Transcript submitted by a reader

Prof. Glenn Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome back. We are joined today by Gilbert Doktorow, a historian, international affairs analyst and also author of books such as “The War Diaries: The Russia-Ukraine War”.

So I tend to be more pessimistic than you in terms of the future of this war, the ability to reach some peaceful settlement. But I was struck a bit by some optimism now with this recent meeting, that is Witkoff going to Moscow. And again, anyone familiar with the NATO-Russia relations over the past 30 years is probably aware that deception has been a key component. But what we saw is the deadline expired. That is what began as a 50-day, then became a 10-day deadline.

Instead of sending weapons and sanctions, at least for now, Witkoff went to Moscow and his peers were getting a meeting between Putin and Trump. What are you reading into this quick development? Do you see something which has happened behind the scenes, or is this just noise?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:15
Well, a lot of things clearly have happened behind the scenes, and for that reason it’s difficult to judge the degree of agreement that Witoff reached with his Russian counterparts, Putin and this Shakov and who else was there, Mikhail Dmitriev. Look, in my recent interviews, I look at comments, one of them was, “Oh, Doctorow has become really an apologist for Trump.” I consider this progress, because before, six months ago, they would have said Doctorow was an apologist for Putin. So we’re getting there.

I tried not to be an apologist for anybody. And if Trump is doing something stupid, I will not hesitate to say that. If what he’s doing is unlikely to succeed to my knowledge, I will also say that. There is one troubling note here in the brief information that has been sent out as to what was discussed and how our preparations are being made for the Trump-Putin meeting in the near future, meaning possibly in the coming week. That is the– what I find disturbing is the notion that Zelensky would have been invited. Because that goes contrary to what I understood was the hopeful sign coming out of the Witkoff- Putin talks.

2:51
The hopeful sign being that the discussions would go far beyond the particulars of the Ukraine crisis, the territories that each side would retain or have to give up, the question of Ukraine in NATO and the rest of it. And they would talk about bigger issues, constructive discussion they had. I think Ushakov said it was, there was the probability, likelihood, of discussing strategic cooperation.

Well, yes, that would definitely interest the Russians and would bring Mr. Putin together with Mr. Trump, but Mr. Zelensky doesn’t fit into that at all. And so if indeed Zelensky were to be invited, that puts in question the first point. Are they discussing only Ukraine and only the terms of the ceasefire, or are they discussing the issues which the Russians really want to talk about?

3:50
Now what are the issues the Russians want to talk about? One of your recent guests put out some ideas. And he is well informed; I’d say he’s probably a centrist person within the American foreign policy establishment. And he was saying, yes, they would talk about cooperation in the Arctic, and they would talk about ending the sanctions and reintegrating Russia into the greater world, the Western world. Because as he said, Russians in general consider themselves to be Europeans, to be part of Western civilization, and they are very disappointed that they are excluded from that context, from that place where they believe they belong to be, by the sanctions which are caused by the war.

4:44
Here I disagree completely. Five years ago, yes, that would have been an accurate statement. As I have been saying for some time, and this is not just my own observation; the Russians have been talking about it with great insistence. The war has brought forward new elites. The war has made even among the intellectuals who are almost by definition not supporters of the Putin regime, so to speak, that they had become patriotic and that they were less concerned that they couldn’t spend a summer vacation in Paris or elsewhere in Western Europe or even visit the States. So if they could come back with a lot of stories to discuss with their friends.

5:36
That’s over. Russia may not feel comfortable with Chinese cars. That’s now being discussed, how these cars are being accepted or rejected by Russian consumers. They may not feel comfortable with spending a summer vacation on North Korea’s latest tourist beaches, But they certainly will not exchange the loss in treasure and in life of the last three years for the sake of going back to the status quo ante and being integrated into Western economy and society.

6:15
That’s gone. That is over, and it will not come back. There will be some accommodation with the West, but not in the sense that existed before. No one talks about it, but I’ll say it right here and now. Russia had a big inferiority complex across the board. Anyone you spoke to, other than a handful of super patriots, before this war, the predominant feeling in Russia was, “we can’t make anything”.

This takes me back to late 1990s. I remember a very smart taxi driver was taking my wife and me around downtown Petersburg and he remarked, we Russians, we make very cute babies, but we’re lousy at making cars. Now, that was a widespread belief. And I think that the last three years and the re-industrialization of Russia and the import substitution in Russia and the takeover of Western companies by Russian entrepreneurs or the Russian state producing virtually the same products under a different name. That’s changed it all.

Russia didn’t produce any cheese before. Ridiculous. They didn’t produce cheese. In 1912, Russia was supplying butter to Denmark. This is not my guess. I have a yearbook on my library shelf. A 1912 yearbook was published in the UK, all describing all the trade relations between Russia and UK and the West, and they were exporting butter to Denmark. Well, they can’t, they weren’t making any cheese. Well, they’re making all kinds of cheese now. The, as I said before, what Mr. Trump wants to do with his tariffs is to imitate what the Russians have done, thanks to Western sanctions, to re-industrialize. So the game has changed. The idea that this could be an issue for discussion that would bring Mr. Putin, Mr. Shakov, Dmitriev to the table and, “Yeah, well, let’s get on with it. We’ll have an immediate ceasefire, and you’ll put us back into the European and American markets.”

That’s gone. So what could they talk about? What is the big issue that would have persuaded Mr. Putin and his close advisors that they should meet with Trump now? What could Mr. Witkoff have brought with him? Well, I think he had to have addressed the core issues. What he could have done to make the whole thing palatable to all sides, meaning also the Ukrainians if they are strong-armed and the Europeans, is to speak about phasing in what is essentially the Russian solution and presenting it in such a way that it would not look like what it is, which is virtual surrender. Virtual surrender is not acceptable to NATO, is not acceptable to the United States.

9:20
Mr. Trump will be pilloried if he does nothing to sweeten the settlement and to make it seem as though he’s in control. All the news we see on every possible subject these weeks has one newsmaker, and his name is Donald Trump. It gives you the sense that he’s in control of things even if he absolutely is not. And he is certainly not in control of how this war will end.

But he has to have the appearance of that. And so he has decided that he should meet with Mr. Putin. And Mr. Putin has responded.

Although if you read yesterday’s and today’s “Financial Times”, oh, no, sorry, if you listened to the BBC this morning, you would understand that Putin was eagerly pursuing Trump for a meeting, because that will restore his prestige as an international player. That’s how they turn everything on its head.

Well, coming back to this answer to your question, I’ve been a bit long-winded, but the answer to your question: the Americans probably brought a phasing in, stage one, stage two, stage three, which makes it possible to sit and negotiate. The end result will be very much in accordance with the Russians’ demands, which are not maximalist. They haven’t changed one iota from where they were in June 2024, when Mr. Putin reiterated what he first said in February 2022, what Russia’s ambition is, although he put it more clearly and in easier-to- understand terms. But essentially it came to the same thing, what this denazification, well that’s regime change, the demilitarization, well the Ukrainian army goes, but mostly it’s evaporating in front of our eyes. So these things are being achieved and now they want to codify it, but they cannot do it in one session. That will be too awful for the West.

11:28
So I think the issue to discuss is how to phase this in, in a way that leaves Mr. Trump at least with an off-ramp that’s respectable and the Europeans can go to hell. They’ll have to accommodate to whatever the Americans and the Russians agree, because they will have no weapons to supply to the Ukraine and Ukraine will sink.

So that is what I see coming, a discussion of the timetable for arriving at the Russians’ Dzerak, their requirements for peace treaty.

Diesen: 12:04
I was told by a credible American source that not only was Washington becoming much more eager to find a settlement because of the disaster happening on the front. That is, it looks like a total collapse could happen within the next few months. But I was also told that Zelensky, that he had apparently changed a bit as well. While in the past viewed himself as being this new Churchill who will bring back the glory of Ukraine and defeat Russia, all of this has now begun to fade away. And if the Americans put something in front of him and pressured him, he would likely sign. So it’s again, it’s none of the certainty.

12:53
And indeed the Russians are asking for a lot. But now this, yeah, Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov, he was in the news arguing that the Americans had put forward a proposal, which they, which he said was seemingly acceptable to Moscow. This is, I never heard this language before. And given how far the parts, the two different sides have been apart, it seems as if something significant must have shifted. Because my first impression was perhaps this Witkoff going to Moscow, talking about a Trump-Putin meeting is just a way to get Trump, well, save face after he made this silly, you know, 10 day deadline, which I don’t understand.

But there seems to actually be some substance in place here. But did you read the comments by Oshokov the same way? And if so, what do you think such a deal must include? Because again, the Russians aren’t going to, after 30 years of struggling over the European security architecture, more than three years of losing men on the front lines. Now, finally, at the cusp of victory, it’s going to just throw it away.

14:14
I assume that there’s a reason why they’re able to put these harsh demands. So what do you think might be in this deal that Osakoff is referring to?

Doctorow:
I’m not quite sure, but there are sticking points here. Again, to address that question with being an apologist for Trump, I have no illusions about the humanitarian motives that are absent from his peace seeking. Nor do I accept the notion that the man is so vain that he’s doing everything for the sake of getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

I don’t think even Mr. Trump is that vain, to put aside national interest of the United States and the lives of all the other parties to this conflict, for the sake of getting that piece of paper, that little award which Obama received for doing nothing whatsoever, just for not being Bush. I think there’s much more to it, but it’s in conflict in my mind. What exactly? The overall overarching concept could be “separate the Russians from the Chinese so we can proceed with taking on China”.

15:31
However, that falls flat. There is no way conceivable that Russia is going to betray China. No way. When I said the other day that one, that Mr. Witoff could have been talking to Dmitriyev about getting access to Russian-produced rare metals, rare-earth metals, as the point for negotiation or preparing for negotiation with the Chinese in the coming week or two, where the Chinese are withholding those urgently needed materials to frustrate any plans of punishing tariffs or any limitations on export of technology to China by Mr. Trump. It is inconceivable that Mr. Putin will give free access to Russian rare-earth metals to spite China. That is off the table.

16:37
So what exactly Mr. Trump hopes to achieve considering that Russia and China are inseparable, I’m not quite sure. So we really have to look a little bit further. And I’m not sure that Mr. Trump is, his advisors are blind to that reality. I also have mentioned the timing coming back to why 10 days or what 50 days because September 3rd is inconvenient.

It’s too close to the convening of this end of the Pacific war for World War Two the 80th anniversary celebrations will be in Beijing, to which Mr. Trump presumably is desperate to be invited. That is possible. It suggests that the Yalta type meeting that we all thought might possibly happen, when Moscow celebrated the 80th anniversary of the end of the European war, and didn’t happen. Maybe would happen now in the Pacific, in Beijing. It’s possible.

17:46
As I’ve said recently, I don’t have a microphone under Mr. Putin’s pillow. We really don’t have a microphone under Mr. Trump’s pillow. And there are contradictory objectives when you look at what he says and even what he does, to complicate our reading of these tea leaves, our attempting to make sense out of it all. It could be that they still have some illusions or delusions with respect to separating Russia from China. I find it hard to believe, but Americans can be peculiar. What else could be going through their minds? What else [could they] be using to reach a quick accommodation with Mr. Putin without looking like they’ve lost the war?

And I think Putin will be very amenable to helping them off the off-ramp. He’s certainly smart enough. He did that with Obama with respect to the bombing Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons. So he knows how to let his opponents off the hook, getting what he wants without embarrassing them to the point where he’s got enemies. But for me right now, it’s a bit hard to say just how this trick will be done.

Diesen: 19:16
Yeah, I would have been more reassured if I heard some talks about actually the European security architecture, because so far there’s been too much reference to an unconditional ceasefire and Trump still in his language. I mean, there’s a contradiction. His language still refers to this as as if it would be a war between Ukraine and Russia, which is problematic for the peace efforts if it takes NATO and America’s role out of this. On the other hand, he calls the war Biden’s war, which Biden began by pushing NATO.

So it’s not very consistent. If it’s Biden’s war, how is it only limited between Ukraine and Russia? But again, with Trump, you never know what is the noise and what does he actually know. I was wondering though, how you read his, if you think Trump is misinformed either deliberately or just out of ignorance by his advisors, because from Trump we hear these comments such as, I think he said, there’s 20,000 Russians dying a month, which is, it doesn’t make any sense in any way. It’s quite outlandish.

And also when he was asked about what’s happening in Ukraine, people elderly people being dragged to the front. And he said, Oh, I don’t know anything about that. And now of course, putting this deadline to begin with, the 10-day deadline … if he knows that Russia considers this to be an existential threat, they’re willing to fight this all the way, why would he think that they would capitulate now, in other words, accept freezing the front lines and allowing NATO to revive the conflict in the future if they would need to put pressure on Russia. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense that this was always ridiculous, that the Russians would accept this. Is this misinformed or is it just, you know, talking to his own base or what is he? I have a very hard time understanding some of the strange information and decisions which are coming out.

21:35
Well, they’ll confuse the other side, but don’t confuse yourself. I would take as an operating assumption that he is not confused and that all of these confusing and oftentimes very bizarre statements that come out of him are intended, are a demonstration of his contempt for the press and for his opponents who are the most vocal elements of society at large. The silent majority doesn’t say much. His opponents say a lot and are hurt a lot and what they say is picked up by media.

22:11
There are contradictions here, and I think It’s much too early for us to present with clarity what is going to happen when they meet and what is the intended outcome, why the Russians would have agreed to this meeting when it goes against all of their rules. Russian television is informing us that yes, contrary to the general rule of preparing in great detail and over considerable time for summit meetings, the Russians are prepared this time to make an exception and to hold this very quickly, and they’re working like mad. The Americans are working like mad to observe this shortened schedule. Supposedly it’s about agreeing a ceasefire, but I don’t believe that.

23:07
There’s no way that the Russians can accept a ceasefire when the Europeans are not present at this. The Americans, by definition, are not going to be supplying further weapons to Ukraine. The Europeans are. And the Russians do not accept under any condition that a ceasefire will take place while weapons are being dispatched into Ukraine. So that is a non-starter.

There’s something else going on in Ukraine. We don’t know it. But I think it’s best not to assume that people are ill-informed, that some maliciousness is at work. The advisors to Putin, to Trump, or I should say even to Putin one of one very well-known former economist and at a high level in American politics is insisting that Mr. Putin is being deceived and misled by his advisors.

24:04
I think it would be safe just to hold back and let’s see what happens at this meeting. But there are definite contradictions in the structure of the meeting, which is what is called out now. How can you agree on a ceasefire when Europeans aren’t present? The only person who was called out, the need for Europeans has been Urban, who came out yesterday with a statement that Merz and the French Macron should go to Moscow now, or after the meeting that Trump has with Putin, and present the European position to Moscow, because the EU institutions are totally incapable of doing that.

24:47
Well, I agree with him on that point. But whether or not much will be achieved by Macron and Merz going to Moscow … well, better to talk than not to talk. That can’t see a solution on the ceasefire without the Europeans being brought in. But obviously not at the first meeting, just as it’s senseless to have Zelensky there when the only thing that could have motivated the Russians to agree to a meeting has nothing to do directly with the Ukraine conflict. It has to do, as you said, with revising the security architecture of Europe, for which Mr. Zelensky has no place at the table.

25:26
So there are confusing signals that you and I have detected, and I suppose others as well, which make it difficult to predict what the outcome of this meeting would be.

Diesen:
I got that impression both from some Americans and Russians that they need to first get the big pieces in place, that is the European security order, which effectively means the relationship between the Americans and the Russians. And then once this is an order, then the Ukrainian issue can be resolved. So you want to deal with it in the right order and also been told that yeah that they have the same both the Moscow and Washington have the same views of the Europeans, that yes, they have to be brought in, but first after the decisions have been made.

So, and then, you know, if you can get the Washington, Moscow, and then get the Kiev to sign under then the Europeans will just be a formality, I guess. But let’s say this, I wonder what the post-war settlement might look like when the war is done. Because in terms of the wider European order, if you thought about this, let’s say next week they hash out the deal, I’m not so that optimistic, but the war can come to an end within a few weeks.

The Russians make the point that they have to deal with the Americans because they have to. America remains a very important part of the international system. And also, if you want the world to function and have stability, Russia and America always have to work together. But as you suggested before, there is a longing to return to Europe. It seems to be gone.

27:15
Indeed, when you talk to migrants from Russia in Europe, many say that they were initially surprised. They knew that Russia was always a bit mocked for being an economic mess, but they were surprised about how much hatred there is towards Russians. But now, of course, this inferiority complex, it’s more or less gone. I guess this is what happens when you defeat NATO on the battlefield, but it’s also the sense of admiration for Europe, which is gone. I mean, throughout the Cold War, yes, there was some animosity towards Western governments, as you would [think], but overall there was some admiration for the way society was organized.

The economies we had, the social systems, the technologies, there seemed to be some moral or values. But now, of course, a lot of this is seen as decaying and indeed the culture wars we’re having where everything has to be deconstructed. This has become a source of mockery in the Russian media. What do you think, or your sense, what kind of relationship do you think the Russians want with Europe once this war is actually over?

Doctorow: 28:28
Well, I think they would be very happy to go back to their position as very close economic partners of Europe without taking it to the embarrassing extreme that Macron described several years ago, that Russia was a big, great supplier of raw materials.

I think that notion is not satisfactory or sufficient for restoring economic ties with Europe. But let me just make an attempt. What could they possibly have said to President Putin, what Witkoff could have brought with him, that would be considered constructive and could justify this meeting? And let’s take, put it in the historical context. What did the Americans and the Russians, who disliked one another, who didn’t necessarily respect one another, always put forward as the first topic for discussion? Arms control.

29:26
Arms control. That is the most value-neutral thing that they could discuss next week, which would set the tone for solving all the other issues, which would receive the undeserved acclaim in Europe and the United States. If they were to discuss restoring the intermediate and short-range missile agreement in a new form and preventing or removing the advance-positioned Russian missiles and the plans for stationing American missiles in Germany next year, that would be hailed by everybody. And from that good atmosphere, they could proceed to the really tough and miserable discussions about concluding the Ukraine war.

So there might be something, I say this completely off the table, but nobody’s talking about it because it’s all been kept very highly secret from all of us, whereas it should be till now.

30:37
So I wouldn’t eliminate the possibility some concrete positive and promising could come out of a meeting between Putin and Trump in a week’s time, one which has no need whatsoever for Mr. Zelensky or for the Europeans to be present. And that could set the tones I’d say for dealing with the really tough questions of resolving the Ukraine war and also revising European architecture. If you take off this five-minute long delivery strike times of missiles within the European theatre, life gets a lot easier. You can breathe much easier, and the tension over European security would be toned down considerably. So that could be it, but it’s a guess, nothing more than a guess.

Diesen: 31:31
Well, you know, this is a problem when the diplomacy, of course, is behind closed doors. Just my last question though is, if this peace agreement goes through, if they actually deal with the European security architecture, what happens to NATO? Again, I think that one of the reasons why the Europeans are or seem to prefer keeping the war going is as long as you have a conflict, then NATO will still have a purpose and it will keep the Americans on the continent. You and I discussed before that the fear of the Europeans is once the Americans get to leave Ukraine, they will also likely leave Europe to a large extent, both resource priorities and everything going to Asia. So do you think peace in Ukraine could destroy NATO?

Doctorow: 32:27
Again, if it’s taken by itself, yes. If it’s put in a broader context, such as I just was mentioning, just on the arms control or also with regard to new technologies and putting a lid on drone warfare, putting a lid on AI warfare, robotics, putting a lid on these new technologies, which are awesome, frightening, and drive the anxiety on all sides, then these other issues, the traditional issues of territory and language rights and the rest of it, become much easier to deal with. And NATO’s fading away is almost an afterthought rather than the first urgent concern, which it is today for Europeans. So I don’t know how smart these people are. I don’t know how wide, broad their perspective is, whether they’ve taken it in, in a sense that I just presented it or not.

33:41
But I would give them the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think, unlike Craig Roberts, I don’t think Mr. Putin is being managed by his advisors, who are all lovers of foie gras and the Mediterranean coast. I think that there are some serious people on the Russian side. I hope they’re equally serious people.

I don’t consider Witkoff to be anything but a very serious man. And I don’t think he would have wasted his time on this mission if he saw it as hopeless. I’m being an optimist. I don’t deny the right of pessimists to also claim the same territory.

Diesen: 34:34
Well, this week at least, we’re much closer to your optimism as, yeah, there seems to be some movement, which you suggested in the past as well, that there are things happening in the background.

But yeah, well, as you said before, you used to be referred to as a Putin apologist. Now you’re a Trump apologist. I do think this is one of the wider problems we’re having though. It’s always during wars. So you see that if you’re not sufficiently, for example, anti-Russian, then you can be accused of being pro-Russian.

So everything is so polarized. It’s either black or white and all gray is just eliminated. So this is one of the things I’m most fearful of now in the West as well, the inability to consider the security concerns of opponents. I always make this comment that the media, the politicians, I never hear anyone talk about the Russian security concerns, the Iranian, the Chinese. It’s always, it’s always colored in the language of just being belligerent and evil, essentially.

I think this is a, makes it much more difficult to understand our opponents. But unfortunately, if you try to understand Trump, that label fits as well, then you’re a Trump apologist.

Doctorow:
Well, as we gather today, the tea hasn’t even been poured. One week from today, we can read tea leaves.

Diesen:
Well, as always, thank you so much for your insights, and have a great weekend.

Doctorow: 36:10
You too, thanks.

Today’s chat focused on the visit of Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow in which he spent just under three hours with President Putin. The very length of their meeting suggests that there was a lot more going on than the delivery by Witkoff of Trump’s ultimatum over ending the war at once. This is further confirmed by Witkoff’s walk yesterday in the Zaryadye park next to Red Square in the company of Kiril Dmitriev, head of Russia Direct Investment and the man best prepared to discuss with the Americans prospective cooperative projects, not escalation of the confrontation.

I made the point that the seemingly bizarre actions of Trump in the past week – namely the dispatch of two U.S. nuclear missile bearing submarines closer to Russia, the delivery of nuclear weapons to the U.K. and the declaration by the senior U.S. military officer in Europe Christopher Donahue that the U.S. has ready plans to seize the Kaliningrad enclave of the Russian Federation – were just posturing to appease Senator Lindsey Graham and other radical politicians supporting Trump in Congress and were seen as such by the Kremlin. None of this creates new existential threats to Russia.

However, my main point, which Judge Napolitano now plans to put to Scott Ritter for comment later today is that the more pressure Trump & Co. place on Russia by introducing new sanctions, such as those directed against the shadow fleet of oil tankers delivering Russian oil to India and other global markets, the faster the Russian armed forces are taking territory and destroying the military assets of Ukraine. The attempted bullying only has a perverse effect of bringing peace nearer by hastening the Russian victory.

I enjoyed the opportunity to pass along to viewers speculation in Russian news today that a young parliamentarian in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, 35 year old Anna Skorokhod is being mentioned as a possible candidate to replace Zelensky now that the Americans are intent on his removal. Skorokhod has been loudly criticizing the forcible recruitment of youths and seniors into the Ukrainian army. She has said to the press that there are 400,000 deserters from the Ukrainian army today and she supports them. They say that Skorokhod has the support of a close business associate of Donald Trump. Could this be Witkoff?

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEO16V1X7Fg

Prof. Glenn Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome back. We’re joined today by Gilbert Doctorow, an international affairs analyst, historian and author of books such as “War Diaries: the Russia-Ukraine War”. So welcome to the show. I want to ask you about the state of relations between the European Union and the United States, because as we all know, von der Leyen and Trump, they reached a US-EU trade agreement. And for many people, myself included, it looks more or less like a complete capitulation and subordination, and something that could, I guess, change the relationship between the EU and US, but also something that can undermine the internal cohesion of the European Union itself. So given that you’re located there in Brussels, what does this agreement actually include? And can you make any sense of it?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:03
The agreement that was reached in Scotland has two important sides to it. One is what everybody is talking about, the tariffs. And the tariffs are now set at generally 15% down from a tentative 25% before an agreement was reached. But that doesn’t cover all products and services. Airplanes or airplane parts, for example, are not included in this. They are at a much lower tariff rate. There are other products which will be negotiated still.

For example, wines and liquor, which are of great interest to one of the leading countries in the EU, that is France, and that probably will be negotiated at a different level, lower level, in the wishes of the French. But looking at the tariffs, that is severe. It is compared to where we were at the start of the year. It is less than the dramatic and ruinous tariffs that Trump had spoken about before he would negotiate a deal.

And will this bring European manufacturing across the ocean to the United States at the expense of jobs in Europe? It’s not quite clear. There is very little discussion of what Europe actually sells to the States and how vulnerable it is to loss of market share due to price increases. That’s something we can perhaps get into, but what I have in mind is that mass products, products that are bought and used by the vast majority of the population, they are not typically European products. They are Chinese products. European products include a lot of luxury goods, and luxury goods are being sold to wealthy people for whom a 15% tariff won’t make a big difference.

3:07
So the real impact on European sales in the States from this agreement in Scotland still has to be refined. One cannot make definitive statements yet, because it’s not complete. There are these negotiations at the margins. But what was most outstanding and of course what impressed observers of all political stripes by the way, not just observers who are anti-American or pro-American. No, no.

All observers came to one conclusion. It was, as you say, a capitulation. To put it in other terms, it was an enormous humiliation for Europe. Von der Leyen went to Scotland, cap in hand, as more or less a beggar without any, not negotiating from strength, as I like to say these days. On the contrary, she’s negotiating from weakness and from the fear that the failure to reach an agreement would end in a tariff war that could cost Europe five million jobs.

So she was under enormous pressure to ingratiate herself with a man whom she knows despises her. Trump has never made that a secret. And she came away with something that isn’t too terrible. That’s the consensus, again, of observers here in Europe. It’s not too terrible, but it’s bad and it’s particularly bad for the way it was reached, because it demonstrated that there is no leverage from the European side.

4:40
But that is one side of the story. The other side of discussion was the commitment by Europe to purchase 650 billion dollars in American hydrocarbons, that is, liquefied natural gas and petroleum, over the next three years. That is potentially a far bigger impact on Europe from this whole tariff discussion, because it locks in the non-competitive situation of European wares on world markets. The single biggest factor in the deindustrialization of Germany that has gone on for the last three years at least, when the Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed, when Europe swore off buying more Russian pipeline gas and cheap oil. That was a decisive factor making the German economy uncompetitive.

5:47
It was a decisive factor in whole sectors of industry shutting down completely, those sectors that were highly dependent on cheap energy, like glass manufacturing, for example. And fertilizers, of course. These were hit enormously. And the fertilizers being hit, of course, has passed along to consumers in higher prices for all fresh produce, which is produced with less efficiency, with lower yields when the fertilizers are used more sparingly because it’s more expensive.

So this aspect is not in the featured news, when it deserves to be. As I said, it locks in the uncompetitive status of European products on world markets. Now, can that figure be reached? That is another question. Will they actually reach it? Will they actually achieve that over the three-year period?

These are quite big question marks. The United States now exports 80 billion dollars a year of hydrocarbons to Europe. To go from there to 215 billion dollars a year is a big stretch, particularly since it’s not obvious that America has the production capacity to fill orders should they come in. So that is all debatable.

But if it were to be exercised, if in some way the United States could achieve these exports and Europe could absorb them, that will be a big dent in the European economies. And Europeans, the middle-of-the-road supporters of Atlanticism, had been searching hard to explain why they were so disadvantaged in the negotiations with Trump, how he was able to vanquish and have von der Leyen kneeling before him and kissing the ring. This is something that they’re debating. The Belgian leading French-speaking newspaper, “Le Soir”, blames the problem on Europe’s over-dependence on exports to drive economic growth. That is not a convincing argument to anyone who is aware of global trade, since that is precisely the formula that China has used and continues to use so successfully to achieve its enormous growth, presently 5% per annum, whereas in the first quarter of ’25, the Europeans were displaying great pleasure to have 0.1% GDP growth.

Diesen: 8:33
Well, isn’t the real dilemma of the European Union then not that they’re dependent on foreign trade, but that they’re excessively dependent on the United States as a partner? Because it seems as if the EU wants to have a reliable dependency on the United States as it had in previous decades. And in order to do this, they have to win over the … I call it the good will or affection of America by doing as they’re told, which includes reducing their economic ties with countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and well, American adversaries. But by trying to win over the love of Washington, they isolate themselves more in the world and become more dependent on the United States.

9:25
So is this, by committing themselves solely to the US, will this strengthen the relationship with Washington, or will it undermine it by giving the Americans too much leverage in this partnership?

Doctorow:
If “strengthen” means for both parties, of course not. Strengthen the American leverage over Europe, definitely. The question is why did Europe submit to this? Did it have to? What was the overriding consideration?

I think there is a certain understanding among many observers that the driving force was defense. And they hope that by staying close to Trump, by submitting to his will, they could maintain an ongoing conversation with him and persuade him to do what they want most of all, which is to continue to support Ukraine in its war on Russia, because they have made that, arbitrarily they have made that an existential threat to themselves for the sake of the leadership staying in power. That is to say, they’re singing and dancing and moving from the story of last three years that “Russia has to be defeated” to the story of the present, which is “We have to stay united. We need the present leadership in power because this is the only way that we can rearm Europe and prepare for a war with Russia that may take place as early as 2029.”

That is the current story that the present leadership in 25 out of 27 countries of the EU is putting forward to the press, to the public at large, as their re-election bid and as their bid for support. This is based on the same delusion that we’ve seen in their understanding of the Russia-Ukraine war from the beginning. The delusion here is that they can persuade Mr. Trump of anything. They can’t.

And they’re listening to what he says, which is a terrible mistake. Mr. Trump has nothing but contempt for the press. He has nothing but contempt for most of the European leadership. He knows that they are weak, that they are cowardly, they are conformist, and that they will be bullied.

And that is essentially what he is. He is a bully. He’s a bully who is successful at this trick. And he is telling them one thing and doing something else. What he’s doing is stopping supplies to Ukraine.

What he’s doing– this is something we can get into– is probably aiding and abetting the eviction of Zelensky from office and his replacement by somebody who is capable of negotiating a peace treaty with the Russians. So they are going to be bitterly disappointed. They’ve made a bet, they have allowed themselves to be humiliated, for the sake of continuing a war with American help, which will not happen.

Diesen: 12:43
Yeah, this is a comment I made all the way back in Munich when Vance gave this speech. And I was making the point that the Europeans’ efforts to show their loyalty to the United States instead of being rewarded, I think not just Trump, but at some general level across the political class, they’re getting some contempt for the Europeans for the, well, their spinelessness or the inability to stand up for their own interests.

So, and again, this is something I’ve heard from many people as well, so the assumption here is you make a deal, a humiliating deal, a bit of subordination and then somehow this would be rewarded by the United States locking in its presence in Europe. But we also had the Ukrainians making the same assumption with this minerals deal. If we just sign this deal, then Trump will be locked into the Ukraine conflict. But a counter-argument would be then that he can come home to his own people and say, “Look, I got our money back. Now we can leave.” I mean, do you see this? You said they make a mistake by trusting that he will stay there. But how do you see Trump’s commitment to Europe in the months to come, because he has been making a lot more aggressive rhetoric towards the Russians. Is this essentially what the Europeans bought themselves with this horrible trade agreement?

Doctorow: 14:17
Well, he keeps everybody guessing, including those who have bet the House on the unsuccessful relationship with Trump by the handshake agreement this past weekend in Scotland. He keeps them all guessing. Even yesterday, there was this expression of horror that was picked up by major media here in Western Europe that Trump was about to do a deal, cut a deal with Vladimir Putin, that would be vastly destructive of all the ambitions of the EU. I don’t think he’s going to cut such a deal. I don’t think that he has anything to offer the Russians that could persuade them to yield in any way on their conduct of the war, when the victory on the ground is so close to being achieved.

So that is also nonsense. But they are uncertain. The Europeans here are hoping that they have him on line and can persuade him by pointing to these terrible acts of bombing that the Russians are committing now in Kiev and elsewhere. They can persuade him using Melanie perhaps, all kinds of levers that they believe, want to believe, can get Trump to change his mind in the hope that he is not a serious man, that he does not have long-term vision, and that he can be changed from one day to the next by somebody whispering in his ear. That is all false, completely false.

Nonetheless, it persists as a widespread notion of who Mr. Trump is, here in Western Europe. And then you have the special relationship with Keir Starmer, which would seem to demonstrate the validity of such assumptions about Trump. But also, Starmer went to Scotland. Trump didn’t come down to London.

16:33
He was also a supplicant, and the relationship there with the British, they have the most-favored tariff deal out of all countries with the United States at present with a 10% tariff. And they’re gloating over that. But they still have 50% tariffs on steel, which were a very important export product to the United States. And so the British have been given the hope that they have a favored position with the United States as against Europe. But it can change at any moment.

And I think that, again, looking at politics, who stands where? Mr. Starmer, head of the Labor Party, which is to the left, shall we say, of Mr. Trump’s politics. I don’t think he enjoys real respect.

Trump has it his way. And he gets a meeting with the king, that’s fine. He likes pomp and circumstance. But I don’t think that he is genuinely influenced in making policy on these superficial acts one way or another with this or that state leader. He has his own determination to self-impose sanctions on the United States by way of tariffs for the sake of re-industrializing the United States. And I don’t think it’s a vain proposal.

Diesen: 18:00
No, but some of these threats, though, they seem to become actions. Well, I’m thinking then especially what Trump is doing with the Indians, that is putting this additional tariffs on and justifying it by their trade with the Russians. And this is why I was wondering as well, these 10 days, which he has put on, well, it was 15, now it’s 10. Obviously, this could become another 50 again.

So these deadlines doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything, but it does beg the question why he would make himself vulnerable in terms of putting these deadlines to begin with. What is the thought process here? What is it that he’s trying to achieve? And not if, when Russia predictably ignores this, what will happen on day 10?

Doctorow: 18:52
Well, let’s, there’s speculation about day 11. But let me add to the complexity of the analysis, by bringing in what Russians are talking about on their talk shows. I think it’s a different perspective from what is being said by any of my peers in the United States and Western Europe. And that is: why the 10 days, what is it all about? It’s because 50 days, inconveniently, inconveniently expires on September 3rd.

And that is much too close to the celebration of the end of the World War II in the Pacific, which will be marked by the visit of heads of state from all over the place in Beijing. Putin will be there, I think 20, 30 or more heads of state from around the world will be there. And Mr. Trump wants to be there. He wants to have his face-to-face meeting with Xi during that time.

And possibly he could also have this, use that to have a face-to-face meeting with Putin. So I think in consideration or reconsideration of how inconvenient the September 3rd closing was in light of the new aspiration to meet with Xi in Beijing, which is supported by a number of other things, namely his refusal to allow the president of Taiwan to visit New York. I think their whole visit to the States was scrubbed with the intent to avoid any embarrassing conflict with the Chinese that would interfere with his being invited to the festivities in Beijing. So with that in mind, there’s a different focus entirely on what his deadlines are about. There’s more than one consideration when he sets these deadlines.

Diesen: 20:57
When we look though at the Europeans, there is a strange development. That is, they seem to solely focus on foreign policy these days. This is as you mentioned with Starmer, this is seemingly especially the case in the UK, where he spends very little time on domestic issues. I guess you can say the same about Macron. And again, this trade deal as well seems to sacrifice a lot of domestic priorities, that is to develop an economy, deal with social issues.

All of this is being, well, reduced in priority in order to instead buy some favor with the Americans to, again, for foreign policy objectives, no matter how foolish they might be, such as continuing the war in Ukraine. But how long do you think this can go on for the Europeans? Because this kind of doubles down on the disaster of first cutting themselves off from Russian energy and then of course destroying, the destruction of Nord Stream. Did you see the political instability permitting such an agreement to be passed, or not really?

Doctorow: 22:12
Well, one thing I wanted to bring up is what we mean when we say “Europeans” and who makes European policy. I’ve been rereading my materials going back to 2015 in preparation for the volume three of my memoirs.

And I was very focused on Germany in 2015, spoke about it at several conferences, and wrote about it in what I consider to be a very important policy analysis that was published in comparative politics of Megimo, the Russian university that prepares diplomats. What I was saying then is the European policy is made in [Berlin], And this is a well-kept secret. In 2015, just as in 2025, all the top posts in the European institutions are German designated. They were appointed by Germans. And they have appointed in this present case, von der Leyen has appointed people like Kallas, people from Lithuania, people from Poland who are under her thumb.

23:33
They are representing small countries, insignificant weight compared to the 450 million population of the EU. They are often people with– intellectual lightweights like Kallas who can be dominated by a strong and willful personality like von der Leyen. And that is to say, the commissioner, the head of the president of the commission, the head of the parliament, the president of the parliament, yes she’s Italian, but she’s appointed by the majority which is dominated by the European People’s Party which is dominated by the Christian Democrats. It all goes, but the strings all go back to Berlin, just as they did in 2015 when Junker was there. Yes of course, he was a Luxembourger, but he was a weak man who was … nominated and supported by Merkel, because she knew she could controll him, because there were scandals around, just as Tusk at that time.

24:37
He was made the president of the European Council. Tusk, who could hardly speak English, but spoke very good German by the way, was– she appointed him. And nobody bothered to think about what the German connection was there. He was under her thumb. So that was how it was in 2015. That’s how it is today.

And just as– the only thing that’s changed is that Europe, is that Germans today have come out behind, from behind the apron strings of EU institutions and are saying openly that they want to become, for example, the main military force in Europe. So the, who is Europe? Europe is Germany. Mr. Merz is the decisive voice on whether the tariffs agreed by von der Leyen will go through. And many other policy decisions. Your question about why foreign policy? That’s what you do when you’re losing and you can’t control domestic policy. You’re speaking about very unpopular leaders.

25:45
Keir Starmer has lost control of the Labour Party on domestic issues. He had a very severe setback when his reforms on support of the needy, of the wealth, of the benefits reforms were rejected by his own party and watered down to almost nil where they hoped to save a lot of money in the budget. Starmer on domestic issues is very weak. Therefore he can only hope to shine on international issues where nobody can say much.

The same is true of Macron. His domestic standing is negligible. He has very little popular support. And so he goes trotting around the globe, speaking like Mr. France and getting the press to listen to him. This is normal politics of the losing side.

Diesen: 26:46
What does it say about the future of the European Union though? Because not only was this a terrible agreement being made, but as you suggested before, the optics wasn’t great either. That is, von der Leyen coming to Trump’s golf course in Scotland. And well, the general benefit, I guess, or attractiveness of the European Union to begin with has always been this collective bargaining power, that they can negotiate from a position of strength. With obviously the US being the most important partner; that you can have some equality between Europe and the US as opposed to having 27 member states stand on their own.

But if we look back in the ’90s, early 2000s, this was the main selling point of the European Union as well. That is, it could set this asymmetrical interdependence with its neighborhood in the wider world. That is, when the EU sat down to negotiate trade with another state, Moldova or anyone, then the EU could dictate all the terms and not only having a favorable economic agreement, but they can also translate this into political power. So they set political conditions for trade, which became a form of external governance, which is why many people in academia refer to the EU as a regulatory power or regulatory superpower. If you want to trade with us, you have to follow our rules.

28:12
And this imperial model is maybe a bit over the top, but nonetheless, what will happen to the EU now? Because there is no equality with the US. The EU has … kissed the ring of Trump and subordinated itself and also with the rest of the world as the economic power of the EU continues to decline, as its leaders look more and more incompetent and corrupt and unable to reach proper agreements, this whole geopolitical EU, It seems to become more of a burden. If you’re Germany, you want to have good trade deal with the Chinese, you don’t bring the EU along because they will come with their geopolitical objective, which means to insult the Chinese instead. So, well, what does this say about the future of the European Union? Is this club, you know, is this a death sentence or is it, you know, expiring? How are you reading it? It’s not a good sign at least, I would say.

Doctorow: 29:17
To relax, I often turn on YouTube and just see what they’re proposing to look at. And mixed in with the geopolitical videos, they have a lot of animal videos, particularly dogs.

I think about one of these little videos which has a German shepherd and a golden retriever. They’re in the middle of a maze, And the golden retriever is saying, “We’re doomed.” Europe is doomed. The present configuration is doomed. This cannot continue.

They are driving down the welfare of people directly in measurable ways. As I’ve written recently, the rejuggling of the Belgian budget, which the new Flemish-dominated federal government has put into place, takes away benefits from what has been outstanding medical services, severe cuts. This is typical. The cuts are being made to make room for the burgeoning re-armament program, which is all a result of a dead wrong foreign policy. I’m just wondering when this will come out and we will have demonstrations similar to what we saw in Kiev a week ago.

31:03
This cannot go on forever. It defies gravity that the national leaderships in Belgium and in 25 out of 27 other member states of the European Union are working directly against the interests of the people who voted them into office. That is becoming more and more apparent as the budgets are revised to take away benefits for the sake of raising arms manufacturing, for the purpose of fighting a war which is unnecessary, which is driven by the same personal ambition as Mr. Netanyahu and his war in Gaza. That is called out by the Western press now openly.

This is not just a supposition of people like you and me. It is accepted as mainstream that Netanyahu is fighting a war to keep himself from going to court and prison. I say the same thing about all of the European leaders. They are pushing re-armament to avoid being put out in the street where they belong, because the budgets that they are submitting to the member states are anti-popular, they are against the people. It cannot go on, and so I agree with that … golden retriever: we’re doomed.

Diesen: 32:34
If, well, if you’re going to look at how this will affect Europe, then obviously, given that the main purpose of this trade agreement was to tie the Americans in and commit them to Project Ukraine. But also a lot of, as you said, a lot of the political elites there, they see their hold on to power that is in Brussels, dependent on the continuation of the Ukraine war again.

Continuation of Ukraine war is necessary to keep America in Europe, it’s necessary to keep these political elites in power. But beyond that, we also see that not just the European Union, but the European member states bet a lot of political legitimacy on defeating Russia. And not just the political legitimacy, the entire economy has been thrown into this and sacrificed. So what happens when the Ukraine war is eventually lost? And well, it depends what a defeat looks like, but what the Europeans were promising, they’re destroying Russia and having the Ukraine join NATO, all of this obviously is not going to happen.

33:59
And I think that’s an important question now, that Zelensky looks as if he is somewhat in a weaker position. He’s no longer the reincarnation of Churchill, apparently. And suddenly the Europeans, you know, a few weeks ago, it was Russian propaganda to say that he was an authoritarian. Now, suddenly, it’s permitted. So what do you see happening with Zelensky and Ukraine? How does this affect Europe once we eventually lose this war?

Doctorow: 34:35
It’s permitted not just to YouTube channels, it’s permitted to the “Financial Times”. They use that word in a headline of an article dealing with the new law stripping the anti-corruption agencies of their independence. He is damaged goods now. And he’s damaged goods in the Anglo-Saxon press in particular, on both sides of the Atlantic. Now, the question that I’ve had is: who was behind the enabling of the demonstrations that took place, the mass demonstrations that took place in Kiev and in other major cities in Ukraine over the course of several days, in the past week, against the law, which ultimately ended in the revocation of the new law and restoration of what is said to be the independence of these agencies.

35:36
The speculation, and again, I will share with your audience what the Russians are saying about this. They’re saying that we can expect in the immediate future, very scandalous trials. Already yesterday’s indication [was] that the newly installed prime minister was about to be charged with corrupt practices for having used together with Yermak, the head of the presidential administration, Ukrainian airplanes which are only to be used for state purposes. She as the prime minister has the right to use it. Yermak didn’t.

It was pretty obvious that she was doing the man who was behind her, who protects her, Mr. Yermak, she was doing this trip with him for his benefit, not for her own. So that’s the first shoe to fall. There are going to be some very big accusations made in the next few weeks against people in the close entourage of Zelensky and probably of Zelensky himself.

36:53
We are now in the last stages of Zelensky’s time in office. The question is who is pushing this most? Is it Britain with the MI6 who helped arrange that the Ukrainian police and military would not attack the demonstrators? Or was it the CIA?

There are two. These are now, you could say in the past they were one and the same, but not any more, because the United States and Britain have parted ways on the Ukraine war. For the Brits to have done this, it would be to replace Zelensky probably with Zaluzhny. Let’s remember for the last year and a half Zaluzhny, who was the head of the armed forces of Ukraine for several years and who was viewed by Americans in particular as being a good candidate to replace Zelensky, was moved out of Kiev and sent off into exile to London precisely so that to avoid that eventuality, that he would be on the inside, being able to muster support if the West nodded to him as the one to succeed Zelensky.

38:16
Well, he’s been biding his time in London. He’s been learning English, because he hardly could say two words when he arrived there. And he got there because he had said at the time what was true, how badly the Ukrainians were losing the war. And that was unacceptable to Zelensky. Now, that is one possibility. Another candidate, one that I call out on the American side is a very different story by saying Zaluzhny would be put in if the intent was to continue the war and to have somebody who has more credibility with American and West European suppliers of arms to Ukraine, because he is a genuine military person, and his orders would not be for PR stunts like Zelensky’s were, but having some genuine military foundation. Now, the other I’m saying is the Americans probably have a different game.

If they were behind this, then it is probably to install somebody like Umerov, who is now the leader of negotiations in Istanbul. Umerov is a civilian. Umerov is a Crimean Tatar, a Muslim by the way, probably speaks some Arabic, some Turkish, it would be logical. He has been a leading personality in Ukrainian meetings with the Gulf States.

39:45
More importantly for the United States, he’s their boy. When he was in secondary school, he spent a year in the United States living with an American family. When he went back, finished his higher education, became a successful businessman in high tech area, made a lot of money, he established fellowships for Ukrainians at Stanford University. Why Stanford University? Why United States? So he has an American connection, which is always looked upon. He doesn’t have an American wife, but you can’t get everything.

40:21
So he would suit the Americans very nicely as a stand-in and it is reasonable to assume that he could and would negotiate a peace treaty with the Russians, not on the ridiculous basis of Russian capitulation, but something close to Russian demands.

Diesen: 40:41
Yeah, this is interesting though. Of course, who Zelensky is replaced with will be a good indication of what’s intended for Ukraine to go. That is, is it continuing the war or not?

But yeah, I remember back in the days when it looked as if Zelensky was on very shaky grounds and I thought that he might be going away and then instead of course he shipped Zaluzhny to London which is an interesting thing. So I guess Zelensky would, well people like Aristović have said he will probably leave. I mean, I would also expect him to go to Miami or the south of France, but there will be a lot of pressure in the future to have him return to Ukraine. He made himself a lot of enemies and it wouldn’t be very difficult to put in a criminal case against him. However, how do you see, as I guess my last question, how do you see the war progressing from here though?

Is peace agreement now completely off the table or will it depend on who comes after Zelensky? Because it seems as if it would be possible to get an agreement on Ukraine’s neutrality that is going back to Istanbul. The problem is the plus, Istanbul plus the territorial concessions, especially humiliating would be to have a recognition of territories which aren’t even seized by Russia yet, that is of the four regions. But as Russia progresses on the territory, that humiliation wouldn’t it be reduced. That is the Russians are controlling more and more territory.

In other words, the gap between what they demand and what they already have is reduced. Do you see any possibility of anyone in Ukraine accepting these terms? Because you said they’re quite draconian. It’s, you know, I’ll be the first to say that Russians have some very high demands upon Ukraine.

Doctorow: 42:59
They are especially high demands when you’re demanding a concessionary territory that you haven’t even won on the battlefield. I think that problem will be solved before September. I think it’s entirely to be envisaged that Russia will sweep to the Dnieper. Chasov Yar was fought over for more than six weeks, seven weeks. This is a logistics center that was highly contested, very well armed, protected, fortified, and Russians finally overran it in the last few days. The next big center is in Pakrovsk, which the Russians call Krasnoyarsk, that is now facing Russian troops on the outskirts of the city. This has been going on for months, of course, this progress.

43:58
The Russians draw it out because they have wanted to avoid close-contact fighting, which can be very expensive in human life for both sides. They’ve mostly been conducting their war on Pakrovsk with aerial bombing, artillery bombing, and so forth, which costs them very little in lost soldiers and officers, but it’s quite devastating to the Ukrainian side. Once they take Pakrovsk, it’s a clean sweep across to the Dniepr. And so I think that if they take Pakrovsk in the next few weeks, they will take the whole of Donetsk and possibly Zaporizhzhye by September. And then the Russians can be generous in the terms of a settlement, because they will not have to haggle over taking territory that they didn’t win on the ground.

45:04
So that would be a good time to look for a settlement. Again, coming close to Mr. Trump’s original deadline of first days of September, in anticipation of the general meeting of world powers in Beijing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific. I think these things come together. And so I would look for a change of leadership in Kiev within that timeframe, engineered either by the United States or by the Brits, depending on – now that will depend whether a peace treaty can be negotiated. But on the ground, the Russians will have gotten what they want.

Diesen: 45:53
Yeah, it looks, yeah, I think people– often you look at the defensive lines, obviously it’s not much west of Pakrovsk, but as you pointed out in this war especially, the logistics is really important and these logistics centers of Chasuviar, Kopiansk is what we can put in this. And Pakrovsk I think will be very important to crack the final stretch towards the Dnieper. So–

Well, thank you as always. It’s always a great pleasure to get your insights on this. So thanks again. And for people who want to follow you, you have your Substack. And of course, I’ll leave a link to your book, anywhere else people should look for you?

Doctorow:
No, no, that sums it up. If they look at the substack, just look at the last few issues because I’m particularly proud of, as I say, of 2015, which was quite a remarkable year for understanding who is who in Europe.

Diesen: 47:03
Oh, thanks again.

Doctorow:
All right.

This 47 minute discussion with Professor Diesen was concentrated on the two interrelated issues in the headline.

Europe is doomed because 25 of the 27 heads of government of the European Member States presently have no interest in the prosperity and wellbeing of their citizens and are interested only in holding on to power, for which purpose maintaining support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and rearming Europe in preparation for a NATO-Russia war in 2029 are their top priority. Europe’s capitulation to Trump over tariffs may be explained by the hope it would keep Trump on side over further aid to Ukraine.  This, of course, is utterly delusional, since Trump has clearly shown he wants the USA to exit that war as soon as possible without any regard for Europe’s wishes.

Regime change in Kiev is coming soon. Thanks to the scandal over a new law that stripped the anti-corruption agencies in Ukraine of their independence, Zelensky lost credibility both in the USA and in Europe. Major media now speak of him as authoritarian, meaning anti-democratic. The wave of protests in Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities was unprecedented in the three years of war and suggests to me the active intervention of one or another Western power to bring down Zelensky and achieve regime change.  The question of the day: was it the Brits, who surely would like to install as president General Zaluzhny, former commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, who has been serving as Ukrainian ambassador to the UK these past 18 months.  Zaluzhny as president would mean continuation of the war under the direction of someone who actually understands military strategy as opposed to the PR driven direction of the armed forces from Zelensky.  For their part, the Americans surely would favor as successor Zelensky Umerov, the current head of the Ukrainian negotiating team in talks with the Russians in Istanbul.  Umerov is a civilian who made a fortune in high tech commerce and who has a clear connection to the USA going back to his secondary school year spent in America.  Umerov, we may assume, could negotiate a peace with the Russians if he were his own man, not a subordinate to Zelensky as he is presently.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Interview with Professor Glenn Diesen:  Europe is doomed, Regime change in Kiev

This 47 minute discussion with Professor Diesen was concentrated on the two interrelated issues in the headline.

Europe is doomed because 25 of the 27 heads of government of the European Member States presently have no interest in the prosperity and wellbeing of their citizens and are interested only in holding on to power, for which purpose maintaining support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and rearming Europe in preparation for a NATO-Russia war in 2029 are their top priority. Europe’s capitulation to Trump over tariffs may be explained by the hope it would keep Trump on side over further aid to Ukraine.  This, of course, is utterly delusional, since Trump has clearly shown he wants the USA to exit that war as soon as possible without any regard for Europe’s wishes.

Regime change in Kiev is coming soon. Thanks to the scandal over a new law that stripped the anti-corruption agencies in Ukraine of their independence, Zelensky lost credibility both in the USA and in Europe. Major media now speak of him as authoritarian, meaning anti-democratic. The wave of protests in Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities was unprecedented in the three years of war and suggests to me the active intervention of one or another Western power to bring down Zelensky and achieve regime change.  The question of the day: was it the Brits, who surely would like to install as president General Zaluzhny, former commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, who has been serving as Ukrainian ambassador to the UK these past 18 months.  Zaluzhny as president would mean continuation of the war under the direction of someone who actually understands military strategy as opposed to the PR driven direction of the armed forces from Zelensky.  For their part, the Americans surely would favor as successor Zelensky Umerov, the current head of the Ukrainian negotiating team in talks with the Russians in Istanbul.  Umerov is a civilian who made a fortune in high tech commerce and who has a clear connection to the USA going back to his secondary school year spent in America.  Umerov, we may assume, could negotiate a peace with the Russians if he were his own man, not a subordinate to Zelensky as he is presently.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Transcript submitted by a reader

RT: 0:00
And let’s now cross live to Gilbert Doctorow, a former visiting scholar at Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Welcome to the program, sir. On Tuesday, Zelensky and the Ukrainian parliament put an end to any independence the anti-corruption watchdog had, and today they’re restoring it by introducing a new bill in the Rada. Why such a quick turnaround, do you think?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, because of the massive demonstrations. I would like to complement the report that you’ve given very ably on what Mr. Zelensky did, what he has just undone, how he received pressure. That’s all fine. But let’s go to the question of these massive demonstrations. The “New York Times” said in their first report on the demonstrations, this goes back to Wednesday, “Well, this is the first mass demonstration in Ukraine in three years of war.”

Yes, very interesting. And why is it that there were demonstrations now? Nobody’s asked that question. Let’s deal with that. Does that mean that everybody was very happy in Ukraine with the government? Of course it doesn’t. It means that you’d get your skull fractured if you dared to step out and think of a demonstration. Going back to October 2014 and the elections of the [Rada] at that time, when the first elections that took place after the new regime was put in place by a coup d’etat, those elections were witnessed by foreign observers who reported extensively on the violence that was used against the opponents of the regime. That hasn’t changed. Now, what has changed is that nobody confronted the 10,000 or more demonstrators that came out on the streets of Kiev, not to mention thousands more in all the other major cities of Ukraine.

2:01
Why did that happen? Let’s try to think. I would suggest we should think that someone, probably in the West, wants to change the regime. And that is the investigation path that I urge upon listeners to this, I would suggest that the usual actors like MI6 are behind it. Why did the Ukrainian army not fire into the crowd? They got orders not to. And I don’t believe that Mr. Zelensky gave those orders. So we are about to witness regime change in Ukraine. And the major media in the West are preparing, at least in the States, the American public for regime change and for the removal of Zelensky.

RT: 2:49
And if we look at the reaction of the public, Ukrainians have not reacted in such a strong way to other controversial events, like when the country’s national resources were sold to the United States, for example. Why has this caused so much controversy now?

Doctorow:
Because now you weren’t going to get your head bashed in, that’s why. You weren’t going to get shot. This is the cardinal change that has to be brought out, what happened in this week. It is the first step of two or three steps to remove Zelensky and the whole gang of neo-Nazis who have the Ukrainian nation by the neck. It is not thinkable that the whole public was satisfied with the Zelensky regime and therefore didn’t demonstrate. No. They just used common sense, which was: you don’t want to risk your life. Now, it was clear the government had, the army had been given orders not to fire.

3:49
Moreover, the instruction that we understood again from major Western media is that the army was told not to come out in the streets in their uniforms to demonstrate against the law. My goodness, what a change. This is the first stage in the removal of the Zelensky government.

RT:
What about his image, Zelensky’s actions concerning NABU and the restoration of its autonomy? Do you think that will save the image or will it damage even more?

Doctorow:
Among whom? Among Ukrainians, I don’t think there is a particular love for Mr. Zelensky. The country is patriotic. Ukrainians share the same religious and political conservatism, shall we say, of Russians. They are going to fight to the end, but they’re not stupid. And if they did not demonstrate in any way against Mr. Zelensky, it was not for love of him and his peers and his colleagues. It was because they were afraid for their lives. That somehow miraculously has changed in the past week, and it deserves proper attention.

5:07
I have said for some time this war will not end by a military capitulation. The idea that next week the Ukrainian army will raise a white flag is totally unrealistic, even though nearly all of my peers are suggesting that will happen. No, no, the Ukrainian government will collapse of its own weight and of its own unpopularity. And with some help from those Western sponsors who want to see it collapse.

RT:
And meanwhile, Zelensky keeps asking for money from the Western backers, let’s call them that, Western friends. And now he wants the EU to pay Ukrainian soldiers their salaries. Do you think Europe will agree? And where is it going to find the funds?

Doctorow: 5:54
Well, I don’t think they’ll say no, but they just won’t do it. There aren’t funds available. And I don’t think there’s a great eagerness to provide them even if they were available. The standing of the Ukrainian government is very low. The notion that the Ukrainian army can defend its territory and that it, not to mention that it will gain back territory and defeat Russia, that is only maintained by complete fools. The Western mainstream media no longer holds that to be true.

And that is the point. They are preparing, at least in the United States, where there’s far more political freedom for the press than there is in Europe, the press in the States is giving strong signs. Less than two weeks ago there was a feature article in the “New York Times” on the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces during their occupation of Kursk Oblast. This is unbelievable.

6:57
From the start of the war, Western media portrayed Ukraine as bunny rabbits, which were being assaulted, attacked by the big bad wolf. Well, you know who that is. That’s Russia. Now we find the “New York Times”, by reporters on the ground, were explaining in detail the war crimes that these bunny rabbits were committing on Russian soil. That is a sea change.

RT 7:26
Well, the vibe definitely is changing, if we may call it that. Also this Friday, Russia reported destroying four Patriot systems. At the UN, the Russian representative said the more weapons the West delivers to Ukraine, the more will be
destroyed. What are your thoughts on that?

Doctorow:
Well, I think it’s an absolute statement of fact. Among my peers, almost everyone is in agreement that any new weapons shipped to Ukraine will be destroyed very quickly, and in any case cannot help the Ukrainian cause. The list of weaponry, the Bradleys, the armored personnel carriers, the tanks — all of that which was in Biden’s list is useless in Ukraine today, because the war has changed. The most dynamic part of the war is drone warfare. And heavy mechanized equipment, like what was in the Biden list, hides in forests today, because it would be blasted to pieces if it comes out in the open field.

8:32
So the war has changed. The Biden list of equipment to be shipped to the Ukraine is utterly useless. And the Patriots, of which there’s been so much reporting — as you say, they’ve been destroyed by the Russians. They are vulnerable to Russia’s most advanced missiles and they will not save the Ukrainian army.

RT:
Gilbert Doctorow, former visiting scholar at Harriman Institute, Columbia University, thank you so much for this analysis.

Doctorow: 9:10
My pleasure.