In the hour before this show, the news which I had received from the Indian broadcaster WION early in the morning that Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s emissary for the Ukraine war talks, was going to meet with Zelensky in Istanbul later today was superseded by news that the meeting was cancelled by Zelensky. Per WION, Witkoff planned to present America’s latest 20-point peace plan which had been substantially agreed to by Russia and so was likely to be very harsh on Ukraine.  Nonetheless, the dry residue of this news is that there have been highly secret talks between Team Trump and Team Putin to arrive at this peace plan, which was not considered possible by the great many experts in both mainstream and alternative media who despise and underappreciate the constancy of purpose of Donald Trump.  To my mind this secret backchannel finally explains the extraordinary efforts of Putin to ingratiate himself with Trump during his speech and Q&A at the Valdai Discussion Club annual meeting in Sochi two months ago. It also bears on the dispute between Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov and other officials close to Putin when Ryabkov said the time for diplomacy was over and the momentum of the Alaska summit was a spent force.

These and other key questions are, I believe, worth a listen.  I think in particular of the way that drone warfare has been the great equalizer in the Russia-Ukraine war over the past six months so that the kill ratio in favor of Russia during the artillery war phase of the conflict is now no longer relevant, and Russia is bleeding more than anyone says; or the way that regime change may come about in the coming week if Zelensky is offered a ‘golden handshake’ to resign

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 29 October 2025: Putin’s Next Moves

Today’s discussion focused on the contradictions, the flip-flops in the positions of Vladimir Putin and of his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov these past two days over whether they have an understanding with Donald Trump over how the war will end or do not. The latest indications are that they see how Trump has back on his words in Anchorage and no longer is interested in finding a solution to the underlying causes of the war, only to achieving an immediate cease-fire, which Russia officially rejects.

We also considered how the new sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft are likely to play out. As we know, the Indians have said they will no longer purchase Russian oil, which would indeed be a serious blow to the Russian budget. Russian television (today’s afternoon edition of The Great Game) is saying that the sanctions will be overcome thanks to side deals with India such as delivery of the oil by minor Russian oil producers acting as middlemen for the two sanctioned majors. Perhaps, but not in the next few days and the longer it takes to arrange the workarounds, the more damage will be done to Russian finances. Moreover, note that Lukoil have just announced plans to sell off all of their foreign operations in Europe within the 21 November set by Trump. If done, this surely will be achieved at fire sale prices, meaning a significant economic loss for Russia. Paradoxically I say that the sanctions are a message by Trump to Putin to end the war now by immediate destruction of Kiev because the longer it goes on the worse will be the losses from the sanctions. Finally, I note that the sanctions are a tool by Trump to wreck BRICS, which is one of his prime policy objectives because it drives a wedge between the founding members of BRICS.

(https://www.youtube.com/live/jhLsCsqkw9E?si=rfKchlnY3tQETFBc)

20 October 2025

The question of the value of using Russian state television as a means of divining which way the Kremlin is headed on key foreign policy issues has been highly contentious in the Alternative Media community. Some peers mock the idea, saying that the talking heads are irrelevant and that their own personal contacts with some Russian General or presidential advisor in retirement is the real way to understand what is going on behind the closed doors of Vladimir Putin’s offices. Others think they get in from the source from having a private audience with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Then among the trolls who send in Comments to the Russian-dubbed versions of ‘Judging Freedom’ or the Glenn Diesen channel you see claims that state television no longer is watched by the majority of the population, especially the young, who get their news from social media. That may be noteworthy if the purpose of any given broadcast is to influence the broad public, but it entirely misses the point if the purpose of the broadcast is to send a message to Washington.

To all these dissenters on the proper methodology to be used by Russia watchers, I submit that the proof is in the pudding. Last night’s news in The Financial Times, backed up by coverage in this morning’s BBC provides irrefutable evidence that Mr. Solovyov’s program is backed by the Putin government not only as a safety valve for Opposition criticism but at times as an unofficial channel for setting out the strident nationalist positions that the President himself will not say publicly.

“Trump urged Zelensky to accept Putin’s terms or ‘be destroyed.’ This article in the FT explains in detail how in their closed-door meeting in the White House President Trump raged at Zelensky, insisting that his country’s survival depends on submitting to Vladimir Putin’s terms for peace, beginning with the surrender of all of the Donbas, including the territory not yet overrun by Russian troops.

I call special attention to the words ‘be destroyed.’

I quote from the article: “According to a European official with knowledge of the meeting, Trump told Zelensky that Putin had told him the conflict was a ‘special operation, not even a war, adding that the Ukrainian leader needed to cut a deal or face destruction.”

This is precisely what Solovyov was saying on air in his program of 14 October, three days before the Trump-Zelensky meeting. Per Solovyov, Russia should stop pussy-footing and face the reality that it was at war with Ukraine, that the Ukrainians were doing all in their power to inflict harm on the Russian Federation and Russia should now respond in kind, raising Ukrainian cities to the ground. Humane solicitude for the Ukrainian population could be shown only after Russian military and political victory was completed.

In parallel, we may assume that a similar message was being delivered directly to Team Trump via the backchannels that Russian diplomat to the UN Dmitry Polyansky told Glenn Diesen in an interview a couple of days ago, are working just fine.

Solovyov went on to say that in Kiev and other cities, the population should be warned to evacuate the city ahead of Russia’s bombing them flat. He also extended the same advice to the populations of cities in Western Europe, like Brussels, where there are factories manufacturing weapons and munitions that are being supplied to Ukraine. So far, that additional warning appears not to have been passed to European leaders, though here in Brussels I am told by a Flemish insider journalist that Prime Minister Bart De Wever is shaking in his boots.

The role of the Solovyov show as communicator of Kremlin thinking does not end there, as was evident on last night’s show. In a discussion with a frequent guest panelist on the show, Lt. General Yevgeny Buzhinsky, Solovyov listened to the general’s account of how in the last week Russian drone, missile and glide bomb attacks all across Ukraine had reached the highest level of intensity in the Special Military Operation to date, destroying vast swathes of the Ukrainian electricity infrastructure. Solovyov then asked him wouldn’t it make more sense to concentrate this firepower on a very limited geographical space like the urban centers Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, heavily fortified centers in the middle of Donetsk oblast that stand in the way of a Russian army sweep across the plain to the Dnieper River? Wouldn’t it make more sense to heavily bomb central Kiev, after which the greater part of the population would flee the city, creating total chaos for the Zelensky regime and for the Western countries where these unwelcome refugees would arrive?

Buzhinsky is a professional Russian officer who feels very uncomfortable agreeing to ideas like these which contain a sharp reprimand to the General Staff and to the Supreme Commander (Putin), but nevertheless he agreed with Solovyov. It can be easily imagined that this kind of change in execution of the SMO was communicated to Team Trump in the past week ahead of the Trump-Zelensky meeting in the White House.

For all of these reasons, there is reason to hope for a productive summit in Budapest and for an end to the war on Russia’s terms in the near future.

A corollary to all the foregoing is that President Putin himself has cardinally changed his position on how to deal with Trump and with the Europeans. Yes, as my peers will say, this was arrived at in a collegial way. BUT the point is not collegiality in decision making. It is that discontent in the political establishment outside the Kremlin with the go-slow, softly-softly approach to the war of President Putin and its prospects for dragging on for years while Europe reindustrialized and rearmed had reached a critical point threatening the stability of the Putin presidency.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

I am pleased and not a little surprised that day after day this Indian global broadcaster invites my commentary on the Ukraine war when they know very well that my observations are at variance not only with Mainstream, but also at variance with a goodly number of celebrities in the Alternative Media.

I am being very discreet in my remarks in this interview. Allow me to spell out more clearly what my present thinking is: 

1. President Trump’s engagement with Vladimir Zelensky over sending him Tomahawks is yet again a signal to Vladimir Putin to get the damned war in Ukraine over with now by smashing Kiev to bits. He is saying, in essence that  ‘If you fail to do that and the war drags on, I may be obliged to give the Tomahawks to Kiev to apply further pressure on you.’
2. Putin’s blasé response to the threat of major escalation by Washington, which dispatch of Tomahawks signifies, regrettably positions him as Gorbachev-2.  Mikhail Gorbachev was played for a fool by his talking partners in the Bush Sr. administration.  No expansion of NATO one inch to the East, etc.   Now Putin is presenting himself as a similar fool by ignoring the ongoing and very damaging Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries and energy infrastructure, all of it guided by US intel, as even the Financial Times details in its latest reporting.  The only dignified response to this American aggression would be for Putin to threaten to declare war on the USA if it continues one more day. Hegseth, Rubio, not to mention Senator Lindsey Graham must all be sniggering over Putin’s lack of cojones. Super weapons such as Russia possesses are no better than the will of leaders to use them in self-defense.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855xgceYwv4

Davis: 0:01
In the very vexing opportunity and effort to try and find an end to the Russian-Ukraine war, there are problems really all around. Russian ones, American ones, European ones, and definitely your Ukrainian ones. But we’re trying to find out here where is the contours of any possible peace? Where are the fault lines of potential opportunities to get rid of the peace and to cause problems that could keep the war going on? And really, just where is all this headed?

We have with us today, I guess we’ve had him with us once before, many of you know him well, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, historian and international affairs analyst, coming to us live from Brussels in in Europe. Doctor, welcome back to the show.

Doctorow: 0:44
Well, good to speak to you again.

Davis:
Well, listen, I wanted to– we were talking about some of the shifting red lines and where some in the West have claimed that various things are Russian red lines, even if the Russians didn’t say them like early on with a lot of the claims were that Russia set– the Western claims were that Russia set red lines with tanks and with artillery, and then with HIMARS and then with a ATACMS, etc., the F-16s. And every time the red line was brought up to, the West passed it and nothing ever happened. There’s some debate over whether Russia actually had red lines on those issues, but now the latest one that’s up for debate right now is this issue of the Tomahawk cruise missile. And some are suggesting that the Russians are actually putting a red line on this one where they haven’t on the previous one.

Here is Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov from earlier today talking first of all that a lot of momentum that appeared to be on the table for the talks between Russia and the United States in Anchorage, Alaska has now been lost. But then he directly interacts the Tomahawk issue.

Ryabkov: 1:51 [Russian, English subtitles]
Unfortunately it must be stated that the powerful momentum from Anchorage in favor of agreements has largely been exhausted. This is the result of destructive activity, primarily by Europeans. As for the Tomahawks themselves, as you understand, without software, without launchers, the rockets on their own are, let’s say, inert objects. Hypothetical use of such systems is possible only with direct involvement of American personnel. I hope that those pushing Washington towards such a decision fully understand the depth and gravity of the consequences of the decisions.

Davis: 2:34
Other news coming out of Reuters today said that some of the Russian members of parliament, of the Duma, said basically if you use these things we are going to destroy the launchers and the launch sites which would almost certainly mean destroy American troops. Do you think that this represents a real red line for Russia, or is this just more rhetoric?

Doctorow:
Look, this issue came up more than a year ago, and Mr. Putin then issued a red line. He was asked by Pavel Zarubin, who is a journalist with Russian state television, what this meant, when it’s discussed that the United States could be sending long-range missiles to Ukraine.

This was about June, July of last year. And Putin said, this was on the spot, outdoors, he answered the question saying that the Tomahawk can only, or didn’t name the Tomahawk, but long-range missiles of this variety could only be operated by the Americans, that all the programming would be American. And the only thing that would be Ukraine would be the finger on the button.

3:47
And in that case, if this happened, that Russia would respond militarily to that attack by any such missile from the source, where it came from, where it originally came from, not where it was launched from. So it’s a bit more, it was a bit more severe back then than even what you mentioned now, because you were describing a Russian attack on the launcher, presumably the launcher being somewhere in Ukraine, when Putin was speaking a year ago about attacking essentially the United States.

4:18
Now, what happened on Thursday when he spoke at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in the city of Sochi in the south of Russia, he was asked about the Tomahawks and his response then was, his first response was this: the delivery of Tomahawks to Ukraine would spoil the relations between the United States and Russia. That seemed to be having a light-at-the-end-of the-tunnel characteristic now.

When he was leaving the stage, and after this four-hour session, he was quite relaxed, And he was stopped by Pavel Zerubin, that’s very same journalist whom I mentioned had asked him this question in June or July of last year. He said that the delivery of these Tomahawks to Ukraine would destroy American-Russian relations. Well, destroying relations more or less means you’re at war.

5:29
Then a moment later, he drew that back and he said, I meant to say: it would damage them. Well, Mr. Putin, which is it, damage or destroy? When you’re speaking about an essential matter of Russian national security, this is not a small detail. And it makes you wonder whether he is really in control of the responses that Russia should give to red lines being violated.

Davis:
Well, and let’s just stick on the topic of red lines for a minute. Are there any red lines? Are there actually any red lines that Russia has, whether they were self-imposed or attributed to Russia, there hasn’t been any so far because the war has stayed, thank God, contained within the borders of Ukraine and hasn’t escalated beyond that. But there … there’s a very difficult dynamic that any country would have to face, especially in Russia’s position, that they may not want any outside power to do anything, but if they take some action in there that could spawn drawing that other country in full on, not just with support, but like their armed forces, et cetera, that would be very high level. But to not do it, to not actually ever strike anything in there, is to encourage other sides to take even more action against them. How difficult is it for Russia to actually have a red line that they might enforce?

Doctorow: 6:57
Depends on whom they’re supposed to enforce these red lines against. And you can understand that they are very hesitant to set and then to defend red lines against the United States. The other nuclear power, their peer, which if it enters into a direct conflict, could lead to a nuclear war. That does not mean that Russia has no red lines that it would act upon.

And let’s go back to the Tomahawk issue. I see it as misleading and a distraction from the real issue before us. Let us remember that going back from even before his election, Friedrich Merz, the current chancellor of Germany, had been in favor of delivering, activating Taurus missiles. Unlike the Tomahawk, that is not a 30- or 40- year-old missile. It’s a rather current missile, which has a great deal of capability and which has never been encountered by the Russians. The Russians say that they have well-developed missiles, defense missiles against precisely the Tomahawk, knowing all of its characteristics.

They don’t have defenses against the German Taurus. And the German Taurus could be quite damaging, not the same range, it’s not going to be Moscow or Petersburg, but could do a lot of damage in, I think it’s a 500 kilometer range, which isn’t bad. Now, the situation was that first, Scholz and then Merz have been restrained. They didn’t want to be the first one going against Russia with long-range missiles. The logic was, they were waiting for the United States to go through the door first.

8:55
And what Mr. Trump is doing is walking through the door first. Whether he actually delivers a single Tomahawk or not is almost irrelevant. This opens the door for Merz to use Tomahawks. Now the red lines, the Russians surely will attack Germany. They will bomb the factory that makes the Taurus if they are deployed and directed against Russian targets. That is a red line you can be sure that they will exercise, because Germany is not the United States.

Davis:
Wow that’s a pretty bold statement there and pretty alarming as well, because they may not be the United States, but they are an Article 5- wielding member of NATO. What would be the thought process for the Russian side to take that kind of an action? Because that would … potentially draw in a lot of fighting against them, not just against the Ukraine side.

Doctorow: 9:52
Potentially but unlikely. Their calculation is the Germans would never get Article 5 support from other NATO members. If they are violating essentially violating international law which is what directing a Taurus against Russia would be, they become co-belligerents. And they, Germans, not NATO but Germans, would be subject to retribution from the Russians — which would be all the more logical if it were not directed against Berlin but were destroying the factory producing those missiles. That is the Russian calculation.

Davis: 10:26
Wow, that would be a pretty big issue, which hopefully explains why the Germans haven’t given the Taurus missiles, and hopefully that continues on.

Doctorow:
I’m not sure I agree with you. I think they have given the missiles. I think they went in before Scholz left the chancellorship. They just haven’t been opened to inspection. They haven’t been advertised. When they said under Scholz that in a few weeks we will send them, that is, by the way the whole war has evolved over the last three years, that means they were sent already.

Davis: 10:58
So, but they haven’t been deployed at least as far as we know.

Doctorow:
Exactly right.

Davis:
And one would hope that that permission isn’t given. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not a unilateral decision that Kiev could make. They could only do it with the participation of the German military, is that correct?

Doctorow:
That was the issue in Germany when several, I think it was Air Force generals, complained that deploying the Taurus in Ukraine was only possible with the technical assistance of German personnel.

Davis:
So then that is correct. As long as it hasn’t– in order for it to be deployed, it would have to have authorization, one would imagine, from the very top in Berlin, right?

Doctorow:
Correct.

Davis: 11:50
Well, let’s … hope that doesn’t happen then, because that … would be bad for a lot of cases others. We don’t want to risk any escalation of this. Going back to Trump for a second, when … he was talking about, or the possibility of using the … long range missiles, which … we were under here with the Tomahawk, the question is what is he going to do and what does he want to accomplish? Now, he had come into office obviously saying that he was going to end the war in 24 hours. He knew Putin; he knew Volodymyr Zelensky. It would be easy. He would know how to do it.

12:24
Well since then he’s kind of backed off of that a lot, saying well okay, it was harder than I thought. But he thought going into Anchorage, Alaska that he might be able to make something happen. But as Sergey Rybkov mentioned here, nothing did happen. And there’s not really any difference today than there was before that meeting back in August that took place. And yesterday in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked about that situation now, when he was visiting with Canadian Prime Minister Carney.

Trump: 12:50
Things are happening with respect to Russia-Ukraine. That’s one that last week marked 7,812 people were killed. Soldiers, mostly soldiers. But 7,000, more than 7,000, almost 8,000 soldiers were killed.

It’s a crazy, it’s a crazy thing. I thought that would have been one of the easy ones. I get along very well with Putin and I thought that would have been– I’m very disappointed in him, because I thought this would have been an easy one to settle, but it’s turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East. We’ll see what happens with the Middle East.

Davis: 13:25
Yeah, who would have thought that ending one role would be harder than the Middle East, but who would have thought either one of them were actually simple. But this seems to be an issue to come back to. I know that you’ve written some things, but you seem to be having challenges or differences of opinion, maybe a better way to put it, that Putin seems to be putting too much deference in trying to reach out to Trump. What do you mean by that?

Doctorow: 13:47
Well, his performance last Thursday at the plenary session of this Valdai Discussion Club was very puzzling and disturbing. He, they spent time talking about, Charlie Kirk. They spent time talking about the … American son of a CIA director and a head of a firm, a subcontractor to the US military, who died in Donbass, having volunteered to serve the Russians, because he believed in their Russian traditional values.

That was a lot of time spent flattering the United States, meaning flattering Trump. They also made remarks about what a good conversationalist, interlocutor Donald Trump is. He also talked about the Trump peace plan, the 20-point peace plan for Gaza, saying that he supported it. And he also mentioned in a complimentary way, Tony Blair’s appointment to be on this peace board that Donald Trump would head in the interim period after Hamas left and before the Palestinians were deemed suitable for self-governance.

15:08
This was a lot of flattery for Donald Trump. And it was surprising, and I think it was overdone, because it compromised Russia’s sovereignty. The whole message of Putin the last several years has been sovereignty. And here he was doing his best to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump, not quite calling him Papa, like the Secretary General of NATO did, but it didn’t look good. The countries are at odds, very seriously at odds, and this was not appropriate.

Davis: 15:47
How is that being viewed in the Russian media, in the Russian landscape?

Doctorow:
Well, that particular side of it has not been discussed on Russian state television, for example. But it has blown hot and cold about Donald Trump. The most serious commentary about Trump is, he’s a good guy, but he can’t deliver, because the political balance in Washington is against accommodation with us. And this was what Putin was overlooking. He seemed to be placing too much trust in the personal relationship with Trump that was so much in evidence in Alaska.

And it doesn’t look good for for Russia’s defending its interests. But let’s come back to what Trump is trying to say. And here I have a take on Trump’s message which is different from most of my peers, and I’m ready to defend it. Trump’s been buying time. He has been buying time almost since he took the Oval Office. Buying time for what?

Buying time for Putin to finish up the war, to get it over with. And Putin doesn’t get that message. Trump goes this way and that way. He is pivoting to Zelensky. Then he’s turning back towards Putin and it’s all buying time with Congress not to impose these tough secondary sanctions.

A lot of the difficulty that he would have in dealing in a straight way with Congress and the political establishment of the states, he is avoiding by attacking this way and attacking that way. And Putin doesn’t get it. When Trump said last week, repeated, that he was disappointed in Putin because he thought he would get it over with in the first week of the war. Let’s go back to the start of this special military operation. Most people like yourself were assuming that Russia would go in, in the American fashion of shock and awe, and would finish off Ukraine in a week.

18:08
Everyone knew that the Russian military operation was being done in a backwards way. When you have an attack, you want to take the country, you go in with three times their forces. Instead, Putin would end with one third of their forces. Now that explains why the special military operation got off to such a poor start. And Trump was revisiting that issue today.

Trump is not saying it, but he knows and we know that Putin can end this war tomorrow if he wants to. He has Oreshniks, they know where the government offices are on Bankovskaya Street in downtown Kiev. Well, in one day, they can decapitate Ukraine. And they should do it, but it’s not happening.

Davis: 19:04
And what do you suppose it is? With the capacity to do so, why do you think Russia hasn’t done it?

Doctorow:
One is the indecisiveness of Putin and his unwillingness to take risks. But the risks in … striking against Kiev are much smaller than the risks of this ongoing conflict with the West, where the leaders in Europe have gotten to understand that Ukraine is losing badly, and they are moving from one provocation to another, ever steeper and ever more risky and dangerous, that can lead us into World War III. And Putin does not get it.

Davis: 19:49
–was looking for something here to see if we could pull this up. Gary, if you could possibly pull up the Ursula von der Leyen that we used earlier today, that would be great from her comments this morning. Because I want to kind of go down that path. You say that the delay, and I know I’ve had some conversations with a number of folks that have some contacts on the Russian side themselves, and they have in one hand voiced a lot of frustration because of Leyen. Same thing, because they see people like Emmanuel Macron, who continues to mock Russia as he did last month by saying they’ve only taken 1% in the last two years because that’s all they can, the implication being, the counterclaim being that Russia can take more than that, but they are not using their forces in that regard. One of the arguments is, well, they’re doing that because they perceive that there could be a war with NATO one of these days.

20:41
And so they are, with all of this industrial capacity, they are stockpiling all the key aspects that was necessary for war, training up additional men, so that in the event that that comes in the future, they’re ready for it later on, which apparently they aren’t right now. First of all, just on that aspect of it, what is your understanding of that argument?

Doctorow:
That was good. The war has evolved. The war has changed dramatically over the course of the first three years. When the war started, Russia had a ten-time advantage over Ukraine in artillery shells and artillery tubes. They were waging, from the beginning, an artillery war. That was their war of attrition. Today, the artillery advantage is less important. I don’t mean to say it’s not important, but it’s much less a factor in the way the war is proceeding.

It is now basically a drone war. My peers who appear on programs like yours, they assume because they never name their sources, but I assume that they’re speaking to people in the military or military experts in Russia and are delivering their information on air from that source. They never stop to think whether anybody in the military in Russia would ever dare to give them something confidential, because they’ll be taken to court and they’ll spend the rest of their lives in prison for betraying national secrets. But somehow this little detail doesn’t enter into the minds of my peers.

22:12
What I’m listening to is Russian television. “Oh yes,” people say, “yes, Doctorow only watches television.” But my goodness, the whole of Sovietology in the Cold War was based on that type of expertise. People read Provda and it’s Izvestia. And you might say, why are they reading that junk?

Because in that junk, they found clues as to what comes next. Now, Russian television is much more honest than anybody imagines. I don’t mean RT. RT isn’t Russian television. It’s a special product, devised for the American public, to hold up a mirror to America’s ills.

22:45
That is not Russian television. Russian television interviews– is war correspondents on the front. I watch them every day, and it is extremely interesting and informative. The Russians are now talking about the birdies. The birdies are the attack drones.

Now the Ukrainians are not stupid people. They are very much like Russians in their skills, strengths and weaknesses. They’re very good at computers. They’re very good at video games and they’re very good at operating drones. This is a very big threat.

And it means that the Russians are operating on the field completely differently from what you would expect when the war opened and they had such an advantage in heavy tanks and all of the hardware. No, that’s not what– the tanks are being used as artillery today, just movable artillery, that’s all they are. There are no tank battles in Ukraine. The real issue today is one where the Ukrainians have a much more balanced stand against Russia than they did when the war started and they were a 10-time disadvantage in artillery shells.

Davis; 23:53
And so what is the net-net for that? What does that result in on the battlefield, those dynamics?

Doctorow:
Small movements. However, I disagree with what Macron said. It’s not a 1% increase. That’s nonsense.

When the war started, Russia had– maybe 70% of Lugansk was under Russian control and perhaps 50% of Donetsk. Now it’s 99% of Lugansk under Russian control and 70% of Donetsk under Russian control. That isn’t 1%. So Mr. Macron doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or he’s just giving propaganda. They’re moving. But if it could continue to move at this pace, it’ll be a 10-year war.

Davis:
So is Russia moving at this pace because that’s all they can do, or are they moving at this pace because they’re risk-averse and they’re not using all their capacity?

Doctorow: 24:45
That is true, but that is not the only factor. A bigger factor is how they conceive of this war. They conceive of it in a manner that the German classics of warfare would approve of. Warfare is about knocking out the military force of your opponent. They are killing Ukrainian soldiers at a ratio perhaps of 10 times their own losses. And it is known that when they advance in this place or that, instead of proceeding and marching on and pushing the Ukrainians back further, they are retreating slightly to draw the Ukrainians into a trap and murder still more Ukrainians.

The problem is that Ukraine is still, though it’s dropped from 40 million to maybe 25 million, and though it has several hundred thousand deserters, it still has a military. And my peers who are speaking as if Ukraine is going to roll over and die tomorrow are dreaming. That is wish, that is not fact. And the move that the Russians are taking will bring them maybe in a few months at this pace to the Dnieper, but that’s not the whole of Ukraine. And the Russians have no interest in crossing into really Ukrainian territory where they will be invading, occupying army.

26:08
So the war’s end on the battlefield is questionable. I’ve said for some time the war would end in a political collapse of Ukraine. But if Europe rushes in with a hundred and forty five billion euros of assistance, there will be no political collapse of Ukraine. And there’s the problem.

Davis: 26:30
Well, and in fact, that’s exactly what I wanted to discuss next, because with this delay, if Russia’s military is capable of going much faster pace and achieving a military victory by destroying the units and then taking the territory as well — by going in this slower pace, it may be whittling down slowly at the capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces, but as you say, it keeps alive the possibility that no, we can hold out for a lot longer than this.

That was reinforced by Ursula von der Leyen earlier today, when she seems to go down here continuing path that this is a war, that we are actually in a war with Russia and maybe one we can win.

von der Leyen: 27:10
Something new and dangerous is happening in our skies. In just the past two weeks MIG fighters have violated Estonia’s airspace and drones have flown over critical sites in Belgium, Poland, Romania, Denmark, and Germany.

Flights have been grounded, jets scrambled, and countermeasures deployed to ensure the safety of our citizens. Make no mistake, this is part of a worrisome pattern of growing threats. Across our Union, undersea cables have been cut, airports and logistic hubs paralyzed by cyber attacks, and elections targeted by malign influence campaign. These incidents are calculated to linger in the twilight of deniability. This is not random harassment.

It is a coherent and escalating campaign to unsettle our citizens, test our resolve, divide our union, and weaken our support for Ukraine. And it is time to call it by its name, this is hybrid warfare.

Davis:
And so what do you make of that? Is her characterization accurate, or is the Russian view that they’re not trying to escalate into Europe? What do you think is the case?

Doctorow: 28:37
I think it’s a pile of lies. Von der Leyen is a hawk. She is a warrior. She wants to grab– she’s also virtually a dictator. She has seized as much authority within the European institutions as she could, which was not so difficult, because she’s surrounded by 27 cowards who all have linked arms and are afraid to rein her in. She may be reined in. She may lose a confidence vote in the next few weeks. But the point is: everything that she’s saying is to make the point that Europe is threatened and it needs a strong leader who makes defense federalized under her watch. And it’s all self-serving.

Now these attacks, the incursion on Estonian airspace, I ask you to look at the map. When you look at the overlapping territories that are sovereign territories of the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, which are now all– with the exception of Kaliningrad of Russia, all of the bordering lands of the Baltic Sea are NATO countries. When you extend out into the sea, their territorial rights leave you with almost nil international waters. So this whole claim of Russian infringement is in fact not a Russian aggression, it is a European-NATO aggression against Russia, to create an air and sea blockade on Russia in the Baltic. As they said very nicely, when Finland and Sweden joined NATO, it turns the Baltic into a NATO lake.

Well my friends, if that’s how you feel, we will have World War Three, because the Russians will not be barred from using the Baltic Sea. That is a casus belli. And it takes more than a few cutters from Estonia to stop a Russian oil tanker or Mr. Macron’s little police boats stopping a suspected gray-fleet Russian tanker somewhere off the coast of France. They proceed with this and we have World War III. There’s nothing to talk about. They won’t proceed with it, because the Russians will not allow them to do it.

31:25
However, this “drone attacks” is even more preposterous. All over the place and in everybody’s back yard is a drone attack, all done by the Russians. This is as nonsensical, as absurd as all of the “Russia, Russia, Russia” stories to prevent Trump’s election in 2016 and to impeach him after his election.

This, I would be sure, is all launched and coordinated by MI6 in London who are the main practitioners of dirty tricks, and von der Layen finds this very convenient, a story to establish and justify her stranglehold on power in the European Union.

Davis:
Yeah, I’m not sure what good it is going to be to have power if you end up with, some of your actions end up spawning a global war. Hopefully that will just stay in the rhetoric realm. I mean, you mentioned something a second ago that potentially that Russia could go all the way up to the Dnieper River and that that might still might not end it. That kind of lines up with something that Putin did say a couple of days ago when he talked about what their objectives were right now in the SMO.

Putin: 32:37 [English voice over]
I address the soldiers and officers, the real heroes of our time, with a special feeling. I thank you for your loyalty to your motherland, for your military valor and courage, for every day of your hard combat work. I am sure that, thanks to you, the security of Russia will be reliably ensured, and the long-awaited and strong world will return to the heroic land of Donbas and Novorossia. We are together and this means that all our plans will be realized.

Davis:
So he says all of his plans will be realized, all of Novorossia, which is we talked about on this channel a lot, that’s four additional oblasts besides just the four that are allegedly on the table right now and you’re saying, suggesting though, that that still might not be enough.

Doctorow: 33:25
Well there’s one thing missing in that Novorossia story, and that is Odessa. The French and British interest in Ukraine focuses on Odessa. Odessa, if you look at the map closely, it is very, it is in an easy strike range to Crimea. It is Ukraine’s major port. It’s what prevents Ukraine from being landlocked and is essential to the Ukrainian economy. It is important militarily, for the reason I just mentioned, because it would be a wonderful naval port for the French and the British.

34:10
The Russians understand that. And Russian television– which again I explain I use fairly regularly as a source– they are now calling out Odessa as one more objective before they end their military activities in Ukraine.

Davis:
So where do you see this going, let’s just say by the first quarter, by the spring of next year, so within roughly six months from now? Will this war just keep going on for years, or do you think Russia will finally just put the gas genuinely on the floor and try to achieve a military victory. What is your assessment?

Doctorow: 34:52
As I said, the political victory would be done in one day if Mr. Putin finds the guts to do it. And that is to bomb the hell out of the administrative buildings and use Oreshnik to go down to whatever depth is needed to wipe out Mr. Zalensky and his team in their underground hideouts. They have the missiles to do it, and that would end the war.

Europe will stand and do nothing about it. The Americans, Mr. Trump, will express regrets. That’s what war is all about. And then he’ll go about doing business with Mr. Putin that he’d like to do but cannot do while the war is raging. [It’s] beside my understanding that Putin does not end the war.

Davis: 35:51
And so if he doesn’t do that version where you say it could be over really quickly, what does it look like six months from now, the first quarter of 2026?

Doctorow:
Nothing. It looks like, well, if you want to see what it looks like, you have to go out four years. This bridging loan, which the Europeans want to give to Ukraine, what is it all about? It’s to keep the Ukrainians in play for three years, or four years. Why three or four years? Look at the rest of the program. They are spending now hundreds of billions of euros to build up, to bulk up Europe’s military production.

Germany is a leader in this with a one trillion euro debt that’s taking out mostly for the purpose of building out its armed forces and for, as Mr Merz said openly, to make Germany the biggest defender he calls it, let’s call it by the real name, the biggest military force in Western Europe. That will be ready for when? For 2029. Merz has said that the Russians will attack in 2029.

37:07
Let’s speak not more Orwellian language, but real language. He means that he will attack Russia in 2029. And if he builds out the army as he plans, you know, Europe could just win. This is not my opinion, but again, experts on Russian state television are saying, not that the Germans will win, but they’re saying that German industry should not be disparaged. German industry is quite serious, and if money is put into it, you know, they can build good arms.

So the situation is not a six-month perspective. The situation that Europe is looking at is a four-year perspective. And you know something? It can work like that. And that is precisely why I’ve changed my mind about the wisdom of the “go slow, don’t rock the boat, don’t challenge the West too much” policy of Putin. It’s reached the end of its practical life.

Davis: 38:08
Well, it does seem that there’s going to be a decision to make on a number of different parties here, not the least of which is in Moscow. And I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that’s going to work out.

Because the capacity is there to just a matter of whether the political will is and what the West would do in response. And all of that is, you know, something that’s very, very bad for global stability and global security, because anything that expands this war is bad for everybody.

And I pray to God we never see it, but we appreciate you coming on today giving us this different perspective than what we get from a lot of other places, and we really appreciate it.

Doctorow:
Well, thanks for having me.

Davis:
And we appreciate you guys to be sure, and like and subscribe if you haven’t done that on your way out. And we’ll thank you very much for watching our show today.

38:51
We’ll see you tomorrow on the “Daniel Davis Deep Dive”.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80RIa_KHCR0

Napolitano: 0:30
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, October 1st, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be with us in just a moment. Are the Russians losing patience with President Putin? But first this.
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2:18
Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule as you always do. Are you detecting rumblings of criticism of President Putin either for the failure to address NATO crossing of Russian red lines aggressively or the lethargic pace of the war in Ukraine?

Doctorow: 2:46
What I’m about to say comes out of my observation these last few days of Russian state television, which normally is very respectful of Mr. Putin, where someone like Vladimir Solovyov, who has one of the most popular talk shows and commentary shows, said repeatedly, “We do not pretend to offer advice on how to conduct the war to our Supreme Commander.”

3:15
Well, now he is. His panelists are. They don’t mention Mr. Putin as such, but they do speak about, as you just did a moment ago, the consequences of his very restrained and turn- the-other-cheek policies with respect to NATO crossing Russia’s lines. And in particular, they are riled up by Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance and Mr. Kellogg. My point is that this is not happening spontaneously in Russia. The open presentation of, extensive presentation of criticism, damaging criticism of Russia by Trump, by Vance, by Kellogg is aired extensively on programs that are quite loyal to Putin, or have been, like “60 Minutes”, which is hosted by a Duma member, Evgeny Popov, who happens to be a protégé of the head of Russia’s state television news in general, and the “Xxxxxx” program, panelists who are speaking with great irritation about the lack of respect for Russia, the misinformation coming out, particularly, for example, remarks by Trump during his talk to the 800 assembled generals in Virginia, that the nuclear submarine which America dispatched as kind of warning to Russia, was 25 years ahead of anything Russia has in technology. This type of demeaning remark stirred up discussion in Russia, which was going on at a very low level for some time, for months and perhaps more than a year, but was not as intense and as focused as what I’ve heard in the last two days.

Napolitano: 5:24
Well, let me just ask you about the submarine. That statement is inaccurate, isn’t it?

Doctorow:
Well, a lot of things that have been said by the administration are completely inaccurate. For example, Vance’s remarks to a journalist in an interview yesterday, I think it was Fox News, that Russia’s economy is crumbling, that the advances of just a few hundred square kilometers in a month of fierce fighting demonstrate that the war is at a kind of stalemate, that Russia cannot win, and so forth. These statements, which we would typically expect to hear from Kellogg and still do, were now coming from Vance. And I just, I know Vance is a very clever and well-informed man who reads everything.

6:11
So it is not because the information he’s receiving is incorrect. It is a taunt to Putin, just as his boss, Donald Trump, is taunting Putin, and there’s a reason for it. And it’s not the reason that the major media believe, that Trump is pushing Putin to come into the negotiations which Trump wants to mediate, the negotiations with Zelensky. No, no. I see the contrary.

If that were the case, if he were trying to pressure Putin to acceed to the demand of negotiating a peace settlement, then they wouldn’t be insulting the Russians as they are. The insult is to rile them, and it’s having the effect they desire: open discussion of whether the go slow, the war of attrition, is working or is not working. And now we hear people saying, more or less, that it’s not working.

Napolitano: 7:18
Do you believe that Trump, Vance, Kellogg, Gorka and company are trying to get President Putin to accelerate the war so that it will be over, so Trump can in some perverse way take credit for its ending?

Doctorow:
Yes, he’s looking for a peace settlement, but by Russia’s total destruction of Ukraine. That is not what most people think about.

Napolitano:
No, no, that’s not what most people would think as a peace settlement. But let’s get back, let’s go down to basics. Can Trump intimidate Putin? I don’t think so.

Doctorow: 7:55
I agree with you. He cannot intimidate Putin, But he can upset the elites by this embarrassing and accurate description of the way the war is being conducted. And there you have it.

Napolitano:
But don’t the elites understand the war is being conducted with methodical patience? The goal, one of the goals, is to degrade the Ukrainian military for the next generation so that the next generation doesn’t have to deal with this.

Doctorow: 8:32
Yes and no. I think they are tired of this and they are watching the Western reaction, which looks like a new escalatory phase. So that instead of ending in this culmination that so many of us have seen, myself included, in a matter of months, they are now seeing the possibility of it going on a year or more.

Napolitano:
Mmm. You know, we haven’t heard from former Russian president, I’m not sure what his title is today, Dmitry Medvedev, who has articulated rather ferocious views in the past. I guess we should expect to hear from him soon.

Doctorow: 9:17
Oh, I think so. But I doubt that he will be leading the charge against Vladimir Putin. I don’t know. But speaking as a former Sovietologist, what I’m seeing on Russian media suggests that a palace coup is being prepared against Vladimir Putin. The alternative–

Napolitano:
That is almost unthinkable for a man who was elected with 82 percent of the vote and who in your experience and mine, at least up till this point, has enjoyed enormous popularity.

Doctorow: 9:56
Agreed. But the popularity polls, which are accurate, I’m sure, which saw him dropping from 80% to 79% approval ratings in the last week or so, they’re only asking, do you believe that Putin is trustworthy, is a good leader, and so forth.

They are not asking, is he conducting the war correctly? And I believe that if that question were put to the political classes, they would say no. I’d say specifically the political classes, because if you look at the working man in Russia, he doesn’t think about it in those terms. He sees that his salary went up by three times in the last year or two. He sees that he gets subsidized mortgages, that he gets a lot of assistance for families with children. And so the war has not had any detrimental effect on his way of living. On the contrary, he’s made it much wealthier.

11:00
But the thinking classes, the political classes, are another story. And I think they’re very disturbed by what they see on television, that the Americans in particular are speaking of them as a paper tiger.

Napolitano:
What do the political classes want the president Putin to do? Destroy [Ukraine] with Oreshniks in a couple of hours?

Doctorow:
I think you just put your finger on it. That’s exactly what they’d like to see him do.

Napolitano:
And he’s reluctant to do that. By the way, does anyone in Russia still call this series of events in Ukraine a special military operation, or does everybody call it all-out war?

Doctorow: 11:47
No, nobody says specifically it’s all-out war. But they have– initially, it was verboten to speak of it as a war at all. Now for some time, more than a year, it is called by some people a war. Officially, it is still a special military operation, and in state television, that’s what it’s called.

Napolitano:
So the special military operation is slowly and methodically achieving its goals. I know that General Kalugov has very little standing over here, in my view, has argued that if he were winning, meaning President Putin, he’d be moving much faster. But he is slowly achieving his goals and the Ukrainian military, is slowly being degraded. Is there any question but that Ukraine is destined to lose this, even in the minds of the most skeptical members of the political class?

Doctorow: 12:49
I think the skeptical members of the political class are worried about what’s going on in Europe right now. That is the remilitarization, the preparation for war with Russia. And the longer this special military operation goes on, the more threatening that is to Russia in a three-year time frame, which is like tomorrow. I gave one explanation as a Sovietologist, so to speak, of what has happened. That is that Mr. Putin was being prepared to be shoved out of office. The other explanation, which I also see as possible, is that Putin himself is preparing the public for changing his strategy from a war of attrition to a decapitation strike.

Napolitano:
How would Putin be removed from office legally? Is there some procedure or would it just be an illegal coup? And if the latter, I would imagine whoever’s plotting it would be arrested for treason.

Doctorow:
If it succeeds–

Napolitano;
Right, right. Right, right. Remember that famous one line, treason never prospers. And what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare to call it treason. Stated differently, when you strike at the king, you must kill him.

Doctorow: 14:24
I don’t think legality is an issue here. If it happens, it will probably be proclaimed as essential and necessary change. Maybe he’ll be given some honorific post the way Medvedev was pushed upstairs. I don’t think that he’s going to face any personal physical risk or whatever. Nonetheless, it was formerly inconceivable, but now I’ve changed my mind. It is not possible that what I see on television is happening without approval from people on high.

Napolitano:
Have you seen this consistently and systematically or just recently?

Doctorow:
Hints of this had been going on for a long time, but it never was so intense and they didn’t– well, there was no need to show the full statement by Vance, which more or less trashed Russia. There was no need to do that. And the fact that it was done was a statement. The fact that it was allowed to happen was a statement.

Napolitano: 15:31
Where is the senior military leadership on this? Do they understand the slow methodical pace, which is costly to them? Or are they saying, “Hey, boss, let’s get this over within a week. This has been going on long enough.” Do they talk to him that directly?

Doctorow:
I can’t say. Let me just go back a bit. A year or so ago when someone like John Helmer was saying that the military was conspiring, the people on the general staff were conspiring against Vladimir Putin because they don’t like the way the war is going. And I dismissed that out of hand. As far as the military goes, I would dismiss it out of hand today.

But as regards the civilian elites, I think it’s entirely possible that something like that is occurring in the minds of people around Vladimir Putin.

Napolitano: 16:26
Does the Kremlin control Russian television to the point where this stuff wouldn’t be hinted at without the Kremlin’s consent?

Doctorow:
That’s my point exactly. Kremlin being Mr. Putin’s office, or the Kremlin in a wider sense of the ruling elite, I think that in general, Russian television is under very tight control.

There are a few trusted people. This is Kiselyov, the general manager of all Russian news broadcasting. He does not act with whispers coming from above. So that they would show these things. It didn’t have to. There was no obligation to give so much coverage to these very damaging and insulting remarks coming from the States.

Napolitano: 17:29
How about my friend, Dimitri Simes? I appear on that program quite a bit and I am often questioned by his other guests whom he represents as being senior members of the Duma and in one case a very senior general. Where is he on this?

Doctorow:
Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t listened to the Dmitry Simes for some time. It’s not easy, frankly speaking. It’s very difficult for me here in Brussels to catch this program, “The Great Game”. A year ago it was quite easy; right now it isn’t. So I don’t know–

Napolitano:
Why is that? Are there sanctions making it difficult for you to watch certain Russian television programs?

Doctorow: 18:17
Oh, definitely. The normal Russian broadcasting is not accessible here in Western Europe. There are exceptions made, and some programs get around it by playing tricks on YouTube. That is, the program is being carried by some unknown person who has his own channel. But generally speaking, their coverage, Russian news, Russian programs are difficult to access.

But I don’t think– take a step back and look at somebody else in the constellation at the top, which leaves me wondering what is going on. Sergey Lavrov, whom you respect greatly and who has an enormous group of admirers, but not only in Russia, but outside Russia. Sergei Lavrov said, in answer to a question a day ago, if the Americans supply the– what is it that we’re going to supply now? The–

Napolitano:
Tomahawks?

Doctorow: 19:21
Yes, the Tomahawks. That won’t change the situation on the battlefield. I couldn’t believe my ears. I could not believe that he was saying something so utterly foolish. Something is going on there as well around Lavrov.

Napolitano:
All right. So where do you see all of this going? Should we wake up some morning and find out that the government buildings in Kiev are gone or that Vladimir Putin is taking a vacation?

Doctorow:
I don’t know. It can go either way. The tea leaves suggest either eventuality as possible. We’ll have to see how this progresses. But there are a lot of people in Russia who have been calling for some time.

Mr. Karaganov, who a year and a half ago was– this is the political scientist who has a very large reputation in Russia and abroad– was saying that Russia should strike using tactical nuclear weapons somewhere in Western Europe to demonstrate that it is a serious power. These people certainly would be behind the kind of palace coup that I’m suggesting. But there’s no way to know at this point; we have to wait a little bit.

Napolitano: 20:38
Fascinating conversation, Professor Doctorow. Something happens in one direction or another, I trust you’ll reach us and we’ll discuss it as close to real-time as possible. … Your observations to me are rather startling, and I’ve heard them nowhere else.

Doctorow:
I hope to investigate this more seriously and with better access to all sorts of information three weeks from now, on the 20th of this month. I’ll be going to Petersburg for three weeks. And this kind of question I tend to pursue.

Napolitano: 21:20
Thank you, Professor Doctorow. All the best, my friend. We’ll see you again next week or sooner if the situation warrants.

Doctorow:
OK.

Napolitano:
Of course. Coming up today, a full day for you. At one o’clock this afternoon, Professor Glenn Diesen. At two o’clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at three o’clock, Phil Giraldi. At four o’clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Professor Sachs will analyze Prime Minister Netanyahu’s– in Jerusalem and on his plane– repudiation of the agreement he claimed he joined in with President Trump in the Oval Office.

22:01
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

WION ‘Game Plan’: Russia-Ukraine War | Will Russia Allow EU Boots On Ground?

I present here the link to yesterday’s conversation with Shivan Chanana, anchor on the Indian broadcaster WION with whom I have had numerous conversations in the past and whom I greatly respect.

I use this video to make a point on how the game is played between broadcaster and invited specialist if you have your wits about you and enjoy cat and mouse games.

Viewers will notice that the introductory words of the presenter are repetitive. That is because our interview was interrupted and their production team had to start over.  Viewers will also note that I twice evaded the host’s opening question about what the Security Guaranties for Ukraine would look like.  This is not because I was hard of hearing but because I had other plans for what messages I wanted to deliver to the audience and especially to hammer home my view that Team Trump has done very well in the peace talks to obtain its fixed objectives while neutralizing its opponents, domestic and foreign, by saying what they want to hear while doing what it wants to do.

One Commenter on yesterday’s other Indian interview, with Firstpost, wrote that he would send me a MAGA hat for what I was saying. No, I am not a supporter of MAGA as such. But I am ready and willing to toss a bouquet in the direction of Team Trump when I believe they are doing something skillful and praiseworthy.

Let me be perfectly clear:  the contract between interviewer and interviewee seems to give all benefit to the broadcaster while the interviewee is just a resource.  However, it does not have to play out that way. The interviewee can use the microphone and air time to his or her own advantage as well.

Enjoy the show!

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

 

Global broadcasters are straining their in-house resources to make sense of what Trump, Putin, Zelensky and the European Coalition of the Willing are doing and saying to promote a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine war. In these circumstances, they are turning to outside geopolitical analysts like myself to add value to their coverage.

I discovered the old rule of this game in 2016 in Russia, when the U.S. presidential election and the Trump victory made me the darling of Russian talk shows on multiple channels. Once you are presented by one broadcaster, the others are quick to seek time with you as well. And then you are in their collective press pool – until world news moves on to other topics and you are dropped as quickly as you were acquired.

At WION, India’s largest news broadcaster in English with 10 million subscribers, where I first appeared more than a year ago and had established a very good rapport with one of their program hosts, the invitations to appear there thinned out about six months ago. At the same time, I noticed that they were putting up more videos on youtube featuring their own staff. That seems to have ended two weeks ago when preparations began for the Alaska summit. Now for the second time in 10 days I was phoned by their producers to join them for an on-air chat about the evolving situation around Ukraine. The program host who asked to be linked with me on LinkedIn six months ago was back and ready to party. I am waiting for them to send me the link to what we recorded this morning and will then post it here.

Virtually at the same time today, I got a request from another well-known Indian broadcaster, Firstpost. Wikipedia tells us that “Firstpost is an Indian news website owned by the Network18 Group, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC TV18.”

What I will say is the Firstpost interviewer is a top professional and that it was a pleasure for me to chat with him as I hope it will be a pleasure for the Community to watch this. The subject, of course, is where the negotiations for peace in Ukraine are headed, whether Putin and Zelensky will actually meet face to face and much more

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

This conversation with Judge Napolitano brought out some essential points that have received little or no attention in alternative media, not to mention mainstream.

First among these comes from the interview that Sergei Lavrov gave to Russian state television yesterday in which he strongly hinted that a step towards convening a Putin-Zelensky meeting should be revocation of the prohibitions on use of the Russian language in schools, in public places, and on dissemination of Russian language media.  If that were to happen, I believe the Russians would be more amenable to a one-on-one meeting of their president with Zelensky.

As I explain here, surely Zelensky’s insistent demand for such a meeting was premised on the likely refusal of the Russians to agree so that he could turn around and say to the Americans and to the EU leaders “you see, I told you that Putin does not want peace,” after which he would proceed with his demands for more arms and financial assistance.

We also discussed at length what I call out as the very capable conduct of the negotiations with the Europeans by what I call the Collective Trump, taking in his obviously very smart assistants, of whom Steve Witkoff is only one example.  He was stringing the Europeans along on his supposed support for an immediate unconditional cease fire. He was not persuaded of anything in this matter by Putin when they met in Alaska; rather his meeting with Putin was essential for him to be convinced that Putin is someone he really can work with. That done, he proceeded to announce his favoring a full peace treaty now.

I see the same deception being played now by Trump when he tells the Europeans that there will be American participation in the planned security guaranties for Ukraine.  Perhaps, but only if the “peacekeeping” force is very different from what the Coalition of the Willing that descended on Washington this past Monday expects.  If it is not just Europeans but also Chinese, Indians and others from the Global South then it will likely be acceptable to Moscow as consisting of monitors, not war makers, not a pseudo-NATO that is ready to attack Russia at any moment.

I will go no further here but urge the Community to pay close attention to this conversation.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025