Transcript submitted by a reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript submitted by a reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript submitted by a reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Those days are past for you.

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

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

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

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

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

Doctorow:
Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Really?

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
[To avoid.}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Oh, it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Right.

Doctorow:
There you have it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctorow:
Yes. Yes.

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

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

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

Transcript submitted bya reader

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

Napolitano: 0:33
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for
“Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow joins us now.

Gilbert, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. Is President Putin, in your view, under any pressure from whatever source, elites, military, intelligence, ordinary folk, to accelerate the execution or prosecution, I should say, of the war and bring it to a quick end?

Doctoorow: 1:11
I think he’s under considerable pressure, not from his immediate colleagues, because they form a unit, but from the broader elites in Moscow for certain. As to the general public, they are concerned, their lives are being disrupted by the war, As I have seen since my arrival here a day and a half ago. Considering what has changed since my last visit in May, it is clear that the war is impacting on ordinary Russians.

Napolitano: 1:44
All right. I need you to explain that, because I was in Moscow for a week in March, and I was in Moscow last week, and I didn’t notice any difference. I didn’t see any gas lines. The gasoline costs less in Moscow than it does in Manhattan when you do the conversion from rubles to dollars and from liters to gallons. I think I did it accurately. But please tell me how you believe or how you have ascertained what you’ve observed as to how the special military operation is negatively impacting the Russian population.

Napolitano:
Well, I was there last in May, so it’s like five months ago. And what I’ve seen since my arrival is at considerable variance with my own last visit. That you wouldn’t have seen something untoward in Moscow is a result of what Moscow is and represents and who runs it. Mr. Sobyanin has the best air defenses in the country. He is the best city manager or general manager in the whole country. Therefore, the problems which I see around me now in St. Petersburg are of a different nature than what you could have or would have seen in Moscow, because of Moscow’s special place and special quality of management.

St. Petersburg does not have quality management. Mr. Baywoff, who has been in here for 6 years, was a corrupt and incompetent person. And it is again, is a black mark on the president that he has tolerated this known corrupt person to hold the position of mayor or governor in this second most important city in the country. But what I want to get to is not a criticism of the local administration, but a statement of the facts.

My flight in here was late. I came on Turkish Airlines from Istanbul. It set out late without any explanation but clearly because of the plane that we were on which was very modern, very new, but none of the worn look that I’d had on other Turkish airline planes. It wasn’t a technical problem. It was a problem on the ground here in St. Petersburg that I discovered after we landed.

Napolitano:
So you were flying Istanbul to St. Petersburg.

Doctorow:
Correct. And it wasn’t just our plane that was delayed. I assume that all air traffic was delayed somewhat because of a drone attack.

And then– that was my supposition. And I wrote an essay yesterday based on supposition that this, not just the plane was late, that isn’t much to rely on, but what I found when I landed that our taxi driver had a hard time getting out of the airport because parts of the airport administration controlling access to the airport was no longer working. His GPS wasn’t working. He couldn’t find his way to my town, which is a 15-minute drive away, because he doesn’t know the area and his GPS, or his navigator, as they call it in Russian, was not working consistently.

Now, it wasn’t just his. The Russians have systematically for big occasions like Victory in Europe Day, this May 9th, they have shut down GPS, or they have given false information on GPS, to direct any incoming drones or other projectiles in the wrong place. That means the taxi drivers heeding an online directive to come to you, to come to a place five kilometers from where you are. And nobody knows why you don’t meet. Well that’s one thing, GPS was not working.

5:37
The other thing is that the mobile internet wasn’t working. Now that doesn’t sound like much to people who don’t know what that means. Having no mobile internet means you have no ATMs working, You have no way for retail outlets to take credit cards.

Napolitano:
All right, so periodically the government shuts down the internet in order to frustrate the Ukrainians’ use of drones.

Doctorow:
Yes, that was periodic and very rare. Now it’s not rare, now it’s happening every few days here. And that tells you that explains why I say that the home front has become the war zone, which was not the case in May. And it’s not just Petersburg that’s hit that way, but many other towns when you hear occasionally, oh, this airport or that airport has been closed in Russia, you can be sure the same thing is happening there. And this is not a small deal. If all retail outlets can no longer accept payments because the system is down, that’s a lot of lostv–

Napolitano: 6:39
How long was it down for? I mean, did the cab driver eventually achieve GPS coverage that he could take you to your destination?

Doctorow:
Let’s remember, this was at two o’clock in the morning, so the urgent closing had already passed, and he did get his GPS and he did get us to our to our destination. It’s the whole day, You know, this whole day here in Petersburg, nothing’s working. And that’s not just as simple as it sounds. I was supposed to register with the authorities as a foreigner. That’s a legal requirement which people staying in private homes have to do.

And I was down at the municipal offices, and I couldn’t do anything because their system was shut down. So that is the government systems in Petersburg were shut down because the unreliability of Internet service.

Napolitano:
I guess … I was being for lack of a better word pampered because I was in Moscow.

Doctorow: 7:43
Well, Moscow and more generally the events that you were going to were among the most prestigious in this country and the authorities would take every possible precaution so that you and the other hundreds if not several thousand foreigners who [glitch] the level of disturbances to normal life that are now going on in Russia because of the drone attacks.

Napolitano: 8:16
What about inflation? Have you detected that since you were last in St. Petersburg?

Doctorow:
No, paradoxically, not at all. However, at the low end– so I did a little survey yesterday already of the supermarkets of different categories, economy, middle class and upper middle class. And at the lower end, and we have a lower end here in this rather prosperous community where I live, because there are residential units, there are apartments, for military officers. There is a cadet corps here, there always was going back to Tsarist times. And so you have foreign military trainees, Russian military trainees in this area, They are generally speaking economy class customers.

And the selection, the offering there in the supermarkets, a part of the chain that serves them, has been curtailed considerably since my last visit. Fresh greens, fresh dairy products, less, the variety is curtailed.

Napolitano:
So how are you able to attribute the paucity of certain products in a grocery store to the prosecution of the war?

Doctorow: 9:34
I think it relates to the wallets of their basic clientele. I was about to say that in the upper middle class supermarkets, there has been no curtailment of the product assortment, and they’re getting everything, and I don’t see any price inflation. In fact, to my surprise, I saw a price deflation. I was at the fish counter in this up-market, supermarket chain, and the prices of fish that you know well from the States, like dorad, I think it’s sea bream, I just forget the translation, that it was 35% cheaper than my visit in May.

A local specialty fish which people love for the good reason, it’s salmon trout. These are three-pound, four-pound fish that are farmed in Lake Lodega, the biggest natural freshwater lake in Europe. It’s just near Petersburg. They were going for 10, 11, 12 euros a kilogram, when they were 15 and 16 in May. So some prices have come down surprisingly, but that is the wealthiest who would benefit from that.

So the real issue for the broader public is the security and the pricing of hydrocarbons, the fuel for the car. And I haven’t gone to stations– I haven’t seen any lines at stations, but I did listen to Business FM, which is a business radio station based in Moscow with a subsidiary here in Petersburg, who yesterday were reporting on a spike in prices for fuel on the commodities exchange in Moscow. And they had the Deputy Prime Minister Novak, who was formerly the energy czar in Russia for 10 years, reporting that, oh, we don’t have any imports of fuel right now. Well, that isn’t comfort to people. Russia is supposed to be an exporter of refined hydrocarbons, not just–

Napolitano: 11:36
Have you discerned a grumbling, a mumbling, a disenchantment, a center of frustration, or have you discerned a collective will to sacrifice a la World War II, or have you discerned neither of these in your communications with ordinary folks? Now, we’re not talking about the elites.

Doctorow: 11:58
No, I’m dealing with ordinary folks. When I speak about taxi drivers as my source of information, you can’t get more ordinary than that.

Napolitano:
Correct, correct. But are they disenchanted? Are they grumbling? Are they angry at Putin? Do they wish the war to end quickly? Do they express that to you?Does this happen all the time, or did it just happen at two in the morning when you landed in St. Petersburg?

Doctorow:
Well, the whole day today it’s been going on. I ordered a taxi this morning from Yandex, which is the main taxi provider across the whole country, very sophisticated technically, and the taxi went to the wrong address. They said, your taxi’s waiting for you, but that wasn’t waiting in front of my house.

So it wasn’t working. As to what people are saying, out of the list of possibilities that you gave me, I choose one. And that is people are experiencing difficulty, and they want the war to end quickly. But I didn’t sense that as being criticism of Putin as such or grumbling as such. But it is a feeling that the war should end soon.

And that is the people. The people are not the ones who Mr. Putin listens to or has to listen to. He has to listen to the elites. And the elites, I think, are more direct in their analysis of the connection between these daily inconveniences and the way the war is being conducted.

Napolitano: 13:25
Let’s talk about the way the war is being conducted. My initial question to you, and you’ve given a very thorough and expansive answer, was: is there any pressure on President Putin to change his military strategy? Now, the West is reporting, and I think you agree with this reporting, but of course, correct me if I’m wrong, that in their 90-minute telephone conversation, which occurred while I was in a Russian television studio last week, President Putin told President Trump, Zelensky better get realistic or Ukraine will be destroyed.

Now the use of that word “destroyed”, I don’t know what it is in Russian and I don’t know if there’s more than one variant of it, but translated into English, it’s a very harsh and meaningful word. Is that your understanding as well? That President Putin said to President Trump, tell Zelensky to put up, get realistic, or Ukraine, quote, “will be destroyed”, close quote, translated from the Russian to the English.

Doctorow: 14:35
I think that is all accurate. And it’s not just my pulling this out of the thin air. As I’ve mentioned, since you know that one of my points, and I want to be sure that people understand, it’s not my only point of information about Russia, and the little taxi drivers also count, as well as many other sources. And looking, doing supermarket tours as a method of understanding the general economy that the US Embassy and intelligence officers in Moscow knew very well in 1970s and 1980s.

So there’s a whole combination of points to the methodology. But listening to television, one week ago, Vladimir Solovyov, who is not just a call show host, like people would imagine running “Meet the Press” in the States, but a person who is in the inner circle of the top management of all Russian news, together with Kiselyev, who is the boss of bosses, and together with Putin himself, whom he has interviewed and so forth. He is at the top and he’s very close to power. And he was saying on Russian television precisely that.

“Let’s face it, we are in a war, and this should be not in a special military operation any more. And we should, since the Ukrainians are interested in doing everything possible to harm us, we should not hold back. We should flatten the center of Kiev. We should give a warning to the population of Kiev.”

Napolitano:
Let me stop you. Who are you quoting or paraphrasing here?

Doctoorow: 16:17
Vladimir Solovyov. And the words that he used are precisely the words that you just gave me coming from Trump. So what Solovyov was saying on air was exactly what Putin was saying on a private conversation to Donald Trump. “We will destroy Ukraine.”

Napolitano:
Wow. Why is Putin saying that now? Is he feeling pressure, running out of patience, running out of manpower, running out of ammunition?

Doctorow:
No, I think he’s feeling pressure. And as I said, the pressure would be coming from the broader elites in Moscow. I don’t think this is, people will say, “Oh, it’s the oligarchs who are doing it.” I don’t believe that at all. But I do think that the thinking population of Russia is highly concentrated in the city of Moscow, which is the country’s largest city. And that’s outside the narrow circle of Mr. Putin, who are dealing in a collegial way with him, there are a lot of people who are not in a collegial way with him and who have had enough of this war and want to see it over.

17:32
So if we assume, as you do, that Vladimir Solovyev, a highly regarded, serious television personality in Russia, speaks for the Kremlin and says things like,
“the population”, I’m quoting you now, “of Kiev should be warned to evacuate the city ahead of Russia’s bombing them flat.” He’s not making that up. He’s not expressing a political opinion. He’s saying what he honestly believes the Kremlin wants him to say or the Kremlin is saying to him.

18:13
The Kremlin wouldn’t allow him to say that if it didn’t back it. It is much too political a statement for this man to be standing up on television and saying because he just dreamed it up himself. No, he is doing the work of his boss, Mr. Putin.

Napolitano:
Will the special military operation, I don’t know if I’m going to use the proper word, be transformed into a war, which of course would mobilize and affect everybody in Russia in some respect, but without getting into that, at least for now, do you expect this transformation to occur?

Doctorow: 18:54
I expected this transformation to occur if– and the whole threat was made in the context of the planned transfer of Tomahawks to Kiev. We don’t know the status of that now.

We don’t know the status. It seemed to be in abeyance. It seemed that there will be a meeting in Budapest between Trump and Putin, which would agree the terms for ending the war between them, which would then be imposed on Mr. Zelensky, who could or could not be sitting in the next room. That meeting is now, according to “Financial Times” and some American news sources canceled.

According to the Russians, they’re still playing, that is Russians I mean, state television, they’re still pretending it will take place. Mr. Sotnikov was not pretending.

Napolitano:
Here’s our friend, Foreign Minister Lavrov, on this very topic yesterday. Chris, cut number 14.

Lavrov: (English voice over)
For quite some time Zelensky aspired to do that. Macron, Starmer or Ursula von der Leyen had been doing that. From some point in time when they stopped mentioning a strategic defeat upon Russia, they started calling for an immediate ceasefire. Back in the day, Macron said that this ceasefire should be unconditional without any preconditions. And among other things, he publicly stated that nobody would be able to restrict the weapons supplies to the Kiev regime.

20:37
That means that when it all became clear, it became clear why they needed this truce. But most importantly, this would mean not only an opportunity to pump the Kiev regime full of weaponry, to incentivize its terrorist attacks, namely attacks against civil infrastructure and civilians in the Russian territory.

Napolitano:
Before you respond, here’s another one from Foreign Minister Lavrov yesterday, 14, Chris.

Lavrov:
I was surprised to read today that, according to CNN, the Putin-Trump meeting might be postponed. The dishonesty of many Western media outlets is well known, And CNN is no exception. I want to officially confirm that Russia has not changed its positions compared to the understandings reached during the lengthy negotiations between Putin and Trump in Alaska. We remain fully committed to this formula.

Those who are now trying to convince our American colleagues to change their position simply want to stop the war without addressing its causes. That would mean leaving a Nazi-like regime in control of part of Ukraine, a place where the Russian language is banned and the majority population is oppressed. We remain committed to what presidents Putin and Trump agreed upon in Anchorage, a long-term sustainable peace, not a ceasefire that leads nowhere.

Napolitano: 22:14
We understand that they want to address the root causes. They’ve been consistent on that since day one, for two and a half years now. But do the Russians believe that the Budapest conference is on or off?

Doctorow:
Well, that depends which Russians you’re talking to.

Napolitano:
All right, the guy that we just heard is pretty high up there, the foreign minister.

Doctorow:
Mr. Solovyov is not at that level, but he is not to be ignored. And he went one step further, what Mr. Lavrov didn’t touch upon, which I think you in particular will appreciate and savor, Solovyoo named Marco Rubio as the traitor in the Trump camp who has scuttled the planned summit.

Napolitano:
Wow. All right, I wish we could carry on, but I have another commitment in a couple of minutes. Gilbert, this is a fascinating conversation with you as all of our conversations have been. I’m deeply grateful for them. I’m especially grateful when you’re able to come on air while you’re traveling. Thank you very much. We’ll look forward to seeing you next week, my friend.

Doctorow:
Well, my pleasure.

Napolitano:
Thank you, all the best to you. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. And of course our other guests will be happy to comment on it as the day and this week proceed. The day will proceed with Aaron Maté at 11 o’clock, Phil Giraldi at 3 o’clock, and Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 5.30 this evening.

23:51
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://youtu.be/GNQZk8toMwE?si=ZrszoNr84clVgPbx

Doctorow: 0:00
The Russians will flatten anything above two bricks tall. They haven’t done that because it’s not a war. We are, frankly, at a dire moment, possibly about to see an escalation that could lead us very quickly to World War III. Mr. Trump, his attempt to bully Russia has not yet yielded results.

You stand up to a bully by hitting him first and not waiting for him to attack. All that can happen from applying further pressure to the Russians is that they will declare war on Ukraine and they may do that in a week or two.

Samer Hakim:
Hello and welcome to Iran Talks. My name is Samer Hakim, your host for the program. In this episode, we are going to delve into factors that define hybrid warfare today, especially in relation to the Ukraine war and more importantly, ask if this war is just really a conflict between Moscow and Kiev. What factors are contributing to the war from dragging on? We also look into NATO and its role in the war as well as how Iran, along with China and Russia, could potentially form a new deterrence to counter American hegemony. Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a geopolitical analyst, Russia expert and author is joining us today to discuss this matter further. Dr. Gilbert, welcome to the program.

Doctorow: 1:15
Good to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.

Hakim:
Thank you. Pleasure to have you. The first question for you, I suppose, is to help us understand the issue of hybrid warfare. Explain to us what that means.

Doctorow:
Well the first thing to understand is it’s separate from what we call kinetic warfare. That is, it’s not the use of arms. It is waged in different domains, information war, disinformation, so it is a subset of information war. It is economic pressure, sanctions, it is tariffs, These are elements. It may be surveillance, open surveillance, as for example, this question of drones, that is, intelligence drones that are used on the territory of the adversary. These are various examples of what is meant by hybrid warfare. It’s a very loose term, and I would like to explain that it’s a term that was invented and is most widely used in Western Europe and the United States to describe or to attribute to Russia malevolent behavior.

Hakim: 2:47
Right. Are they claiming that they don’t use? I mean propaganda is considered part of the hybrid warfare, wouldn’t it?

Doctorow:
I’m saying that accusations coming from the West that Russia is using a hybrid warfare. These are accusations by people like Ursula von der Leyen. They are directed against Russia.

You see very little or nothing coming from Russia saying that the West is using hybrid warfare against Russia. What they speak about is specifically information warfare, for example. And all of this should be separated from, as I said, from kinetic warfare. And from– a subset of kinetic warfare is proxy warfare. That is warfare that is carried on not with your own servicemen but by the servicemen of third parties, allied parties who have their own interest in fighting with your adversary.

Hakim: 3:51
Okay, so let’s hone in on the war that’s ongoing at the moment between Russia and Ukraine. Is it correct to say that this is a war between these two capitals, between [Kiev] and Moscow, or is it more a war between Moscow and the allied nations or the US-led NATO military alliance?

Docroorow:
Well, the relative mix of these two elements, that is direct Ukrainian warfare against Russia and the use of Ukraine as a proxy by West Europe and the United States to carry out acts of war against Russia. These are different things. I’ll leave it at that.

Hakim: 4:43
Right. Okay. With regards to NATO and the way that it’s acting with regards to air operations, is it changing the rules of engagement with air operations when it is operating against Russian threats?

Doctorow:
The nature of the war has evolved steadily, or steadily would be mistaken way, in spurts, in rounds of escalation. The war started initially as strictly a Russian-Ukraine conflict.

It wasn’t called a war. It still isn’t called a war by the Russians, although I think in the next week or two it may become an openly declared war. Nonetheless, for the last three years what has been going on has been called, by the Russian side, a special military operation, which means that Ukraine was never identified as the enemy. It is the regime, as they call it, of Volodymyr Zelensky and the nationalists, the xenophobic anti-Russian nationalists who support him and who have supported the government ever since a new anti-Russian government was installed in Ukraine in February 2014 in what we know as a coup d’etat.

6:13
So that group is the target of the Russian campaign. It is to neutralize them. It is to eliminate the military forces that they command, particularly the most rabid anti-Russian forces, the Azov Battalion and similar, who have energized the Ukrainian army over time and turned it into an effective battering ram against Russia. So demilitarization, denazification, by that they mean removal of the most rabid nationalists who find as their inspiration the anti-Soviet forces that were acting in cooperation with the Nazis during World War II.

And so to remove those people, those factions, from Ukrainian public life, that has been the starting point of this special military operation. It has moved on step by step in a series of escalations whereby the involvement of the United States in particular and its allies, the secondary role, have increased and the war steadily became, over time became essentially a Russia-NATO war fought on the territory of Ukraine. That’s where we are today.

Hakim: 7:50
Okay. What about the nuclear powers that, weapon heads, the warheads that Russia has? That was considered to be a deterrent beforehand. Is it still a deterrent or is something else acting as a deterrent now? Is there a deterrent even?

Doctorow: 9:07
Well deterrence is a very complicated notion among political scientists. It has various components to it. Do you have the wherewithal? Do you have the armaments to dissuade your opponent or enemy from doing something or other? And do you have the will to use that wherewithal, that determination which you demonstrate, which convinces them that they shouldn’t do this or that or something very unpleasant will happen to them.

So these are the elements in dissuasion and deterrence. And this is the number one question in Russia today, in its domestic politics, whether or not Mr. Putin’s go-slow approach and his prosecution of a special military operation with a number of limited, defined targets, versus all-out war, has been productive and is increasing security or reducing security of Russia.

Hakim:
And would you consider this, the deterrences that they use, part of psychological welfare or are they actual real strategies?

Doctorow: 9:23
Well, Russia has invested enormously over the last 20 years to develop armaments of advanced nature. Some of them are a generation ahead of anything that the United States has, for example. This is unprecedented. Russia since 1945 was always playing catchup to the United States, first in atomic weapons, then hydrogen bombs, and then whatever you could think of in terms of armaments, the Russians were always one step behind and were wanting to catch up.

For the first time in its history, in its modern history, Russia has arms that are arguably much more advanced than those in the arsenals of Western Europe and the United States. So on the standpoint of wherewithal, Russia has it to be, to effectively deter aggression against itself by the United States or Europe. However, its very moderate and very unusual approach to dealing with Ukraine has raised questions from the start of this war in the minds of European and American leaders, whether Mr. Putin has the determination and will to defend Russia’s interests and defend the red lines that it has declared as being a threat to its security by using military force. So in that respect, The strength coming out of the arms wherewithal is weakened by the seeming lack of determination to defend interests using those arms.

Hakim: 11:13
Okay, it’s interesting we’re speaking about interests. I’ll get to that in a minute. But some of the viewers might have this question about Russia acting as a peacemaker or the role that it’s playing in the international global community with regards to trying to roll out peace across some regions, yet itself is in the midst of war. How can you explain that, or how can the Russians explain that contradiction or paradox?

Doctorow:
Well, I don’t see it as being unique. We have in the United States Mr. Trump looking to receive the Nobel Prize for peace while he’s waging wars on a number of fronts–

Hakim:
Trump is in a class of his own, I think.

Doctorow:
Yes and no. The point is that throughout history, the creation of great artifacts of civilization, whether it be music or drama, any of the higher … of human beings on earth [has] taken place in times of war and slaughter and inhumanity.

So contradictions are unfortunately a part of human existence. And that Russia would be a peacemaker in some areas, would be a war maker in others, is not to be, confuse us. We have to look at where the major weight is. The major weight is: Russia is trying, together with China, with Iran, and with members of BRICS, to create a new parallel structure of world governance that will overtake and replace eventually the US hegemony, which we have today, with the United States bullying the rest of the world under Mr. Trump.

Hakim: 13:05
Indeed. What role does the American military complex have to play in the war that is ongoing right now?

Doctorow:
Well, the threat of using America’s most advanced offensive weapons against Russia is there. People point to the Tomahawks, which may not be the most advanced, most recent. It’s 40 years old, but still is quite a serious weapon of war, which Mr. Trump may or may not agree to give to Kiev when he meets with Zelensky tomorrow in Washington.

The American military, of course, has enormous strength and positions in its several hundred different bases across the world. The Russians are fully aware of the strength of power and the general willingness of the United States to use its arms to smash anything in its path. However, we’re speaking essentially about a bully, a bully who succeeds when his rules are accepted by NATO. They have accepted them. Mr. Trump’s bullying of the allies in NATO has been totally successful. His bullying of Middle Eastern powers has been reasonably successful when he assembled almost all of the Gulf states in lining up like so many ducks to back his 20-point peace plan for Gaza. His attempt to bully Russia has not yet yielded results. And my projection is that it will yield exactly the opposite results to those that Mr. Trump expects.

15:09
He is ignoring statements by Vladimir Putin going back a few years ago that he grew up as a kind of skinny kid in the courtyards of Leningrad, today St. Petersburg, and where there always were some guys hanging out in corners who we would describe as bullies. And he understood as a very young fellow that you stand up to a bully by hitting him first and not waiting for him to attack you. So whether or not Mr. Putin retains that lesson and decides to act on it today remains to be seen.

But I think Mr. Trump is overplaying his hand by threatening Russia, not only with Tamahawks, but also by taking a cudgel against India and Brazil, striking against BRICS and trying to show that he is more powerful than BRICS’ rulers. Most recently, his statement yesterday that he forced a promise from Modi to stop buying Russian oil. All of these events or non-events which Mr. Trump reports on his social platform, they indicate that he is heady with success from what looks like an end to the Gaza war, but how real that is we’ll see in a few weeks.

16:43
But he is heady from success in his belief that by using maximum force against both sides in a conflict, he can, by diktat, get them to compromise and end a conflict in a way that gives credit to him. I don’t believe that what he learned from his Gaza expedition, his visit to the Knesset and delivering his wonderful speeches, I don’t believe that those lessons have any application whatsoever to solving the Russia-Ukraine war and on the contrary, are more likely to lead us into World War III if he proceeds by extending them to the Russian-Ukraine war.

Hakim: 17:28
Okay, and this bully, as you put it, they are making financial gains in prolonging this war. I mean they seem to be in a position, if the bully is the one that wants everyone to yield to their rules, but if they don’t they will prolong the war in order to make financial gain, in their eyes they’re winners either way. Are they making financial profits by prolonging the war?

Doctorow:
Well, state policy in many countries is determined by intellectuals and by business people. You were addressing the second part, the business people, and where’s the profit. And many analysts, of course, pay attention to the military-industrial complex and its interest everywhere in wars, extending wars. But intellectuals are not motivated by money for the most part. They are motivated by power, power considerations.

18:24
And so they’re even more dangerous than the military- industrial complex. And I think on the standpoint of intellectuals driving this war, you’ve got the whole foreign policy establishment in the United States is pro-war. And that is a bigger factor, I think, in what is happening, or what has happened for the last three, four years than what the military-industrial complex by itself does to influence US foreign policy.

Hakim:
Okay. So if we were to move to Iran, What role does Iran’s drones and cyber capabilities have in the, sort of the regional global hybrid warfare that is going on?

Doctorow:
Well, Iran has had a very big impact on the Russia-Ukraine war. There is no defense, mutual defense agreement between Russia and Iran. There’s a long-term strategic cooperation agreement, but that does not include in it a mutual-defense pact. Nonetheless, even without this, Iran gave to Russia a major contribution to enter the new world of warfare.

At the start of this war in February 2022, Russia had minimal experience with drones. It had minimal production experience with drones. Thanks to the intervention of Iran, which first sold some drones to Russia and then facilitated the construction of drone production within Russia, including the single drone that is one of the most effective that Russia was and is using. They call it GERAD. In prosecuting the war against Ukraine, Iran made a major contribution to Russia’s entry into the new world of drone warfare. And drone warfare, let me just explain that this war started as an artillery war.

20:38
And Russia had, shall we say, a 10-times advantage over Ukraine in artillery pieces, the troops, and in the missiles themselves, the projectiles themselves. That gave them, almost from the start, a 10-to-1 kill ratio over the Ukrainian armies. Nobody talked about it in those terms, but that was effectively what has happened. As the drones became more important, and particularly over the last year, year and a half, the nature of the war changed.

It became more balanced. I don’t want to say equally balanced. Today, it would be fair to say that the Russians have a 2 to 1 advantage over the Ukrainians in drone capacity and drone capability. The 2 to 1 is quite different from 10 to 1. And so it was extremely important that with Iranian assistance, because Iran had a rather developed drone program, that Russia climbed the scale. For their part, the Ukrainians got assistance from Turkey.

21:51
They received, I’m not sure about production, but certainly they received, they purchased drones from Turkey, which they used to fire against the Russians. Today it’s difficult to say exactly where the Ukrainian drones are coming from. Some of them are self-produced in an artisanal way in small shops, which are hard to identify and destroy for the Russians. But a lot of it is coming in large quantities, pieces to be assembled or maybe even fully assembled drones which are being supplied from Western Europe.

The Russian side, I think, is maybe getting something from North Korea. I’m not sure whether they get anything further from Iran, but they are producing themselves in massive quantities.

Hakim:
All right, any comments on the cyber capabilities of Iran’s contribution?

Doctorow:
Sorry?

Hakim:
The cyber capabilities.

Doctorow:
I can’t really comment on that. I haven’t followed it closely. Cyber, I agree with you. Cyber attacks have long been considered an integral part of what is called this special warfare. But I have not watched that closely.

Hakim: 23:06
Okay. What are the relationship and the cooperation that Iran, Russia and China are forming with regards to security? That’s clearly changing the balance of power. How do you see that panning out?

Doctorow:
Well, it has many dimensions, a geopolitical dimension in the neighborhood. The neighborhood includes Central Asia. Iran is a big contributor, a potential contributor, to consolidation of the whole larger region through its logistical situation as the North-South Corridor. The North-South Corridor will integrate Central Asia and central Russia in a unified and very speedy transportation line to Mumbai, to India, and to the greater world.

24:00
So in that sense, the cooperation of– the role that Iran will play as this project develops will be very significant for the entire region. As regards security, we saw at the meeting earlier this year of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin that the organization is developing a very important military dimension, and economic dimension. It is a kind of regional BRICS.

For the founders of BRICS, the inconvenience in making progress on its integration and development has been the relative disinterest of Brazil, in particular, in what is going on in Eurasia. And that relates also to Brazil’s rejection of various nominee countries to join greater BRICS or the central controlling membership of BRICS. In the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, this disinterest doesn’t exist. All the parties are interested in this very extended regional organization, extending from Belarus and the West all the way out to the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea. And of course, Iran is a major part, an integral part of this development.

Hakim: 25:51
Okay, I want to move over to Syria now. The self-appointed Syrian president visited Moscow recently and he met with Putin. They were all sort of happy to meet each other. Sort of he said, I’ll respect all the past security deals. How do you see this panning out? What initially Russia was doing was protecting the previous president of Syria al-Bashar from terrorists, including Ahmad al-Julani, who is now known as al-Sharkh. So how do you see this panning out?

Doctorow:
Well, there are a lot of curious developments around Syria. You mentioned the position of Russia with respect to Assad. But what about the position of the United States and other Western countries for whom he was a terrorist?

And his arriving in New York to speak to the UN General Assembly, that met many different questions among the American media. So it’s not just Russia that has changed. There was a lot of glee, a lot of exulting in Berlin, in Paris, in London, in Washington. When Assad fell, it was assumed that the Russians would be chased out of their bases, Latakia, air base, Tartus, naval base, when the new government took over, precisely because [they] had been so closely associated with the defense of President Assad. We have this visit, I think it was the first foreign visit of the Syrian president after his General assembly trip, and it’s to Moscow.

27:48
Now, this suggests that all of the glee over Russia’s loss of its bases in the Mediterranean and in the Arab world was premature. And I think what made it premature was the aggression by Israel against Syria ever since the new government came into power in Damascus and up to the present day. Now, and this aggression is made possible by backing from the United States and the NATO countries. As Syria is not oblivious to it. The Israelis have taken not only the entire Golan Heights, but also the lowlands, so they’re in very close artillery range of Damascus.

And there’s no end in sight. The greater-Israel project is not achieved and completed. In the face of this extreme threat, not just to his regime, but to the nation of Syria, it is understandable that the Syrian president would reconsider relations with Russia as a central counterbalance to Israel and Europe slash the United States. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing. There was no discussion in public about the military defense cooperation that may yet be between Syria and Russia.

29:30
Certainly that is not in the public domain. All they talked about were commercial issues, but primarily energy issues. It’s curious, just as an example of the kind of quality of news reporting that you see in major media: BBC today was reporting on this very meeting in Moscow and saying, “Yes, the Syrians, the Syrian president, the Russian president agreed not to look back, but only to look forward.” That’s not what they agreed, not at all.

The BBC was either tone-deaf or is just engaging as usual in blatant propaganda. The salutation that Mr. Putin made to the Syrian president was, you know, we are in 2025, You’re celebrating the 80th anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Syria, 80 years. And during that time, we did a lot of things together. And they put up on Russian television pictures of what they did.

30:31
Among them, a large part of the electric energy in Syria is coming from hydroelectric plants that were built by the Russians. So the extent of cooperation-

Hakim:
That’s all fine. But you’re more explaining the Syrian side. It needs Russia.

Doctorow:
Yes.

Hakim:
I mean, one of the things that they did in the last eight years was that they were fighting terrorists, and Jolani was a terrorist. He was in the leadership of the terrorist organization, as you said yourself, the West considers him a terrorist, the CIA had a $10 million bounty on his head. They turned around and are now accepting him as this new president and freedom fighter, or whatever they want to call him, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean Russia or Putin should buckle to that. How is it that they’re now so cozy together?

Doctorow: 31:27
They’re pragmatists. You deal with what is, not what you want. The Russians were fighting the terrorists, but the terrorists not by themselves. They were fighting people who were being supported actively with arms and intelligence and propaganda systems, false-flag operations coming out of Britain and the United States.

And so they really were fighting those two major powers. And it was a kind of proxy war. And the Syrian, the various Syrian rebel groups or terrorist groups were supported by one or the other. The Russians sent, when they moved on the ground in Syria to support Assad, they sent mediation groups out into the countryside to deal with the various oppositions and to separate the good terrorists from the bad terrorists, so to speak. And that’s how they settled disputes locally around Syrian countryside, wherever they moved. So they had to deal with rather subtle distinctions during the Syrian Civil war.

32:45
So it’s not so surprising that after the war is over, they would again reaccommodate themselves to the realities on the ground.

Hakim:
Preserving self-interest perhaps?

Doctorow:
Of course. They don’t want to lose those bases. And particularly, Tartus is an important repair center and resupply center for Russian naval vessels operating in the Mediterranean.

Let’s remember that Russia’s powerful Black Sea fleet has to pass through the Dardanels. It is subject really to Turkish control. And so Russia has to have a substantial part of that fleet operational in the Mediterranean. And for that, you’d have to have repair services and resupply services for which Tartus was an important source.

33:44
Now, it’s not the only place. There are other countries in North Africa which Russia could turn to in a pinch to replace Tartus, and that was discussed immediately after the collapse of the Assad regime. But it is preferable to stay where you are. And for the Syrians, for the reason I mentioned above, it is important that they have Russians to use against, as a lever against the Israelis if necessary.

Hakim: 34:17
Final question for you with regards to how you see the future playing out for the world order and what factors might help in preventing a World War Three between the West and the East rivalries that we see.

Doctorow:
Well, I’m very sad to say that the usual optimistic or prognosis that I deliver on these various interview programs is no longer workable. We are frankly at a dire moment when we are possibly about to see an escalation that could lead us very quickly into World War III. The ball is in the Russians court. Mr. Trump has, it’s gone– his seeming success in Gaza with Israel, with the Arab states has gone to his head, of course, very early, because as I say, it would surprise no one if full-blown war between Hamas and Israel breaks out again in two or three weeks.

35:26
But Mr. Trump is satisfied that he’s been the peacemaker, and he thinks that this applies to the Russian war, and he has to apply maximum pressure to Russia economically with super weapons like the Tomahawks. And then Mr. Putin will line up, he’ll sign up, and he can really get that Nobel Peace Prize. It’s utter nonsense. All that can happen from applying further pressure to the Russians is that they will declare war on Ukraine. And they may do that in a week or two.

My prediction is that if Mr. Putin sees Trump giving Tomahawks to Kiev, that in a matter of a week he’ll declare war on Ukraine and there will be nothing left in Kiev to talk to or about, because the Russians will flatten anything above two bricks tall. It’ll look like Gaza. They haven’t done that because it’s not a war. It is a special military operation.

36:27
But they will declare war, and as they said on Russian television last night, they will be humane after they’ve completely defeated Ukraine, not before. So that is where we’re headed. If Mr. Putin does not do that, then I think we are certain to head for World War III, because the Trump group will go still further in delivering blows against Russia, economic blows, military attacks, which are nominally done by Ukrainians, were actually done by American military.

And Mr. Putin will be removed from office and replaced by somebody who can respond appropriately. And who that somebody is, we don’t want to know, because they’re not going to be nice guys. So this is the situation. The best that we can hope for is that Putin himself declares war, does what has to be done, keeps the Russian state organized presently, which is quite powerful. And since they are facing a bully, bullies will retreat in the face of decisive action.

37:44
I don’t think anybody among the loudmouths in Washington wants to be in a nuclear war with Russia. So they will, if Russia shows determination, if Putin shows determination, then the bully will back away.

Hakim:
Dr. Gilbert, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Some very interesting predictions. I’d love to have you back on the show maybe in a few weeks’ time, maybe when some new developments happen, we’ll have a new conversation on that topic. Thank you so much once again for joining us.

Doctorow:
My pleasure.

Hakim:
Goodbye. Interesting predictions by our guest today. If the US gives Tomahawks to Ukraine, Putin will declare war, flatten Kiev, World War III will start, Trump will be replaced by God knows who, something bleak indeed.

38:34
What are your thoughts? We hope you did enjoy today’s episode. Please do comment, like and don’t forget to subscribe. See you next time

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pUbyemlm6s

Diesen: 0:00
Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Gilbert Doctorow, historian and international affairs analyst, to discuss the growing pressure on President Putin, I guess, to give up on some of his restraints and even react more forcefully towards NATO. So thank you for coming on.

Doctorow:
Well, it’s a pleasure, except that I will not be bringing good tidings to the show.

Diesen:
Well, it does appear that we’re moving somewhere quite dangerous. That is, only over the past few days, we’ve seen articles such as the one in “Financial Times” where it’s very open that the US is participating in attacks on Russian refineries. Again, hasn’t been denied by the White House. Even Trump seems to be gloating as he speaks and, well, I would say largely exaggerates the gasoline queues in Russia. We have Hegseth talking about imposing costs on Russia and Trump of course working overtime to sabotage the Russian economy, pressuring countries like India to stop trade.

1:11
But also under Trump’s rule, we see that the nuclear deterrent of Russia was attacked back in June. I saw a report yesterday by FSB, which suggested that the British were directly involved in this attack on Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Trump now openly talking about sending Tomahawks, which again could carry nuclear warheads. We, the Russians, would also not be able to know. And again, if Russia sees a Tomahawk launch towards Russia, They can’t really know if there’s a nuclear warhead, if there’s a first strike. So this must be taken into consideration in terms of how they retaliate and respond.

So I guess for all of these reasons, we now see some more louder voices in Moscow, both from politicians as well as the media, which more or less sees this restraint as appeasement that will only produce a more dangerous situation as we now take further steps towards a direct war. And yeah, no one really has escalation control here. So it doesn’t take that much imagination to see how such an escalation could lead to a nuclear exchange. So I don’t know, I tend to agree with this assessment though, that we’re heading towards a possible direct war, again, with unthinkable consequences. And escalation control is an illusion that may essentially kill us all.

2:44
So on that very dark, pessimistic start, I wanted to address an article you recently wrote on this topic as well, where you discussed the dilemma in terms of how Russia could respond to NATO’s escalations. What are, the way you see it, the arguments for and against restraints on Russia’s part?

Doctorow: 3:08
Well, I will approach this question, shall I say, from a layman’s standpoint, because you are the political scientist who looks at the theoretical considerations around deterrence, and that’s a widely discussed issue. That’s not my metier. But speaking as a layman, I see that Mr. Putin is willy nilly undermining Russia’s deterrence by his restraint. Showing off latest generation missiles and other armaments, where Russia is years ahead of the West and the United States in particular — that isn’t deterrence. Deterrence, finally, is a question of political will to use that arsenal. And it is not at all apparent that Mr. Putin has that will.

His actions, his words in the last few months have spoken exactly the opposite. And in that sense, I say he has weakened Russia’s deterrence. Now, where do I get this notion that there is opposition to Mr. Putin? Who is it? Is it the military? Are they plotting against him? Is the KGB plotting against him? I don’t know. Nobody knows.

4:28
But I can say the issue is not undercover. It is very much in people’s eyes. And when I make reference now to Russian state television, I want to be sure that people understand that this, when I say talk show, I don’t mean a talk show that you have coming out of NBC. This does not “Meet the Nation”. This is the voice of the Kremlin without being the Kremlin.

Now, when people think about the tough voice coming out of Russia, they think about Mr. Medvedev, who was a weakling president and has been very busy the last three years trying to make up for it by super patriotism. Not the only one, there are a number of outstanding Russian political scientists and statesmen who have done the same thing, who are making up for their cuddly behavior towards the West by being overtly xenophobic today. But what am I talking about? I’m talking about Vladimir Solovyov and his show, “The Evening with Solovyov”.

5:32
Who is he? Yes, he’s the host of a talk show, but that doesn’t tell you who he is. He is a close associate of Kiselev, who is the director of all Russian state news on television. He is the protector of the hound dog who follows Putin everywhere, Zarubin. He has been favored by the Russian Defense Ministry to go to the front and to see things that nobody else sees and to get into tanks and to present interviews with people he considers to be special heroes from the front on his television program.

So this is not just a chat show. This is a man who is very closely connected to Putin’s circle, who is part of the circle. And he’s been saying, and I think about, you can find on YouTube, but bizarrely, it appeared yesterday on YouTube. I don’t recall the kind of anonymous sponsor who put it on for Russian television, because Russian television by itself is banned from YouTube. The program of the 14th, it is labeled the program of the 15th, the 15th is when it was posted by this intermediary program of Vladimir Solovyov.

7:01
And what he says will shock you out of your skin. He’s saying that Russia is prepared. Russia has allowed red lines to be crossed. It has not stood for its defense, that it has behaved weakly, and that this has to stop. That, well, let me go on. That this is not, we’re no longer in a special military operation. Let’s face the fact, we are now at war. At war. In that case, we don’t care about humane behavior towards the enemy. The Ukrainians are our enemy.

They’re trying to do everything to destroy us, and we should respond the same way. We should now bomb all of the decision-making centers in Kiev during the daytime to make sure that all the staff goes down with the buildings. Got it? We should also warn European countries, whoever has factories building weapons that are going to Ukraine, to evacuate their cities. Because well, it’s clear, there’s an open threat to destroy European capitals.

I’m in Brussels. We have in downtown Brussels, one such factory. It was formerly a car factory. It’s now making the various types of armaments for Ukraine. So this is a very direct warning.

8:30
The most important thing I’ve considered here was the mention of we are now, let’s stop talking about it, in SMO, we are at war. I’m waiting for Putin to declare war. And I think it will happen as soon as either the Tomahawks are delivered to Ukraine or something similar. That will be the provocation that allows him to do what people like Solovyov are demanding. And once you’re at war, everything goes.

At the same time, I’m sitting here in Brussels where I can tell you from an inside source from Flemish newspaper that our Prime Minister de Wever is shaking in his boots over this business of Euroclear’s 145 billion in Russian state assets being turned into collateral. Because he’s afraid, with good reason, that Brussels will be destroyed. So this is why I do not bring my usual note of encouragement to the audience, but I am as alarmed as you appear to be from your opening remarks. We are at a very serious stage.

Diesen: 9:45
Yeah, just I don’t see how a direct war now can be avoided because again, if Russia shows restraint, then they will see this as a weakness in NATO and the Tomahawks will be delivered, which the Russians would then have to react to in the most fierce way. And if they do respond, then of course, look at the language we have in Europe.

We have some few drones over an airport. And even after we found out that there are Europeans who have been flying them and arrested, we still talk about how this is a hybrid war by Russia. Like we seem so eager to pick a fight. I mean, once the Oreshniks begin to rain upon our production facilities and in logistic centers in Europe, I mean, this is going to be impossible to avoid war. This is, yeah, it seems like we’ve hit the end of the line.

10:40
Otherwise, you mentioned the theories on deterrence. I mean, in deterrence, well, at least when I used to teach it, we focused on the three C’s. You have to have the CAPABILITIES to deter. It has to be, well, obvious. You also need it to be, and the Russians do have this with the, especially the Oreshniks, which allows them to climb up the escalation ladder in a very aggressive way without going nuclear.

The second is that it has to be CREDIBLE that you’re willing to use this weapon, that once you cross a red line, they will be used. And all of this has to be COMMUNICATED. So this kind of three C’s all has to be present if you want a proper deterrent. But as you said, the desire to kind of hope that you can get along with Trump, it’s undermining the credibility. And this is very, I guess, dangerous communication.

I know, you know, in the media, journalists will then hear this and say, well, then you’re supporting the Russians. But this is the problem. It’s not supporting this side or that side. It’s once we go down this road, This is the war. The war becomes the main enemy.

11:48
This is what would possibly destroy everyone. But still, it’s not as if Putin is all naive either. What do you see as being the arguments then for and against these restraints? Because there are reasons why one should also be cautious.

Doctorow:
Cautious he always has been. That has been his byword in almost any policy that you look at. I’d like to just explain that people may be wondering why I am changing my opinion, not just about Mr. Putin, for whom I have great admiration in all he’s achieved in saving Russia from ruin and giving a Phoenix-like rise to a great-power status again. I don’t deny any of that. But his behavior and the conduct of this war leaves many open questions over whether he still has the nerve to and the willingness to take risk that is imposed on you.

12:49
You don’t have a choice; the risk is on all sides. The question is, which risk do you choose to respond to? And what your calculations are. His calculations, I think, at this point are dead wrong, based on his reading of Trump, which I think is wrong. And then the second thing they’ll say is, why am I now turning against Mr. Trump? Because first I was considered to be a dupe of Putin, and then I was considered by people who don’t like what I say or write, to be a dupe of Trump. Well, my answer to those points is very relevant to our discussion. It is that I am one of the few, unfortunately, who changes my views according to what I see in front of me. If the objective facts change, then my opinion changes, and the objective facts have changed.

Mr. Trump with this much-heralded Gaza war solution, heralded by whom? Mostly by the wrong people, meaning the whole EU and all of the other sycophants around him. It is a phony peace settlement. It’s a fraud. But unfortunately, he has been lionized, he’s been, well, he wasn’t given a Nobel Prize, but he came close to that.

And he believes that his method of solving these crises by using maximum American force to compel the warring sides to find, to strike a compromise, he believes that he succeeded. I think he’s dead wrong on that. We’ll find out in the next few weeks when the war breaks out again. But he thinks that worked, and he thinks it’s applicable to the Russia-Ukraine war. That is why he’s maximizing pressure on Russia now by saying, falsely by the way, yesterday that he Mr. Modi had promised to stop buying Russian oil. They haven’t. They will scale it back somewhat, and that was what the meeting today with the Saudis is all about. They’re going to try and raise their purchase of Saudi oil and also of US oil, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop buying Russian oil. Anyway, he believes that he has everybody in his hands, that he is the almighty ruler of the universe and that everyone will follow his dictates.

15:07
Well, up to a point, andhe has reached that point. Russia is not a small patch of desert next to the Mediterranean Sea called Gaza. Russia is not a small Jewish state surrounded by a hundred million Muslims or more, but fighting them off because of superior military capability. Russia is a world super, is a not super power, but a major international power with the world’s largest stock of nuclear weapons and many other defense feats that are ahead of its peers and competitors by 10 years or more. And he cannot compel them to do his bidding or to sacrifice the reasons why they have lost 150,000 dead in this war for the sake of appeasing the vanity of one Donald Trump. That is not going to work.

And instead, it may lead to a war that we will all suffer from. So I think everyone should be following this closely. I go to this prestigious social club here in Brussels which brings together– the main purpose of the club is to celebrate how important we all are and to have a good meal. That’s, well, maybe it’s a good reason for a club. But among these people who are very successful professionals in all areas, there’s no awareness at all of what is going on, none. They pick up and read the newspapers and they know as much as anyone reading “New York Times”. And that frightens me very much.

Diesen: 16:54
Yeah, it’s, no, I often feel incompetence has reached a dangerous level as well. But this restraint, it’s very openly now, this denounced by the Europeans as a weakness. That is, I saw Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, standing on stage, more or less beginning to emulate the kind of language and talk that Trump does.

So he argues, you know, the Russians, they can’t even fly their jets, their ships are useless. So the Russians are weak, they’re pointless, their economy is, you know, smaller than Spain or, you know, the usual talking points. So in other words, you know, with Trump, of course, being one of the key people this message is intended for. And at the same time, Trump is powerful, he’s strong. And if he only treats the Russians like he did with the Palestinians, then they will fall in line.

I mean, this is, you can almost see why Trump has abandoned this position he previously had. Keep in mind back in February, he was condemning Zelensky for playing with World War III. Now this Trump will seemingly trigger this. And also the Dutch foreign minister, sorry, defense minister arguing that, well, yeah, let’s send the Tomahawks. No one’s discussing anymore any of the consequences.

18:21
What do you mean when a Tomahawk, possibly carrying a nuclear warhead from the Russian perspective, heads inwards towards Russian borders? I mean, how are they expected to respond? The only thing we have to respond is to say, well, you know, they should have thought about this. They should get out of Ukraine. It’s all this. It’s so empty and ridiculous. So I just don’t see how it’s possible to negotiate out of this any more.

Doctorow: 18:50
It’s manifestly obvious that Mr. Trump is a bully. It’s less manifestly obvious that most members of the US Congress are also bullies. It is incomprehensible to me that Vladimir Putin doesn’t see this and notice and act the way he said that he did, as a scrappy kid in Leningrad in the courtyards when confronted with bullies. He said, you don’t wait for them to hit you, you hit them first. Where is he now? I hope that he comes to his senses.

I hope for all of us that he comes to his senses because he doesn’t, he will be removed and replaced by people who we really do not want to see in power in Russia because they will be very aggressive, very xenophobic, and very ready to go into nuclear war. So it is to all of our advantage that Mr. Putin looks closely at what he’s facing in Trump, which is a bully who will back down when his bluff is called. Nobody in the US government wants to die from Russian missiles. Nobody.

They just don’t believe that there’s such a threat. They have to be reminded one way or another that the threat is there and will be operated. And I think they will all back down.

Diesen: 20:09
Again, I think that’s the reason why Putin’s been restrained. It’s a big gamble. But other reasons for the restraints possibly being temporary though, because of course one of the reasons in NATO why we would like to do a temporary ceasefire is because all the Ukrainians have to be able to mobilize more men, they have to prepare defensive lines. NATO needs time to ramp up its industrial production. There’s a lot of reasons.

But on the Russian side as well, they’re also, I’m assuming now, preparing for a possible direct clash with Europe as the Europeans are preparing to enter this war. Now, I’m assuming that during this time of restraint, the Russians have been building up plenty of Oreshniks and other weaponry, which is not intended for Ukraine. I mean, there’s been a lot of, a few months ago, there’s a lot of reports in the Western media as well that you had– that the Russians were pumping out a lot of armored vehicles, but few of them were sent to the front, like they’re all building up in the back.

I mean, there looks like there are many indications that there are now preparations for what seems increasingly unavoidable, which is now a direct war between NATO and Russia.

Doctorow: 21:28
Well, let’s look at the timeline. The last week I made the remark that the conversion or the application of Russia’s frozen assets into collateral for loans to Ukraine that will never be repaid, that this was connected with the bigger issue of when Europe is ready to go to war with Russia. And this was confirmed. I was very pleased is the wrong word because what we’re talking about couldn’t please anybody.

But the fact of the matter is that the foreign minister of Poland, Sikorski Adego, said that with these funds from the frozen assets, Ukraine will be able to fight the war for three more years. This is exactly what I was saying. These two things are perfectly linked. This is a bridging loan to keep Russia distracted with Ukraine, the war in Ukraine, while Europe prepares for 2028 or 2029 launch of a war against Russia, because it had bulked up sufficiently. These– I really regret that the intimate linkage here is kept out of sight. But Mr. Sikorsky, he told it all yesterday. They are linked.

Diesen: 22:53
So what is the way here though? I mean, how can World War III now be avoided? I mean, well, of course, if I would give advice to NATO, I would say, you know, de-escalate if you’re European, pick up a phone and talk to Putin. But you know, we can’t talk to the Russians. We seem determined to continue to escalate. But on the Russian side, what can they do at this point? I know the rhetoric in Europe is that, oh, they should just leave Ukraine, but that doesn’t really solve the war because then NATO moves into Ukraine and all the same problems. The war wouldn’t be over.

So what are possible pathways out of this? Because this is pretty much the most pessimistic I’ve been in terms of avoiding another world war since this whole thing began.

Doctorow: 23:53
I think it’s all in Putin’s hands. Let me put this in perspective. I detected a week ago when there was this open conflict between Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov and Oshakov, the advisor to President Putin and Pieskov, the press secretary of Putin, over whether the spirit, the impulse of Anchorage Alaska’s summit still is in effect or whether it’s been dissipated. Ryabkov said it’s over, meaning the diplomatic path towards normalization with the United States is not viable. He was overruled publicly and unusually by these two gentlemen. And then by Putin himself. That never happens.

For casual visitors to this show or to Russian affairs, they would have no sense of this. But those of us who are Russia watchers know this never happens. That the number two man in foreign ministry is put in his place, or man who is supposed to succeed Lavrov, is put in his place in a very undecorous way, indecorous way. That was a tip off, that there’s a big conflict going on at the top in Russia, and in the center of the government.

But then I want to put into perspective what I said about Solovyov and his denunciation of the Go Slow approach and of these SMO, the Special Military Operation approach, as opposed to open war.

I don’t see that as the cat’s paw of an opposition to Putin within the government or outside the government. I’ve already explained how Mr. Solovyov is so very close to Putin and to Putin’s immediate spokespeople, not just his press secretary, but the man who oversees all of Russia’s television programs on the news. So I believe that Putin himself is preparing to make this transition from the SMO to open the declaration of war on Ukraine, which will change dramatically their behavior. They will destroy everything that exists.

26:25
They will turn Kiev into rubble, not just the downtown Bankovaya, where the government offices are. And they will not look back. As Solovyov said, we will show humane consideration after we’ve won the war, not before. So I think the ball is in Putin’s court. I don’t look for any big change here in the West or here in Europe.

I think it will come only after Putin declares war on Ukraine, which could be, as I said, could follow immediately on delivery or rumored delivery of Tomahawks. And that will change in a cardinal fashion the way the war is being prosecuted. That will save us all.

Diesen:
It looks like one of the reasons why Russia’s been more constrained in terms of, as you say, going to an all-out war as opposed to a special military operation is both its, yeah, the domestic situation as well as its partner states. That is, domestically it was assumed that the public would be very critical if this amount of violence was used against Ukraine.

But now, of course, with these last rounds of escalation from NATO, it looks like it would be the contrary that the public would expect or if not demand a harder stance. But you also see some indication from our allies but less common partners that is China, India, I guess, going softer, you know, maintaining only a special military operation was also seen, I think, as not appearing too aggressive and violent in the eyes of the Chinese and the Indians. However, now with again the escalations of NATO, they have a different consideration. Now looking weak in front of their partners is also not ideal because no matter how close partner you are, at some point states will often bet on the winning horse and if it looks that you’re too weak then your partners will turn away from you anyway. So it does seem like, again, all the indicators suggest that we’re heading again towards this very dark place.

28:53
But I guess when the Russian retaliation comes, what do you expect them to go after though? Is it political, military target, the infrastructure inside Ukraine, outside? How do you see the possible climbing up the escalation ladder?

Doctorow:
Well let’s differentiate between what the Russians will do to Ukraine and what the Russians will do to Western Europe or the United States and you differentiate between the last two, of course. Attacking the United States is the last thing that Russia will do as it prepares for World War III.

They have uncertainty about the competence of military and political judgment in Washington, and they know that the two countries can destroy life on earth, so they would prefer any conflict with the United States to be the very last stage in escalation. If the Tomahawks are shipped, I don’t think they’re going to attack if they’re producer is in the United States or any United States military assets outside of the United States. I think the attack will be on the intermediate country, whether it’s Norway or Denmark, whoever decides to carry the water for Washington and be the deliverer of Tomahawks, they will get hit. But as for Ukraine, I think the moment that Mr. Putin declares war on them, which is the first step that he takes, there will be total destruction then.

30:28
All at a conventional level, all using the Oreshnik and all the other means at their disposal to lay waste to Ukraine so it starts to look like Gaza. That’s in their power. And I think the feeling of enmity, of hatred for Ukraine, has reached that point. So as I say, there are three different levels of destruction here, of response.

The most severe will be against Ukraine. That will be immediate, leveling it to the extent that they can or want to. The second will be hitting European military assets in Europe, starting with those directly associated with the Tomahawk or other, because it’s not necessarily a Tomahawk. The United States has a few other long range missiles that it can deliver to Ukraine to do the job quite nicely. So whatever is the country that is cooperating with the States, with NATO and acting as NATO to deliver these to Ukraine they will be struck in one way or another probably in a military way, not civilian centers. And until and unless NATO declares war on Russia. In that case, watch out, because everything will be subject to attack, and it will be subject to nuclear attack.

31:50
That’s another, I didn’t mention that in detail, that Russia has made it plain that any war with NATO will be a nuclear war. They are not going to go into tank formations against Poland or anybody else. They will use their nuclear strength to eradicate the military forces and if necessary, civilian populations of Western Europe.

Diesen: 32:16
So if we enter, I guess, game theory, this would be a bet essentially on a game of chicken, that is, Russia would strike targets. It seems as if Germany would be kind of high on the list in terms of its potential industrial production, as well as its role as a logistics center, also its mere posture in all this.

But once this strike comes, it would then, given that Germany is a non-nuclear state, then it would essentially be a clear signal to the rest of the NATO alliance that the Russians will be, you know, they’re prepared to go all the way. And this is when NATO has the dilemma of either responding in a big way, which would then probably lead to a nuclear exchange or back down. I know if NATO would ever back down, I guess under Trump’s leadership would be the best bet on the Russian side, given that he doesn’t seem to have much problem in terms of flipping his position back and forth.

Doctorow: 33:26
Well, the Article 5, he’s already trashed Article 5. So I don’t think any European defense planners can reckon on the United States automatically coming to their aid if Russia attacks with nuclear or without nuclear.

I don’t think that the United States is going to risk New York, Los Angeles, Washington for the sake of Munich or Lyon. This is a given and I think most people here in Europe and Brussels understand that. As I say, the ball really is in Putin’s court to find a proper answer to what you described in the opening, which is complete condescension and disregard for Russia as a power. That cannot go on. It only can lead to disaster.

Diesen: 34:22
I often make the point how awful the political leadership and media now is. I mean, Imagine during the Cold War, if someone would have done this, say, let’s openly attack key commercial targets, deep inside Russia, military, political targets, again, directly by NATO countries, and any opposition would be dismissed as being pro-Soviet or something along those lines. I mean, the kind of irresponsibility would be unthinkable. But now it’s the only response it seems. I mean, this is the, it just feels like this is really the dumbest way one could possibly stumble into a third world war.

But I guess just as a final question, do you think tomorrow, on Friday, this is when Trump said he would make a decision on the Tomahawks. I guess that’s really a good indication when we know whether or not, yeah, we’re going down this path or not.

Doctorow: 35:28
Well, irrespective of the Tomahawks, the situation is becoming critical. And I think the fact that this Solovyov program is so open as it was, this corresponds to the situation that we see in the massive pressure that Trump is applying to cut, to hurt severely as possible Russia’s economy, the secondary sanctions, the assault he’s made on Brazil, the assault he’s made on the Indians. This is not supportable for a long time by Russia.

You mentioned that the close allies in BRICS can move away from Russia if they feel they’re not winning. I think they also can move away if they fear that the losses that the United States is imposing on them are unsustainable for their economies, too harmful for their population, for them to stand by Russia and then take this beating. And I think that this also figures in to the calculation by Putin’s advisors of when we have to go from an SMO to war. Can we last this out? Can we watch our base, our closest friends abandon us under pressure from Trump?

That would have enormous psychological impact on the Russian population. And it wouldn’t be favorable to the governments in power. So I think that Trump is overplaying his hand. I think you mentioned that on one of the– whether with me or another program in the last week or so, the pressure applied and pressure applied and then the spring releases itself in an unexpected and violent way. And I think that’s what we’re about to see, that Trump has overdone it and has misunderstood the limits to his power vis-a-vis Russia.

Diesen: 37:40
I don’t think he recognized the difference between the large powers and the small power, because a small power can be, like the Palestinians can be forced to stand down or any other, but the large powers, if you’re China, Russia, standing down, it would be the first step towards your destruction. This interesting point that Professor John Mersheimer has. He argues that one of the most fundamental things or dangerous things in the West is the refusal to recognize that Russia sees this war as being an existential threat, including NATO expansion on its borders. But this is quite important, I think, because if you don’t recognize that Russia sees this as existential, then that results in a massive miscalculation and what happens when you mount this much pressure on it, because the assumption or language you hear always from the Americans and Europeans is, “Oh, we just need to put more pressure on Putin. Then he’ll back down.” But again, for the Russians backing down here is an existential threat that would result in their eventual destruction. So there is only escalation here. And again, it looks as if that’s where we’re heading now with, as you said, an actual war. Do you have any final thoughts before we finish off?

Doctorow: 39:01
No, the outlook is not good. But the only comfort I can offer is that the first stage in a Russian escalation will be to annihilate Ukraine. No government in Kiev is not an ideal solution, and the people have written to me saying, oh, that’s not the end of the war. Well, it avoids anything dire coming Russia’s way out of whoever is running Ukraine.

The chaos that will follow in Ukraine after the decapitation is not only of Mr. Zelensky and his immediate entourage, they were saying, they being Mr. Soloviev, to use the Oreshniks and destroy Bankovaia, and well, the parliament with it, it’s the whole political class in Kiev that they will annihilate. So there’ll be chaos after that happens, and there’ll be no opportunity for whatever is left to strike a blow of any consequence against Russia. So that is a comfort not for those who are living in Kiev or for Ukrainians in general, who we’ll probably find here in the streets of Brussels very soon, if any of this happens, but it is a comfort to the rest of us that it’s not [proceeding] to bombing Western Europe, not to mention the United States. I think we’ll end, the whole thing will end with a show of force that destroys Ukraine. End of subject.

Diesen; 40:35
I want to get your opinion on one more thing, which I’ve thought about a lot before. That is, I’m wondering if another miscalculation for us in the West is that we have assumptions about the way Russia escalates. Because when we believe that it doesn’t uphold its red lines, perhaps the Russians just escalate differently.

I mean, often we do this gradual incrementalism where we escalate a little bit, a little bit down based on the extent to which, the responses we get. But with the Russians, you see often that they hold back for a while and then they go really, well, not, well, let’s say overboard, that they react in a big way. So they don’t do the incrementalism that NATO is renowned for. So I often think about the speech, last speech Putin gave around the time they annexed Crimea in 2014. And he used this analogy, he referred to pushing a spring further and further back until it finally shoots out.

41:35
And essentially this was a reference to 20 years of warning, stop expanding NATO on our borders. So we will have to take action at some point. And then he said, this was the spring idea. And then of course, from 2014, we kind of gradually developed a Ukrainian army, almost make it a defacto NATO member, ignore everything that comes out of Moscow. And then again, eight years later, they come with this reaction where they again, launch this invasion where they send in their military.

And again, you can put this with after we began sending the weapons, we didn’t do it, They didn’t do anything. And suddenly they go in and annex four regions. I mean, maybe it’s just, we don’t know. Maybe we escalate. We go up and down the escalation ladder in a very different way than the Russians.

42:26
So, but this is a problem with NATO’s incrementalism as well. The reason why I do small steps forward is because the reason why you started with tanks, then you did HIMARS, then you did F-16s, things which we ourselves recognize could trigger World War III, because once you do another step, it’s so small, it doesn’t really matter. But once the response actually comes, it seems very disproportionate. But I mean, are we fooling ourselves, I guess, is what I’m asking with this incrementalism.

Doctorow: 42:56
Well, I would explain Russian incrementalism. It’s been variable over this 10-year period. But one thing I want to dismiss is the notion that Russia was had by Minsk II, but they were deceived by Merkel and by Hollande, who had no intention of implementing this properly, and Putin more or less agreeing with that. I don’t believe that for a moment on the Russian side. What people pay very little attention to is that Russia, which could have destroyed entirely the Ukrainian armed forces in 2014, didn’t dare do that because it knew what would follow: an attack that didn’t have to be a kinetic war, it could be just an economic attack on Russia, which it was totally unprepared to sustain.

43:47
It took Russia 10 years to prepare for that eventuality and to survive the sanctions from hell. So Russia, maybe Ukraine was preparing its army the whole time, and Russia was preparing its economy the whole time and its army as well. So there was a reason, there was a reason for this restraint because it was busy doing something that it couldn’t talk about. I think the reason for that restraint ended in 2018, 2019 when they were satisfied that their latest offensive weapons and their rearming, their nuclear triad had reached the point where they were superior and ahead of the United States for the first time ever in strategic weapons. And then they were prepared to make a move.

So I would put their restraint in that it is without calculating or other crafty restraints wasn’t a naive and stupid restraint. But what we have seen for the last few years looks more like a stupid restraint. Now I may be missing something. Perhaps they don’t have more than three Oreshniks when you actually count the noses here. There could be a reason for this, that they were lying about the production facility and they don’t have sufficient arms to match their words.

That could be. But if that’s not the case, if they really have been building, as you were suggesting a few minutes ago, a real cache of hardware to be used when needed, then the restraint doesn’t make much sense. Use it or lose it. And if they fail to defend their interests, then they will lose it. So that’s my answer to this question. It’s not a simple question that you were asking.

Diesen: 45:42
Well, no one from Moscow is giving me the facts of what’s happening behind the scenes. But again, it is an hypothesis though that, again, as you suggested, between 2014 and 2022, Russia was making its economy sanctions-proof and also preparing enough military force in case there would be a larger war. And after 2022 to 2025, they similarly went very slow and showed restraint as they do, I guess, perhaps recognize that if Ukraine loses or not if but when Ukraine lose the war that NATO might join in and that appears to be what’s happening now. So having had three and a half years to prepare, I’m guessing that, again, I don’t know what’s happening inside the weapon depots or what kind of hypersonic missiles or Oreshniks they have been building up, but I’m assuming that they are quite aware that NATO would join in on the fight after Russia had exhausted itself a bit on the Ukrainians.

46:49
Anyways, thank you for taking the time. This is a very dark topic, but I’ll be very curious to see what happens tomorrow because is Trump just bluffing, or is he actually going to go through with this, the Tomahawks that is, which can only be interpreted as a declaration of war? So thanks again.

Doctorow: 47:11
All right. Thank you.

As they say, it is always darkest before the dawn.  Though this discussion was recorded at noon, Brussels time today, figuratively speaking it took place before the “dawn” that arrived at 8pm when the Kremlin released a lengthy summary of the just completed two-and-a-half-hour phone call between Presidents Putin and Trump.  To all appearances, that phone call draws us back from a pending crisis that would open a clear path to a NATO-Russia war, as the title that Glenn Diesen assigned to our video reads.

When we spoke at noon, we knew that Trump would be receiving a visit from Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House tomorrow at which he was expected to announce his decision to dispatch Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. We also had reason to believe that the Russian reaction to such news could be a dramatic escalation in the conflict. 

As I mention in this video, two days ago, on 14 October, talk show host Vladimir Solovyov said on Russian state television that it was time to respond appropriately to the rising threat to Russian security and in particular to the delivery of Tomahawks by declaring war on Ukraine and proceeding to beat the hell out of Kiev by missile strikes on all the decision-making centers in the capital. This decapitation would extend well beyond Zelensky and his circle to virtually the entire political class of Ukraine, while the country would be bombed into ruins. And as I explain, Solovyov is not just a talking head: for reasons I set out here it is fair to say that his threats were cleared with Putin for delivery in this unofficial way.  The fact that this show of the 14^th was posted on youtube, as virtually never happens, suggests that it was meant as a direct warning to the United States.

If that is so, then today’s phone call indicates that the message was received by the intended audience and Washington is taking a step back from the disaster that was otherwise pending.

We must be grateful for small favors and hope that reason will prevail at the foreseen summit between Putin and Trump at a date still to be announced.

In the meantime, I recommend this conversation with Glenn Diesen to see where we were headed, and may yet be headed, if the summit in Budapest does not result in a breakthrough in the deadlock between Russia and NATO over a conclusion to the Special Military Operation that addresses and resolves the root causes of the conflict as stated by Moscow.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025