Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:31
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, November 12th, 2025. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Dr. Doctorow, a pleasure and thank you very much for being here. Are you sensing or were you even experiencing any palpable domestic effects on everyday Russian life arguably triggered by the war?

Doctorow: 1:05
I’d like to point out that the Russian government policies are caught between two factions, they’re called factions, they’re two branches of the government, which are at odds. And the answer to your question lies with one of those. It seems to be predominant at the moment. What I’m describing is a ministry of foreign affairs being on the progressive liberal open society end of things, and the successor organization to the KGB called the FSB being on the repressive side of things. Recent developments that affect a lot of people in Russia that are negative and repressive are coming from the KGB successor, FSB.

2:04
And if you have any doubts, you could find it in major media in Russia in the last 10 days. I’ll just give a few of these and you’ll see what I mean. Everyone knows that about a month ago or six weeks ago, WhatsApp lost its voice functionality in Russia. That’s to say, in Russia, anybody can call you from abroad, from anywhere, and the phone rings. You pick it up, and it disconnects.

It will not connect for a voice connection. On the other hand, the text function of WhatsApp works. You can send people, say, an equivalent to SMS, and it works fine. Now, that doesn’t sound like much if you don’t know what’s been going on in Russia for the last several years. Everybody was using WhatsApp.

And WhatsApp was a free way to speak with the whole world. You know, you pay nothing for international phone calls on WhatsApp. And Russians were using this very well. Now when the voice function is cut, they are left with, most people are left with using the normal telephone system.

Napolitano: 3:15
Can you use a VPN? Can you use one of those systems that bypasses the blockage and would allow you to use the WhatsApp?

Doctorow:
You can use a VPN, but first of all, not everybody is very clever about these things. Those who are clever, they use it. And of course they have access to everything. However, it is viewed with a jaundiced eye by the authorities. And there is going to be a crackdown on VPN, because it obviously violates the whole principle of the regulations that have come down now from on high.

Napolitano: 3:58
Does the government acknowledge these regulations? Does it say what it’s doing? Does it give a reason or does it just do it?

Doctorow:
Absolutely. It both gives a reason and explains what it’s doing or about to do. And in the last two weeks, while I mentioned the WhatsApp incident, which I see is more powerful in cutting off Russians from the world than their loss of the BBC or CNN or whatever else that they had when international broadcasters left the Russian market or when satellites stopped carrying Russian transmitters. Big things happened in the last few weeks. One of them I mentioned in our previous chats and I’ve written about was this taking away from foreigners of the right to have a Russian SIM card or telephone number in Russia. And of course, having a telephone, local telephone, is very important if you’re a visitor or if you live in Russia, either as a permanent resident or as a temporary long-staying visitor, to do almost anything, including calling a taxi.

5:15
Well, so foreigners were the first to be hit by this rule, and it was explained, as we know, by the incidents around the Spider Web attack on Russian strategic assets, in which local telephones were used as an enabling device for setting off the drones and so forth. OK, that’s the foreigner side. But now, in the last several days, the authorities have issued a new ruling, a new directive, that any Russian who travels abroad and comes back with his telephone will find that his telephone number is blocked. And he has to go to his service provider and, I don’t know, somehow explain himself to them. Well we’re speaking about– about 10 million people a year leave Russia and go abroad on vacation or work or whatever. And they come back to the country and they don’t have a telephone.

6:16
They have to go to their service provider. It’s not yet clear what you have to do to be verified or re-verified to get back the use of your phone. Just to be petty about it, you arrive at an airport and you can’t call a taxi, you can’t call your friends, you are cut off until you get around to visiting your service provider. Not very friendly. The reason, as I said: they’re doing it for national security reasons.

And here I see two different agencies of the Russian government pulling in different directions. The FSB is clearly issuing these directives, claiming national security is uppermost. Their rationale, I’m sorry to say, is hare-brained. To think that by subjecting all Russians to this type of scrutiny, you’re going to prevent terrorism, you’re going to prevent the British and the Ukrainian and other foreign intelligence operatives on Russian territory from getting telephone numbers. For heaven’s sakes, Russian television was carrying yesterday the story of the MI6 attempt to bribe Russian pilots with $3 million in cash and citizenship somewhere in Western Europe if they would fly a MiG-31 into Romania together with the latest generation missile, Kinzhal, to go to Western intelligence.

7:42
Three million dollars in cash was available. I’m sure that a few dollars are available to buy up from some stupid local person or drunk–

Napolitano:
Let me stop you. I get the picture, but I had not heard about this bribe. Who was offering these bribes? MI6, CIA, Ukrainian, Mossad? Who was it?

Doctorow:
According to the Russian story, this was carried by Mr. Lavrov last night, Brits, it’s all Brits. Brits means–

Napolitano: 8:11
How pervasive, maybe the answer to this question is unknowable, but how pervasive are MI6, CIA, Ukrainian intel throughout — let’s limit it to– Moscow?

Doctorow:
No, the whole of Russia. The British in particular have worked closely with Ukrainians. Remember, so many Ukrainians are good Russian speakers; that was the essence of the nationalities problem in Ukraine. Half of the country didn’t speak the language of the land. They spoke Russian. So, of course, there are plenty of Ukrainian agents all over the place in Russia. And to think that you’re going to prevent them from using the telephone network to do terror acts in Russia by holding up every Russian who comes back with his phone is really nonsense.

Napolitano: 9:10
Tell me more about this rivalry or conflict between FSB, the intelligence services, and the foreign ministry headed by Sergey Lavrov. The people that work for him are generally graduates of the School of International Diplomacy, which is a very high-end academic institution at which I’ve been privileged to lecture. And they were very interested in the American constitution when I was there. They knew exactly what they were talking about. These of course are future diplomats. Mr. Lavrov himself is a graduate of that school.

9:51
But tell me about the rivalry. Can President Putin control the FSB, unlike President Trump, who cannot control the American deep state?

Doctorow:
I have to wonder about that. You would think that as a former KGB officer, he would know these people perfectly well and have them under control. But I have my doubts now, that that’s happening.

Let’s come back to the central issue. I would like to take this away from the personality of Mr. Putin — as if he is the whole of Russia; he isn’t– and take it to the institutional and ideological differences that are different in his government.

You asked me a week ago about the rumored retirement of Lavrov, and I had nothing to say. But you know, in light of what I’m about to say now, I think it makes a lot of sense that these rumors spread. What is the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Diplomatic Corp and who is who? Let’s look at age. The people who are now ambassadors are mostly in their 50s.

10:58
That’s to say they started their careers in the Yeltsin years. That tells you a lot. They were what the Russians call Zopadniky. They were westernizers. They were sympathetic to and wanted to have the best of relations with the United States and Western Europe. And they are the ones who are now ambassadors across the world.

Napolitano:
Is, in your opinion, Sergey Lavrov of that mentality?

Doctorow:
Absolutely.

Napolitano:
Yes.

Doctorow:
And the only big exception that I’m aware of in his immediate entourage is Mr. Ryabkov, who is a real hardliner, a real tough guy looking after in the most vigorous way Russian interests. Other people came up into the ministry when Mr. Kozarev was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was the yes man, as opposed to Gromyko, who had been Mr. Nyet. Mr. Kozarev agreed to everything that the United States wanted, however it undermined Russian national interests. And he was finally sacked in about 1998.

12:06
The point is that these people who are the professional diplomatic corps of Russia, they went to MGIMO. I agree with you. It is one of the best institutions of its kind in the world and has a lot of Americanists in it, like the people who spoke to you about the American Constitution. These are very well-educated people. But the disposition of the institution is open to the world, and that’s the key point.

What is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs doing? Every chance it has, it opens the world for Russians. I think a week ago they announced that they had just agreed with Saudi Arabia to have visa-free travel of Russians in Saudi Arabia. That is a regular preoccupation of that ministry, opening the world to Russians. The FSB is closing the world to Russians.

Napolitano: 12:56
Is the FSB, I’ll use the word repression, I don’t know if that’s the right word. I don’t know if it’s gotten to that point. Let’s be charitable and call it the new regulations. Are these something would have to be approved by President Putin himself?

Doctorow:
I don’t know. I don’t know to what level this type of issuance of regulations rises for approval. It’s not a dramatic thing we’re talking about, for a government to do this. It is a very big influence on how people feel about themselves and their access to the world. But I don’t think it is the kind of crucial issue that would come up to the desk of Mr. Putin, or even to the head of the FSB.

Napolitano: 13:43
So are these regulations a nuisance and an inconvenience, or are they a knock on the door in the night?

Doctorow:
It’s not a knock on the door in the night. 1937 has not returned. But the country’s steady march towards an open society, towards the end to arbitrariness and graft that Mr. Putin oversaw for 25 years is now beginning to unravel.

Napolitano:
And I guess you’re attributing this to the consequences of the war.

Doctorow:
Absolutely. And this is why — I don’t mean to sound like a one-note orchestra — but this is why I’m saying that the war has to end as quickly as possible, which is within the power of the Russian army, if it wants to use its power, which up till now it doesn’t. What they’re doing, and I think here’s where the FSB influence comes in, they are destroying the energy infrastructure of Ukraine. They’re causing great misery to average Ukrainians, but that will not end the war [sooner] by one day.

The country will get electricity supplies from Europe, as it now does partially. All they have to do is build more high power lines from Europe. If Europe’s going to put up tens of billions of dollars in arms, they certainly can afford to put up some energy high power lines.

Napolitano: 15:16
How decrepit is the– and I use that word intentionally because of what I’m about to tell you, nothing new to you– the Ukrainian military? We are in the West getting reports of conscription, which is horrific, training of non-existent young men in their late teenage years and early twenties on the front line who barely know how to pull the trigger on the weapon, terrified that just a week ago they were at home with their parents. I mean, this can’t be any way to run a military. We’re also getting reports from General, I only know his first name, forgive me, Oleksandr, I forget his last name, the commander of the [Ukrainian] troops, acknowledging to some of his, some Ukrainian parliamentarians that the military is in a bad way.

Doctorow:
Of course it’s in a bad way when you lose the vast numbers of people they have. However, let me just point out that in the interviews with prisoners of war who surrendered, say around Pokrovsk in the last couple of weeks–

Napolitano:
These are Ukrainian groups who surrendered to the Russians.

Doctorow: 16:37
Right. But mostly if you look at the faces, these are people in their late 50s or 60s. These are not the 20-year-olds. The 20-year-olds I see around here in Brussels bars, that’s where the young Ukrainians have gone and where they want to stay.

It is unfortunately a lot of overaged people who are now in the military, aren’t good for very much actually, and not a one of them spoke about how they were dragooned into the army. So it’s more complicated than speaking about these excessive measures to forcibly put people in uniform. And as to the experience of people in this part of the world, Eastern Europe and Russia in particular, with preparation for military service, just go back and look at what happened at the start of World War II and the Germans invading Russian territory and the start of the siege.

17:32
Well, we have friends in Petersburg, or had friends, because many of these have died already, who fought in the first days defending Leningrad from the invading German troops. And boy, they had zero training. They also could hardly know how to pull a trigger. So this isn’t an exactly new development in that part of the world.

Napolitano:
What pressures are there on President Putin? Or let me restate the question. Is this societal change affecting his popularity and approval?

Doctorow:
I don’t think so. But again, let’s not personalize this whole thing. When you look at Russian television and the criticism of the way the war is being conducted, there is never a word about the president. It’s only about the specifics of the way the war is being conducted, not who has approved it; we all know who it was. So Mr. Putin is essentially one step back from the front lines of answerability for the way the war is being conducted.

Napolitano: 18:44
Well does he receive pressure from either the military or the FSB to get the war over with?

Doctorow:
I can’t say that. I don’t think, but just looking at the dynamics here, I don’t think the FSB is under particular pressure to get the war over with. The war is giving them more power.

Napolitano:
So, just as there’s criticism of Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he does not want the war to end because he belongs to the neocon camp that thinks the war will bleed Russia dry and adversely affect President Putin’s presidency. You’re suggesting that there are elements of the Russian government that do not want the war to end, the military-industrial complex, certain elements in the military, certain elements in the intelligence community, because they’re at the height of their power.

Doctorow: 19:41
This is rather normal. I don’t see any aberration to this, but let’s just call facts as they are. There are reasons why certain groups in government would find the war to be convenient.

Napolitano: 19:57
Is the war popular amongst average Russians? Are they cheering on the Russian military or is it not in the Russian consciousness? Is it not something they talk about every day? It’s just something happening in Ukraine. Or “I don’t like what the war is doing to me now, and I wish Putin would end it.” Can you put your thumb on the pulse of Russian thinking or is there no one standard way of thinking common to the Russian people?

Doctorow: 20:27
Well, there is one standard common to the Russian people, and that is they want the war to end with Russian victory. That is a hundred percent guaranteed. But once you get past that commonality, how is Russian victory going to be assured? That’s where differences come up.

Napolitano:
Got it. What do you think will happen? Do you think we’ll wake up one morning and five Oreshniks will have leveled Kiev? Or do you think President Putin will maintain slow, methodical, patient wearing down of the Ukrainian military?

Doctorow: 21:03
I don’t think the latter is going to happen because the Ukrainian military is not what’s behind this war. It is London, Paris, and Berlin that are behind the war today.

And they are not going away. They have not conceded defeat. They are ready to put up particularly the frozen Russian assets, to keep the war going while they rearm and prepare for direct conflict with Russia.

Napolitano:
Are they going to send troops to Ukraine?

Doctorow:
They may. It is possible. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible.

Napolitano:
Well if they don’t send troops and the Ukrainian military is on its last legs, I mean what good is military equipment if there are not human beings to operate it?

Doctorow:
I wouldn’t agree it’s on its last legs. The front line, present front line is on its last legs. It is still east of the Dnieper River. If the Russians in the next several months, and I don’t say next several days, but in the next several months, push further and reach to Dnieper. Well, that’s it. They’ve reached 40 percent of the Ukrainian territory. What about the rest?

The other 60 percent? They don’t want to move there because it is Ukrainian Ukraine. They will be an army of occupation when they set foot there. And that will be dangerous, expensive, and it will not bring them closer to a normalization with the rest of the world. So that is not thinkable.

The idea that this war will end after Pokrovsk falls, I mean, I could be wrong. We’ve had a lot of false predictions for the last three years, including my own. But it seems to me improbable that there’ll be a collapse on the Ukrainian side after Pokrovsk falls, which is a matter of days.

Napolitano: 22:52
Got it. Dr. Doctorow, thank you very much. A fascinating, fascinating series of observations, much of it firsthand. And I thank you for your time. Thanks for accommodating my schedule. We’ll look forward to seeing you again as always next week.

Doctorow:
It’s a pleasure.

Napolitano:
You’re welcome. Coming up later today at 11 o’clock this morning, Phil Giraldi; at 1:15 this afternoon from the Ron Paul Institute, my dear friend Daniel McAdams; at two o’clock this afternoon. Aaron Mate; at three o’clock this afternoon from St. Petersburg, Russia, Scott Ritter.

23:32
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

I am pleased to inform the community that this interview heads off in new directions which may be productive in understanding the contradictions in Russian domestic and foreign policy under wartime conditions.

I attempt here to depersonalize the formulation and implementation of Russian policy, to remove Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for a moment and to identify the conflicts between key organizations in his government, namely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the FSB, the successor organization to the KGB.

My point is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the diplomatic corps, stand for Russia’s ever greater integration into the world, for an open society. One of the preoccupations of this ministry over the years has been to reach agreement with ever more countries around the world for visa free travel by Russian citizens. Just last week such an agreement was reached with Saudi Arabia.  Today, in the midst of war, the MFA stands for reaching a diplomatic solution to the war, a peace treaty, and normalization of relations with Europe and the USA. Yesterday’s little speech by the new Russian ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium at the WWI memorial territory within the Ixelles Cemetery (Brussels) on the occasion of Armistice Day conformed perfectly with that generalization about what the MFA stands for.

Meanwhile, the FSB is pulling in the opposite direction. It is issuing directive after directive that aim to isolate Russians from the world. That was the effect of the ban on voice functionality of WhatsApp, which had been the most popular App used by Russians to communicate with the world cost free. That is the effect of the newly introduced blockage on the SIM cards of all Russians returning from abroad until they can restore service by some unspecified verification of their service providers.  And, since the war enhances their powers over the population as justified by national security reasons, however tenuous, the FSB obviously is interested in the war’s going on forever.

Enjoy the show!

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kMxKQNjJEs

Diesen: 0:00
Welcome back. We are joined by Gilbert Doctorow, historian, international affairs analyst, and author of “War Diaries – the Russia-Ukraine War”. So thank you for coming back on.

Doctorow:
It’s a pleasure.

Diesen:
We have, we often see that wars can have a profound impact on society, especially prolonged wars. And it’s said therefore that nations are born in wars such as Germany in 1871. And I would argue that Ukrainian national identity has strengthened as well greatly over the past four years, irrespective or despite the very divisive Bandera faction which has less ability to unite. But in Russia we see that there’s been some of the great revival of national pride. I’m often a bit cautious about having the national pride revived based on war. But this is the reality and wars, they have some negative impacts such as fueling dangerous war industries. Someone will always profit from war, as warned by Eisenhower in his farewell speech.

And we also see that wars create this demand for much greater social cohesion. So societies often become more authoritarian during war. Obviously, Ukraine has had its screws tightened to a great extent, but we also see it to a lesser extent here in Europe with this relentless warmongering and growing authoritarianism, which is hardly any secret. But it’s also true in Russia. That is, the war will take its toll on society.

Some individual freedoms will go away. But I thought I should ask you, because you recently returned from yet another trip to Russia and you work there, you travel there often. What is your impression about the change in society and what kind of change do you, what possible changes do you think we might be seeing?

Doctorow: 2:19
Well, the changes are not dramatic, but they are incremental. And as you say, in wartime, the screws are tightened. In Russia, there is enhanced censorship in the sense that those who speak openly or write openly against the war, not how it’s being managed, but against the war in principle, are facing problems. I visited with the director of the St. Petersburg Union of Journalists and was informed that not so long ago they were instructed by the successor organization to the KGB, which is called the FSB, that they were to expel any journalists who were in that category and they did. They expelled one person who was rather unlucky and they felt very badly about it because they knew that they were headed in the wrong direction. However, for the Russian public, this question of how free is the Russian press is more complicated than it seems.

3:25
It always was. I remember being rebuked by a German parliamentarian who was at the time, this is 10 years ago, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee within the European Parliament, rebuked for saying that Russia had extensive press freedom and he said how much did Putin pay you to say that. But this was typical ignorance which unfortunately continues to this day. The fact is that in Russia though it is state controlled television, you can’t say that there isn’t state controlled television in Britain; the BBC, whatever.

They are getting the line that comes out of the prime minister’s office. No question about it. Anybody who thinks that Euronews is anything different than what Ursula von der Leyen wanted said today is just not serious. Of course, it is the private broadcasting network of Ursula von der Leyen. So let’s come back to the Russians.

4:26
Of course, the media is subject to control, but every day on major programs, you get extensive digests of the world press, print media and the electronic media. And I mean not sound bites, but extensive excerpts, videos from Deutsche Welle, from BBC, from NBC or CBS, they’re all there. And they’re presented because the government is satisfied that its public is well educated enough to reach some conclusions and doesn’t have to be instructed. So to judge Russian media today from the pressure of the war, I don’t see a great change. There are voices who are saying that the war is being badly conducted without pointing a finger at anybody in particular, least of all against the president.

5:24
But they are saying that it should be ended on terms that give Russia victory and will ensure that Ukraine does not turn against Russia again, simply by decapitating the governing individuals in downtown Kiev today. It’s possible, it’s feasible. In any case, looking at society, there are ills that I saw in the last 17 days, which are not new ills, they are old ills, but they had been contained by very careful work of Mr. Putin and his team over the last 25 years.

And the runaway bureaucracy, by that I mean the excessive issuance of decrees and ministerial directives. That is a sign that Mr. Putin and his close colleagues no longer have their eye on the ball. They were cutting this back. They were improving relations between the citizenry and the administration that governs them. They were digitalizing this relationship, to take the personal element out of it and to cut arbitrariness.

6:42
All of that is coming loose. The amount of regulation for simple things like registering a foreigner. And foreigners doesn’t mean just you and me. It also means in much larger numbers people coming from Kazakhstan, people coming from Tajikistan, anybody who’s coming either as a Gastarbeiter or because they have relatives in the Russian Federation. They’re now subjected to a barrage of paper filling and time consuming and not very agreeable or pleasant and often absolutely useless.

As a foreigner, I’m obliged to, as you are obliged to, register. You don’t do it if you’re in a hotel, because they do it for you without any effort. But if you’re living in private lodgings, as I do, you have to go and register with the person who is your sponsor, in this case my wife. And it has gotten more difficult, more miserable, I can say, each time, and more stupid. The people who are handling this, I won’t run on, I won’t go on too long, but I just want to point about the senseless decrees that make life difficult and that are running unchecked because the government’s attention is elsewhere.

7:58
The people who process you, mostly women behind the guichet, windows of the administration, they’re very nice. This is not the Soviet officialdom who were underpaid, under-equipped, miserable, and they took it out on anybody who sat in front of them. No, no, no. The people who are processing you today are well-meaning, well-disposed to the public, presumably well-paid, and their equipment is up to date. It’s the latest equipment of every kind to process you.

But they’re processing requirements that make no sense and that take them, say, 20-40 minutes per person. And you have to have an engineer’s degree or a lawyer’s degree, as these ladies do, to do this simple, utterly useless work. And they know that it’s useless, and you know that it’s useless. And that is, I say, it’s come unstuck. It proliferates.

8:59
Now, that side of life, the petty theft of lower government officials has returned. One of the first things that Vladimir Putin did was to curb corruption of the small kind that was all over the country because you had to deal with the government officials to make your tax declaration. Boy, was that an opportunity for them to rip you off with bribes and so forth. That was done away with by the 15% flat tax and no questions asked. Now this kind of invitation to corruption has come back.

In the 1990s if you had a car, you were always being stopped by traffic police for real or more likely imaginary traffic offenses. They shake you down how much cash they could get off of you to buy your way out of it. Now that money didn’t go anywhere except into their pockets. It’s back. It’s back.

10:01
And it tells me that the government has lost control of this side of life, which makes life less pleasant for citizenry. Nothing tragic, but less pleasant. So as to economic well-being, of course, people who have some savings of substance in the banks are getting now – well, it’s dropped from 18 percent, now it’s 14 percent interest capitalized, and we know that inflation is 10 percent. So they’re covered against inflation more than covered. They’re being rewarded for not spending their cash and not increasing inflation thereby.

If you are an ordinary Russian who doesn’t have big savings, you profit from the extensive increase in social benefits for families, large families, starting families, special reduced subsidized mortgage rates. So you’re not paying 16% on your mortgage, you’re paying out 3%, 4% if you fall into certain categories. So the sting of the war is not felt by a great many people. Moreover, an important fact, since I have in past discussions mentioned that the Russian casualty losses, death and injuries are twice the level of America suffering from the Vietnam War against the population. The United States, 300 million, Russia was 150 million, The United States suffered 65,000 deaths plus injuries, and the Russians have suffered now, let’s say 150,000 deaths, again with the population half the size, and maybe four or five times that in people who are maimed for life, who’ve lost limbs and so forth.

11:52
Now why aren’t there demonstrations against all this? Well, because the Russians learned perfectly from Mr. Nixon and from the results of the Vietnam War. The war is being fought by professionals and by volunteers. It’s not being fought by conscripts.

Russia has the callup every year to fill the ranks of its basic military. These callups have gone up in number as the military is expanding itself to meet the possible conflicts with NATO. But none of the conscripts is sent outside the Russian Federation. The only conscripts who ever faced Ukrainian soldiers were when there was the incursion in Kursk and the Russian conscripts who were situated in Kursk, there was a war and they were in it, but that was really unintentional and quite a surprise to Moscow that its own conscripts would be actually fighting. So the reasons for there to be active resistance to the war do not exist.

Diesen: 13:01
Well, I also come across a lot of people in Russia, both Russians as well as foreign officials who are there, were perplexed about the decision to go with this slow grinding war of attrition because if you look at their American counterparts, they’re always going for this quick regime change as an approach. Indeed, that’s how they got Ukraine on their side as well. And that’s what they seem to be planning for possibly at least for Venezuela. So there are many who are curious why there’s no efforts at all to pursue some form of a regime change. Because you do have people, I don’t like to use Aristovich too much as an example, but again, like the former advisor of Zelensky, Aristovich, he was interviewed and asked, if you become president, what would you do?

And he said, well, the first thing I would do is go to Moscow and just promise them that Ukraine will never let itself again be used as a threat against Russia. And based on this, we have to learn how to live next to each other again. And so, you know, you do have people who, again, he’s made some very hawkish statements on Russia. We are all familiar with the statements from 2019 where he was all very much looking forward to a war with Russia because this is what would bring NATO directly involved and they would be able to defeat the Russians. But again, it’s not as if he’s part of the pro-Russian club, but you do have pragmatists.

14:39
And that’s what I mean. The people who realize that our best future is not to continue this war, losing more territory, men and infrastructure. So I am perplexed why there’s not, why there hasn’t even been an effort to change the government because you see this now as well. I mean, it sounds very brutal to suggest a decapitation strike, but instead, what’s happening now is also very brutal. This massive destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure in which people more or less will be compelled to leave.

This will destroy the Ukrainian nation. And of course, all the Russian losses which comes along with this as well. It just looks like it would be much more conducive to have Zelensky replaced. Again, they might fail. America has failed in many of its regime change, but it also succeeded in many. It’s just strange to me that they haven’t gone down this path at all.

I wanted to ask though, in terms of the military industrial complex, because on one hand the Russian army has developed at a very amazing pace that is, you know, this is a common trait in Russian history. They start slow in wars and then they adjust to new realities and then they win. But with all this military development, there’s a lot of people who stand to make a profit. Do you see this being a concern in Russia?

Doctorow: 16:12
Well, I heard this stated. In fact, it was in the Union of Journalists that I heard the American maxim “Follow the Money” used to explain why there is, within Russia, support for continuing the war. I’ve heard from a longtime designer of ballistic missiles, an engineer who’s retired now for several years, at a very advanced age, I might say. He was saying that he sees what’s going on as being target practice that the general staff of Russia is very happy with because they’re testing all kinds of new weapons. So there are within top government and military industrial complex, there are clearly people who are averse to seeing an early end to this war and who are enjoying it and profiting from it.

But I think that is not really decisive in what’s going on. I think the decisive issue is the personality of the Supreme Commander and his risk aversion approach. Many people, certainly many viewers of this program, similar programs, authoritative interviewing programs are pleased to believe that Mr. Putin is the only adult in the room and that he is a peace advocate and proponent and not a war advocate. They find this comforting, that at least somebody in the world has not gone mad.

17:49
However, there is a problem with all this, and that is at what point does the gradualism and caution, and that is what certainly is involved in Mr. Putin’s behavior, to avoid at all costs slipping into nuclear war. That is a good approach in abstract, but in practice, it starts to look a lot like appeasement. And that appeasement is the most dangerous thing if your intention is to avoid progression to a war. So there are problems.

I don’t see any malevolence. I don’t see any intent to destroy the youth of Ukraine, which also by the way is a nonsensical view of what’s going on. You only have to look at Russian television and what they had two days ago. They were interviewing newly taken prisoners of war from the encirclement around Pokrovsk. And look at the faces.

18:53
There are a few in the 20s and there are more than a few who are clearly in the late 50s and 60s. The Ukrainian army has a lot of old timers in it. I don’t say they’ve been dragged off the street, though some of them have, but many of them are there for the very reasons that you mentioned. They are patriotic, they’re defending their land, and they feel obligated to go out and fight to protect what’s theirs. So you have a lot of old folks.

It’s not just a generation of young Ukrainians who are being slaughtered. It is a Ukrainian male nation that’s being slaughtered. And unfortunately, a lot of Russians are suffering too. And my acquaintances who spoke to me over dinner or behind closed doors on their wish for this war to be over as soon as possible, I think the single biggest motivation was their awareness that Russia is not just suffering deaths, compared to the Ukrainian deaths, of course, it’s small, but if you know those people who are dying or you empathize with the bereaved, then 150,000 deaths is a big number. And say four or five times that number are people who are maimed for life.

20:12
Russian television is already showing products by companies that are making prostheses for missing arms and missing legs. It’s gotten to that point. It’s on television. They’re trying to sell it to the relatives of those who have suffered. People are aware that a lot of Russians are maimed for life. And so the idea that “why is this going on when Putin could end it by decapitation in Kiev?” strikes a lot of people.

Diesen: 20:43
I guess, well, It does seem that over the past few weeks now that the rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin, including Putin then, has hardened a bit. And also there’s been more posturing now, especially with the announcement of these new missiles. And again, it does seem relevant because once this kind of speech is made, it’s very difficult thereafter for Putin to start to back down, if there would be, for example, like another attack such as what we saw back in June on this nuclear deterrent. So it does appear though that the hawks are gaining ground or at least Putin is moving in that direction.

That, by the way, would be another consequence of societies which go through a prolonged war that is you will have the rise of the hawks because, yeah, once you’re in conflict, they are seen to be proven right. And again, in Russia, there’s always been this, I know you went to St. Petersburg, which has always been the more European side of Russia, but there’s always been this idea that by large part of societies, we can have this incremental integration with Europe. We, you know, more or less from Peter the Great to Gorbachev, like all these common ideas, which always come back. But for the hawks, who have warned that the Europeans hate us, they want our destruction, they will use, you know, any every Ukrainian they can find in order to keep this going.

22:24
They are now seem to be proven to have been correct and there’s no, there’s no political force behind any pro-European liberals any more. So do you see this as being something that’s impacting society as well? That the, I mean, the liberals were never strong in Russia, but there’s a long history going back to 1825 to explain why the liberals aren’t doing well in Russia. But how do you see the, I guess, the rise of the hawks affecting Russian society? Because even people I know who were more mild-spoken before have now become very, very hawkish.

Doctorow: 23:07
All right. The hawks are divided. There are hawks who are loyalists and there are hawks who are militarists. That’s the definition I can take from an article that was published a few days ago by Piotr Sauer, obviously the son of Dirk Sauer, who was the founder and owner of the Moscow Times and who died about six months ago in an accident. And what Sauer was saying in this article is that the militarists,  those who have been raising funds very conspicuously to support Russian soldiers on the logic that the formal military was not sending our boys out properly equipped for this war and they had to receive additional clothing with better protection than the standard kit coming from the Russian army.

This view was for a long time quite widely supported. Officially, I think of The Great Game where Nikonov, the host, had time and time and again, some lady who was in charge of one of these volunteer organizations and showed pictures of the soldiers somewhere in the front receiving these presents from patriots inside Russia and saying thank you so much and we will of course win. All of this was every day on television. No more. Finally somebody upstairs understood that that’s what brought down the Romanov dynasty. It was these public activists who behind the show of assistance to the army were blaming the government for the way the war is going badly and brought it down with a little bit of diplomatic help from the British.

24:59
So people do have some sense of history and they are closing down and attacking these, the one part of what you just described, the right. And the loyalist right, which also is not completely supporting what Putin is doing, though they never would say a word about who is issuing the orders. They are calling for, like I think about Vladimir Solovyov, And he’s repeatedly calling for decapitation and repeatedly saying, this is not a special military operation. It is an all-out war. They are trying to kill us and we should finish them off without any mercy.

So to speak about the hard right in Russia, it is divided into several different voices, one of which is now being suppressed, those who are using the volunteer support to the army as a basis for attacking the official army, the same way the Prigozhin did, by the way, and then the others who are supporting Mr. Putin and those around him, though are being very critical of the exact things they’re doing, which are not giving the results everyone wants.

26:18
But coming back to your point about the Liberals, the Liberals in society were a small stratum. The Liberals in the government were a holdover from the Yeltsin years, very important. And even those just next to the government, like Germann Gref, who was moved out of government because he was maybe too Liberal and was made head of the Sberbank.

And Mr. Gref, I say, is in the shadows now, out of favor. His Sberbank has been completely outrun by what? By VTB Bank, which is headed by Andre Kostin, who is a great supporter of Mr. Putin, and is actually running things and making them work, like the whole shipbuilding industry now, which he controls when he has spare time left from his banking job, or maybe the other way around.

27:12
He’s doing the banking job, the time left over from running the shipbuilding industry. These Liberals, who else? Nabiullina, the head of the Central Bank. She’s an outstanding Liberal who is being berated every day on state television by people like Solovyov, and not just by a talking head, but by Deputy Premier of the Duma, Babakov, who uses every appearance on the Solovyov program to explain how she is killing the Russian economy and ruining the war effort. And there she is, supported by whom?

By the boss. Then there is the minister of finance, Siluanov. He’s also a Liberal. And I’m talking about open Liberals, not closet Liberals. So Liberals have suffered big defeats. A lot of them have gone abroad just ahead of being arrested, like Mr. Chubais. But in terms of influencing government policy and pulling in the other direction from the hawks, they’re still there.

Diesen: 28:20
Well, a big change though on both sides in this NATO-Russia proxy war is how each side speak of each other. That is a few years ago, I would say it would have been unthinkable to hear state leaders from Germany, France, Britain, talk about long range strikes into Russia, the need to strategically defeat Russia, this kind of war rhetoric. But one gets the impression from, not impression, one does see in Moscow as well that the resentment is now building up to a massive degree, the frustration and anger at the Europeans.

Indeed, I think one of Trump’s achievements is that a lot of the anger which was more directed towards the Americans in the past are now focused on Europeans. And some Europeans, such as the Germans, seem to be more in focus than others. Do you– again now you hear more talk about the need to attack or retaliate against Europeans as well. So do you see this as a rhetoric which is winning ground, the idea that, for example, German logistics centers or military facilities have to be destroyed?

Doctorow: 29:48
Well, the Russians are doing their best to keep Trump and the Europeans separate. And that is partly why Mr. Putin, surely the main reason why Mr. Putin has put up with Trump’s nonsense and has sung his praises when given any opportunity, which looks by itself to be peculiar. But the ultimate logic is to keep Trump on side, to make sure that he isn’t going to support the Europeans in some risky provocation that leads us to World War III. So is this view supported in the public? I think the public, if you ask Russians, they hate England, for example.

I think England has outrun, outpaced Germany as the first country they would like to flatten if they ever use the Poseidon against an enemy. It was said, a few days ago, that  five Poseidons, and England will be erased from the globe. This is not going to happen, But it’s an idea which pleases Russians to think over. The idea that rolling out these new weapons systems as has happened in the last two weeks, reminding the West of Russia’s superiority in strategic weapons, I don’t think that that restores Russian deterrence, not at all. First of all, it takes us into the realm of the value of nuclear weapons in general.

31:28
It’s always been conceded that nuclear weapons are of last resort and that they are not used for deterrence purposes, except against miserable countries that have nothing. But among peers, that cannot affect deterrence because nobody would use them. The Russians may have come close to a first strike capability recently. The Americans may have come close to a first strike capability before the Russians had readied for use their new weapons systems. But neither side really is going to risk a nuclear war on the hope that this first strike will be effective and totally effective.

Partially effective is not good enough. Therefore, what you have is conventional weapons. This is the thing that I find puzzling and incomprehensible. Why the new generation conventional weapons of Russia, these hypersonic missiles and the Oreshnik in particular are not being used right now to decapitate the Kiev regime.

At the very least to ensure that there’s no more diplomatic tourism of every Danish prime minister or German minister of defense every couple of weeks to go and buck up, to support Zelensky and keep his spirits up. This is an utterly inexplicable situation.

Diesen: 33:11
Yeah, well, my last question is, well, whenever we talk about the divisions and domestic problems of other countries one should always be aware that this is always used as well for propaganda purposes. And I’m not sure if you’ve seen this latest thing now in the media. I think it’s a bit suspicious right around the time Pokrovsk is falling, the idea that Lavrov and Putin are now deeply divided. Again, it’s possible.

I tend to be very critical because these stories often rest on hearsay and they always pop up around very strange time and they don’t always make that much sense either. I was just wondering, again it could be true so I’m not going to dismiss it altogether, but what do you make of these reports which are now being pushed around the Western media that there’s this split between Putin and Lavrov?

Doctorow: 34:19
I don’t believe it. Look, the reason why they raised this question is that many people in the West believe that Mr. Lavrov is an important personality, that he influences policy, in fact, he makes policy. Well, to a certain extent, under the weakling president, Medvedev, Lavrov stepped in and in a way made policy when he revised and made literate the very juvenile revision of European security architecture that Medvedev put out as his main initiative. In that particular moment, with a very weak president, Lavrov had something resembling a policy role. But generally speaking, under a strong president like Putin, Lavrov has only been an implementer. He has never been an independent force.

35:14
The notion that he would be at odds with the president, well, he should just resign, because he is nobody without being the implementer of his boss. The further fact, which I think many people don’t think about is whom is he overseeing? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is populated with, sorry to say it, Liberals, pro-European people. People were very disappointed that there’s a war and that they have to fight like hell to get postings in Western Europe and to be accepted by the host countries. So the idea that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its boss would be at odds with the president, And that that would have a policy value, I’d just dismiss from the get-go.

Diesen: 36:06
There’s an interesting contradiction also in Russia, though. That is, on one hand, you see this real rise of this new confidence, which wasn’t there before. Again, part of it was economic, that they’re able to stand and grow despite doing better than the other European economies despite all the sanctions and also the ability to win on the battlefield despite NATO throwing everything it has into this and again being welcomed around the world as a great power despite the western efforts to isolate Russia. So there is this, You can’t deny that this is massive new confidence which has come forth. On the other hand, one sees that there’s a very cautious, as you would suggest, overly cautious almost in terms of how they engage with the NATO countries.

Of course, there could be a lot of strategic thinking below the surface there, which could explain for this, which I wouldn’t be aware of. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Doctorow: 37:17
My point from this trip was simply to pick up what I see around me. And what I saw around me was enough to justify my claim that what is in a general presentation to the broad public on these interview programs is often misleading and claims an accuracy that is unjustified. Not because I have greater accuracy, but I can say that what I saw contradicts completely, well, contradicts in many ways the general view of Russia’s position in the reorganization of the governing board of the world.

It is much more complex. It is much less solidified. And that my peers are often taken in by their hosts on very high level, very attractive visits to Moscow, sponsored by Russia Today, sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or by very high level oligarchs in the media realm, like Mr. Malafeyev, and they’re not aware that they are willy-nilly being disseminators of the official Russia line.

And they take that to be the whole of Russia. Russia is 150 million people, very complex society. And I make no claims to have my arms around it. That would be totally foolish. But I do see that others who are behaving as if they have their arms around it are doing so in an unjustified way. There’s a lot of work that you and your guests are doing and must be doing to make the public aware of the complexity of the challenges we face.

Diesen: 39:20
Yeah, I think it would be naive not to recognize that this, yeah, this war will also take a toll on Russian society as well. We tend to always measure things either military or economic, but the societal is quite an important aspect to keep an eye on. So thank you so much for taking the time, and hope to have you back on soon.

Doctorow:
Yeah, very kind of you.

Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 8 November: The Impact of the Ukraine War on Russian Society

I call this a ‘conversation’ rather than an interview, because Glenn Diesen shares his own views on the issues for discussion quite generously and these should be of special interest to viewers, many of whom are well familiar with mine.

That said, there are in this video issues which I have not addressed elsewhere in writing or in podcasts but which definitely merit examination.  I think in particular of the question of hardliners coming to the fore in Russia under war conditions and Liberals retreating.  What you will find here with respect to the hardliners is a breakdown of that force into at least two very different and mutually hostile groups, which the journalist Piotr Sauer in an article recently called ‘loyalists’ and ‘militarists.’ 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/06/putin-repressive-machinery-turns-inward-target-pro-war-figures?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

Piotr is the son of the Dutch founder and long-time owner of The Moscow Times, who tragically died in an accident about six months ago. Then, with respect to the Liberals, it is a mistake to think that they have been vanquished. Not in the least. Their highest representative in the land is the head of the Central Bank Nabiullina, who enjoys the full support of Putin even as many influential statesmen, including the Duma deputy Babakov who is deputy chair of the Duma, denounce her regularly on state television for destroying the economy and working against the war effort.

Another point of discussion in this video that is worth the attention of viewers concerns the question whether the recent statements by Putin about successful tests of the newest and most lethal Russian strategic arms systems Burevestnik and Poseidon do anything to restore Russia’s perceived deterrent power in the West.

Enjoy the show!

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx6OzJHmhLg

NewsX World: 3:55
Okay, now joining us is Gilbert Doctorow. He’s a Russia affairs expert who joins us live from Brussels. Gilbert, thank you very much for joining us here on the program. What is the significance behind President Putin’s direct line session later? What … weight does this event carry in regards to Moscow’s communications and control?

Doctorow: 4:25
Well, this is a very significant event that is closely watched not only by domestic mass media in Russia, but also by those of us who are interested in Russian affairs abroad. It is the most important single Q&A that President Putin has each year. This lasts over four hours customarily. And he receives questions from press correspondents that he knows well, and from many whom he hardly knows, both domestic and foreign, usually some time is reserved for major Western journalists to pose directly to Mr. Putin.

5:13
We will all watch it closely. The overwhelming number of questions that are given to Mr. Putin concern domestic affairs in Russia. That is, pension questions, questions of how the inflation is affecting the economy, what is being done to alleviate shortages of one commodity, you know, like last year it was eggs in particular that were in short supply. These domestic issues hardly interest us foreign observers, but we do find, if you have the patience to listen to Mr Putin, you do find his comments on international affairs and on the war in Ukraine to be quite interesting and sometimes useful for our evaluation of the latest Russian state position.

NewsX World: 5:59
Yes, and Gilbert, of course, Russia is often criticised for its alleged control of the media. What does this show about the transparency of the Russian government that Putin, Vladimir Putin is there ready to accept questions from international media outlets like the BBC, CNN, etc?

Doctorow: 6:29
He has no difficulty handling these correspondents whom he knows very well by name, since they’ve been there, like the BBC correspondent, has been there for years.

NewsX World:
Yeah.

Doctorow:
As to control of the media, of course the Russian state controls television, but there is nothing surprising in that, as if the BBC is not controlled by the Prime Minister’s office in London, or Euronews is not controlled by Ursula von der Leyen, whose policies it is constantly projecting to the European public.

7:05
So that isn’t an issue. What is unique about the Russian controlled television is that it gives every day very large digests of what the world press is saying. That is to say, if you watch the news roundups or if you watch major talk shows like 60 Minutes, you will be exposed to extensive excerpts from what the BBC is saying, from what the New York Times is saying, from what Deutsche Welle is saying. And these are not just soundbites. They are real, substantial excerpts from reportage about the world and about events in Russia abroad.

7:46
That is unique, and it stands in contrast to what goes on in the West, where nothing of Russian media is given to the public day by day. So the Russian government expects that its public, being well educated, will sort out for itself the logic or illogic of what the western press is reporting.

NewsX World: 8:11
Yes indeed. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for joining us on here on the program. And here on NewsX World, of course we will keep you updated on that direct-line session with Vladimir Putin.

I am grateful to Judge Andrew Napolitano for posting my recently arrived at contrarian views on how the war in Ukraine is going and what Russians are thinking about the way it is being prosecuted.

In today’s chat I was given ample opportunity to take issue with the ‘Putin is the only adult in the room,’ ‘all Russians support Putin,’ ‘the war will end soon after the capture of Pokrovsk’ narrative that is being disseminated by today’s heroes of the U.S. podcasts Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson and several others.  None of these chaps speaks Russian and the ‘insider perspective’ that they present is nothing more than what they are told by the Russia Today officials, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and retired Russian generals who are their hosts in Russia and use these naïve colleagues to broadcast Russian propaganda.

I note that two hours after the release of this video, the typically vicious comments by the usual cohort of trolls numbers ten times less than the number of thumbs up.

As I say at the outset, the 150 million citizens of the Russian Federation are well-educated and it is nonsensical to think that any of us can capture their thinking on the issues at the center of today’s Judging Freedom interview with full confidence.  For my part, I do my best. In part I rely on anonymous sources like taxi drivers or barber shop employees, folks who deal with the broad public and may never see the same customer twice, which makes it all the more likely that the customers speak openly to them. In part, I rely on close friends whom I have known for many years: and I take note when I see clear signs of change in views on the war and on Putin’s leadership as I did over table talk at a party celebrating the new Russian state holiday of National Unity on 4 November.

None of my interlocutors is going to demonstrate against the war or even speak openly about it. But that there is discontent, lost patience of this never-ending war at the popular level that I see is clear.  I can well imagine that some of the Moscow elites are also impatient and they do have means to pressure Putin to change course.

My Russian friends are impatient for the war to end because of the large numbers of casualties among the Russian forces. Perhaps there are 150,000 killed in action, but the numbers of those seriously maimed is surely several times higher.  Russian state television has even started presenting advertisements from the manufacturers of prostheses for those who have lost arms and legs to drone strikes and mines.

Considering these losses which are at least double the scale of those suffered by the USA in the Vietnam war, one viewer submitted a comment several weeks ago asking why there are no demonstrations in Russia by mothers and others bereaved as there were over Vietnam.  The simple answer is that all Russian armed forces in Ukraine are volunteers. While Russia does have a draft, none of the conscripts can be sent outside the borders of the Russian Federation.  In a word, the Russians learned the lesson of Nixon and Vietnam very well. After that war the USA turned to a professional army. Its merits were explained in terms of fighting efficiency, but surely the key reason was to depoliticize war making.  The Russians have done the same.

One of the questions which Judge Napolitano pitched to me was whether Vladimir Putin is drawing out this war of attrition in order to kill of a generation of young Ukrainians and thereby prevent any recurrence of armed conflict in the foreseeable future.  I object to this hypothesis on the grounds that those fighting in the Ukrainian army seem to be at least as numerous in the 50s and 60s age category as in the 20s. You see that even today in the television interviews with Ukrainian POWs who surrendered in Pokrovsk. The same was true in earlier Russian reporting going back more than a year ago.  Secondly, I do not believe that Putin is such a cynic. On the contrary he exhibits deep commitment to the values of Orthodoxy and this creates a separate threat for us:  his turn the other cheek Christianity, very Orthodox in nature, is completely misunderstood by our secular Western leaders and political establishments. It is taken for weakness and encourages them to take ever more provocative and risky actions against Russia which one day will result in Russian counter attacks sparking WWIII. What we have here is the making of a Clash of Civilizations as described by Sam Huntington, though Sam never expected the separate Orthodox civilization to be in armed conflict with the West.

Transcript submitted by a reader

NewsX World: 4:10
–secure supply routes and push back Russian infiltration. Russian forces have been advancing towards Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region for over a year, seeking to consolidate control over eastern Ukraine and push into neighboring the Dnipropetrovsk region. We now are joined by Gilbert Doctorow. He is a Russia affairs expert, and he joins us live from St. Petersburg in Russia.

Okay, let’s start with the Vlodymyr Zelensky statement that we just heard, Gilbert. Of course, Zelensky describes the fighting in Pokrovsk and Kuryansk and says Russia is turning Ukraine into destroyed cities. Now of course Russia pitches this war as liberating the country of Ukraine. How would you respond to the claim that Russia’s operations in these areas are liberating, rather than coercive?

Doctorow: 5:13
Well, they are very destructive, of course. But the important thing to note is how this is proceeding over a long period of time. They have not staged, the Russians have not staged any massive assaults on major defended cities like Pokrovsk. They have encircled them. In the case of the latest news, they say that they have completely encircled Pakrovsk. And the remarks by Zelensky are an attempt to counter the image of a city where 5,000 or more soldiers are facing slaughter as they are surrounded.

5:53
The fact is that the war is dominated by the move to drones. Mr. Zelensky is unable to resist the Russian advances with manpower. He is short of manpower in many of the critical points of the more than 1,500 kilometer long line of confrontation and Pokrovsk is one of them. But what we see, or I see, watching the Russian state news reports from the front and interviews with soldiers at the front is that the Ukrainians are trying to prevent Russian advance not by putting soldiers on the ground, because they are short of soldiers, but by using very intensive drone attacks on the advancing Russian forces.

6:44
In fact, as a result of the ever-present “birdies” as they call them, Russian forces are using small units, not full front lines of advance. And this is the peculiarity of the present stage of the war, that there are five, six, eight soldiers forming an attack unit, not a whole brigade. The effectiveness of the drone counterattacks is considerable, let us not underestimate it. Nonetheless, it remains true that the Ukrainian forces are surrounded and if– and that Mr. Putin is satisfied that this is so and has invited Western media, Western press to come and see for themselves.

NewsX Wowld: 7:37
Gilbert, assuming Russia eventually controls Pokrovsk, what is the vision for the area? Full integration into Russia, autonomy under Russian patronage or something else possibly?

Doctoorow:
Well let’s look at the borders. We’re speaking now of a fortified town, part of the effort of the Ukrainians to have a series of retreating points as they had been pushed back by the Russians. But this is not the whole of Ukraine. This is an important city in the oblast or province of Donetsk.

8:19
Donetsk has been, is one of two oblasts or provinces that constitute the so-called Donbass, a largely industrial base that was predominantly Russian-populated when it was first incorporated into Ukraine, shortly after the Russian Revolution of 1917. So this is a Russian-speaking part of Ukraine which was being subjected to very harsh discrimination of the Ukrainian nationalists who took power in 2014. It is not the whole of Ukraine. The Russian advance from Pokrovsk will be to the next two points of fallback for the Ukrainians, which are Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

These names may not mean very much to the global audience, but I’d like to point out an important fact. They are about halfway or two-thirds of the way towards the River Dnieper in the oblast of Donetsk. And they were, in 2014, what is called the cradle of the Renaissance of Russian nationalism. They stood for, I forget, 85 days, I think, these little towns with just local militia. They stood up against the Ukrainian army in what the Russians could describe as their version of the last stand of the Alamo.

9:53
This is a term that has great significance to any American viewers of this program. It was a show of heroism in a hopeless cause. In fact, the objective of the Russians is to return to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk from which there was a clean sweep straight to the Dnieper River and to the reconquest or conquest of the entire Donbas.

NewsX World:
Yes. Yes, Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for that insight and for joining us and taking the time here on News X World. And of course you can follow us here on the channel for all your Russia-Ukraine updates.

10:36
But next we move over to North America for our next update.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ttYcjybLWBY

Diesen: 0:00
Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Gilbert Doctorow, a historian, international affairs analyst, and also the author of the “War Diaries, the Russia-Ukraine War”. So thank you for coming back on the program. I understand that you are in St. Petersburg now.

Doctorow:
That’s correct. My wife and I maintain an apartment here. And so it’s like living at home. Of course, when you’re away from a place for five months, you forget how this apparatus or that apparatus works, how do you work the dishwasher here, that sort of thing. But otherwise, those little inconveniences are nothing compared to the pleasures of being here.

Diesen:
Well, what I wanted to discuss with you was the decline of Russia’s deterrent or at least the credibility of its deterrent. And this is quite an important matter, that is a credible nuclear deterrent kept at peace during the Cold War as both sides knew that they shouldn’t step over certain lines. Once those lines are no longer respected, one risks going further and further down the line and the further one waits to restore one’s deterrent, the more it risks to upset the entire balance. But one of the key criticisms within Russia or concerns at least within Russia has been that the Kremlin has let their deterrent become less credible. That is, over time, Russia didn’t really respond forcefully to any of NATO’s escalations, especially the long-range strikes deep into Russia, both military and commercial targets, but also what we saw back in June, the attacks on Russia’s nuclear deterrent. It appears to me that there’s some push now for a major course correction. I was wondering if you were hearing the same thing.

Doctorow: 2:06
Well, it’s obviously being debated in the highest circles of the foreign policy establishment in Moscow. And I want to make a point clear that wouldn’t be obvious to the general audience. What you and I are about to discuss is a matter of very considerable importance and attracts the attention of foreign policies professionals and defense professionals.

The general public, in light of what I’m about to say about Mr. Putin’s conduct, view him differently. They speak about the man’s gentlemanly behavior, his tolerance for the juvenile behavior or the insulting behavior of American presidents, I use the plural here, and of European leaders. And they find this credible, they’re very comfortable with that, they’re happy that we’re farther away from a war as they see it. As people who are professionals, and you certainly are the most professional, but that is really your your first speciality, We are of a different view, and the world that we live in is “might makes right”.

3:21
And so that– I’m not making a judgment, I’m making a statement of fact. In the world of geopolitics, might makes right. And the meek and the timid tend to be crushed. That is not something the general public likes to understand. They also don’t get the idea that when people are introduced to a public event, which we are told brings together the great and the good, that very distinction is foremost in the minds of the organizer of those events.

There is a distinction between great and good and powerful and people who are decent. They are not necessarily the same people. This is what we face today. And the problem that is arising now, and you’re describing it as a failing deterrent value of Russia, And we discussed this last time, as you said, there are the three components to it. And what Russia seems to be missing at present is the demonstration that it’s willing to use the wherewithal it has and the communication of that determination, both to its adversaries and to the broad public.

4:35
So this seems to be going down. It didn’t just happen yesterday. I take this back, when we’re speaking about Mr. Trump, to the period before he even took office in his first mandate in December of 2016 when the outgoing Obama administration presented him with a poison chalice when they confiscated Russian diplomatic properties in the United States. And they were expecting that that would elicit a violent response from Moscow and which would spoil relations from day one.

Well, there wasn’t any response from Moscow, any credible response. They didn’t do what they should have done then. So the weakness and the failure to respond in a traditional way and according to diplomatic tradition and rules of behavior was being violated by Mr. Putin and his administration back then. It didn’t just start yesterday and it just accumulated over time with more strategically important assets being put in jeopardy, as you just described in the introduction, without Russia providing an adequate response.

5:54
All that they have done is to emphasize from 2018 that they had world-beating military hardware, which was being put into mid-serial production and entering the armed forces. When it came to proper response to demeaning acts that were wrought by Biden, nothing happened. And so there was a confidence that built up in the United States and in Western Europe, which only Mr. Trump recently said, when he called Russia a paper tiger. Of course, all the pundits started talking about the Chinese reference, where it came from.

That’s really irrelevant. That exists as a term that we all understand today. It is a country that projects power, but is unable or unwilling to use that power or to wield a big stick when it needs to defend itself. And that’s where Russia is today. I’m perplexed.

I’m perplexed because Mr. Putin from the day he came [into] office was praised or denounced as an alpha male. The whole feminist movement at once hated his guts because he was clearly with his– bare- chested, riding horses. This man was a man of great physical presence, even if he’s small in stature. And he certainly, when he spoke about his childhood in Leningrad as a scrapper, a guy who was in the courtyards and was challenged by bullies who were always, this always happens among kids. And he stood up and struck first.

7:42
Well, where is that Mr. Putin today? Gone. Now, we’ve all, all of us who’ve been watching this war have been called out, have been shown to be false prophets repeatedly.

And we are rightly criticized by readers or viewers who point out that we have been saying and saying and saying that the end of the war is around the corner when each time a new level of escalation is introduced, which made irrelevant and inaccurate all of our projections of a near-term end to this war if it were being fought on traditional military values, where certain losses are considered to be decisive and you just withdraw from the contest, pay your fees, and look for another day.

8:40
That hasn’t happened. And so it is, I finally became very tired of making false projections. As some of my peers are still doing, that “Oh yes, the Russian economy is crumbling, the Ukrainian army is being bashed.” Well, it is being bashed, but it’s been bashed from the first month of the war.

For the first month of the war, the Russians had a 10 to 1 artillery advantage and presumably a 10 to 1 advantage in deaths and casualties. But the war didn’t stop. And as I see this confiscation of 145 billion euros in frozen assets now in Belgium. If this indeed is realized, which it may well be because the Europeans now are desperate to continue the war at whatever costs in violation of international law. And if that happens, then the war will go on for three or four more years.

9:36
You mentioned I wrote volume one. I expect to have volume two and three published in Q1, 2026. But I don’t want a whole library shelf of these volumes. I don’t think anybody wants this to go on three or four more years. And the latest statements coming out of Vladimir Putin, he’s done– we speak about the flip-flops of Trump– well, he has flip-flopped from the Thursday evening phone conversation he had with Donald Trump on the evening before the arrival of Zelensky for his latest visit to the White House, when he was stern. Oh, we were told he was stern. We, of course, didn’t have a public reading of the words, but what he said was repeated by Trump the next day to to to Zelensky, the words which we assume that he received from Putin. Because before Putin said them, Vladimir Salovyov said those same words on air. And certainly those words came to Salovyov from Putin’s people.

10:44
So those words were, “If you dare to provide Tomahawks to Ukraine, we will destroy Ukraine.” That’s pretty strong stuff. And then a week later, Putin is backtracking. And yes, he’s saying, “Oh, yes, well, we’ll no longer destroy Ukraine.” It’s “Well, that will be a real dent in our relations.” So this is not serious. If I were any of Mr. Putin’s enemies in the United States Senate, or elsewhere in the US government, or sitting in Brussels, I would say, “My goodness, that man is weak.” And weak is the opposite of deterrent force.

Disen: 11:41
Yeah, this, well, I can understand why, especially after Trump came to power, there would be some desire to favor reducing tensions as opposed to upholding the deterrent. Because in the diplomatic sphere, Russia will never see another Trump. One that has spoken friendly about Russia, said he wanted to get along, recognized that NATO expansion, on more than one occasion, he recognized this is the cause of the war. Again, there seems to be a pathway there to peace. And well, it seemed, let’s use past tense there, but also those reasonable concerns about escalation and given that the war was going Russia’s way, they didn’t want to make any waves.

But of course, the situation today is very different. We see, as you said, the pressure on Putin to do something, to retaliate is growing. I think it’s fair to say that diplomacy is dead now. Trump for all his talks, everything that was talked about in Alaska, about dealing with the underlying causes of the war, well, now he’s back on the ceasefire again. So everything they talked about, everything is now out the window. And also the sanctions on the Russian oil or, well, technically secondary sanctions, because they’re going to go after Russia’s partners, India, China.

13:18
And as you said, the Europeans essentially legalizing the theft of Russian assets to further fund the war a few more years. This is all the indicators of preventing the fall of Ukraine and keeping the war going for a few more years. But not only is the pressure on Putin, and I think there’s recognition more widely now that diplomacy is dead, but Russia stands on much firmer ground now if they now decide to go up the escalation ladder. I’m thinking then a few months ago, the Oreshnik was a, you know, a test missile. Now it’s in industrial production.

The Russians are in a much stronger place now it seems if they do want to start to restore their deterrent. But do you think this would trigger a direct war between NATO and Russia if Russia escalates or would it prevent it?

Doctorow: 14:22
First, let’s take one step back. You said everybody agrees that diplomacy is no longer an option. Everyone except Mr. Putin. In the last day, he has repeated that, well two days ago, he was speaking and saying that talking is much better than confrontation. And then he sent Mr. Dmitriev to the United States on a fool’s errand that has the image that the United States and Russia are still talking to one another and are thinking about big business in the future. This is absolutely empty show and it only demonstrates a complete lack of understanding by Mr. Putin and the people who are advising him of who Mr. Trump is, what the American administration is, and how do you deal with them. He is dead wrong. This Mr. Dmitriev’s mission is empty of content, because everything– Dmitri is a brilliant man who is very ambitious and is serving the boss of bosses with a view obviously to where his political career will go in the future.

15:35
I have no objection to that. But what he’s doing now is utterly stupid for the interests of Russia. He rewards the United States by pretending that they’re still in talking terms and have great business plans for the future, the day after the United States has slapped secondary sanctions, which– this was discussed with Trump, it was discussed with Putin, what is the outcome or the likely result of these sanctions? And Putin said, oh, we will get along, it’s not a deal. And Trump said, we’ll see how you’re doing in six months.

Between the two, I agree with Trump but I disagree with Putin. What has happened– I just did a little diversion here, we’re speaking about the secondary sanctions on the two biggest consumers, buyers of Russian oil, that is India and China. These sanctions against China are almost without effect, not just because China will stop supplying rare metals to the United States and the US industry will shut down the next day, but because China has most of its oil coming to it by pipelines, which are really in no way affected by the sanctions that have been imposed, because they are directed against seaborne oil.

16:56
India is the opposite case. India does not have a stranglehold on rare metals. It has no cudgel to use to beat back the Americans the way the Chinese do. And its oil, which is roughly the same volume as what China’s importing, is all coming by sea. And yesterday, I think it’s called Reliable. It’s a privately owned single biggest importer of Russian oil into India. And they said they’re not going to buy any more oil.

Now, that isn’t the end of the game, of course. The Russians and the Indians are probably scrambling to find workarounds for this, but there will be a loss of sales. And what does that mean for the Russian budget? Mr. Trump is right.

If we just say that the Russians cannot bring around the Indians to maintain the same level of imports, they will lose 10% of the state budget. 10%. Now they are not running a deficit because the Russian government is jointly prioritizing guns and butter. That is all social benefits are rising, indexation is going up, the standard of living of the grandma is better than it was last month. All that’s going forward.

18:18
And they have a deficit in the budget. You make a 10% hole in the budget and Russia is going to be suffering enormously. And Trump knows that, and Putin is denying it. He also knows that.

So they’ve got a big problem. He is not dealing honestly with his own people and he is not making decisions that are rational in light of the behavior of the Americans. The worst thing he could have done was to send Dmitriev to the States just after these sanctions were introduced. And the whole Dmitriev affair in general, just to back up for a moment, is total nonsense. It’s only that “We, Americans and Russians, will have great business together. We do big business.”

Yeah okay. I’ve heard that since 1975. In 1975 on, I was very deeply involved in all the big business that the United States and Russia would have. And frankly speaking, it was nil. Not because of bad will, but because the different structures of the economy.

19:35
And they simply are not, there’s nothing to harmonize, the way there was and is with Europe, where the two fit together very well. Supplier of raw materials. United States doesn’t really need Russian raw materials. And this project, this mega project, this again shows a very poor understanding of Mr. Trump. Oh, Trump is a big real estate developer. So we’ll propose to him, we’ll build an $8 billion dollar tunnel connecting Alaska and the Russian Far East.

To carry what? Nothing. There’s nothing to carry. So they were, they thought they were being very very clever with Mr. Trump and they have not been very clever. And that carries over to this question of deterrence. I think that Putin has made some very bad choices.

Sending Demetriev was the worst thing he could have done. Making that lame speech a day ago that we still have an option for diplomacy and we don’t want to confrontation. That is exactly the– directly against what you were saying, what I am saying, and what people like Dmitry Trenin and Dmitry Simes, who are really very well plugged into the power structure on foreign affairs in Russia, are saying. So there’s a problem there.

Diesen: 20:52
Yeah. I don’t understand quite why the Kremlin still thinks it has a peace president in the White House because I mean, when the United States approaches countries, the ideal scenario it has is where it is allowed to bomb other countries a little bit, like most of Middle Eastern countries. So moderate attack every now and then. And with the understanding if there’s any retaliation, then it would escalate dramatically. Now the only way you don’t end up in a situation like that is if you have a deterrent who is, that is credible. So Iran, for example, made this very clear.

Any attacks on it, it will respond and they know they will respond. So doesn’t mean a war isn’t coming, but nonetheless, it creates some caution. But we created this strange scenario now where initially it’s kind of open that the NATO countries were backing Ukraine within the war, confined within Ukraine. But then came this idea that, well, why should the war be confined here? Let’s bring it to Russia.

Now you see, again, not only did Trump put sanctions directly on Russia, which even Biden wouldn’t do, the oil, but now also having all these NATO countries, because you have now Zelensky in London with the coalition of the willing as they call themselves, discussing what long range missiles, how NATO can assist probably using these weapons and what targets to pick. And well, essentially, there’s hardly going to be any Ukrainian engagement at all. This is– we’re now in direct war. And while they’re being punched in the face, they are essentially saying, well, let’s let’s talk instead. I mean, the whole point of the turns is if– there’s a one-way hostility here, where NATO can strike Russia but Russia doesn’t respond, why would NATO talk to Russia then?

22:59
I’m just saying in political theory you often assume that countries will push and push and push until they’re pushed back. Once there’s a balance, then you start to talk and find a way of enhancing mutual security. So it is strange indeed to see that Putin hasn’t, that he still behaves as if he buys into Trump’s rhetoric, that it’s not his war, he’s trying to end it. The fact that Trump hasn’t once over the past few months now mentioned an end to NATO expansion, it just makes the whole thing look like a fraud, especially now walking back this whole idea of addressing the underlying causes. But if the Russians were to restore their deterrent now though, again, it seems like a good chance we could end up in war exactly because well, at the moment, the Europeans at least, they seem to be almost looking for a reason to pick a fight.

24:08
Every time we have a little drone near a German airport it’s defined as a hybrid war you know even though they’re arresting Germans for it. But what do you think a possible conflict could arise though? Because as the, as well, Keir Starmer is celebrating Trump’s sanctions And he said that we will keep, we will help to take Russian oil off the market. Now that we can name in many things, it could be in sanctions. It could mean start seizing Russian ships.

Again, it could mean assisting more with long-range strikes on Russian refineries. How do you see the escalations coming forward? Because it looks like NATO is preparing another round of the attacks on Russia.

Doctorow: 24:57
Well, I think that Mr. Putin’s team understands the concept of window of opportunity. The opening of the special military operation in February, 2022 was precisely based on a window of opportunity, based on the technological advantage in strategic weapons systems that Russia had satisfied itself, was operational, and could be used at any moment. Russia for the first time in 70 years was technically, strategically ahead of the United States, not three steps behind. Now that consciousness of window of opportunity, which determined the timing and the manner of the special up military operation, is exactly what’s missing now. In answer to your point, this is the moment for Russia to strike. The Europeans acknowledge that they have nothing and they are putting out and publicizing 2029 as a date when they will be ready.

26:06
Why in hell do they think that Russia’s going to sit around waiting to be struck by them because the Europeans are finally ready? If Mr. Putin’s team has any strategic thinking, they will recognize that fact and wipe out Ukraine now, before Europe can do anything. Europeans will be left wringing their hands. The Americans will say, we told you so.

And that’s where it will end. If Ukraine’s military potential, decision-making centers are taken out now, which those Oreshniks make manifestly possible, end of game, or game and match. I am dumbfounded that Putin’s team has forgotten the notion of window of opportunity. Russia will never have the same advantage it has over Europe militarily that it has at this particular moment.

Diesen: 27:13
But the whole, the ideal of a deterrent is exactly that it shouldn’t have to be used. That is, if it’s credible and communicated properly and these capabilities are evident. Now everyone knows that the capabilities are there, but it’s not credible any more. And the communication is poor. I mean, if the language would be firm to the point where NATO would read it as Russia would not have, well, the Kremlin wouldn’t have an opportunity to essentially walk it back if red lines would be violated, then it would be credible. But this is why I’m looking, one would expect a speech where President Putin would say, you know, if long range strikes with missiles operated by NATO countries strike our our land or soil, then we will do A, B and C.

If it’s made clear and they know that the Russian public wouldn’t accept anything else or the military leadership, the political leadership wouldn’t accept any walking back of very clear commitments, then they wouldn’t have to use any of their deterrent. There wouldn’t have to be a strike on Ukraine’s decision centers. They wouldn’t have to do this escalation, but I guess my concern is, as long as they don’t communicate it, you walk further and further up the escalation ladder, and when they finally do strike back, then you end up in a war situation.

Doctorow: 28:46
What I was suggesting was not a war with NATO. I was suggesting destroying Ukraine. They’re two different things. The destruction of the political elites in Kiev would be a warning. It would establish or reestablish Russian’s deterrent.

Let’s go back in history a little bit. There was 1956, there was 1968. Russia had at the time all kinds of deterrent powers in its military arsenal. But it invaded both Czechoslovakia and Hungary and it hit a fly with a hammer, and it worked, and that’s what I’m saying now. I’m not saying that they should– and there are Russian hotheads who are saying, well, we have to bomb Germany, we have to wipe out London. I’m not saying this at all.

What they have to do is go to the heart of the problem, which is the antechamber of the Russian-NATO war. It is not creating a Russian-NATO war. If Ukraine is eliminated, by the method I’m saying, and it’s not my idea, I’m repeating what is on– the words of well-respected Russian thinkers. All right, there is disputes over how well-respected Mr. Karaganov is, but nonetheless, He is a major figure in the political establishment of Russia.

30:19
And so at that level, and I say even less than that level, because he was speaking about using a tactical nuclear weapon in Western Europe to demonstrate Russia’s willingness to go all the way if necessary. I think the sword is needed. Oreshniks destroying a few hundred people in downtown Kiev who are the regime, could do the job and reestablish Russia’s deterrence to all of the war-hungry people who happen to be the heads of government in Western Europe.

Diesen: 30:59
This is the risk though, when you let your deterrent become weakened, if not undermined completely, suddenly you do get these proposals from quite respected people who argue for use of tactical nuclear weapons against European countries in order to restore the deterrent. This wouldn’t have been an issue.

I mean, I think if … they would have upheld it, that’s what I meant at the onset, that is, I think the whole, both sides, the world in general, it loses when one of the great powers lets its deterrent slip. This is when there will be an overcompensation later on. It just feels like, based on the shift in rhetoric and also the situation on the ground, the accessibility now of the Oreshnik on a much larger scale, it looks like we’re reaching that point where the retaliation will come. But if this is the case, one would expect to see a change in rhetoric because if, if, President Putin stepped up the rhetoric, then perhaps, they wouldn’t have to go to the extent of actually using this weapons.

Doctorow:
He doesn’t have to personally step up the rhetoric, but he has to stop calling, rebuking the person in his government who was best able to do that. I’m speaking about Sergei Ryabkov. Ryabkov is the one who in December 2021 presented the ultimatum or the draft agreements which were in fact an ultimatum to Washington and to NATO. That either go back voluntarily, withdraw your establishment of NATO, the structures, to where they were in 1997, or we will push you back. Now that’s pretty tough language. And the same Ryabkov is the one who was slapped down by Putin less than a week ago for saying what you just said at the start of this conversation. That diplomacy has outlived its usefulness.

So these people like Ryabkov, and there aren’t too many like him. He’s really quite outstanding and brave because he knew what he was heading into when he said that. He knew that he was putting his career in jeopardy when he said that. They’re there inside the government, not on state television.

And the– what worries me most of all, is something that’s going to sound a bit peculiar, I think, to viewers. We have been living with the neocon stories about appeasement. We cannot deal with this dictator in Iraq. We cannot deal with these people in Libya and so on. We cannot appease them and so forth. And always with a reference back to Chamberlain and his speech of “peace in our time” after his meeting with Hitler, and the surrender of the Sudetenland. All of that was rubbish. It was pure propaganda. But what I heard Mr. Putin saying a day and a half ago was a Chamberlain speech. And that got me very unhappy.

Diesen: 34:41
So that’s, I guess, a final question. Do you have any predictions where we’re heading now though? Because you make it sound like Putin is standing his ground. I got the impression that he was making a bit of a shift, that a response could be coming again. I’m not certain in this, but that’s the impression I was left with.

Doctorow:
Well, I hope you’re right. But I’m dismayed that he sent off Dmitriev, because that undermines any such notion of his move from expectation of productive diplomacy to restoring Russia’s deterrent power by communications and by show of grit. I don’t know. None of us knows what he’s going to do next.

But he has been inconsistent in the last two or three weeks, and I think you’ll agree with me. As inconsistent in his own way as Trump is. One of the criticisms I have from colleagues, confidentially on the side, not in a public dispute, is that Putin has to behave this way because he gets reports from Russian psychologists who have done readings on Trump and his volatility. And the man is unpredictable and such a dangerous person has his finger on the nuclear start and therefore they are playing with Trump in this way.

36:33
I don’t believe that at all. From my way of thinking, Mr. Trump is a good Christian, a real believer, a family man, and the last thing he wants to see is the United States, including his own family, incinerated. So I wouldn’t worry for a minute about Trump rushing Hegsteth. I don’t believe any of this. I think people are trying to cover their backsides for being apologists for Putin.

I’m not an apologist for anybody. We’ve gone through this question before. I’m just trying to keep reading it as I see it. And maybe you’re right, I hope you’re right, that he has definitely seen the light and will be tougher and a better protector of Russia’s interests, but I’m not persuaded yet.

Diesen: 37:25
Well, my impression of the Trump administration was that they are quite transactional but also pragmatic, that they do assess their policies based on cost-benefit analysis.

So previously, people like Marco Rubio was asked, why don’t you push more sanctions on Russia? And his response was, well, that would derail the possible possibility for diplomacy. But then the Russians removed this cost. So I’m saying, no, no, no, you can sanction all our oil companies and we’ll send Dmitriev the next day over to the US to discuss a peace tunnel. I mean, it’s– you would think they would be communicating more costs by escalating, but no, this is very, it’s very dangerous.

Again, people often interpret this as Putin, you know, being trying to preserve the peace or something, but as we discussed, when the deterrent weakens, you know, peace becomes more fragile. It’s more likely now that there would be war. One, again, everyone would lose from. But yes, let’s see what happens. I get the sense now that something is shifting in Moscow, but it remains to be seen. Anyways, thank you so much for taking the time.

Doctorow: 38:51
Well, very kind of you.

Yesterday I spoke of 2 interviews, the one of that morning and the one from Friday. NewsX sent me two links which I assumed was for both, though I had no way of checking given that youtube does not open in Russia. Now the kind gentlemen who does the transcripts has informed me that the two links relate to one and the same interview, probably the one from yesterday. Sad but not tragic. I believe this interview is well worth a read because the hosts allowed me to speak freely about highly relevant issues

OTH LINKS GIVEN INCLUDE THE SAME DOCTOROW SEGMENT.
PROBABLY THEY SENT ONE WRONG LINK.
================================================

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/_nJ8s5HSUEM?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

World: 0:00
–during 13 others. The strikes hit multiple locations including energy and infrastructure sites. Officials have said residential buildings and a kindergarten were damaged as well. These have sparked several fires across the city. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svydenko has posted on X saying that Russia is trying to create a humanitarian catastrophe as the winter approaches.

She has called the attack a deliberate act of terror against civilians. Svydenko has also praised emergency workers for their quick response and urged allies to provide stronger air defense systems to protect Ukrainian cities. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry Andriy Sibiha said that Russian strikes also targeted the energy grid, railways and homes in Dnipro, Kharkiv and Sumy. On the other hand, Russia’s defense ministry has claimed the attacks were aimed at Ukraine’s military and energy facilities. It also said Russian forces shot down 121 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven headed towards Moscow.

1:11
Now for this discussion, we are joined by Gilbert Doctorow. He’s a Russian affairs expert, joins us live from St. Petersburg. Thank you very much, Gilbert, for joining us again. Good to see you.

Now today we saw comments coming in from a Russian envoy, Kirill Demitriev. He said that the United States, Russia and Ukraine were quite close to a diplomatic solution to end the Russia-Ukraine war. But we see all these escalations from both sides as Russian strikes hit Kiev, and Kiev was targeting Russia’s capital, Moscow. So how do you analyze this current situation of Russia and Ukraine, and is there any chance of trilateral or bilateral talks?

Doctorow: 2:03
Mr. Dmitriev is in the United States now on a mission to discuss trade prospects, and he is suggesting that there is a path towards negotiated settlement and that there will be very big business between the United States and Russia. I understand his position. It’s an official government position within Russia, but I don’t believe what he says for a minute. Mr. Dmitriyev is a very smart, very capable, I should say very ambitious person, who is doing the bidding of the president of the Russian Federation.

And this trip is symbolic. Its actual content is, to my understanding, close to zero. I think it is very unfortunate that this trip is proceeding just days after Mr. Trump has imposed what are hoped from Washington’s perspective to be crushing sanctions on Russia’s oil trade, particularly on trade in oil with India, because India is, together with China, the largest consumer today of Russian oil. Whereas China is fairly safeguarded from Trump’s sanctions, and whereas China receives almost all of its oil from pipelines, which are untouchable by American sanctions, India receives it all by ships, and it’s seaborne oil that the sanctions are going to hit. So in this light of this very severe sanction, it is surprising that Mr. Dmitriev is in the United States at all. I am dumbfounded.

World: 3:49
Yes. Building on that, why do you think, what does this timing suggest of this statement?

Doctorow:
I think it is a very bad indication of the way the Russian administration is reading Mr. Trump and what comes next. It’s surprising that they are forgetting what happened in December of 2016, soon after the election of Trump to his first mandate, when Mr. Obama gave a poisoned chalice to the incoming president by confiscating Russian diplomatic properties in the United States. And the Russians didn’t respond. Mr. Putin didn’t respond. He hoped that still then in 2016, going into 2017, that good relations would be established. But we know what happened. Mr. Trump proceeded to introduce a vast number of sanctions on Russia, and he proved himself in his first term to be no friend of Russia.

4:55
I am dumbfounded that that lesson from the past is being forgotten or ignored at the present, because the imposition of these sanctions is like the confiscation of the diplomatic missions in 2016. And here again, we see no proper response from Russia. Instead, it turns the other cheek and sends Mr. Dmitriev on a fool’s errand to talk about big business opportunities in the future. I do not understand the strange behavior of the Russian government today.

World: 5:34
And building on that, what are the potential implications? As you have mentioned, it’s very questionable, but Russia did state that Russia and the United States are maintaining dialogue on issues beyond Ukraine. What could that be?

Doctorow:
Well, there are many issues that they have in common. Their activities in the United Nations are, to a certain extent, coordinated today on areas of common interest. There is of course coordination on how to deal with the Gaza settlement, because Russia is also an interested party in everything that happens in the Middle East. The Middle East is much closer to the Russian Federation than it is to the United States. So there are subjects that they are discussing, some of which will be constructive. But the major issue between the United States and Russia is destructive, not constructive.

6:30
And Mr. Putin in the last several days explained how it would be tough and he would give a determined and shocking response if the United States sent Tomahawks to Kiev. Well, that was looking brave about a situation that’s already been resolved. The United States is not sending any tomahawks to Russia. But when it comes to the question of the challenges that Mr. Trump has just imposed by the latest sanctions, Mr. Putin is doing nothing and saying nothing. Now these sanctions– let me be very specific what we’re talking about. If India does not fulfill its, or carry on its present level of purchases of oil, that will create a 10% hole in the Russian state budget. That is a severe loss of income. And Mr. Putin is pretending that it’s nothing. He’s pretending that it doesn’t exist. That is not the way to deal with this issue.

World: 7:33
What do you think, should India consider providing technology or defense assistance to Ukraine, or maintain a neutral position to protect its strategic partnership with Russia on this matter?

Doctorow:
Well, if India were to put, to extend defense equipment and technology to Ukraine, that would ruin BRICS. Let’s just be very open about it. India has nothing like that in the plans. The damage that India would do to Russia is if it decided, this is a reasonable thing to do, that Mr. Trump’s sanctions and tariffs on India are too expensive to accept, and that although Russian oil is being sold cheaply, it’s not being sold cheaply enough to compensate India for the losses that Trump is imposing.

8:29
So there you have the critical issue for India. It is not against Russia, but it is whether or not India submits to the diktat of Washington and curtails or stops completely its purchases of Russian oil. You know, as I know, that your single largest importer of Russian oil, I think the company is called Reliance, has just stated publicly that it will no longer buy Russian oil. So I imagine that the Indian government representatives and Russian representatives are talking furiously now to find a workaround so that some imports of Russian oil will continue despite the sanctions.

World: 9:18
And how– now bringing EU to the conversation, how do you analyze European nations’ perspective? Do you think they are discouraging direct US Russia communication, or they’re encouraging direct US Russia communication?

Doctorow:
Well they’re working against any communications. The majority of European Union member states and by majority I mean 24 out of the 27 member states because three member states Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary are in opposition to the others. But the others all want a continuation of the war. They find it advantageous to punish Russia and to keep it distracted by the Ukraine while they proceed to invest a vast amount of money in remilitarization, meaning restoring and raising the production levels of European arms manufacturers and allotting money for the training and salaries of enlarged armies. Germany wants to expand its army by about 40% to 50%. That takes a lot of money, a lot of training, and it’ll take some time.

So they all want to keep Russia busy for the next three or four years while they prepare themselves for a 2029 attack on Russia. That is where they stand. European countries and the European Union are predominantly hawkish, warlike and anti-Russia. That is the present leadership today.

World: 11:07
Well, thank you for sharing that insight, Gilbert Doctorow. Please stay with us as we come back to you for our next discussion as well.

Now the European Union is developing a new plan to curb its reliance on Chinese critical raw materials. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has criticized Beijing for its expanded restrictions on the export of rare earths. The European Union has for years attempted to reduce its dependence on China for the minerals that are needed for the transition to cleaner energy, the defense sector and electric vehicle production as well. Now Ursula von der Leyen has also stated that the EU would seek to speed up critical raw materials partnerships with countries such as Australia, Canada, Chile, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.

12:01
The plan would also include greater efforts to recycle critical raw materials in products sold in Europe. This comes in response to China’s export restrictions on rare earths and battery materials which were imposed on 9th October.

Now for this discussion, we go back to Gilbert Doctorow. He’s a Russia affairs expert, joins us live from St. Petersburg. Thank you very much, Gilbert, for staying with us. Now how can EU’s efforts to reduce independence on Chinese critical raw materials reshape global trade dynamics for them and their strategic partnership and their strategy moving forward? And is this feasible in short term? How long will it take for them to change this, to replace China with other countries?

Doctorow: 12:54
Well, you put your finger on the critical issue. It’s time. They can make arrangements with Australia and Canada and all kinds of other countries. But there is no rare-earth production going on of any significant amount outside of China. Because it is a dirty business, that is to say, it is a polluting business, which all of the very ecologically proper nations of the Earth have avoided, China picked it up. And China became, by default, not by intent, but I stress by default, the world’s largest producer and almost monopoly producer and processor.

You can dig this stuff up, but you have to know how to refine it. And you have to do this in an ecologically acceptable way, which is not easy. Accordingly, it will take years. And Von der Leyen’s statement about how they intend to get around the Chinese limitations. My goodness, Europe is lucky that the Chinese are selling one ounce of these metals to them altogether, given the hostility of European policies towards China.

14:08
The United States, of course, is more active, but look what has happened. And if we want to consider the real negotiating strength of Europe in this issue, look at the United States. Mr. Trump threatened China with the most drastic dire sanctions, 150 percent tariffs and so on. And where is that now?

Nowhere. Because the Chinese said, gentlemen, you pursue this and you won’t get a gram of our metals. And if you don’t have that, Western industrial production of high technology products collapses, not six years from now, but next week. Therefore, the Americans learned to their regret that the Chinese have leverage over the Americans. And if they have leverage over the Americans, where Mr. Trump is the world’s biggest bully and biggest loudmouth, then they surely have leverage over the European Union. And Madame von der Leyen is whistling in the dark.

World: 15:16
With that, I would like to thank Gilbert Doctorow for joining us and sharing that insight and staying with us throughout this news. Now we move on.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-0AI0iDvJo

Gary Villapiano:
Hey everybody, welcome, good to see you. “Deep Dive” here with one of our best friends, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, historian, international affairs analyst, extraordinaire. Doctor, how are you?

Doctorow:
I’m doing very well, thanks. In St. Petersburg.

Villapiano:
Oh, very good. I hope you don’t mind me saying that you have an apartment there, right? I mean, you have a temporary residence.

Doctorow:
Yes, we are in the apartment now. That’s where I’m speaking to you from.

Villapiano:
Oh, that’s great. How much time do you spend there if you don’t mind me asking, approximately?

Doctorow:
Well, much less time than I used to, because it’s so difficult to get here now. We used to go, my wife and I used to come, every four to six weeks for a couple of weeks. Now we’ll be lucky to do three visits a year this year. Simply, it is physically very demanding to get here. I mean, if you’re a backpacker in your 20s, okay, then you put up with all kinds of things.

Villapiano:
Those days are past for you.

Doctorow: 0:55
They’re past for me. And even going through Istanbul Airport, “Oh, it’s a snap.” You get to Russia from Europe by Istanbul airport. Nobody tells you that the gate at which you arrive and the gate at which you depart are about one kilometer away from one another. It’s a hell of a race to get from one [gate of] the airport to the other.

So yes, life is more difficult, but once you’re here, of course, after a couple of days, you fit into, slot into your relationship with the old acquaintances and pick up a lot of … new information.

Villapiano:
Oh, that’s beautiful And you must speak Russian then correct?

Doctorow:
Yes, I was complimented by a taxi driver yesterday my Russian was pretty good. I said after 60 years of practice it should be.

Villapiano: 1:35
Well, if you’re getting from the taxi driver, you know, that’s a true true endorsement to get.

Doctorow:
Right.

Villapiano:
So listen, let’s get right into it. You know what’s going on with the latest cudgel that Trump is bearing upon Putin regarding the sanctions on oil. What’s curious to me is how different they are both portraying it, at least in the public. Let me show you what they both said just yesterday.
—————-

Putin: (English voice over)
Regarding the new sanctions. First of all, there is nothing new here. Yes, of course, they are serious for us. That is clear. And they will have certain consequences, but they will not significantly affect our economic well-being.

Trump questioner:
President Putin basically said today that Russia is immune from US sanctions. He said that it would not impact the Russian economy in any serious way. Is he wrong?

Trump:
I’m glad he feels that way. That’s good. I’ll let you know about it in six months from now, okay? Let’s see how it all works out.
—————-

Villapiano: 2:44
Doctor, how do you assess the difference between the two portrayals there?

Doctorow:
Somewhere in between. I’m about to say, with respect to the bigger picture on how the war is being conducted, I think that Vladimir Putin is whistling in the dark. How these sanctions will affect Russia is still unclear. At the same time, I also look at the financial markets, and the Russian market has taken this bad news very well. There’s the– the Russian ruble even gained a little bit today on the euro. It is now about 10 or 15 percent stronger than it was, say, two months ago. So it has withstood this dire news fairly well, suggesting that Russian business people don’t think it will be so damaging.

However, nobody knows. Surprisingly, the “Financial Times” had a very detailed analysis of the oil, of the structure of Russian oil sales, which made clear at once where the impact will hit. And I could share that now with you. The point is that Russian export of oil is 80% to two countries, China and India.

In the case of China, the greatest part of the oil that’s going to China from Russia is via pipelines. The new sanctions are significant and dangerous for seaborne oil. So as regards China, which is already, as I say, about 50% of Russia’s total exports, I see no appreciable damage to Russia’s exports.

4:44
India is a different question. India is much more vulnerable to US tariffs and sanctions. India does not have a strong economy and unlike China, it has nothing to withhold from the United States as a counter move. As we’ve seen in the tariff negotiations with China so far, the United States has been very careful, because if the Chinese absolutely cut off the United States and its allies from rare earth, they will do enormous damage to the Western economies at once, not in six months. Therefore the cudgel that Trump thinks he is using against China is totally ineffective. However, the cudgel that he has against India is much more problematic. And it serves the purpose, the bigger purpose of Trump, to break up BRICS. Because if the Indians have to submit to these demands coming from Washington, it will put a big dent in the solidarity of the founding members of BRICS.

Villapiano: 6:01
Within, I guess, a couple of days, Trump is going to be meeting with Xi. Do you imagine much coming out of that meeting?

Doctorow:
No, I don’t. The positions are very clear, and as I said, China is in an excellent condition to withstand any pressure from the United States with respect to any given aspect of trade, including their large purchases of Russian petroleum. So I think they will make some very nice remarks for the press conference, how they had constructive talks and it will be a totally empty exercise.

Villapiano:
At that same press conference, Putin was quick to comment on how he viewed the bigger picture of how these sanctions are playing out for Russia.

Putin: (English voice over)
If we speak about the political part, then of course this is an unfriendly act toward Russia. That is obvious. And it does not strengthen Russian-American relations, which have only just begun to recover. Of course, through such actions, the US Administration is harming Russian-American relations. As for the economic side, I repeat once again, of course, there is nothing good or pleasant here.

Villapiano: 7:22
So he’s being candid there. I mean, do you see that as forthright in his assessment?

Doctorow:
Yes and no. The sanctions are tied to the bigger question of improving relations and solving the war. And in the same interview or press conference that you have taken an excerpt from, Putin went on to discuss precisely that, and there he was anything but candid. Or if he was candid, it’s because his evaluation of the situation is far removed from reality.

Villapiano:
Really?

Doctorow:
Well, this is very sad. I have been an admirer of the man and how we resurrected Russia from the ruins of the late 1990s. Although I have to say, actually, the resurrection began a couple of years before Putin came into power when a communist prime minister was installed for about six months or eight months by Yeltsin and he put Russia back on the rails economically.

However, Putin of course in 25 years [had] to work miracles with the Russian economy, the Russian army and so forth. What I’ve seen in the last three years in his conduct of the war– I was one who went along with “Well, the end of the war is just around the corner.” The problem is that the corner has been moving with [the] horizon, and every time we were deceived, because there was escalation.

8:55
And now what I see is an enormous escalation that is about to take place and [for] which Mr. Putin does not want to read the handwriting on the wall. So when you say he has been candid, maybe on this minor issue of the sanctions on xxxxxxxx and Russian xxxx and what that means for the Russian economy. But even there, let’s just look at the downside. What the potential is, and why what Donald Trump said is not unreasonable. Fifty percent of the Russian exports, let’s say, are safe because they’re in Chinese hands.

Fifty percent or forty percent, if you take eighty percent as a total figure of Russia and China. 40% of those exports are vulnerable to political decisions made in India, whether they can withstand American pressure. If that is lost. And let’s also remember that the Indians were discussing with the Saudis last week, precisely about finding a replacement for Russia.

Villapiano:
[To avoid.}

Doctorow:
Yeah. And they were selling this to their public saying, “Well, we’re dealing with the Saudis. We have a commitment that they will buy more from us.” And that’s public relations. I don’t know what the Saudis are going to buy in greater amounts from India than they are today. India is a country which has relatively little to offer to the world at large in production, and software is a major player.

And most of its sales to the United States are in the software, the IT domain, but commodities go– anyway, the point is that India is looking for a way to somehow appease Trump without completely disrupting Russia. But what does disrupting Russia mean? About 20-25% of the Russian state budget is coming from taxes on petroleum. If half of that is lost, Russia has a 10% hole in its budget.

10:57
That’s not a small matter. Russia’s budget is running in deficit now. Compared to national debt in the West, Russia’s debt is negligible. But a budget out of balance is a headache, a very big headache, and a 10% hole is unmanageable, unsustainable. So in the longer run, Mr. Trump is right, and Mr. Putin was not being forthright.

Villapiano:
He’s downplaying the impact of these. So you think he recognizes the impact but yet isn’t willing to divulge that the impact that he knows is there?

Doctorow:
Well, the numbers I gave you of this coming out, they’re not my invention. They’re coming out of the “Financial Times”, and I think they did their homework very well on this. There’s no big secret here. They’re just compiling what was in the public domain and putting it all together very neatly. Of course, this is all known to Putin, and he didn’t at all suggest what kind of a hole this could open for the Russian state budget. And that’s precisely what the objective of the whole punishment is.

This type of economic warfare, going for the jugular, is a case where economic war can very easily turn into kinetic war. And I think this is being underestimated, underappreciated by the Trump team. And I think when you say he’s being candid, I can’t imagine that team Putin is unaware of that same reality. The Japanese entry into World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was precisely the point where economic sanctions that had great potential impact on the viability of the Japanese economy, prompted the militarists to bomb Pearl Harbor.

12:53
Now, the issue of how Russia reacts to all the pressure on it has been in public debate. And some of my peers have commented, sagely, that Russia is like a spring. Well, it’s that they’re quoting, I’m thinking now about how Ray McGovern was quoting Putin, who said, maybe a few months ago, that the West is applying pressure, applying pressure, and at a certain point, the spring releases itself in an unexpected and violent way. And that is what Mr. Trump’s latest sanctions are inviting:

Villapiano:
Yeah, the trigger release. Doc, did you think that Putin has been caused to set back on his heels the way the war has transitioned from a more traditional war that we’re all more familiar with and turn it into the drone war that it now has become?

Doctorow:
The drone war is– I mean, one of the first things I found when I arrived in Petersburg on Tuesday morning or in the middle of the night and in the days since is that the drone war is a reality 2000 kilometers from the … the Ukrainian border. We have it here. Here, and it’s not just the town that I’m in, this is suburb, an outlying borough of St. Petersburg, about 15 kilometers from the city center. It is particularly interesting to Ukrainian or British, whoever is steering and setting targets for their drone attacks.

It’s interesting because we have a helicopter base, oh, just a 10 minute walk from my house, and they are ferrying wounded Russian soldiers from, I suppose, from some point within Russia, to which they were brought on fixed-winged aircraft, and then they’re sent out in small groups to hospitals across the country for treatment. These are amputees. These are people who have been seriously wounded. And we have a hospital for them, just in this neighborhood.

15:07
And our area has been under alert. But not just our area. I was in downtown Petersburg, and the whole of Petersburg has experienced the same thing. That is, curtailed mobile internet, if not completely stopped, and interference with GPS, which is intended. The GPS is the guidance system for cars and for any mobile objects, including drones. They interrupt it or they give false readings through the GPS. Now for taxi drivers, that means he gets a call to go to address X, and he actually goes to a place five kilometers away.

And he wonders why his passengers are standing out there waiting for him. Now, that can interrupt your taxi service for sure, but it interrupts life in general. And the cutoffs of internet service impact everything. Their city administration … could not register me as all foreigners are supposed to be registered when they’re not in a hotel but staying in private lodgings. They couldn’t do it because the whole system is down.

16:25
Not just one or two posts, the whole thing is down. St. Petersburg is suffering from these cuts, and they also can affect, though this time they are not affecting, the payment systems, the operation of ATMs and credit card transactions. On May 9th, they were all cut. I haven’t seen that happen now, but it is possible. And that does tremendous damage to the economy.

Villapiano:
I’m curious, the helicopter activity that you were speaking of, Is that profound? Is there a lot of that? Do you see a lot of that in and out where there’s wounded being delivered?

Doctorow:
Mostly it’s at night. I get my– the latest information I got was from the most reliable source, a taxi driver. A lady taxi driver who lives in this town, and knows what she’s talking about. And of course, the people who are light sleepers are awakened by these helicopters coming in. At the local hospital for seriously injured, it’s full to capacity.

Villapiano:
Oh, it is.

Doctorow:
Mr. Putin is talking about saving Russian lives, how they go slow in their movements on the front so that they have a favorable ratio of injured and killed to the same for the Ukrainians. Originally it was a 10 to one advantage, maybe it’s a lesser one now because of drone warfare, which is more of an equalizer. But as this war is proceeding, a lot of people are coming back seriously injured. Yes, they’re being fitted for various prosthesis for those who have been, are amputees, and they’re going for extensive physical rehabilitation procedures.

18:18
I expect to hear a little bit more detail of that in a week’s time when I meet with somebody who has been, for other reasons, not military, in rehab and that all around him were these war-injured people.

Villapiano:
So with this, with the front line moved, basically, into your own backyard, how is that affecting your neighbors, the people that you’re talking to, the chatter on the streets, or that must have changed it dramatically, yes?

Doctorow: 18:48
Yes and no. Again, I don’t want to be categorical about this. The people I speak to, including old acquaintances, they are tired of the war. And these new threats from drones and from downed drones because this is where most injuries take place, not drones who are targeting the residential complex, but which fell on them after being shot down. People are aware of this and it gets on their nerves, but I would not say that they are turning on the government, that there’s a mood change. In that sense, they’re tired and they want it to end. That’s the man in the street. That is most of my acquaintances.

Villapiano: 19:35
Gilbert, if they were turning on the government, would they have the freedom to verbalize that?

Doctorow:
Well, people are always cautious here. People have a long memory. And I think that, for example, when they stopped the video service of WhatsApp, and they offered a replacement, a Russian government replacement called Max, One of the first criticisms was that it doesn’t have end-to-end security. And people immediately understood that all of their private lives could be now subjected to FSB inspection.

20:17
So yes, of course people are aware of that. But I want to make a distinction between the workaday folks who have these inconveniences and are war weary — and the political establishment, it’s unkind to say the thinking people, but the people who think about geopolitical issues, they are divided. And my peers are not recognizing that. They’re speaking as if Mr. Putin has good solidarity.

Yes, he has 80% popularity. That’s true, but nobody asked people directly how the war should be conducted, whether he’s conducting it right. And secondly, their voices don’t count. Let’s be honest about it. I’m not saying Russian voices don’t count. The voices of the people in the States don’t count. I think you’ll agree that the US Congress does not accurately represent public opinion as it’s changing. But let me not get critical about the States. I wanted to make the point that the intellectual, the elites, particularly Moscow elites, who are quite big, numerous, they’re split. And there is open criticism of Putin and the way he’s conducting the war.

21:37
And I don’t mean people who are sour grapes, who are discontented, maladjusted. No, no, no. Top people. People who are widely respected, who have served the country well, and who are on television as major experts, not talking heads in the pejorative sense, but the people who are participating, members of the most important.think tanks.. Well, think tanks sounds like it’s outside the government. These are government agencies discussing foreign policy and military policy.

Two days ago, I heard one of them, a certain Dmitry Trenin, who was very well known internationally in the States, and he was saying that diplomacy is finished. The war will be solved on the battlefield. And that was seconded by the host who is also well known in Washington. He was the head of the National Interest, formerly called the Nixon Center in Washington for 15 years.

22:45
So he’s known to Americans and he’s known to Russians. This is Dmitry Simes. And he seconded that, that opinion. So it’s not just one fellow called Gil Doctorow who’s saying this. I am conveying what top people in the Russian political establishment are saying about the way the war is being conducted, and they’re not happy.

Villapiano:
I like how you had said, diplomacy has outlived its usefulness.

Doctorow:
Again, let’s put this in the immediate context of the last two weeks. The last two weeks saw something that never happens in Russian political life. The number-two man in the foreign ministry, everyone knows about Sergey Lavrov. But some of us know about Sergey Ryabkov.

23:33
Ryabkov is the guy who presented to NATO and the United States the demands that they draw back to the 1997 borders, “or else we will push you back”. That’s what he said in December, 2021. So a man who makes remarks like that, we don’t forget him. He has been the designated successor to Lavrov whenever Lavrov steps down. This fellow came out and was interviewed, this was a little less than two weeks ago, in which he said that the impulse towards improving relations that was established in the Anchorage summit between Putin and Trump has been dissipated.

And that the diplomatic way out of this crisis no longer is valid. He was immediately reprimanded, publicly rebuked by Ushakov, who was an advisor to Putin on foreign affairs, by Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Putin, and a little bit later by Putin himself. That type of public dispute on an essential issue of foreign policy is the rarest thing you see. Now, exactly those words that is as our diplomacy is no longer valid, was what Trenin was saying on air and backed by the host who is on the outer fringes of Putin’s circle. He has hosted the top politicians in the country, and he’s on a first-name basis and buddy-buddy with all of these people.

25:22
So this is not just a journalist. This is a major part of the establishment. And they were coming out against Putin. When Putin made his statements about the state of relations with the United States, of which part is what you just put up on the screen, he was defending himself and saying that talk is better than confrontation.

Villapiano:
Right.

Doctorow:
There you have it.

Villapiano:
I wanted to get back to just away from the oil into the weapons and the things and both Trump and Putin had had things to say about that yesterday.
—————-

Questioner: (English voice over)
Yesterday, the “Washington Post” and the “Wall Street Journal” reported that the US lifted a key restriction on the use of this weapon. Then Trump said that Tomahawks, nevertheless, will not be supplied. And just an hour ago, Zelensky again says that Ukraine will receive weapons that will strike at almost 3,000 kilometers. In your view, is this still an escalation?

Putin:
This is an attempt at escalation. But if strikes against Russian territory are carried out with such weapons, the response will be very serious, if not stunning. Let them think about that.
—————-

Villapiano:
Doctor, I think you had intimated that you found that to be just almost cowardice, in the sense that it was just bluster and he really didn’t mean what he said, because he knows the state of affairs regarding those weapons.

Doctorow:
Well, exactly. He was making himself appear bold and decisive and brave in defending something which no longer needed defense, because the latest state of deliveries on Tomahawks is it’s not going to be delivered.

Villapiano:
Can I stop you right there? I just want to hammer home this point. What I have here is a cut of President Trump making it so very, very clear. And this was back last Friday is when you’ll see repetitiveness on Trump’s part.
—————-

Trump: 27:17
We need Tomahawks and we need a lot of other things that we’ve been sending over the last four years to Ukraine.

It’s beyond the money. You know, we need Tomahawks and we need a lot of other weapons.

A lot of bad things can happen. Tomahawks are a big deal. But one thing I have to say, we want Tomahawks also. We don’t want to be giving away the things that we need.
—————-

Villapiano: 27:43
Now, could he have been more clear, Doctor?

Doctorow:
No, he is clear. And that’s why I say that the threats that Putin was making, well, “if you proceed”, this was nonsense, because it’s already clear that they will not be sent. And what he’s not addressing is the rest of the problem. He’s not addressing the issue of the confiscation, essentially confiscation, of Russian frozen assets that is still being debated in Europe, but very likely will be passed.

It didn’t make it into the 19th round of sanctions yesterday, because of the Belgian objections that the country is not being protected sufficiently by fellow EU member states from possible Russian response, angry response. But the problem is severe. The problem is more than is described in the press. The problem is that the confiscation of, essentially confiscation is a very subtle legal turn given to make it seem as though it’s just collateral and so forth — in effect it’s confiscation. And its distribution to Kiev in one way or another is intended to prolong the war for three or four more years.

29:09
This was stated almost explicitly by the Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski last week. The idea is that it will not be given to them as one lump sum. It will be dealt out to Ukraine slowly in various forms, but to keep them engaged. You can buy a lot of mercenaries with 145 billion euros. So to say that they don’t have any men to fight is to miss the obvious.

You can buy a lot of drones. And I’ll get to the question of drones versus missiles in a moment, because this also is confusing the public. And it’s intentionally done by Zelensky, because he wants to get NATO into the war. If you say we need long range missiles, then you’re getting NATO into the war. The reality is that the Ukrainians are doing a pretty good job causing destruction in Russia using drones, for which they have British, particularly British intelligence assistance. They smashed up a lot of Russian refineries.

30:17
And so the need for these Tomahawks is not there. It’s only to get the US and Europe into the war. But then let’s go back to the money question, 145 billion. If Ukraine is kept alive for three more years of fighting, it’s intended to be a big distraction to keep the Russians occupied with them while Europe rebuilds its military, both manpower and hardware.

Of course, how wise that is, how valid it is, is also questionable. Why do I say questionable? Because the Russians have stated explicitly that if there’s going to be a war with NATO, it will not be a tank war, it will not be a drone war, it will be a nuclear war. The Russians have said, we will not fight you in the trenches, we will obliterate you. So the whole discussion in Europe is on a phony basis.

It’s being sold to the public on a phony basis. Maybe it’s good for Rheinmetall and other German arms manufacturers, but there’s a lot of falseness in the public space about who is doing what and why. And I’m trying to bring a little bit of light to what I see is really going on.

Villapiano: 31:40
I’d like to read to the viewers something that you had written to me about Putin’s stance right now and where you see him and where you’d like to see him go. And this is what you wrote.

You said, “It is high time for President Putin to recognize that in this age when Israel and its US- European backers have been trampling on international law by the genocide that’s ongoing now in Gaza, by its aggression against Lebanon and Syria — that it is absurd for Russia to hold back on the violence needed to end the Ukraine war without a moment’s concern about what others may think.”

Doctorow: 32:20
I stand by those words. I am very unhappy with the way he’s conducting this war. And I say, my personal opinion is not relevant here, but I listen to people within Russia, of great authority, who are saying exactly that. They’re not saying that he should go, and I’m not saying he should go.

And it would be, I have no right to say that. It’s a Russian decision. But he is showing, and I’ll use the word, I call this lese majesté, but here we go: cowardice. It is pure cowardice, the way he’s responding to Trump.

Villapiano: 32:57
Appreciate your bluntness there. Let’s just return to Putin one more time from that same news conference talking about what he sees [in] the future.
—————-

Putin: (English voice over)
The President of the United States has decided to cancel or postpone this meeting. Rather, he is speaking about postponing this meeting. Well, what can I say? Dialogue is always better than any confrontation, than any disputes, or all the more so than war. Therefore, we have always supported this, the continuation of dialogue, and we support it now.
—————-

Villapiano:
So Doctor, what’s that mean for the future? Are these two going to sit down, or are Rubio and Lavrov going to sit down? Where is it going, do you think?

Doctorow: 33:39
Well, look, I have said that Putin risks being Gorbachev Two. But let me use an historical reference. Unfortunately, it’s been abused over decades by everyone calling it appeasement. But if there ever was a Chamberlain speech in Russia, we heard it yesterday. That was the “peace in our time” speech of Chamberlain from the mouth of Putin. It was appeasement, and nothing good will come out of that.

Villapiano:
Does he have the fortitude– he, Putin, calling it fortitude– to finish off the war on the battlefield?

Doctorow:
I would hope so, but there’s reason to doubt it. When he made his tough-sounding speech just a week ago, and then this is the night before, it’s a Thursday before the Friday meeting that Trump had with Zelensky. It sounded like he had turned from his go slow, utterly cautious approach of an attrition war, to something more energetic and more decisive and more threatening.

And now he went back on himself. Yes, that’s what these, the remarks that you have put up on the screen, indicate to me that in this dispute between hardliners and softliners, he has stepped back among the softliners. And I see that this is very threatening for Russia’s future and risky for all of us because it gives the wrong signals to the war party in Europe that they can succeed and that they can push this and themselves and us straight into World War III.

Villapiano: 35:36
Please, you want to check out the doctor’s latest book, “War Diaries, Volume 1: The Russia-Ukraine War 2022-2023”.

Doctorow:
I expect in Q1 ’26, I will put out volume two and volume three, of course, of ’24 and ’25.

I would hope that it ends there. But from what I’ve heard from Putin in the last week or two, I’m worried it won’t. And if this goes on indeed for three more years, as it could, then Russia could easily be militarily destroyed by a revived Europe. It sounds peculiar today and people say, “Oh, how could it be? European youth doesn’t want to fight”.

36:28
You have to consider the very intense propaganda going on in Europe. You have to consider the utter foolishness of professionals, of well-educated people, who are the upper classes in European countries. I know who they are. I’m a member of a prestigious French-speaking — “Royal” is the name of the club, in Brussels. And I sat at a dinner, or lunch, that was given a year ago, when the Minister of Defense was supposed to speak to us, but he was occupied on political matters because elections were coming up. And then an assistant came who was the man responsible for HR decisions and so forth, and told us how Belgium has a hard time raising its military because the budget is limited and 80% of the budget goes to pensions and salaries and not much is left over for operations or investments.

37:31
But we all listened to that, and xxxxxxxx. People at the table were concerned because they’re all patriotic, and they were asking him, well, can’t we have, will we be going into the call-up of young men? Will there be a draft? And he said, “Well, right now we can’t afford it.”

Look at what’s going on now. As Europe, including Belgium, is all raising military budgets under the advice and pressure of Donald Trump, the money is going to be there. And when I see the people around me, these matrons, shall I call them, in a pejorative sense, sitting very comfortably situated next to their husbands at the table, are saying, “Oh, a draft will be good for our sons, because they need some discipline.” You know, they are just living in a dream world. They don’t realize where their sons are going to be sent to be slaughtered.

Villapiano: 38:26
Wow. Discipline. Discipline. They see it as discipline. Wow.

Doctorow:
Yes. Yes.

Villapiano:
That’s scary. Well, doctor, I want to thank you so much for being with us today. It was excellent. And I just want to tell you how grateful I am for your input and your research. It was wonderful.

Doctorow:
Well, it’s very kind of you to say that. And I hope that these words are sobering. I don’t want to alarm people. I’m not walking around with a sandwich board saying, “The end is nigh.” But some action has to be taken by people who understand the risks that are involved before they proceed too much further.

Davis: 39:03
Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Everybody, thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time. Remaining Unintimidated, Uncompromised.