Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 8 November: The Impact of the Ukraine War on Russian Society

I call this a ‘conversation’ rather than an interview, because Glenn Diesen shares his own views on the issues for discussion quite generously and these should be of special interest to viewers, many of whom are well familiar with mine.

That said, there are in this video issues which I have not addressed elsewhere in writing or in podcasts but which definitely merit examination.  I think in particular of the question of hardliners coming to the fore in Russia under war conditions and Liberals retreating.  What you will find here with respect to the hardliners is a breakdown of that force into at least two very different and mutually hostile groups, which the journalist Piotr Sauer in an article recently called ‘loyalists’ and ‘militarists.’ 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/06/putin-repressive-machinery-turns-inward-target-pro-war-figures?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1

Piotr is the son of the Dutch founder and long-time owner of The Moscow Times, who tragically died in an accident about six months ago. Then, with respect to the Liberals, it is a mistake to think that they have been vanquished. Not in the least. Their highest representative in the land is the head of the Central Bank Nabiullina, who enjoys the full support of Putin even as many influential statesmen, including the Duma deputy Babakov who is deputy chair of the Duma, denounce her regularly on state television for destroying the economy and working against the war effort.

Another point of discussion in this video that is worth the attention of viewers concerns the question whether the recent statements by Putin about successful tests of the newest and most lethal Russian strategic arms systems Burevestnik and Poseidon do anything to restore Russia’s perceived deterrent power in the West.

Enjoy the show!

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx6OzJHmhLg

NewsX World: 3:55
Okay, now joining us is Gilbert Doctorow. He’s a Russia affairs expert who joins us live from Brussels. Gilbert, thank you very much for joining us here on the program. What is the significance behind President Putin’s direct line session later? What … weight does this event carry in regards to Moscow’s communications and control?

Doctorow: 4:25
Well, this is a very significant event that is closely watched not only by domestic mass media in Russia, but also by those of us who are interested in Russian affairs abroad. It is the most important single Q&A that President Putin has each year. This lasts over four hours customarily. And he receives questions from press correspondents that he knows well, and from many whom he hardly knows, both domestic and foreign, usually some time is reserved for major Western journalists to pose directly to Mr. Putin.

5:13
We will all watch it closely. The overwhelming number of questions that are given to Mr. Putin concern domestic affairs in Russia. That is, pension questions, questions of how the inflation is affecting the economy, what is being done to alleviate shortages of one commodity, you know, like last year it was eggs in particular that were in short supply. These domestic issues hardly interest us foreign observers, but we do find, if you have the patience to listen to Mr Putin, you do find his comments on international affairs and on the war in Ukraine to be quite interesting and sometimes useful for our evaluation of the latest Russian state position.

NewsX World: 5:59
Yes, and Gilbert, of course, Russia is often criticised for its alleged control of the media. What does this show about the transparency of the Russian government that Putin, Vladimir Putin is there ready to accept questions from international media outlets like the BBC, CNN, etc?

Doctorow: 6:29
He has no difficulty handling these correspondents whom he knows very well by name, since they’ve been there, like the BBC correspondent, has been there for years.

NewsX World:
Yeah.

Doctorow:
As to control of the media, of course the Russian state controls television, but there is nothing surprising in that, as if the BBC is not controlled by the Prime Minister’s office in London, or Euronews is not controlled by Ursula von der Leyen, whose policies it is constantly projecting to the European public.

7:05
So that isn’t an issue. What is unique about the Russian controlled television is that it gives every day very large digests of what the world press is saying. That is to say, if you watch the news roundups or if you watch major talk shows like 60 Minutes, you will be exposed to extensive excerpts from what the BBC is saying, from what the New York Times is saying, from what Deutsche Welle is saying. And these are not just soundbites. They are real, substantial excerpts from reportage about the world and about events in Russia abroad.

7:46
That is unique, and it stands in contrast to what goes on in the West, where nothing of Russian media is given to the public day by day. So the Russian government expects that its public, being well educated, will sort out for itself the logic or illogic of what the western press is reporting.

NewsX World: 8:11
Yes indeed. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for joining us on here on the program. And here on NewsX World, of course we will keep you updated on that direct-line session with Vladimir Putin.

I am grateful to Judge Andrew Napolitano for posting my recently arrived at contrarian views on how the war in Ukraine is going and what Russians are thinking about the way it is being prosecuted.

In today’s chat I was given ample opportunity to take issue with the ‘Putin is the only adult in the room,’ ‘all Russians support Putin,’ ‘the war will end soon after the capture of Pokrovsk’ narrative that is being disseminated by today’s heroes of the U.S. podcasts Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson and several others.  None of these chaps speaks Russian and the ‘insider perspective’ that they present is nothing more than what they are told by the Russia Today officials, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and retired Russian generals who are their hosts in Russia and use these naïve colleagues to broadcast Russian propaganda.

I note that two hours after the release of this video, the typically vicious comments by the usual cohort of trolls numbers ten times less than the number of thumbs up.

As I say at the outset, the 150 million citizens of the Russian Federation are well-educated and it is nonsensical to think that any of us can capture their thinking on the issues at the center of today’s Judging Freedom interview with full confidence.  For my part, I do my best. In part I rely on anonymous sources like taxi drivers or barber shop employees, folks who deal with the broad public and may never see the same customer twice, which makes it all the more likely that the customers speak openly to them. In part, I rely on close friends whom I have known for many years: and I take note when I see clear signs of change in views on the war and on Putin’s leadership as I did over table talk at a party celebrating the new Russian state holiday of National Unity on 4 November.

None of my interlocutors is going to demonstrate against the war or even speak openly about it. But that there is discontent, lost patience of this never-ending war at the popular level that I see is clear.  I can well imagine that some of the Moscow elites are also impatient and they do have means to pressure Putin to change course.

My Russian friends are impatient for the war to end because of the large numbers of casualties among the Russian forces. Perhaps there are 150,000 killed in action, but the numbers of those seriously maimed is surely several times higher.  Russian state television has even started presenting advertisements from the manufacturers of prostheses for those who have lost arms and legs to drone strikes and mines.

Considering these losses which are at least double the scale of those suffered by the USA in the Vietnam war, one viewer submitted a comment several weeks ago asking why there are no demonstrations in Russia by mothers and others bereaved as there were over Vietnam.  The simple answer is that all Russian armed forces in Ukraine are volunteers. While Russia does have a draft, none of the conscripts can be sent outside the borders of the Russian Federation.  In a word, the Russians learned the lesson of Nixon and Vietnam very well. After that war the USA turned to a professional army. Its merits were explained in terms of fighting efficiency, but surely the key reason was to depoliticize war making.  The Russians have done the same.

One of the questions which Judge Napolitano pitched to me was whether Vladimir Putin is drawing out this war of attrition in order to kill of a generation of young Ukrainians and thereby prevent any recurrence of armed conflict in the foreseeable future.  I object to this hypothesis on the grounds that those fighting in the Ukrainian army seem to be at least as numerous in the 50s and 60s age category as in the 20s. You see that even today in the television interviews with Ukrainian POWs who surrendered in Pokrovsk. The same was true in earlier Russian reporting going back more than a year ago.  Secondly, I do not believe that Putin is such a cynic. On the contrary he exhibits deep commitment to the values of Orthodoxy and this creates a separate threat for us:  his turn the other cheek Christianity, very Orthodox in nature, is completely misunderstood by our secular Western leaders and political establishments. It is taken for weakness and encourages them to take ever more provocative and risky actions against Russia which one day will result in Russian counter attacks sparking WWIII. What we have here is the making of a Clash of Civilizations as described by Sam Huntington, though Sam never expected the separate Orthodox civilization to be in armed conflict with the West.

Transcript submitted by a reader

NewsX World: 4:10
–secure supply routes and push back Russian infiltration. Russian forces have been advancing towards Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region for over a year, seeking to consolidate control over eastern Ukraine and push into neighboring the Dnipropetrovsk region. We now are joined by Gilbert Doctorow. He is a Russia affairs expert, and he joins us live from St. Petersburg in Russia.

Okay, let’s start with the Vlodymyr Zelensky statement that we just heard, Gilbert. Of course, Zelensky describes the fighting in Pokrovsk and Kuryansk and says Russia is turning Ukraine into destroyed cities. Now of course Russia pitches this war as liberating the country of Ukraine. How would you respond to the claim that Russia’s operations in these areas are liberating, rather than coercive?

Doctorow: 5:13
Well, they are very destructive, of course. But the important thing to note is how this is proceeding over a long period of time. They have not staged, the Russians have not staged any massive assaults on major defended cities like Pokrovsk. They have encircled them. In the case of the latest news, they say that they have completely encircled Pakrovsk. And the remarks by Zelensky are an attempt to counter the image of a city where 5,000 or more soldiers are facing slaughter as they are surrounded.

5:53
The fact is that the war is dominated by the move to drones. Mr. Zelensky is unable to resist the Russian advances with manpower. He is short of manpower in many of the critical points of the more than 1,500 kilometer long line of confrontation and Pokrovsk is one of them. But what we see, or I see, watching the Russian state news reports from the front and interviews with soldiers at the front is that the Ukrainians are trying to prevent Russian advance not by putting soldiers on the ground, because they are short of soldiers, but by using very intensive drone attacks on the advancing Russian forces.

6:44
In fact, as a result of the ever-present “birdies” as they call them, Russian forces are using small units, not full front lines of advance. And this is the peculiarity of the present stage of the war, that there are five, six, eight soldiers forming an attack unit, not a whole brigade. The effectiveness of the drone counterattacks is considerable, let us not underestimate it. Nonetheless, it remains true that the Ukrainian forces are surrounded and if– and that Mr. Putin is satisfied that this is so and has invited Western media, Western press to come and see for themselves.

NewsX Wowld: 7:37
Gilbert, assuming Russia eventually controls Pokrovsk, what is the vision for the area? Full integration into Russia, autonomy under Russian patronage or something else possibly?

Doctoorow:
Well let’s look at the borders. We’re speaking now of a fortified town, part of the effort of the Ukrainians to have a series of retreating points as they had been pushed back by the Russians. But this is not the whole of Ukraine. This is an important city in the oblast or province of Donetsk.

8:19
Donetsk has been, is one of two oblasts or provinces that constitute the so-called Donbass, a largely industrial base that was predominantly Russian-populated when it was first incorporated into Ukraine, shortly after the Russian Revolution of 1917. So this is a Russian-speaking part of Ukraine which was being subjected to very harsh discrimination of the Ukrainian nationalists who took power in 2014. It is not the whole of Ukraine. The Russian advance from Pokrovsk will be to the next two points of fallback for the Ukrainians, which are Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

These names may not mean very much to the global audience, but I’d like to point out an important fact. They are about halfway or two-thirds of the way towards the River Dnieper in the oblast of Donetsk. And they were, in 2014, what is called the cradle of the Renaissance of Russian nationalism. They stood for, I forget, 85 days, I think, these little towns with just local militia. They stood up against the Ukrainian army in what the Russians could describe as their version of the last stand of the Alamo.

9:53
This is a term that has great significance to any American viewers of this program. It was a show of heroism in a hopeless cause. In fact, the objective of the Russians is to return to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk from which there was a clean sweep straight to the Dnieper River and to the reconquest or conquest of the entire Donbas.

NewsX World:
Yes. Yes, Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much for that insight and for joining us and taking the time here on News X World. And of course you can follow us here on the channel for all your Russia-Ukraine updates.

10:36
But next we move over to North America for our next update.

Transcript submitted by a reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript submitted by a reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript submitted by a reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Those days are past for you.

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

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

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

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

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

Doctorow:
Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Really?

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
[To avoid.}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Oh, it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Villapiano:
Right.

Doctorow:
There you have it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctorow:
Yes. Yes.

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

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

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

Transcript submitted bya reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctorow:
Well, my pleasure.

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

23:51
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.