- 5/29/2025
Renowned expert Prof. Gilbert Doctorow delves into the fragile state of Ukraine amid ongoing conflict and geopolitical pressures. 🌍🔍 This insightful analysis explores the challenges Ukraine faces—from military threats to political instability—and what it means for regional security and the broader international order. 🛡️📉
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#GilbertDoctorow #UkraineConflict #GeopoliticalAnalysis #UkraineWar #RegionalSecurity #InternationalRelations #EasternEurope #WarInUkraine #PoliticalInstability #ConflictAnalysis #GlobalSecurity #UkraineNews #MilitaryThreats #Diplomacy #WorldPolitics #CurrentEvents #Geopolitics #SecurityRisks #UkraineCrisis #PeaceProspects
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02:19Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend.
02:24Congratulations on your new book, War Diaries, which, of course, we will discuss at some point during our interview today.
02:34I do want to start with the latest out of Germany.
02:38Has the decision of Chancellor Mertz to deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine without geographical limits made Germany a co-belligerent in the war in the eyes of the Kremlin?
02:53Definitely, yes. I'd say the language has changed a little bit in the last week or two.
03:00Now, what Mr. Lavrov said most recently about Mertz is a hair's breadth away from calling him a Nazi.
03:11Lavrov said that like Hitler, Mertz is doing this and that.
03:15Like Hitler, it means that he's already associating Mr. Mertz with the Hitler heritage or legacy.
03:22And that is a dramatic change in the language coming out of the Kremlin.
03:27The Russians have said very plainly that if Mertz proceeds with this and the last news, updated news, is that they probably have already shipped the missile to Kiev.
03:42When Mertz said yesterday that it could be as soon as a few weeks from now, well, judging by the last three years,
03:49we know that when statements like that are made, the shipments have been made weeks before,
03:55so that we may assume that this missile is already in the possession of the Ukrainians.
04:00And for the Russians, that is war.
04:05What do you expect President Putin to do about it?
04:09I mean, Prime Minister Lavrov's words are strong, but they're just words.
04:15I don't mean that to demean him.
04:17As you know, I'm very fond of him personally and professionally.
04:20But what do you think President Putin will do?
04:23I don't think that President Putin has any margin for his own opinions on this matter.
04:30The latest opinion polls in Russia show that he has gone up to an 82 percent approval rating.
04:36Wow.
04:36But let's not deceive ourselves.
04:40The popular mood in Russia has changed.
04:44Whereas some of my peers or colleagues were saying as long ago as two years ago that the Russian general staff didn't like the go slowly approach,
04:55softly, softly approach Mr. Putin and wanted something more dramatic.
04:59I didn't put much credence in what they think or say privately because the military is wholly under the control of civilian rule in Russia.
05:10However, the indications, and this even came up in recent talk show programs from Moscow,
05:17but the popular mood has changed and people are weary of this go slow approach.
05:24I don't believe that Mr. Putin would stay in power if he failed to respond to the attacks by the Ukrainians using the terrorist missile against their military or civilian assets.
05:40I know your field is not military tactics, but how far can these terrorist missiles reach?
05:49Can they reach Moscow?
05:52Not quite.
05:53But the objective that Mr. Merz himself made when he first discussed shipping them was to do something dramatic,
06:03something that would humiliate Moscow and would put Russia in an impossible position, the regime in an impossible position,
06:12namely to destroy the Crimean Bridge.
06:16And for that purpose, the German missile is much more effective than the shorter range missiles from Britain and from France,
06:27the Storm Shadow, that were supplied previously.
06:30They are not, those were not, in their targeting capabilities and in the power of their punch,
06:37they were not capable of delivering a really destructive blow against bridges or fortified underground positions.
06:48This missile, the Taurus, has that capability, and the Russians have no experience dealing with the unique features of its targeting and of its path.
06:59This is a path, this is a cruise missile, so it has changeable paths of attack and is difficult to intercept.
07:10For that reason, the Russians are particularly concerned about its becoming available to Kiev,
07:16since it could do what the previous deliveries from Britain and France and the United States with HIMARS were incapable of doing.
07:22One of our viewers writes that the range is 300 kilometers.
07:29Is that, if that is accurate, and if this is fired from Ukraine territory, can it reach that bridge?
07:39Well, as far as I know, 350 kilometers is the limit on Storm Shadow.
07:44The Taurus is 500 kilometers, and that is the significance of Mertz saying two days ago that limitations on range are no longer hold.
07:56He meant precisely the longer range Taurus.
07:59Are the Germans prepared for a couple of Oreschnecks aimed at their industrial base?
08:10I don't think that Mr. Mertz takes seriously the Russian threats.
08:19After all, he could say, with entire logic, that the Russians never responded to the American shipment of long-range missiles,
08:26the HIMARS, the HIMARS, the ATACOMs, they never responded to the Storm Shadow.
08:32However, that is ignoring the Russian view of Germany as opposed to its former allies.
08:42Russia is neuralgic, is hypersensitive to what the Germans do.
08:47And the recent celebration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, May 9th,
08:56we were all reminded about the 26 million Russians who died in that conflict,
09:02largely due to German military efforts.
09:06And that is unforgivable, unforgettable.
09:09So anything that Germany does, it takes a special case for Russia.
09:13And as I said, whatever the personal preferences of Mr. Putin, he cannot go against the popular will.
09:20He wouldn't want to.
09:22And the popular will in Russia is to differentiate between German missiles and the others
09:27in a way that means the Russians will have to respond in a dramatic way.
09:33Now, taking out military production facilities,
09:36I'm not sure that that would be the first thing that happens
09:39because that particular facility making the towers has been idle for more than a year.
09:46They have not been producing it.
09:48So it wouldn't accomplish much to bomb it out.
09:51That means that they will probably have to find another target for Arashniks.
09:57The Russian talk shows spoke vaguely about Berlin.
10:03What exactly is meant, we don't know.
10:06Well, here's Chancellor Mertz two days ago on this very topic.
10:13Chris, cut number seven.
10:14There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons delivered to Ukraine,
10:19neither from the British, nor the French, nor from us, nor from the Americans.
10:24This means that Ukraine can now also defend itself,
10:27including, for example, by taking actions such as attacking military positions located within Russia
10:33or by targeting other strategic sites as necessary.
10:36Until recently, it was not able to do that.
10:39Until recently, with very few exceptions, it also did not do that.
10:43Now it can.
10:44In jargon, we call this long-range fire,
10:47meaning equipping Ukraine with weapons that can attack military targets in the rear.
10:52And this is the decisive, this is the crucial qualitative difference in Ukraine's conduct of the war.
10:57Russia attacks civilian targets completely ruthlessly,
11:00bombing cities, kindergartens, hospitals, and nursing homes.
11:05Ukraine does not do that.
11:06And we place great importance on ensuring that it stays that way.
11:10But a country that can only confront an aggressor on its own territory is not defending itself adequately.
11:16So, and this defense of Ukraine is now also taking place against military infrastructure on Russian territory.
11:23Before I ask you to analyze that, that was an AI translation from German to English using his voice.
11:36Amazing what can be done today.
11:39What is he trying to accomplish?
11:40He is preparing justification in advance for the deployment of these missiles, for their use in striking against Russian targets.
11:52And he is lying through his teeth.
11:55Everything that he said about the Russian conduct of the war is an outrageous lie scripted in Kiev.
12:03It is precisely the Ukrainians that have been using terror techniques and deploying their drones and what missiles they have,
12:13primarily against civilian targets, primarily against civilian targets, that's been the nature of the warfare going back to 2014.
12:20They were destroying civilian residential neighborhoods and playgrounds and hospitals and the rest.
12:27And that's continued to this date.
12:30The, they have used, the Ukrainians have made some attacks on militarily important facilities.
12:37But that is, the number of such attacks versus their overall activity, like 2,000 drones were sent into the Russian Federation in the last two weeks by the Ukrainians.
12:53They knocked out, or they hit at least, one facility producing chips or something or other for, for military use.
13:02Otherwise, it is all ambulances, buses and the rest of it.
13:06So, Mr. Merz is turning everything on its head.
13:10The reality is just the opposite.
13:12And the Russians have demonstrated this on air, what exactly they targeted and with what effect,
13:19because they have drones that inspect, that follow, monitor the destruction.
13:23Is it too early in his chancellorship for me to ask you fairly, in fairness to you, whether you agree with the Scott Ritter analysis that Merz is the most dangerous German chancellor since, since Hitler?
13:42Oh, I agree completely with that.
13:44He is utterly irresponsible, and he is courting disaster for his country.
13:51If he believes, and there's another factor here, that he may well think, first, that the Russians won't dare strike against Germany, and there is dead wrong.
14:01They've said it openly, they will.
14:02And second, that if they were to do so, then the United States and the other allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would respond and come to Germany as a nonsense.
14:18Maybe other European countries singly will do that, but the United States, I believe, will abstain.
14:26And that will condemn completely the notion of a united defense to save Germany from itself.
14:33Therefore, Germany will likely suffer uniquely Russian revenge.
14:38Well, let's transition a little bit.
14:42In one of your recent pieces, you wrote about the things Ukrainian soldiers returning from the front are saying about their Russian counterparts.
14:54What are they saying?
14:55Well, I want to point out that this came from an article that was posted by a non-staff person from the Financial Times on the front page of their newspaper online, perhaps two days ago.
15:11And it was quite astonishing because of the openness, transparency of the reporting, much of the information was coming, in fact, from Russian television, though the reporter, the writer, author of this piece did not refer to Russian television.
15:29Nonetheless, he also interviewed on the front, Ukrainian soldiers who were saying openly that the Russians are using very effective new tactics.
15:43For example, they are, instead of coming in on tanks, which are quite vulnerable to destruction by Ukrainian drones as well as others,
15:56they are coming in on scooters, they're coming in on motorcycles, in small groups, and they're surprising the Ukrainian defenders of various hamlets on the front line and taking over territory.
16:12But the Russians are being very inventive while also they are supporting their forward movement by heavy artillery, by glide bombs, and other serious military equipment.
16:30So the Ukrainians are acknowledging the Russian advantage technically in the drone warfare where the Russians started out at a big disadvantage three years ago.
16:42What are the numerical differences of which you are aware and which you find credible, pardon me, between Russian enlistments and Ukrainian conscriptions?
16:56And this was also repeated in the article I'm making reference to.
17:00And the importance of citing this article is that editorially, the Financial Times is viciously anti-Russian.
17:07Some of the journalists slip in some interesting and useful information, considering it is a business newspaper, after all, regarding the state of the Russian economy.
17:16Even yesterday, they had an article citing the prosperity and the good feelings of the Russian consumers and general population.
17:27But the newspaper is anti-Russian, and yet they are putting up this material that I just described as a kind of forewarning, I think, to their business subscribers to expect a Ukrainian defeat, something which would not have been acknowledged in any way going back a few months ago.
17:48Let's talk for a moment, if we could, about the attempted, it's gotten very, very little play in the West, the attempted assassination of President Putin using drones while he was in a helicopter.
18:06Isn't it reasonable to believe that the information about his presence in that helicopter and the location of the helicopter was supplied to the Ukrainians by either MI6, CIA, or Mossad?
18:24It is possible, but not necessary.
18:27One of the points that bears mentioning, and the way that military intelligence has changed in the course of the war, thanks to drones, the Russian targeting of Ukrainian Western supplied equipment is largely coming from constant reconnaissance drones.
18:50It's not coming from satellites.
18:52And so it is entirely possible that the Ukrainians themselves could have detected a special movement.
19:01After all, Putin was coming close to the border.
19:05He was visiting Kursk, and that is a bordering obelist.
19:09So it is possible the Ukrainians could have learned this through their own reconnaissance, that is technical means, or they could have learned it from espionage, from leaks.
19:24Let's face it, it recently came out that the reason why the Ukrainian incursion, later invasion of Kursk, was succeeded so well, was because of widespread corruption in the obelist of Kursk.
19:42And this has come out in the last several days, severe attack on a local administration, which had stolen the money that had been appropriated for defense of the border.
19:51It is possible that there were, that there are Russians within Kursk who are working for Ukraine.
20:02But the concept of assassinating President Putin, is it rational that that plan would have been hatched without the Americans knowing about it?
20:14I think we have to acknowledge that the Ukrainians, Ukrainian government, regime, what you want to call it, is desperate.
20:23Now, this leads us to the question, is a collapse of the army imminent?
20:28I don't think so.
20:29But they are desperate.
20:31They are fearing, perhaps, that they will be overthrown, because of the military reverses, and they are ready for anything, meaning primarily terrorism.
20:44Let me alert you to something that isn't talked about.
20:47Turkish airlines have warned passengers on their flights to Russia now that they may be grounded if Turkey believes that its flights from Istanbul could be subject to Ukrainian drones.
21:02So that the Ukrainians would even think of attacking Turkish airlines shows you how desperate and totally violent and irresponsible and terrorist in nature the Ukrainian government has become.
21:18Do you think that mainstream media here in the West is beginning to recognize all this?
21:25Or is the Financial Times not a barometer of mainstream media?
21:30No, I think it is a barometer.
21:33But that doesn't mean that they are totally current in bringing up to date all aspects of Ukrainian activities.
21:43As recently as a day ago, nobody was talking in the Financial Times, just as they weren't talking in other Western mainstream, about the massive increase in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia that preceded the Russian counterattack, which is the only thing that has been covered, and which the Russians have done massive bombing of Kiev and other cities.
22:11That got everybody's attention.
22:13But what provoked it has been ignored by the Financial Times as well as the rest of the mainstream.
22:18Here's President Trump expressing disappointment with the current state of affairs.
22:30Chris, cut number 13.
22:32Do you believe the Russians are being disrespectful when they say that your criticisms of Putin are simply an emotional response?
22:39And do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war?
22:43I can't tell you that.
22:44But I'll let you know in about two weeks, within two weeks.
22:47We're going to find out very soon.
22:50We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not.
22:54And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently.
22:57But it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks.
22:59We have Mr. Whitcoff is here who's doing a phenomenal job, is dealing with them very strongly right now.
23:07They seem to want to do something.
23:09But until the document is signed, I can't tell you.
23:12Nobody can.
23:14I can say this.
23:15I can say this, that I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation.
23:27I'm very disappointed by that.
23:29Very, very disappointed.
23:30Yeah, please.
23:31What do the Russians think of him when he makes comments like that?
23:36Let's divide this between what they think and what they say.
23:41What they say is very diplomatic.
23:43You know what Peskov said precisely, that the Americans are reacting emotionally, that it's very tense and therefore it could be explained away.
23:55However, that's not what Moscow thinks.
23:57That's what Moscow feels obliged to say, not to tip its hands to Donald Trump's enemies and opponents.
24:07But what Moscow thinks is that Mr. Trump is basically well disposed, is looking for detente, and they applaud his efforts.
24:17But they are very open to acknowledging the level of opposition that he faces, which was most recent.
24:25It was called out also on Russian news yesterday, that is Lindsey Graham's 80 Senate signatures on the bill that he has advanced to call for drastic sanctions to be imposed on Russia.
24:39This is a bill that will be veto proof, and this may condition what Mr. Trump was saying yesterday.
24:45You'll see in two weeks what our response will be.
24:48I think that if this motion by Lindsey Graham, and that's 80 he signed up, proceeds, and they force Trump's hand on this issue, that he will respond by indeed walking away from the negotiations, saying we've done our best, and leaving with a fair handed equal treatment.
25:10That is the Russians will get more sanctions, and the Ukrainians will get no more financial, military aid, or reconnaissance aid from the United States.
25:18And that will look very good.
25:20He's prepared.
25:21But I do say that he's not ignorant.
25:24The man who delivered that speech in Saudi Arabia, which you, I, and so many others consider to be a brilliant and the most astonishing denunciation of the whole ideology of neocons in the presence of the Saudi leaders, saying that you've done it yourself, you've gotten democracy, you've gotten prosperity, no thanks to us, because we've only brought death and destruction wherever we tried to do nation building.
25:52The man who delivered that, he didn't write it, it's not important, he delivered it, and he knew what he was delivering.
25:58That man cannot be described as a buffoon.
26:01I am certain, Judge, that he knows as much and probably a lot more than you or I or anyone else around about what the situation is on the ground in Russia today.
26:12Very interesting.
26:13And it's not thanks to the National Security Council, which he has been busy depopulating.
26:18Right, right.
26:19Because it was packed by Biden.
26:21I have to note that standing next to him, I don't know if you could just put up an image, Chris, of what we just saw from Cut 13, where President Trump was speaking, just for a second.
26:35Just put up the beginning of number 13.
26:45Chris?
26:46All right, maybe we can't get it up.
26:49Do you believe the Russians are being disrespectful when they say that your criticisms of Putin are simply an emotional response?
26:56And do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war?
27:00I can't tell you that.
27:01But I'll let you know in about two weeks, within two weeks.
27:04We're going to find out very soon.
27:07We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not.
27:11And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently.
27:14But it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks.
27:16We have Mr. Witkoff is here who's doing a phenomenal job, is dealing with them very strongly right now.
27:24They seem to want to do something, but until the document is signed, I can't tell you.
27:29Nobody can.
27:30I can say this.
27:33I had to comment about the woman standing next to him.
27:37That is Janine Pirro, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., my former colleague at Fox News, whom I've known for 20 years.
27:46That is the longest she's ever been in front of a camera without saying a word.
27:51Tell us about your new book, War Diaries, Professor.
27:59Well, this is a book I've noticed when I went to Amazon that somebody in Ukrainian has published War Diaries and Singular about a year ago.
28:10They're telling the story from the perspective of the Ukrainians.
28:12I'm telling the story as how it looked, how the development of the war looked on the ground in Russia, from my visits there, from my close following their press and so forth.
28:24It is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the war.
28:28It is intended to be a personal account of what has changed in Russia, how society has changed.
28:37The thinking of the man in the street, the thinking of the intelligentsia, the rise in patriotism.
28:43All of these are features that I tracked over the course of the war, as you know, in essays that I wrote day by day, week by week.
28:55And I have called that to produce this very large book, which in some respects will be a reference book.
29:02But I think that readers will find that there are good chunks of it which speak to them directly and interest them, particularly my travels in Russia, which were four times a year before I curtailed them as travel became more difficult.
29:18Nonetheless, this was a unique reportage because Western journalists all left the country at the start of the special military operation.
29:27And I think it's an ultimately valuable contribution.
29:30There will be a volume two.
29:32I'm hoping that I can produce it by the end of this year because the war will be over by then.
29:37But of course, nobody knows.
29:39Nobody knows.
29:40Well, we all know how much we appreciate you.
29:43Thank you for sending the essays, however long or short they may be.
29:47I have the benefit of your thinking all the time and almost instantaneously.
29:52I can't wait to get my copy of the book.
29:54And thank you very much for your time today.
29:58And I've already heard from Janine Pirro, who apparently is watching this.
30:04She loved the wisecrack that I made.
30:07All the best.
30:08Thank you for joining us, Professor.
30:09No, thank you.
30:10Of course.
30:11And coming up later today, we have a full day for you at 2-15, 2-15 this afternoon.
30:18Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at 3 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer at 4 o'clock from wherever he is on the planet, Max Blumenthal.
30:27And at 5 o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
30:32Thank you, cute.
30:33I hope you till experienced one last week.
30:35You don't know what you have done, but come to me for touching freedom.
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