Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKx-eUpYDoM

NewsX World: 20:31
Now for this discussion, we’re joined by Gilbert Doctorow. He’s an international relations and Russian affairs expert, joins us live from Brussels. Thank you very much for joining us again. Good to see you. Gilbert, now in response to Ukraine’s increased reliance on gas imports, how might Russia adjust its energy policies as well?

Doctorow:
What we’re talking about is the consequence of exchange of strikes by Russia and Ukraine against the energy infrastructure of the other side. In our news, Western news, they speak only about Ukraine’s strikes on the Russian infrastructure. In the Russian news, they speak only about their own strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.

21:22
And it’s understandable that the broad public does not have any sense of the sequence here. Who did what to whom when, and what was an action, and what was proactive, and what was reactive? From my following this, I would like to call out that the latest Ukrainian remarks on what they have to import, or on how Russia has now lost its refinery capacity, 30, 50 percent or more of Russian production and refining has been stopped. The Russians are importing gasoline and so forth. As typically, the Ukrainians are projecting onto the Russians what is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine is importing, Russia is not importing anything in this regard.

22:15
However, the Russians have had serious losses of refining capacity and of other energy infrastructure due to Ukrainian strikes. And some of those strikes were directed by Americans. Let’s be quite open about this. It isn’t discussed in media, but it is known that the most recent strikes by Ukraine on Russian gas and oil infrastructure [were] using HIMARS, and it was Americans who were directing those HIMARS.

This is a very serious escalation. The damage was considerable. In Russian news you hear nothing about the extensive destruction of their energy infrastructure by Ukrainian attacks. What you do here, and this is mostly in social media, is in this region or that region there is a shortage of fuel. Now, when this comes to a discussion, public discussion, the Russian patriots will tell you, “Ah, this is the season of the harvest. The diesel fuel and other fuel is in short supply for that reason.”

23:28
Rubbish. It’s in short supply because refineries were struck. The issue is very serious. And the Russian response was also serious. They’ve had in the last few days massive attacks by missiles and drones on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure across the country. And the results were devastating, but not in the sense that they were put an end to the war.

NewsX World:
And Gilbert, can you tell us more about the involvement of US in these strikes that you say that it’s not covered enough or it’s not covered at all in media?

Doctorow: 24:11
It’s covered in the alternative media. The question of US firing HIMARS was discussed yesterday on one of the leading YouTube platforms, with highly responsible people, both as panelists and as hosts. So I take that quite seriously.

I assume that the information was coming from inside Russia by people who are, who have some relationship with the panelists who are speaking in the West. Nonetheless, the fact is that Russia is, as is understandable in a state of war, holding back a lot of information about the damage that it is experiencing, and is trumpeting its successes in blowing up everything it can on the Ukrainian side.

NewsX World: 25:01
And do you think that after all this, the US can still act as a mediator? Why do you think the US is leaning towards Ukraine now?

Doctorow:
The US’s role as mediator was rather peculiar from the very start. The United States effectively, the Russians wanted to call it out. They would say what we all know, that the United States has been, is, and for the foreseeable future, even under Donald Trump, a co-belligerent with the Ukrainians against Russia. Russia has not pressed that point, because if you press it, what you have is a war, a war with the United States, which they would prefer to avoid. I think we would be happy if they avoided it, because it probably would be the end of civilization on Earth.

25:45
For that reason, they haven’t done what they have a right to do, which is name the United States as a co-belligerent. Now they’re doing that, or intending to do that, if Europeans follow the United States through the open door of supplying long-range missiles, which they will control, to attack Russian infrastructure, energy infrastructure and otherwise. That they will control it is a blessing in a way, because if these missiles could be operated by the Ukrainians, you could be sure they would not be directed against refineries. They would be directed against Moscow’s and Petersburg’s presidential neighborhoods as a terrorist attack to create havoc in Russian society.

But neither the Germans nor the Americans are very likely to give the Ukrainians free control of where these missiles, which they may supply, which they may deploy, will be used against Russia. It’s not a pretty situation.

NewsX World: 26:49
Yes, indeed, we stay in a very sensitive place now. And also, Gilbert, I’m sure you saw the news yesterday with the confirmation that Ukraine has used domestically made missiles in recent strikes on Russian infrastructures. How does this reflect Ukraine’s growing self-reliance in defense, and what impact might this have on the conflict’s strategic dynamics?

Doctorow:
If there are serious weapons being manufactured in Ukraine, they won’t be manufactured for long, because intelligence will reveal to the Russians where these are, and they’ll be bombed out of existence. They opened an important manufacturing center, Neil Loth, a couple of days ago. The day after it was opened, it was obliterated by Russian bombing attack. So I don’t take this question of the Ukrainians’ ability or technical ability to produce serious weapons as having any determinant in the way the war goes, simply because the Russians can bomb anything they want out of existence on Ukrainian territory. That such weapons might be supplied from the West, that’s another story.

27:58
I do believe that the terrorist missiles that Mr. Scholz was talking about at the end of last year before the elections and the the entry of the still more aggressive Mr. Merz into the chancellorship, I believe that there are Taurus missiles in Ukraine presently. The question is how long before the Germans allow them to be used, and as I say a lot, how long before the Germans themselves use them from the Ukrainian bases against Russia, an act which will probably bring retribution. The Russians are unlikely to do anything about Tomahawks supplied by the United States, because that is a nuclear war to end civilization. But if the Germans try it, you can be sure that the Taurus factory will be bombed the next day.

NewsX World:
Thank you very much, Gilbert Doctorow, for joining us and sharing that insight.

This 40 minute interview goes into the corners of my arguments about Putin’s scandalous performance at the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club last Thursday, into the reasons why Putin should bomb the hell out of Kiev right now and put an end to this war by decapitating the Zelensky regime, into the evident emerging plan of European hawks to “lend” 145 billion euros of frozen Russian assets to Kiev for the sake of keeping the Ukrainian forces in the war for the next 4 years while Germany and others bulk up their armed forces and prepare to attack Russia in 2029.

You will note that I have parted company with many of the loudest voices in Alternative Media who are saying that Ukraine has already lost the war, that the front is collapsing and capitulation is just around the corner. 

I set out very clearly the open sources, namely Russian state television, which inform my changing understanding of the threats to Russia from prolonging the war. This is the modern-day equivalent of reading Izvestiya and Pravda for clues to Soviet policies back in the days of the Cold War; when done properly that yielded very valuable information. Today’s Russian electronic media are far richer in content.

 I question the value of the unnamed sources, presumably Russian military, who my peers say informs their views of how the war is going:  it seems to me to be irresponsibly naïve to believe that any chums in Russia will divulge military secrets to their nice buddy in the States; the penalty is life in the prison camps if not worse.

The Deep Dive audience may have a fair number of trolls among them judging by the vicious remarks in the Comments section.  However, the Likes are 8 times greater in number, which I find encouraging.

Enjoy the show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADl-ifTpYtw

NewsX World: 0:00
–Israel to scale back operations in the Palestinian territory. All right viewers, those are the headlines and our top focus, what’s happening in Europe. The governor of Lviv region of Ukraine, Maxim Kozitsky, has now stated that a Russian drone and missile strike on Ukraine’s western Lviv region overnight killed two people. He’s also added that two other people had been wounded. Meanwhile, at a late-night attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, One person has unfortunately lost their life and nine others are reported to be injured.

Meanwhile, Poland, a NATO member, has stated that it scrambled aircrafts to ensure its air safety after Russia launched airstrikes on Ukraine. Ukraine meanwhile has reported that missiles and drones are raining down on the Lviv region near the Polish border.

0:55
With us on the broadcast is Gilbert Doctorow, international relations and Russian affairs expert, joining us from Brussels. Thank you so much for taking your time and speaking to us on NewsX.

Civilians are now losing their lives. We’ve seen yesterday as well, there was an attack on a train station that claimed the lives of 30 people. Apart from this, energy infrastructure is being targeted within Ukraine as well. And what do you think will be the consequences of this, particularly with regards to energy security in the global market?

Doctorow: 1:30
The Russian attacks on Lviv may not be understood properly by much of the audience, who aren’t necessarily experienced in the geography of Ukraine. So let me just say something obvious.

This is next to the Polish border. And Lviv has been a marshalling point for incoming military hardware coming through Poland, because Poland is across the border, from the West, from the United States and elsewhere. They fly in or bring in by ship the armaments into Poland, which are then transported by rail down to the border and crossing over into the region.

For that reason, because of the proximity to Poland and to avoid having an escalation and sharply worsening relations with a NATO country like Poland, Russia in the past did not hit hard the Lviv region. It was spared. And that is paradoxical, because the whole problem in relations between Russia and Ukraine [is] from that region.

The Lviv region is the home to the Ukrainian nationalists. That is to say, the Lviv region, which was various times over history, I mean recent history, going back 150 years, was in Polish-Austrian possession and then became part of Ukraine after World War II. This area was a center for the Ukrainian language. It was propagated from the land of the 19th century by the Austrians, who supported the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian nationalism as a way of undermining the Russian empire in that region.

3:26
So the Lviv region has very great historical and present-day importance, present-day as a logistic center, present-day as an intellectual or ideological center of the whole Maidan movement and the anti-Russian direction of the Ukrainian leadership in Kiev. That it is being struck in such a cruel way now is an escalation by the Russians in response to the never-ending escalation towards Russia by NATO and the United States.

NewsX World:
Indeed, and speaking of NATO, so far we’ve seen their response has been very calibrated, even though Poland did scramble jets and Operation Eastern Sentry is in place. There’s not been any major protraction of the war that has taken place. Is NATO now toeing the line very carefully in order to avoid escalating the war even further?

Doctorow:
I wouldn’t say that. The war has many different dimensions. And NATO right now is escalating in a different area, but even more dangerously than what we see in the daily news coming from the Lviv for example. What I have in mind is the Baltic. The European nations, and with France in the lead, are now trying to impose both a maritime and an air blockade on Russia over the Baltic Sea.

4:53
And that, the arrest of what was assumed to be by France a Russian gray fleet oil carrier that Europe sanctions, the interception this past week by France, who arrested the captain and one of his mates and interrogated them for some time before releasing them, that is an act of war. It was done in neutral waters, and if Russia wanted to present Europe, France in particular, with the declaration of war, it would be under the UN Charter entitled to do that. So escalation is underway, but it’s not where you’re looking. Escalation is now in the Baltic.

NewsX World: 5:37
All right. I request you to stay on with us. We’re tracking some further updates.

##################################################

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8fgLRVbvN8

NewsX World: 0:02
Lithuania’s Vilnius airport was forced to shut down late on the 4th of October. Now according to reports, authorities spotted 13 suspected contraband balloons flying towards the airfield. The airspace remained closed until 4.30 A.M. Local time.

Now flying objects were also seen near Baltogivok, just 25 kilometers from the border with Belarus. This comes amid growing concerns over repeated airspace violations across Europe. Unidentified drones have caused airport disruptions in Denmark, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands in recent weeks. Russia is increasingly suspected of being behind the incidents. In fact, just last month, Russian drones breached Polish and Romanian airspace, and on September 19, three Russian jets entered Estonian territory.

0:53
NATO officials, meantime, are on high alert. Still with us on the broadcast is Mr. Gilbert Doctorow. Interesting developments. You referred to France. There was a meeting that has recently taken place in Copenhagen, where French President Emmanuel Macron, he referred to the shadow fleet, but he also spoke a lot about the drones as well stating that NATO will give a befitting reply and will shoot down any drones or any jets that are in fact, you know, breaching sovereign territory airspace as well. In light of this and the actions we’ve seen France take recently, do you think other countries, other NATO nations will follow suit as well?

Doctorow: 1:37
Only if Mr. Putin stops playing pussycat and shows himself to be a lion. His address last Thursday to the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi indicated that Mr. Putin has lost his way and is inviting attacks like the one that you have mentioned by his “softly, softly” approach in the face of brazen acts of escalation by NATO. The talk– there’s hysteria now within Europe over the supposed violation of European NATO airspace by the Russians. And this has two dimensions to it. That is the jet fighters that you mentioned in passing and the drones.

All of this, let’s be perfectly clear. This is programmatic. It is staged. I would bet money on it. Let’s say a case of champagne with any of your listeners, that this is being staged by the MI6. The Brits are in charge of dirty tricks. This is very much an hysteria generated from London the same way as the hysteria “Russia Russia Russia” against Mr. Trump into in 2016 was facilitated by MI6 and the Steele dossier and all of that complete fabrication.

3:04
The Russians did not send any drones against Poland. That is proven to anyone who is interested in facts by the nature of the drones, which were not attack drones, but were decoy drones, and which were very likely taken from downed Russian drones in Ukraine, reconstructed very easily, and sent towards Poland, towards Romania, and elsewhere by the Ukrainians for the sake of fomenting a war, a NATO-Russia war, which would relieve Ukraine from its present travails.

So you, I know you make your efforts to be objective, but you have involuntarily, I would say, repeated the propaganda coming out of London when you say Russian drones attacked Poland. Nonsense.

NewsX World: 4:00
And so quick follow up to that, we’ve recently seen elections take place in the Czech Republic, billionaire Andrzej Babis’s populist ENO party has now come to power. The EU is slightly wary of this, considering the fact that he is adopting a more protectionist position. We’ve recently in fact seen the EU approving a tranch, many tranches of aid to Ukraine, amounting to 140 billion euros. And this was in discussion for what, a couple of years. But Hungary in particular was stalling. Are there now fears that the new government in the Czech Republic that has now come to power would follow in Hungary’s footsteps?

Doctorow: 4:46
I’m very pleased that you raised the question of Mr. Babish’s evident victory in yesterday’s elections in the Czech Republic. That is of great importance. It raises the number of EU member states who do not accept the decisions that Ursula von der Leyen and her team are forcing upon Europe, with the support and help of NATO, to do everything possible to escalate and continue the war. The 145 billion that you mentioned would continue the war for three more years.

Now, what does that mean? It means that Europe would be looking to create a bridge, a continuing war in Ukraine, while it rearms and prepares for an all-out war with Russia three to four years from now. So this is a very important development. Mr. Babich is against it, just as are his neighbors in what was called the Visegrad Four.

The three members that are in agreement on the approach to Russia and the war in Ukraine are Mr. Orban in Hungary, Mr. Fico in the Slovak Republic, and now Mr. Babish in the Czech Republic. That is very important. Poland is the odd man out in the Visegrad, but that can be changed.

NewsX World: 6:06
All right, sir. I request you to stay on with us. We’re tracking further updates coming in. We’re now learning that Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Tajikistan’s leader, Imam Ali Rahman, on his 73rd birthday and has emphasized upon the importance of their upcoming meeting in Dushan.

Now Putin has expressed confidence that the meeting would strengthen the already close Russia-Tajikistan partnership, focusing on expanding bilateral, regional and international ties. The leaders will discuss various key issues during their meeting, which will coincide with the second Central Asia-Russia summit and the CIS Council of Heads of State. Putin is looking forward to constructive talks that will further enhance ties between the two nations and boost cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States.

6:58
Still with us on the broadcast is Mr. Gilbert Doctorow. Of course, Central Asia being in focus at the moment. You had earlier pointed out that Europe in the long term is looking at rearming and preparing for another war. In the meantime, could we see Putin sort of shifting his strategic assets, sensitive assets further east as well in order to protect them? And what role does Central Asia have to play in this?

Doctorow: 7:28
I wouldn’t say that Mr. Putin is changing or pivoting towards Central Asia. I would say the question is how Central Asia pivots or does not towards Russia. The fact is that despite their common past in the Community of Independent States, which was a successive organization to the Soviet Union, all the countries of Central Asia blow hot and cold, as respect relations with Russia.

When it looked like Russia was not doing well in the war, they were all flirting with the United States, where Mr. Biden’s administration was doing everything possible to win each of these countries away from the friendship and close ties with Russia and China. Then when it became apparent that Russia is defeating NATO and is winning the war in Ukraine, they all suddenly thought or thought again about their close friendship with Russia and drew close to them, which is what this latest news bulletin that you’ve given is all about.

When Russia is winning, they’re all good friends. When Russia doesn’t look like it’s winning, then they start looking for new romance partners in the United States and elsewhere.

NewsX World: 8:37
Indeed, and we’re seeing some rather interesting developments also take place in the Caucasus region as well. There are protests taking place in Georgia at the moment against the results of municipal elections there. In fact, the protesters are contesting the fact that the government is pro-Russia.

Doctorow:
I wouldn’t say it’s pro-Russia, it’s pro-Georgia. And that is what outsiders, particularly in the United States, have not liked at all. The Georgian administration was, in the last five years, never friendly to Russia. They didn’t– for a long time they canceled direct flights between Tbilisi and Moscow. The trade relations were minimal.

9:26
So the notion that Georgian leadership was divided between the friends of Russia and the friends of the United States is a false presentation. The country was divided between the friends of Georgia and the enemies of Georgia. The enemies of Georgia, who are out in the streets demonstrating and who probably got their pay packets each day from the Soros funds of one kind or another– formally, they receive them from USAID– they are there to overthrow the legitimately elected government of Georgia, which is pro-Georgian.

It does not want to be drawn into the war with Russia as Mr. Sakashvili was when he was in power in Georgia, and almost cost his nation its existence in 2008. So they want just to be left alone to look after their commercial and geopolitical interests.

NewsX World: 10:24
All right. So with that, I would like to thank you
for taking our time, sharing your insights with us on NewsX World.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQdNcL7XkU8

Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome back. We are joined by Gilbert Doctorow, historian, international affairs analyst and also author of the Russia-Ukraine War or more specifically _War Diaries, the Russia-Ukraine War_. I always carry it with me. It’s an excellent book, and I really recommend it.

So welcome back to the program. We see that President Putin just gave a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi. Many people had waited for this speech with some suspense because of the dangerous times we live in and also at this annual Valdai discussions he usually devotes four hours to discussing all world events. So many eyes were on this meeting, and also because of course the proxy war between NATO and Russia continues to escalate as the Ukrainian army suffers more on the battlefield. We see now discussions of Tomahawks, the US providing long-range missiles. No, it’s also long range intelligence for doing the long-range strikes.

1:07
We see _Financial Times_ reporting that the British are already engaged in attacks deep inside Russia in cooperation with the Ukrainians. So there’s a growing pressure, is my point, on Putin to restore Russia’s deterrence. And to a large extent, you feel he did not deliver on this. Am I correct?

Doctorow:
Yes, you’re correct. I was deeply disappointed in his presence at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi. Although I watched it from afar, there was complete coverage with some delay, provided by several different YouTube channels. I can’t say that I saw all four hours of it. It took a great deal of patience to do that. And I doubt that too many other of my peers spent more than a short time watching it and using the subject to project what they wanted to hear, but in fact did not hear.

When I looked yesterday at YouTube, and of course YouTube presents, it has AI-directed proposals to you and suggestions to you, knowing what your preferences are. So each day I got a menu of YouTube channels and they were consistently speaking about Putin threatens, Putin warns, Putin denounces. And they made it seem as though he was doing what everyone expected him to do, but in fact he did not do. Or to the extent that he issued warnings, they were so vague, so indefinite, that they have no meaning. Moreover, the most important fact is that the warning, the very clear red line that he described one year ago, oh, one year, two months ago, in several interviews, there’s a red line about use of long-range American or other missiles to strike deep within the Russian Federation.

He said very clearly that any country supplying this, And first of all, the United States, because the missiles in question, they weren’t named as Tomahawks, but it was known that all of the missiles striking Russia from Ukraine are in fact targeted and controlled by NATO member states. He said specifically that if long-range missiles were supplied to Ukraine and they struck Russia, then Russia would consider the [countries] supplying, delivering such missiles to Ukraine to be co-belligerents, co-belligerents for which Russia would reserve the right to strike back militarily.

3:55
That’s not what we heard on Thursday. That very clear and very strict warning to the United States was erased. Instead, what we heard was, well, if the United States supplies these missiles, they really won’t change the situation on the battlefield, even though they’re awesome. They are outdated. And more importantly, what they will do is spoil our budding relationship, cancel out the light at the end of the tunnel. Oh my goodness, that is not calling the United States a co-belligerent. If that were all that Putin said at this meeting, I would maybe try to find excuses for him.

But things were much worse from my perspective, and none of this is being carried by my peers. My peers on some very widely watched programs are speaking about Putin as a gentleman, Putin as the adult in the room and so forth. They’re saying what they said about him for years and they’re ignoring intentionally or not, they’re ignoring what happened at Valdai, Kekwelo. Namely, his so obvious attempts to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump that I would say he sacrificed Russian sovereignty then and there.

5:18
What do we name? Well, there was his lengthy homage to Charlie Kirk, the lengthy discussion of the son of a CIA director, directoress, who died as a Russian soldier fighting for Russia in Donbass. But more to it. His answer to a question from the audience, “What do you think about President Trump’s 20-point peace plan?” And he said, that is Putin said, “This may surprise you, but I approve of it. And I think that it has a lot of merit. Of course, I would add to it that it should acknowledge specifically the two-state solution.”

And then he went on to say, because the question was also asked about the designation of Tony Blair to be on the governing board, the interim governing board, I think he called it a peace board, which he, Trump, would head that would manage affairs in Gaza until such time as it was determined that the Palestinians could govern themselves. Well, Tony Blair on the peace board. Tony Blair, the unindicted war criminal, the man who encouraged Bush to fund his murderous and illegal invasion of Iraq against all the provisions of the United Nations Charter.

7:02
This man was then praised by Vladimir Putin as an experienced statesman and a person with whom he had personal contact and rapport, going back to the start of the new millennium when he spent one or more days in Blair’s residence and they both had shared coffee while in their pajamas. A touching note. But I just wonder how we can reconcile this statement with Mr. Putin as the defender of the Third World, of the members of BRICS, of the Palestinians, it is reconcilable. It is, as I say, a sacrifice of Russian sovereignty for which Russia may pay very dear. And we also, because it puts us in line for World War Three.

Diesen: 8:06
Yeah. Well, that was, one might, I guess the critical takeaway as well was that, well, it looked like the main message he wanted to get across to signal Russia’s main objective was for Russia and the United States to continue improving their relations while at the same time making it clear that Russia is now done with the Europeans because, well, he used words like describing them as weirdos and they, well, there’s no, I think everyone now recognizes strategic vacuum in Europe and there’s, he doesn’t see any way of fixing this, but also no desire either. So this is kind of the main thing he wanted to go for.

But I did share some of your ideas or thoughts on this because I was there at Valdai, and the day before we met with Lavrov, and he was also asked about Tomahawks and he came with this dismissive attitude as well. “They’re not going to change anything.” But what happened, but this is the, you know, okay, you exude confidence, but this is not what you want to say if you want to uphold a deterrent. It almost sounds like they, invite it in. And I think this can be very dangerous because if they do have more impact than expected, then Russia will strike back, and then we have war.

9:30
If the Tomahawks go in, the Germans will then see, “Oh, maybe we can go too now.” And the Germans will definitely get hit by Russia. So I think like almost a soft tone, but it might nonetheless escalate the risk of war. Same as you mentioned celebrating the Americans. So Charlie Kirk you know is a hero just like Russian conservatives.

He praised Americans fighting with Russia in Ukraine. And Trump of course I think he leaned a bit heavy into how easy it is to work with him and authentic, all of this. I think the European experience is that you don’t want to bow too heavy towards Trump because he’s the kind of guy who will, you know, buy his enemies and sell his friends. He’s very, well, if you praise him too much, he owns you. So I think this is what the international system he’s going for as well.

10:32
And the effective thing is what the Indians did is they pushed back a little bit. So I think this can only possibly embolden Trump further. So I don’t think that was helpful either. And the one area I would maybe disagree with you is the issue of Tony Blair though, because he kind of expressed some loathing of Blair and then the only positive thing he could say was, yeah, he has good coffee. I mean, it’s a, it’s a worth, it’s not a great compliment to give to someone, but you know, maybe I was reading it wrong.

Just as a last note, I spoke to different people in the audience there before and after this, you know, a lot of ambassadors and generals, mostly foreign, and they are, you know, so academic. Many had the same takeaway though, that they expected Russia to really have to come in with a message that they’re going to restore their deterrent, authentically so. And that’s what I heard before, and that’s also what I heard afterwards was it didn’t deliver what they had expected.

Doctorow:
We are in a world of real-politik and there’s very little room for personal rapport and for nostalgia for public relations in the past or supposed cultural affinities. This is a dynamic world that is changing, constantly in flux.

And that is something that Russia’s partners have to consider and that Mr. Putin did not help by his presentation in Valdai. I was on Indian radio yesterday, and the Indians were following Mr. Putin’s remarks at Valdai, at Sochi, with respect to his backing India in the face of American secondary sanctions and making reference to their long history of rapport with Russia going back to Soviet Union, and Soviet support for India in moments of need like in 1972. All of this is fine, but if you paid attention to this backtracking that I mentioned a moment ago, from hard red lines to very mushy, fuzzy lines, you wonder what Mr. Putin’s guarantees are worth. Well, I don’t have to wonder. You don’t think they’re worth much.

And that’s certainly true of Iran. I was on Iran’s Press TV and the question is, what do you make of Mr. Putin when he is backing the Trump plan? For that matter, so is India. So Iran in BRICS is in a tough spot there. Their close allies are on the other side of the fence on an issue that’s of great importance to Iran.

13:32
But there is, the personal aspect has been brought up repeatedly, that “I had good rapport with Trump and he’s a good conversationalist and he listens.” All that’s fine. But in the big order of things, when Putin tries so hard to ingratiate himself with Trump, he can only earn contempt, which is not a good basis for a durable relationship.

Diesen:
I was also wondering if Russia is being lulled into a false sense of security a bit as well, because he spent quite a lot of time discussing why the war more or less almost is over because he looked at the attrition rates and he looks at how the losses the Ukrainian army is taking, both men and material, and why it’s not possible to replenish this. And so more or less, you know, going with numbers and statistics to show that this is coming to an end, likely sooner than later.

But I guess my pushback against this would be that I agree with this assessment, but there’s other variables at play which won’t remain constant over time. That is that the Europeans are preparing for more direct warfare, they’re also seizing ships, discussion of blocking trade routes, which is an act of war. There’s this threats against Kaliningrad. It’s this possibility that the Russian economy might start to do worse a few months from now. Who knows?

15:13
It’s possible that China and India can’t stand up to American pressures forever. I mean, I’m not saying this will happen, but there’s a lot of unknown variables. And if you’re in a good place now, which I think Russia is in this war, it doesn’t mean that they’re going to be in a good place necessarily in six months or 12 months. So it does beg the question why, why would they still slow-balling this whole thing. I mean, they’ve got current success now, but if something goes wrong, given that Russia sees this an existential threat, then they would have to break out the nuclear weapons if things would start to go terribly wrong. So I’m just saying it seems strange to me that this will be the core variable to focus on.

Doctorow: 16:00
They’d have to break out nuclear weapons or they’d have to change their leader. That should not be off the table for discussion. But I think Putin was looking in the wrong direction, so was Lavrov. The issue is not whether the Tomahawks or the German missiles, Taurus, will change the situation on the battlefield.

No, they will change public opinion, which is where war must begin and end. If Russia is struck by a Tomahawk, if a major population center is struck by a Taurus, well, who cares what’s going on on the Donbas front, that will change the whole war entirely and it will go very badly for the Russian leadership. The public, which is now living very comfortably, earning salaries three times what they got before the war started, will be enraged by a strike that kills civilians in any major city, enabled by this lax response that we heard in Sochi to American plans to send in Tomahawks. And I agree completely with you that the real threat from the Tomahawks, which may very well never be supplied, is that this opens the door to Merz to do what Scholz didn’t dare do, because they’re saying, waiting for the Americans to go through the door first. And practically speaking, Donald Trump just went through that door, even if he never supplies a single Tomahawk.

17:43
Which means that we may, there’s not a question of delivering the Taurus to Kiev. Surely they’re already there in big numbers. The question is implementing them, using them. And if that happens, yes, well, who knows what Mr. Putin will say then. Maybe it’ll just spoil relations with Germany. He backs away from destroying the one factory in Germany that makes these terrorist missiles. It opens a lot of uncertainty. And instead of a clarification from the speech that Dmitry Peskov said would be important, we have new uncertainties.

Diesen:
Yeah, there was a lot of ambiguity. Again, I’m not sure how to interpret the optimism though, because if he’s too calm, too optimistic, it kind of signals that the guard is down, we’re not really going to do anything. Or if it’s just, maybe he knows something we don’t know if this is the reason behind it. Because I go to the Valdai every year and I’ve never seen him in such a good mood. He kept making jokes the whole time. He was such a loose, relaxed attention.

And also, you know, afterwards when President Putin goes backstage, I hear he’s away from the audience and the cameras, he’s still super optimistic and positive and like happy. So I’m not sure. He’s not putting on a, I guess, a show. I think it’s authentic. But as you say, if he’s like, Tomahawk’s this, nothing is that important.

19:33
It’s kind of strange because again, back to the thing when it’s kind of praising Trump. I’m glad they get along well, and it’s important to when the two largest nuclear power they have to be able to get along and reduce tensions. But on the other hand, this is a country which is now more or less at war with Russia. It’s their missiles, with their intelligence, their targeting data, the war being planned by their generals, killing thousands of Russians. And they’re now talking about escalating, so opening the doors to flooding Ukraine with more weapons. And if the only response is, yeah, he’s a good guy, We can work with him.

I mean, it’s, there has to be a balance somewhere where, yes, we’ll be, we’ll work with him. We happy for good relations. So we can end this war. But at the same time, if there has to be a deterrent somewhere, I didn’t necessarily see that balance, I guess.

Doctorow: 20:31
Well, the, it’s not my, discovery, the Russians say, hopefully that Trump is surrounded by enemies. And although they may have a rapport with him and understanding with him, they are aware– this is what comes out of Russian state television– that Trump may not be able to carry through his programs, particularly his reconciliation with Russia. Therefore, for Vladimir Putin to put so much trust in what he believes is an agreement with Donald Trump to normalize relations is strange to say the least.

There are three, I see at least three major threats to Russia. We discussed a while ago, this is for Tomahawks. You mentioned in passing the second threat, which is the blockade of the Baltic, interruption of trade routes. And we’ve seen various manifestations of that. That’s this whole hysteria over supposed Russian drones everywhere in the states bordering the Baltic by the way, and not just in places like Romania. That is the detention of the captain and some mate on a gray fleet Russian tanker by France. This is another manifestation of the attempt to intimidate Russia, to interrupt its trade routes and to establish an air and maritime blockade on the Russian use of the Baltic Sea. That is, as you said, an act of war.

22:12
What I would have expected is for Vladimir Putin to say, “Gentlemen, you pursue this, and by international law, that is an act of war, and we will declare war on you the next day.” He didn’t do that.

Now, all he has to do is to say the obvious: “Gentlemen, if you use, as you intend to use, the 145 billion euros in Russian state assets that are now frozen in euro here in Belgium as collateral for a loan to Ukraine, which by your own terms will not be repaid unless Russia agrees to pay tribute, to capitulate and to pay war damages to Ukraine. That is effectively confiscating our state assets. Under international law, that is an act of war, and we will declare war on you if you proceed with this.”

This would be normal. That would be a threat. What he said in his Q&A, these weren’t threats. They were mulling over what should we do. It was a variation on Maria Zakharova’s constant refrain. Can you imagine? Well, yes, we can imagine almost anything now.

Diesen:
Yeah, well, I guess the same as Tomahawks can be applied to the… Well, it turned out not to be a Russian ship, but irrespective of it, a ship was seized by the French. The French thought it was Russian and their objectives are more or less open. They want to disrupt the Russian trade. That’s the same reason the Europeans are also participating in striking deep inside Russia, its energy infrastructure. They also want to disrupt this transportation corridors. But again, this is an act of war and President Trump, sorry, President Putin, he made the point that, well, this is piracy.

It’s like, well, yes, it is. But condemning it and pointing out how dangerous is one thing. But again, if the main objective was to restore deterrent, that was a little bit left out of the conversation, because if it’s just one ship and then it’s never again yeah why go down the route of escalation especially when you’re winning on the battlefield. But the whole point there is things that the precedent, he siezes a ship, he releases it soon thereafter, no foul, then there’s no reactions from the Russians. Well, now you can do this again.

I mean, this has been the lessons of sending weapons. Remember the beginning, the West didn’t want to send any tanks because this was seen as being overly provocative and, you know, making the West directly involved. The F-16s would mean World War III, but now we’re just openly speaking about participating in striking deep inside Russia. I guess my main fear is the illusion of escalation control because it seems that we might not have the same assumptions about how we move up and down the escalation ladder. For the West, we slowly go a little bit up, we pull down if there’s too many fierce reactions, but the Russians, they tend to make, do nothing and then come up, come with a big response.

I think it was around the Crimean speech in 2014. President Putin made this comment that, you know, you treat us like a spring, you pushed us further and further back. At some point, we’re just going to lash back hard. That’s not how the West escalates. We do this slow incrementalism, setting precedents.

I’m just wondering if we think that the Russians are weak, but they’re actually building up an arsenal, Oreshniks or something, preparing to hammer us. I would like to see more certainty, as you said, more specific, setting the rules for proxy war because everything is unclear and that creates a lot of risks for miscalculation, I think.

Doctorow: 26:18
The issue here is not whether or not Western military experts properly evaluate Russia’s military potential. The issue here is how political experts advising the leadership in Europe and the United States evaluate the determination and risk-taking readiness of Russian leadership. There is the weak point.

As I said, this is a parallel to the question of whether or not these missiles will change the situation on the battlefield. Let’s assume they don’t, but it will change the political atmosphere which runs the war. If there’s a strike against Petersburg or strike against Moscow, all hell will break loose in Russian political life. And as to strikes deep inside Russia, they are already going on. As you mentioned at the outset, thanks to particularly British assistance, the Ukrainians are striking, effectively destroying Russian refineries and creating local areas, particularly in the southwest as I understand in Belgorod and probably in Korsk, maybe nearby Russian oblasts.

27:39
They have created a serious shortage of fuel. Now this is not getting proper attention in alternative media. In fact, it’s getting no attention in alternative media. But it is a reality. Now why Russia’s response has been to step up its strikes on Ukrainian oil production, gas production, gas pipeline, pumping centers, and so forth.

These strikes, of course, have been denounced in Western media, as strikes against civilian infrastructure, and nobody says a word about what they’re a response to, because there is a kind of omerta, kind of conspiracy of silence, to describe in the public agora what is happening to Russian infrastructure, which Russian drivers of cars in the locale that is affected understand perfectly well. Why it’s not reported by us is an open question.

Diesen: 28:48
I think the one key thing that could destabilize is also the assumption we have in the West often that Putin is a dictator. You know, he wields all power.

Now, well, this is kind of important because if you think that he’s okay, he’s not going to retaliate in a big way, he’s going to let this one go. As you said, that’s an assumption that it’s all up to him. But you know, there’s a lot of other political forces in Russia and if they, as you suggest, get upset enough, that either creates, well, it creates an immense amount of pressure on Putin. I used to write articles around 2015-16 about how the military and the key opposition were seeing Putin as being weak because they said, you know, we see that NATO, you know, we try to reach out a hand, we see that they’re not taking it. Instead, they’re building up capabilities along the border.

They’re preparing the Ukrainians for a war. And, you know, again, this back in 2015-16, and the main argument was we should prepare for war instead because it is coming. But, yeah, forward to today or to 2014, it would be impossible for him then not to react. And I think the same happens now. If we read his body language or his words and think that we can step over a red line, it’s not up to him necessarily.

There will be a demand coming from the political system that this is unacceptable. And I don’t know, do you see him possibly put in being undermined, this political credibility by taking too soft of a stance?

Doctorow:
Well, I’ve said something that is unspeakable for the last couple of weeks, that he may be removed from power. And yes, people say, oh, how could it happen? Who would do it? He has 80% popularity ratings. Well, a year ago, I would have said that this was indeed impossible. There were people like John Helmer, who was saying back then, people like Paul Craig Roberts, who was saying back then that Putin is leading us to World War III. In the case of Helmer, he paid attention to the general staff, saying there’s a lot of unhappiness in general staff with the go-slowly, turn-the-other-cheek approach of Putin to the way the war is being conducted. I didn’t believe that for a minute.

I thought that Helmer was getting information, if he was getting any real information from very few discontents who were not actually in the active service. However, considering what’s going on now, considering that Russia is facing three major threats that we discussed on this program, [1] the extension of this $145 billion to Ukraine, which can extend the war for now three years. [2] The long range missiles, which, either German or United States, can be used for political advantage to undermine the government by creating popular hysteria in Russia. It’s kind of terrorism. [3] And of course, there’s blockade in the Baltic.

32:09
These are major threats. And I can see where Russian patriots close to the government would look for a way out. Now I have in mind where and why. I’ve done my own poll. Your program, “Judging Freedom” and a few other, one or two other very important alternative media interview programs are now being systematically translated, not translated, dubbed into Russian using AI techniques by a YouTube channel called Parusky in Russian.

And they have, they provide data as a YouTube channel on the number of hits or views and the number of thumbs up, the number of comments and the numbers come pretty big. My Wednesday interview with Judge Napolitano had, the last time I looked, 78,000 views. It had approximately 920 reader comments, which were almost all negative. That’s to say, we Westerners are idiots, we can’t possibly understand Russia, and our president is the best president of the world. Okay, fine.

33:26
So I’d say 900 no’s for the idea that the conduct of the war is going badly. But 1,800 thumbs up. That’s to say those who agreed with the notion that the war is being badly conducted outnumbered those who love Putin at any price. Two to one. That’s not reflected in the 80-percent approval ratings that the Russian state pollsters or official pollsters give us.

I’m sure those are completely accurate, but they’re asking the wrong questions. So there is, I believe, taking under 75,000, that’s a lot of people, that’s much more than any usual poll takes to find out public opinion. And two to one, the votes who bother to write in what they think, most active people, they are two to one against the conduct of the war as it is today. So could there be at higher levels of say the FSB or other agencies at the top, [objection] to what Mr. Putin is doing?

Of course there could be. I’m just an observer here, and I have no recommendations to anybody in Russia or outside Russia what should happen. But I do think that we in the West as careful observers cannot ignore the possibility that he will be removed.

Diesen: 34:55
Well, I think so far, yes, it’s stable given that he’s been, well, he’s attributed for saving Russia. Even, you know, as Gorbachev once said as well, that if he hadn’t been for Putin, Russia would probably have been destroyed. And I guess they look at other variables as well. For example, Moscow now is truly one of the nicest cities in the world. It certainly was not in the 90s. So the way that Russia has recovered and strengthened itself, to a large extent, his credit.

But I do agree with you, though. I get the sentiment that many people do not agree with this slow, attrition war. But it’s not even just the Russians. Like I said before, I was speaking with all these different ambassadors and generals from not just China, India, but also from the West. No military there, but only diplomats from the West. But nonetheless, a bit of confusion was why Russia hasn’t attempted a capitation strike.

I mean, they know where everyone [is], they have their weapons. It seems to be an issue of intent, of not wanting to do it. So, but given all the human suffering both on the Ukrainian and the Russian side that this war brings. And also that it brings us closer and closer to World War III as the Europeans are now pulling themselves into this conflict. It seems, well, as more than one of these military and diplomatic people told me that they asked, you know, why they couldn’t understand why Oreshniks haven’t rained down upon the government buildings in Kiev, which sounds brutal.

36:47
But they saw this, well, what’s the alternative? Because Russia can’t end it. That’s capitulation. So if the option is between decapitation strikes and this slow grinding attrition war, Why not even try to go for a decapitation strike like the Americans and the Israelis tried in Iran? I don’t really know the answer to this. Again, I’m not a military strategist, but it is strange, given how many casualties have been ramped up over the past three and a half years.

Doctorow: 37:22
The man has been in power for 25 years. That is a very long period. I think we’re witnessing the end of an era. His wonderful foreign minister is tired. He’s tired. The man, I don’t think he spends more than one night a week in his own bed. He’s traveling constantly. The recent images I’ve seen of Sergei Lavrov, the man is finished. So this is an end-of-era phenomenon that we’re witnessing, but I don’t see my peers recognizing that.

Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Maybe he’ll link, he’ll go serve his term until the end, But I see cracks, and I see non-performance. I see a lack of vigor in his response to these latest challenges from the West that [is] troubling.

Diesen: 38:17
Yeah, no, I am, well, what I found fascinating this year was usually after he gives these speeches every year at the Valdai Discussion Club, the assessments are often, you know, everyone seems to more or less end up around the same interpretation.

But what I thought this year was kind of unique is how different people perceived it. Some saw this as being the strict warning to the West, like, you know, don’t cross here, this is our deterrent, while others have interpreted it as being so, yeah, being soft to the point that they might just pull back the red lines and thus embolden NATO to escalate. So it is, it’s very, and I never left this speech as being more confused, I guess, than I was now, which is not great when you’re a country at war, you want to be very specific, you want to communicate clearly and what you’re communicating should be credible and you should have the capabilities as well to back it up. This is the three C’s of deterrence, communication, credibility and capabilities.

Doctorow:
You were there on the spot, and your reading of the audience and the notables in that audience of course is the most valuable, more than anything that I can find on television, and yet … and yet, there were things obvious.

Diesen:
But I’m wondering if there’s something, again, the way he often speaks, because he talks about the Europeans getting more aggressive and he points to the polls and then he reads a poem. He talks about how Blair is a horrible person, but he makes good coffee. And I’m wondering now if he, in this super optimistic, friendly, let’s-all-get-along, cumbaya speech, if he was at the same time– If I turn on the news, the Russians are just hammering Ukraine even harder and harder. Their missile attacks seem to have learned a way of working around the Patriot systems which can’t intersect properly and more so.

40:41
So things seem to be getting, hardening dramatically on the battlefield and at the same time he seems to be lowering his guard. So again, I’m not sure if there’s something I didn’t pick up on.

Doctorow:
The situation on the battlefield is not a hundred percent covered in the West, not in alternative media for sure. There was apparently a rather big and initially successful counter-attack by Ukraine in the Sumy region. I’ve seen very little about that.

What we see now on Russian state television is the counter-counter attack and how they’ve driven them back and recovered. They never described how they lost. So to say that this is one way that the Russians are really crushing the Ukrainians, I think it’s not quite accurate. Yes, in places the Ukrainians are falling back. They still have a long way to go to reach the Dniepr.

41:39
And this is the point. If 145 billion comes to Ukraine, they will hire any number of mercenaries. They will find ways to embolden their soldiers, and the war is going to drag on until Europe is ready to fight Russia, which would be too damn late.

42:00
Well, thank you so much for sharing your views on this. As I said, speaking with the different people there, their interpretation was so widely different that– and I must say, there were several who were leaning towards your thoughts as well, that this was definitely not what they had expected. So I’m not sure if you have any final thoughts before we wrap this up.

Doctoorow:
No, just a great appreciation to you for sharing what you saw, because you were there. And for widening to your audience a variety of views on issues that they should see from many different angles.

Diesen:
Yeah. Well, just on that, I did ask a question to Putin there about how the geopolitical consequences of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, but then specifically in terms of the Arctic and the Baltic seas, now that tensions are, or pressure is mounting on Kaliningrad.

But again, in the spirit of the good mood, he didn’t touch on the Kaliningrad. But this is the US general threatened to invade. So again, I’m not sure if his efforts to lighten the mood resulted in ignoring some of the severity of what’s happening. Again, I’m not sure how to read President Putin either in terms of his performance there. But anyways, it’s worth watching in full, even though he does go on for four hours. So, yeah. Anyways, thanks again for joining us.

Doctorow: 43:32
My pleasure. Thank you.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/134767

PressTV: 0:14
Hello and welcome to “Spotlight”. Tensions between Russia and NATO are escalating once again with Moscow warning the US about the potential deployment of long-range missiles to Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that such a move would mark a new stage of escalation in the conflict, significantly raising the stakes between Washington and Moscow. Putin also expressed concern over Europe’s increasing militarization, particularly Germany’s plans to strengthen its military and warrant a retaliatory measures. As NATO member states pledge to boost military spending, Russia insists that these actions, coupled with the flow of weapons to Ukraine, are fueling the war. Moscow maintains that NATO, not Russia, is responsible for the ongoing conflict and the rising tensions in Ukraine.

Story by Hamid Shahbazi: 1:06
Tensions between Moscow and NATO countries are once again on the rise over the war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his latest speech, warned the US about the potential supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine, saying that it will mark a completely new stage of escalation between Washington and Moscow.

Putin:
Using Tomahawks without the direct participation of American military personnel is impossible. This would mark a completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the United States.

Shahbazi:
The comments come shortly after it was reported that the White House has approved intelligence sharing with Ukraine, while weighing up whether to send Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kiev.

The supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are known to have a range of at least 2,500 kilometers, would significantly boost Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian targets. Russian President Vladimir Putin also expressed frustration over Europe’s military buildup, noting that he is monitoring the trend and warned of retaliatory measures.

Putin: 2:14
We are closely monitoring the rising militarization of Europe. In Germany, for example, they’re talking about how the German army should once again be the most powerful in Europe. Well, we’re listening carefully, watching what exactly they mean. Retaliatory measures by Russia will not take long. The response to such threats will be very significant.

Shahbazi:
He accused Europe of stoking hysteria to justify rising military spending and said Russia is not a threat. In June, NATO member countries have pledged to nearly triple their military spending under pressure from US President Donald Trump, deepening militarization across Europe despite ongoing social and economic strains.

NATO claims its military buildup is for self-defense. But Russia argues that it is this very buildup, along with the constant supply of weapons to Ukraine, that is fueling the war. Moscow insists that NATO’s actions, rather than any Russian attack, are the real cause of the conflict, and warns that continued militarization will provoke significant retaliation, with Russia holding the West responsible for escalating tensions in Ukraine.

PressTV: 3:23
Joining us on tonight’s “Spotlight”, we have radio host and journalist at CPR News, Mr. Don Debar joining us from New York.

And we also have independent international affairs analyst, Mr. Gilbert Doctorow, who’s joining us from Brussels.

Gentlemen, welcome to the program. So the Russian president, we’re going to start off with Mr. Debar, New York. The Russian president has warned against Europe’s escalating militarization amid this conflict with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin said effectively all NATO states are at war with Moscow right now, and his country is going to respond to any threat against its security. Break down the recent warning from Putin.

Debar:
Well, here in the US, to me, the most significant part of it was that he reminded the world that the United States came through World War II unscathed because of the two oceans that separated it from the European and Asian wars, and that these would not be a barrier to the US’s full participation in a response from Russia to the threat. In other words, we’re getting to the point where they’re talking about trading missiles back and forth across the oceans.

And we know what those missiles carry. And in fact, because we can’t know what they carry while they’re in transit, everyone that goes off the ground, the other party has to assume it’s carrying a nuclear warhead and respond in kind while they’re able to. This is the policy and the doctrine they followed for many years. Now, we’re looking back to 1962, October, what’s it, 63 years now, and because the Soviet Union had installed some mid-ranged nuclear weapons missiles in Cuba which was 90 miles off, I’d say analogous to the location of Ukraine, the United States directed, but it said basically, number one, any missile launched from Cuba against anyone else in the world considered launched by the USSR against the United States and will see a full retaliatory response. And secondly, that the missiles had to be removed or there would be an invasion, you know, a full-scale invasion by the US of Cuba.

6:00
Now the analogy here is strong enough, but we were talking then about missiles that could only reach, say, from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, Chicago, maybe, or somewhere inside that kind of range, not the entire U.S., not New York, etc. And you had launch time, you know, there was a lot of time, relatively speaking, between launch and when these things would land. Now we’re talking, okay, when I was in Moscow in 1990, they installed cruise missiles in Germany, much further than Ukraine, and the time was 18 minutes from launch to its arrival in the Kremlin. So there’s a hair trigger here that didn’t exist 63 years ago, many more weapons, and the United States is behaving in a belligerent fashion across the board talking about that open war, and that was not the condition in 1962. This is the scariest moment in human history.

PressTV: 7:01
Gilbert Doctorow, Putin accused European nations of fueling instability by increasing military spending and deepening integration under NATO. What is the end game for Europe here, in your opinion? Russia has in the past said that Washington has subjugated Europe in order to wage war against Moscow. What does a winning scenario look like for Europe?

Doctorow: 7:27
Regrettably, remarks that you’ve been quoting come from yesterday’s speech by Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Discussion Club gathering in Sochi. What was regrettable about it is that he has backed away from his own red lines of a year ago. He, in the speech, he was essentially saying, good Americans, bad Europeans. The part that you just asked me to comment on is the bad Europeans. I would like to put attention also to the good Americans.

Mr. Putin was very solicitous and very careful to please Mr. Trump. And this was an alarming aspect of his appearance in the speech and more importantly in the question and answers. You in Iran must be particularly interested in what he had to say about Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which he approved. You in Iran must be particularly interested in his calling the unindicted war criminal Tony Blair an “experienced statesman”, whom he had spent a day or more together with in his residence back at the beginning of the millennium. Well, I’m sorry, this was too big an effort to please Trump, which cannot end well.

PressTV: 9:02
Right. Don Debar, Putin warned that supplying US Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would lead to a whole new level of escalation, including in the Moscow-Washington relations. Where does that scenario lead to? Ukraine sought these missiles since the Biden administration, but the US rejected that over fears of escalation. Is it likely to happen now?

Debar:
I mean, it’s difficult to tell what’s going to happen. It’s so volatile. And it’s also difficult to know in many, like in some fundamental ways, what’s really going on. There is an apparent– “rift” is a kind way of putting it– in the ruling circles here in the United States, with Trump sitting in the White House and almost everybody else treating him as the enemy, And the population divided somewhere around 50-50 on this. And when Trump ran for president, he ran, he promised that this war would come to an end in 24 hours. But certainly he conveyed the idea strongly and intentionally and rather blatantly that it wasn’t going to be escalated but rather shouldn’t be going on and was going to come to a halt as soon as he could get his hands on it.

Either that’s true or it’s not, in terms of his intent. And then it’s either possible or not for him, but then the question becomes if he’s removed, because this is one of the strongest bases of the support that keeps him in office in the face of the apparent onslaught from all the other political quarters, then if he loses that support, who comes into office?

It’s not going to be anyone who’s ever mentioned that they shouldn’t have a war with Russia. And everyone else in this country, in terms of the ruling circles, they’re belligerent as hell towards Russia and support everything that is offered in terms of dealing with it. You look to Lindsey Graham, for example, as sort of the center of opinion outside of Trump’s White House.

PressTV: 11:19
Gilbert Doctorow, let’s discuss these two serious potential escalations. One we mentioned earlier, the supplying of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. And the other is the talk of seizing Russian cargo ships on the high seas. How do you see Russia responding to these situations?

Doctorow:
Like a wimp. This is exactly what I’m talking about. By ingratiating himself with Donald Trump or attempting to, Mr. Putin is playing a very dangerous game. He said one year ago, this question of Tomahawk– well, they weren’t named– but of long- range American missiles being supplied to Ukraine was discussed directly by Vladimir Putin. And he said– he didn’t say what he said yesterday, that this would be an escalation. He said that this would make the United States a co-belligerent and we would have the right to strike them, strike them militarily.

He has backed down yesterday from that important red line, which suggests to Europeans and also to people like Lindsey Graham in the States and all of the hostile people to Donald Trump in the States, that Mr. Putin is indeed a paper tiger. That is a terrible thing for him to have done yesterday. As regards the second threat, I don’t agree that it’s the seizure of tankers. That is an ongoing threat. Generally speaking, the NATO countries are trying to establish a blockade, a sea blockade and an air blockade on the Baltic for Russia.

13:01
That is, under ordinary understanding, an act of war. And it is high time for Russia to say openly, gentlemen, this is an act of war, and we will go to war with you if you persist. So it is also with the seizure of Russian state assets that are frozen. What is now being discussed by the EU is very clever, but it’s too clever by a half. They’re not seizing the assets outright, but they’re calling them collateral for a loan to Ukraine, which will never be paid back.

In effect, it is seizing those assets. It is high time, if Russia has any self-respect, to say to Europe, “Seizure of state assets like these is, by international law, an act of war. And we declare war on you.”

The point is that Russia now has a military advantage over NATO and over Western Europe. That advantage is being diminished day by day as Europe spends this $150 billion in arms improvements, as Mr. Merz in Germany spends his one trillion euros to make Germany the biggest military force in Western Europe. And that will reach a culmination three or four years from now when Europe says it will be ready to fight a war with Russia. It is not ready now, which is to say that if Mr. Putin wants to defend Russia, he should do it now, not three years from now.

PressTV: 14:35
Okay, Mr. Debar, would you like to add anything to what Mr. Doctorow said, whether you agree with him or not? And of course, regarding the “paper tiger” comment, which just came up as well, Vladimir Putin hit back at that at the US President. He said, “If we’re fighting all of NATO and we’re a paper tiger, then what does that make NATO?”

Debar:
Well, I agree with Mr. Doctorow on facts and on his analysis, and I respectfully disagree about the conclusions, because [of] just the stakes. You know, there’s a very strong resemblance to me historically, and to others, it’s not original with me for sure, to the period before the beginning of World War I. And this is something that’s interesting, There’s the dramatic reenactment of the diaries of Robert Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis called “13 Days Here”, where they have some of the, you know, the script basically contains the actual transcripts of the discussions that were going on in the White House during that event. And one of them was a reference to a book that had come out back in August of 1962, I believe, called _The Guns of August_.

15:39
And it was an analysis of the, basically, miscalculations that the various states had made about what each other would do under the stressful conditions that existed at that time. That they thought they knew this [glitch] going down the line, and that the miscalculations were all based on outdated data and consequently didn’t apply, and that people found themselves in a war that none of them wanted, apparently. This is the opinion of JFK through the transcripts. And yet, you know, it was this bloody, horrible, you know, Holocaust that swept over Europe. You know, that pales to the level of destruction that stands before us in the event of even a single nuclear exchange between Russia and/or Europe and/or the United States.

And I assume either China would play the role of the US if it could get, if it could do that, and watch and pick up the pieces later as the US did after World War II or participate. And I’m assuming it would participate on the same side as Russia. They’ve been manufacturing weapons for a very long time. They seem to have the skill and the set of factories that can crank out an awful lot of stuff pretty quick. So I’m guessing a war that included China as an adversary to the West and the US would be a very very significant one to be…

PressTV: 17:41
Mr. Debar, I want to stay with you for the next question. Russia says the Western military aid to Ukraine including the additional missiles would inflict damage but it won’t change the balance on the battlefield. Do you agree with those comments?

Debar:
Yeah, I mean, what will happen is– look, the way the West should conduct a war if Russia didn’t have nuclear weapons the way they would conduct it, if they’re going to attack Russia, the first thing you do is take out its ability to respond on the ground. You take out their airplanes and their missile silos, you know, and all of these different things.

That’s what they hope to do. Maybe they think they have a secret weapon that will enable them to do that, or a series of systems to minimize the response or whatever. But that is insane thinking. Whatever the United States does in terms of military action against Russia, a military action by proxy or otherwise is going to meet a response when it starts to affect on the ground at any scale. I mean, We’ve been looking at attacks inside Russia at the periphery in the mean, with the exception of a couple of terrorist attacks in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

18:55
But an actual overt military attack on the target inside of Russia– particularly Moscow or St. Petersburg or any of the other major cities, Vladivostok, etc. even– there’ll be a response. There will have to be. And I agree with Gilbert there that at that point in time, Putin or whoever’s making policy in terms of this military aspect, that their hands will be tied, they will be forced to–

Look, part of the effort to– these people want Russia’s resources. And part of the effort to do that is to remove the government that is using those resources for the Russian people and for their own use, whatever it is, that it’s not filling the coffers of ExxonMobil, Chase Manhattan Bank, whoever it is that’s got the ear of a power hero or the hand of a power hero. But the people there, if they’re afraid and see that the government can’t protect them, will not be married to the government that they right now strongly support. And so that government’s existence basically is going to rest on it standing up at some point. Maybe that point is now, and maybe not.

PressTV: 20:06
Mr. Doctorow, your thoughts on the same issue as well. There was also the question, it has been looming since this war escalated: will this support result ultimately in this conflict spilling over into other regions and possibly turning into something bigger? There have been threats of nuclear retaliation on several occasions. There are also the scares with Poland and Bulgaria, if I’m correct.

Doctorow:
I’ll have a direct answer to your question. What is galling to Russian patriots? And by that I mean in the intellectual class, in the governing class, the political establishment in Russia. What is galling is that Russia has developed many conventional war arms that are very sophisticated, that are years ahead of anything in the West. It used to be said at the turn of the new millennium that Russia was a nuclear power but had no conventional forces that were worth talking about. And nuclear weapons by definition can’t be used because they will bring a direct response at the end of the civilization, certainly the end of the party that uses it first.

21:21
However, now with the new weapons systems, and in particular the hypersonic missiles that no one has deployed as Russia has, the Oreshnik, the Russian patriots are asking, why not finish this war tomorrow? Several Oreshniks directed at what’s called Bankovskaya Urytsa, that is the street in downtown Kiev where the main government offices, the decision-making centers are, would decapitate the Zelensky regime, would end the war tomorrow. And Europe would stand by powerless and speechless, and Mr. Trump would give a congratulatory handshake to Mr. Putin, because that is what Trump has been saying for the last several weeks, which Putin has not listened to. He’s been saying, “Vladimir, get it over with.”

PressTV: 22:21
Don Debar, let’s rewind to a past statement by then US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who said one of Washington’s goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia. Why does Washington want to weaken Russia and have the sanctions weakened Russia’s economy or have they somewhat backfired in your opinion, especially with European countries?

Debar: 22:47
Well, Biden spilled the beans– he’s not quite as sentient, I don’t know, as Austin– that the real goal was not just to weaken it. The reason you would weaken it is to set up for the next step. They want regime change there. And regime change not in the form of a different president, although it would likely include that, but rather they thought they took the resources in Russia in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and in the period of the 90s, and particularly the oil and gas and some of the other more important aspects of Russian holdings. And instead they were taken back, and again they’re being applied to Russian aims, whatever that might be. I can see from being there that people are doing pretty well since this thing changed in about 20 years ago, 25 years ago now.

23:54
The goal is to get hold of Russia’s oil, gas, and other material wealth to remove it as a potential rival. I mean, Russia also stands as a strategic umbrella over China. And these people would of course like to move from being a 49% holder to a 51 or 100% holder, of ownership, of China’s industrial base. And so, you know, it’s a strategic purpose across the board, both to grab the resources and also to take away the possibility of a rival on the global stage.

PressTV:
All right, gentlemen, we’re going to have to leave it there. That’s all the time we have for tonight’s show. Thanks to radio host and journalist at CPR News Don Debar, joining us from New York. And thanks to independent international affairs analyst Gilbert Doctorow, speaking to us from Brussels. And a special thanks to you, our viewers, for staying with us on tonight’s edition of “Spotlight”.

24:46
It’s good night for now, and see you next time.

Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen: Restoring Russia’s Deterrent or Emboldening NATO?

My latest essays and video interviews with Americans, Indians and Iranians disseminated as podcasts on  internet channels in the USA, in India and in Iran set out my impressions from Vladimir Putin’s 4-hour speech and Q&A session on Thursday, 2 October in Sochi at the 22^nd annual Valdai Discussion Club gathering. They stirred considerable controversy as you can see in the Comments sections of the respective videos and in my substack.com entries presenting the links.

I insist that stirring controversy in this way is good and is necessary. Too many of the Alternative Media broadcasts resemble the Mainstream Media they supposedly are countering by borrowing from one another and standing shoulder to shoulder behind interpretations that are not challenged. When there is no debate, the results tend to be second rate whether in the camp of the ruling class or in the camp of the Opposition.

The chat that Professor Diesen recorded with me this morning is likely to stir even more debate, which hopefully will remain polite and constructive.  I am suggesting that the era of Vladimir Putin is coming to a close, that his performance at Sochi demonstrated that he no longer has the courage of his convictions, that his threats meant to deter Western enemies are empty verbiage, indeed that himself he has pulled up the red lines he clearly set out just one year ago with respect to long range missiles being supplied to Ukraine, and that he is drawing out the war in Ukraine by not using the Wunder Waffe that Russia has in the form of the Oreshnik and other hypersonic missiles to end the war now, without taking or inflicting further casualties on the young and not so young men at arms on either side of the demarcation line, without letting the war roll on for several years until the West succeeds in the remilitarization that is now underway and has a chance of defeating Russia in a conventional arms war.

This question of Putin’s succession will play out in Russia whatever we may think, but I am saying that this eventuality which we never openly discussed now is ripe for discussion here in the West even if it is verboten in Russia.

I particularly recommend this video to the Community because you will find in it the impressions of someone who watched the Valdai proceedings from afar on the internet (mine) compared with the impressions of someone who was present in the auditorium in Sochi when Putin delivered his address and who compared notes with ambassadors, political scientists and other participants of the event (Glenn Diesen).  Do check to see how our impressions did or did not match up.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aeigb0SeHrA

Doctorow: 0:00
He has been persuaded that controlling the whole world is too big a task and highly controversial and leads you into wars which you usually lose. Fighting in Afghanistan, fighting halfway around the world at great logistical disadvantage versus powers that are there on the spot, assisting Ukraine against Russia when you’re four or five thousand miles away and Russia’s right there. This is a fool’s game. And I think that advisers to Trump have persuaded him of that obvious point. However, bullying Venezuela, bullying Panama, that’s an American game that Mr. Reagan was very good at. The question of beating up little countries, well, there are plenty of little countries to beat up on in Latin America.

WTF – Fatseas: 1:01
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the “What the Finance” podcast. On this episode, I have the pleasure of welcoming on Gilbert Doctorow. So Gilbert is an author and geopolitical analyst with really interesting perspectives on what’s happening around the globe. So Gilbert, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today.

Doctorow:
Well, it’s my pleasure.

Fatseas:
I’m looking forward to the conversation, because I was just talking before we sort of went on air. There seems like there’s been so much happening in the global sphere and sort of geopolitics overall. So interested to dig into it. What is your current outlook on what we’re really seeing in geopolitics overall?

Doctorow:
Well, I’d just like to emphasize, considering whom I consider, perhaps mistakenly, but whom I consider to be a prime audience, that the geopolitical conflicts that we see now are not isolated from the rest of politics. And they’re certainly not isolated from who is in power and what kind of finance policies, credit policies, and so forth these governments are pursuing. That is to say, the powers that be in Europe are all globalists, neoconservative in outlook, values-based foreign policy. And they also– and so you could call them, in American context, we would call them all progressives.

2:25
“Progressives” is a very nice word, but it hides the fact that they are war hawks. And that they, like politicians who don’t have such attractive labels attached to them, are ambitious people who have taken power by using various particular levers that we can discuss like the Green Movement, and are wholly dedicated to holding power. So these are preconditions for any discussion of geopolitics. And I raise this because of the recent analysis of who said what about Donald Trump’s speech last week in the General Assembly, where what he had to say about Russia was denounced because he was being provocative — by the very same people who are actually enemies of his anti-globalist, anti-renewables positions in other parts of domestic and foreign policy.

3:32
So these things are inseparable, whether we like it or not. And they have a lot of bearing on what the outlook for people interested in finance will be as these governments stand or fall in the wake of the ultimate collapse of Ukraine, which is a matter of months away.

WTF:
Okay, yeah. Thanks for laying that out. And I think it’s something that’s really interesting that you pointed out there. If we look at historically, or maybe it’s at least 25 years ago, the hawks seem to be the conservatives and then the liberals were sort of, I guess, maybe you could say the Peace Party, and now it seems to have been a complete switch. Is that something that we commonly see, a switch between, I guess, different leanings, or is this something that’s quite unique?

Doctorow:
Well, taking just the American case, the Democrats were always the party of the working man. Republicans, by definition, were the party of the bosses. And that has reversed itself completely. This is something that Donald Trump has worked on, but he’s not the first one.

Ronald Reagan was the first one to see the opportunity to take away the working class votes from the Democrats because they had actively undermined the interests of the working class by their globalist pursuits, including in particular, their multilateral free-trade agreements, their concessions in taxes to American corporations that had operations abroad and kept their profits abroad and declared them in very low taxing countries and districts.

So the Democrats, from being the working-class party, evolved into what Donald Trump openly denounced as the elitist party. And the Republicans, despite themselves, under Trump’s stewardship, have returned to principles of Reagan, where they are attempting to look after the interests of the working man. And that is what the whole tariff policy is about, the re-industrialization of the United States.

So the position of right and left has flipped. And that has to be understood. It’s true in the States where it’s so transparent and obvious. It’s true in England with Mr. Farage. He has completely gutted the conservatives and gutted the labor.

5:58
And so who is right and who is left? And everyone will say, who is the Labor Party, that Mr. Farage is on the right. Well, that’s a very subjective statement which we can examine. In Europe, the right and the left is almost meaningless. The left has largely been vanquished. And so what we really have is the right and the center. And in Europe, that is even complicated further because most countries have coalition governments and they don’t have a first-pass-the-line kind of electoral system that is true in the first-past-the-post in the United States and in Europe. And the coalition governments, what each party stands for more or less becomes meaningless because of all of the swapping and concessions and compromises over policy to get in the number of the parties and the parliamentarians, the number of deputies necessary to have a majority in parliament to rule. Therefore, it’s very much fudged and unclear where right and left stand.

7:11
But where we are headed in Europe, I believe, is going to follow the pattern in the States because Mr. Trump and the United States are very, very important in determining policies in Europe and politics in Europe. It will take some time, but I think things will head that way.

WTF:
Yeah, and I think it’s a great point. If we look at it, it’s more like a political class with traditional parties versus, I guess, not revolutionary, but the new parties that are trying to push into this, you know, one system, one, you know, political class that are sort of driving basically the same agenda. At least that’s what I’ve seen in the UK and I think it’s probably quite similar sort of throughout the rest of Europe.

Doctorow: 8:01
And again, issues, it’s very easy to use the category right and left when you take an issue like sustainability and carbon footprints as a political issue and a way of gaining votes and winning elections. The point is that this is totally unrelated to where the given spokesman for Green stand on other things, like war and peace. Going back 15 years, the most warlike, the most viciously anti-Russian, the most sanctioning party against Russia in the European Parliament were the German Greens.

Is that a necessary association? I cannot say for sure, but it is true that this is the association. The Greens paid for it because of who their leaders were initially and who their leaders became, what kind of people they were, how they were shaped by American sponsorship, turned these Greens, who were appealing to young people in particular, who would like to break with the stasis of the centrist parties and with their indifference to global warming and so on. These parties, the Greens, combined a concern for the environment with readiness to destroy the world in a nuclear war. So it becomes very, very difficult to speak in traditional right and left terms wherever you look.

WTF: 9:49
Yeah, it’s really interesting. And how has Trump shifted what we’re seeing globally? Because it does seem like he’s had a large impact on the geopolitics and what we’ve been seeing. Would you agree with that?

Doctorow:
Yes, I believe he is having. To say that he’s had is a bit premature. But assuming that he stays alive and that he is not taken out to the woodshed by what remains of the deep state in the United States and told, “If you don’t change your ways, you’re going to have a short life.” Assuming that he continues the bold implementation of policies that he has ruminated over for several decades and the formulation of which he has been assisted in by some very capable advisors who have been with him through thick and thin, he will have a big impact on global geopolitics, as well as on domestic politics in large parts of the world. What he spoke about at the General Assembly, particularly the question of open borders and the question of the Green Movement. These are going to be reversed in front of our eyes as Mr. Trump’s tenure in office proceeds.

11:21
It is often … not understood how certain individual principles– well I mentioned before the question of greens and how that is deceptive for their actual policies other than environmentalism when they come to power. But there are other issues which seem to be progressive, attractive, which unfortunately are promoted by people who are not progressive and attractive. On the contrary, are just the opposite of that. They are authoritarians, and they wouldn’t know democracy if they tripped on it. And I have in mind, for example, here in Europe, the Federalists, the people who are talking about harmonizing Europe, consolidating Europe, giving it a consistency that was lacking up to the 1990s.

12:17
That sounds great, but regrettably, the very same people who are talking in those very respectable, very progressive-sounding and attractive terms are also warmongers, are also spoiling for a fight, with Russia in particular, and use militarization to justify and consolidate their grip on power. And I can name names. If we go back to the 2010s, you had a group called Aldi that was a substantial minority group within the European Parliament, headed by the former prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt. Verhofstadt fell from grace after he was one of the several leaders in Europe, the Germans, the French, who openly resisted Bush’s intention of using the United Nations Security Council, to allow for his invasion of Iraq.

13:23
And so Mr. Verhofstad, who would otherwise have become the head of the European Commission, was sidetracked and he formed a group within the European Parliament called Audi, which after Mr. Sarkozy– Sarkozy, sorry– after Mr. Macron was elected, his parliamentarians joined, merged with Verhofstadt and formed a rather substantial bloc that is present and rather influential in the European Parliament today. Those people are pursuing policies on the Europe-wide level in foreign policy, which will lead us straight to World War III if they’re not checked. And they are federalists, and they’re looking to increase the powers of Brussels at the expense of the sovereignty of the member nation states.

14:17
So as I said, single issues like federalism, like sustainability and the green and renewables, which are sound fine and give certain people and certain parties a claim on the electorate, are unfortunately linked to broader intentions that are quite odious.

WTF”
Yeah, and is this sort of why they, if you look at it, they’ve been very, yeah, definitely hawkish against sort of Russia. Is it sort of trying to find a common enemy to to find an excuse to unite and to federalize and to gain more power is that what you’re seeing as a mechanism for this?

Doctorow:
Well yes, Russia is a very convenient bogeyman, and it gives the leadership at present in Europe the possibility of saying to their electorate, stay with us, bear with us, our countries are under threat, we are the stewards, We are the ones who are most interested in national defense, and we will protect you.

This is precisely what Mr. Starmer was saying at the Labour Party convention in Liverpool yesterday, when interviewed, and was explaining how Mr. Farage would cozy up to Putin and threaten the security of Britain. That’s in a nutshell what these people are saying to hold their grip on power and to deprive the electorate of a reasonable debate on all policies, including the remilitarization of Europe and the merger, essential merger, of what is NATO and what is the EU. These are serious issues today. And unfortunately, in the mainstream media, no one is looking at these constellations as I have just set them out.

WTF:
Okay, really interesting. So maybe we can come back to that point, but if we go directly to sort of the Russia-Ukraine war, how are you currently judging that? You know, a lot of people, it’s very hard to see what the actual, what’s actually happening. Some people say Ukraine are almost going to beat Russia. Others are saying Russia is going to walk over them soon. What is your current outlook?

Doctorrow: 16:40
Well, at this stage of events, for anyone to be saying that as the “Financial Times” yesterday and today as a lead page, so to speak, in their online edition, I forget it was Rashman or one of their regular contributors is explaining, or trying to explain, why Ukraine is really winning the war.

And I think similar to what is being said in the States, even in the circle of President Trump, that, “Wow, the Russians should have solved this problem and defeated Ukraine long ago, and we see they’ve only had such limited territorial gains in the last three years, that proves that Russia’s losing.”

Of course, this is utter nonsense. The latest figures even coming out of Ukraine from military sources, is that Ukraine has lost 1.7 million dead and severely injured soldiers. Out of respect to Russia, someone with as much experience and good sources as Colonel Macgregor has been saying that Russia has lost 120,000 soldiers dead. Discrepancy is more than 10 times, 12 times. That is reasonable to expect when you consider from the very beginning of this war of attrition, Russia had 10 to 12 times the amount of artillery shells and tubes, artillery tubes, compared to Ukraine and NATO. So the figures correspond. The actual mortality versus the actual, is in line with the actual relative armaments and wherewithal of the respective sides.

18:33
To say that Russia is losing and to ignore this vast discrepancy in fatalities is to be irrelevant and is, simply speaking, a propagandist. The situation at present is: the Russians have accelerated their move in all fronts, in part in the Donbass, which is the principal area of interest to the Russians. They have found weak spots, undermanned positions on the Ukrainian side here and there. And they are taking advantage of this, but not in the most obvious way.

They don’t storm in and push the Ukrainians back 50 kilometers. No. They take some land and hold it, inviting the Ukrainians to come and counterattack, which they do, and they get slaughtered. So this is repeated in various places. The Russian game is to demilitarize Ukraine by destroying its manpower in the army. They’re doing a good job of it.

19:39
Now you can send to Ukraine everything you want by way of new artillery and new Bradleys and new xxx-powered tanks, but if they have no one to man it, or if when they come out in the open field those tanks are destroyed in minutes by Russian drones and artillery, then how can you speak about the Ukrainian counteroffensive ever taken back what they’ve lost? So for people who are following the facts on the ground, as are being quite objectively reported by many different sources, it should be clear that Ukraine is on the ropes. The problem is that politically, the group around Mr. Zelensky have a stranglehold on the Ukrainian nation. They have since they came into power.

They have since the coup d’etat of February 2014. And the Ukrainian nation has been deprived of all possible alternative news to the state-run media or to the supposedly free press that has in fact from the beginning been financed by the United States USAID, essentially the CIA, and NGOs acting in the name of the US government. So the Ukrainian people only see the large increase, regular increase in cemeteries, but they don’t have a sense of the balance of power between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

What is happening now is, as I said, in advance, the Russians are moving on on Donetsk, which was the most important of the two oblasts in Donbas, which have been largely, majority, held by Ukrainian forces when this special operation began, and which even today are at least 30-35% held by Ukrainian forces and 65-70% held by Russian forces.

21:56
The Russians want to sweep to the Dniepr River. That’s probably a matter of weeks, if not a very few months away, since they are knocking out these substantial fortified towns that the Ukrainians fortified over the course of eight to ten years precisely to prevent such a Russian sweep. The Russians are very cautious. They want to keep this ratio, kill ratio that I mentioned before stable. They do not stage large-scale, widespread assaults on these towns because in any situation like that, the attacking force always has bigger casualties than the defending force. So they are softening these towns up, and I have in mind Pakrovsk in particular, and several others in the Donetsk province.

We see the, as I said, the partial takeover of Pakrovsk, which is a major logistical hub and fortified point, barring the way to the two lesser fortified cities in the very center of Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. And then as a free plane, free rolling to the Dnieper River. The Russians have been moving on this Pakrovsk, which they call Krasnoyarsk. And they have had significant success in the last week in a similar town, taking a similar town on the outskirts of Kharkiv, that is northeast Ukraine, on the border with Russia. And it’s the city that is the second- largest in Ukraine with predominantly Russian-staking population but has been used by the Ukrainian government as a staging ground for attacks on the Russian border provinces.

23:53
This goes back more than a year, a year and a half, to a raid, the first raid within Russian Federation territory that was staged by a group that the Ukrainians helped form, called the Russian Volunteer Unit or Corps. These are the people who have been defending the fortified town near Kharkiv that the Russians now have surrounded. And these renegade Russians who were turning on their own people and staging terrorist raids across the border are among those whom the Russians are very busy slaughtering right now to remove the most obnoxious forces in the Ukrainian military.

25:04
Well, so that’s what’s going on in Northeast around Kharkov. That’s what’s going on around the center and the Donetsk, Lugansk, the two core oblasts of what they call the Donbas. And now the Russians are turning their attention to Odessa. Odessa is not so far away. When you consider where the Russians are in the neighboring province, Ukrainian province of Kherson, it’s a rather short distance to by land to Odessa.

But Odessa so far has been attacked by the Russians by air, using missiles, using drones. Odessa is the most important port facility of Ukraine. It’s what they have used for all their grain exports, and it’s also a very important military base. It would be a still more important military base if the war is frozen, if there’s a settlement that is a provisional settlement and not a profound settlement like the Russians want, and the borders are fixed where they are now. In that case, the French and the British would certainly move into Odessa, set up shop and prepare Odessa to serve their purposes in attacking Crimea, which is rather close by sea, if you just look at the map, close by sea from Odessa.

26:35
For that very reason, the Russians are now saying among themselves, “We cannot be free of the threats to us, to our security, coming from Ukraine if we don’t take Odessa, which was always a Russian city anyway.” So that is probably the next area of military attack by the Russians as they roll on and take the whole of the Donbass in a month or two to come. If they take Odessa, then the rump Ukraine will lose almost all of its interest to France and to Britain, and the war will be ready to be wound up.

WTF:
Yeah, thanks a lot for the in-depth analysis of it. Do you see, is there any way that this can be resolved through this settlement, or it would have to be quite large, sort of, I guess, you know, basically Ukraine giving Donetsk and other parts of the country. Is that the only way for that to be a settlement soon?

Doctorow: 27:38
Well, I don’t want to be dogmatic or to say that the scenarios as I just described are obligatory and the only way out of this conflict. Of course, there are always variations. What I will say is that what Mr. Trump was saying in New York last week when he was say taunting the Russians and saying that, “Gee, they thought they would do this in a week. It’s now the third year. They haven’t finished the job. Maybe Russia is a paper tiger.”

Well, of course that was a taunt. And a lot of people initially took what Trump was saying to be that, “Ah, he’s changed his position, he’s a pivot, he’s seen the light, he’s now on our side.”

Which was, after they reflected a little bit on this, they understood that they were being trolled. That is, the European leaders were being trolled, and Trump’s domestic opponents, like Lindsey Graham, were being trolled by Trump, when what he really meant was the opposite of what he was saying. He said, the essence to the Europeans was, “OK, you like the war, you want Ukrainians to win, good luck, and you’re on your own.”

28:56
The position of Mr. Trump with respect to Putin is a little bit different. Yes, there was a taunt. And yes, Mr. Trump wants to be the peacemaker, but not in the sense that the European leaders and his domestic opponents and the majority of the American political establishment believes. You see, the real message of Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin was, “Vladimir, get it over with. Crush Ukraine, finish them off, do it in a week, so that you and we can then move on and do real business. We can do business extending the about- to-expire New SALT treaty.”

That is to say, the only major remaining agreement on arms limitations, nuclear offensive weapons, missiles, submarines, and air-delivered weapons that we have today. It expires on the 2nd of February. And Mr. Trump, despite his seeming belligerence and unwillingness to accept arms limitations agreements in general, I believe he has been persuaded that it’s in America’s interests that there are not being new arms race.

30:32
So these, Mr. Trump’s desire– I believe, and this is, and I cannot prove this, it’s simply my take on the situation– his desire is for normalization in relation to Russia. First of all, for security reasons of the United States. Russia is now well ahead of the United States in updating its nuclear triad, and well ahead of the United States in not just development, but actual implementation, deployment in the field of advanced offensive weapons, hypersonic missiles of various kinds. And I think that Trump has been persuaded that it is in America’s interests to put a cap on these developments.

WTF: 31:24
Yeah, and I think this links quite well to the point you were making before about NATO and Europe. Do you see, so this is a mechanism for the US to almost withdraw from Europe, withdraw from NATO, and then to sort of push further to towards the East, towards China and Asia? Is that sort of how you’re seeing this trajectory?

Doctorow:
Yes and no. I don’t believe that Mr. Trump really wants to go after China. His secretary of state has, from long ago, made it clear that China is the biggest threat, la, la, la. And Mr. Trump is going along with that. And he is, again, Trump is assumed to be a dullard. He’s assumed to be a superficial man. He’s just a real estate developer. What does he know about global politics? I beg to differ. He’s had decades to mull over these questions, and he’s had some very smart, if not brilliant, advisors to help him along, starting with Henry Kissinger.

32:30
Everybody in the press has a memory that goes back about two weeks. And our political scientists in their journal articles have a memory that goes back maybe three, four, five years. Let’s look back a little further. During the 2016 presidential campaigns, Henry Kissinger was a key advisor on foreign policy, and I’d say a mentor to Donald Trump. And so strategic thinking was given to him in a kind of tutorial for at least six months, close to a year, by Henry Kissinger.

These principles, I don’t believe he’s forgotten them, and if he did, he has them in his new suite of advisors, some other very smart people who also understand geopolitics and can give him specific pointers as we go along. So as regards the world at large, Mr. Trump is interested in the American– in perpetuating, reinforcing, consolidating the American hegemony in the Western hemisphere and in Latin America. That is clear from the day he took office. That is clear in his whole Greenland acquisition move. That is clear from his gunboat diplomacy with Venezuela today.

34:06
Let’s remember what’s happened in the last 20 years. China has moved in to Latin America as a very big consumer of its raw materials, investor in minerals production, and investor in logistics, as we see in their involvement in the Panama Canal.

Mr. Trump would like to uproot all of that. I think that’s his primary concern. Going after the People’s Republic of China over Taiwan, I think is a negligible interest of Donald Trump, even if it is a concern of Republicans in Congress and of his own Secretary of State. So withdrawal from Europe, not completely, but he wants to end and he is succeeding in ending Europe’s free ride. They’re having less than 2% of GDP devoted to military purposes in their own defense. He has done what he could to motivate Europeans to raise their defense spending while preparing the way for a lesser role of the United States in Europe. That is not the same thing as isolationism and withdrawal of the United States from the world, which is what Mr. Trump’s enemies attribute to him.

As I just said, he wants to control half of the world. It’s called the Western Hemisphere. And he is less interested in America’s being the policeman of the world and of being widely overextended outside its own sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere.

WTF: 36:07
Okay. So a return to the Monroe Doctrine.

Doctorow:
Oh, exactly. I think he was being persuaded that controlling the whole world is too big a task and highly controversial and leads you into wars which you usually lose. Fighting in Afghanistan, fighting halfway around the world at great logistical disadvantage versus powers that are there on the spot, assisting Ukraine against Russia when you’re four or five thousand miles away and Russia’s right there. This is a fool’s game. And I think that advisors to Trump have persuaded him of that obvious point.

However, bullying Venezuela, bullying Panama, that’s an American game that Mr. Reagan was very good at. The question of beating up little countries, well, there are plenty of little countries to beat up on in Latin America.

WTF: 37:12
Yeah, okay, really interesting. So you say it sounds like there’s gonna be spheres of, you know, as you said, the Western Hemisphere, you know, Europe, and then probably the Eastern, Eastern Hemisphere of China leading the way and I guess the BRICS countries, is that how you sort of see the world moving forward?

Doctorow:
Well, I think there is going to be a regionalization of power. And that is a good thing, where people in countries that are directly involved and directly knowledgeable about their neighbors are, with those neighbors, some of the neighbors, making common policy to resolve issues that concern them directly, without the intervention, without the big thumb on the balance, of a country that is very far away and has its own peculiar ideas about how the world should look, meaning the United States. So there will be– the Chinese hegemony in the Far East will be ultimately accepted by the United States. The Russian interests in its immediate neighborhood, not to control these countries, but to ensure that they’re not being used as weapons by the countries halfway across the world, to undermine Russian security.

38:40
So Russia is not going to control Poland, Estonia, and the rest of it. It’s all nonsense. But that these countries not be hostile to Russia. If they form some kind of written agreements on security, mutual security, I think that’s what we will see evolving around Russia. And the United States will remain regrettably, but let’s face it, this is a long story, the big bully in its own neighborhood.

39:12
Okay, really interesting. Gilbert, thank you so much for your time today. We’ve sort of covered basically going over the whole globe. But my last question is, what is one message you want people to take away from our conversation?

Doctorow:
Stay calm. Look, I am on a number of YouTube channels. I consult YouTube regularly to see who is saying what. There is a lot of sensational headlines attached to people who are otherwise quite respectable and balanced, which if you read them and see them daily, your hair stands on end. The end to the world is not coming. That is my single message.

And Mr. Trump is– whether is this shall I say despite himself, but I think in favor of what he really wants– acting against the war hawks, acting against the conspiracy here in Europe to maintain tension for the sake of keeping those in power in power. So overall, I do not see reason to be alarmed. And I take a phrase from Charles Dickens, in _Tale of Two Cities_, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” To my, as an, I’m an historian by training, and looking at the world in the past, the present, and I believe the future, that statement has always been true.

WTF: 40:51
Great message. Thanks so much for your time. If anyone wanted to find out more about your work and what you do, where would the best place for that be?

Doctorow:
Well I have a Substack account, the “Armageddon Newsletter”, which shouldn’t get people too worried by the title. It also was catchy, but it was not intended to alarm anybody.

I also, if you just look [for] me, Google me in Amazon, you’ll see what I have written. I have eight published books and a couple more in the works. My activity has been as a chronicler of our times. And that comes out in my two volume memoirs. It comes out in my latest book, _War Diaries_. So I invite the audience to investigate this aspect of my work and perhaps it will interest them.

WTF: 41:50
Perfect, I’ll pull that in the description below, but thanks again for your time.

Doctorow:
All right, my pleasure. Bye bye.

WTF:
Hey everyone, thank you for listening. I really appreciate the support. If you got value out of this, I’d really appreciate it if you could like, subscribe or comment, you know, good or bad feedback, I’m always open to that. But it really helps to the channel. As I said before, only about 14% of people actually subscribe to this channel. So if you were to do that, it would really help. It could mean we could continue to grow. If not, thanks for watching and see you on the next show.

42:20
You also might like this video right here. All right. Thanks again.

Transcript submitted by a reader

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

Diesen: 0:00
Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by Gilbert Doktorow, an historian, international affairs analyst and author of _War Diaries – the Russian-Ukraine War_. So I remember the last time Trump was ramping up the pressure and rhetoric against the Russians. He gave them 12 days to accept an unconditional ceasefire. Otherwise the response would be crushing.

This of course, the prospect of America going, if not to war with Russia, but at least putting its might behind the attempt of crushing Russia created a lot of excitement. And then the 12 days expired, they met in Alaska and Trump took the unconditional ceasefire off the table. I was wondering now we’ve seen this display at United Nations. We see the same rhetoric, the Russians are losing, Ukraine is winning, will get back all its territory. And while you’re at it, why not take some Russian territory and shoot the Russian jets out of the sky.

1:11
And yet again, the Europeans are very excited. Finally, America is joining, becoming more directly involved at least, already quite involved. How are you assessing this development?

Doctorow:
Well, before I begin, I’d like to congratulate you for putting on air very divergent opinions coming from different experts or people who are being watched on alternative media. An hour ago, I caught the first part of your interview this morning with Jeffrey Sachs.

And what I’m about to say sharply diverges with his interpretation of it. The general position within alternative media of Sachs is very well known, and with good reason, and has a very wide following with good reason. I am much less known with good reason, and my views could be described as an outlier on what we’re about to discuss. I think it would be very informative for viewers to juxtapose, to watch these two different interpretations when each of us has been asked this question by yourself.

2:32
Jeffrey Sachs said that the performance of Mr. Trump at the United Nations was a colossal failure of leadership. I disagree entirely. But behind this is not just my opinion on that one issue and his opinion on that one issue, but where we both stand on everything about Mr. Trump, since it is not widely discussed that Mr. Sachs is a globalist by definition, given his position at Columbia University.

He is a Green movement supporter, since his whole career the last 30 years has been support of sustainability. And Mr. Trump in his speeches at the UN trashed both positions, both globalism, particularly the aspect of it relating to open borders, and very specifically trashed the Green movement. So we’re coming from very different positions on Mr. Trump in general.

3:21
But let’s look at what happened this week in his speech and in Trump’s answer to reporters regarding the shoot-down of Russian jets violating airspace; and the likelihood that Mr. Zelensky will succeed in recapturing his territory, thanks to, with the help he’ll be receiving from the European Union.

Now, Jeffrey Sachs was denouncing Trump for his lack of candor and for his not explaining to the American people the basis of his policy and for being duplicitous. My position is that if Mr. Trump did any of those things, he’d be impeached and removed from office within a few weeks.

His policy on Russia, unlike his policy on the Green movement or open borders, has little or no support within MAGA. It has still less support, in fact is vehemently opposed by the majority of congressmen and by the majority of the American political establishment. For that reason, there is no candor in his speech. There is duplicity, double talk, and he’s leading people on. This was my first conclusion regarding his remarks [in] respect of the likelihood of Mr. Zelensky winning the war against Russia. There was an initial reaction among European leaders of glee. It was not just Lindsey Graham in the States who was taken in by this. It was all of the European top leadership, whether it’s Merz or Starmer or Macron. Macron was sitting next to Trump, and looked very pleased to hear Trump say that he really thinks Zelensky can succeed.

5:42
Well, that was the initial reaction. After a bit of time and reflection and after people like the _Financial Times_ came out and said, Hey by the way, it could be that Mr. Trump’s word shouldn’t be taken at face value and that in fact he is setting the stage for an American off-ramp and for Europe to be blamed, because there will be a blame game for the eventual defeat, capitulation of Ukraine.

Well that has now become a consensus view within the spokespeople for the European Union, like Kaja Kallas, who came out and said precisely that. That– well, not precisely. What she said was that Ukraine cannot succeed with the help of the European Union alone.

6:32
That is a hint, hint, that the United States should be part of the party, of the group. But it suggests that they now understand that they have been taken for fools or as one reader of my recent essay said, that Mr. Trump was trolling them, which is indeed my view of the situation. If he said openly that he expects Mr. Zelensky to be defeated and so on, he would find enormous resistance within all of Congress. So that’s the game he’s playing.

Also the question of the “paper tiger” remark, an insult to the Russians. Indeed, some Russian readers of my interviews as they’re translated into Russian by one or another Russian internet platform have said that this was an insult to Putin.

Well, let me give my brief explanation. Mr. Trump wants to be a peacemaker. He wants the war to end. And he’s been told by all sides that he must pressure Mr. Putin. I believe he is pressuring Mr. Putin. And this taunt of Russia being a paper tiger was part of the pressure techniques of Donald Trump on Mr. Putin, but not in the sense that the European leaders and many in Congress would like it to be. The taunt is, “Vladimir, get it over with now. Crush Ukraine now.”

8:25
Now, I said in a recent interview that it could be done if Mr. Putin took out the Oreshniks and destroyed Bankovskaya Ulitsa, the street in downtown Kiev, where most of the government offices are. A Russian, one Russian reader and commentator said, you’re 100% right. At first, for a Russian to write that is rather brave. That’s to be taken to be a Putin critic or an Eno agent. But that is the message that Mr. Trump is delivering.

Diesen: 9:11
It is interesting though that the peacemaker is not always able to make peace because it’s a fear of being a sign of weakness. So for example, you saw toward the end of the Cold War when Reagan wanted to open up talks with the Soviets and discuss how to improve relations and have more peace. It would have been very difficult for a dove to get away with this, but he was the hardliner and no one could accuse him of being soft on the Russians.

So given that he had that reputation for being a bit of a hawk, he had the political capital to go and actually talk and try to make peace. I mean, you could say the same with the way the Russians gave territorial concessions to the Chinese. For Yeltsin, that would have been impossible because he was seen as weak, he would have been almost treasonous. No one saw Putin as weak. So he was able to make a lot of agreements which laid the foundation for more stable and stronger relations with the Chinese.

10:21
I guess my point is you might be onto something there because you do have to, it’s very difficult to make peace if you’re seen as peacemakers given that they’re seen as weak. It could be good as playing the hawk at times. I must say though, there is some dishonesty. It’s not [exclusive] to Trump either though. The whole idea that when he says yes, Ukraine can win, nobody really believes this.

And given that their reaction was wait, he’s just trying to blame us for the Ukraine failure. So obviously the Europeans don’t think that Ukraine is winning either. It’s just one of these things you have to say to pledge loyalty to the narrative that keeps the war going. So we’re all chanting, yes, the war was unprovoked, the Ukraine is winning, they’re having low casualties, Russia has these human waves, Zelensky is just super democratic. I mean, this is what you have to say to give support for prolonging the war.

11:20
But the thing is that there’s no honesty anywhere though. Everyone is just lying to support the narrative which makes it impossible to come up with a peace agreement and instead to keep the war going. How do you assess though Starmer, Macron, von der Leyen and Merz? What are their positions? Because I saw Mr. Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, take to Twitter that he realized, wait, we might be getting played here. That is Trump is trying to hand over responsibility for the Ukraine war to us. I mean, I guess they wouldn’t panic in such a way if they actually thought that the war was going their way. I mean, why would you want to take responsibility if you actually think you’re winning?

12:15
Well, they are so heavily invested in all of this tripe, all of this nonsense, that it’s very difficult for them, particularly since they moved locked arms. And they are very critical of any member of the 27 countries that breaks ranks as Fico in Slovakia and Urbán in Hungary have done. So they will make a move, but they’re putting it off and putting it off, a move towards reality, to get out of the bubble.

Let me be very precise about duplicitousness and lying to the public or false words that Mr. Trump is spreading. That is in one area, maybe in a few other areas, but the area that is of note is his policy on Ukraine, the Ukraine-Russia war, and on what he expects American relations with Russia to be after the war.

13:20
He doesn’t dare set that out in a straightforward, honest, candid way. For the reason I just said, he would lose all of his political support and become a lame-duck president instantly, if not impeached, if that’s what he did. At the same time, his speech to the UN was perfectly candid and honest and showed leadership. Whether you like the direction of his leadership is another question; that’s a personal choice of anyone who’s listening. But he was perfectly candid in expressing his heartfelt thoughts about open borders, about the renewables as a substitute for traditional fossil fuels.

And he was perfectly honest and candid, if anyone bothered to listen to the end of his speech about a multipolar world. Why do I say that? He established that it is the obligation of heads of state and heads of government to look after the prosperity of their peoples and to give support to the traditions, the national traditions of each country, which established the uniqueness and the sovereignty of those countries. My goodness, that is a complete break with the underlying principles of the neocons and of globalism. And that was speaking from the heart. Oh, he does have a heart, and he just speak from it, but not on Ukraine and Russia.

Diesen: 15:11
But I hear what you’re saying. John Mersheimer, he’s also, he interpreted it in the same way that this was this statement, which was very belligerent on paper and rhetoric. What it effectively did was to wash Trump’s hands of the Ukraine war. And I thought this was convincing because when he said, well go shoot down Russian jets, but you know, America won’t participate and you can put crushing sanctions on Russia and secondary sanctions, which will also crush Europe. But you know, you go first and then we’ll join later.

Yeah, we’ll send all the weapons, they can retake all the territory, but you know, You have to buy them from us. And they don’t really have the money. America don’t have the weapons and the Ukrainians don’t have the soldiers. So one, one, I guess I found your argument in your article quite convincing in this sense. But I do have to say though that words, they do matter though, and the rhetoric can be quite dangerous.

16:22
This whole argument of striking deeper inside Russia, they’re going to send more weapons. That’s one of the things that made Lindsey Graham just giddy like a little schoolgirl that now America wouldn’t put any limits on weapons. So you’re going to have this long- range missile striking deep inside Russia, which is effectively then an American attack on Russia, and with the Russian jets as well. I mean, once those words have been uttered, they have to be taken into account by Russia. And again, they made it very clear if anyone in Europe thinks about firing upon a Russian jet, then it’s war. There’s no other path. So it seems that the rhetoric nonetheless is intensifying, though.

Doctorow: 17:08
It would be troublesome if there were anything true, the claims and the demands and the … fists in the air from European leaders. What Trump was doing was calling their bluff, and it is a bluff because he knows and they know that they don’t have the wherewithal to do anything without the United States. And it also is calling the bluff of the Americans, the people under him who are saying to him and he then repeats, oh we will ship 3,000 missiles to Ukraine, so that they can strike deep.

Well, that issue has been taken up by Russian analysts on air, on state television, and they insist: these weapons haven’t been produced yet. We’re speaking about something two years, three years from now. When Trump said he’s going to ship them, he didn’t say when. Oh, he said when, but it wasn’t serious. It is not going to be in three weeks.

18:11
Therefore, this belligerency that seemed apparent and that could have made people like Lindsey Graham delighted is also a bluff, and empty talk. In the meantime, Mr. Putin, the lawyer– He is a trained lawyer after all, who doesn’t want to take an action that is no longer a military, special military operation, but in fact an act of war. He doesn’t want to do that without the authorization, specific authorization of his parliament.

That man, the lawyer, is working at odds with the man who is the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces, which also was named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. So we have this contradiction at the top of Russia, and it should be resolved. It has been lingering and lingering.

Diesen: 19:15
Yeah, well, Zelensky was making some comments that he might hit, I’m not sure if he was going to hit Moscow with Tomahawks, something along those lines. But I saw a report, I haven’t had it verified, but I read that the Tomahawks are not forthcoming.

So again, this would also be something that would cause a direct war between NATO and Russia. So I guess there is some, behind the wild rhetoric, there seems still to be some common sense.

But on the issue of common sense, what do you see actually happening now at the moment? I mean, you followed the war very carefully with your war diaries And there’s been, you know, gradual unraveling over time.

We tried to patch up the holes with new weapons, more aggressive recruitment strategies in Ukraine. But at the moment, there’s some, a lot of regions now which are being encircled, not just Pokrovsk or Konstantinivka, but Kupiansk, that might be the most critical one. There’s a lot of problems building up, Also the Zaporizhzhya front, which is now being closed off both from the West and the East. But once countries get desperate, and you did say the Europeans, they committed themselves fully to this. And if there is no diplomatic path, I’m always worried that desperation translates into stupidity, and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of that at this moment in Europe.

So what do you see happening? I ask because I see the Russians now shipping Oreshniks to Belarus. So I’m not sure if they will know something we don’t know yet.

Doctorow: 21:15
Well, to a couple of things. First, to ease the difficulty of listeners to this. Kopyansk is what has been described as a major fortified outpost of Ukraine. It is a logistical hub, yes, but it is also a city protecting Kharkov. It’s part of the Russian strategy of taking Kharkov without a ground assault on Kharkov that could be very costly in civilian deaths. And after all, Kharkov is not just the second-largest city in Ukraine, but it is essentially a Russian-speaking city. So they would be killing their own people if they came in and stormed the city.

So they are going to encircle Kharkov and taking Kupyansk is a big part of it. They do this very dramatically by using underground pipelines from the Soviet era, gas pipelines, to again bring in secretly their own troops. Some of them, these pipes are pretty big because I was told that some of the Russian forces were riding motorcycles or scooters through these pipes. Anyway, It was a very dramatic event. They already have their troops in the center of Kupyansk and they’re cleaning it out.

22:40
This is an important development for the Northeast because this area, Kharkov, was a staging ground for the attacks on the Russian frontier or border provinces, oblasts, Belgorad and Kursk. Moreover, very specifically, the 700 soldiers whom the Russians are said to have encircled inside Kopyansk, Ukrainian soldiers, a large number of them were what was called, or is called, the Russian Volunteer Army, or Corps, which were precisely the people, defectors from Russia, who were armed and sent in by the Ukrainians to commit acts of terror and murder civilians in the first Ukrainian incursion on border areas, which was approximately one year ago, and before the Kursk action, Belgorod. So the Russians are very keen to murder all of them. I think they’ve taken out 250 out of division, 750.


23:51
But that is not the main front. The main front, as you said, is in the Donetsk oblast, and that is where the Russians are advancing and are likely to do in the city of Pakrovsk, which is known in Russian as Krasnoyarmesk, are something similar to what they’re doing now in Kupyansk. And yet there are other things afoot. You’ve mentioned Zaporozhzhye, yes, but there’s something more, I think, more important for us to understand how this war will end, that’s now being discussed on Russian television. And that is the need to take Odessa, because Odessa is rather close. If you look at the map, in maritime terms, it is that close to Crimea.

24:40
And the British and French have looked at Odessa as a key base for precisely that. So the Russians now are also turning their attention to Odessa to be captured. And if they capture it, then this tells you a lot about how the war will end, because once the rump Ukraine does not have Odessa, it loses much of its interest for Britain and France. So this is the way the war is going.

But all of this is going terribly slowly and the world doesn’t stand still. This is why I believe Mr. Trump is pushing Putin to get it over with by some stunning act, like an Oreshnik attack on Kiev that that decapitates the Kiev regime.

Diesen: 25:42
So you think the decapitation strike could be forthcoming; that is, as the frontlines are falling apart to add to the confusion, just go directly after Kiev. Because, well, so far the Russians, well, I wouldn’t say they haven’t touched Kiev because they have increased a lot, especially lately. But it wouldn’t be so popular even within Russia given the historical role of Kiev in Russian history as the origin from Kievan Rus. But do you think such a decapitation strike could come in the foreseeable future?

Doctorow: 26:26
Well, first of all, for one thing, having the Oreshnik takes away a big objection to attacking Kiev. They’re not going to wipe out the Lavada, the very famous and important Russian Orthodox Church-history monastery and repository of the holy relics and remains of Russian saints. They don’t have to do much damage to Kiev as a whole. They just have to wipe out and go deep to get to the safekeeping places of underground of Mr. Zelensky and his close circle on Bankovskaya Urizen and one or two other locations. So the material damage to Kiev would be minimal.

Is it capitation? I think that much depends on Mr. Trump. If he were, for example, to really step up sanctions, do something that severely interrupts the Russian economy, which is within his power, so he can do some nasty things. That might just push Putin to do what he otherwise should be doing, which is to go from this war of attrition, which can go on much too long, to finishing up the Zelensky regime. We’ll see.

Diesen: 27:55
I thought there was a big chance of something like this happening after the attack on Russia’s nuclear forces, that this was something that they couldn’t, yeah, something that would put an end to the attrition warfare. But yet, they seem to continue the same approach.

My last question, though, I just wanted to ask about this recent tensions between the Europeans and Russia. Because I had on also two days ago, I did an interview with Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who was previously an advisor to the US Secretary of Defense.

And he argued that in conversation with different people from US intelligence that they kind of dismissed this as being a European hoax. They were exaggerating. The Estonians especially were not credible. They argued that Poland, you know, they more or less, not more or less, they did very openly admit that there was no warheads on this.

Of course, the Russians, they go further. They say, of course, there’s no warheads, but also these weren’t ours. They were sent by Ukraine. Again, I don’t sit on any evidence here, so it’s not for me to say. But what do you make of these tensions though? Because even if it is Russia doing it to perhaps send a signal that we can also bring the war to you.

Even if this is the case, I’m a bit not perplexed, but I take note of the European excitement in this that they can almost show the smoking gun coming from Russia that now we have some legitimacy to step this up or pull the Americans in. I’m not really sure. Yeah, even in this country there, because I’m in Norway, and Oslo, they thought they saw drones. It’s like, oh, Russia, Russia.

29:52
And at the end of the day, they’re not sure if it was a drone. And the next day they arrested someone on a different drone, but you know, he’s a Norwegian. So it doesn’t make any sense. But this impulse always to run into this almost excitement that now finally the Russians have attacked us, now we can do something. It is very strange to me.

Doctorow:
Well, none of us knows for sure, and I doubt that the truth behind this will be known for decades, but we come at it from our own conceptualizations. And my conceptualization is that this fits in line with a typical false-flag operation designed and partly executed by the British, by MI6. I look at timing. Timing is important. In the case of Estonia, Kaja Kallas herself said a week ago, you know the Russians have made these incursions four times this year.

Okay. Why didn’t you say anything before? Why is it coming up now? Why suddenly out of nowhere is Norway coming? Why suddenly is Denmark and the Prime Minister, by the way, not the military, the military are much more cautious in Denmark. They say they have no idea where this is coming from, and it could come from a ship in the Baltic Sea. It could be anybody’s ship.

But it’s the real Russophobe prime minister of Denmark who said, oh, we can’t rule out Russia. OK. I believe MI6 is behind this, because it fits the pattern. If you go back over the last decade, every time there is some kind of big false-flag operation, whether it was in Syria or in Russia, relating to Russia, it coincides with something.

Well, the murder, death, of Alexei Navalny. It came what, a week before the Munich Security Conference, when his widow had already been prepared to come to speak. Well, that’s interesting. But it was a setup. Who had access to him in the far north?

Well, the Brits have a very extensive system of espionage and activities across Russia, particularly with the assistance of people who can pass for Russians, Russians speaking Ukrainians who worked with them, as well as Ukrainian intelligence. And I said at the time that Navani was killed by the Brits. I say at this time that what we’ve seen is a British plot; aided and supported by the Ukrainians, who are fully in on this, because it brought to the attention of Europeans how useful Ukraine can be in supplying them with its unique technology and hardware to intercept, to destroy cheaply, not at $50,000 a missile, a $20,000 drone coming from Russia. That was very convenient for Mr. Zelensky.

33:01
But more broadly, and then the whole idea of a drone wall, which was one of the results of this whole operation. A drone wall for all of Europe with the Ukrainians as part of this. That’s one result. But the timing, again, for me is a big indicator. This came, this whole story about the supposedly Russian drones attacking Poland and Romania, then the Russian military jets in incursion in over Estonian airspace, all of that comes at the tail end and just after Zapad 25.

This joint exercises of Belarus and Russia held every four years. That just was ending with 100,000 Russian soldiers with 25 foreign delegations, many of them quite important and obviously prospective customers for Russian military gear and for security arrangements with Russia, for money of course. And it is very convenient to start this new “Russia Russia Russia” chant to direct attention away from that big Russian success in Zapad 25.

Diesen: 34:18
It’s, yeah, behind the empty rhetoric slogans in the media, there is a more complex reality, I guess. So thank you so much for taking time out of your Saturday to speak. I always very much appreciate your perspectives.

Doctorow:
Well, I very much appreciate your exposing the audience to divergent views, which they have a right and a need to get.