The web is now afire with sensationalist titles of interviews with talking heads of all political convictions who are telling us that World War III is fast approaching. Yesterday, none other than Jeffrey Sachs weighed in on the prospects for a US-Russia nuclear exchange in the coming days.

My best advice to the Community is to remember that yellow journalism is not something that went out of style with the print newspapers. It is very much with us in the digital age. It sells, it attracts incredibly large audiences.

For all of these reasons, I am especially appreciative that WION has kept the titles attached to this morning’s interview factual and not speculative.

The interview is only 10 minutes long and I leave it to you to watch it or wait for the transcript which will be posted before long.

I use this space to expand upon one point I made in the interview: that the Spider Web attack on Russia’s heavy bombers, which form a key part of its nuclear triad, may ruin any chances for the Trump administration to enter into arms limitation talks with the Russians should the move towards rapprochement be pressed by his administration.

Just remember that arms limitation negotiations have been the key interest of Russia-haters in the USA in good times and bad. They want to be sure that their own necks are safe even if they are planning and doing their best to sabotage the Russian economy, to isolate the country and otherwise to do it harm.

There can be little doubt that the USA and Britain were active in the planning and for some time in the implementation stages of Spider Web. Most likely Britain was a participant right up to the launch of the attack.

The operation took advantage of the vulnerability of the Russian bombers out in the open that was mandated by the New SALT arms limitation treaty. The Russians have suspended their participation in that treaty but pledged not to violate its terms. Clearly, they kept to their word. And equally clearly the USA under Biden egregiously violated the treaty by enabling the Ukrainian attack on those jets.

If I were Vladimir Putin, which I am not, I would say to the States that there can be no talks, no extensions or new treaties on arms limitation until and unless the USA and Britain admit to their foul play and pay compensation for the damaged jets. We will see in the immediately coming days what Putin actually does to exact a price from Russia’s enemies.

As I say in this interview, all of Russia’s ambassadors have been called home and will be meeting with Lavrov and likely with Putin during this  week before heading home to officiate at Russia’s National Day festivities, the equivalent of their July 4^th on 9-10 June. I fully expect Putin to issue an address at this meeting that represents Russia’s response to the attacks of this past weekend.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Transcript submitted by a reader

Mike Farris:
Gilbert, good to see you again. I always appreciate you making yourself available. We set this up just a few days ago. Let me start off with congratulations on your new book.

Doctorow:
I’m very happy with this newly-hatched book. It took a great deal of effort, frankly, to put this together and I’m pleased with the result. It is in two formats. First, a week ago, the paperback edition appeared on all of Amazon’s websites across the globe. And this is not an abstract consideration. One of my first orders came from Japan, another order came from Australia.

Not to mention, of course, the States is obvious, Britain and English-speaking countries are obvious. But these remote locations already have placed orders to receive the book, which is a great pleasure because the issues are global. The interests of the whole world are in what is taking place now in and around Ukraine. So it’s logical that this would be topical. The achievement here was to cull the writings that I do several times a week to try to reduce duplication, because necessarily you cover the same track when you are writing about events before, during, and after them, and to give a very important introduction forward to this to prepare the reader for what they’re about to see and what they’re not going to see.

I’ll say right up front what they will not find here is a comprehensive history of the Russian-Ukraine war. That’s something that there are dozens and dozens of historians and political scientists who will be doing that for forever. And the public, the audience can choose among them. What I’ve done is something they do not do, because they weren’t in Russia, and I was. This book in particular covers a period, this is 2022, 2023, when virtually all foreign journalists left Russia.

Some of them weren’t there anyway because the Russian-Ukraine war started only a few months after the Covid epidemic ended. During the epidemic, there were relatively few foreign journalists anywhere outside their home base. So that was how we went into the war. And during the war, they of course, the Russians, stopped issuing visas. And so, visas for all purposes, business visas, visas for journalists, visas for anyone, except humanitarian visas.

And my visas fall in that category because I have a Russian wife. And those who were in close family relations were issued visas by the Russians. So I got into Russia and I wrote about what I saw. And this book is about how the Russian society fared during the war. Nobody else was paying much attention to it.

Certainly Western newspapers and electronic media were not interested in conveying to their publics anything that they might know, because Russia was taboo, Russia was supposed to be isolated, Russia was supposed to be collapsing. Therefore I recommend this book to those who want to see how Russian society developed, because it was not static, the war as I– there’s an old saying that wars make nations, And it is true. Of course, in Western media, that has been used with respect to Ukraine, how Ukraine consolidated and became a single culture country under the impact of the war. In the case of Russia, it also had dramatic effect on rising patriotism by creating new elites to replace the elites that we all know about from the Yeltsin period, that is to say the oligarchs, who are deeply tainted with corruption and with selfishness and so on. And they are steadily being replaced by patriotic self-sacrificing people who have impressed the broad public, and of course the powers that be, with their possible contributions in future.

For the Americans who are watching this, I refer to the effects of military service in creating whole cadres of higher business executives and government officials following the World War II, following the Korean War. When I was coming up through the business in the late 1970s, almost anybody who was at the top of a major corporation had seen military service in one of the many wars that America had been engaged in. So Russian society has been shaped also by the pressures and the opportunities for upward movement that come out of wars. And this is something I describe. Of course, greater interest, I think, to the general public is consumer, the consumer services and goods that were available in supermarkets, in the corner grocery store, in the electronics store, how these things changed over the three years.

And the changes were very significant. Of course, the single biggest item here when speaking about supermarkets is that Russia became really very self-sufficient in almost everything that you would find in a supermarket. And they’ve also created new sources of supply from Iran, from Azerbaijan. So, I’m not going to repeat here points in the book, but I will say that for the general reader, this type of material, my travel notes in Russia during my periodic visits in 22, in 23, will be of particular interest. And then there are other items, because the book has several different genres.

It has book reviews of books that I think are highly relevant to understanding. The Feeling of Patriotism, my one book, I found for 85 days that the city of Slaviansk survived as a cradle of Russian renaissance in 2014, this was the Russia’s Alamo to liken it to historical events that would be known to Americans at least, standing up against vastly superior forces and ultimately losing, but creating a kind of landmark kind of tradition that Russians would return to in 22 and 23 when an actual war took place with participation of the Russian Federation. So there are books. There are some very important documentary films, which most of the audience, most of the readership of this book will not know about, should know about. So as I say, there are a number of genres, not a single one.

I hope, as I say in the introduction, there are, there’s material here that not everyone will be interested in. And my recommendation is to skim and to go to what you find is of particular interest to you in the general subject matter of the Russian-Ukraine war. It’s 772 pages of rather condensed print, typeface, and of large format book, 7 by 10 inch book instead of the usual 6 by 9. So there is, there are 280,000 words. I do not recommend to anyone other than scholars who are keen to do a book review to try to sit down and take on this book in one sitting or two sittings.

I myself, in editing it, took a week to get through 280,000 words with some comfort. But there is material here. And I’ll answer the question, why republish and present here material that otherwise was available on my internet sites. My internet sites are here today and gone tomorrow. I expect that this book will find a readership not just next week and next year, but for a good long time.

And I say that not idly, but with good reason from my experience. I am still selling comfortably books which I published in 2010, like my analysis of the great writers or authors of road maps to the future after the United States was looking for the next big thing, having slain the other communists in Russia by their own thinking. Of course, not in fact, but that’s how they imagined it. In any case, the books that go back to 2010, also collections of essays, are still selling with good reason, because they have a lot of relevance. And so I believe that this book will find readers, not just among scholars, for several decades.

I think it’s easier, the last comment I’ll make, to help people understand what this is. It is a primary source, it is not a secondary source. Secondary sources are based on materials like this primary source. Otherwise, primary sources are autobiographies or similar material. This is personal journalism, and it is–I position myself as a chronicler.

I am a historian by training. And in Russian history, there are figures who are very well known to the broad public who are chroniclers. Pymian is the one case in point. The one man who wrote about it, Isidman, who wrote about what the Russians call the “time of troubles” in the early 17th century, which led to the installation of the Romanov dynasty. He was recording what he saw around him.

And that is what I am doing in this book, recording what I saw around myself. And I hope people will find it to be of value.

Farris:
And for people, we didn’t say the title of the book, so would you like to share the name of the book?

Doctorow:
Oh yes, oh yes please. It is “War Diaries” with “Volume One”, Volume One because there’s going to be a “Volume Two”, and I hope that will be the end of it.

Volume Two, I expect will come out at the end of this year, assum ing that the war winds down one way or another, although how it will wind down is still a matter of great conjecture. So “War Diaries, the Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023”. This is Volume 2, where it is intended to be 24-25.
——–

Farris:
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——–

And so for people that are listening on the audio, I’ve just put up an image of the cover page for Gilbert’s new book. And where can people find it?

Doctorow:
It’s available globally from Amazon. There are, people like their little bookshops, I understand that. So I hope they’ll bear with me. As an author and self-published person, I am very satisfied with Amazon, even if I don’t like the owner of Mr. Bezos. These are unrelated issues.

What he has created is brilliant. For authors, I have experience both with publishers who look like traditional publishers, though actually they’re also just typography, so printing houses, and who pretend to give you full service and promotion and rest of it, for your money, of course, and who keep almost all the royalties to themselves. Thank you very much. Amazon is a generous partner with the authors who publish on it. And so I am a, also they give the author instantaneous information about sales and where the sales take place.

This is invaluable for properly positioning and promoting your book to audiences who are interested in it. So my experience with them has been very good. My experience with other means of publishing, like my memoirs, physically the books look wonderful. I was very pleased with them. But as an author who would like to be reimbursed for my expenses, possibly make a cent or two on my intellectual efforts, I find these alternative ways of publishing to be considerably less attractive.

So I hope that the audience will bear with me and understand why I’ve chosen to market this book exclusively through Amazon. Now, there are, it’s in two formats. I mentioned at the start of this explanation of the book. The first that came out was the paperback, and that is not cheap, but the production costs of the book aren’t cheap. A 772-page book costs quite a bit to make.

So the retail price in the US is $36 for that book. Now I’m happy to say a more democratically priced solution is also available. For $10, you can get the e-book also on the Amazon website starting June 4th, which is the proper launch date of the ebook, it will be instantaneously available for download from the various Amazon websites. And I mentioned various because they’re all over the globe. They have centers, of course, nodes, which serve several countries at a time.

Here in Europe, almost every country has an Amazon website. Of course, the States, Canada, South America, Brazil, Mexico, in the Far East, or Australia, or Japan, these all have Amazon websites, and they serve the country where they’re located, and they serve neighboring countries. So, from the standpoint of the audience, this is readily accessible and they ship very quickly. So that is my recommendation.

Farris:
Well, again, congratulations on that. When you look at the completed book now and it’s it’s been released and you know, starting in 2022 and where we’re at, especially the events that unfolded over the weekend you know, what were your thoughts with seeing this drone attack? And it’s unbelievable where we’re living, the times we’re in, because I’m reading this stuff yesterday morning, and I don’t know Gilbert, like it’s just, you’re like, okay, was it just damaging? Was it not damaging? Depends on who you read. And what will the response be from it? So what were your thoughts yesterday?

Doctorow:
Well, my thoughts are the same that you’ll find expressed in the foreword to the book, that this war has had many turning points. And the people like myself, who have been on interview programs and who have written essays have been proven wrong, consistently wrong, because no one could participate in the escalations that have changed the nature of the war periodically or the dramatic events that occurred this past weekend, which you’re alluding to. And they open up complete change of perspective of what happens next. So in this, I think it is essential, an essential point of the book, that we have been proven wrong, not because we’re stupid, but because events have changed in an unforeseeable way.

And by the events I mean the level of US and NATO participation in the war, which changed the war from what was initially a special military operation, meaning a certain cleanup or regime change plan that Mr. Putin and his colleagues had to justify their military entry into Ukraine to a full-blown proxy war between Russia and the collective West. That was unforeseeable. Also, the level of offensive weapons, of deadly weapons that the West gave to Ukraine after forswearing it at this point and at that point, changed the Russian approach to the war.

As I have said repeatedly, in order for the Russian Federation to be safe from attack from Ukraine, they have to push Ukraine back the distance that the latest weapons systems give them to attack Russia. As Mr. Medvedev said the other day, “We soon will have to push Ukraine back to the Polish border, because– if we are to be safe from weapons that are put on the ground or in the air in what remains of Ukraine.”

So these things were foreseeable. Now as to what’s going to happen next from this weekend, there is, as you say, uncertainty about the extent of damage that was carried out by the drones on Russian planes in the various air bases from Murmansk in the north to the Moscow, a central Russian region, all the way out to the Irkutsk, 5,500 kilometers east of the Ukraine border.

How many of the nuclear-capable big bombers were actually destroyed? Well, Some people, the Ukrainians, were saying initially that they had destroyed one-third of the Russian fleet of these strategic bombers, and that 40 planes worth $7 billion had been destroyed. Latest indications, unofficially coming out of Russia because the ministry of defense says nothing, but unofficially it’s believed that maybe five of these bombers were actually damaged, or a few of them were destroyed. But the issue of course is bigger than the dollar value on how many planes were destroyed and whether it is just a tiny fraction of the Russian fleet that is part of their nuclear triad, which was destroyed, or a more significant number of planes. The issue is much bigger than that.

And it has to do with possible involvement, or likely involvement, of the United States intelligence, the CIA, of MI6, in helping the Ukrainians to prepare for this attack 18 months ago when the work began. The good thing to come out of this event is that it took them 18 months to prepare this attack, so it is virtually excluded that anything similar can be done now by the Ukrainians for as long as this war goes on. That doesn’t mean that something different that is devastating cannot be done by the Ukrainians. But this type of attack on air bases, we can exclude for the future. Nonetheless, it puts into question much bigger issues than just Ukraine.

The– people have asked “Why were all these Russian planes sitting like sitting ducks out on the airstrips exposed to possible attack?” Well, they were there because that is the condition of the New StART arms limitation treaty that had both the United States and Russia still honor it, though the Russians suspended participation in it. And so the planes were there. And the question, next question is, how did this, these drones get into Russia? Why were the– because they all seemed to have passed Russian customs border points being carried in semi-trailers.

So why did they, the Russian customs officials, not stop them? But I have traveled repeatedly across the border from Estonia into the Russian Federation, and our bus was almost taken apart by Russian border guards looking for Lord knows what in the engine case. How did these semi-trailers get across the border with no one stopping them anywhere with more than one border crossing? And if any one border crossing had stopped and discovered them, they all would have been discovered. So there are unanswered questions.

Was it, were these border posts bought off? Were they traitors? It’s possible. There’s a lot of corruption in these underpaid positions. How about the drivers? Did they know if they were carrying? Of course they’ll say they didn’t know. But what is the truth? Several have been arrested, and I imagine that their interrogation will be more intense than just a verbal interrogation, to get to the bottom of what was going on. So Russian security has been shown up to be very lacking.

And that is a big problem for Mr. Putin. The bigger problem is: the loss of prestige and humiliation that this entails, and how, whether or not Mr. Putin can resist the surely growing calls of patriots to do something serious about Ukraine, by which I mean to do what he said he would do three years ago, when they challenge strategic interests, strategic defenses of Russian Federation, namely to destroy decision-making centers. Well, that means the Ukrainian government. Can the Russians do that? Of course they can. They have the Oreshnik. It’s not nuclear. They could, with surgical precision, wipe out the Ukrainian government from one day to the next.

Will they do that? I just will introduce here an observation. You know that I have been interviewed weekly on Judge Napolitano’s program. That has in recent weeks, every program, has been translated into Russian, not just translated, voiceover and synchronized lips. This is the latest development AI re-engineered in Russia.

And I looked at, first there were just a few thousand viewers of that. Now there are 50,000, 60,000 Russians who are viewing these interviews. And I look at the comments, several hundred comments, and I can tell you they’re very violent. They’re very xenophobic. They’re very condescending to the West.

And so there are a great many Russians who are outraged by how the West has been abusing Russia and who are shocked at the, shall we say, timidity or lack of force of their president responding. I personally see it as very difficult for Mr. Putin to remain in office if he doesn’t do something serious now.

Farris:
And are you surprised that he’s held back for as long as this has been going on? Because I mean, do you feel like he’s been holding back?

Doctorow:
Oh, of course he’s been holding back. The question is, was he justified? Because if he did something dramatic, if the retaliations could be charged with being disproportionate, then we could well be moving closer and faster toward World War III. So this held him back. Besides, he was, with good reason, persuaded that the American leadership under Joe Biden was insane, that insane, drunk, whatever you want to call it, certainly the behavior of everyone around Biden, that Biden was somehow was beyond discussion, but that his immediate keepers, the subordinates who actually were running Mr. Biden, whether it’s Anthony Blinken or Jake Sullivan, from the perspective of Moscow, these people were insane. Therefore they were doubly cautious to do anything that might set them off. Now, I think they’re satisfied that Mr. Trump is not insane, that he is a rational actor, he’s a businessman, that the things that are said about him which are not flattering have nothing to do with his sanity, they have to do with his morality.

And so the Russians, I think, are satisfied that they are not dealing with a madman, which is a big change from where we were before the new administration came in. How will Mr. Putin react to this latest threat, which crosses the red lines of damaging part of the Russian nuclear triad? That’s what these bombers are. We’ll have to see.

But I’d say I venture to guess that he might declare war on Ukraine. Let’s remember that this is a variation on the question that some interviewers have asked me in the recent days, does Mr. Putin really want a peace treaty? And I have said unequivocally yes. He is a lawyer by training.

He thinks today in these terms. He wants to stay on the right side of international law. And just an attack on Ukraine, a decapitating attack more particularly, would not be his way of behaving if he didn’t have openly declared war on Ukraine. So I watch this closely. If in the coming weeks Mr. Putin goes before the nation and declares war on Ukraine, then I think a decapitating strike will follow the next day.

Farris:
What do you think of Putin as we sit here June 2nd today as a leader?

Doctorow:
He is a brilliant leader. I have various essays in this book and otherwise have said that he is a brilliant manager of human resources. His basic approach is that everybody is good for something. And even openly exposed, openly criticized villains, thieves who have stolen large sums from the Russian federal budget, had been retained by Putin, because they also could contribute unparalleled, unequaled services to the state.

So in this sense, he has been, in this sense, he’s been like Peter the Great, who did exactly the same thing, who was surrounded by a lot of scoundrels, whom he used very effectively for the benefit of the state. So that’s one aspect of Mr. Putin. But the single biggest proof that the man is extraordinary is that he has raised Russia from, in a phoenix-like way, from the ashes. What he took over from Yeltsin was a ruined country.

And it didn’t, it was a deeply corrupt country, and its economy had been smashed and had not reconstituted itself. And he turned this around, not at once, it took years. I would say that the complete recovery of Russia coincided with the start of the special military operation. Mr. Putin launched it because he was confident that his military had been raised to the level of the most efficient and strongest in Europe, if not in the world, ground forces, and because the Russian economy had been made sanction-proof in the preceding eight years from 2014.

This is all under his watch. So what he achieved speaks for itself. But there are, nobody is perfect and this has been said “horses for courses”, that a race horse is not good for the plow and a plow horse is not good for the races. And the question is whether Mr. Putin is good for today.

It’s an open question. Is Mr. Lavrov good for today? I’ve already said no. I think he should have been replaced two years ago, not just because he’s been here too long and has fallen prey to corruption, by corruption very specifically, raising his son in his path, this type of, this is very widely practiced in Russian senior positions.

And unfortunately, Mr. Lavrov has done that also. So in business, it’s a widely considered good management to rotate people. Now, some of them, they don’t gather too much moss under their feet. This is something that is a weak point in the Russian senior ranks.

Mr. Putin also, in 25 years, he is not irreplaceable. He came in, when he came in, everyone was asking, who is he? Because he seemed to have no merit to justify that position as president. Similarly, Mr. Putin will be replaced. Nobody lives forever. The question is how smooth that replacement will be, and will he be replaced by somebody who also has good judgment and isn’t too trigger happy. So this is the situation today. I mean, after all, Mr. Putin was almost killed. He was almost murdered two weeks ago by drones, which the Ukrainians sent against his helicopter. So the question is not something that I’m introducing as coming from nowhere.

We have to consider who runs Russia, for how long, and is there somebody around? Nobody has been groomed to replace Mr. Putin. But among those people who are at the top levels of the Russian government, who could fill his shoes without bringing us all into World War III?

Farris:
How much time, how much rope does Putin have before, say, the neocons and the people will demand an action?

Doctorow:
I’m sorry…

Farris:
I said how much time does he have for a proper response that will satisfy the people.

Doctorow:
Well, I wouldn’t expect it to take place tomorrow. He’s a man whose favorite word is akuratma, which Russian translates as carefully, cautiously. So he will do nothing precipitous. But will he do something? He has to do something.

Russian society will be deeply disappointed with him if he doesn’t do something. Just throwing a few more bombs at a few more underground factories making drones will not satisfy public opinion, considering the gravity of both the attacks we’ve discussed on the Russian heavy bombers and the terrorist attack, which we haven’t discussed, also this past weekend, where the Ukrainians blew up a railway in Kursk and blew up an automobile bridge in the neighboring region, just to the north of Kursk, Gansk, whereby the bridge collapsed on trains passing below and killed outright seven people on the train, injured 100 and sent 40 to hospital. Russian society is still reeling from this. Just imagine, this is within the Russian Federation, of Kursk. It’s nearby. It’s across the border from Ukraine.

Nonetheless, this is an attack on civilians which caused deaths and was attacking the transport infrastructure, which is vulnerable. You cannot have guards riding over every bridge in the country. And so the only way you can stop that is by stopping the people who are sending these saboteurs into Russia, which means destroying the Ukrainian government at a blow. That’s the only thing that can stop this.

Farris:
Well, and what I’m perplexed by is, you know, Trump comes into office. Shortly thereafter, Zelensky comes for a visit, and everybody saw that video, and he said, we’ll be out, we’ll be out. And yet they have not cut off funding to Ukraine, which could, I mean, ultimately wrap this thing up very quickly, but yet they haven’t.

Doctorow:
Mike, when we touch upon Trump, we’re touching upon a man who’s under fire from very big domestic opposition that is aligned with European opposition. And so it is quite strong. He has said many contradictory things, flip-flopping day to day, which make him look foolish, which make him look like a buffoon to those who are unkind.

I am not in the unkind group. I believe that this is all tactical, to keep at bay his enemies, to persuade them that “the fellow really listens to the last person who spoke to him. If we can get his ear long enough, we can bring him around to our position.” And for this reason, they don’t stab him in the back, which they otherwise would do. If they were confident, or if they were certain that he is in the enemy camp and could not be brought around, then they will be going after him with their daggers.

So this explains a lot of the peculiar behavior of Mr. Trump, including what you were just alluding to. He has effectively kept the Europeans out of all the negotiations. We don’t hear a word any more about the coalition of the willing putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. Dead, why is it dead?

Because Mr. Trump has kept them at arm’s length from the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. Why has he not stopped the flow of money and weapons that were appropriated by Biden?

If he did that, then he would be seen to favor the Russians, and his enemies would all gang up. As it is, he has a big problem with the bill which senators– with a bipartisan bill, which has 80 signatures on it and is therefore not vetoable in the Senate, which is calling for imposing very harshly economic sanctions and financial sanctions on Russia.

This is the bill that was sponsored by Richard Blumenthal from the Democrats in Connecticut and the villain of the Republicans, Graham from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham. I expect that bill will be passed in Congress. And at that point, Mr. Trump can put lipstick on the pig, can claim that he has no objection to that new sanctions because the Russians have behaved badly, and these sanctions will help to temper the Russians and to bring them closer to peace.

At the same time, he will do what you were just suggesting. He will cut off all financial and military aid and reconnaissance aid to Ukraine, saying that will also temper them and make them more amenable to compromise and reaching a peace settlement, and he’ll walk away from Ukraine. That is how I see this end game of the United States, leaving the Europeans left with chaos and disaster, and the Ukraine probably having a coup d’état to remove Mr. Zelensky and to put in charge somebody who could negotiate an end to the war with the Russians. This is my reading of the situation and my explanation of why, to answer your question directly, why Trump has not cut off the flow of weapons and finance to Ukraine till now.

Farris:
So your estimation then kind of summarizing this to make sure I heard you correctly, this is all being tactically done by Trump, knowing the adversity he’s facing domestically and from Europe.

So he will do this, his bill will get through, at the same time he’ll cut off funding to Ukraine in order to remove the United States from this, and then it will get dumped onto Europe. And do you see, how do you see Europe and the rest of NATO then responding for Ukraine?

Doctorow:
I see Europe pretending to give assistance to Ukraine for two or three months, which will be a transitional period. They can’t just drop the ball. They need time to reformulate a narrative to explain why they are leaving Ukraine also.

For some of the European leaders, that would be easier than for others, because some are more invested in the continuing war than others are. Nonetheless, the end result will be Europe will also leave Ukraine under the bus, after a certain grace period so if they can find a common narrative to hand to the mainstream media.

Farris:
Then you see Zelensky getting removed. Then what will the future of Ukraine be? Because with the United States removing itself, NATO and Europe also removing itself, will they create a new government or?

Doctorow:
Oh yes, there will be an interim government, probably a military government, because there are no leaders from the past. Mr. Poroshenko, Timoshenko, Madame Timoshenko, who is known as the braided, she had wonderful braided hair. These people are no solution for Ukraine.

They are as guilty as Mr. Zelensky in bringing on this disaster. So I think the only solution for interim government will be a military government pending maybe a year or two when society can be brought back to reality in Ukraine, then there would be elections and a normal civilian government installed. This is how I see it.

Faarris:
Who would be overseeing? Would Putin and Russia be participating in this restructure to make sure that what has occurred over the last several years now never happens again?

Doctorow:
Well, I think the prudent thing would be for there to be a group of nations to oversee this transition in Ukraine, not just Russia. If Russia took that on singly, it would face tremendous resistance. So several major powers, the United States, China, Russia, and a few others, maybe from the global south, would be nominally supervising the transition to democracy over a period of a year or two.

Farris:
I know I’m running out of time here with you, but I do want to ask, what will the future of NATO be if the scenarios that we discussed play out this way?

Doctorow:
I think it will fade away. The United States cannot leave NATO formally de jure. That has, requires approval of Congress. Mr. Trump will not get that approval. But if he takes the stuffing out of NATO, the effect will be the same.

It will lose its value. I’m hopeful that in this period, as I described as a grace period of two or three months for the European leaders to reverse course and to move away from Ukraine and let it collapse, I think that hopefully in that period there will be a political realignment within the European institutions. And those who have been the most vociferous defenders, what’s so-called defenders of Ukraine, actually destroyers of Ukraine, because they’re promoting this continued war against Russia, I think that, I’m hopeful that they will receive the just desserts, which will be to be removed from office.

Farris:
As we’ve talked here for the last 40, you know, over 45 minutes, how concerned are you about all this, with everything going on? You know, what is in comparison to when we’ve talked previously? Is it higher now? Same?

Doctorow:
No, I wouldn’t say it’s fine. It all depends, of course, on what Mr. Putin does, how dramatic it will be. I’m fairly confident that Trump’s reaction to whatever Putin does will also be sensible and will keep us away from a progression to a nuclear war between the major powers. I trust in Trump’s judgment in that respect. I understand how many of the viewers of this program will be skeptical about that, because all major media have for the last six years painted Trump in the blackest terms. He is not a likable personality. I wouldn’t necessarily want him for a neighbor, but that’s irrelevant.

Machiavelli said it a long time ago, and these verities do not change. The morality of individuals is not the same as the morality of state actors. You like it, you don’t like it, that’s the way the world was, is, will be. And from this viewpoint, Mr. Trump is a realist. He’s not all that bad. Even if he doesn’t write his own speeches, he reads them okay. The speeches that he reads are amazing. Everyone, the last thing I’ll say, Ibecause I do have to go, is that everyone listens to Trump.

Don’t listen to him. Now he’s not addressing you, he’s addressing his enemies. Watch what he does. He closed down USAID, which was the main vehicle for regime change financed by the CIA. He is now purging the State Department of all the villains who have risen in the ranks and in the diplomatic service ever since Dick Cheney chased out decent people from the State Department at the start of this millennium. He made a speech in Saudi Arabia denouncing the whole fiction of America’s spreading democracy through its wars.

The speech he didn’t write, obviously, but he read it. And he knew what he was reading. So the man, I say, look at what he’s doing, what he has done. He didn’t make any speeches about closing down USAID. In fact, you’d hardly know that he was involved.

It was all Elon Musk who was saving government money. Don’t believe that for a minute. That was a political move which was approved, which was agreed between Trump and Musk. It was sold as a money saving venture. The hell it was.

It was all about dumping 40,000 neocons out on the street. And I say bravo to him, and I say please trust that not every US president is a villain.

Farris:
Where could people find you, Gilbert? Where could people find you? Are you Substack?

Yeah, Substack. gilbertdoctorow is just one word, my first name and last name, dot substack dot com. And you find me in the search box in Amazon.com .

Farris:
And I’ll put the description to people who want to order the book and then your substack on the show notes. So Gilbert, as always, thank you for making time to speak with me. We’ll follow these events and look forward to more conversations ahead.

Doctorow:
Well, don’t despair. We have been through worse times.

Yesterday’s 52-minute chat with Mike Farris covers some of the issues that I have addressed in other recent interviews but updates them with the latest news, as for example relating to the Ukrainian attacks Sunday on air force bases across the Russian Federation, or goes into greater depth, as for example the discussion of my newly published book War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023.

The real punch comes in my words about what response we may expect from President Putin to the Ukrainian destruction of some as yet unquantified number of Russia’s heavy bombers that are an important part of its nuclear triad.

With respect to the last named, I have been shocked by the remarks yesterday by some of my best-known peers speaking on some of the best-known interview programs questioning whether Trump had been informed by the CIA ahead of the attacks. They speculated that Trump was not so informed, following the long-standing practice of keeping the Boss ignorant for the sake of deniability. They speculated that Defense Secretary Hegseth was watching the Ukrainian attack in real time.

Of course, none of us has a crystal ball, and I do not insist that what I am about to say is irrefutable. But, let’s go at it.

Firstly, the notion that Trump would have discomfort lying is other worldly. Reading The Washington Post for the last 5 years, you would assume that everything he says is a lie. They ran a Pinocchio index daily to prove that point.

More seriously, however, the notion that the CIA was presently involved in the attack on Russian nuclear triad assets ignores what Ukraine said explicitly about Operation Spider Web: that it was planned and preparations began 18 months ago. That is to say, the project dates from the last third of the Biden presidency when the CIA indeed could have had a hand in it.  I find it inconceivable, however, that after the purge of the intelligence agencies from the first days of the Trump presidency that the leadership of the CIA would have facilitated an attack on Russia that goes directly against the policy of détente espoused by The Boss in the Oval Office.

The glove fits for the British MI6, where their ultimate boss, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is an out-and-out war monger. I personally have little doubt that the Brits assisted Kiev from start to finish with Operation Spider Web.  At the same time, I say that we should not patronize the Ukrainians:  they are in some ways more capable of modern warfare than their British ‘curators.’

As regards the idea which retired British diplomat Alastair Crooke, a Middle East specialist, put forth on his latest interview with Judge Napolitano, namely that Israel’s Mossad had a hand in these attacks, I am left speechless.  Crooke’s only argument in favor of this is the well-known antipathy of Jews for things Russian going back to the tsarist days.  I leave it to readers to determine for themselves how sound they find that argumentation.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Kaffee und ein Mikrofon: Wie wird Putin auf die jüngsten Angriffe der Ukraine reagieren?

Der gestrige 52-minütige Chat mit Mike Farris behandelt einige der Themen, die ich bereits in anderen aktuellen Interviews angesprochen habe, aktualisiert sie jedoch mit den neuesten Nachrichten, beispielsweise zu den ukrainischen Angriffen vom Sonntag auf Luftwaffenstützpunkte in der Russischen Föderation, oder geht noch tiefer in die Materie, wie beispielsweise bei der Diskussion meines neu erschienenen Buches War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022–2023.

Der eigentliche Punch kommt in meinen Worten darüber, welche Reaktion wir von Präsident Putin auf die Zerstörung einer noch nicht bezifferbaren Anzahl russischer schwerer Bomber durch die Ukraine erwarten können, die ein wichtiger Teil der nuklearen Triade Russlands sind.

In Bezug auf Letzteres war ich schockiert über die Äußerungen einiger meiner bekanntesten Kollegen, die gestern in einigen der bekanntesten Interviewsendungen fragten, ob Trump vor den Angriffen von der CIA informiert worden sei. Sie spekulierten, dass Trump nicht informiert worden sei, da es seit langem üblich sei, den Chef aus Gründen der Abstreitbarkeit im Unklaren zu lassen. Sie spekulierten, dass Verteidigungsminister Hegseth den ukrainischen Angriff in Echtzeit verfolgt habe.

Natürlich hat keiner von uns eine Kristallkugel, und ich behaupte nicht, dass das, was ich jetzt sage, unumstößlich ist. Aber lasst uns einmal darauf eingehen.

Erstens ist die Vorstellung, dass Trump sich beim Lügen unwohl fühlen würde, total abwegig. Wenn man die letzten fünf Jahre die Washington Post gelesen hat, könnte man meinen, dass alles, was er sagt, Lüge ist. Die Zeitung hat jeden Tag einen Pinocchio-Index veröffentlicht, um das zu beweisen.

Noch schwerwiegender ist jedoch, dass die Vorstellung, die CIA sei derzeit an dem Angriff auf russische Atomwaffen beteiligt, ignoriert, was die Ukraine ausdrücklich über die Operation Spider Web gesagt hat: dass sie vor 18 Monaten geplant und vorbereitet wurde. Das heißt, das Projekt stammt aus dem letzten Drittel der Präsidentschaft Bidens, als die CIA tatsächlich ihre Finger im Spiel gehabt haben könnte. Ich halte es jedoch für unvorstellbar, dass die Führung der CIA nach der Säuberung der Geheimdienste in den ersten Tagen der Präsidentschaft Trumps einen Angriff auf Russland ermöglicht hätte, der direkt gegen die Politik der Entspannung verstößt, die der Chef im Oval Office verfolgt.

Das passt zum britischen MI6, dessen oberster Chef, Premierminister Keir Starmer, ein ausgesprochener Kriegstreiber ist. Ich persönlich habe kaum Zweifel daran, dass die Briten Kiew bei der Operation Spider Web von Anfang bis Ende unterstützt haben. Gleichzeitig sage ich, dass wir die Ukrainer nicht bevormunden sollten: Sie sind in gewisser Weise besser für die moderne Kriegsführung gerüstet als ihre britischen „Kuratoren“.

Was die Idee betrifft, die der pensionierte britische Diplomat und Nahost-Experte Alastair Crooke in seinem jüngsten Interview mit Judge Napolitano vorgebracht hat, nämlich dass der israelische Mossad an diesen Anschlägen beteiligt gewesen sei, bin ich sprachlos. Crookes einziges Argument dafür ist die bekannte Abneigung der Juden gegen alles Russische, die bis in die Zarenzeit zurückreicht. Ich überlasse es den Lesern, selbst zu beurteilen, wie stichhaltig sie diese Argumentation finden.

This weekend as the warring parties prepared to resume direct talks in Istanbul tomorrow, Russia and Ukraine exchanged blows of unprecedented scope. 

About the Russian strikes against military assets across Ukraine you will find nothing new in kind from what we all heard and read in major media exactly a week ago.  It was just more of the same.

Turning to the Ukrainian attacks on Russia these past two days, there is indeed a change that merits close attention.

The first news to break was Ukraine’s destruction of bridges in the two oblasts of the Russian Federation that border on Ukraine:  Kursk and Bryansk. 

We all know where Kursk is thanks to its being in the news almost constantly since the Ukrainians staged an incursion, later full invasion of that oblast in August 2024 from which they were entirely dislodged just a month ago. The Ukrainian army lost 75,000 of its soldiers in that militarily useless operation that was intended to capture the nuclear power plant just 75 km inside of the Kursk region, to be held as a trading chip for Russian concessions.  In any case at 3.00 am today, a railway bridge was blown up in Kursk.

Much more serious was the bombing late on Saturday of an automobile bridge in neighboring Bryansk oblast, which faces Ukraine to the West and Belarus to the north. That bridge collapsed onto a train passing below, derailing it and causing damage that cost the lives of seven on board the train and sent more than 40 passengers to hospital with serious injuries.

The Russians have denounced the bridge bombings as state terrorism. This has been denied by Ukrainian authorities, who say such allegations are being made only for the purpose of stopping the peace process. Of course, the Ukrainian regime is no stranger to terror tactics. In the past year two Russian generals were blown up in downtown Moscow by agents in the pay of Ukrainian security services.  And there was the massacre staged at the Crocus entertainment center in a suburb of Moscow, also by mercenaries paid and directed by Ukrainian intelligence. The head of these security services, Budanov, has boasted of his feats of daring-do.

In the past hour or so, another vector of Ukrainian activity has begun to appear on major Western media, including the Financial Times, as I discovered after I was tipped off by India’s News X during an interview. Swarms of Ukrainian drones attacked a half dozen Russian airfields in an extended geography going from the central region of Russia all the way out to Irkutsk-Lake Baikal, 5500 km from the Ukrainian border. The Ukrainian authorities say that their drones damaged several dozen Russian bombers.  So far, the Russians are entirely mum about the extent of damage. I only found on their ticker news remarks that the police have closed highways in the Irkutsk region due to risk of drone attacks.

Ukrainian drones reaching to 5500 km from the Ukrainian border?  As the FT reporters explain, and as common sense would otherwise tell you, these drones were launched from within the Russian Federation. They had been secretly transported across the state-to-state border and moved onward to staging areas not far from the intended target airfields. They were hidden in wooden sheds.

Given the porous nature of the Russian-Ukrainian border which runs for well over a thousand kilometers, it is not surprising that such an operation could be carried out.

Now, let us ask what this drone attack indicates.

I believe it is proof positive that drone warfare is of decisive importance in the current Ukrainian-Russian conflict.  More to the point, it indicates that the entire confrontation between Moscow and Berlin, Paris, London and Washington over the delivery of long-range missiles to Ukraine has been an artificial confrontation whipped up by Ukraine, which has bleated for missiles for most of the past three years.

The U.S. made Himars were very quickly countered by Russian technical solutions.  The vaunted British and French Storm Shadows have only been a minor nuisance to Russia, which found ways to bring them down and most importantly found ways to destroy or scare away their delivery means, namely F16s and specially adapted Ukrainian jets from the Soviet period.

I maintain that Kiev has insisted on the utility, nay on the absolute necessity of possessing these missiles only for the sake of fomenting war between Russia and Britain, France, and now Germany, with its Taurus.

It remains to be seen who provided the Ukrainians with the drones they have used in the Operation Spider Web attack this weekend on Russian air bases.  Perhaps they are Ukraine’s own drones. Perhaps they were Western supplied.

                                                                        *****

The other very serious question which the Ukrainian attacks of this weekend raises is how long can or should the Russians tolerate this level of destruction of critical military assets, on the one hand, and this level of terror attacks on civilian transportation within the Russian Federation.

I can easily imagine that in the coming days thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of Russian patriots will be demanding that their President finally does what he threatened to do three years ago:  namely to destroy the decision-making centers in Ukraine without further delay.  If I may translate that into simple English:  destroy the entire government apparatus in Kiev at one blow during working hours. The unstoppable Oreshnik hypersonic missile  gives Moscow the capability of doing just that.

 Russia has from the first listing of its war objectives in February 2022 intended regime change in Kiev.  Mr. Putin is facing the moment of truth.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Nachrichten vom Wochenende vom 31. Mai bis 1. Juni: Ukrainische Terroranschläge auf russische Züge mit Zivilisten und ukrainische Drohnenangriffe auf russische Flugplätze bis nach Irkutsk in Ostsibirien

An diesem Wochenende, während sich die Kriegsparteien auf die Wiederaufnahme der direkten Gespräche morgen in Istanbul vorbereiteten, lieferten sich Russland und die Ukraine Auseinandersetzungen von beispiellosem Ausmaß.

Über die russischen Angriffe auf militärische Einrichtungen in der Ukraine gibt es nichts Neues gegenüber dem, was wir alle vor genau einer Woche in den großen Medien gehört und gelesen haben. Es war einfach mehr vom Gleichen.

Was die ukrainischen Angriffe auf Russland in den letzten zwei Tagen angeht, gibt es jedoch eine Veränderung, die besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient.

Die erste Nachricht war die Zerstörung von Brücken in den beiden an die Ukraine angrenzenden Gebieten der Russischen Föderation: Kursk und Brjansk.

Wir alle wissen, wo Kursk liegt, da es seit dem Einmarsch der Ukrainer in diese Region im August 2024, aus der sie vor einem Monat vollständig vertrieben wurden, fast ständig in den Nachrichten ist. Die ukrainische Armee verlor 75.000 Soldaten bei dieser militärisch sinnlosen Operation, deren Ziel es war, das nur 75 km innerhalb der Region Kursk gelegene Atomkraftwerk zu erobern, um es als Verhandlungsmasse für russische Zugeständnisse zu nutzen. Auf jeden Fall wurde heute um 3:00 Uhr morgens eine Eisenbahnbrücke in Kursk gesprengt.

Viel schwerwiegender war die Bombardierung einer Automobilbrücke am späten Samstagabend in der benachbarten Oblast Brjansk, die im Westen an die Ukraine und im Norden an Weißrussland grenzt. Die Brücke stürzte auf einen darunter fahrenden Zug, der entgleiste und dabei sieben Menschen tötete und mehr als 40 Passagiere mit schweren Verletzungen ins Krankenhaus brachte.

Die Russen haben die Brückenbombenanschläge als Staatsterrorismus verurteilt. Die ukrainischen Behörden weisen dies zurück und behaupten, solche Anschuldigungen würden nur erhoben, um den Friedensprozess zu stoppen. Natürlich ist das ukrainische Regime kein Unbekannter, wenn es um Terror-Taktiken geht. Im vergangenen Jahr wurden zwei russische Generäle in der Moskauer Innenstadt von Agenten der ukrainischen Sicherheitsdienste in die Luft gesprengt. Und dann war da noch das Massaker im Crocus-Unterhaltungszentrum in einem Vorort von Moskau, ebenfalls von Söldnern verübt, die vom ukrainischen Geheimdienst bezahlt und gesteuert wurden. Der Chef dieser Sicherheitsdienste, Budanow, hat sich mit seinen waghalsigen Taten gebrüstet.

In der letzten Stunde oder so ist ein weiterer Vektor ukrainischer Aktivitäten in den großen westlichen Medien aufgetaucht, darunter auch in der Financial Times, wie ich nach einem Hinweis von India’s News X während eines Interviews erfahren habe. Schwärme ukrainischer Drohnen griffen ein halbes Dutzend russischer Flugplätze in einem ausgedehnten Gebiet an, das sich von der Zentralregion Russlands bis nach Irkutsk-Baikalsee, 5.500 km von der ukrainischen Grenze entfernt, erstreckt. Die ukrainischen Behörden geben an, dass ihre Drohnen mehrere Dutzend russische Bomber beschädigt hätten. Bislang schweigen die Russen über das Ausmaß der Schäden. Ich habe in ihren Kurzmeldungen lediglich gefunden, dass die Polizei aufgrund der Gefahr von Drohnenangriffen Autobahnen in der Region Irkutsk gesperrt hat. Ukrainische Drohnen erreichen eine Entfernung von 5.500 km von der ukrainischen Grenze? Wie die FT-Reporter erklären und wie es auch der gesunde Menschenverstand vermuten lässt, wurden diese Drohnen innerhalb der Russischen Föderation gestartet. Sie wurden heimlich über die Staatsgrenze transportiert und zu Sammelplätzen unweit der vorgesehenen Zielflugplätze gebracht. Dort wurden sie in Holzschuppen versteckt. Angesichts der Durchlässigkeit der mehr als tausend Kilometer langen russisch-ukrainischen Grenze ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass eine solche Operation durchgeführt werden konnte. Nun stellt sich die Frage, was dieser Drohnenangriff bedeutet.

Ich glaube, dass dies ein eindeutiger Beweis dafür ist, dass Drohnenkriegführung im aktuellen ukrainisch-russischen Konflikt von entscheidender Bedeutung ist. Genauer gesagt deutet dies darauf hin, dass die gesamte Konfrontation zwischen Moskau und Berlin, Paris, London und Washington über die Lieferung von Langstreckenraketen an die Ukraine eine künstliche Konfrontation ist, die von der Ukraine angeheizt wurde, die seit fast drei Jahren lautstark nach Raketen verlangt.

Die von den USA hergestellten HIMARS wurden sehr schnell durch russische technische Lösungen konterkariert. Die viel gepriesenen britischen und französischen Storm Shadows waren für Russland nur ein kleines Ärgernis, da es Wege fand, sie abzuschießen und vor allem ihre Trägersysteme, nämlich F16 und speziell umgerüstete ukrainische Jets aus der Sowjetzeit, zu zerstören oder zu vertreiben.

Ich behaupte, dass Kiew auf dem Nutzen, ja sogar auf der absoluten Notwendigkeit des Besitzes dieser Raketen bestanden hat, nur um einen Krieg zwischen Russland und Großbritannien, Frankreich und nun auch Deutschland mit seinem Taurus zu schüren.

Es bleibt abzuwarten, wer die Ukrainer mit den Drohnen versorgt hat, die sie bei der Operation „Spider Web“ an diesem Wochenende gegen russische Luftwaffenstützpunkte eingesetzt haben. Vielleicht sind es Drohnen aus der Ukraine selbst. Vielleicht wurden sie vom Westen geliefert.

                                                                        *****

Die andere sehr ernste Frage, die die ukrainischen Angriffe dieses Wochenendes aufwerfen, ist, wie lange die Russen einerseits diese Zerstörung wichtiger militärischer Einrichtungen und andererseits diese Terroranschläge auf den zivilen Verkehr innerhalb der Russischen Föderation noch tolerieren können oder sollten.

Ich kann mir gut vorstellen, dass in den kommenden Tagen Tausende, ja sogar Hunderttausende russischer Patrioten von ihrem Präsidenten verlangen werden, endlich das zu tun, was er vor drei Jahren angedroht hat: nämlich die Entscheidungszentren in der Ukraine ohne weitere Verzögerung zu zerstören. Wenn ich das in einfaches Deutsch übersetzen darf: den gesamten Regierungsapparat in Kiew während der Arbeitszeit mit einem Schlag zerstören. Die unaufhaltsame Hyperschallrakete Oreshnik gibt Moskau die Möglichkeit, genau das zu tun.

Russland hat seit der ersten Auflistung seiner Kriegsziele im Februar 2022 einen Regimewechsel in Kiew angestrebt. Herr Putin steht vor dem Moment der Wahrheit.

Transcript submitted by a reader:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQNqBwqEiE4

Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome. I am joined today by Gilbert Doctorow, an historian, international affairs analyst and author. And I would advise everyone to follow his Substack for some very insightful analysis of world events. Welcome back to the program.

Doctorow:
Well, very good to be with you.

Diesen:
I wanted to start off first with the topic of Germany, as this has been a key, well, event, and also it could be a very dangerous new step in this escalation of the proxy war. That is that Merz is proposing, this joint production of Taurus missiles with Kiev. Now Germany seemingly to me is looking for another way to attack Russia while claiming not to attack. I guess the whole problem is you want to change the rules of the proxy war. So if you send the missiles and they’re used to attack Russia, your fingerprints are pretty much all over this.

And as the Russians have said, they’re politicians, you have military leaders, the media, that these missiles will be operated by the Germans and that the Russians have the right to retaliate directly against Germany. So how can Germany attack Russia while claiming not to be involved? I mean, this is the difficult space they’re trying to maneuver, I guess. What are the rules of the proxy war? And so the next step now appears to be this joint production, which opens up a lot of questions. So how are you reading this situation?

Doctorow: 1:44
After I published this morning my “Hotsy-Totsy, another Nazi” essay — by the way, I take no credit for that terminology. It takes us back to the early 1940s and Charlie Chaplin and some other humorous viewings of what was going on in Germany, which was in fact not very funny. In any case, Chancellor Merz is taking a gamble, but he’s always been something of a risk taker. And he’s assuming first that the Article 5 would be successfully implemented to defend Germany if the Russians attack.

2:24
I think he’s also assuming that the Russians are good to their word, and any attack they make on Germany will be directed against a military installation, probably if it makes any sense, against the factory in, I believe it’s in Bavaria, that was producing, up to this year, the Taurus missile. And that it would not have a deep political attack on Berlin or on his government or on him personally. That’s a fairly safe assumption. It would possibly serve his purposes of driving up the German budget and the EU budget for military industry if the Russians in fact attacked Germany. So it’s difficult to read exactly what his calculus is. There is, I mean, trying to suggest there may be something rational behind what looks like a totally irrational position by Merz in Germany.

Diesen: 3:24
Well, what about the Russian position? Do you think, again, they want to come, this is a very stern warning coming from them. I mean, you hear the same from Lavrov, saying that this is a direct attack by Germany. And they’re also drawing some historical parallels, saying that the Germans are going the same path as they did more than once in the previous century.

And again, often we dismiss these things, I think, too easily. That is, we say, “Oh, we have the right to help Ukraine defend itself.” But you can argue that Russia has the right to help Yemen defend itself or any other country that NATO countries have attacked. But if you have Russian long-range missiles operated by Russian soldiers, guided by their satellites striking in the heart of London, we would not dismiss this as, “Oh, well, they have the right to assist a country with help, to self-defense.”

I think this dismissiveness and people are very cautious to speak against, I think, what the governments are doing, because well, anything you say now can be construed as helping, taking Russia’s side. So no one’s really allowed to say the obvious, but this is a direct attack. So how do you think the Russians will react? Is this mere bluff, or do you think that they would actually launch an attack, destroy these facilities? Because I mean, the threat from NATO is, you know, like all threats, is capabilities and intentions. And irrespective of any intentions from the NATO countries, if they don’t have the capabilities, yeah, why wouldn’t you go through with this?

Doctorow: 5:17
Well, let’s take a step back and see how the Germans got themselves into this situation, because it didn’t just happen with the personality of Mr. Merz, though that’s a big contributing factor. We have to go back maybe 10 years or more, when the Alternative for Deutschland started this all, which sounds a bit peculiar, given that the AfD is now one of the strongest resisters to what Merz wants to do. But they started this, in the sense that they made the claims of “Ami go home”, “Americans go home”, which had been a left-wing call previously. And they were saying that Germans of today, this generation, bears no guilt for the sins of their grandfathers, which is a reasonable thing to say, except if you happen to be German, and except if you happen to have Russia as a neighbor, which doesn’t forgive, but certainly does not forget what happened. 26 million citizens died in the war that was conducted, led by Germany.

6:25
So the AfD, I think unleashed this German, a new German thinking that “We are guiltless”, that “We are Europeans with European values” and allowed Germans, particularly the Greens, to step up on soapboxes and to start lecturing the Russians for violating human rights and violating the universally accepted principles of how states behave within Europe. So the AfD unleashed this, but then it was picked up by all German parties and it has gone a lot farther as we see today. It was adopted by genuine revanchist tendencies that are in the center and center-right, of which Mr. Merz is the outstanding case.

7:19
So that’s how we got to where we are. What does Mr. Merz expect? What could he expect? Well he could have is doubts, “Will the Russians really do this? After all, what we Germans are about to do is no more a violation of Russia’s red lines than what the Americans, the British and the French have been doing without any consequences.”

But I would just add, from the Russian perspective, the other three countries were once allies and they hesitate to identify them as Russia’s main enemies. Whereas Germany was not an ally, it was precisely the force conducting the devastating attack on Russia from 1941. And they have free hands to take their revenge on what they see as neo-Nazi-led country.

8:16
Now, just going back to Mr. Lavrov, and your paraphrasing him a moment ago, this is one, it’s like an inch away from saying that Merz is a Nazi. They said, “like Hitler, Merz is…” well, okay. That’s just a hair breadth away from saying that Merz is Hitler today.

Diesen: 8:39
Well, the idea though that, well, “the others are doing it so we can do this as well”. This is a dangerous way of looking at it, because Germany is not the same. That is, for one, the Russians have been seeing this dilemma for a long time, that is, “Do we strike back and then risk a wider war, or do we not strike back but then embolden our opponents to escalate further?”

So they’re under pressure to make a point, because within Moscow there’s people as well saying that Putin let this thing go so far because they kept crossing the lines which were set and there was no real consequence. Now this is my point, the Germans are not like the Americans and the French or the British. First of all, Germany doesn’t have nuclear weapons, so it would have to rely on the Article 5.

Second, as you said, Germany has also a very unique history in terms of the death and destruction it has unleashed upon the Russians. So a lot of this seems to be betting on the idea that Article 5 will stand. Article 5 doesn’t actually obligate the rest of the military alliance to attack, to come to their aid. I forgot the actual text, but it’s more or less they can take any measures they see fit, including the use of military force. But this idea that it triggers a forced military response, it’s not necessarily the case.

10:22
And even if that’s what the text said, I can imagine countries like the United States would think twice, honoring an agreement if this entails their nuclear annihilation. So are they betting now completely on this Article 5 of the NATO treaty?

Doctorow: 10:40
Well, if Merz is doing that, he’s making a terrible mistake. I think Donald Trump and his team hinted, or actually stated openly, that if any of the European countries pursue the war, the proxy war with Russia, they will be on their own. And that is exactly what the Russians would bring to the United Nations Security Council.

They’ve made their, outlined their future steps fairly clearly. They wouldn’t just push a button and send the Oreshniks here or there. They would take their case that Germany is now at war with Russia, and they would take it to the United Nations Security Council. And they would say openly, “We are now about to destroy this or that site in Germany”, knowing full well that their Oreshnik missiles are unstoppable, and the destruction that they are outlining before the world will take place.

11:40
So that is where Chancellor Merz is making a terrible mistake. He is, as you say, refusing to understand that Germany is not England or France, is uniquely vulnerable and will not, likely not have an American backup.

Diesen:
That’s a great point. Yeah, that the Russians probably would go this way too. Because one of the things that actually constrains Russia now, as the blood is boiling in Moscow, is the fact that they have other international partners, be it China, India, with which they would like to maintain a good reputation.

But if they go to the UN, explain, “Listen, this is Germany attacking us. There’s no two ways of looking at this. We have the right to self-defense. We’re not going to annihilate the nation, but we’re going to destroy, as now much of political leadership say, we’re going to destroy their military capabilities which are being used to attack us, which is a measured response.”

Then I think while they might not approve, the Chinese and the Indians and others might at least understand and, well, may not look the other way, but this would not be seen as being an irrational surprise attack.

So in your thinking then, if the Russians begin to take this to the UN, this is when the Germans should, well, effectively begin to expect a strike on their country.

Doctorow: 13:20
Merz is really exacerbating the situation. When he spoke yesterday with Zalensky concluding their talks, he spoke about this joint production without saying where it would take place, though, obviously not in Ukraine, because the factory wouldn’t last beyond the foundations if such a project were undertaken. But he left it at that. That is to say, he wasn’t contradicting directly his coalition partners in the SPD, the Social Democrats, who have continued the policy of the previous chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in refusing to ship the Taurus to Russia.

14:06
But today’s news, and this is the latest ticker on Russian news, is that he has said that they will deliver the Taurus after all. He’s speaking about within a timeframe of the next few weeks. Actually, when all of the Western countries aiding Ukraine, beginning with the United States, say they will do it in a few weeks, it means they’ve already done it. The missiles have already been delivered to Ukraine. So that is a foregone conclusion.

He is post-dating something that’s happened already. If he’s done that, and if the mission goes ahead, then we are just weeks away from the scenario that you and I have just discussed of United Nations Security Council discussion of it, and likely Russian attack on exactly what is not clear. The factory that has been producing the Taurus is out of production. They say they’re awaiting new orders. And so to attack a non-functioning factory doesn’t look like it’s accomplishing a great deal.

15:20
I also don’t know exactly where Taurus was produced, because it is a joint Swedish-German project. It could be that a lot of Taurus was actually built in Sweden. So this becomes more complicated than it appears at first glance.

Diesen:
Yeah, well again I also think one thing that’s not appreciated enough in the West is the extent to which the German history still plays in. Because we kind of think of Germany now as the country learned from its history and wouldn’t go down any of these routes any more.

But again, this is what the Russians see. This is the same Germany that’s as we speak actually, you know, being complicit in aiding a genocide as we speak in Gaza, but also the fascist elements in Ukraine. I mean, it’s not the thing– we’re, I think, too dismissive of here in the West now, which is kind of strange, because before the Russian invasion in 2022, this was a thing that, you know, the media spoke openly about, politicians could speak about. Leading Western media were discussing that, you know, the fascist elements in Ukraine was a problem, that they had too much influence. Then suddenly Russia invades and it just disappeared.

16:44
But it’s important to keep in mind that they disappeared from our media, not the Russian media. This idea that “Zelenskyy has Jewish roots, so we can just dismiss all the evidence of the actual people who have key positions” is very dangerous. And again, the way they see it, they see it as a wider historical continuity, I think, that is they see the Ukrainian elements in the fascist movements cooperating with the Germans in World War II. They saw after World War II the United States and others backing them to weaken the Soviet Union, and now it’s effectively some of the same again.

So just to repeat this point, I get the impression now that the blood is really boiling in Moscow. They’re very angry about this. I can’t imagine German missiles flying into Russian cities, killing Russians, and somehow they’re just going to look the other way. This is– I don’t understand how he came to this point. How is it possible that Germany is actually contemplating this?

Doctorow: 17:54
Well, the United States has contributed to this, and by specifically Donald Trump. As it may come out in our discussion further this morning, I am quite sympathetic to Trump’s intentions and initiatives. However, there are side effects, which he and his advisors surely did not anticipate. One of the side effects of the United States reducing its attention to Europe and withdrawing from NATO, if not de jure, then in practice by cutting back its support of NATO, is that Europe has been liberated and left to itself. And there are a lot of rotten things in Europe that were kept under the surface or invisible because of the American presence. Now that America is backing away from Europe, these forces are freed to show themselves and to try to take control of politics.

18:55
And Europe really is becoming a war project, not a peace project. So far, the animus and the hostility of feeling is directed against Russia. But I think the way Europe is headed right now with all of the revanchist forces that we see in Germany, they also have counterparts elsewhere in the continent. And we may see a lot of conflict within Europe that was kept at bay, that was kept under the surface by the American domination of Europe.

Diesen: 19:34
This has been, I guess, the benefit of having the Americans in Europe, though. It’s always pointed out that they were the pacifier that could preserve some cohesion within Europe, prevent too ugly competition and also from doing something reckless. I think we too often under the liberal idea was that we all discovered democracy and human rights and united under common values. But I don’t know, as a political realist, I have a tendency to see more in terms of power, that is the United States has been here and put a lid on some of these things. But now, of course, it is coming out.

20:15
And I think, given that we’re losing this war, we bet everything on this. I mean, the economy, we sent everything of our military, everything has been bet on defeating the Russians there. Now that we’re losing the war, you can see the desperation and the possible crazy reactions coming. But how would America position itself in such an event? If the Germans would now start to engage in such, let’s call them direct attacks on Russia, and Russia decides, well, it goes to the United Nations, “We’re going to retaliate, we have the right for self-defense.” What would the Americans do?

Doctorow: 21:01
Abstain. I think that Trump could get away with that. There are many limitations on his freedom of maneuver, even in international relations, as we see by the way that Lindsey Graham has gathered 80 votes in the Senate to impose severe sanctions now on Russia. But as to how you vote at the United Nations Security Council, I think Trump has completely free hands. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this comes to a vote that the United States abstains.

Diesen: 21:35
Well, it does appear that we’ve come to the point where at least the Russians see that they have a need to establish clear rules of this proxy war. Because again, as I began saying, I think this has been one of the key issues over the past three plus years. What is the rule of the proxy war? Again, former CIA Director Leon Panetta calls it proxy war. Boris Johnson, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, they all defined it as a proxy war.

And the kind of weapons you can use, it’s always escalated so we change the rules. And then I think it came a very critical point when we began to say, “Well, why should the war be limited to Ukrainian territory? Why should Russia be a safe space?” And then we opened up for again, German tanks rolling into Russia, missile strikes deep into Russian cities. But now, of course, the Russians are saying, “Well, why should Europe be a free space? Why is this immune for attacks?”

This is again, as your leaders recognize as well, it’s a NATO-Russia proxy war taking place within Ukraine. And again, the natural development is that this war will escalate and it will widen. So it’s just–

Doctorow: 22:53
Within Russia, within Russia, the latest polls are showing that Putin enjoys 82 percent confidence. But I don’t believe those numbers. Going back a year or two, some of my peers were saying that the Russian high command is very unsatisfied with the way that Putin is directing this war and so forth. I did not take that very seriously, because I think that the subordination of the military to civilian rule in Russia is 100 percent. But as we are today, I think Russians are quite tired of this war, and I think there is a strong undercurrent of opposition to its lengthy continuation of war of attrition for the next 20 years, which was what was hinted about by Mr. Medinsky in the last negotiations. So I think that Mr. Putin’s hand will be forced. I don’t think he has a choice domestically of responding with great force to any German participation in a missile attack or other long-range attack on Russia, that’s by air, that Germany facilitates or … facilitates. The country is a democracy in its own way, and he is not a dictator. He is not a Joseph Stalin.

24:18
When, it was several weeks, several days ago, rather shocking bit of AI reproduced Joseph Stalin on Solovyov’s program, in which Stalin was saying how the Russian people were so important in World War II, the Russians out of the whole Soviet group of nationalities, because the Russian people did not say our leadership– this is after 1941-42, when the Russian forces were rolled back to Moscow– they didn’t say, “Our leadership is not good; we should change it.” Well, this was, of course, quite a mockery, the notion that the Russians, civilian population could get rid of Stalin by saying that he was not an effective war leader. This strains our imagination.

25:13
But today it is feasible. Putin is not Stalin. And yes, he could be swept from power, I believe it, if he could not respond appropriately to a German attack.

Diesen: 25:28
Well, this pressure which is mounting on Putin to take a tougher line. You do see that the Russians are getting much tougher on the battlefield as well. And recently Trump had a statement that Putin is crazy, which is a very strange way to talk to another world leader, especially one when you’re in negotiations. But again, from my perspective, I saw it as also strange because as you were saying, he’s under great pressure, exactly not to be so soft, to be more aggressive, to respond to these escalations.

But somehow, yeah, this was Putin being crazy, which, you know, begs the question whether or not you think Trump is well informed because, yeah, President Putin himself came out and said that he didn’t think that Trump was informed. Why would the Russians go out with such a statement against Trump?

Doctorow: 26:40
The Russians, as Peskov made a statement like that, I think a very well calculated statement. They don’t want to let on to where they believe Trump’s sympathies are and what level of understanding they have of him. That would not serve their purposes.

And so they play along with the game, and they issue a very restrained diplomatic response that, yes, the situation is quite tough today, and we understand emotional responses. That’s how they handled it. But that’s not what they believe. They believe, or I believe that they believe, and I myself believe that Trump should be, not be listened to, he should be watched. What he says, everything he says, is calculated.

27:35
The notion that he is a buffoon, that he doesn’t follow the news, that he’s out playing golf and couldn’t care what’s going on, is utter nonsense, which he genuinely manufactures for the purpose of keeping his opponents off balance, for the purpose of allowing them to think that he is another Biden who can be manipulated by his nominal subordinates and can be compelled to do what they want, not what he wants. This is a game. He is a very good actor. He’s been on television. He knows how to act.

28:12
And this is, I find it surprising that some of my peers are taken in by this and decide that he is genuinely under-informed, that people are whispering in his ear and he’s listening to them. Not at all. I think the man who made this devastating, very well prepared speech in Saudi Arabia about the crimes of the neocons and how wonderful it was that Saudi Arabia had raised itself in prosperity by its own bootstraps and not by the American warriors who were introducing democracy and the good life into the world. That speech, he didn’t write it, of course, but he read it, and he knew what he was reading. And that was a speech that is utterly inconceivable as being prepared by a buffoon or delivered by a buffoon.

29:08
He knows what he’s doing. And I follow his feet. What is he doing, not what is he saying? And in this regard, he made through some very strange things, but which I anticipate, for example, what happens if the Senate bill passes that Lindsey Graham has put up and it is non-vetoable and he’s obliged to impose sanctions? I think this will be timed by Trump in a way that looks like an offset.

“Well, I’m walking away from the situation in Ukraine. It’s beyond our possibility to resolve. But I’m sanctioning the Russians to moderate their behavior. And I’m also stopping all this aid to Ukraine to moderate their behavior.”

29:59
It looks very reasonable. And that would be making the best of a bad situation. So I see him as being far more intelligent, far better informed, better informed, if you don’t mind my saying so, than you or I are. Yes, much more, many more sources of information than we have. And I think it is a mistake to underestimate what Team Trump is about. That doesn’t mean you have to like it, but to underestimate it is a mistake.

Diesen: 30:29
Yeah, now that is an interesting question, whether or not he’s a bit of a buffoon as they say, just listens to the last person talk to him or you know he’s easy to influence, or if this is as you said, a game because it is interesting how you know if he’s all incompetent how we ended up in this situation where it looks as if he’s trying to make a competition. Who can compete for his affection the most? Zelensky or Putin. And this is kind of how you’re going to obtain your power. Now this, you know, not linking yourself closely to either one of them and appearing neutral, it is a good game to play, because if you wed yourself to one, then you alienate one and the other one has nothing to fight for.

31:20
But I’m not sure if the Russians want to play this game though, because it looks now that the Americans have set up a situation where they can continue their proxy war against Russia while at the same time demanding essentially that Russia does not respond, because then they’re crazy, they’re aggressive and you will lose the affection of Trump. I’m not sure if they want to play this game. And in terms of the communication, do you think this on the Russian side is a deliberate role of former president Medvedev that Putin tries to be more measured in his speech, but then the good cop, and then he unleashes his pitbull, which is Medvedev who comes out effectively warning World War III.

32:03
Is this how they’re playing their information? Because I can’t imagine this is just, you know, this always seems to be the case that Putin comes with, you know, the soft option and, you know, here’s Mr. Medvedev who is our alternative.

Doctorow: 32:22
Yes, both sides are play-acting and that’s not surprising. Better they play-act than they go directly to one another’s throats. The position of Russia is to follow its own North Star. Last week, we heard recommendations from the States that the Russians get rid of Modinsky, that they appoint a new team, that they hand over their memorandum in advance.

What are they doing? The Americans will know about the Russian memorandum on the 2nd of June when it’s delivered to the Ukrainians. No advance information. The discussion that some people, including Americans, put up that the negotiations be moved to Geneva. It’s not going to be moved to Geneva. The Russians and the Turks agreed it’s going to be in Istanbul and it will be in Istanbul if it takes place at all on the 2nd of June. Mr. Medinsky will head the delegation.

In short, the Russians are listening to Mr. Trump. They’re not insulting him, but they’re doing what they damn well please according to what they think best defends their national interests. And that’s how it’s going to continue. Mr. Trump can pretend that he’s influencing or directing things, but he’s not.

Diesen: 33:50
On the negotiations though, why is there no actual NATO-Russia negotiations? Why is– because I was making the point long before the Russians invaded, that the conflict was being artificially constructed as a Ukraine-Russia conflict. But, you know, because NATO said, you know, we’re going to expand, we have an open-door policy, the decision has been made. In other words, this whole great power responsibility between the Americans and Russians to come together and find a European security architecture that isn’t too zero sum in nature, that this was effectively, they closed the door on this thing. Now we’re going to expand. If you want to prevent this, then you have an issue with Ukraine effectively.

34:33
And we’re still continuing down this path. That is the idea that Ukraine has to give up on its NATO ambitions. I don’t think Russia would be even content with this because Ukraine can change its mind next week. It had this in its constitution. It wasn’t supposed to join any military blocs. So–

But why are there no talks between NATO and Russia? Surely, these are the main two actors in the European security architecture, which should sit down and again, return to the whole Helsinki Accords format. How do we create Europe based on indivisible security without dividing lines? Something that is a positive-sum game.

Doctorow: 35:22
Let’s go back to December, 2021, and to the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Deputy Minister Ryabkov. And there I find the answer to your question. There’s step one, there’s step two. Yes, the whole crisis in Ukraine was over the architecture of European security. And logically, as you say, the negotiation should be with NATO. However, what did Ryabkov say?

He said, we go back to the status quo and to before the expansion of NATO, 1997, 1999. We go back to that period. That’s what we want to reinstate. And if you don’t agree to it, we will push you back. Pushing NATO out of Ukraine is the most important demonstration of Russia’s ability to physically push back NATO. If it means marching on Paris, they will march on Paris. And I think everyone understands that.

36:32
If they destroy the Ukrainian army, they are in effect destroying NATO’s capabilities. And I don’t think that even the thickheads here in Brussels will miss that point. So step one is capitulation in Ukraine. Step two is capitulation in Brussels.

Diesen: 36:53
So, yeah, because, well, that was my last question. That is, even in Western media now, they have reports that the Russians are producing a lot of heavy military hardware. However, they’re also reporting that very little of this is going actually to the front. They’re already supplied sufficiently, they’re already manned. Instead, you’re seeing a very powerful army being built up in the rear.

And we also know that the Russians have Oreshnik missiles and they are likely putting this onto mass production to get as many as possible. But we’re not seeing any of the Oreshnik missiles being used either. Do you see the Russians preparing for a wider possible war? I’m not suggesting that this is a desired situation indeed. Even Western observers are recognizing that Russia has gone to great length to avoid a direct conflict with NATO.

37:52
But now that we’re reaching the final stages, the Ukrainian military is collapsing, the Europeans are getting very desperate, The Germans are now seemingly preparing to engage in direct attacks on Russia. But the Russians are setting themselves up, preparing for a wider war once the Ukrainian army has been broken.

Doctorow: 38:15
Let me go back to where we were at the start of all of this, when Lavrov said, bold truth, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” And that’s exactly what it is.

Diesen:
Well, that’s a good answer. So, okay. Well, Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for taking the time, on a holiday as well. So I appreciate it. So yeah, have a good day. Thank you.

Doctorow: 38:39
My pleasure.

Today’s discussion with Professor Glenn Diesen was far-reaching and no doubt viewers will find it especially rewarding.

As the title indicates, we began with review of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s irresponsible decision to approve supplying Kiev with the long-range German cruise missile Taurus by one means or another. In fact, as I remark here, the logic is that he already has delivered some missiles there in violation of his commitments to his coalition partners.

We concluded with considerations on how this war may end after Donald Trump withdraws the United States from participation. As I suggest, the inevitable capitulation of Ukraine will also signify the capitulation of NATO, and at that point finally negotiations will begin to draw up a new security architecture for Europe, as the Russian proposed back in December 2021 but the USA and NATO haughtily rejected out of hand.

In between we discussed why Donald Trump is play acting all the time, why we must look closely not at what he says, which is calculated to confuse and disarm his opponents, but at what he does.  The man who approved closing down USAID, the main instrument of regime change paid for by the CIA, the man who has decapitated the US intelligence agencies, who is now purging the State Department, who is scaling back the National Security Council from its bloated 200 staff under Biden to its prior headcount of 60 – the man who is doing all this cannot be a buffoon. Let us put aside his egotistical personality and admit that Trump is intelligent and brave and knows what he wants to do with the U.S. government.  As I also state here, it is very wrong-headed to believe that Trump is under-informed or misinformed about the international situation by his subordinates. On the contrary, it is more believable that he knows more about what is going on in the Russia-Ukraine war than any of us commentators on youtube today. That is just how it should be.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Interview mit Glenn Diesen, 29. Mai 2025: Deutschland und Russland auf dem Weg zum Krieg

Die heutige Diskussion mit Professor Glenn Diesen war sehr aufschlussreich und wird für die Zuschauer zweifellos besonders interessant sein.

Wie der Titel schon andeutet, begannen wir mit einer Rückschau auf die unverantwortliche Entscheidung des deutschen Bundeskanzlers Friedrich Merz, die Lieferung der deutschen Langstrecken-Marschflugkörper vom Typ Taurus an Kiew auf die eine oder andere Weise zu genehmigen. Wie ich hier bereits angemerkt habe, hat er damit gegen seine Verpflichtungen gegenüber seinen Koalitionspartnern verstoßen, da er bereits einige Raketen dorthin geliefert hat.

Wir schlossen mit Überlegungen dazu, wie dieser Krieg enden könnte, nachdem Donald Trump die Vereinigten Staaten aus dem Konflikt zurückgezogen hat. Wie ich vermute, wird die unvermeidliche Kapitulation der Ukraine auch die Kapitulation der NATO bedeuten, und an diesem Punkt werden endlich Verhandlungen beginnen, um eine neue Sicherheitsarchitektur für Europa zu entwerfen, wie sie Russland bereits im Dezember 2021 vorgeschlagen hatte, die aber von den USA und der NATO hochmütig abgelehnt wurde.

Zwischendurch diskutierten wir, warum Donald Trump ständig Theater spielt, warum wir nicht auf das achten dürfen, was er sagt, denn das ist darauf ausgelegt, seine Gegner zu verwirren und zu entwaffnen, sondern auf das, was er tut. Der Mann, der die Schließung der USAID genehmigt hat, dem wichtigsten Instrument für Regimewechsel, das von der CIA finanziert wird, der Mann, der die US-Geheimdienste enthauptet hat, der jetzt das Außenministerium säubert, der den Nationalen Sicherheitsrat von seinen aufgeblähten 200 Mitarbeitern unter Biden auf die frühere Personalstärke von 60 Mitarbeitern reduziert – der Mann, der all das tut, kann kein Clown sein. Lassen wir seine egoistische Persönlichkeit beiseite und geben wir zu, dass Trump intelligent und mutig ist und weiß, was er mit der US-Regierung vorhat. Wie ich auch hier feststelle, ist es sehr kurzsichtig zu glauben, dass Trump von seinen Untergebenen schlecht oder falsch über die internationale Lage informiert wird. Im Gegenteil, sollten wir eher annehmen, dass er mehr über den Krieg zwischen Russland und der Ukraine weiß als jeder von uns Kommentatoren auf YouTube heute. So sollte es auch sein.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW9y77Z0TVQ

Napolitano: 0:34
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, May 29th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us in just a moment on just how dire is the situation in Ukraine.

[commercial message]

2:21
Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend. Congratulations on your new book, “War Diaries …”, which, of course, we will discuss at some point during our interview today. I do want to start with the latest out of Germany. Has the decision of Chancellor Merz to deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine without geographical limits made Germany a co-belligerent in the war in the eyes of the Kremlin?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Definitely, yes. I’d say the language has changed a little bit in the last week or two. Now, what Mr. Lavrov said most recently about Merz, is a hair’s breadth away from calling him a Nazi. Lavrov said that like Hitler, Merz is doing this and that. Well, like Hitler, it means that he’s already associating Mr. Merz with the Hitler heritage or legacy.

3:22
And that is a dramatic change in the language coming out of the Kremlin. The Russians have said very plainly that if Merz proceeds with this– and the last news, updated news is that they probably have already shipped the missile to Kiev. When Merz said yesterday that it could be, as soon as a few weeks from now, well, judging by the last three years, we know that when statements like that are made, the shipments have been made weeks before, so that we may assume that this missile is already in the possession of the Ukrainians. For the Russians, that is war.

Napolitano:
What do you expect President Putin to do about it? I mean, Prime Minister, or Foreign Minister Lavrov’s words are strong, but they’re just words. I don’t mean that to demean him, as you know, I’m very fond of him personally and professionally, but what do you think President Putin will do?

Doctorow:
I don’t think that President Putin has any margin for his own opinions in this matter. The latest opinion polls in Russia show that he has gone up to an 82 percent approval rating.

Napolitano:
Wow.

Doctorow:
But let’s not deceive ourselves. The popular mood in Russia has changed, whereas some of my peers and colleagues were saying as long ago as two years ago, that the Russian general staff didn’t like the go slowly approach, softly, softly approach of Mr. Putin and wanted something more dramatic. I didn’t put much credence in what they think or say privately, because the military is wholly under the control of civilian rule in Russia. However, the indications [are]–and this even came up in recent talk show programs from Moscow– that the popular mood has changed, and people are weary of this go-slow approach.

5:10
And they– I don’t believe that Mr. Putin would stay in power if he failed to respond to … attacks by the Ukrainians using the the Taurus missile against against their military or civilian assets.

Napolitano:
I know your field is not military tactics, but how far can these Taurus missiles reach? Can they reach Moscow?

Doctorow:
Not quite, but the objective that Mr. Merz himself made when he first discussed shipping them was to do something dramatic, something that would humiliate Moscow and would put Russia in an impossible position, the regime in an impossible position, namely to destroy the Crimean bridge. And for that purpose, the German missile is much more effective than the shorter range missiles from Britain and from France, the Storm Shadow, that were supplied previously. They are not, those were not in their targeting capabilities and in the power of their punch, they were not capable of delivering a really destructive blow against bridges or fortified underground positions. This missile, the Taurus, has that capability, and the Russians have no experience dealing with the unique features of its targeting and of its path. This is a cruise missile, so it has changeable paths of attack and is difficult to intercept.

7:09
For that reason, the Russians are particularly concerned about its becoming available to Kiev, since it could do what the previous deliveries from Britain and France and the United States with HIMARS were incapable of.

Napolitano:
One of our viewers writes that the range is 300 kilometers. Is that, if that is accurate, and if this is fired from Ukraine territory, can it reach that bridge?

Doctorow:
Well, the, as far as I know, 350 kilometers is the limit on Storm Shadow. The Taurus is 500 kilometers. And that is the significance of Merz saying two days ago that limitations on range no longer hold. He meant precisely the longer-range Taurus.

Napolitano:
Are the Germans prepared for a couple of Oreshniks aimed at their industrial base?

Doctorow: 8:13
I don’t think that Mr. Merz takes seriously the Russian threats. After all, he could say, with entire logic, that the Russians never responded to the American shipment of long-range missiles, the HIMARS, the ATACMS, they never responded to the Storm Shadow. However, that is ignoring the Russian view of Germany as opposed to its former allies. Russia is neuralgic, is hypersensitive to what the Germans do. And the recent celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Europe on May 9th, we were all reminded about the 26 million Russians who died in that conflict, largely due to German military efforts. And that is unforgivable, unforgettable.

9:09
So anything that Germany does, is a special case for Russia. And as I said, whatever the personal preferences of Mr. Putin, he cannot go against the popular will. He wouldn’t want to. The popular will in Russia is to differentiate between German missiles and the others, in a way that means the Russians will have to respond in a dramatic way.

Now, taking out military production facilities, I’m not sure that that would be the first thing that happens, because that particular facility making the Taurus has been idle for more than a year. They have not been producing it, so it wouldn’t accomplish much to bomb it out. That means that they will probably have to find another target for Orashniks. The Russian talk shows spoke vaguely about Berlin. What exactly is meant, we don’t know.

Napolitano:
Wow. Here’s Chancellor Merz two days ago on this very topic. Chris, cut number seven.

Merz:
There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine neither from the British nor the French nor from us nor from the Americans. This means that Ukraine can now also defend itself, including, for example, by taking actions such as attacking military positions located within Russia, or by targeting other strategic sites as necessary. Until recently it was not able to do that. Until recently, with very few exceptions, it also did not do that. Now it can.

In jargon, we call this long-range fire, meaning equipping Ukraine with weapons that can attack military targets in the rear. And this is the decisive, this is the crucial qualitative difference in Ukraine’s conduct of the war. Russia attacks civilian targets completely ruthlessly, bombing cities, kindergartens, hospitals and nursing homes. Ukraine does not do that and we place great importance on ensuring that it stays that way. But a country that can only confront an aggressor on its own territory is not defending itself adequately. So, and this defense of Ukraine is now also taking place against military infrastructure on Russian territory.

Napolitano: 11:24
Before I ask you to analyze that, that was an AI translation from German to English using his voice, amazing what can be done today. What is he trying to accomplish?

Doctorow:
He is preparing a justification in advance for the deployment of these missiles, for their use in striking against Russian targets, and he is lying through his teeth. Everything that he said about the Russian conduct of the war is an outrageous lie scripted in Kiev.

12:02
It is precisely the Ukrainians that have been using terror techniques and deploying their drones and what missiles they have, primarily against civilian targets. That’s been the nature of the warfare going back to 2014. They were destroying civilian residential neighborhoods and playgrounds and hospitals and the rest. And that’s continued to this date.

They have used, the Ukrainians have made some attacks on militarily important facilities. But that is the number of such attacks versus their overall activity, like 2,000 drones were sent into the Russian Federation in the last two weeks by the Ukrainians. They knocked out, or they hit at least, one facility producing chips or something or other for military use. Otherwise it is all ambulances, buses and the rest of it.

13:07
So Mr. Merz is turning everything on its head. The reality is just the opposite. And the Russians have demonstrated this on air, what exactly they targeted and with what effect, because they have drones that inspect, that follow, monitor the destruction.

Napolitano:
Is it too early in his chancellorship for me to ask you fairly, in fairness to you, whether you agree with the Scott Ritter analysis that Merz is the most dangerous German Chancellor since Hitler?

Doctorow: 13:43
Well, I agree completely with that. He is utterly irresponsible, and he is courting disaster for his country. If he believes, and there’s another factor here, that he may well think, first, that the Russians won’t dare strike against Germany. There is dead wrong. They’ve said it openly. They will.

And second, that if they were to do so, then the United States and the other allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would respond and come to Germany’s aid. Nonsense, maybe other European countries singly will do that, but the United States, I believe, will abstain. And that will condemn completely the notion of the united defense to save Germany from itself. Therefore, Germany will likely suffer uniquely Russian revenge.

Napolitano:
Wow. Let’s transition a little bit. In one of your recent pieces, you wrote about the things Ukrainian soldiers returning from the front are saying about their Russian counterparts. What are they saying?

Doctorow:
Well, I want to point out that this came from an article that was posted by a non-staff person from the “Financial Times” on the front page of their newspaper online, perhaps two days ago. And it was quite astonishing, because of the openness, transparency of the reporting. Much of the information was coming in fact from Russian television. Though the reporter, the writer, author of this piece did not refer to Russian television. Nonetheless, he also interviewed on the battlefield, on the front, Ukrainian soldiers who were saying openly that the Russians are using very effective new tactics. For example, they are instead of coming in on tanks, which are quite vulnerable to destruction by Ukrainian drones as well as others, they are coming in on scooters. They’re coming in on motorcycles in small groups.

16:05
And they’re surprising the Ukrainian defenders of various hamlets on the front line and taking over territory. But the Russians are being very inventive while also they are supporting their forward movement by heavy artillery, by glide bombs, and other serious military equipment. So the Ukrainians are acknowledging the Russian advantage technically in the drone warfare where Russians started out at a big disadvantage three years ago.

Napolitano:16:42
What are the numerical differences of which you’re aware and which you find credible … between Russian enlistments and Ukrainian conscriptions.

Doctorow:
Again, this was also repeated in the article I’m making reference to. And the importance of citing this article is that, editorially, the “Financial Times” is viciously anti-Russian. Some of their journalists slip in some interesting and useful information, considering it is a business newspaper, after all, regarding the state of the Russian economy. Even yesterday, they had an article citing the prosperity and the good feelings of the Russian consumers and general population.

But the newspaper is anti-Russian, and yet they are putting up this material that I just described as a kind of forewarning, I think, to their business subscribers to expect a Ukrainian defeat, something which would not have been acknowledged in any way going back a few months ago.

Napolitano:
Let’s talk for a moment, if we could, about the attempted— this has gotten very, very little play in the West— the attempted assassination of President Putin using drones while he was in a helicopter. Isn’t it reasonable to believe that the information about his presence in that helicopter and the location of the helicopter was supplied to the Ukrainians by either MI6, CIA or Mossad?

Doctorow: 18:25
It is possible, but not necessary. One of the points that bears mentioning and the way that military intelligence has changed in the course of the war, thanks to drones.

The Russian targeting of Ukrainian Western- supplied equipment is largely coming from constant reconnaissance drones. It’s not coming from satellites. And so it is entirely possible that the Ukrainians themselves could have detected a special movement. After all, Putin was coming close to the border. He was visiting Kursk, and that is a bordering oblast. So it is possible the Ukrainians could have learned this through their own reconnaissance, that is, technical means, or they could have learned it from espionage, from leaks.

19:25
Let’s face it, it recently came out, that the reason why the Ukrainian incursion, later invasion of Kursk succeeded so well, was because of widespread corruption in the oblast of Kursk. And this has come out in the last several days. Severe attack on a local administration, which had stolen the money that had been appropriated for defense of the border. It is possible that there are Russians within Kursk who are working for Ukraine.

Napolitano:
But the concept of assassinating President Putin, is it rational that that plan would have been hatched without the Americans knowing about it?

Doctorow:
I think we have to acknowledge that the Ukrainian government, regime, what you want to call it, is desperate. Now, this leads us to the question, is a collapse of the army imminent? I don’t think so. But they are desperate. They are fearing, perhaps, that they will be overthrown because of the military reverses. And they are ready for anything, meaning primarily terrorism.

20:44
Let me alert you to something that isn’t talked about. Turkish airlines have warned passengers on their flights to Russia now that they may be grounded if Turkey believes that its flights from Istanbul could be subject to Ukrainian drones. So that the Ukrainians would even think of attacking Turkish airlines shows you how desperate and totally violent and irresponsible ,and terrorist in nature, the Ukrainian government has become.

Napolitano:
Do you think that mainstream media here in the West is beginning to recognize all this ,or is the “Financial Times” not a barometer of mainstream media?

Doctorow:
No, I think it is a barometer, but that doesn’t mean that they are totally current in and bringing up to date all aspects of Ukrainian activities. As recently as a day ago, nobody was talking in the “Financial Times”, just as they weren’t talking in other Western mainstream, about the massive increase in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia that preceded the Russian counterattack, which is the only thing that has been covered, in which the Russians have done massive bombing of Kiev and other cities.

22:11
That got everybody’s attention, but what provoked it has been ignored by the “Financial Times”, as well as the rest of mainstream.

Napolitano: 22:21
Here’s President Trump expressing disappointment with the current state of affairs. Chris, cut number 13.
——–

Reporter:
Do you believe the Russians are being disrespectful when they say that your criticisms of Putin are simply an emotional response, and do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war?

Trump:
I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks, within two weeks. We’re going to find out very soon. We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently. But it’ll take about a week and a half, two weeks.

We have, Mr. Witkoff is here, who’s doing a phenomenal job, is dealing with them very strongly right now. They seem to want to do something, but until the document is signed, I can’t tell you. Nobody can. I can say this, I can say this, that I’m very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation.

I’m very disappointed by that. Very, very disappointed. Yeah, please.
——–

Napolitano: 23:30
What do the Russians think of him when he makes comments like that?

Doctorow:
Let’s divide this between what they think and what they say. What they say is very diplomatic. You know what Pieskov said, precisely that the Americans are reacting emotionally, that it’s very tense and therefore it could be explained away. However that’s not what Moscow thinks. That’s what Moscow feels obliged to say, not to tip its hands to the to Donald Trump’s enemies and opponents.

They would– what Moscow thinks is that Mr. Trump is basically well disposed, is looking for detente, and they applaud his efforts, but they are very open to acknowledging the level of opposition that he faces, which was most recent. It was called out also on Russian news yesterday that is Lindsey Graham’s 80 Senate signatures on the bill that he has advanced to call for drastic sanctions to be imposed on Russia. This is a bill that will be veto-proof and this may condition what Mr. Trump was saying yesterday. You’ll see in two weeks what our response will be.

24:48
I think that if this motion by Lindsey Graham and that’s 80 he signed up, proceeds and they force Trump’s hand on this issue, that he will respond by indeed walking away from the negotiations, saying “We’ve done our best” and leaving with a fair-handed equal treatment. That is, the Russians will get more sanctions and the Ukrainians will get no more financial, military aid or reconnaissance aid from the United States. And that will look very good.

Napolitano:
Wow.

Doctorow:
He’s prepared. But I do say that he is not ignorant. The man who delivered that speech in Saudi Arabia, which you, I, and so many others consider to be a brilliant and the most astonishing denunciation of the whole ideology of neocons in the presence of the Saudi leaders, saying that “You’ve done it yourself, you’ve gotten democracy, you’ve gotten prosperity, no thanks to us, because we’ve only brought death and destruction wherever we tried to do nation building.”

The man who delivered that, he didn’t write it, it’s not important, he delivered it, and he knew what he was delivering. That man cannot be described as a buffoon. I am certain, Judge, that he knows as much and probably a lot more than you or I or anyone else around, about what the situation is on the ground in Russia today. And it’s not thanks to the National Security Council, which he has been busy depopulating.

Napolitano:
Right, right.

Doctorow:
Because it was packed by Biden.

Napolitano:
I have to note that standing next to him, I don’t know if you could just put up an image, Chris, of what we just saw from Cut 13 where President Trump was speaking just for a second. Just put up the beginning of number 13. Chris? All right, maybe we can’t get it out.
——–

Reporter:
Do you believe the Russians are being disrespectful when they say that your criticisms of Putin are simply an emotional response, and do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war?

Trump:
I can’t tell you that, but I’ll let you know in about two weeks, within two weeks. We’re going to find out very soon. We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently. But it’ll take about a week and a half, two weeks.

We have, Mr. Witkoff is here, who’s doing a phenomenal job, is dealing with them very strongly right now. They they seem to want to do something, but until the document is signed, I can’t tell you. Nobody can. I can say this.
——–

Napolitano: 27:34
Right. I had to comment about the woman standing next to him. That is Janine Pirro, the interim US attorney for Washington DC, my former colleague at Fox News, whom I’ve known for 20 years. That is the longest she’s ever been in front of a camera without saying a word. Tell us about your new book, “War Diaries”, Professor.

Doctorow:
Well, this is a book– I’ve noticed when I went to Amazon that somebody in Ukrainian has published “War Diary” in singular, about a year ago, telling the story from the perspective of the Ukrainians. I’m telling the story as in how it looked, how the development of the war looked on the ground in Russia from my visits there, from my close following their press and so forth.

28:24
It is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the war; it’s intended to be a personal account of what has changed in Russia, how society has changed, the thinking of the man on the street, the thinking of the intelligentsia, the rise in patriotism. All of these are features that I tracked over the course of the war, as you know, in essays that I wrote day by day, week by week.

Napolitano:
Right.

Doctorow:
And I have culled that to produce this very large book, which in some respects will be a reference book. But I think that readers will find that there are good chunks of it which speak to them directly and interest them, particularly my travels in Russia, which were four times a year before I curtailed them as travel became more difficult. Nonetheless, this was a unique reportage because Western journalists all left the country at the start of the special military operation. I think it’s ultimately a valuable contribution.

There will be a volume two. I’m hoping that I can produce it by the end of this year, because the war will be over by then. But of course, nobody knows.

Napolitano:
Nobody knows. Well, we all know how much we appreciate you. Thank you for sending the essays, however long or short they may be. I have the benefit of your thinking all the time and almost instantaneously. I can’t wait to get my copy of the book. And thank you very much for your time today and I’ve already heard from Janine Pirro who apparently is watching this. She loved the wisecrack that I made. All the best. Thank you for joining us, Professor.

30:09
Well, thank you.

Napolitano:
Of course. And coming up later today, we have a full day for you, at 2.15 this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at three o’clock, Professor John Mearsheimer; at four o’clock from wherever he is on the planet, Max Blumenthal; and at five o’clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

30:31
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.