Russia-Ukraine War Update: Russia dismisses evidence calls over alleged drone attack| NewsX World

The Ukrainian drone attack on President Putin’s countryside residence near the town of Valdai, midway between Moscow and Petersburg, has been sharply criticized by India, Pakistan and several other Global South countries notwithstanding Zelensky’s claim that no attack took place.

In the USA, there is active discussion of the incident, with many media outlets casting doubt on the Moscow allegations, in line with Zelensky.

Given the long trail of false flag incidents staged by Kiev with the help of the British going back to the first months of the war (the slaughter of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha by retreating Russian soldiers) and the repeated absurd suggestion by Kiev that Russians were attacking nuclear power plants that they themselves were operating or that they smashed dams to drown their own population and deprive them of hydropower electricity, it would be very strange to take seriously the vile propaganda now coming out of Kiev that is being disseminated in the West by the usual suspects.

This was the central issue of this morning’s interview on NewsX World beginning in minute 4.

The relevance of the ‘Two Minutes to Midnight’ Doomsday Clock to the “Ninety five percent agreed” settlement of the Russia-Ukraine War

The media are seeking expert commentary on the statements by Trump and Zelensky in Mar-a-Lago that the terms for a peace treaty are 95% complete.

They are overlooking the folk wisdom of ‘missed by an inch, missed by a mile’, meaning that being close to agreement is never good enough. Either you have a deal or you don’t.   I believe that there is no deal and cannot be a deal when neither Putin nor Zelensky has reason to give ground and seek compromises on the fundamental issues of territory, neutrality status and similar.

The Doomsday Clock of nuclear physicists has been stuck at ‘two minutes to midnight’ since 1953.  The deal on Ukraine may well be stuck at 95% for just as long.

Trump Calls Putin Ahead of Key Meeting: Realistic or Pro-Russia? | WION

In this “Counterpoint” program from India’s largest global English language broadcaster in which I participated this morning, I was pleased to find precisely the debating partner who is so elusive in the podcast world: worldly wise, civilized and holding views on the subject at hand that may be 180 degrees at variance with my own.

The fellow panelist was Joachim Bitterlich. He is described by the WION presenter as a former German ambassador to NATO, but I think it is more relevant to the discussion that he served as European, Diplomatic and Security Advisor to Helmut Kohl in the critically important period of 1988 and later. See his more detailed profile at https://www.bruegel.org/people/joachim-bitterlich

Too bad that the conversation was just getting underway when it ended. It cried for a continuation in some quiet club room, ensconced in leather armchairs and with a whiskey in hand.  There would be no name-calling, no questions like the infamous one I took from Former Chair of the EU Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Elmar Brok (German – CDU): “How much did Putin pay you to say that?”

WorldX News interviews: a skillful bearer of information for their global audience

Lavrov Warns Europe: Russia accuses European Union of escalating Ukraine conflict| NewsX World

This brief interview was meant to be in anticipation of Zelensky’s visit to Miami today for talks with Donald Trump.

The full hourly news bulletin from which this interview has been extracted above, may be seen here:

I use this opportunity to note that my virtually daily conversations with the Indian global broadcaster NewsX World are not the only expert opinion of the Russia-Ukraine war that this broadcaster puts on air. Youtube this morning sent me the link to a NewsX World interview with another commentator on the war, this time an Indian professor based in Delhi, who delivered an analysis that is 180 degrees at variance with what I say and was wholly backing the Ukrainians as the peace-seekers versus the warlike Russians who only know how to bomb, bomb and bomb. 

In previous months, at the start of my ‘collaboration’ with NewsX World, they tried to arrange panel discussions but when views of the panelists are so very contradictory, the debate easily turns ugly, as indeed happened.   Hence the separate interviews which do serve their audience well, I believe.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Russia – Ukraine War  – Ukraine Corruption | World Report | NewsX World

This afternoon’s interview with NewsX World dealt with two topics. First (starting at minute 3.40) was the upcoming visit of Zelensky to Miami for a meeting with Donald Trump and how on the way  Zelensky has stopped off in Canada for talks with Prime Minister Mark Carney. While in Canada, he will hold a virtual conference with his key supporters in Europe to ‘align’ their position on the peace plan that Zelensky is bringing to the States.  The second segment (starting at minute 9.45) dealt with the latest corruption scandals in Kiev, where investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU, in Ukrainian) today descended on the parliament (Verkhovna Rada) to make arrests, said to include two close associates of Zelensky.  News of NABU’s planned visit to the Rada resulted in all but 30 deputies staying away. There also were scuffles outside the Rada building between NABU personnel and security people.  As I say in this interview, NABU, with encouragement from the Trump administration is now circling Zelensky, picking off his associates as a preliminary to ‘nailing’ the President himself.

Regrettably there were technical problems with our communications in the first part of the interview which are not apparent in the video, but they cleared away for the second part.

Kremlin Reviews Ukraine Peace Documents As Putin Sends Trump Christmas Greetings | NewsX World

Short and bitter-sweet, my commentary to India’s NewsX World late in the afternoon today on the present state of peace negotiations and on President Putin’s Christmas greetings to his American counterpart complement the points I raised earlier in discussion with Iran’s Press TV:  these talks are going nowhere because Trump does not enjoy backing in the American political establishment for his present diplomatic efforts with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war.  I come on in minute 3.40 and finish three minutes later.

Nonetheless, viewers may find the Indian broadcaster’s overall hourly news bulletin, of which my interview is a part to be interesting on its own.

Press TV (Iran): Ukraine signals readiness to scale back Eastern forces

In this interview recorded in the morning, we discussed Volodymyr Zelensky’s latest proposal that both sides create buffer zones on their sides of the present battle lines, meaning ‘demilitarization’ of the part of Donetsk still in Ukrainian hands and a similar ‘demilitarization’ of as many kilometers to the east of the battle lines by Russia.

As I remark, this is purely a propaganda initiative by Kiev. They know perfectly well that the proposal is completely unacceptable to the Russians for several reasons that are easy to see.  First, this buffer zone on the Ukrainian side would remain under Ukrainian administration, meaning that the Russian speaking population would remain subject to the brutal repression which touched off their resistance to the newly installed ultra-nationalist government in Kiev in February 2014 and continued for eight years, prompting the Russians to launch their Special Military Operation. 

Zelensky’s ‘demilitarization’ would mean removal of heavy military equipment.  That sounds good, but in fact the war has evolved into a drone war and it is easy to envision that the Ukrainians would continue to launch drones against Russian positions to the East, while Russian responses would be condemned as violation of the peace justifying the entry of European “peacekeepers.”

If we look further afield, the Zelensky proposal does not address the root causes of the war that the Russians insist must be resolved if there is to be a durable peace. This means the neutrality of Ukraine, the ensured absence of any foreign troops or military installations. Though the Russians are not saying this aloud, they seek regime change in Kiev as part of any settlement. The extreme nationalists who have controlled the Kiev government since 2014 must be removed.

For all of the above reasons, the latest Zelensky proposal is dead on arrival in Moscow, even if the Kremlin is saying now politely that they will study it closely.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/135508

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 24 December: The Totalitarian EU

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 24 December:  The Totalitarian EU

In today’s conversation with Judge Andrew Napolitano, we discuss the terrible sanctions recently imposed by the European Council on retired Swiss military intelligence expert Jacques Baud for what is said to be his pro-Russian disinformation (an outrageous defamation) and the precedents for such extrajudicial violations of citizens’ rights to free speech, to property rights and more. As I say here this goes straight back to the seizure of assets of Russian oligarchs early in 2024 after the start of the Special Military Operations on charges of their ‘being friends of Putin’ and other nonsense that would never be accepted in a court of law. The problem may be said to go still further back to the breach of international law when the U.S. seized embassy and consular properties of the Russian Federation during the Obama administration in December 2016 to hand a poisoned chalice to the incoming Team Trump.

 My point is that rule of law works for all of us only when it is defended against each and every violator.  Failure to bring legal action and/or high-level lobbying against violators can only lead to escalation and spread of abuses over time. That is how we have reached a situation where none of us in the Alternative Media today can feel safe in the European Union, although as I say here, it is highly unlikely that any American will be put on EU sanctions lists for fear of enraging Trump and putting in jeopardy America’s nuclear umbrella and NATO support for Europe. But if you are a Swiss or some other third country national: watch out!

We also delve into the deeper problem that makes cases like Baud’s so intractable: the absence of any system of checks and balances, of division of powers whereby an independent judiciary could review cases of abuse like this and compel the offending executive to back down.  This fundamental problem must be put at the door of the Left-leaning highly intellectual caviar socialists who played a very important role in writing the foundation documents of the EU, and who assumed that their successors would be equally well-intentioned and tolerant of others’ views.   Well read, they may have been but they did not pay due attention to the 19th century political scientists who reasoned that men can be overbearing, oppressive and must be held in check by limitations on the power written into the constitution. In this regard, it should come as no surprise that the EU institutions today lend themselves to totalitarianism. Elon Musk is right: the EU must be deconstructed and rebuilt in a way that better protects democracy and specifically protects all human rights of its citizens, starting with freedom of expression, which is now being trampled upon.

Latest interview in NewsX World (India) hourly bulletin at 16.30 CET

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YMu_yaDFXg

My appearance comes at minute 4.  This interview had two segments. The first dealt with the utterly irresponsible assertion by NATO Secretary General Marc Rutte that Europe enjoys full security from the US nuclear umbrella.  The second dealt with the propagandistic assertion by a Ukrainian nuclear expert that the Russians have been targeting the sarcophagus of the Chernobyl nuclear plant which may collapse, releasing radioactive substances into the region