Let’s do our arithmetic on the sums being proposed by Witkoff and Kushner to resolve the Ukraine war and the stand-off over Greenland

I have just been in an exchange with former Assistant Treasury Secretary and professional economist Craig Roberts about a money issue: can we call what Witkoff and Kushner are penciling in as the sums of money that could end the Ukraine war or could end the stand-off over Greenland ‘cheap bribes’?

When you do the arithmetic, you have to scratch your head at the notion that Trump’s boys are barking up the wrong tree, as we say in colloquial English. Of course, I could be off by a digit given that my hand-held pre-Modern Age calculator barely functions in the realm of billions. I welcome push-back from readers.

*****

On the question of ‘bribes,’ meaning the proposed payments to Denmark and to Ukraine: I make the argument in an essay I published this morning that real estate developers can be better emissaries for peace negotiations than professional diplomats with law degrees who are by definition traders in abstractions, in the decades-long tradition of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. They are people who try to solve POLITICAL problems as if they were strictly legal issues like sovereignty or aggression. They are not looking for a resolution which comes from breaking eggs to make an omelet.

I think that the Danish people will be very stupid to refuse Trump’s 800 billion for Greenland – if their authoritarian Prime Minister gives them the facts and let’s them express themselves in a referendum. At present and in the foreseeable future, meaning the next 30 plus years, Greenland is a budgetary charge not a budgetary contributor. The 800 billion divided by the 6 million population of Denmark comes to 133,000 for every man, woman and child in Denmark or about 6,000 per annum per capita if invested with a return of 5% in perpetuity. This income whether annualized or taken as lump sum would make the Danes one of the most financially secure nations in Europe. How can people call this a bribe? Or if you do so, it is a helluva bribe. Let’s call it what it is: a purchase price for peace.

For the Ukrainians, a similar global sum in exchange for the Donbas territory may be less attractive on a per capita basis, but the net worth of Ukrainians today is a lot lower than the net worth of your average Dane today. The money could finally give compensation to widows and orphans. The money could rebuild most of the infrastructure and residential properties that have been destroyed in the war. It would not compensate the Ukrainians for all that they have lost, but it was their own stupidity and/or lack of courage not to overthrow the Zelensky regime long ago which makes them net losers even if they are offered and accept 700 or 800 billion.

These are not trivial issues.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 21 January 2026: Trump through Russian eyes

The Russian views that Judge Napolitano solicited were firstly those of Putin, his direct spokesman Peskov and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov with respect to Trump’s ambition to take over Greenland and with respect to the evident CIA attempt to assassinate Putin by means of the drone attack on his countryside residence.

My response on the first issue was that Putin and his direct assistants are being very cautious: they note that Trump is not respecting international law and this displeases them but otherwise they do not criticize Trump directly. Meanwhile, the chattering classes, the Russian elites, meaning Duma members, top commentators on international affairs who appear on the most authoritative talk shows like Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, show no such restraint: they are approving Trump’s using the Greenland acquisition to destroy NATO from within. They are enjoying Trump’s personal attacks on Keir Starmer for his ‘stupid’ hand-over of Diego Garcia to Mauritius in exchange for a lease agreement, his attacks on Emmanuel Macron’s decision not to join Trump’s Peace Board on Gaza, saying, no matter, Macron will be out of office in a few months.

As regards the drone attack, Putin and his circle clearly do not believe that Trump was in any way involved, saying instead that it was the CIA acting on its own, just as the CIA had murdered John F. Kennedy on its own. They understand that Trump cannot control fully his government and they wish him well in his war on the Deep State while cautiously hedging their bets and pursuing the war in Ukraine at their own pace, confident in full victory.

I state openly here that while one of Judge Napolitano’s guests yesterday said Trump should be taken away in a straight jacket, I hold an entirely different view. Trump seeks normal relations with Russia within a broader context of his Realist concept of the future world order, in which three Great Powers, Russia, China and the USA have each their own sphere of influence based on regional hegemony. This concept entailing ‘balance of power’ he received from his mentor at the start of his first term in office, Henry Kissinger.

I used the interview to explain what relevance the cession of Diego Garcia to Mauritius by Britain has to the pending issue of who owns Greenland. The conversion of this powerful base to a lease may be compared to the proposal that the USA lease Greenland rather than take possession of it as owner. From his background in real estate, Trump is acutely aware of the weak sides of leasing. If he thought for a moment he could point out that Russia had taken a 40-year lease from Ukraine on its strategically important base in Sevastopol, but following the coup d’etat of February 2014, it was widely expected that the lease would be revoked. One could add another example of weakness of leases: in Seychelles, the USA had a major observation base atop the hill overlooking the Seychelles capital of Victoria. The local government decided to raise the annual rent multiple times and finally Washington was obliged to give up this base. The property is now owned by the United Arab Emirates who have built a palace there they use for discreet diplomatic negotiations with…the Russians among others.

Trump Vs Europe: Greenland To Troop Mobilisation | Till What Extent Will This Escalate? | NewsX

Today’s “Big Debate” on Indian global broadcaster News X was a pleasure for me as one of four panelists and I am hopeful that the Community will find it worth a listen. Our task was primarily to make sense of Trump’s conflict with Europe over his planned takeover of Greenland.

My fellow panelists were a mixed group in terms of political perspectives, indicating that the producers knew very well what they were doing in bringing us together.

The view of the U.S. Deep State was well represented by an American professor of political science at Macalaster College, Andrew Latham, though I do wonder what benefit his students will gain from expertise in international security and strategic studies coming from a prof who says, as Latham does in his response to my remarks on the coming implosion of NATO, that Europe will do just fine as it puts together its own defenses. He seems to overlook the small detail of how much time it will take Europe to regroup and arm itself. De facto, if NATO implodes now, in 2026, then Europe will be utterly defenseless against the Russian bear it has been taunting and provoking for the past several years while feeling secure in hiding behind Daddy Sam. Heaven forbid, they might feel compelled to find that new ‘balance’ of interests with the Big Neighbor to the East that Chancellor Merz said is on the agenda. By the way, the good Chancellor has just recalled his 13 officers and soldiers from Greenland, probably in a late effort to have his country removed from Trump’s latest tariffs.

Indian panelist Keith Vaz was a conventional as can be in his own way. Vas is a respected representative of the Indian contingent in the Labour Party of Britain. He has clearly been well integrated into the power hierarchy of the U.K. Wikipedia tells us this about him: “Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz is a British politician who served as the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester East for 32 years, from 1987 to 2019. He is the UK Parliament’s longest-serving British Asian MP. Vaz served as the Minister for Europe between October 1999 and June 2001.” As one could imagine, he thinks Keir Starmer is a swell guy who has been very diplomatic in dealing with Trump.

And then there is a rather unconventional Indian panelist Sumit Peer. His LinkedIn entry says this about him: “…a renowned Geo-Political Commentator, visionary Columnist, Business Advisor, and a concerned citizen with a mission of contributing towards nation building.”

I am appreciative that the host allowed me to take my disruptive discourse to its logical conclusion as I explained that Trump’s main objective in his Greenland adventure is to so rough up the Europeans by his violation of sovereignty and national borders that they vote to leave NATO. This would enable Trump to proceed with his normalization of relations with Russia over the semiconscious and prone body of Rump Ukraine.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

A very Indian panel discussion for your perusal on News X

Trump Greenlights ‘Russia Sanctions Bill’ | More Tariff Trouble For India?

I was honored yesterday evening to participate in a very Indian panel discussion which opens with Indian advertising that you will certainly not find on BBC, CNN or other global broadcasters. As for the discussion itself, note that I appear to be the only non-Indian expert.

The topic was one of great concern to the Indian government and business community, namely the bill presently before the U.S. Senate granting the President the powers to impose secondary tariffs of up to 500% on countries which continue to buy Russian oil. This bill enjoys bipartisan support and is sponsored by the viciously anti-Russian Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and his Democratic peer and fellow Russia-hater Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut. I add parenthetically that I take special interest in these sponsors because Blumenthal just happens to be a classmate of mine from Harvard College, 1967.

We each had just a few minutes to make present our evaluations of the likely fall-out from the 500% tariffs when the bill comes into law, as it inevitably will given that 82 of the Senators have previously expressed their support, making it veto-proof. The subject became news when President Trump came out yesterday saying he will sign the bill, which is a concession to the realities of politics on The Hill.

You will see that all the Indian experts were figuring the angles for India and for the USA coming out of the new tariffs: how this would add greatly to inflation for American consumers on the one hand and how it would harm Indian exports in areas until now not affected by Trump’s tariffs like pharmaceuticals. Regrettably, I limited my remarks to how the new tariffs would founder on the rocks of Chinese opposition. After all, Trump’s early attempts to impose 150% tariffs on China months ago fell through when the Chinese struck back and said they would freeze all sales of rare earth metals to the USA, in effect bringing US industrial production, especially in electronics and military hardware to an abrupt halt. Trump backed down and the imposition of high tariffs on China so far is in a suspended state, which is where it will likely remain to the end of Trump’s term in office.

Regrettably, what I did not broach is the question of how such tariffs would affect Russia and change dramatically how the war in Ukraine is being conducted.

If indeed, Washington succeeds in forcing Russia’s major export markets to stop buying Russian oil and does great harm to Russia’s economy, we will not have to wait to see this damage impair the war effort. On the contrary, we may anticipate that Russia will proceed to do in Ukraine what some argue it should have done a couple of years ago, namely to smash Kiev and Lvov to bits, putting a dramatic end to the statehood of Ukraine and ending the war here and now. I can add based on today’s latest news, which I discussed with News X World this morning, that the message of such an escalatory path has just been given by Moscow to Kiev, London, Paris, Berlin and Washington by the use of an Oreshnik hypersonic missile in a midnight attack on Kiev. I await further news on this very important development to see what destruction actually resulted from the Oreshnik attack, which is only the second use of this missile in the Ukrainian campaign after an initial experimental strike on a hardened underground military production site in Dnipro in 2024.

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 7 January 2026: Trump’s Maduro “Kidnapping” Is an Impeachable Crime

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 7 January 2026: Trump’s Maduro “Kidnapping” Is an Impeachable Crime

This session with Judge Andrew Napolitano was a sad start to the New Year, as he stated at both the beginning and end of our conversation. We are in a new world order created by what I call here Trump’s latest deal with the devil to raise his sagging popularity ratings at this critical time when the USA enters the season of midterm elections.

Whereas at the very start of his new term a year ago Trump made some very promising, even daring appointments, as for example Tulsi Gabbard to Director of National Intelligence, and whereas there were some wonderful actions to curb the Deep State, as for example, the virtual shut-down of US AID, the agency which had directed illicit funds to local NGOs and other actors engaging in regime change abroad, it appears that Trump has reversed course and has agreed to work with the power ministries for the sake of pumping up his political capital. Nota bene, that this political capital was surely depleted not just by Trump’s failure to achieve a genuine peace in Gaza, not to mention still less success in ending the Russia-Ukraine War, but most recently depleted when he issued the new National Security Strategy document that upended all of US foreign policy priorities since 1949 and must have raised a hullaballoo on Capitol Hill and within the Republican Party establishment.

The net result is that the CIA, State Department and War Department are now once again running the show, setting the targets for foreign and military policy and executing that policy in ways that are simply astonishing and take your breath away, as happened this past weekend in the U.S. attack on Caracas and kidnapping of President Maduro. What we see again is the hubristic behavior of American officials that we have seen without end since Bush Jr. invaded Iraq in 2003. These people, like Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, are overconfident in U.S. capability to ‘run Venezuela’ not to mention run the world.

The only thing that can stop this juggernaut is the other two world superpowers, Russia and China. So far both are silent, which does not inspire confidence in where the world is headed.

Time to impeach Trump

The attack on Venezuela and snatching of President Maduro puts an end to my flirtation with Trump. He has just trampled on the National Security Strategy that he rolled out 3 weeks ago. He has proven that the Neocons control the government and he is nothing more than a figurehead.

I call for his impeachment so as to install JD Vance and give him two-three years to do what has to be done, namely to purge the Pentagon, the CIA, State of the Neocons who constitute the decision makers and implementers in the ‘power ministries’. This accomplished, Vance could then hope to carry out the NSS and position the USA as a major world power among peers, rather than a hegemon and Cold Warrior.

For those in the Community who may be puzzled by my turning against Trump, I recommend that they read the first chapter in my 2019 collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs: “Time to Impeach Trump,” dated 21 September 2017, pp. 1-4. You may have overlooked this book because its title was explained only in the Foreword, p. xiii: the ‘Belgian’ in question was not a collective part of this small nation that one could disregard until its Prime Minister Bart De Wever stood up to Ursula von der Leyen and Chancellor Friedrich Merz a couple of weeks ago and saved the global financial markets from the catastrophe that would have followed confiscation of Russian state assets held in Belgium. The word ‘Belgian’ in the title stood for one person, me, who had become a naturalized Belgian. My call for impeachment was precipitated by Trump’s barbaric declarations before the UN General Assembly threatening to annihilate North Korea, a nation of 22 million people.

My coddling of Trump’s vile activities in some global hotspots since taking office again, in January 2025, in particular his enabling the Israeli genocide in Gaza, was based on the reasonable assumption that that was the price to pay for him to enjoy the political capital in the heavily pro-Zionist Congress and in the foreign policy establishment in Washington necessary to pass his domestic and foreign policy programs. The same logic persuaded me to remain silent about his attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities and his enabling Israeli strikes on Teheran and other purely civilian targets in their 12-day war.

But the recent months of Trump’s superintending so-called peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine have shown that at best his efforts are incompetent and so are condemned to failure. Holding separate talks with each of the warring parties and agreeing with each side to their entirely contradictory peace plans shows that he is posturing and that nothing of use can come out of these talks. Moreover, no peace agreement that met the Russian demands of resolving the underlying reasons for the war, namely turning back NATO expansion to Russia’s borders and getting Washington to consider revising the security architecture in Europe, will get approval in Congress now that everyone has read about Trump’s hopes to overturn 76 years of American foreign policy priorities by the language of his NSS document.

Accordingly, I view without prejudice and on their merits Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife to face trumped up charges of drug trafficking in the USA. And on their merits Trump has egregiously violated international law. Sad to say, he has not set a precedent, but is following a pattern of ‘rogue state’ behavior established by President George H.W. Bush when he invaded Panama in December 1989 and seized president Manuel Noriega. Noriega then spent years in U.S. detention and died there.

Let us remember that ‘rogue state behavior’ was precisely what one of the chief popularizers of Neocon ideology, Robert Kagan, husband of the notorious Victoria Nuland, urged upon the United States in books and speeches. That is to say, scorn for all legal constraints on how foreign policy is conducted for the sake of maintaining U.S. global domination.

The difference between what H.W. Bush did in 1989 and what Trump has just down now in Venezuela must be called out. Bush was just ‘kicking ass,’ as they say in the States. Trump is implementing a farther- reaching geopolitical objective of driving all foreign powers out of the Western Hemisphere, which he seeks to maintain as Washington’s exclusive hunting preserve. To be more specific, Trump has attacked not just Venezuela. He has attacked China which is a main export market for Venezuela; conversely, China is highly dependent on Venezuelan oil and an American take-over would surely cause economic harm to Beijing. In this regard, the warm-up exercise to yesterday’s snatch operation was the U.S. capture of two Venezuelan oil tankers, one of which was carrying oil destined for and already paid for by China.

Going back still further, this American attack on Venezuela is a continuation of the attack on China’s commercial activities in Latin America that we saw still earlier in 2025 when Trump brought pressure on Panama to remove the Chinese from their control over the Canal.

*****

What lessons can the world’s two other superpowers draw from Trump’s outrageous attack on Venezuela?

As for Russia, the message should be crystal clear to President Vladimir Putin that he does not and cannot have a partner in Donald Trump. Russia must proceed on its own path to resolve the Ukraine war, and as I have been saying in recent months, the sooner the war is ended, whether by a decapitation strike on Kiev and other decision-making centers, or by storming Kiev with ground forces, the better. Russia now has a window of opportunity that it should exploit without hesitation. If President Putin is unable to act decisively in this sense, then he should resign and pass the torch to someone in a younger generation who is level-headed, has proven experience at high levels of the government and is decisive, not wishy-washy.

As for China, this attack on Venezuela is de facto an attack on China. Generally, Chairman Xi is more decisive and has more resources to threaten the USA than does Putin and Russia. If ever there were a moment for China to resolve the Taiwan issue it is here and now. The Americans have just stolen Chinese oil and are attacking a major supplier to China. Xi will not straighten out relations with Washington now by remaining silent and failing to respond appropriately. Such reticence will only encourage further provocations and give Washington time to better prepare for armed conflict.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

A conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 9 December: U.S. National Security Strategy Embraces Kissinger-Style Strategy

Today’s conversation goes on for 52 minutes, and could have run still longer if we were to examine more than the several aspects of the latest U.S. National Security Strategy document. I am pleased, nonetheless, that we had ample opportunity to explore the ways in which this 2025 document compares with Trump’s first NSS of December 2017, to see how there is continuity in thinking from then to now. Trump was then a Kissinger-mentored Realist. He is one today, as well.

His embrace of an interest driven foreign policy means that he is ready to seek compromises and compromises are arrived at by diplomacy, which is why he has placed emphasis on reestablishing communication lines with Russia. The efforts of the Biden administration to break off all contact with Russia, to close down diplomacy and to rely solely on a militarized foreign policy, was not the idiosyncratic wish of one man: it came directly from the Idealist, values driven approach to foreign policy that every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon has prioritized.

In this chat, I explained what insights into the NSS come from close textual analysis of the document, from decoding innocent statements like our favoring pragmatism over pragmatists, realism over realists; or by the mention of how Germany is deindustrializing because its industrialists are moving production to China to take advantage of cheap Russian gas there.

I also had a chance to explain the mechanisms in European politics which make it impossible to reverse course on failing policies, so that the meddling that Trump proposes in the NSS and which the Germans have denounced, is very much needed if Europe is to be saved from its present suicidal course.

There is a great deal more here for the Community to explore.

By the way, I perhaps abused my privilege as guest to promote my 2019 book of essays entitled The Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, sales of which are just beginning to take off, six years after its launch. Perhaps prospective readers were turned off by the notion that Belgium dominates the content and Belgium is too small to be of value for understanding world politics. However, I had used a play on words, since the Belgian perspective was in reality, my perspective, now that I had become a naturalized Belgian two years earlier. It is in that book that you will find my detailed analysis of Trump’s 2017 NSS, which largely sets out the thinking he has stayed with in 2025. It is there, in chapter one, that you will find my call for Trump’s impeachment over his vile speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2017 when he proposed to utterly destroy North Korea and obliterate its 22 million population. I am viewing Trump very differently these days, focusing as I do on his top priorities for global power sharing with Russia and China and choosing to overlook his bullying, imperialist ways in Venezuela and his enabling genocide in Gaza.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Trump – Putin meeting in Budapest is now officially canceled by the U.S. side

Many laymen and a good many experts who are well known to the Community from their regular appearances on major interview podcasts will deeply regret the news that Washington has canceled, not postponed the Trump-Putin summit planned for Budapest, per today’s Financial Times and carried by Reuters. I am not among them, because in his present posture of subservience to Trump, it is best if President Putin is not given an opportunity to sacrifice core Russian interests and to overlook the loss of 150,000 Russian soldiers’ lives by accepting the ‘American conceptualization’ of what the end of the war will look like. That last remark on conceptualization was issued by Putin just a few days ago before it was withdrawn by Sergei Lavrov in a lame-looking acknowledgement that the American president has gone back on his words to Putin at their Anchorage summit and now is pressing for a cease-fire without addressing the root causes of the conflict.

I still maintain that Trump has been messaging Putin in various ways that he must end the war as soon as possible and that he, Trump, does not care if this means wreaking total destruction on Kiev here and now. This is what all the delays in applying secondary sections on Russian oil exports were all about. The sanctions themselves will start to bite very soon and that is heavy pressure on Putin to do what is needed. Sooner or later this issue will be resolved at the top in Russia, either by Putin or by his successor if he is pushed aside.

*****

I close this essay by sharing the video link from yesterday’s interview with NewsX World (India), the content of which I partly discussed in an essay yesterday.

https://youtu.be/wWepGQ4GJl0?si=8wlw5VH9TBPDOqBV

Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen: Trump washing his hands of the Ukraine war

I am particularly grateful to Professor Diesen for providing his audience with commentators offering divergent interpretations of the key international developments. Today in separate interviews he asked both me and Jeffrey Sachs the same questions regarding Trump’s speech to the General Assembly gathering, his statements on Truth Social that Ukraine can win the war against Russia and recover its occupied territory with help from the European Union and his answer to a journalist’s question about possible U.S. support should the Europeans shoot down Russian military jets violating their air space, per his recommendations.

I invite the Community to watch not only my interview with Glenn today but also the one with Jeffrey Sachs which you can easily find via the youtube search box.

My point is that Sachs’ derision of Trump and his accusation that Trump has shown ‘a colossal failure of leadership’ by not being transparent with the American public over his intention to end American participation in the Ukraine war must be placed in the context of Sach’s being a champion of globalism and of the Green Agenda in his capacity of director of the Columbia University center for sustainability. It was precisely these core beliefs of Sachs that Trump trashed during a speech to the GA which was definitely not a ‘disjointed rant’ per Sachs but a programmatic statement from Trump.

My further point is that in his remarks on Open Borders (a key aspect of Globalism) and on the futility of Renewable Energy Trump was saying what his MAGA supporters want to hear and so he could allow himself to be candid with the audience and with the American public. On the other hand, Trump’s views on ending the war on Russia’s terms, on normalization of relations with Russia do not find much support within MAGA and are positively hated by a majority of Congressmen and by the American political establishment, hence his duplicity, his espousing the positions of his opponents while in effect trolling them.

Enjoy the show!

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen: Trump washing his hands of the Ukraine war

I invite the Community to watch not only my interview with Glenn today but also the one with Jeffrey Sachs which you can easily find via the youtube search box.

Enjoy the show!

Transcript of RT Interview, 8 August

Transcript submitted by a reader

RT: 0:00
Let’s discuss this topic now with author, historian and geopolitical analyst Gilbert Doctorow. Gilbert, thanks a lot for joining us on the program. I just want to ask you, what do you think about this, your thoughts on the upcoming Putin-Trump meeting?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, as your colleague at RT said a little bit earlier, this whole event is filled with symbolism, and I would like to unwrap some of the symbolism.

Some of my colleagues have tried to parse the language of Mr Ushakov when he was describing the agreement to meet with the American president. I say that the skills needed for this are not criminology. The skills are those of someone entering the Easter egg hunt. And what I mean by that is that we have to look at who initiated everything that is about to happen. That is Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump is known as a real estate man. And I haven’t heard anybody pay attention to what that means in a given instance other than to say that territory will be swapped. That’s the least of it.

1:04
As you just pointed out, swapping a little bit of Sumi, a little bit of Kharkov against a substantial amount of land in the Donbass that is not yet occupied by Russians, that isn’t a very interesting swap, is it? However, the swap will take place because something else is involved. Now, before I get to that something else involved, I want to look at another symbolism, the date. The date is the 15th of August. To most Americans, that doesn’t mean much.

To Europeans, it means a lot. To Catholics, it means a lot. The 15th of August is known as the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. However, it all goes back 2,000 years to the Emperor Augustus, from which the month of August is named. And this date, 15th of August, is the Feira Agosto.

That is the celebration feast day of the Emperor Augustus. And who was Augustus? He was the founder of the Roman Empire, and he was the founder of the Pax Romana, the perpetual peace enforced by the Roman Empire. Mr. Trump is today’s Emperor Augustus, and he would like to be known for his Pax Trumpiana.

The point is that the day was not arbitrary. It’s highly symbolic. The place was not arbitrary. It’s highly symbolic. And the fact that it’s only two miles away from separating Russia and the United States is coincidental, but not decisive.

2:35
What is decisive is how did this territory become American? I haven’t heard a word about that. By the way, it was bought. It was bought. It was sold by the Russian Tsar, and it was bought by the Americans.

And that’s what we’re going to see now in Ukraine. And nobody’s saying a word about it. But let’s use our minds. Let’s expand a little bit. Let’s be extravagant like Mr. Trump is. The Russians have $350 billion worth of assets that are now frozen in the West. Practically speaking, they have written that off. In their bookkeeping internally, they recouped most of that money by the extraordinary profitability of selling hydrocarbons in the first days of the war. So $350 billion, well, you can buy a lot in Ukraine with that, can’t you?

And the opinion of Mr. Zelensky about refusing or accepting the $350 billion in exchange for all of the territory of Ukraine that Russia wants, which is the whole Donbass, the four oblasts that were named. Well, that’s a deal. That is Mr. Trump’s great art of the deal.

And I haven’t heard anybody talk about it yet, but it’s just hanging there, low-hanging fruit in front of our very noses. So I expect that there will be a deal. And I expect that whatever Mr. Zelensky thinks, if he doesn’t like it, they’ll be overthrown at once because the Ukrainian people would like to have that money to rebuild.

RT: 4:04
That’s a fascinating take, to be honest, about Augustus; and of course you have a deep understanding of the history of Alaska and Russian-US relations obviously. But I want to ask you, why do you think Zelensky himself, all things considered, wasn’t invited to this summit in the first place?

Doctorow:
His opinion is not wanted, because the decision at the end will not be his. It will be the decision of the Ukrainian people. Either he goes with what the polls are saying, which is that 70 percent of the Ukrainians now want the war to end, or he’ll be overthrown.

So to invite his opinion is useless. In fact, it’s counterproductive. The parties, the United States and Russia, will tell him what his deal is. The Ukrainian people will go for that deal, because it’s fantastic for them. And that will be it, whether Zelensky stays or goes, that will be his decision, but it will have no influence on the outcome of this war.

RT: 5:01
Well, you mentioned the art of the deal, how obviously Trump is approaching this as a businessman in large part. And the Kremlin also pointed out that these two countries, they’re neighbors, right? And both Alaska and the Arctic, they both hold great potential for joint projects. So do you think that this could be in part an attempt to come to a peace agreement, but also in part to expand some sort of joint projects there?

Doctorow:
Joint projects, of course. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Direct Investment Fund, has been an integral part of all discussions. And everyone knows that he is a backer of the old idea of a tunnel bridge connecting Russia and the United States over the Bering Strait. So that, of course, is an element that cannot be excluded. At the same time, the real possibilities for further development of whatever is reached on the 15th of August are on a different level. They are at global security.

6:00
The time on the New START treaty, the arms limitation treaty, is expiring in ’26. It is entirely predictable that if the parties reach an agreement on the 15th in the little petty business of the Ukraine war, they will move on to the big global issues of arms control, removing the threat of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, which would come with the introduction of American missiles in ’26 in Germany. These issues will then be next on the agenda. So what we’re looking forward to is a big rollout of a global realignment for which the first step will happen on the 15th of August.

RT: 6:48
Well, you brought up a lot of good reasons for why this meeting is set to take place in Alaska. But also, there were other options that we heard about before, right? The United Arab Emirates was brought up. And of course, there are other more neutral countries that could have been chosen. Again, Alaska is not neutral territory. It’s a state of the United States. What do you think was the main factor in them choosing Alaska over these other potential venues?

Doctorow: 7:13
Well, Mr. Trump’s a showman, first of all, and nothing could be showier and more symbolic than having it in Alaska, which was purchased by the United States from Russia. And that is what he probably has put on the table to Mr. Putin, that Russia purchase the land that it now occupies and that it claims as part of the Russian Federation from Ukraine on condition that there be a complete and permanent peace between the countries, which puts an end to any Ukrainian claims against Russia, and puts a big “Nyet” on all the hopes of warmongers in Europe to continue this conflict.

Now, why Alaska? There are other reasons, one of which nobody has mentioned, security. To reach this meeting in Alaska, Mr. Putin flies only over Russian territory. That’s not a bad solution.

He doesn’t have to cross anybody’s territory and doesn’t have to have 20 jets accompanying his jet so he isn’t shot down. This is reality. This is the world we live in today. And I believe that was another factor.

RT: 8:30
All right. Well, we have a little bit more time left, but if you could give me a pretty short answer to this next question, right? Donald Trump ran on peacemaking. I mean, the Ukraine conflict was one of the main things that he said he was going to fix during his campaign trail. But he’s put a lot of things on the back burner in terms of things he promised on the campaign trail. So after, let’s say this is done with in Alaska and a peace deal is reached, where do you think Trump is going to go next in terms of promises that he made on the campaign trail or different foreign policies that he’s looking to establish?

Doctorow: 9:03
The big outstanding contradiction to his peace mission is, of course, the genocide in Gaza. And that is an issue that will not go away even after this deal is signed or is reached on the 15th of August. It won’t go away for a little bit of time because the general accommodation with Russia, that is Mr. Trump’s intent, and I would say possibly also, however paradoxical it may sound, an accommodation with China, which may come in September if the next Yalta meeting is held there for the celebration of the 80th anniversary in Beijing of the end of the war in the Pacific.

9:51
These accommodations have to go through Congress. And Mr. Trump is very dependent in Congress on the Zionist majority in both houses, pro-Zionists. People say the Israeli lobby, well, the Israeli lobby was a factor, but there are also other factors. There are these born-again Christians who are Zionists also.

And so Mr. Trump has this problem of navigating Congress, and he is stuck with this Zionist presence in Congress. And he cannot, he doesn’t have much wiggle room in dealing with Israel for that reason. For this very reason, it is incumbent on Europe to do something and to take a lead and do something of importance on the world stage and not just kick the tires about Trump’s policies here and there. So, Europe has a great opportunity to lead peace in Palestine. I hope they take it. Mr. Trump, unfortunately, because of political realities, cannot do that on the other burning issue of world peace.

RT: 11:07
All right, Gilbert Doctorow, author, historian and geopolitical analyst, thanks a lot for joining us on the program.

Doctorow:
My pleasure.