 US-Dollar.

Ja, seit Beginn der SMO ist die Inflation gestiegen, von vielleicht 4 % auf jetzt fast 10 % pro Jahr.

Einerseits berichtet der Journalist, dass „Lohnerhöhungen durch die hohe Inflation untergraben werden“. Andererseits lesen wir: „Die Nominaleinkommen in der traditionell benachteiligten Republik [Mari El] sind von Dezember 2021 bis 2024 um fast 80 Prozent gestiegen, verglichen mit einem Anstieg von etwa 60 Prozent in Moskau, laut Rosstat …“ Mit einem um 80 % höheren Gehalt und einer Lebensmittelpreissteigerung von nur 10 % kann man sich viele erstklassige Steaks leisten.

Auf welche Anzeichen für Wohlstand weist der Artikel hin? Die Eröffnung von Schönheitssalons, der Trend, dass alle Frauen zum Maniküren gehen, die Eröffnung von Supermärkten und Fast-Food-Restaurants nationaler Ketten, die langen Wartezeiten, um einen Tisch in guten Restaurants zu reservieren, die Eröffnung eines privaten Hundesalons in einer Stadt. Kurz gesagt, die Verallgemeinerungen basieren auf der Untersuchung, wie die Menschen ihren Alltag leben.

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Bitte beachten Sie, dass Max Seddon und die anderen Russland-kritischen FT-Reporter, die in ihren Büros in Riga, Lettland, arbeiten, an der Erstellung dieses Artikels nicht beteiligt waren. Riga war ein antirussisches Zentrum, als George Kennan dort vor seinem Eintritt in den diplomatischen Dienst der USA Sprachstudien absolvierte, und daran hat sich bis heute nichts geändert.

Die Hauptautorin dieses Artikels, Daria Mosolova, wurde erst vor relativ kurzer Zeit eingestellt. Ihrem LinkedIn-Eintrag entnehmen wir, dass sie ihren Bachelor-Abschluss in vergleichender Literaturwissenschaft (Französisch) am University College London erworben und anschließend einen Aufbaustudiengang in internationalen Beziehungen an der London School of Economics absolviert hat. Während ihrer Zeit am LCU war sie ein Jahr lang Chefredakteurin von Pi Media, der studentischen Journalismusgesellschaft der Universität.

Mosolova kam 2022 als Praktikantin zur FT und absolviert derzeit sechsmonatige Rotationspraktika an verschiedenen FT-Schreibtischen. Sie verbrachte ein Semester in Brüssel und arbeitet nun in London, wo sie bei der Berichterstattung über Russland im Bereich Wirtschaft und Unternehmen unterstützt. Es wird interessant sein zu sehen, wie lange Mosolova bei der FT bleibt. Aber sie hat wahrscheinlich eine vielversprechende Karriere vor sich, wenn die Redakteure ihren Schuss Wahrheit inmitten ihres allgemeinen Russland-Bashings tolerieren.

Yesterday evening’s Russian news programs carried a great deal of information that is highly relevant to our understanding of how the Kremlin now views the prospects for Donald Trump’s peace initiative succeeding and on how the war may play out should the ongoing cease-fire talks fail. Yet none of this has been picked up by major Western media to date. We may assume that the usual explanation for such silence applies in this case: Western governments do not yet know what to make of it and how to react, so the media are waiting for a signal from above on the proper spin for their eventual coverage. 

Let us now take the plunge, summarize what Putin said, look at what other news of the day provides as context for his remarks, and synthesize all of this to come to some conclusions.

First, I offer the links to the presidential website entry on Putin’s visit to the nuclear submarine Arkhangelsk near Murmansk on 27 March which includes his statements about the present situation in the Ukrainian army that bear upon the recommendation he makes for how the war may end.

Putin ‘s visit to the Arkhangelsk came on day two of his visit to Russia’s major naval base in Murmansk where on day one he spoke to a gathering dedicated to the Russian activities in the Arctic and emphasized his government’s commitment to restoring Russia’s operating bases in the Far North and to making living conditions, wages and other considerations very attractive for would-be Russian settlers. The objective is to properly exploit the defense, logistics and natural resources possibilities of the region under conditions of close competition with the USA and other major global powers for control of the Arctic.

Putin’s visit to the submarine Archangelsk on day two followed successful completion of its sea trials and imminent entry into active service. His chat with staff inside has the appearance of being off the cuff, in answer to a question posed by a serviceman on the submarine. But clearly what he said was well prepared in advance: it was programmatic and was directed over the heads of those on board the ship to leaders in Washington, New York (UN), London, Paris and Brussels. Whether the remarks were properly received and considered in the West is another matter.

English version:  http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/76557

Russian version   http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76557

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Putin told the crew on the Arkhangelsk that Russia has the strategic initiative along the entire line of confrontation in the Donbas and Kursk and is proceeding with liberating its territory. In Lugansk oblast, 98% of the territory is now in Russian hands.  In Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhie, more than 70% of the land is now controlled by the Russians.

At the same time, he noted changes in the enemy forces that bear upon the further conduct of the war and on its outcome. Specifically, the neo-Nazi Azov battalion that from the first days after the coup d’etat of 2014 was a major force determining government policy in an extreme nationalist direction, notwithstanding their integration into the regular armed forces of Ukraine have kept their Nazi ideology and behavior intact and now appear to be taking control of the army. Azov units played a big role in the invasion and occupation of the Kursk oblast, where they committed atrocities against the civilian population and left their swastikas on facades of buildings, as Russian television has shown.

These observations by Putin must be put together with news separately reported by the Ministry of Defense that the Ukrainians have been violating the terms of the partial cease-fire dating from 18 March and have been attacking Russian energy infrastructure each day, causing severe damage to some important gas and oil installations. This suggests that Zelensky has lost control over his own armed forces. Accordingly, the Russian Ministry has announced that it reserves the right to suspend the cease-fire at any time and to respond in kind by renewing attacks on the energy facilities of Ukraine.

All of the foregoing must be taken into consideration when we look at the single most important part of what Vladimir Putin said on board the submarine Arkhangelsk on the 27^th.

He returned to the issue which Russia raised some months ago when responding to candidate Trump’s proposal to broker a cease-fire in the first days after taking office, namely Russian objections that Ukraine does not have a legitimate president with whom a lasting agreement can be negotiated. Putin now added that since all Ukrainian officials are appointed by their president, there is no legitimate government in Ukraine at any level.

For this reason, he now proposed that Ukraine must be put under temporary management from outside, and he called for this to be undertaken by the United Nations.  In that case, the USA, Europe, Russia, China and other members of the Security Council would be jointly responsible for that temporary external control, whose job it would be to supervise free and fair elections and install a new government corresponding to the wishes of the Ukrainian people. That government would then enter into negotiations for a treaty that will end the war.

Without saying it directly, Putin was indicating Russia’s next scenario should the ongoing U.S.-brokered cease-fire and peace fail.

That his proposal would not meet with approval by other interested parties was surely taken for granted. Indeed, no sooner did Putin make his proposal than UN Secretary General Antonio Gutterez declared that Ukraine does have a legitimate government. We may assume that the EU will say the same shortly.

No matter.  Putin intended his proposal to be a scenario that would be activated after the present talks fail, after the Russians finally smash the Ukrainian armed forces and force a capitulation. This could happen after the Russian army pushes back the Ukrainians to the Dnepr River. Given that Russia has no interest in taking all of Ukraine, it would then call for the outside collective management of the rump Ukrainian state until a proper government could be elected for conclusion of a peace treaty.

                                                                     *****

Apart from Putin’s remarks on board the Arkhangelsk, which is a general-purpose ship with a variety of missiles on board, he also officiated remotely at the commissioning of another new nuclear submarine, the Perm, which is the first of its kind carrying primarily Zirkon nuclear armed hypersonic cruise missiles with 1,000 km range.  In a separate statement about the Perm, he said that it was capable of leveling London to the ground. This was a delayed response to recent statements coming from British defense officials that their four Trident submarines could destroy 40 Russian cities, a notion which Russian military experts have trashed in state television broadcasts.

It is also worth noting, that while in Murmansk, Putin spoke about the sharp increase in naval shipbuilding now going on in Russia, much of it in the shipyards of St Petersburg.  He was accompanied to Murmansk and seconded in his explanations of the new navy vessels now under construction by Andrei Kostin, CEO of the VTB (former USSR Foreign Trade Bank), who has been put in charge of the shipbuilding industry as well.  Note that Kostin, like his bank, is now highly visible in Russia.  VTB commercials fill the airwaves during television intermissions, largely replacing the ad space previously taken by the country’s largest savings bank, Sber. 

Kostin is a strong Putin supporter and a hard-line patriot. He has now taken the place in public life formerly held by Sber chairman German Gref, who was one of the last prominent Liberals in the Putin entourage.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Wichtige politische Erklärungen Putins in Murmansk am 27. März, die von westlichen Medien ignoriert wurden

Die russischen Nachrichtensendungen von gestern Abend enthielten viele Informationen, die für unser Verständnis der aktuellen Einschätzung des Kremls hinsichtlich der Erfolgsaussichten von Donald Trumps Friedensinitiative und der möglichen Entwicklung des Krieges im Falle eines Scheiterns der laufenden Waffenstillstandsgespräche von großer Bedeutung sind. Bisher wurde jedoch nichts davon von den großen westlichen Medien aufgegriffen. Wir können davon ausgehen, dass in diesem Fall die übliche Erklärung für ein solches Schweigen gilt: Die westlichen Regierungen wissen noch nicht, was sie davon halten sollen und wie sie reagieren sollen, sodass die Medien auf ein Signal von oben warten, wie sie ihre Berichterstattung richtig gestalten sollen.

Lassen Sie uns nun den Sprung wagen, zusammenzufassen, was Putin gesagt hat, uns anzusehen, was andere Nachrichten des Tages als Kontext für seine Äußerungen liefern, und all dies zusammenzufassen, um zu einigen Schlussfolgerungen zu gelangen.

Zunächst biete ich die Links zum Eintrag auf der Website des Präsidenten über Putins Besuch des Atom-U-Boots Archangelsk in der Nähe von Murmansk am 27. März an, der seine Aussagen über die aktuelle Situation in der ukrainischen Armee enthält, die sich auf seine Einschätzung über das Ende des Krieges beziehen.

Englische Version:  http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/76557

Russische Version   http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76557

                                                               *****

Putin teilte der Besatzung der „Archangelsk“ mit, dass Russland entlang der gesamten Konfrontationslinie im Donbass und in Kursk die strategische Initiative habe und mit der Befreiung seines Territoriums fortfahre. Im Oblast Lugansk befinden sich nun 98 % des Territoriums in russischer Hand. In Donezk, Cherson und Saporischschja werden nun mehr als 70 % des Landes von den Russen kontrolliert.

Gleichzeitig stellte er Veränderungen bei den feindlichen Streitkräften fest, die sich auf den weiteren Verlauf des Krieges und auf dessen Ausgang auswirken. Insbesondere das neonazistische Asow-Bataillon, das seit den ersten Tagen nach dem Staatsstreich von 2014 eine wichtige Kraft war, die die Regierungspolitik in eine extrem nationalistische Richtung gelenkt hat, hat trotz seiner Integration in die regulären Streitkräfte der Ukraine seine nationalsozialistische Ideologie und sein Verhalten beibehalten und scheint nun die Kontrolle über die Armee zu übernehmen. Die Asow-Einheiten spielten eine große Rolle bei der Invasion und Besetzung des Oblast Kursk, wo sie Gräueltaten an der Zivilbevölkerung verübten und ihre Hakenkreuze an den Fassaden von Gebäuden hinterließen, wie das russische Fernsehen gezeigt hat.

Diese Äußerungen Putins müssen im Zusammenhang mit einer separaten Meldung des Verteidigungsministeriums gesehen werden, wonach die Ukrainer gegen die Bedingungen des seit dem 18. März geltenden teilweisen Waffenstillstands verstoßen und täglich russische Energieinfrastrukturen angreifen, wodurch einige wichtige Gas- und Ölanlagen schwer beschädigt wurden. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass Selensky die Kontrolle über seine eigenen Streitkräfte verloren hat. Dementsprechend hat das russische Ministerium angekündigt, dass es sich das Recht vorbehält, die Waffenruhe jederzeit auszusetzen und mit erneuten Angriffen auf die Energieanlagen der Ukraine zu reagieren.

All dies muss berücksichtigt werden, wenn wir uns den wichtigsten Teil dessen ansehen, was Wladimir Putin am 27 März an Bord des U-Boots Archangelsk gesagt hat.

Er kam auf das Thema zurück, das Russland vor einigen Monaten angesprochen hatte, als es auf den Vorschlag des Kandidaten Trump reagierte, in den ersten Tagen nach seinem Amtsantritt einen Waffenstillstand zu vermitteln, nämlich die Einwände Russlands, dass die Ukraine keinen legitimen Präsidenten habe, mit dem ein dauerhaftes Abkommen ausgehandelt werden könne. Putin fügte nun hinzu, dass es in der Ukraine auf keiner Ebene eine legitime Regierung gebe, da alle ukrainischen Amtsträger von ihrem Präsidenten ernannt würden.

Aus diesem Grund schlug er nun vor, dass die Ukraine vorübergehend von außen verwaltet werden müsse, und er forderte, dass dies von den Vereinten Nationen übernommen werden solle. In diesem Fall wären die USA, Europa, Russland, China und andere Mitglieder des Sicherheitsrates gemeinsam für diese vorübergehende externe Kontrolle verantwortlich, deren Aufgabe es wäre, freie und faire Wahlen zu überwachen und eine neue Regierung einzusetzen, die den Wünschen des ukrainischen Volkes entspricht. Diese Regierung würde dann Verhandlungen über einen Vertrag aufnehmen, der den Krieg beenden würde.

Ohne es direkt zu sagen, deutete Putin das nächste Szenario Russlands an, falls der derzeitige, von den USA vermittelte Waffenstillstand und Frieden scheitern sollten.

Dass sein Vorschlag bei anderen interessierten Parteien nicht auf Zustimmung stoßen würde, war sicherlich selbstverständlich. Tatsächlich erklärte UN-Generalsekretär Antonio Guterres, kaum dass Putin seinen Vorschlag gemacht hatte, dass die Ukraine eine legitime Regierung habe. Wir können davon ausgehen, dass die EU in Kürze dasselbe sagen wird.

Das ist jedoch nicht wichtig. Putin beabsichtigte mit seinem Vorschlag, ein Szenario vorzuschlagen, das aktiviert werden sollte, nachdem die aktuellen Gespräche gescheitert sind, nachdem die Russen die ukrainischen Streitkräfte endgültig zerschlagen und eine Kapitulation erzwungen haben. Dies könnte geschehen, nachdem die russische Armee die Ukrainer bis zum Dnepr zurückgedrängt hat. Da Russland kein Interesse daran hat, die gesamte Ukraine zu übernehmen, würde es dann eine kollektive Verwaltung des ukrainischen Reststaates durch externe Akteure fordern, bis eine ordnungsgemäße Regierung für den Abschluss eines Friedensvertrags gewählt werden könnte.

                                                                     *****

Abgesehen von Putins Bemerkungen an Bord der Archangelsk, einem Mehrzweckschiff mit einer Vielzahl von Raketen an Bord, nahm er auch aus der Ferne an der Indienststellung eines weiteren neuen Atom-U-Boots teil, der Perm, dem ersten seiner Art, das hauptsächlich mit nuklear bewaffneten Zirkon-Hyperschall-Marschflugkörpern mit einer Reichweite von 1.000 km ausgestattet ist. In einer separaten Erklärung zur Perm sagte er, dass sie in der Lage sei, London dem Erdboden gleichzumachen. Dies war eine verspätete Reaktion auf die jüngsten Aussagen britischer Verteidigungsbeamter, dass ihre vier Trident-U-Boote 40 russische Städte zerstören könnten, eine Behauptung, die russische Militärexperten in Fernsehsendungen des Staatsfernsehens widerlegt haben.

Es ist auch erwähnenswert, dass Putin in Murmansk über den starken Anstieg im Marineschiffbau sprach, der derzeit in Russland stattfindet, und zwar größtenteils in den Werften von St. Petersburg. Er wurde nach Murmansk begleitet und bei seinen Erklärungen zu den neuen Marineschiffen, die derzeit im Bau sind, von Andrei Kostin, CEO der VTB (ehemalige Außenhandelsbank der UdSSR), unterstützt, der auch für die Schiffbauindustrie zuständig ist. Beachten Sie, dass Kostin, wie auch seine Bank, in Russland mittlerweile sehr präsent sind. VTB-Werbespots füllen die Werbeblöcke im Fernsehen und ersetzen weitgehend die Werbefläche, die zuvor von der größten Sparkasse des Landes, Sber, eingenommen wurde.

Kostin ist ein starker Unterstützer Putins und ein Patriot der harten Linie. Er hat nun den Platz im öffentlichen Leben eingenommen, den zuvor der Sber-Vorsitzende German Gref innehatte, der einer der letzten prominenten Liberalen im Gefolge Putins war.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmuHYvItP5A
Napolitano: 0:31
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, March 27th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, a pleasure. As always, thank you very much for joining us.

The United States at the present moment is embroiled in a controversy over this Signal app chat that the president’s senior national security advisors had and whether or not secret military plans were accidentally or intentionally revealed to a journalist. It’s clear that these were secret plans. So taking a step back from this, first of all, how is the American attack on Yemen viewed in Europe? And second, how is this kerfuffle over the sloppiness of Trump’s senior national security people viewed, if at all, in Europe?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, in Europe, the feeling about Yemen is much in line with the United States’ official position. There’s not much difference there. That it is causing a great deal of difficulty because of the near closure of the Suez Canal to a lot of shipping. And after all, 40% of the traffic that goes through the canal and through the Red Sea is actually European shipping. So the American position to try to restrain the Houthis is viewed favorably. As regards the security leak, such as it was, I think in Europe there is concern over the professionalism of the American administration in keeping things secret. It plays into the notion. Just one moment. I’m very sorry, but I have to–

Napolitano: 2:48
Sure, sure, sure. I guess that was a phone ringing or somebody at his front door. But he’ll be back with us in just a second. We’re talking to Professor Gilbert Doctorow who just stepped away from the camera for a moment because of some unexpected visitor. I trust it was a visitor and not an intruder.

Doctorow:
Oh just one moment. It’s a–

Napolitano:
All right these … things happen; it’s happened to me, can happen to you. Welcome to the modern world of television, where we do it from venues not always as insulated as we’d like. Okay, you were explaining to us the European concern about either the American attitude about security or the American attitude about Europe. I mean, I’m going to ask you about Vice President Vance and what he said about Europe, but go ahead, please.

Doctorow:
Well, no particular remark was made on Vance and his disparaging remarks with respect to Europe. But there was the opportunity, just as the Democrats seized upon this in the United States Congress, there was the opportunity to criticize the appointees that Trump had brought in his high positions in his administration, for lack of professionalism, for amateurism. And so they seized upon that. Any angle they can have to take against Trump will be used in that way.

4:22
As for the Russians, their interest in this was very precise. The first reaction was: probably this wasn’t inadvertent. The inclusion of the Atlantic magazine journalist was an act of sabotage by some middle-level functionary in this intelligence services who wanted to embarrass the boss. That was the first Russian reaction. After that, they took this broader.

They are very much trustful now with Trump because– this was a question that you and I discussed several weeks ago, do they trust Trump? Is there some kind of mutual trust which is essential for any negotiations to proceed successfully? And I would say from the Russian standpoint, the trust is there. For the talk that Trump and Putin had, the two and a half hours, it was clear that the Russians were persuaded that they can do business with Trump the same way that Margaret Thatcher was persuaded that the UK and the US could do business with Gorbachev. And that is essential.

5:37
Now, they’re concerned that he is under attack, and they are uncertain that he can withstand the opposition from Europe and from the United States to proceed with the implementation of his government.

Napolitano:
When you say he is under attack, you mean Trump?

Doctorow:
Exactly right. They are concerned that Trump is under attack. And this is an American issue to be solved by the Americans alone. The Russians are bystanders and that’s how they see the situation. There’s nothing that they can do.

6:07
But they are concerned, because they’re satisfied that he is going to bring, impose on the Ukrainians essentially what are the Russian demands to end the war. And in that perspective, anything that holds up Trump, holds up their achieving their goals.

Napolitano: 6:31
I want to play you a clip from Jeffrey Goldberg, who’s the journalist whose telephone number was included on these texts. We don’t have an explanation, a rational explanation as to how that happened yet. But this is fascinating because he mentions the Chinese, and I’m anxious to hear your thoughts on this, professor Doctorow. Chris, cut number six.

Goldberg:
The problem is, one of the problems is, is that the phones themselves are targets of foreign intelligence operations, right? I mean, the Chinese, the Russians, Iranians, others, obviously would love to know what’s happening inside Pete Hegseth’s phone, what’s happening inside Marco Rubio’s phone.

And, you know, there are all kinds of very sophisticated operations, And we know about some of these and we don’t know about others. So, so that’s the reason that they’re supposed to do things behind a kind of like a digital wall of protection and not just be out of the supermarket, out at a restaurant running errands.

ABC interviewer: 7:34
So let me follow up on that then. Do you think they were using Signal because they didn’t they didn’t want the communication to be archived?

Goldberg:
I mean, you’d have to ask them. I mean, I think that’s one plausible explanation. Y

Napolitano: 7:50
You know, when when Mike Waltz, whom I’ve known for years, and whose patriotism really can’t be questioned, sometimes his judgment can, was asked about this by my friend and former colleague Laura Ingram, he gave a bizarre answer. And he said, apparently his cell phone got too close to somebody else’s cell phone, and that person’s number was sucked into his. And I don’t know if that makes sense from a technical perspective.

You’re a historian. I don’t know if that makes sense from your understanding, but we still don’t know why the man whose face and voice we just heard was brought into this conversation. But we do know that President, excuse me, that Vice President Cheney used Jeffrey Goldberg extensively to promote administration propaganda in favor of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Your thoughts.

Doctorow: 8:51
Well, all of what you just said would fall in line with the early Russian interpretation that this was an act of sabotage by somebody lower down in the administration who wanted to embarrass, as they succeeded in doing, Hegseth and Waltz. And so to call into question the [professionalism] of the top people in the Trump administration. It’s entirely possible. The notion of telephone being sucked into your phone, well, of course that goes on. But it goes on with your willingness. I don’t know that it can be done against your interests and without your participation. People normally do exchange telephone numbers–

Napolitano: 9:34
Yeah, of course. But Mike Waltz told Laura Ingram that he intended for some other person’s number whose name he wouldn’t identify. I don’t blame him for not identifying. And somehow Jeffrey Goldberg’s got in there by mistake, and nobody bothered to check it.

Remember, this was a texting thread that went on for days. This is not a 30-second conversation. There are pages and pages of the conversations to which Mr. Goldberg was given access, which he recorded and which his magazine has now published. And now the issue of espionage comes up.

10:17
This is the same allegation made against Hillary Clinton, the failure to safeguard secret information, whether it’s been formally classified or not. It’s attack plans by definition it’s secret.

Doctorow:
Yeah, exactly. The sins of the present administration, including this disparagement of European allies by JD Vance, takes us back to Victoria Nuland and her famous remarks about what the EU could do with itself in her talk with the American ambassador in Kiev, [Piat], just before the coup d’état in 2014. These are sins that have been committed before and will be committed in the future by error, by misfortune in the case of Victoria Nuland that her telephone call was intercepted by the Russians, and was then posted on the internet.

11:18
I don’t see anything fatal to the standing of Trump’s appointees. It is embarrassing. The Democrats are seizing on what they can, since they are otherwise totally confused about Trump’s policies.

Napolitano: 11:36
Have the have the Europeans seized on Vice President Vance’s rather flippant comment about “I hate to be seen as helping the Europeans?”

Doctorow:
No, I haven’t seen any remarks on that. That would take them off in a slightly different direction. They saw enough of Vance during his Munich speech, condemning them as being undemocratic. So this was a rather minor, minor critique.

Napolitano:
Good point, good point. This is nothing compared to that. Does the Kremlin view Donald Trump as a man of peace? And before you answer that, just think of Yemen and think of Gaza.

Doctorow:
No, I don’t think they see him as a man of peace. They see him as a person who can bring peace to their war. They see him as a person with whom they can do business, as I said a couple of moments ago.

What he is doing in Gaza, of course, is repugnant to the Kremlin. What they are, what their attacks on Lebanon, these actions by Israel enabled by the United States, of course, are condemned in Moscow. The notion that Trump is threatening Iran with military action and the B-52s are flying in the area to remind them that the United States is always ready from Diego Garcia island to bomb the hell out of Iran. This is not viewed with much pleasure from the Kremlin. However, nobody there believes that there will be an attack on [Iran].

Napolitano: 13:23
Do you think that if there is an American attack on Iran, obviously coordinated with the Israelis, that the Russians would get involved militarily in defense of their new friend?

Doctorow:
I think it’s more likely the Chinese would get involved militarily. The Chinese have a lot more than a friendship to lose. They have 30% of their oil supplies are coming now from Iran. So they would have a vital interest in punishing the United States severely for anything it does against Iran.

Napolitano: 13:58
Interesting. Back to the EU, back to Europe, what is the EU position on Ukraine? And is it diametrically opposed to Donald Trump’s position on Ukraine? Is the EU still of the Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland, Tony Blinken view on the origins and morality of the special military operation?

Doctorow:
Well, absolutely. There was an usually good article in yesterday’s “Financial Times” on the response of the spokesperson for the EU foreign affairs … department, or authority. And that statement was exactly reiterating the basic points going back to Biden. The war was unprovoked, the war was an act of aggression, that Europe support Ukraine to the utmost, and that no relief on sanctions to Russia is thinkable until there is a full withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, et cetera, et cetera.

They are taking a very hard line; it’s diametrically opposed. It is intended to frustrate, to sabotage the peace initiative of Donald Trump and the conditions that were accepted by Trump and by the Ukrainians, of course, on Monday night, for implementing a 30-day freedom of navigation in the Black Sea.

15:41
At the same time in Paris, we have today in Paris, 30 countries plus meeting under the direction of Emmanuel Macron or his so-called Coalition of the Willing, which is precisely to give force to the statement of the support for Ukraine. And for the whole–

Napolitano:
When you say force, do you mean emotional and political force or military force?

Doctorow:
Military force. Macron today specifically in his address did not exclude the possibility of sending military forces to Ukraine for monitoring, for peacekeeping, for whatever. He used several terms.

In this regard, he is doing in parallel to Ursula von der Leyen exactly the kind of sabotage that the EU institutions are doing. And what I see in this is not just the very great possibility that NATO will be eviscerated in the next few weeks. By that I mean American withdrawal of support, not American withdrawal formally. That’s not possible for Trump to do. But if he takes the troops out, if he denies them a nuclear umbrella, then NATO is finished.

Napolitano: 17:03
We have a dangerous situation here. You have a very aggressive incoming, militarily aggressive, incoming chancellor of Germany. You have Von der Leyen who’s a former failed defense minister of Germany now as the head of the European Commission. You have Macron sounding more like Napoleon than de Gaulle. And what do they want to do, start World War III? I mean do they really think the Kremlin will sit back while they send anything, troops or a single round of artillery shell to Kiev?

Doctorow:
They’re living in their own bubble; they haven’t seen reality. Now reality will strike when Donald Trump withdraws support, but not even then can we be certain that reality will strike.

And now I go back to the suggestion that was made by the Russian political scientist Karaganov, who said, this is two years ago essentially, that Russia should bring Europe to its senses by using a military strike against one of the NATO countries.

I think we’re coming to that point. If Russia were to evaporate the [Ramstein] base by an Oreshnik strike, I think they might just get it in Berlin. Now they don’t get it.

Napolitano: 18:32
You know, when I was privileged to interview Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov two weeks ago in his residence in Moscow, after the interview was over, we engaged in some small talk.

I’m not speaking out of school here. I asked him what he thought would become of NATO if the United States withdrew. And he looked at me and said, it won’t happen. Now, maybe he means legally it won’t happen because of the way the conversation was structured. I couldn’t follow up and ask him what he meant.

But what will become of NATO if Trump in a fit of pique says “all the troops are coming home”?

Doctorow:
Well, NATO’s structure will stand there, but they’ll be absolutely empty. If the Europeans were to proceed with the kind of aggressive warlike language that we hear coming from Macron today and from Von der Leyen and her little entourage on every other day, then they are asking for war, an open war with Russia.

Napolitano:
Wow.

Doctorow:
For which Europe will be totally naked. Naked.

Napolitano: 19:53
Right. Right. A few weeks ago, you and I talked about your analysis of Trump in a hurry, Putin patient. Do you still see it that way?

Doctorow:
Well, absolutely, and there’s good reason for his hurry, that is, for the hurry of Trump. He is doing several policy initiatives at the same time. The question of Iran comes foremost to mind.

It’s a two-month timeline. He gave that. The Ukraine war, he more or less had in mind a two-month timeline. And he is using this honeymoon period at the start of his administration. He has spread massive confusion in the minds of most everybody as to what his intention is.

And that was not a mistake. It’s not because he’s confused. He wants everyone else to be confused when he proceeds with his own priorities. His number one priority is absolutely clear. It is to resolve the Ukraine war so that he can move on to his next priorities.

21:02
And so this, he wants to strike quickly before his opponents can mobilize. As you see by how they seized upon this leak of very sensitive information. The opponents of Trump, are themselves in a state of confusion and at a loss how to [come to] grips with the the daily new initiatives of this president. You know that barely can seize upon one and look for a point of leverage, when he’s already put out another one. This whole tariff war case, he’s got everybody tripping on their shoelaces.

21:38
And that is not because he’s stupid. That is intentional, to keep his opponents off balance.

Napolitano:
Well, if you’re an American who owns a Mercedes, it just went up in value significantly because of the extraordinary cost to replace it. Well, I want to show you a photograph, because Mike Waltz says he doesn’t know Jeffrey Goldberg. Do you have that photograph?

There he is. They’re standing next to each other. All right, you can end up standing next to anybody in a large gathering, but this is a gathering that was secured, and there is Jeffrey right behind Waltz. I can’t get my hands around it if somebody attempted to sabotage this or Walsh attempted to use Goldberg as a PR stunt. The truth has to come out.

The American public’s entitled to know. And the FBI is not going to get to the bottom. This is not going to investigate Hegseth for espionage, the way the Republicans wanted Hillary Clinton investigated for espionage. This is almost the same thing, except Mrs. Clinton did it hundreds and hundreds of times.

Doctorow: 22:53
If we can take a step back to what you just said in passing about the value of a Mercedes going up, again it’s so easy to attack Trump’s tariff policies as being economically nonsense. But this reminds me very much of how– Putin’s policies of standing up to the United States during the 2018 election campaign and the liberals, the Capital L, accused him of talking nonsense when Russia only had a 4% capture of global GDP– how he could stand up to the United States with its massively greater. This is the same type of argumentation, why are we going to raise the prices of cars in America? Because that’s the only way you can restore a manufacturing base.

Without a manufacturing base, you can’t have a military industry. So we’re talking essentially about Americas capability to maintain its defense industry. And so it’s not nonsense. It’s just on the economic side, it’s nonsense. On the US defense side, it’s not nonsense at all.

Napolitano: 23:59
Professor Doctorow, it’s a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much and thank you for letting me go, you know, across the board from Gaza to Ukraine to American economics to this crazy woman, Ursula von der Leyen. I don’t know where that’s going to end up, but thank you for monitoring it for us.

Doctorow;
Well, thanks for having me.

Napolitano:
Sure. Now go take care of whoever was ringing your doorbell.

Doctorow:
That’s a delivery downstairs. We’ll do that.

Napolitano:
Oh, okay. All the best, my friend. Have a good day.

Doctorow:
Thank you. You too.

Napolitano:
Thank you. Coming up at 11 o’clock this morning, Colonel Douglas Macgregor; at 2 this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at 3.30 this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer; at 5 o’clock in the afternoon tomorrow Friday from midnight in Yemen, from the areas bombed by the Americans in Yemen. Who else? Pepe Escobar.

25:00
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

In this session, Judge Napolitano was very keen to explore how the Europeans have reacted to the scandal in Washington over the leak of sensitive chat texts about the bombing of the Houthis in Yemen to the editor of The Atlantic magazine. As I remarked, the European media are entirely aligned with the Democratic-leaning media in the USA, using this incident to attack the Trump administration for amateurism that has compromised U.S. security. The most they will say is that this puts in question the wisdom of sharing intelligence with Washington.

As for the Russians, their first reaction was to consider the leak an act of sabotage by lower-level officials in the intelligence agencies.  Looked at more broadly, the Kremlin now has trust in the sincerity of Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine essentially on Russian terms.  They worry whether Trump will be able to overcome his domestic and European opponents and succeed in bringing peace.

Of course, as usual, our chat then went off in a number of different directions including Emmanuel Macron’s gathering of the delusionals from 30 countries, mostly European, to agree on all possible further support to Ukraine, assuming continuation of the war. We also talked about the position of the EU with respect to relaxing sanctions as required by the Ukrainian-Russian-US agreement on freedom of navigation in the Black Sea concluded this past Monday in Riyadh.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Ausgabe vom 27. März von „Judging Freedom“: Kremls Sicht auf die Schwächen der Trump-Regierung

In dieser Sitzung wollte Judge Napolitano unbedingt herausfinden, wie die Europäer auf den Skandal in Washington reagiert haben, bei dem sensible Chat-Texte über die Bombardierung der Huthis im Jemen an den Herausgeber des Magazins The Atlantic durchgesickert sind. Wie ich bemerkte, stehen die europäischen Medien voll und ganz hinter den demokratisch orientierten Medien in den USA und nutzen diesen Vorfall, um die Trump-Regierung wegen Dilettantismus anzugreifen, der die Sicherheit der USA gefährde. Sie werden höchstens sagen, dass dies die Frage aufwirft, ob es klug ist, Geheimdienstinformationen mit Washington zu teilen.

Die Russen hingegen betrachteten die undichte Stelle zunächst als Sabotageakt von Beamten der unteren Ebene in den Geheimdiensten. Im Großen und Ganzen betrachtet, vertraut der Kreml nun auf die Aufrichtigkeit von Donald Trumps Bemühungen, den Krieg in der Ukraine im Wesentlichen zu russischen Bedingungen zu beenden. Sie fragen sich, ob Trump in der Lage sein wird, seine innenpolitischen und europäischen Gegner zu überwinden und erfolgreich Frieden zu schaffen.

Natürlich ging unser Gespräch dann wie üblich in verschiedene Richtungen, darunter auch über Emmanuel Macrons Versammlung der Wahnhaften aus 30 Ländern, hauptsächlich aus Europa, um sich auf jede mögliche weitere Unterstützung für die Ukraine zu einigen, vorausgesetzt, der Krieg geht weiter. Wir sprachen auch über die Position der EU in Bezug auf die Lockerung der Sanktionen, wie sie in dem am vergangenen Montag in Riad geschlossenen ukrainisch-russisch-amerikanischen Abkommen über die Freiheit der Schifffahrt im Schwarzen Meer gefordert wird.

I have in the past blamed Angela Merkel for giving the pro-Brexit forces in Britain that little bit of assistance that pushed them into majority and led to the first departure of a Member State in EU history.  After all, the flood of illegal migrants that Merkel so graciously welcomed into the European Union under the false story that they were Syrian refugees from a vicious civil war was the last straw for Britons who were not yet committed to leaving Europe.

Now another German, Ursula von der Leyen, our authoritarian unelected Fuehrer of the European Institutions is directing policies that will shortly put the EU into terminal crisis.

Von der Leyen is the gynecologist turned politician who headed the Defense Ministry in Germany until the corruption scandals under her made it imperative that she be moved out. This was a direct precedent for chancellor in waiting Friedrich Merz’s plans to offload the nitwit German Foreign Minister from the Greens Annalena Baerbock onto the UN General Assembly.

For her part, von der Leyen was foisted onto the European Commission as president where during Covid her proclivity for concluding unauthorized and deeply flawed procurement deals raised a scandal there which it took all of her political savvy to contain. 

Seeing around her the utter cowardice of officials in the Commission and in the Parliament, von der Leyen gradually seized power that has exceeded by far what the European constitution allows. And she has been using that power to turn the European Union from a peace project into a war project. In recent months that has expressed itself in plans to consolidate all European military procurement in Brussels under her control and in giving utmost support to the wildly unrealistic plans of the Zelensky regime to defeat Russia militarily and to recover its 1992 borders as well as compensation for war damages.

We read the public statement of these unrealizable, delusional plans in yesterday’s Financial Times, which quoted Anita Hipper, European Commission spokesperson for foreign affairs:

“The end of the Russian unprovoked and unjustified aggression in Ukraine and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces from the entire territory of Ukraine would be one of the main preconditions to amend or lift sanctions.”

This position puts the EU on a direct collision course with the policy of Donald Trump on ending the war. In that sense, it is entirely aligned with today’s gathering of 30+ nations in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss further steps to support Ukraine in every way possible. Called the ‘coalition of the willing,’ I see a more appropriate title in ‘coalition of the delusionals.’

My key point is taken from what Donald Trump said to Volodymyr Zelensky during their altercation in the Oval Office:  what counts is who hold the cards.  In the coming showdown between the United States and the European Union over the partial lifting of sanctions NOW to enable implementation of the agreement on peaceful navigation in the Black Sea as a 30-day partial cease-fire, the USA holds all the cards and the EU holds none.  The only outcome if Brussels persists will be the de facto withdrawal of the USA from NATO, leaving a disarmed Europe to pursue the conflict with Russia that it is provoking entirely on its own. 

While the madness of precipitating such a situation may not be appreciated by some EU Member States, it is fully appreciated by others. And this is why I say that the EU cannot long survive in its present configuration the coming evisceration of NATO.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Die NATO ist dem Untergang geweiht. Werden die EU-Institutionen bald darauf implodieren?

Ich habe Angela Merkel in der Vergangenheit dafür verantwortlich gemacht, dass sie den Pro-Brexit-Kräften in Großbritannien ein wenig Unterstützung zukommen ließ, die ihnen zur Mehrheit verhalf und zum ersten Austritt eines Mitgliedstaats in der Geschichte der EU führte. Schließlich war die Flut illegaler Migranten, die Merkel so gnädig in der Europäischen Union willkommen hieß, unter dem falschen Narrativ, dass es sich um syrische Flüchtlinge aus einem grausamen Bürgerkrieg handele, der Tropfen, der das Fass für die Briten zum Überlaufen brachte, die noch nicht entschlossen waren, Europa zu verlassen.

Jetzt leitet eine andere Deutsche, Ursula von der Leyen, unsere autoritäre, nicht gewählte Führerin der europäischen Institutionen, eine Politik, die die EU in Kürze in eine endgültige Krise stürzen wird.

Von der Leyen ist eine ehemalige Gynäkologin, die zur Politikerin wurde und das Verteidigungsministerium in Deutschland leitete, bis die Korruptionsskandale unter ihrer Führung es zwingend erforderlich machten, sie abzusetzen. Dies war ein direkter Präzedenzfall für die Pläne des designierten Kanzlers Friedrich Merz, die dumme deutsche Außenministerin der Grünen, Annalena Baerbock, auf die UN-Generalversammlung abzuschieben.

Von der Leyen ihrerseits wurde der Europäischen Kommission als Präsidentin aufgezwungen, wo sie während der Corona-Pandemie mit ihrer Neigung, nicht genehmigte und äußerst fehlerhafte Beschaffungsgeschäfte abzuschließen, einen Skandal auslöste, den sie nur mit all ihrem politischen Geschick eindämmen konnte.

Angesichts der völligen Feigheit der Beamten in der Kommission und im Parlament ergriff von der Leyen nach und nach die Macht, die weit über das hinausgeht, was die europäische Verfassung zulässt. Und sie hat diese Macht genutzt, um die Europäische Union von einem Friedensprojekt in ein Kriegsprojekt zu verwandeln. In den letzten Monaten hat sich dies in Plänen zur Konsolidierung der gesamten europäischen Rüstungsbeschaffung in Brüssel unter ihrer Kontrolle und in der uneingeschränkten Unterstützung der völlig unrealistischen Pläne des Zelensky-Regimes zur militärischen Niederlage Russlands und zur Wiederherstellung seiner Grenzen von 1992 sowie zur Entschädigung für Kriegsschäden ausgedrückt.

Wir haben die öffentliche Erklärung dieser unrealistischen, wahnhaften Pläne in der gestrigen Ausgabe der Financial Times gelesen, in der Anita Hipper, Sprecherin der Europäischen Kommission für auswärtige Angelegenheiten, zitiert wurde:

„Das Ende der russischen, unprovozierten und ungerechtfertigten Aggression in der Ukraine und der bedingungslose Abzug aller russischen Streitkräfte aus dem gesamten Gebiet der Ukraine wären eine der wichtigsten Voraussetzungen für die Änderung oder Aufhebung der Sanktionen.“

Mit dieser Position befindet sich die EU auf direktem Kollisionskurs mit der Politik von Donald Trump zur Beendigung des Krieges. In diesem Sinne steht sie in völliger Übereinstimmung mit der heutigen Versammlung von mehr als 30 Nationen in Paris, die auf Einladung des französischen Präsidenten Emmanuel Macron zusammengekommen sind, um weitere Schritte zur Unterstützung der Ukraine auf jede erdenkliche Weise zu erörtern. Die sogenannte „Koalition der Willigen“ würde ich eher als „Koalition der Wahnhaften“ bezeichnen.

Mein Hauptargument ist dem entnommen, was Donald Trump zu Volodymyr Zelensky während ihrer Auseinandersetzung im Oval Office gesagt hat: Was zählt, ist, wer die Karten in der Hand hält. Im bevorstehenden Kräftemessen zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten und der Europäischen Union über die teilweise Aufhebung der Sanktionen JETZT, um die Umsetzung des Abkommens über die friedliche Schifffahrt im Schwarzen Meer als 30-tägigen teilweisen Waffenstillstand zu ermöglichen, halten die USA alle Karten in der Hand und die EU keine. Das einzige Ergebnis, wenn Brüssel darauf besteht, wird der de facto Austritt der USA aus der NATO sein, wodurch ein entwaffnetes Europa zurückbleibt, das den Konflikt mit Russland, den es vollständig selbst provoziert, allein weiterführen muss.

Während einige EU-Mitgliedstaaten den Wahnsinn, eine solche Situation heraufzubeschwören, vielleicht nicht zu schätzen wissen, wird er von anderen voll und ganz gewürdigt. Und deshalb sage ich, dass die EU in ihrer gegenwärtigen Konfiguration die bevorstehende Aushöhlung der NATO nicht lange überleben kann.