Transcript submitted by a reader

NewsX Anchor, Joshua Barnes: 1:57
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed a swift retaliation following a Ukrainian drone strike in Kazan, Tatarstan, that damaged, attacked residential buildings and an industrial facility. Though officials reported no casualties, Putin warned that attempts to destroy Russia would be met with multiple times more destruction. In Moscow, Putin met with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to discuss gas transit as their contract with Ukraine nears expiry. Fico criticised Kiev’s opposition to the deal and shifted Slovakia’s stance towards Russia. Meanwhile, South Korea claimed that over 1,100 North Korean troops fighting in Russia have been killed or wounded.

2:36
Kyiv revealed that these soldiers were issued fake documents to hide their origin. North Korea continues to provide weapons and manpower to Russia, escalating tensions in the region. We’re first going to go to our correspondent Aditya Wadhawan. Aditya, I’d like to speak to you about these comments from Vladimir Putin and go into some more specifics, because there was strong language used in rebuttal and response to the attacks that his country has seen over the past couple of days.

Aditya Wadhawan, Correspondent: 3:02
Well, absolutely, Josh. It is a very tit-for-tat situation. You know, this, the war has been going, you know, for the last two years, this Russia-Ukraine war is nowhere, it is, there is nowhere it is seen ending, you know. Because recently, you know, if Ukraine attacks, then Russia retaliates. If Russia attacks, which is usually does– Russia is actually aggressor in this case– then Ukraine responds. So it is a very complex situation when we talk about Russia-Ukraine war. Recently, this is sort of a hypocritical thing. On one side, Vladimir Putin says that he is ready to compromise on war with Ukraine, and he will hold talks with the newly-elected US President Donald Trump. But on the other hand, he is warning of a retaliation [for] a missile attack on the Russian city. So it is a very complex situation that needs to be monitored. Josh. Back to you in the studios.

NewsX: 4:02
Yes, and we are now joined by two guests, firstly Gilbert Doctorow, international relations and Russian affairs expert. And we also have Glen Grant, who was a former advisor to the Defense minister of Ukraine. Glen, I’d like to come to you first.

We’re looking at a situation here where a retaliation has been promised. In terms of the reaction in Ukraine and the feeling within Ukraine, is there fear amongst people that the attacks could be on a level that we’ve seen previously in terms of large amounts of drones, missiles and potentially the use of an intercontinental or ballistic missile?

Glen Grant: 4:35
No, not at all. The general– and I was there last week, so I can talk with a certain degree of certainty– the people have accepted that what Putin says and what Putin does are two different things. Everybody’s expecting attacks. They’ve been expecting attacks since the war started, and they’re getting them, but they don’t think there’s going to be anything worse than what they’re getting at the moment. So it’s just bad. The disappointment is not a worry about Putin, but disappointment is with the West not being quicker in providing support.

NewsX: 5:10
Looking at the feeling within Ukraine, I want to come back to you on that point. Is there no sort of fear amongst the people or is it something that, like you say, they’ve come to terms with, in terms of the fact that these attacks are going to happen. But surely a threat is still a threat, and there must be some concern amongst people.

Grant: 5:28
Yeah, well, the threat is adjusted for in people’s minds. If they know that, if they hear from the air defence people that a rocket is coming their way, then they go downstairs into the metro or wherever they can hide, into the cellars. So there is common sense on that side. But it’s no worse now than it was five or six months ago, for example. What is Putin going to do differently? If he throws more missiles, then there’s going to be a gap between those missiles coming, because he hasn’t got a bottomless pit of missiles to throw at Ukraine.

NewsX: 6:07
Gilbert Doctorow, I’m going to come to you. In terms of the response from Putin and the threats that have been made for– “destruction” is a word that has been used. Do you think that the response will be proportionate in regards to the amount of drones that were sent over from Ukraine?

And also do you think that the impact on the front lines will be seen as well? Of course the North Korean soldiers are there fighting on the front line. How do you think both of these fronts, a front from the air but also a front on the ground, may step up now because of Putin’s comments?

Doctorow: 6:42
Is this directed to me?

NewsX:
Yes, please, Gilbert. Thank you.

Doctorow: 6:45
All right, please. I disagree with the comments of the first participant, that there’s no difference. The Russians have now destroyed over 80 percent of the power generation capacity of Ukraine. They have forced massive cutbacks in supply of energy across the country. Yesterday was the largest flow of Ukrainians across the border leaving the country that we have seen since the war began. So don’t say they’re hiding in the metro. You can’t live in the metro. You can avoid a single attack, yes, but you can’t live there and you certainly can’t live on the 10th floor of your apartment house if you have no water and no electricity and no heat. People are getting the message; they’re leaving.

7:35
To compare what the Ukrainians have done in their strike on Kazan with what the Russians are doing is to demonstrate perfectly how this war has been pursued. The Russians have basically gone after the Ukrainian military. They have killed, perhaps killed or wounded seriously, perhaps as many as one million in the last two years, of whom 560,000 were wounded or killed in the last year, of whom 45,000 were killed in the gambit of Mr. Zelensky in the Kursk province of Russia. This is devastating for the country in every sense, demographically, in terms of the economy.

The Russian attacks that may come will depend, in each case, on the seriousness of the threat that Russia perceives from every tit-for-tat response from Ukraine. What the Ukrainians did, as I said, their attack on Kazan was perfectly in line with their whole strategy of public relations war rather than kinetic war. They have attacked residential buildings. They attacked a high-rise house in Kazan to provide for viral social media pictures of their striking that building, similar to the 9-11 attack on the World Towers. We watched their drone explode in the midst of that building.

9:09
The net result, which the social media did not post, was what happened to that building. No one was killed, and it was a rather small damage. However, it made a wonderful show, and it seems as though the Ukrainian military goes for big shows and not for big actions, because they don’t have the wherewithal to do big actions. Their attacks on the Russian military using ATACMS, using HIMARS have been negligible, because they simply don’t have the wherewithal.

When you say, when my colleague says that the Russians are running out of missiles, I’m sorry, I disagree entirely. The latest estimate coming out of the States is that the Russians have a production capacity of 25 of their Oreshniks per month, 300 a year. Or as they said with some humour on Russian television, enough for each European capital.

NewsX: 10:00
Thank you, Gilbert Doctorow. We’re going to have to move on, but thank you very much for joining us. Also thank you very much for joining us, Glen Grant.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Transkript von NewsX ‘debate’ mit Team Zelensky

NewsX Anchor, Joshua Barnes: 1:57
Der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin hat nach einem ukrainischen Drohnenangriff in Kasan, Tatarstan, bei dem Wohngebäude und eine Industrieanlage beschädigt und angegriffen wurden, eine rasche Vergeltung angekündigt. Obwohl die Behörden keine Opfer meldeten, warnte Putin, dass Versuche, Russland zu zerstören, mit einer mehrfach höheren Zerstörung beantwortet würden. In Moskau traf Putin mit dem slowakischen Ministerpräsidenten Robert Fico zusammen, um über den Gastransit zu sprechen, da der Vertrag mit der Ukraine bald ausläuft. Fico kritisierte Kiews Widerstand gegen das Abkommen und änderte die Haltung der Slowakei gegenüber Russland. Unterdessen gab Südkorea an, dass über 1.100 nordkoreanische Soldaten, die in Russland kämpften, getötet oder verwundet wurden.

2:36
Kiew gab bekannt, dass diese Soldaten gefälschte Dokumente erhalten hatten, um ihre Herkunft zu verschleiern. Nordkorea liefert weiterhin Waffen und Arbeitskräfte nach Russland, was die Spannungen in der Region verschärft. Wir wenden uns zunächst an unsere Korrespondentin Aditya Wadhawan. Aditya, ich möchte mit Ihnen über diese Äußerungen von Wladimir Putin sprechen und näher auf einige Einzelheiten eingehen, denn die Gegenargumente und Reaktionen auf die Angriffe, die sein Land in den letzten Tagen erlebt hat, waren sehr deutlich.

Aditya Wadhawan, Correspondent: 3:02
Absolut, Josh. Es ist eine klassische „Wie du mir, so ich dir“-Situation. Der Krieg dauert nun schon seit zwei Jahren an, und es ist nirgendwo ein Ende dieses Russland-Ukraine-Krieges in Sicht. Denn in letzter Zeit gilt: Greift die Ukraine an, dann schlägt Russland zurück. Greift Russland an, was normalerweise der Fall ist – Russland ist in diesem Fall tatsächlich der Aggressor –, dann reagiert die Ukraine. Es ist also eine sehr komplexe Situation, wenn wir über den Krieg zwischen Russland und der Ukraine sprechen. In letzter Zeit ist das eine Art Heuchelei. Einerseits sagt Wladimir Putin, dass er bereit ist, im Krieg mit der Ukraine Kompromisse einzugehen, und er wird Gespräche mit dem neu gewählten US-Präsidenten Donald Trump führen. Andererseits warnt er vor Vergeltungsmaßnahmen für einen Raketenangriff auf die russische Stadt. Es ist also eine sehr komplexe Situation, die beobachtet werden muss. Josh. Ich gebe zurück ins Studio.

NewsX: 4:02
Ja, und wir haben jetzt zwei Gäste bei uns, zunächst Gilbert Doctorow, Experte für internationale Beziehungen und Russlandfragen. Und wir haben auch Glen Grant, der früher Berater des Verteidigungsministers der Ukraine war. Glen, ich möchte zuerst mit Ihnen sprechen.

Wir haben es hier mit einer Situation zu tun, in der Vergeltungsmaßnahmen angedroht wurden. Befürchten die Menschen in der Ukraine, dass die Angriffe ein Ausmaß annehmen könnten, wie wir es bereits zuvor erlebt haben, mit einer großen Anzahl von Drohnen, Raketen und möglicherweise dem Einsatz einer Interkontinental- oder ballistischen Rakete?

Glen Grant: 4:35
Nein, überhaupt nicht. Allgemein – und ich war letzte Woche dort, sodass ich mit einer gewissen Sicherheit sprechen kann – haben die Menschen akzeptiert, dass das, was Putin sagt, und das, was Putin tut, zwei verschiedene Dinge sind. Alle erwarten Angriffe. Sie erwarten Angriffe seit Beginn des Krieges, und sie bekommen sie, aber sie glauben nicht, dass es noch schlimmer kommen wird als das, was sie im Moment erleben. Es ist also einfach nur schlimm. Die Enttäuschung gilt nicht Putin, sondern dem Westen, der nicht schneller Unterstützung leistet.

NewsX: 5:10
Wenn ich mir die Stimmung in der Ukraine ansehe, möchte ich auf diesen Punkt zurückkommen. Gibt es unter den Menschen keinerlei Angst oder haben sie sich, wie Sie sagen, damit abgefunden, dass diese Angriffe stattfinden werden? Aber eine Bedrohung ist doch immer noch eine Bedrohung, und es muss doch eine gewisse Besorgnis unter den Menschen herrschen.

Grant: 5:28
Ja, nun, die Bedrohung wird in den Köpfen der Menschen angepasst. Wenn sie von den Luftverteidigungsleuten hören, dass eine Rakete auf sie zukommt, dann gehen sie nach unten in die U-Bahn oder wo auch immer sie sich verstecken können, in die Keller. Es gibt also gesunden Menschenverstand auf dieser Seite. Aber es ist jetzt nicht schlimmer als vor fünf oder sechs Monaten, zum Beispiel. Was wird Putin anders machen? Wenn er mehr Raketen abfeuert, wird es eine Lücke zwischen den eintreffenden Raketen geben, weil er nicht über einen Raketenvorrat ohne Ende verfügt, den er auf die Ukraine abfeuern kann.

NewsX: 6:07
Gilbert Doctorow, ich möchte Ihnen eine Frage stellen. Was die Reaktion Putins und die Drohungen betrifft, die ausgesprochen wurden – „Zerstörung“ ist ein Wort, das gefallen ist. Glauben Sie, dass die Reaktion in einem angemessenen Verhältnis zur Anzahl der Drohnen stehen wird, die aus der Ukraine geschickt wurden?

Und glauben Sie auch, dass die Auswirkungen an der Front zu spüren sein werden? Natürlich kämpfen die nordkoreanischen Soldaten an vorderster Front. Wie denken Sie, dass sich diese beiden Fronten, eine Front aus der Luft, aber auch eine Front am Boden, jetzt aufgrund von Putins Äußerungen verschärfen könnten?

Doctorow: 6:42
Ist das an mich gerichtet?

NewsX:
Ja, bitte, Gilbert. Danke.

Doctorow: 6:45
In Ordnung, bitte. Ich stimme den Äußerungen des ersten Teilnehmers nicht zu, dass es keinen Unterschied gibt. Die Russen haben inzwischen über 80 Prozent der Stromerzeugungskapazität der Ukraine zerstört. Sie haben massive Kürzungen bei der Energieversorgung im ganzen Land erzwungen. Gestern haben so viele Ukrainer wie noch nie seit Beginn des Krieges das Land über die Grenze verlassen. Also sagen Sie nicht, dass sie sich in der U-Bahn verstecken. Man kann nicht in der U-Bahn leben. Man kann einem einzelnen Angriff ausweichen, ja, aber man kann dort nicht leben, und man kann schon gar nicht im 10. Stock eines Wohnhauses leben, wenn man kein Wasser, keinen Strom und keine Heizung hat. Die Menschen haben es verstanden, sie gehen.

7:35
Wenn man vergleicht, was die Ukrainer bei ihrem Angriff auf Kasan getan haben, mit dem, was die Russen tun, wird deutlich, wie dieser Krieg geführt wurde. Die Russen haben es im Grunde genommen auf das ukrainische Militär abgesehen. Sie haben in den letzten zwei Jahren vielleicht bis zu eine Million Menschen getötet oder schwer verwundet, davon 560.000 im letzten Jahr, von denen 45.000 im Zuge des Schachzugs von Herrn Selensky in der russischen Provinz Kursk getötet wurden. Dies ist in jeder Hinsicht verheerend für das Land, demografisch und wirtschaftlich.

Die russischen Angriffe, die möglicherweise erfolgen werden, hängen in jedem Fall davon ab, wie ernst die Bedrohung ist, die Russland in jeder Vergeltungsmaßnahme der Ukraine wahrnimmt. Wie ich bereits sagte, entsprach der Angriff der Ukrainer auf Kasan vollkommen ihrer gesamten Strategie eines PR-Krieges und nicht eines Bewegungskrieges. Sie haben Wohngebäude angegriffen. Sie haben ein Hochhaus in Kasan angegriffen, um virale Bilder ihres Angriffs auf dieses Gebäude in den sozialen Medien zu verbreiten, ähnlich wie beim Angriff auf die World Trade Center am 11. September. Wir haben gesehen, wie ihre Drohne mitten in diesem Gebäude explodierte.

9:09
Das Endergebnis, das in den sozialen Medien nicht veröffentlicht wurde, war, was mit diesem Gebäude passiert ist. Es gab keine Toten und der Schaden war relativ gering. Es war jedoch eine großartige Show und es scheint, als ob das ukrainische Militär auf große Shows und nicht auf große Aktionen setzt, weil sie nicht über die Mittel für große Aktionen verfügen. Ihre Angriffe auf das russische Militär mit ATACMS und HIMARS waren vernachlässigbar, weil sie einfach nicht über die Mittel verfügen.

Wenn Sie sagen, wenn mein Kollege sagt, dass die Russen keine Raketen mehr haben, dann muss ich leider sagen, dass ich da ganz anderer Meinung bin. Die neueste Schätzung aus den USA besagt, dass die Russen eine Produktionskapazität von 25 ihrer Oreschniks pro Monat haben, also 300 pro Jahr. Oder wie es im russischen Fernsehen mit einem gewissen Humor ausgedrückt wurde: genug für jede europäische Hauptstadt.

NewsX: 10:00
Vielen Dank, Gilbert Doctorow. Wir müssen leider zum nächsten Punkt übergehen, aber vielen Dank, dass Sie bei uns waren. Vielen Dank auch für Ihren Besuch, Glen Grant.

Word of the Year: “Sovereignty”

A week ago, the BBC and other major Western media announced the ‘Word of the Year’ chosen by the Oxford University Press.  It is ‘brain rot.’

Why was this term chosen?  I quote the Oxford website:

“Our experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.”

They have condemned “low-quality online content” in social media. But they ignore still lower quality mainstream content, which is not ‘disinformation’ but blatant propaganda if one follows the BBC newscasts or Financial Times front pages.

Oxford University identified a trendy term used among people like themselves, who obviously enjoy Scrabble, doing crossword puzzles and other innocent pastimes to take their minds off the real world outside their ivy-covered walls.

However, in that real world, I would suggest that the most widely used “new” word among the movers and shakers of geopolitics has been ‘sovereignty.’ This is an old word that is presently being used in a new way, as a shorthand reference for a new, multipolar world order. It was put into currency in this form several years ago by Russia’s president. Now ‘sovereignty’ is increasingly used as the battering ram against U.S. global hegemony and the culture of bending the knee before Washington that has shaped our world since the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. It does double duty as the antonym to colonial subjugation. In its efficiency, it has overtaken and left behind the word ‘BRICS.’

In what follows, I will direct attention to two current events which illustrate perfectly what I am saying about the linguistic load of ‘sovereignty’ for geopolitics. The first event is mentioned in most mainstream news outlets today: it is the visit of Slovak prime minister Fico to Moscow and his talks with Vladimir Putin yesterday. The second is less likely to be known by readers of these pages: it is the interview that Azerbaijan president Ilhem Aliyev gave to Russia Today general director Dimitri Kiselyov. 

                                                                            *****

Slovak prime minister Robert Fico was in Moscow yesterday for talks centered on energy matters. Although the Kremlin has not divulged the precise content of his tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin, we may be sure that one was Fico’s rejection of the EU Commission’s wish to add to existing sanctions on Russia a prohibition on Member States dealing with Rosatom and the Russian nuclear industry. A second topic was, no doubt, the Ukrainian shutdown of gas pipelines that traverse their country and deliver Russian gas to Slovakia and Hungary. The latter issue has been the subject of a direct public sparring contest between Fico and Zelensky in recent days, with Fico threatening unspecified retaliation if the Ukrainians do not renew their transit contracts with Gazprom before they expire in a week’s time.

We may also safely assume that the two leaders discussed an issue that Fico placed before world media a couple of days earlier: namely that Zelensky had secretly offered him a $500 million bribe if he changed course on Ukraine’s application to join NATO and becomes supportive.  I will deal with the bribe issue in a separate article today because its ramifications go well outside the limits of this piece.

Let me point out that Robert Fico’s public stand on all of these matters is based on his policy of defending Slovakia’s national sovereignty. These are precisely the words that Vladimir Putin has been using almost daily since the start of the Special Military Operation in February 2022.

Allow me to remind readers that a foreign policy based on national sovereignty is interests based rather than values based and is known in political science as Realpolitik. Until fairly recently, until Vladimir Putin highlighted the issue, Realpolitik was the avowed policy of only Russia and China in the community of nations. North America and Europe officially stand wholly behind values-based policies. However, sovereignty of nation states is a view that in modern European history can be traced back to 1648 and the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War. Values-based policies of principalities back then meant promotion of Catholicism versus Protestantism or vice versa through armed interventions to save souls. And it is that which the 1648 Peace proscribed. It advanced the cause of individual nation states which were treated with equal respect regardless of their size and might, and which did not intervene in the internal affairs of each other. Sounds rather like today’s concept of a multipolar world, n’est-ce-pas?

If one wonders what is exceptional about the president of Slovakia, a Member State of the European Union, today defending the notion of national sovereignty and national interests, we must contend with the issue that the creation of the European Union from the European Economic Community in 1992 entailed the decision of those states entering the Union to give up to European Institutions in Brussels a large part of their national identities and prerogatives.

Foreign policy and defense policy were the first to be foregone in what was ultimately the neutering of these nation states. The sacrifice was borne without serious complaint for the sake of promoting the launch of a common currency and freedom of movement of the citizens of these states across all internal borders.

These were worthy objectives. But there was also an ideological dimension: the sacrifices of prerogatives were claimed for the sake of Europe’s ‘peace mission.’ That is to say, the notion that nation states and their accompanying nationalism were the spawning grounds of Europe’s two self-destructive civil wars in the 20^th century called today WWI and WWII. Hence, the gradual snuffing out of nation-states within an ever more cohesive supranational state called the EU was taken for granted as being a progressive development for humanity. 

Looking at the idiotic pursuit by the 27 Member States of the growing disaster in Ukraine that threatens to evolve into a nuclear WWIII, looking at how the sanctions they have applied to Russia produced economic hardship in Europe, in particular the growing deindustrialization of the Union’s locomotive, Germany as a consequence of the EU’s sanctioning Russia, we are obliged to rethink the logic of the sacrifice of sovereignty in 1992 and later. This is a mental exercise that so far only Hungary and Slovakia have performed.  Others are sure to follow as the debacle of the present Western war on Russia via Ukraine becomes more evident in the weeks to come.

                                                                          *****

The second recent event in which national sovereignty is promoted in a manner that directly demonstrates the influence of Vladimir Putin’s vocabulary on global trend-setters is the just published hour long interview that Azerbaijan president Ilhan Aliyev gave to Dimitri Kiselyov of Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today).

See https://yandex.ru/video/preview/11457259627298407705 (so far only available in Russian)

In a substantial part of this interview, we hear Aliyev’s caustic remarks directed at French president Emanuel Macron. He describes Macron’s latest visit to the cyclone-devastated French overseas territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mozambique as condescending in the extreme. Macron offered to spend the night on the island to show solidarity but made no serious offer of material assistance. This was in line, said Aliyev, with the way that under French rule 75% of the native population lives under the line of poverty. From this starting point, Aliyev proceeded to tick off all of the defeats that France’s neocolonialist policies have cost it in Africa, where in the past year it has been ordered out of one country after another. And he moved on to describe point for point, Macron’s anti-democratic rule in Metropolitan France itself.

In the more general parts of the interview, we hear Aliyev speak of state sovereignty as essential to the well-being of peoples, and his castigation of Western neocolonialism.

Let us just remember who is now employing this very Putin-like rhetoric.

Ilham Aliyev is the son of Heydar Aliyev, founder and long-time ruler of the modern Azerbaijan state who in the late 1990s entered into co-production agreements with British Petroleum for exploitation of its Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea and of oil reserves also in the Caspian. Knowing the way that BP dominated the market in Former Soviet Union republics back then and how they negotiated their contracts, we would be safe in saying that the deal was very generous to the foreign investor at the expense of Azerbaijan.

In 1998, his father signed agreements with British Petroleum and other project partners for construction of the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) oil pipeline that would carry Azerbaijani oil to Turkey for further sale on global markets. The project which was completed in 2005, two years into the presidency of the son.

Let us not be deceived by the lead role of the British company in this pioneering oil pipeline project. It had been encouraged from the very inception by the Clinton administration in Washington, D.C., where it was promoted by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as a model for other gas and oil pipelines that would bring Eurasian hydrocarbons to Europe bypassing Russia in a policy of reducing Russia to abject poverty. As a detail, I mention that Albright employed her one-time mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski as consultant to the BTC project.

Consequent to these arrangements, for a good long time it was safe to say that Azerbaijan was solidly in the pocket of the United States and its allies, all working against the economic interests of the Russian Federation.  And yet there was a fly in this ointment. Aliyev had a certain empathy if not sympathy for Russia. He had spent the years 1977 to 1982 studying at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) which then mostly graduated the crème de la crème of Russian diplomats. He then took a Ph.D. in history there and remained in Moscow until 1990 as a lecturer. Needless to say, he is a fluent Russian speaker.

It would be accurate to say that until the SMO, Aliyev was a fence-sitter in East-West relations. However, his interview with Dmitry Kiselyov makes it crystal clear that he is now firmly in Vladimir Putin’s camp. As I have said elsewhere, people and states flock to the side of winners, and Putin’s Russia has been demonstrating its claims to be the world’s most powerful military on the battlefields of Ukraine.

This is the context for Aliyev’s adoption of the sovereignty lexicon.

It bears mention, that another graduate of MGIMO, Kassym-Jomart Kemeluly Tokayev, President of Kazakhstan, also has in the past year ceased to sit on two stools and is firmly in the Putin camp. He, too, has acquired the sovereignty lexicon.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Wort des Jahres: „Souveränität“

Vor einer Woche verkündeten die BBC und andere große westliche Medien das von der Oxford University Press gewählte „Wort des Jahres“. Es lautet “brain rot” [Gehirnfäule].

Warum wurde dieser Begriff gewählt? Ich zitiere die Oxford-Website:

„Unsere Experten haben festgestellt, dass der Begriff ‚brain rot‘ in diesem Jahr neue Bedeutung erlangt hat, da er verwendet wird, um Bedenken hinsichtlich der Auswirkungen des Konsums übermäßiger Mengen minderwertiger Online-Inhalte, insbesondere in den sozialen Medien, zu erfassen. Die Verwendungshäufigkeit des Begriffs ist zwischen 2023 und 2024 um 230 % gestiegen.“

Sie haben „minderwertige Online-Inhalte“ in den sozialen Medien verurteilt. Aber sie ignorieren die noch minderwertigeren Mainstream-Inhalte, die keine „Desinformation“, sondern unverhohlene Propaganda sind, wenn man die BBC-Nachrichtensendungen oder die Titelseiten der Financial Times verfolgt.

Die Universität Oxford hat einen Trendbegriff identifiziert, der von Menschen wie ihnen verwendet wird, die offensichtlich gerne Scrabble spielen, Kreuzworträtsel lösen und anderen harmlosen Freizeitbeschäftigungen nachgehen, um sich von der realen Welt außerhalb ihrer efeubewachsenen Mauern abzulenken.

In dieser realen Welt würde ich jedoch behaupten, dass das am häufigsten verwendete „neue“ Wort unter den Machern und Entscheidern der Geopolitik „Souveränität“ ist. Dies ist ein altes Wort, das derzeit auf neue Weise verwendet wird, als Kurzform für eine neue, multipolare Weltordnung. Es wurde vor einigen Jahren vom russischen Präsidenten in dieser Form in Umlauf gebracht. Inzwischen wird „Souveränität“ immer häufiger als Rammbock gegen die globale Hegemonie der USA und die Kultur der Unterwürfigkeit gegenüber Washington eingesetzt, die unsere Welt seit dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion Ende 1991 prägt. Es dient auch als Antonym für koloniale Unterwerfung. In seiner Effizienz hat es das Wort „BRICS“ überholt und hinter sich gelassen.

Im Folgenden möchte ich die Aufmerksamkeit auf zwei aktuelle Ereignisse lenken, die perfekt veranschaulichen, was ich über die sprachliche Last des Begriffs „Souveränität“ für die Geopolitik sage. Das erste Ereignis wird heute in den meisten Mainstream-Nachrichtenagenturen erwähnt: Es handelt sich um den Besuch des slowakischen Premierministers Fico in Moskau und seine gestrigen Gespräche mit Wladimir Putin. Das zweite Ereignis ist den Lesern dieser Seiten wahrscheinlich weniger bekannt: Es handelt sich um das Interview, das der aserbaidschanische Präsident Ilham Aliyev dem Generaldirektor von Russia Today, Dimitri Kiselyov, gegeben hat.

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Der slowakische Premierminister Robert Fico war gestern in Moskau zu Gesprächen über Energiefragen. Obwohl der Kreml den genauen Inhalt seines Tête-à-Têtes mit Wladimir Putin nicht preisgegeben hat, können wir davon ausgehen, dass Fico den Wunsch der EU-Kommission abgelehnt hat, die bestehenden Sanktionen gegen Russland um ein Verbot für Mitgliedstaaten zu ergänzen, mit Rosatom und der russischen Atomindustrie Geschäfte zu machen. Ein zweites Thema war zweifellos die Schließung der ukrainischen Gaspipelines, die durch das Land verlaufen und russisches Gas in die Slowakei und nach Ungarn liefern. Letzteres war in den letzten Tagen Gegenstand eines direkten öffentlichen Schlagabtauschs zwischen Fico und Selensky, bei dem Fico mit nicht näher bezeichneten Vergeltungsmaßnahmen drohte, falls die Ukrainer ihre Transitverträge mit Gazprom nicht vor Ablauf in einer Woche verlängern.

Wir können auch davon ausgehen, dass die beiden Staats- und Regierungschefs ein Thema besprochen haben, das Fico einige Tage zuvor den Weltmedien vorgelegt hatte: nämlich, dass Selensky ihm heimlich eine Bestechungssumme von 500 Millionen Dollar angeboten hatte, wenn er seinen Kurs in Bezug auf den Antrag der Ukraine auf NATO-Beitritt ändern und ihn unterstützen würde. Ich werde mich heute in einem separaten Artikel mit der Bestechungsaffäre befassen, da ihre Auswirkungen weit über den Rahmen dieses Artikels hinausgehen.

Ich möchte darauf hinweisen, dass Robert Ficos öffentliche Haltung in all diesen Angelegenheiten auf seiner Politik der Verteidigung der nationalen Souveränität der Slowakei beruht. Dies sind genau die Worte, die Wladimir Putin seit Beginn der militärischen Sonderoperation im Februar 2022 fast täglich verwendet.

Ich möchte die Leser daran erinnern, dass eine auf nationaler Souveränität basierende Außenpolitik eher interessenbasiert als wertbasiert ist und in der Politikwissenschaft als Realpolitik bekannt ist. Bis vor relativ kurzer Zeit, bis Wladimir Putin das Thema zur Sprache brachte, war Realpolitik die erklärte Politik nur Russlands und Chinas in der Gemeinschaft der Nationen. Nordamerika und Europa stehen offiziell voll und ganz hinter einer wertebasierten Politik. Die Souveränität der Nationalstaaten ist jedoch eine Ansicht, die in der modernen europäischen Geschichte bis ins Jahr 1648 und den Westfälischen Frieden zurückverfolgt werden kann, der den Dreißigjährigen Krieg beendete. Eine auf Werten basierende Politik der Fürstentümer bedeutete damals die Förderung des Katholizismus gegenüber dem Protestantismus oder umgekehrt durch bewaffnete Interventionen zur Rettung der Seelen. Und genau das wurde durch den Frieden von 1648 verboten. Er förderte die Sache der einzelnen Nationalstaaten, die unabhängig von ihrer Größe und Macht mit gleichem Respekt behandelt wurden und nicht in die inneren Angelegenheiten der jeweils anderen eingriffen. Das klingt doch ganz nach dem heutigen Konzept einer multipolaren Welt, n’est-ce-pas?

Wenn man sich fragt, was an dem Präsidenten der Slowakei, einem Mitgliedstaat der Europäischen Union, der heute den Begriff der nationalen Souveränität und der nationalen Interessen verteidigt, außergewöhnlich ist, müssen wir uns mit der Tatsache auseinandersetzen, dass die Gründung der Europäischen Union aus der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft im Jahr 1992 die Entscheidung der beitretenden Staaten mit sich brachte, einen großen Teil ihrer nationalen Identität und ihrer Vorrechte an die europäischen Institutionen in Brüssel abzutreten.

Außen- und Verteidigungspolitik waren die ersten Bereiche, auf die im Rahmen der endgültigen Entmachtung dieser Nationalstaaten verzichtet wurde. Dieses Opfer wurde ohne ernsthafte Beschwerden erbracht, um die Einführung einer gemeinsamen Währung und die Freizügigkeit der Bürger dieser Staaten über alle Binnengrenzen hinweg zu fördern.

Dies waren ehrenwerte Ziele. Aber es gab auch eine ideologische Dimension: Die Aufgabe von Vorrechten wurde im Namen der „Friedensmission“ Europas gefordert. Das heißt, die Vorstellung, dass Nationalstaaten und der damit einhergehende Nationalismus die Brutstätten der beiden selbstzerstörerischen Bürgerkriege Europas im 20. Jahrhundert waren, die heute als Erster und Zweiter Weltkrieg bezeichnet werden. Daher wurde die allmähliche Auslöschung der Nationalstaaten innerhalb eines immer stärker zusammenhängenden supranationalen Staates namens EU als eine fortschrittliche Entwicklung für die Menschheit angesehen.

Wenn man sich das idiotische Vorgehen der 27 Mitgliedstaaten in der wachsenden Katastrophe in der Ukraine ansieht, die sich zu einem nuklearen Dritten Weltkrieg zu entwickeln droht, und wenn man sich ansieht, wie die von ihnen gegen Russland verhängten Sanktionen zu wirtschaftlichen Schwierigkeiten in Europa geführt haben, insbesondere zur zunehmenden Deindustrialisierung der Lokomotive der Union, Deutschland, als Folge der EU-Sanktionen gegen Russland, sind wir gezwungen, die Logik der Opferung der Souveränität im Jahr 1992 und später zu überdenken. Dies ist eine mentale Übung, die bisher nur Ungarn und die Slowakei durchgeführt haben. Andere werden sicherlich folgen, da das Debakel des gegenwärtigen westlichen Krieges gegen Russland über die Ukraine in den kommenden Wochen immer deutlicher wird.

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Das zweite Ereignis aus jüngster Zeit, bei dem die nationale Souveränität auf eine Weise gefördert wird, die den Einfluss des Vokabulars von Wladimir Putin auf globale Trendsetter direkt veranschaulicht, ist das gerade veröffentlichte einstündige Interview, das der aserbaidschanische Präsident Ilham Alijew Dimitri Kisseljow von Rossija Segodnja (Russia Today) gegeben hat.

Siehe https://yandex.ru/video/preview/11457259627298407705 (bisher nur auf Russisch verfügbar)

In einem wesentlichen Teil dieses Interviews hören wir Aliyevs ätzende Bemerkungen, die sich an den französischen Präsidenten Emanuel Macron richten. Er beschreibt Macrons jüngsten Besuch im vom Zyklon verwüsteten französischen Überseegebiet Mayotte im Indischen Ozean vor der Küste Mosambiks als äußerst herablassend. Macron bot an, die Nacht auf der Insel zu verbringen, um Solidarität zu zeigen, machte aber kein ernsthaftes Angebot für materielle Hilfe. Dies entspreche, so Aliyev, der Tatsache, dass unter französischer Herrschaft 75 % der einheimischen Bevölkerung unterhalb der Armutsgrenze leben. Von diesem Ausgangspunkt aus zählte Aliyev alle Niederlagen auf, die Frankreichs neokolonialistische Politik dem Land in Afrika eingebracht hat, wo es im vergangenen Jahr aus einem Land nach dem anderen vertrieben wurde. Und er fuhr fort, Punkt für Punkt Macrons antidemokratische Herrschaft in Frankreich selbst zu beschreiben.

In den allgemeineren Teilen des Interviews spricht Aliyev von der staatlichen Souveränität als wesentlich für das Wohlergehen der Völker und kritisiert den westlichen Neokolonialismus.

Erinnern wir uns nur daran, wer jetzt diese Putin-ähnliche Rhetorik verwendet.

Ilham Aliyev ist der Sohn von Heydar Aliyev, dem Gründer und langjährigen Herrscher des modernen aserbaidschanischen Staates, der Ende der 1990er Jahre Koproduktionsvereinbarungen mit British Petroleum über die Ausbeutung des Shah-Deniz-Gasfeldes im Kaspischen Meer und der Ölreserven im Kaspischen Meer abschloss. Da wir wissen, wie BP damals den Markt in den Republiken der ehemaligen Sowjetunion beherrschte und wie sie ihre Verträge aushandelten, können wir mit Sicherheit sagen, dass der Deal für den ausländischen Investor sehr großzügig war, auf Kosten Aserbaidschans.

1998 unterzeichnete sein Vater mit British Petroleum und anderen Projektpartnern Vereinbarungen über den Bau der BTC-Ölpipeline (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan), die aserbaidschanisches Öl in die Türkei transportieren sollte, um es auf den Weltmärkten zu verkaufen. Das Projekt wurde 2005 abgeschlossen, zwei Jahre nach Beginn der Präsidentschaft des Sohnes.

Lassen wir uns nicht von der führenden Rolle des britischen Unternehmens bei diesem bahnbrechenden Ölpipeline-Projekt täuschen. Es wurde von Anfang an von der Clinton-Regierung in Washington, D.C., ermutigt, wo es von Außenministerin Madeleine Albright als Modell für andere Gas- und Ölpipelines beworben wurde, die eurasische Kohlenwasserstoffe unter Umgehung Russlands nach Europa bringen sollten, um Russland in die bittere Armut zu stürzen. Als Detail erwähne ich, dass Albright ihren ehemaligen Mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski als Berater für das BTC-Projekt einsetzte.

Aufgrund dieser Vereinbarungen konnte man lange Zeit mit Sicherheit sagen, dass Aserbaidschan fest in der Tasche der Vereinigten Staaten und ihrer Verbündeten steckte und alle gegen die wirtschaftlichen Interessen der Russischen Föderation arbeiteten. Und doch gab es einen Haken an der Sache. Aliyev hatte ein gewisses Einfühlungsvermögen, wenn nicht sogar Sympathie für Russland. Er hatte von 1977 bis 1982 am renommierten Moskauer Staatlichen Institut für Internationale Beziehungen (MGIMO) studiert, das damals hauptsächlich die Crème de la Crème der russischen Diplomaten hervorbrachte. Anschließend promovierte er dort in Geschichte und blieb bis 1990 als Dozent in Moskau. Es versteht sich von selbst, dass er fließend Russisch spricht.

Man kann durchaus sagen, dass Aliyev bis zur militärischen Sonderoperation in den Ost-West-Beziehungen unentschlossen war. Sein Interview mit Dmitry Kiselyov macht jedoch glasklar, dass er nun fest im Lager von Wladimir Putin steht. Wie ich bereits an anderer Stelle gesagt habe, schließen sich Menschen und Staaten den Gewinnern an, und Putins Russland hat auf den Schlachtfeldern der Ukraine seinen Anspruch unter Beweis gestellt, das mächtigste Militär der Welt zu sein.

Vor diesem Hintergrund ist Alijews Übernahme des Lexikons der Souveränität zu verstehen.

Es sollte erwähnt werden, dass ein weiterer Absolvent des MGIMO, Kassym-Schomart Toqajew, Präsident von Kasachstan, im vergangenen Jahr ebenfalls aufgehört hat, auf zwei Stühlen zu sitzen, und fest im Putin-Lager verankert ist. Auch er hat sich das Lexikon der Souveränität angeeignet.

Today was my third television appearance on a new-to-me Indian broadcaster in the English language, NewsX, which is part of the ITV media group. ITV in India, please note, is independent of a broadcasting group with the same name in the United Kingdom.

I posted the link here to my first appearance with NewsX on 17 December. That was a very well edited and polished looking 12-minute interview dealing largely with the Russia-Ukraine war which was recorded a week earlier.  

My second occasion with them, this time live on air, took place on Saturday, 21 December. Th format now was a panel discussion shared with a lady Member of the Ukrainian Rada, or parliament, who is a bold supporter of the Zelensky regime. I was given the microphone first and set out my view of how the Russians are pulverizing the Ukrainian forces on the field of battle in Donbas and why the war will end on Russia’s terms.  Then the microphone was turned over to the pro-Zelensky panelist, who was sputtering from fury over my words, and responded in the manner with which Team Zelensky is most comfortable: pure venom. She denounced me as an agent of Putin who must be paid handsomely to say on air what the Kremlin wants. That went on for a bit before the anchor turned the microphone back to me for the last word. I remarked that for lack of proper counter-arguments my opponent had resorted to ad hominem argumentation and vicious slander, and that I stood by my words.

After the show, the NewsX producer informed me on WhatsApp that the Ukrainian MP was ‘pissed off’.  Perhaps to avoid further complications with this representative of the Ukrainian government, NewsX did not post our show on the internet following its live broadcast and later told me they could not send a link ‘for technical reasons.’ 

But I have to acknowledge that the production folks at NewsX do not give up easily.  I was invited back today for a return match with Team Zelensky, this time represented by British Army Lt. Colonel (retired) Glen Grant, who has been a consultant to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and seems to be providing further services there since he most recently was down in Kiev a week or so ago, and no one goes there for tourism.

See https://youtu.be/r-z9sZgTb2o

The sequence on Ukraine is introduced at minute 3.00.  Grant comes on at minute 4.30. I appear from minute 6.40 to 7.30

Apparently, Grant also complained to the producers after the show about what I was saying on air. They told me that he too ‘was pissed off.’  

Well, friends, you can’t please everyone.

I close this essay with a general observation on life in the public arena: be ready for vitriol.  A couple of weeks ago, I was denounced by John Helmer of Dancing with Bears fame. He insinuated that I am a CIA asset.  Now Team Zelensky denounces me as a Putin asset. Clearly the commonality is the inability of these folks to engage in fact-based discussion.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„World Report“ von ITV (Indien) NewsX: eine „Debatte“ heute mit Team Zelensky

Heute war mein dritter Fernsehauftritt bei einem mir neuen indischen Sender in englischer Sprache, NewsX, der zur ITV-Mediengruppe gehört. ITV in Indien ist unabhängig von einer gleichnamigen Sendergruppe im Vereinigten Königreich.

Ich habe hier den Link zu meinem ersten Auftritt bei NewsX am 17. Dezember gepostet. Das war ein sehr gut geschnittenes und ausgefeiltes 12-minütiges Interview, das sich hauptsächlich mit dem Russland-Ukraine-Krieg befasste und eine Woche zuvor aufgezeichnet wurde.

Meine zweite Begegnung mit ihnen, diesmal live auf Sendung, fand am Samstag, dem 21. Dezember, statt. Das Format war nun eine Podiumsdiskussion, an der auch eine Abgeordnete der ukrainischen Rada, des Parlaments, teilnahm, die eine mutige Unterstützerin des Zelensky-Regimes ist. Ich erhielt als Erster das Mikrofon und legte meine Sichtweise dar, wie die Russen die ukrainischen Streitkräfte auf dem Schlachtfeld in Donbas vernichten und warum der Krieg zu Russlands Bedingungen enden wird. Dann wurde das Mikrofon an die Pro-Selensky-Panelistin übergeben, die vor Wut über meine Worte nur so sprudelte und in der Art und Weise antwortete, in der sich das Team Selensky am wohlsten fühlt: mit purem Gift. Sie denunzierte mich als eine Agentin Putins, die gut dafür bezahlt werden müsse, um in der Sendung zu sagen, was der Kreml wolle. Das ging eine Weile so weiter, bevor der Moderator mir das Mikrofon für das letzte Wort zurückgab. Ich bemerkte, dass meine Gegnerin mangels stichhaltiger Gegenargumente auf eine persönliche Herabwürdigung und bösartige Verleumdung zurückgegriffen habe und dass ich zu meinen Worten stehe.

Nach der Sendung informierte mich der NewsX-Produzent über WhatsApp, dass die ukrainische Abgeordnete „stinksauer“ sei. Um weitere Komplikationen mit dieser Vertreterin der ukrainischen Regierung zu vermeiden, hat NewsX unsere Sendung nach der Live-Übertragung nicht im Internet veröffentlicht und mir später mitgeteilt, dass sie aus „technischen Gründen“ keinen Link senden könnten.

Aber ich muss zugeben, dass die Produktionsleute von NewsX nicht so leicht aufgeben. Ich wurde heute zu einem Rückspiel mit Team Zelensky eingeladen, diesmal vertreten durch Oberstleutnant der britischen Armee (a.D.) Glen Grant, der als Berater für das ukrainische Verteidigungsministerium tätig war und dort offenbar weiterhin Dienste leistet, da er vor etwa einer Woche in Kiew war, und niemand reist dorthin, um Urlaub zu machen.

Siehe https://youtu.be/r-z9sZgTb2o

Die Sequenz über die Ukraine wird in Minute 3:00 eingeführt. Grant kommt in Minute 4:30 dazu. Ich bin von Minute 6:40 bis 7:30 zu sehen.

Anscheinend hat sich Grant nach der Sendung auch bei den Produzenten über das beschwert, was ich auf Sendung gesagt habe. Sie sagten mir, dass auch er „stinksauer“ war.

Nun, Freunde, man kann es nicht jedem recht machen.

Ich schließe diesen Aufsatz mit einer allgemeinen Beobachtung über das Leben in der Öffentlichkeit: Man muss auf jede Menge Gift und Galle gefasst sein. Vor ein paar Wochen wurde ich von John Helmer, der durch Dancing with Bears bekannt wurde, denunziert. Er unterstellte mir, ein CIA-Agent zu sein. Jetzt denunziert mich Team Zelensky als Putin-Agent. Die Gemeinsamkeit besteht eindeutig darin, dass diese Leute nicht in der Lage sind, eine faktenbasierte Diskussion zu führen.

Transcript submitted by a reader

PressTV: 0:21
Hello and welcome to Spotlight. The Israeli regime continues to carry out attacks on different parts of Syria after Israelis seized and occupied even more land in the Arab country. On Friday protests against Israel’s occupation in Daraa turned violent after the regime’s troops opened fire on Syrian demonstrators. Meanwhile the US has confirmed that it has doubled the number of its troops in Syria in recent weeks. The move raises questions about the US’s illegal oil extraction practices and the true motives behind America’s sustained military engagement in Syria.

PressTV (Ebrahimi, Hamidi): 0:56
The United States has confirmed that it has doubled its military forces in Syria. A Pentagon spokesperson announced the news, saying the additional US forces have been in Syria since before the fall of former President Bashar Assad.

Pentagon (Ryder):
I learned today that in fact there are approximately 2,000 US troops in Syria. As I understand it, and as it was explained to me, these additional forces are considered temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements, whereas the core 900 deployers [sic] are on longer-term deployments.

Hamidi: 1:34
This significant increase comes as tensions in the Arab country continue to rise with the occupation of more of Syrian lands by the Israeli regime and the renewed fighting between militants and Kurdish forces in the country’s northeast. But why are the US forces present in Syria at all? The US began sending troops to Syria in 2015, with the excuse of combating terrorism and Daesh. However, Washington has mainly deployed these forces in the oil fields in the Arab country. The stated excuse is to protect these resources from falling into the hands of terrorists. Despite the territorial defeat of Daesh in 2017, American forces have remained in Syria. According to a report by The Cradle, Washington is stealing over 80 percent of Syria’s oil output each day.

2:25
The Syrian oil ministry released a statement back in 2022 accusing US forces occupying Syria of being responsible for the theft of most of the country’s oil. US President Donald Trump has even confessed that Washington is stealing Syria’s oil.

Trump: 2:42
And then they say, “He left troops in Syria.” You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil.

Hamidi:
With the recent doubling of American troops in Syria, a pressing question now lingers. Is Washington planning to hold onto Syria’s oil and continue its extraction?

There’s also the matter of anti-US sentiment in Syria, which has been on the rise due to the prolonged military presence of American troops in the country. Many Syrians believe that the US’s continued involvement may worsen the already complicated situation in the Arab country, as it was the case in 2014 when the US first began attacking Syria amid opposition from the government in Damascus.

PressTV: 3:29
Joining us on tonight’s “Spotlight”, we have independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow, joining us from Brussels. And we also have journalist, activist and political analyst, John Bosnitch, joining us from Fredericton, Canada.

Well gentlemen, welcome to the program. Let’s start off with Mr. Doctorow in Brussels. Israel is expanding its occupation in Syria, obviously seizing more strategic areas. The regime is also continuing with its massive air strikes all over Syria. According to various accounts, there have been around 800 attacks so far. We also know that the Israeli forces are set for a long presence in Syria. These are very alarming developments, because we know Israel is not in the habit of giving back land that it illegally seizes.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 4:28
Yes, of course this is very troubling. And it’s a continuation of the wars of aggression and the genocide Israel has practiced in Gaza, that it expanded into Lebanon, and now it is moving into Syria. I noted that you have carried in your news during the day, reports of demonstrations against the Israeli presence, against the occupiers in the Daraa province in the south of Syria. That’s very interesting for me because I understand Daraa has a long history of political activism and was one of the cradles of the opposition to the regime in Damascus, to the Assad regime in 2011, touching off the civil war that lasted until 2017.

5:24
Daraa is not mentioned anywhere in Western media, neither in the print or the electronic media. And so you’re doing a very valuable service, Press TV, in bringing this to world attention. I have to say, overall, the events like what we’re seeing presently in Israeli aggression, have compelled me to change my thinking about collective responsibility. As a young man, I found this notion repugnant. It has come up again in American political life in “woke”, where people today are being held responsible for the sins of the grandfathers and great-grandfathers.

6:07
That type of collective responsibility I reject to this day. However, the responsibility of the broad nation in the United States for all of the atrocities that Israel is committing in its region, and now as you are explaining, in Syria, are all enabled by American military supplies. If you take out the American factor in the equation, Israel could never do what it’s doing today.

PressTV:
Absolutely.

Doctorow: 6:38
It could never defy international law and the morality that one expects in a community of nations. So sadly, the majority of Americans who are acquiescent in, who are silent about what their government is doing in supplying Israel the means to carry out these horrible deeds, that responsibility cannot be put aside. It belongs to the American nation today.

PressTV:
OK.

Doctorow:
And that is a very sad fact.

PressTV: 7:14
John Bosnich, dozens of countries and a number of UN experts have said the strikes on Syria following the ouster of the country’s government in the Arab country is a violation of international law and a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, let alone the 1974 agreement on disengagement. But we know international institutions like the UN, they weren’t able to stop the Israelis from murdering women and children for over a year in Gaza. And they most likely won’t and can’t do anything as the regime exploits Syria and runs wild there.

John Bosnitch: 7:50
Well, I think that’s because those institutions have been kidnapped. Effectively, the so-called world institutions, international institutions, have been taken over by the Anglo-American Zionist war empire. And it’s very difficult to spot the head, which is active on this three-headed hydra at the moment of an offense. Is it the US government? Is it their English trainers and English advisors? Or is it the Zionist war machine that’s on the ground?

And so they continuously move the pea under the cup and say, “It’s not me, it’s them.” And at the same time each of the cups is operated by the same hand, the shyster who is ripping off the public, who is watching and trying to guess where the pea is. The Israel lobby pulls the strings on the US government. The US government follows their indoctrination by their English-schooling chums, from their Rhodes scholarships who taught them how to run the empire.

The empire runs on donations and support from the Israeli lobby, which works with the banksters. It is a net sum-zero opportunity for the rest of the world, and it’s a 100 percent stealing and theft organization. When Trump says– and I personally am a supporter of Trump– but when Trump says that he is protecting the oil of Syria, that’s like a bank robber telling the bank manager, “We’re going to protect the money in the safe. Just give it to us. We’ll protect it.”

PressTV: 9:30
Right. And Mr. Doctorow, you mentioned the United States just a moment ago. The US has announced a significant increase in its military presence in Syria, doubling the number of troops deployed there. Why are US forces present in Syria at all?

Doctorow:
Well, as you have already pointed out, and as you’ve quoted Mr. Trump, of course they are supervising the theft of Syrian oil, hydrocarbons. This has, to my knowledge, for some time this was being fed into Turkey, and from Turkey, obviously, it was being resold to Israel. So it comes full circle. It is, again, another manifestation of the American government enabling Israel to commit atrocities, including theft of the resources of its neighbor. The move of Israel to take over the buffer zone and to extend its control over Golan Heights up to Mount Hermon also is anticipation of theft of water resources and deprivation of essential supplies to the Syrian population.

10:38
This is all unconscionable. And as I say, it is time for Americans to express their indignation if they have any conscience, and I think they do, and say that this is unacceptable behavior of their government.

PressTV: 10:54
Right. And Mr. Bosnitch, you were just talking about Donald Trump. He did confess that Washington in a slip was quote-unquote taking Syria’s oil. With the doubling of American troops in Syria, is Washington, just planning to hold on to that oil and continue with its extraction? I think “extraction” would not be the correct word; it’s exploitation.

Bosnitch: 11:21
Well, it’s worse than that. It’s expropriation, illegal expropriation of the national assets of the Syrian people in violation of international law, in violation of Syrian law, and in violation of international law on the state-to-state level. So everything is being violated here, and very few people are speaking out about it in America, because the lying mainstream media of America is owned by the military-industrial complex, which works for the Israel lobby.

So what you’ve got is the lying mainstream media is not there to only propagate a pro-war, pro-empire message. It is also there to operate as a prophylactic stopping the American people from having contact with fair and truthful information. The American people are not listening to PressTV. They are listening to lying CNN. They are listening to lying MSNBC and lying ABC [who] tell them lies that keep them from becoming active and fighting what’s going on. That’s how the system works.

PressTV: 12:32
Right. And Mr. Doctorow, there’s clear hypocrisy and double standard regarding the term “terrorist”, specifically from the US and some of its key Western allies as to who is categorized as a terrorist and how they should be dealt with. If you can unpack that for us please, in the context of Syria, because we know that the Israeli regime, they supported militant groups, terrorist groups for years in Syria working behind the scenes to destabilize Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus. And let’s not forget Operation Timber Sycamore, which was planned and funded by the Obama administration, devised for the overthrow of the Assad government.

Doctorow: 13:17
Terms like “terrorist”, terms like “authoritarian”, “dictatorial”, “autocratic”, all of these terms are in the vocabulary of American public policy, foreign policy, And they serve only as justification to those who are lazy, who don’t want to understand the news, and who want to accept the good faith of their government when it is lying, cheating, and stealing all the time.

And so I don’t take with particular concern the application by the United States government of “terrorist” to one or another organization. That is variable to the moments when a given state, the given organization does or does not kneel before the United States and accept the dictate of Washington to do its bidding.

14:06
Whoever they are, if they are perceived to be doing Washington’s bidding, they are clean as the driven snow. If they refuse to do so, then they become terrorists or they are autocrats or whatever else you want to use at the moment to denigrate them and to drive them from civilized society. The problem is that Washington uses these terms to justify its policy of exclusion, its policy of sanctions, its policy of driving countries into such isolation that they can be called pariahs.

14:41
That, unfortunately, is the basic motif of American foreign policy for more than a decade. And I contrast that with what Russia is doing, for example, in Afghanistan or other states which the United States has designated as pariahs and [has] excluded from civilized society, all to the detriment of the peoples in those countries and to peace in the region.

An extension of a hand of cooperation is the best possible way of moderating countries and making them constructive members of the world community. Unfortunately, that vision is outside the understanding of America’s foreign policy makers.

PressTV: 15:24
John Bosnitch, how come the current militant commanders in Syria, who claim they want to rebuild the country, aren’t opposing the destruction and occupation of Syria by the Israelis? Should they be primarily concerned with preserving their country’s borders?

Bosnitch: 15:41
Well, I’m not going to try and set moral and political or geopolitical objectives for these groups, because we know that these groups have been financed via Israel, armed via Israel and we have this same… actually, it looks like an insane scenario in which designated US terrorist organizations, in other words the United States government the State Department of the United States, has designated the organizations that have taken power in Syria as terrorist organizations because they previously engaged in terrorist attacks on the United States.

16:20
They have not yet recategorized them as allies, now that they are prepared to directly exercise state power in Syria. So there’s going to be a transitional phase when everybody’s supposed to put their hands over their eyes and pretend they see nothing, know nothing, and remember nothing. And that’s what America is counting on.

And that’s why it’s so important for people who know what’s going on to say, these are the people who are accused in the United States of being the terrorists who attacked the Twin Towers. These are the actual descendants of al-Qaeda, of ISIS, and of Daesh, the organization set up by Israel and the United States via the CIA to take this region into war, to depose governments all around Israel, and effectively create a new state which would be best known as Greater Israel.

PressTV: 17:17
Gilbert Doctorow, speaking about developments in Syria a few days ago, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei [english.khamenei.ir], said that the US Senate’s allies are quote-unquote completely wrong to presume that the resistance has ended. Do you see it in that light as well?

Doctorow:
Well, it is much too early to draw conclusions about where Syria is going. As I have been saying, he laughs best who laughs last. And there was a lot of laughter in London, in Washington, in Brussels over the overthrow of al-Assad. Very premature. As regards the organization presently controlling Damascus, it is unclear whether its leader who has spoken out– in interviews on the BBC this morning which show him to be a very civilized and sophisticated man– it’s unclear whether he can maintain the moderate policies that he is telling before the microphones of Western reporters, upon his followers. That is not clear.

18:30
And again, the very big ethnic and religious divides in Syria make it impossible to forecast what will happen next. Will they find some reconciliation? Will they find some path to a new constitution, which has been set as a task for the next several months? Or will they collapse into a new civil war and new fighting as has happened in Libya? So I agree with the notion that Syria has potential, but the present is no indication of the near future.

PressTV: 19:13
Mr. Bosnitch, on that note, many Syrians believe that the US’s continued presence may worsen the already complicated situation there. Are Syrians right to be concerned about that? Because that was the case when we look back in 2014 when the US increased its involvement and also began attacking Syria.

Bosnitch:
Well, now what we’re doing here is Iraq War III, effectively. The United States has through its puppet organizations and terror organizations, I call them terror agents. They’re not terrorists. They are terror agents paid and armed by the United States and its allies, England and Israel to create a terror situation, which they then themselves offer a solution to. So they create the crisis, they manage the crisis, they use it to remove a government that they disapprove of, and then they solve the crisis. It is in effect a tempest created in Washington and in Tel Aviv to create war for profit. And the blood with which this bill is being paid is so far Syrian blood.

20:29
But if the American forces stay there, it will soon once again be American blood being shed as it was in Iraq and as it was in Afghanistan, because the people will not accept colonization by enemy states through a veneer of fake organizations.

PressTV:
Gilbert Doctorow, John Bosnitch called it Iraq War III. I would even call it Iraq War 4.0. What kind of repercussions do you think could there be for stability in the broader West Asia region? How will this impact other surrounding countries if the crisis in Syria does actually take a turn for the worse?

Doctorow: 21:12
Again, these are imponderables. The lack of stability in Syria has been promoted for more than 20 years by Israel. The principle of provoking chaos has been a guiding principle of American policy for more than 20 years. The fishing in muddy waters is a basic mechanism of American foreign policy in the region. So if Syria moves from stability to total chaos, it would suit very well Israel and Israel’s backers in the United States.

21:59
The situation in Libya, unfortunately, is a scenario that is recent, that is relevant to the situation in Syria. And we have to consider that as a worst-case scenario. But there always are ways out. There always are forces that are constructive that come in at an opportune moment to save the situation. Right now, the situation in Libya may well become more governable if, as would seem to be the case by early straws in the wind, Russia takes a greater presence in Libya.

22:40
As I said, there are so many things in action across the region that it’s rather difficult to speak with any confidence about outcomes. We can speak about influences, we can speak about the American and Israeli interest in chaos for their own purposes. But whether they will succeed or whether forces that are national, unifying, will prevail, too early to say.

PressTV: 23:12
John Bosnitch, one last question before we wrap up the show. How has the silence of some Islamic nations and some Arab regimes emboldened Israel to press ahead with its illegal activities that we’re seeing right now in Syria?

Bosnitch: 23:29
Well, I’d like to say that very, very few of these events that are taking place are not predictable. Israel made sure, and America made sure in advance, that there would be silence from other Arab countries. They are trying to isolate Iran from other Muslim countries in the region, and they are trying to basically neuter and turn all Arab countries in the region into eunuchs: that they do what they’re told, take their share of the money (and it’ll be a smaller and smaller share as Israel’s share increases), and stay out of the way.

I don’t think that the people of Syria can stay out of the way of their own lives. I don’t think Iran can stay out of the way of Israel’s growing military power. And I don’t think that the rest of the world can stay out of the way of what could be a growing conflict.

PressTV: 24:22
All right, thanks a lot gentlemen. Independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow, joining us from Brussels; and thanks to Journalist, activist and political analyst John Bosnitch, joining us from Fredericton, Canada. And a special thanks to you, our viewers, for staying with us on tonight’s edition of Spotlight.

24:39
It’s good night for now, and see you next time.

I hope that readers of these pages will find yesterday evening’s ‘Spotlight’ discussion program of Press TV to be as thought provoking as I did in my capacity as participant.  My debating partner, journalist John Bosnitch in Canada, was well prepared with an analysis of current developments in Syria under stage management from the United States and Israel.  I used the occasion to set out my epiphany moment as regards collective responsibility of peoples, in this case, the American people, for the obscene support of their government to Israel in its genocidal and colonial expansionist policies that are wrecking the West Asian region. All of this leaves us with the unposed, unanswered question always on the mind of Russia specialists:  What is to be done?

See  http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/132041

Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:33
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, December 19th, 2024. Our dear friend Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, a pleasure. Thank you very much for your time and your thoughts to come. Was President Assad’s departure from Syria a strategic defeat for Russia?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Not if you listen to President Putin in his question and answer session today in Moscow, in which he addressed that very issue, what happened in Syria, and what Russia tried to achieve back in 2015, which has been widely distorted by all of our recent news in Western media. What he tried to achieve is precisely what I was saying he tried to achieve when I wrote about this a couple of days ago. It was to ensure that the Islamic State would not establish a durable enclave in Syria.

1:35
And he did that, because if you look at the map, you understand that the Middle East is rather close to the southern fringes of Russia, to the Caucasus, where it would be like an incendiary if there were these radicals based in Syria and within reach of Russia’s southern borders. So they achieved that. He said that “we did it without having boots on the ground”. The only troops that Russia had in Syria during this period, from 2015 and later, were those who were guarding its naval base and its air base on the Syrian coast, where these bases are today. That all the fighting was done by Arab units. He meant precisely– he didn’t say this precisely, but he meant– the proxy forces of Iran and the then Syrian army.

2:32
The Russians had nothing to do with the fighting. They achieved what they wanted [by their aerial bombing]. Now, in the recent months, they understood that the recent events that brought about the collapse and departure of Assad’s regime, they understood that his troops melted away. And whatever support there should have been from friendly Arab units also melted away. And so the situation was untenable.

3:03
As regards the present, Putin said that “we have contacts with everyone inside and outside Syria” and that “most everyone is asking us to keep our bases in Syria, Khmeimim for the the air base and Tartus for the naval base, and we are considering that. But all these things will depend on what arrangements we agree or don’t agree with the government in Damascus.”

Napolitano: 3:31
The government in Damascus is a successor to ISIS, which is a terrorist organization, according to the British and the Americans, which collectively have put a bounty of 10 million dollars on the head of Al-Jassani, who now appears in a Western business suit and claims he’s changed. Is it realistic for the Russians to claim that the danger of Islamic fanatics on their border has dissipated, whereas some would say it has been exacerbated?

4:06
Why shouldn’t that be the case? The Russians are virtually the only ones, well, together with the Chinese, who have established working relations with Afghanistan, a country which has had more than its share of Islamic extremism. Yes, I also watched the BBC interview in this morning’s news wrap-up, and he was very impressive. Very impressive. Quite, quite unimaginable that it’s not just putting on a business suit, it’s what’s inside his mind and what he was saying. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. The question is, does this one man have real sway, not only over his own followers, but over the others–

Napolitano:
Right, right. His followers are as maniacal as he used to be. How are Russian commentators, “The Great Game” and those other programs with which you’re so familiar, explaining the sudden summary collapse of Assad?

Doctorow:
Well, these experts, and I’m speaking now of the Orientalists, who are the most serious voices on these programs, not general political commentators, but those who are professionals, academics, and long experience in the Middle East, not as outside observers, but actually as having been there on the ground. They are saying very much the same thing that you see in the most authoritative analyses in the West on programs like yours. That this was untenable, that the Syrian state was starved for funds, and therefore, they were unable to pay salaries or living wage to their army, which made it very likely that under pressure and under fear of an attack, they would disappear. They would melt away. There’s no real difference in the understanding of how impossible it was to save Assad on the Russian observer side as what you have around you.

Napolitano: 6:19
Does the– Is the report in The Guardian of London that Russia is moving its air defense missiles from Syria to Libya, is that report credible?

Doctorow:
I’m not aware of this.

Napolitano:
Are you aware of any reports that Russia is making this move? Because that would undermine any desire to stay in Syria. They can’t stay there without air defenses.

Doctorow: 6:45
Yes. The Russians– the only news that I’ve seen in Russian media pertains to the evacuation of equipment, unnamed equipment, without any specification where it was being evacuated to. So I don’t have an answer using open sources. But I’d like to make just a little explanation here, because this comes into play. Exactly what is the value of the news, either the official news wrap-ups or of these talk shows?

This is the same value as the paper press always was for studies that we call now Kremlinology. This was using open sources. Open sources always in studying the then Soviet Union were the dominant factor in understanding what was going on. And they are, they play the same role today. Now there are many other sources, of course. And I don’t claim to have them all in my hands or to be trying to chase them all, but I am giving you on these programs what is known from open sources inside Russia.

Napolitano: 7:58
Got it. Got it. Got it. How close do you think the Kremlin believes the Ukrainian military is to collapse?

Doctorow:
They think it’s quite close to it. I can’t give you a number of days or weeks. They’re very cautious about this. But from the behavior, from the demeanor of the war correspondents in the field, of the soldiers they interview, they’re very satisfied that they are moving quickly. And now they show maps every day on the Russian news, which you don’t need a microscope to see where they’ve moved to or from.

8:39
You see genuine pincer movements. You see genuine besieging of cities like Pokrovsk. You see their readiness to change the name to its original Krasnoarmeisk, which is what it was known as before the Kiev regime put new names on places. So they are expecting a quick victory.

Napolitano: 9:05
Who killed General Kirillov?

Doctorow:
This is a very interesting question. We know precisely who, I don’t think he’s been named, but it’s a 29-year-old Uzbek citizen who has been a resident in Russia for some years. He was– the Russian television showed the restaurant, the Uzbek restaurant where he was working. He is what, you can understand that he’s what they would call a sleeper. He was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence. He said that himself when he was interviewed. I wouldn’t say interrogated, because it was really just a very open question and answer that he was not under any obvious duress.

9:52
In fact, he didn’t have a scratch on him, which is a marked distinction from what happened to the Crocus gang, the terrorists who ran amok in the Crocus entertainment center some months ago, who were missing a part of an ear and looked like they’d been pretty well worked over. He was not in that case. He was very forthcoming with why he was recruited.

10:18
But the Russians made it clear almost immediately after they were satisfied that they had nailed the man who did the job. They made it clear in the briefing that Maria Zakharova gave yesterday that that is not where the trail ends. And she said publicly that the Russians believe that the masterminds of this were the Anglo-Saxons and the chief beneficiary of this were the Anglo-Saxons.

Napolitano;
An interesting phrase, Anglo-Saxons. I mean, it could refer to anybody in the West, but probably means Great Britain.

Doctorow: 10:57
Exactly. In the State Department, they got very excited. They thought that she was pointing an accusatory finger at the US. No, no. As it was clear from her following remarks, Great Britain was the country in the West that had placed sanctions on the head of General Kirillov. Great Britain perhaps had its nose out of joint because of the very effective work he did in knocking out the false-flag operations of MI6 and of the White Helmets in Syria for the staged and photographed and filmed chemical attacks that were laid at the door of Al-Assad; and behind the Syrians, laid at the door of the Russians, which were completely phony. He was the one who debunked the whole British story of the killing of the Skripals, the poisoning of the Skripals with Novichok, he was the one who publicized exactly why this could not have been. So the Brits really were quite annoyed with the general for having exposed their deceit, their terrorist activities and the like.

12:23
But in the talk show, we’ve got a more direct nailing of the Brits. This was the day before yesterday on the evening show of Solovyov, he and his panelists were aligned in the notion that the killing of Kirillov had all the marks of an MI6 operation. And yesterday’s edition of “The Great Game”, was more specific, that the British were the only ones among Western journalists, Western press, who didn’t just ignore, failed to make a statement of regret that this tragedy had happened, but went out to celebrate it.

13:14
The passage from the editorial, the lead story, as they call it in Britain, of the “Times” of London, said specifically that the murder of the General Kirillov was justified as an act of war by the Ukrainians in their desperate situation. So that from the standpoint of the Russian elites, this was a statement linked to the knowledge that their own intelligence operatives were behind it.

Napolitano: 13:49
Great Britain is not at war with Russia, even though Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain, used and aimed by British technicians, have landed in Russia. And now Britain is almost celebrating the assassination of a senior Russian general who also happens to have been a scientist, a very valuable scientist to the Kremlin. What is the Kremlin likely to do? This strikes me as an insane move by Prime Minister Starmer’s government.

Doctorow:
Well, one would expect, and if you look at the kind of headlines that appear in various YouTube entries from the “Times of India” or a few other world broadcasters, you would expect the Russians would do something really drastic. And of course, Washington must be hoping for that. This is exactly the kind of provocation that Biden and company have been trying to bring about. so that they could make it impossible for Trump to proceed with peace plans.

15:02
But I don’t see anything of that sort happening. The Russians’ attention is elsewhere, and with good reason. It is not to carry out vengeance, although they certainly would like to. They enjoy saying on television how exactly one Sarmat rocket could raze the entire United Kingdom to the ground. So they enjoy that among themselves. But when you look at the action side, what they’re about to do, they have greater concerns.

What happened to the General could happen to almost any of the leading military and industrial figures in Russia. By industrial I mean military industrial, not private industrial. Private industrial, of course, these fellows look after themselves very nicely, thank you, for security. But the Russian generals, like the general Kirillov, who was killed, they live modestly. He had no security detachment.

15:54
He just had an aide, who was killed with him. The apartment house, which they showed, it’s a modest, ordinary, middle-class apartment house. It’s not something extravagant. There’s no concierge. There’s no security there. And that is a situation for many of their officers, which is puzzling, frankly. And I think there are a lot of people scratching their heads now in Moscow, what to do about this.

Napolitano: 16:20
I watched a little bit, I suspect you watched more than I did, of President Putin’s now eagerly anticipated year-end, two-, three-, sometimes four-hour press conference. I saw a clip from an NBC reporter with a British accent. I don’t know his name, but they show him a lot, and Putin always lets him ask whatever he wants, who basically put a question to President Putin. [It] was, and I’ll paraphrase it, “You just lost Syria, you haven’t yet succeeded in your Special Military Operation, and one of your chief generals was just assassinated. When you meet with President Trump, aren’t you the weaker of the two?

17:12
He responded by quoting Mark Twain, saying, “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” He also of course went on to argue, and I’ll ask you about this Professor, that Russia is actually stronger economically, culturally, socially, politically and militarily today than it was three years ago when the Special Military Operation began and provoked the sanctions from the US. But I’m sure you watched more of this than the one short clip I did. Take it from there.

Doctorow: 17:43
Well, your short clip was a very good one. It comes– I watched this for two hours, which was about as long as I could take, and I felt quite satisfied that I left at the right time, because the Russians prepared this particular edition of his annual presser and direct-line conversation with the whole of Russia who sent in their questions to him.

This was prepared in a way that was much more effective and interesting for an international audience than any of the preceding events of this variety, combined press conference and public letters and emails to him. That was combined four years ago before COVID and stays that way. And they put it together in a very, very impressive manner. The most important thing I want to say is that all the trivial questions, which took a lot of the time in the past, were now taken aside and sent to the governors of the areas where the questioner lives to be solved locally without taking the time of the whole nation to hear Mr. Putin step in like the good Tsar and save somebody from the mean local officials.

19:06
So that already took away a lot of the fluffy questions. As for the serious questions, yes, Mr. Putin made the point of giving the microphone to this Kier Brennan, he has a hyphenated last name, leave it at that, Kier Brennan from NBC. Yes, he obviously is British. And his questions were already what you said complex, but that was only [the first] question that he was allowed to deliver.

But as regards Putin’s answer, it was very solid. It was very self-confident. And it was comprehensive, I’d say. Russia is doing better, and not just Russia is doing better, and that Russia is producing, this military industrial complex has ramped up and is producing more material relevant to the war of attrition that’s going on now than all of NATO and the US combined can do. But in fact, Russia is doing it effectively, efficiently, and watching its costs.

20:15
Whereas NATO, as he said, in the two years since the start of the war, the cost of each 155-millimeter artillery shell has quadrupled. As he said, the net result of the soaring costs of military production in the West is that the NATO countries would now have to put up three percent of their GDP just to stand in place, to cover their contributions to NATO’s overall expenses.

Napollitano:
They’ll never be able to afford that. That’s an extraordinary number.

Professor Doctorow, I must run. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all you did for us in 2024. Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you and your family. I hope and trust you’ll be back with us in the new year just two weeks from now.

Doctorow:
Okay, I look forward to it as well. And a Merry Christmas to you and viewers of the show and a good 2025.

Napolitano:
Thank you, my dear friend. All the best to you. Coming up later today: at one o’clock this afternoon, the former British diplomat who has a lot to say about what Professor Doctorow was just discussing, Ian Proud. At two o’clock, Colonel Larry Wilkerson. At three o’clock, Professor John Mearsheimer.

21:34
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 19 December: “Murder in Moscow”

I am appreciative of the title given by the producer to today’s broadcast, as it likely assured higher than usual audience interest. And, in fact, Judge Napolitano and I did spend some time talking about the assassination of General Kirillov by an Uzbek man in the pay of Ukrainian intelligence.

 The key question surrounding the murder that you see headlined on you.tube video clips posted by The Times of India and other peddlers of lurid, usually fake news is the following: what violent act of revenge  may we expect from Moscow today. It is assumed that Russian revenge will be directed against London, where the MI6 is considered by the Kremlin to be the mastermind of this act of terror and its chief beneficiary.  However, as I say in this interview, Russians’ concerns presently lie elsewhere:  to see what they can do to prevent the repetition of such terror acts against other leading military officers, against their top scientists, who all lack much-needed security details.

Otherwise, I note with interest that in advance of our chat Judge Napolitano had managed to watch at least one very important video clip of the Putin Q&A in English translation. This showed the questions put to him by the NBC journalist Keir Brennan-Simmons, in particular his very first question on how Putin would conduct his eventual meeting with Donald Trump to find solutions to the war knowing that he was in a weakened position due to the sanctions, to the loss of Syria, to the assassination of General Kirillov.

The fact that this video was posted so quickly reflects the effectiveness of the Russians’ organization of the press conference event this year. Their aim was clearly to grab as much international attention as possible and to ensure that Vladimir Putin’s words reach the broad public in the West. 

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE97FaADEb4

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Judging Freedom“-Ausgabe vom 19. Dezember: „Murder in Moscow“

Ich bin dankbar für den Titel, den der Produzent der heutigen Sendung gegeben hat, da er wahrscheinlich für ein höheres Zuschauerinteresse als sonst gesorgt hat. Und tatsächlich haben Judge Napolitano und ich einige Zeit damit verbracht, über die Ermordung von General Kirillov durch einen usbekischen Mann zu sprechen, der vom ukrainischen Geheimdienst bezahlt wurde.

Die Schlüsselfrage im Zusammenhang mit dem Mord, die Sie in den Überschriften der von The Times of India und anderen Anbietern reißerischer, in der Regel gefälschter Nachrichten geposteten YouTube-Videoclips sehen, lautet: Mit welcher gewalttätigen Racheaktion müssen wir heute aus Moskau rechnen? Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass sich die russische Rache gegen London richten wird, wo der MI6 vom Kreml als Drahtzieher dieses Terrorakts und Hauptnutznießer angesehen wird. Wie ich in diesem Interview jedoch sage, liegen die Sorgen der Russen derzeit woanders: Sie wollen sehen, was sie tun können, um die Wiederholung solcher Terrorakte gegen andere führende Militärs und gegen ihre Spitzenwissenschaftler zu verhindern, denen es an dringend benötigten Sicherheitsmaßnahmen mangelt.

Ansonsten stelle ich mit Interesse fest, dass es Judge Napolitano vor unserem Gespräch gelungen war, sich mindestens einen sehr wichtigen Videoclip der Putin-Fragerunde in englischer Übersetzung anzusehen. Darin wurden die Fragen des NBC-Journalisten Keir Brennan-Simmons an ihn gezeigt, insbesondere seine allererste Frage, wie Putin sein eventuelles Treffen mit Donald Trump führen würde, um Lösungen für den Krieg zu finden, da er sich aufgrund der Sanktionen, des Verlusts von Syrien und der Ermordung von General Kirillov in einer geschwächten Position befinde.

Die Tatsache, dass dieses Video so schnell veröffentlicht wurde, spiegelt die Effektivität der Organisation der diesjährigen Pressekonferenz durch die Russen wider. Ihr Ziel war es eindeutig, so viel internationale Aufmerksamkeit wie möglich zu erregen und sicherzustellen, dass Wladimir Putins Worte die breite Öffentlichkeit im Westen erreichen.

Siehe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE97FaADEb4

“Results of the year with Vladimir Putin,” an informational event which merits close attention

As I have note on these pages, Vladimir Putin’s speeches to mark one or another calendar event are a daily feature of Russian air time on state television. But there are also very special and noteworthy televised Putin-centered events. Today’s fell into that category. It was preceded by a couple of weeks of active promotion in the media to ensure the widest possible participation of the public.

In what follows I will discuss several of the key issues which Vladimir Putin addressed in response to questions from the moderators and from journalists, that is issues which are necessarily of interest to the international community and not only to the domestic audience in Russia. The event in question is the annual Q&A of the Russian President with callers from around the country and with the national and international press. These two different groups, who were formerly addressed on separate days. The public had its ‘Direct Line’ and the journalists separately were invited to an ‘Annual Press Conference.’ So it was when both events were established back in 2004.  However, four years ago, given the limitations imposed by Covid, they were combined into a single event and so it remains.

 The venue for the ‘Results of the Year’ is in the heart of Moscow, just steps away from Red Square and from the Kremlin in the totally renovated 18^th Century building called Gostinny Dvor that once served as commercial retail premises. 

Seating in the central hall was reduced to allow for aides to pass freely into rows and pass the microphone to designated questioners.  Moreover, the center of the hall, in an elevated space about the size of a boxing ring, was reserved for the president and a couple of journalist-moderators seated around a table. Journalists, foreign and domestic, constituted most of those in the hall. They numbered less than a thousand but were only a tiny part of the combined exercise.

 In the run-up to the event more than two million questions were sent in to the dedicated call center.  One million two hundred thousand were phone calls. A little less than 500,000 were sms messages and others were videos and text messages sent via social media. These advance communications were all processed electronically using Artificial Intellect so as to be categorized by the topic interesting the caller, the location of the caller geographically and other parameters useful in prioritizing the President’s time on air.

The ’Direct Line’ events had been characterized not only by the preponderance of questions relating to domestic Russian issues but to a great many highly personal requests for Putin’s intervention to right some wrong in a given locality or some conflict with local officials.  In today’s event measures had been taken in advance to reduce the number of such petty exchanges and to leave more time to issues of consequence and general interest. The particularistic questions or complaints were shunted off to be resolved by the governor’s office where the respective caller lives.

Meanwhile, by clear intent of the organizers to make the event more interesting to a global audience, questions relating to international affairs were moved to the first hour, not left for the very end as was the case in the past.

On this basis, I am able to present below some points that Vladimir Putin evidently was keen to bring to our attention, though I admit that I sat through only the first two hours of ‘Results of the Year.’  This gives me the opportunity to provide a ‘scoop’ to readers of these pages, and then to come back with follow-up if the President dealt with something of general interest to us abroad before the Q&A was terminated.

                                                                       *****

One of the first questions pitched to Putin by one of the moderators was to ask if the world has gone mad. How can Russia navigate the very turbulent waters of international affairs.

His answer was that the world has not gone mad but that when the bullets are flying, as is now the case, people say it is terrible; whereas when there is a time of calm, people say it is a period of stagnation!

The answer to the question, in his view, is to look at the Russian economy, which is stable, resilient and growing very well.  Last year, Russian GDP grew at 3.6%; this year it is currently 3.9% and may reach 4% at 31 December.  So Russia has grown 8% over two years, while the number is 5.6% in the USA, 1% in the EU and 0% in Germany. Russia is now the largest economy in Europe and number 4 in the world. It has a record low unemployment rate of 2.3%. Growth in manufacturing this year has been 4% and it was 8% in processing industries. The negative indicator is the 9.3% inflation rate.

In answer to a later questioner complaining about price inflation in specific products, Putin revisited this issue, saying that the Central Bank is now looking into what other instruments besides the prime interest rate it can use to tame inflation.  And the problem with inflation is too few goods put onto the market to satisfy the growing demand.  By way of example, Russia now has become fully self-sufficient in meat production, and meat consumption is now 80kg per capita whereas a few years ago it was half that amount.  Milk demand, especially for production of butter, has soared while output has not been able to keep pace. All of this is in conditions of 9% rise in real wages over the past year, which adds to demand across the board.

Surely of greater interest to Western audiences is what the Russian president had to say about the Oreshnik hypersonic missile and the other advanced strategic weapons systems that Russia has now put out into the field and has in serial production.

He explained the logic of developing the intermediate range missiles which were formally banned by an arms agreement which the Americans abrogated under Donald Trump.  The range of the Oreshnik and the peculiarity of its very high rise into the atmosphere were decided upon to make the missile invulnerable to all present American means of interception.  Since the missile is most vulnerable in the moments immediately following launch, it was given extended range (to 5,000 km) making it possible to locate it way beyond the attack range of any anti-missile systems in the American armory, and especially available on the American ABM bases in Poland and Romania.  It reaches a height in the atmosphere before its lightening descent at Mach 10 that also exceeds several times over the capabilities of the Patriot or the still more modern American interceptors.

In what surely will be featured in Western media later today, Putin challenged the States to engage in a ‘duel of the 21^st century’.  Russia will name its target somewhere in Ukraine and dare the US to bring down the Oreshnik using the best interceptors in their arsenal.

Another set of questions addressed to Putin that can be of general interest in the West was with regard to reconstruction in the 4 annexed regions of the Donbas and Novaya Rossiya: does Russia have the financial and management capability to retore and grow these new territories?  His answer was an emphatic yes and he pointed first to the city of Mariupol which had 450,000 inhabitants before the war and was largely destroyed in the artillery battles that preceded its conquest by Russian forces.  Putin said that much attention was devoted to infrastructure, starting with rebuilding and fully modernizing roads and to reconstruction of housing.  The population has been returning and now is approximately 300,000 strong.  Similar investments are being made all across the new territories.  And Putin assured the public that these new regions are growing their economies very quickly so that even today the tax revenues from Lugansk are almost twice what they were before the war, and they are more than 60% higher in the part of Donetsk under Russian control.

The microphone was then demonstratively handed over to the American news outlet NBC whose reporter Keir Brennnan-Simmons. Putin was making the point that Russia is treating the foreign press from ‘unfriendly countries’ with the kind of respect that no Russian journalist receives in America.

Brennan-Simmons opened with two questions, the first of which was more an accusation and mark of derision than a question proper: ‘Mr President when you meet with Donald Trump, you will be doing so from a position of weakness. You have lost soldiers.  You just lost a senior general…”

Putin said first that he has heard nothing from the Trump camp about a possible meeting with him. And he challenged directly the notion that Russia’s position would be the weaker party when the meeting eventually takes place.  No, said Putin, we are much stronger than we were thanks to the assertion of our sovereignty and our finding our way in self-reliance since the launch of the Special Military Operation. We are standing on our own feet economically. Our military production far exceeds the capabilities of all of NATO together. Our soldiers on the battlefield are using our own military supplies and we do all of this in a most rational and effective way.  Compare that to NATO where the price of 155mm artillery shells is now four times what it was back in 2022. With this type of cost inflation, NATO member states will have to dedicated not 2% but 3% of their GDP just to stand in place.  Our army today has no peer in the world. Russia has become stronger and we, as a sovereign country, are following our national interests.

As regards the journalist who ‘disappeared’ in Syria, Putin offered to put the question to al-Assad when they eventually meet. However, he asked with all due reason how one could expect to get an answer to the mother’s request given that it all happened in the midst of the Syria civil war and long ago.

Then Putin used the question as a springboard to what we all wanted to hear:  what the Kremlin says about the ‘loss’ of Syria and about its bases there.  As I remarked several days ago, he insisted that Russia entered the civil war in 2015 for one purpose only: to ensure that an extreme Islamist enclave could not be established there. He said Russia succeeded in that mission and did so with no boots on the ground other than those defending its naval and air base.  The fighters were from the Syrian Army and from friendly Arab forces [meaning Iranian proxies].   What happened recently was the melting away of the Syrian forces in advance of the conquering troops without a fight.   Iran once again turned to us for assistance with moving its troops – but unlike 2015 it was not to move Iranian forces into Syria, it was now to evacuate Iranian troops from Syria. We did so and evacuated 4,000 Iranians to our air base.

As regards Syria, Russia, he said has maintained relations with all interested parties inside and in the region. Everyone says we should keep our bases there.  But whether we do or not will depend on our negotiations with the government in Damascus.  We have suggested to others that we are ready to open both the naval and the air base for use by all parties wishing to bring humanitarian assistance in to Syria.

In summary, Putin said that Russia’s experience in Syria corresponds to the old remark “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

The NBC’s remark about the assassination of General Kirillov evoked a response from Putin that he was satisfied to see the word ‘assassination’ applied to the case, meaning the understanding that this was an act of terrorism.  Why is it, Putin then asked in turn, that you journalists in the West have never uttered a word of regret over the murder by terrorist attacks of our Russian journalists?

Finally, Putin invited Brennan-Simmons to ask anything else he might want clarified now that he had the microphone.  The journalist asked if Russia is ready to make compromises itself in line with its demand that Kiev make compromises to arrive at a peace.

The answer Putin gave is noteworthy:  that Russia and Ukraine had demonstrated this in March-April 2022 when they initialed a peace treaty involving compromises on all sides. Regrettably the British prime minister with a peculiar hairdo then came down to Kiev and issued instructions not to complete the deal.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Ergebnisse des Jahres mit Wladimir Putin“, eine Informationsveranstaltung, die besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient

Wie ich auf diesen Seiten angemerkt habe, sind Wladimir Putins Reden zu dem einen oder anderen Kalenderereignis ein tägliches Merkmal der russischen Sendezeit im staatlichen Fernsehen. Aber es gibt auch ganz besondere und bemerkenswerte Fernsehveranstaltungen, bei denen Putin im Mittelpunkt steht. Die heutige Veranstaltung fiel in diese Kategorie. Ihr gingen einige Wochen aktiver Medienwerbung voraus, um eine möglichst breite Beteiligung der Öffentlichkeit zu gewährleisten.

Im Folgenden werde ich auf einige der wichtigsten Themen eingehen, die Wladimir Putin als Antwort auf Fragen der Moderatoren und Journalisten angesprochen hat, d.h. Themen, die nicht nur für das russische Publikum, sondern auch für die internationale Gemeinschaft von Interesse sind. Bei der betreffenden Veranstaltung handelt es sich um die jährliche Fragestunde des russischen Präsidenten mit Anrufern aus dem ganzen Land und mit der nationalen und internationalen Presse. Diese beiden unterschiedlichen Gruppen wurden früher an verschiedenen Tagen angesprochen. Die Öffentlichkeit hatte ihren „direkten Draht“ und die Journalisten wurden separat zu einer „Jahrespressekonferenz“ eingeladen. So war es, als beide Veranstaltungen im Jahr 2004 ins Leben gerufen wurden. Vor vier Jahren wurden sie jedoch aufgrund der durch Covid auferlegten Einschränkungen zu einer einzigen Veranstaltung zusammengefasst, und so war es auch jetzt.

Der Veranstaltungsort für die „Ergebnisse des Jahres“ befindet sich im Herzen von Moskau, nur wenige Schritte vom Roten Platz und vom Kreml entfernt, in dem vollständig renovierten Gebäude Gostinny Dwor aus dem 18. Jahrhundert, das einst als Einzelhandelsgeschäft diente.

Die Sitzplätze in der zentralen Halle wurden reduziert, damit die Helfer ungehindert in die Reihen gehen und das Mikrofon an die vorgesehenen Fragesteller weitergeben konnten. Darüber hinaus war die Mitte der Halle ein erhöhter Bereich von der Größe eines Boxrings für den Präsidenten und einige Journalisten-Moderatoren reserviert, die um einen Tisch saßen. Die meisten Anwesenden in der Halle waren in- und ausländische Journalisten. Ihre Zahl lag unter tausend, aber sie waren nur ein winziger Teil der gesamten Veranstaltung.

Im Vorfeld der Veranstaltung wurden mehr als zwei Millionen Fragen an das eigens eingerichtete Callcenter geschickt. Eine Million zweihunderttausend davon wurden telefonisch gestellt. Etwas weniger als 500.000 waren SMS-Nachrichten und andere waren Videos und Textnachrichten, die über soziale Medien gesendet wurden. Diese Vorab-Mitteilungen wurden alle elektronisch mit künstlicher Intelligenz verarbeitet, um sie nach dem Thema, das den Anrufer interessierte, dem geografischen Standort des Anrufers und anderen Parametern zu kategorisieren, die für die Priorisierung der Sendezeit des Präsidenten nützlich waren.

Die „Direct Line“-Veranstaltungen waren nicht nur durch die überwiegende Anzahl von Fragen zu innenpolitischen Themen Russlands gekennzeichnet, sondern auch durch eine große Anzahl sehr persönlicher Bitten um Putins Intervention, um ein Unrecht an einem bestimmten Ort oder einen Konflikt mit örtlichen Beamten zu beheben. Bei der heutigen Veranstaltung wurden im Voraus Maßnahmen ergriffen, um die Anzahl solcher belanglosen Gespräche zu reduzieren und mehr Zeit für Themen von Bedeutung und allgemeinem Interesse zu lassen. Die partikularistischen Fragen oder Beschwerden wurden an das Büro des Gouverneurs weitergeleitet, in dem der jeweilige Anrufer lebt, um dort geklärt zu werden.

Inzwischen wurden Fragen zu internationalen Angelegenheiten mit der klaren Absicht der Organisatoren, die Veranstaltung für ein globales Publikum interessanter zu gestalten, in die erste Stunde verlegt und nicht wie bisher ganz ans Ende gestellt.

Auf dieser Grundlage kann ich im Folgenden einige Punkte ansprechen, auf die Wladimir Putin uns offensichtlich aufmerksam machen wollte, obwohl ich zugeben muss, dass ich nur die ersten zwei Stunden von „Ergebnisse des Jahres“ durchgehalten habe. Dies gibt mir die Möglichkeit, den Lesern dieser Seiten eine „Exklusivmeldung“ zu liefern und dann mit einem Folgebericht zurückzukommen, falls der Präsident vor dem Ende der Fragerunde auf ein Thema eingegangen ist, das für uns im Ausland von allgemeinem Interesse ist.

                                                                       *****

Eine der ersten Fragen, die Putin von einem der Moderatoren gestellt wurde, war, ob die Welt verrückt geworden sei. Wie kann Russland durch die sehr turbulenten Gewässer der internationalen Angelegenheiten navigieren?

Seine Antwort war, dass die Welt nicht verrückt geworden sei, aber dass die Menschen, wenn die Kugeln fliegen, wie es jetzt der Fall ist, sagen, es sei schrecklich; während sie in einer Zeit der Ruhe sagen, es sei eine Zeit der Stagnation!

Die Antwort auf die Frage ist seiner Meinung nach ein Blick auf die russische Wirtschaft, die stabil, widerstandsfähig und sehr wachstumsstark ist. Im vergangenen Jahr wuchs das russische BIP um 3,6 %, in diesem Jahr liegt es derzeit bei 3,9 % und könnte bis zum 31. Dezember 4 % erreichen. Russland ist also in zwei Jahren um 8 % gewachsen, während die Zahl in den USA bei 5,6 %, in der EU bei 1 % und in Deutschland bei 0 % liegt. Russland ist heute die größte Volkswirtschaft Europas und die viertgrößte der Welt. Die Arbeitslosenquote ist mit 2,3 % auf einem Rekordtief. Das Wachstum in der Produktion lag in diesem Jahr bei 4 % und im verarbeitenden Gewerbe bei 8 %. Der negative Indikator ist die Inflationsrate von 9,3 %.

Auf die Frage eines späteren Fragestellers, der sich über die Preisinflation bei bestimmten Produkten beschwerte, ging Putin erneut auf dieses Thema ein und sagte, dass die Zentralbank nun prüfe, welche anderen Instrumente neben dem Leitzins sie zur Eindämmung der Inflation einsetzen könne. Das Problem der Inflation sei, dass zu wenige Waren auf den Markt gebracht würden, um die wachsende Nachfrage zu befriedigen. Zum Beispiel ist Russland jetzt bei der Fleischproduktion völlig autark, und der Fleischkonsum liegt jetzt bei 80 kg pro Kopf, während er vor einigen Jahren noch halb so hoch war. Die Nachfrage nach Milch, insbesondere für die Butterproduktion, ist stark gestiegen, während die Produktion nicht Schritt halten konnte. All dies geschieht vor dem Hintergrund eines Anstiegs der Reallöhne um 9 % im vergangenen Jahr, was die Nachfrage in allen Bereichen erhöht.

Für das westliche Publikum ist sicherlich von größerem Interesse, was der russische Präsident über die Oreschnik-Hyperschallrakete und die anderen fortschrittlichen strategischen Waffensysteme zu sagen hatte, die Russland jetzt in den Einsatz gebracht hat und in Serie produziert.

Er erklärte die Logik hinter der Entwicklung der Mittelstreckenraketen, die früher durch ein Rüstungsabkommen, das die Amerikaner unter Donald Trump aufgekündigt haben, offiziell verboten waren. Die Reichweite der Oreschnik und die Besonderheit ihres sehr hohen Aufstiegs in die Atmosphäre wurden so gewählt, dass die Rakete für alle derzeitigen amerikanischen Abfangmittel unverwundbar ist. Da die Rakete in den Augenblicken unmittelbar nach dem Start am verwundbarsten ist, wurde ihre Reichweite auf 5.000 km erhöht, sodass sie weit außerhalb der Angriffsreichweite aller Raketenabwehrsysteme in der amerikanischen Waffenkammer, insbesondere auf den amerikanischen ABM-Stützpunkten in Polen und Rumänien vorhanden sind. Die Rakete erreicht eine Höhe in der Atmosphäre, bevor sie mit Mach 10 herabstürzt, die auch die Fähigkeiten des Patriot oder der noch moderneren amerikanischen Abfangsysteme um ein Vielfaches übersteigt.

Putin forderte die USA zu einem „Duell des 21. Jahrhunderts“ heraus, worüber die westlichen Medien sicherlich später am Tag berichten werden. Russland wird sein Ziel irgendwo in der Ukraine benennen und die USA herausfordern, die Oreschnik mit den besten Abfangsystemen in ihrem Arsenal abzuschießen.

Eine weitere Reihe von Fragen an Putin, die im Westen von allgemeinem Interesse sein könnten, betraf den Wiederaufbau in den vier annektierten Regionen Donbas und Nowaja Rossija: Verfügt Russland über die finanziellen und verwaltungstechnischen Kapazitäten, um diese neuen Gebiete wiederherzustellen und zu entwickeln? Seine Antwort war ein nachdrückliches Ja und er wies zunächst auf die Stadt Mariupol hin, die vor dem Krieg 450.000 Einwohner hatte und in den Artilleriekämpfen, die ihrer Eroberung durch russische Truppen vorausgingen, weitgehend zerstört wurde. Putin sagte, dass der Infrastruktur viel Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet wurde, angefangen beim Wiederaufbau und der vollständigen Modernisierung der Straßen bis hin zum Wiederaufbau von Wohngebäuden. Die Bevölkerung ist zurückgekehrt und zählt nun etwa 300.000 Menschen. In den neuen Gebieten werden ähnliche Investitionen getätigt. Und Putin versicherte der Öffentlichkeit, dass die Wirtschaft in diesen neuen Regionen sehr schnell wächst, sodass die Steuereinnahmen aus Lugansk bereits heute fast doppelt so hoch sind wie vor dem Krieg und in dem Teil von Donezk, der unter russischer Kontrolle steht, um mehr als 60 % höher sind.

Das Mikrofon wurde dann demonstrativ an den Reporter Keir Brennan-Simmons des amerikanischen Nachrichtensenders NBC übergeben. Putin machte deutlich, dass Russland die ausländische Presse aus „unfreundlichen Ländern“ mit einer Art Respekt behandelt, den kein russischer Journalist in Amerika erhält.

Brennan-Simmons eröffnete mit zwei Fragen, von denen die erste eher eine Anschuldigung und ein Zeichen des Spottes als eine richtige Frage war: „Herr Präsident, wenn Sie sich mit Donald Trump treffen, werden Sie dies aus einer Position der Schwäche heraus tun. Sie haben Soldaten verloren. Sie haben gerade einen hochrangigen General verloren …“

Putin sagte zunächst, dass er aus dem Trump-Lager nichts über ein mögliches Treffen mit ihm gehört habe. Und er widersprach direkt der Vorstellung, dass Russland bei einem möglichen Treffen die schwächere Partei wäre. Nein, sagte Putin, wir sind viel stärker als zuvor, dank der Durchsetzung unserer Souveränität und unserer Selbstständigkeit seit Beginn der militärischen Sonderoperation. Wir stehen wirtschaftlich auf eigenen Füßen. Unsere militärische Produktion übersteigt bei Weitem die Fähigkeiten der gesamten NATO zusammen. Unsere Soldaten auf dem Schlachtfeld verwenden unsere eigenen militärischen Vorräte, und wir tun dies alles auf höchst rationale und effektive Weise. Vergleichen Sie das mit der NATO, wo der Preis für 155-mm-Artilleriegeschosse heute viermal so hoch ist wie im Jahr 2022. Bei dieser Art von Kosteninflation müssen die NATO-Mitgliedstaaten nicht 2 %, sondern 3 % ihres BIP allein dafür aufwenden, um sich zu behaupten. Unsere Armee ist heute weltweit unübertroffen. Russland ist stärker geworden, und wir als souveränes Land verfolgen unsere nationalen Interessen.

Was den in Syrien „verschwundenen“ Journalisten betrifft, bot Putin an, die Frage bei einem eventuellen Treffen an al-Assad zu richten. Er fragte jedoch mit Recht, wie man erwarten könne, eine Antwort auf die Bitte der Mutter zu erhalten, da dies alles mitten im syrischen Bürgerkrieg und vor langer Zeit geschehen sei.

Dann nutzte Putin die Frage als Sprungbrett für das, was wir alle hören wollten: Was der Kreml über den „Verlust“ Syriens und über seine dortigen Stützpunkte sagt. Wie ich bereits vor einigen Tagen angemerkt habe, bestand er darauf, dass Russland 2015 nur aus einem einzigen Grund in den Bürgerkrieg eingetreten sei: um sicherzustellen, dass dort keine Enklave für extreme Islamisten entstehen könne. Er sagte, Russland sei bei dieser Mission erfolgreich gewesen, und zwar ohne Bodentruppen außer denen, die seinen Marine- und Luftwaffenstützpunkt verteidigten. Die Kämpfer stammten von der syrischen Armee und von befreundeten arabischen Streitkräften [d.h. iranischen Stellvertretern]. Was kürzlich geschah, war das kampflose Dahinschmelzen der syrischen Streitkräfte vor den Eroberungstruppen. Der Iran wandte sich erneut an uns, um Unterstützung beim Abzug seiner Truppen zu erhalten – aber im Gegensatz zu 2015 ging es nicht darum, iranische Truppen nach Syrien zu verlegen, sondern iranische Truppen aus Syrien zu evakuieren. Wir haben dies getan und 4.000 Iraner auf unseren Luftwaffenstützpunkt evakuiert.

Was Syrien und Russland betrifft, so unterhalte Russland Beziehungen zu allen interessierten Parteien innerhalb und außerhalb der Region. Alle sagen, wir sollten unsere Stützpunkte dort behalten. Aber ob wir das tun oder nicht, hängt von unseren Verhandlungen mit der Regierung in Damaskus ab. Wir haben anderen vorgeschlagen, dass wir bereit sind, sowohl den Marine- als auch den Luftwaffenstützpunkt für alle Parteien zu öffnen, die humanitäre Hilfe nach Syrien bringen wollen.

Zusammenfassend sagte Putin, dass Russlands Erfahrung in Syrien dem alten Sprichwort entspricht: „Berichte über meinen Tod sind stark übertrieben.“

Auf die Bemerkung von NBC über die Ermordung von General Kirillov erwiderte Putin, er sei zufrieden, dass das Wort „Ermordung“ auf den Fall angewendet werde, was bedeute, dass dies als Terrorakt verstanden werde. Warum, so fragte Putin dann seinerseits, habt ihr Journalisten im Westen nie ein Wort des Bedauerns über die Ermordung unserer russischen Journalisten durch Terroranschläge geäußert?

Schließlich lud Putin Brennan-Simmons ein, alles zu fragen, was er jetzt, da er das Mikrofon hatte, geklärt haben wollte. Der Journalist fragte, ob Russland bereit sei, selbst Kompromisse einzugehen, um seiner Forderung nach Kompromissen von Kiew nachzukommen, um einen Frieden zu erreichen.

Die Antwort, die Putin gab, ist bemerkenswert: Russland und die Ukraine hätten dies im März/April 2022 unter Beweis gestellt, als sie einen Friedensvertrag paraphierten, der Kompromisse auf allen Seiten beinhaltete. Bedauerlicherweise kam dann der britische Premierminister mit einer eigenartigen Frisur nach Kiew und gab Anweisungen, das Abkommen nicht abzuschließen.

Russia detains suspected murderer of General Kirillov

Who was really behind the atrocity? And what consequences may we may expect to improve Russian domestic security? to take revenge for this act of terror?

Earlier today, Reuters reported on the arrest by Russian investigative authorities of a 29-year-old Uzbek man suspected of having carried out the assassination yesterday of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the military’s nuclear, chemical and biological defense forces. We are told that the detainee has confessed to the crime and has said he was given this project by Ukrainian intelligence, who offered him a $100,000 reward for success and a comfortable life somewhere in Western Europe.

As we knew already hours after the crime yesterday, the Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed responsibility.

So far, so good. But does the trail of responsibility for the assassination end there?  Not in the view of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other spokesmen for the country’s top leadership.

In her Briefing to journalists earlier today, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova explained why General Kirillov would have been targeted by “the Anglo-Saxons” for his many years spent exposing their egregious violations of international law by (the U.S.) operating biological laboratories in Ukraine and elsewhere that targeted specific ethnic groups including Slavs, for his exposing the false flag operations  of the white helmets and other British agents in Syria who staged phony chemical attacks to lay at the door of the Assad regime and its Russian backers, for his exposing the falsehoods of the alleged Russian use of Novichok against the Skripals in Salisbury, U.K., and for exposing the use of chemical agents by Ukrainians on the battlefield in the ongoing war with Russia. She identified the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ as the ‘main beneficiaries of the Kiev regime’s terrorist activities.’  More importantly, she called the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ ‘the ones who masterminded all their activities.’

Seeing where the Russian argumentation was headed and knowing that it would be put before the United Nations Security Council on 20 December, the spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State Matthew Miller flatly denied that the U.S. had foreknowledge or played any role in the assassination of General Kirillov.

However, by ‘Anglo-Saxons’ Zakharova very likely had in mind the Brits, not the Yankees.  At least that is what I conclude after listening to the discussion of the murder of Kirillov on yesterday’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov news and analysis show. The host and panelists were of one mind that this terrorist act had all the hallmarks of the MI6 British intelligence operatives, the very same gents who were likely involved in poisoning Navalny in his distant prison camp. Cold blooded murder seems to be their stock in trade. And it was the British, after all, who had applied sanctions against General Kirillov. In this matter, as in everything else to do with the Ukraine conflict, they were the attack dogs rather than the poodles of Washington.

Otherwise, last night’s discussion of the murder on the Solovyov show was noteworthy for raising yet again the issue of ending the suspension of capital punishment in Russia precisely for cases of terrorists. This issue arose following each of the widely publicized terror attacks these past couple of years, including the Crocus entertainment center attack and the bombing murder of the journalist Darya Dugina.   It was also worth paying attention to because of the attention given to the modest life style of Kirillov and other high Russian military officials, as we saw from photos of the general’s apartment building, and the absence of security details to assure their safety. It was not clear from the discussion how better protection can be provided.

The identification of the United Kingdom as the likely masterminds of the murder of General Kirillov was repeated in this afternoon’s edition of The Great Game.  It was noted that while Western media generally have not issued any condemnations of this act of terror, the British stood out in their open support for such acts. The editorial in today’s London Times says it all:

The assassination of a Russian general is a legitimate act of defence by a threatened nation. Amid political flux, western governments must step up to support for Kyiv.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/the-times-view/article/the-times-view-assassination-russian-general-moscow-0nv60g67p

One panelist opined that the British elites, which The Times represents, are defending the assassination, because they know that their intelligence operatives were involved in its preparation.

The Russian public is now awaiting what further information about the Ukrainian handlers of the confessed murderer will come out during the interrogation of the suspect.  In contrast to the perpetrators of the Crocus center terrorists who were bloodied and damaged goods when shown before cameras after their apprehension, the Uzbek murderer of the general seemed not to have a scratch on him. How well he fares under interrogation remains to be seen.   More interesting, of course, is what actions against Kiev the Kremlin will now order in retaliation for this atrocity in a residential neighborhood of Moscow.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Russland verhaftet mutmaßlichen Mörder von General Kirillov

Wer steckte wirklich hinter dieser Gräueltat? Und welche Konsequenzen können wir erwarten, um die innere Sicherheit Russlands zu verbessern? Wird es zu Racheakten für diesen Terrorakt kommen?

Reuters berichtete heute über die Verhaftung eines 29-jährigen usbekischen Mannes durch russische Ermittlungsbehörden, der verdächtigt wird, gestern Generalleutnant Igor Kirillov, den Leiter der nuklearen, chemischen und biologischen Verteidigungskräfte des Militärs, ermordet zu haben. Uns wurde mitgeteilt, dass der Festgenommene das Verbrechen gestanden und gesagt hat, dass er dieses Projekt vom ukrainischen Geheimdienst erhalten hat, der ihm eine Belohnung von 100.000 US-Dollar für den Erfolg und ein angenehmes Leben irgendwo in Westeuropa angeboten hat.

Wie wir bereits Stunden nach dem Verbrechen gestern wussten, hat der ukrainische Sicherheitsdienst SBU die Verantwortung übernommen.

So weit, so gut. Aber endet die Spur der Verantwortung für das Attentat dort? Nicht nach Ansicht des russischen Außenministeriums und anderer Sprecher der obersten Führung des Landes.

In ihrer Pressekonferenz heute Vormittag erklärte die Sprecherin des Außenministeriums, Maria Sacharowa, warum General Kirillow von den „Angelsachsen“ ins Visier genommen worden wäre: für seine jahrelange Aufdeckung ihrer ungeheuerlichen Verstöße gegen das Völkerrecht durch (von den USA betriebene) biologische Labore in der Ukraine und anderswo, die sich gegen bestimmte ethnische Gruppen, darunter Slawen, richteten, für seine Aufdeckung der Operationen unter falscher Flagge, bei der Weißhelme und andere britischer Agenten in Syrien vorgetäuschte chemische Angriffe inszeniert haben, um sie dem Assad-Regime und seinen russischen Unterstützern in die Schuhe zu schieben, für seine Aufdeckung der Lügen über den angeblichen Einsatz von Nowitschok durch Russland gegen die Skripals im britischen Salisbury und für die Aufdeckung des Einsatzes chemischer Kampfstoffe durch Ukrainer auf dem Schlachtfeld im andauernden Krieg mit Russland. Sie identifizierte die „Angelsachsen“ als die „Hauptnutznießer der terroristischen Aktivitäten des Kiewer Regimes“. Noch wichtiger war, dass sie die „Angelsachsen“ als diejenigen bezeichnete, „die all ihre Aktivitäten geplant haben“.

Als der Sprecher des US-Außenministeriums, Matthew Miller, erkannte, worauf die russische Argumentation hinauslief, und wusste, dass sie am 20. Dezember dem Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen vorgelegt werden würde, bestritt er rundheraus, dass die USA von der Ermordung von General Kirillov gewusst oder daran beteiligt gewesen seien.

Mit „Angelsachsen“ hatte Zakharova jedoch höchstwahrscheinlich die Briten und nicht die Yankees im Sinn. Zumindest komme ich zu diesem Schluss, nachdem ich mir die Diskussion über den Mord an Kirillow in der gestrigen Nachrichtensendung „Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov“ angehört habe. Der Moderator und die Diskussionsteilnehmer waren sich einig, dass dieser Terrorakt alle Merkmale der britischen Geheimdienstagenten des MI6 aufweist, genau dieselben Herren, die wahrscheinlich an der Vergiftung von Nawalny in seinem weit entfernten Gefangenenlager beteiligt waren. Kaltblütiger Mord scheint ihr Markenzeichen zu sein. Und es waren schließlich die Briten, die Sanktionen gegen General Kirillow verhängt hatten. In dieser Angelegenheit, wie auch in allen anderen Fragen im Zusammenhang mit dem Ukraine-Konflikt, waren sie eher die Kampfhunde als die Pudel Washingtons.

Ansonsten war die Diskussion über den Mord in der Solowjow-Show gestern Abend bemerkenswert, weil sie erneut die Frage aufwarf, ob die Aussetzung der Todesstrafe in Russland nicht gerade für Terroristen aufgehoben werden sollte. Diese Frage kam nach jedem der in den letzten Jahren weithin publizierten Terroranschläge auf, darunter der Angriff auf das Crocus-Unterhaltungszentrum und der Bombenanschlag auf die Journalistin Darya Dugina. Es war auch deshalb beachtenswert, weil der bescheidene Lebensstil von Kirillov und anderen hohen russischen Militärbeamten, wie wir auf Fotos des Wohnhauses des Generals sehen konnten, und das Fehlen von Sicherheitskräften, die für ihre Sicherheit sorgen, für Aufmerksamkeit sorgten. Aus der Diskussion ging nicht hervor, wie ein besserer Schutz gewährleistet werden kann.

Die Identifizierung des Vereinigten Königreichs als wahrscheinliche Drahtzieher des Mordes an General Kirillov wurde in der heutigen Nachmittagsausgabe von Das große Spiel wiederholt. Es wurde angemerkt, dass westliche Medien diesen Terrorakt im Allgemeinen nicht verurteilt haben, die Briten jedoch durch ihre offene Unterstützung für solche Taten hervorstechen. Der Leitartikel in der heutigen London Times sagt alles:

Die Ermordung eines russischen Generals ist ein legitimer Verteidigungsakt einer bedrohten Nation. Inmitten politischer Unbeständigkeit müssen westliche Regierungen Kiew stärker unterstützen.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/the-times-view/article/the-times-view-assassination-russian-general-moscow-0nv60g67p

Ein Diskussionsteilnehmer vertrat die Ansicht, dass die britischen Eliten, die The Times vertritt, das Attentat verteidigen, weil sie wissen, dass ihre Geheimdienstmitarbeiter an der Vorbereitung beteiligt waren.

Die russische Öffentlichkeit wartet nun darauf, welche weiteren Informationen über die ukrainischen Hintermänner des geständigen Mörders bei der Vernehmung des Verdächtigen bekannt werden. Im Gegensatz zu den Tätern der Terroristen des Crocus-Centers, die blutverschmiert und mit beschädigten Sachen vor den Kameras standen, nachdem sie festgenommen worden waren, schien der usbekische Mörder des Generals nicht einen Kratzer zu haben. Wie gut er sich im Verhör schlägt, bleibt abzuwarten. Interessanter ist natürlich, welche Maßnahmen der Kreml nun als Vergeltung für diese Gräueltat in einem Moskauer Wohnviertel gegen Kiew anordnen wird.

I am pleased to share with the community a 12-minute interview on the above topics that was taken by a news group called NewsX within the ITV (India) organization. Though recorded one week ago and only released today, the interview was well edited and presents in very concise manner the issues that have taken the attention of both mainstream and alternative media all this time.

Transcript submitted by a reader

Porteous: 0:07
Hello and welcome back to NewsX World. I’m Thomas Porteous and you’re watching “Focal Length”, where we get you a briefing on topics from across the world. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is changing dynamics significantly, however its fate is still uncertain. So, how does Moscow see Zelensky’s troop proposal, and could Trump offer a better peace prospect than Biden? What conditions might each side demand? And do shifts in Syria weaken Russia’s influence?

Let’s find out. Joining us is Gilbert Doctorow, who is an international relations and Russian affairs expert. He is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard College. Doctorow also served as the chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow.

0:58
Thank you for joining us Gilbert Doctorow. My first question to you is: does the overthrow of Assad government in Syria indicate a weakening of Russia and Iran?

Doctorow:
It’s premature to say. There was a lot of celebration in Washington, in London, in Ankara over the overthrow of Assad, but I don’t think that those who laugh first will necessarily laugh last. The notion that the winners were Israel and Turkey and that the big losers were Iran and Russia, is very widespread in the major media that you find in the West today. However, the situation in Syria is very fluid. The ability of those who overthrew Assad to hold onto power by themselves is unrealistic.

1:56
We’re speaking about a force that’s HTS, the force that came through from Idlib down through Homs into Damascus. There are 30,000 men. A 30,000-man army cannot govern a country the size of Syria with all of the diverse ethnic and religious groups in that territory. Therefore, the forming of a government is going to be a process that takes some time, if it succeeds at all. Moreover, in the case of Russia, we’re talking about a country that is discussed only in terms of its holding onto its military [assets], the air base, Khmeimin, and the naval base in Tartus. This is only a partial side of the story.

2:50
The major story is that Russia was very active as a determining force in 2015 to 2017, holding the Assad government in place. But that’s not all they did. From 2017 to 2020 or later, they were very active on the ground, whereas their soldiers went through the countryside of Syria and held pacification talks, as a result of which many of the most radical extremists were moved with their families to Idlib, which is really the spawning ground for this latest military event. The point is that Russia has enormous experience as a pacifier and stabilizing force across the country. It has relations with opposition groups across the country. It invited and held talks with opposition leaders in Moscow during this period, 2017 to 20 or later in what was called the Astana process. That is to say Russia probably has a better feel for the future of Syria than any other country. And to say that it is a loser in this is to be misguided.

Porteous: 4:10
What do you make of Zelensky’s proposal for deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine till it is not made a part of NATO?

Doctorow;
I’m sure that these words were put in his mouth by Washington. That is exactly what Washington and London and Paris would like to hear, that they are being invited into Ukraine to be a peacekeeping group, to monitor and control any eventual ceasefire if one is signed with Russia.

But one will not be signed with Russia under the terms that have such a peacekeeping force as a premise. The Russians do not accept it, and they will not accept it. Russia’s terms for ending this war are very different.

Porteous: 4:58
Since Trump’s election there is a change in rhetoric. Zelensky has agreed to a diplomatic resolution to the war. Why is there a change in stance?

Doctorow:
To say that there’s a change in Zelensky’s stance is to choose one day over another day, because one day you hear that he wants negotiations and next day you hear that he doesn’t. In point of fact, no negotiations are possible so long as his decree [is in force] prohibiting any members of the government in Kiev to hold talks with the Russians. No talks, no negotiations. Therefore I don’t take with any seriousness his latest remarks. But watch to hear what he says tomorrow.

Porteous: 5:41
Do you think under Trump there is a better chance of negotiating peace between Russia and Ukraine than under Biden?

Doctorow:
The simple answer is no. Mr Trump seems to be as misguided and misinformed as Mr Biden was, has been for the last three years. The remarks that he has made during his visit to Paris indicate that he already is beginning to understand that solving the problem in Ukraine and Russia is not a matter of 24 hours. It may not take 24 years, but it certainly won’t take 24 hours. And he has put into his statement about his … his dedication to achieving a peace, the words “if I can”.

So he has finally seen that this is a very complicated story, and that the outlines for negotiating a truce that had been proposed, or at least are in the public domain, coming from General Kellogg, who is his nominated envoy to Ukraine and Russia, that these points in the Kellogg plan are utterly unacceptable to the Russians.

Porteous: 6:55
In hindsight, do you feel Biden’s “no dialogue” policy with Russia was a deliberate attempt to ensure that the war did not end?

Doctorow:
Oh definitely. Biden is very keen– or the collective Biden, Biden and his closest advisers who actually are taking decisions in his name, by that I mean Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken– they are keen to see the collapse of Ukraine happen on President Trump’s watch and not on their watch. The fact that Ukraine will collapse, I think is accepted as a given by both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration.

Porteous: 7:38
What do you think the conditions will be put by Russia to enter into a peace deal?

Doctorow:
These conditions were stated by President Putin when he spoke to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They assemble once a year for general consultations with ambassadors, and they did that in Moscow in the middle of June. On June 13th, he addressed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and set out his terms for concluding a peace, not just a ceasefire, which is unacceptable to the Russians, but a genuine peace.

8:12
And those terms were revalidated by his press secretary just a couple of days ago. When this question came up, what can the Russians ask to establish a peace? They are first of all that the Ukrainians withdraw from the territories that Russia calls New Russia and Donbass, that is the four provinces that have been incorporated into the Russian Federation after referenda were held on them. This is Donetsk and Lugansk, and the two New Russia provinces to the southwest of them. That the Ukrainians must withdraw. Now that withdrawal means going further back than they are today, because in point of fact, Russia has not completely taken possession of these provinces.

9:09
So the Russians say, “You stop fighting, you withdraw, and the next day we will stop firing on you.” That is their first condition. But to go from the mere fact of a cessation of hostilities to a peace, the Russians are saying, let’s go back to what we agreed in March, April of 2022, when you initialed a peace treaty with us, that was then overruled by the Americans and the British when Boris Johnson came and said, “No, don’t do it. Continue fighting; we’ll help you.”

9:43
So what were the terms that were agreed in March, April of 2022? That Ukraine would be neutral, but that’s not enough. That Ukraine would not join NATO, but that’s not enough. That there will be no foreign advisors, foreign military installations, foreign trainers, foreign bases in Ukraine. Those facts are not the same as saying no NATO. So Russia wants to have a limit on the military capabilities of Ukraine in return for which Ukraine will receive security guarantees.

But security guarantees that are not issued through the presence of peacekeepers, which is where we began this discussion, peacekeepers coming from the supporters of Ukraine today. No, no, if Russia accepts any type of monitors of the peace, it will be a broader international contingent, including themselves, of course, and including the Chinese. So, to make an example…

Porteous: 10:52
What do you think the conditions will be put by Ukraine to enter a peace deal?

Doctorow:
Well, they have put out their conditions repeatedly, and they’ve called them various things, their peace initiative, going back six months or more, when they tried to bring in as many countries as possible to present the Russians with an ultimatum to end the war. Their terms are the terms of a victor. They are pretending that Russia, who are clearly the winners on the battlefield, should give up everything at the negotiating table in return for a cessation of hostilities.

11:32
That is an inversion. It’s a complete reversal of the normal proceedings when a country that is vanquished and a country that is conquering sit down to discuss the peace.

Porteous:
Thank you, Gilbert Doctorow, for speaking to us on “Focal Length”. With that, it’s a wrap on this episode.

11:53
For more international news updates, stay tuned on NewsX World.

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