Judging Freedom - Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Pressure on Putin’s Patience

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Pressure on Putin’s PatienceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, September 5th, 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always, always a pleasure. Here is what, of course, here is what Americans woke up to this morning. Chris cuts nine and ten. The videos published by the company were often consistent with Russia's interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine. The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government. Instead, the defendants in the company claimed that the company was sponsored by a private investor. But that private investor was a fictitious persona. The charges instilled this morning do not represent the end of the investigation.

It remains active and ongoing. That, of course, was the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland. Seated to his left was the Director of the FBI, Chris Wray. The government announced that a grand jury indicted an American corporation for accepting money from RT and duping influencers, I not among them, duping influencers into saying things. And through a securitist route, the influencers were paid by Russian money. All of this, of course, is supposedly a horrible thing. And the government never cares about the First Amendment. But what is your take on this?

And is this even a blip on the radar screen in Moscow this morning? I can't say how it's viewed in Moscow this morning. I'm sure that they will come to the defense of Margarita Simonyan, the director general of VAR-T. And it would be within Russia would be kicking a sacred cow to say what I'm about to say. Ever since the Russian transmissions were removed from the satellites, which had been carrying them as commercial carriers

under instructions from the United States and its allies. Ever since the cable networks stopped carrying RT in the States, the possibilities for RT exerting a big influence in the States were reduced to close to nil. But that is simply a statement of fact. Now I will add to that statement that is subjective, my own opinion of RT and its possibilities for influence in the United States. I think they also reveal the Margarita Simonyan is a very intelligent lady and she has appeared regularly on the most, one of the principal talk shows of Russia, those are Vladimir Solovyov's evening shows.

And she has presented herself in a way that you have to have respect for the woman's intelligence and her ability to mix culture and politics. However, from the beginning, although I appeared once upon a time on some of their programs like Crosstalk, I lost my respect for RT because they were doing, in a rather amateurish way, what Russian state television news does in the most professional way. And it would have been illuminated if from the beginning the programs on Russian

state television, which are broadcast for the Russian domestic audience, were rebroadcast with ideally with voiceover or with subtitles in English so that they would be accessible to the world. That information, Russia's views of today's events, would be a very big help to all those in the West and in the world at large who want to know the Russian take on what is going on in the world and where Russia is headed. RT was not that. RT was supposed to be a mirror to the United States, but a mirror that's held up by an adversary is not a very good mirror. So when you said you're about to kick a sacred cow, you meant you're about to criticize the professionalism of RT, such as it was before they shut it down over here.

Exactly. There were too many over-aged and or incompetent journalists who found a nest on the payroll of RT. I don't mean to criticize everyone, that would be foolish. But my predominant takeaway was that in promoting RT, the Russians demonstrated yet again that they are very poor at engaging in the information wars in the world at large. I don't mean to say they have no capabilities at home. At home, they do a wonderful job in selling their views to their domestic audience, and not by propaganda, but by dealing with their population in a very respectful way and exposing their population to what is going on in the Wall Street Journal, in the Financial Times, the New York Times, on CNN, and so forth, and letting their population decide for themselves.

That is high-level journalism. RT was always low-level journalism. Here is a clip from my former employer, Fox News. It's on Fox News. It's actually a non-Fox journalist questioning the attorney general about a statement sent to Fox News by RT. Watch this, please. Cut number 19. Russia today sent the statement to Fox News and some other outlets here mocking the situation. They had five bullet points or six bullet points.

The first said, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. 2016 wants its cliches back. In all seriousness, there is a subsection of the country that when they hear Russian interference, they may believe that it's not true. It's not a real thing. How do you assure people this is a real situation? I'm sure that was much funnier in the original Russian. But for us, it's not funny. This is deadly serious, and we are going to treat it accordingly. So RT attempted to respond. I didn't see the statement that was sent to Fox News. I only know of this reporter's summary of it. Does RT really care what the American Justice Department thinks of it?

This is a mockery of a core American value called the freedom of speech. This is an exercise in McCarthyism. An exercise in what? McCarthyism. It is a witch hunt and it has to be called out for that. It is also done by people who really don't understand very much about Russia or about RT or about the American public. It is foolhardy to say the least to deprive the American public of the RT programs. But that's happened and now they're going into a witch hunt for anyone with connections. I have to make a little remark here. A couple of days ago, we had Scott Ritter on and he had a barking dog.

I am in an apartment which is adjacent to an apartment, two floors away, where they're doing a renovation. And so you're going to hear some background noise, which is regrettable. Oh, you know, that's very kind of you, Professor. And we're used to it. My own dog, Chris, who happens to be curled up at my feet right now, every once in a while, senses a squirrel outside

and is thinking about a second breakfast. But thank you very much. Let's go to Kursk, Professor Doctorow. What is the latest situation there? President Zelensky has boasted, and I'm going to use the American nomenclature, he said it in kilometers, or in, not kilometers, he said it in however you measure geographic areas in Europe. He has boasted that his troops now control 500 square miles of Korsk, and he claims that's a benefit. He also claims that as a result of his invasion in Kursk, he has captured Russian soldiers whom he has traded for exchange for Ukrainian soldiers previously captured. He views that as a plus. What is your view of the current situation in Kursk?

Well, the situation in Kursk has been covered extensively in major media. And this is a stunning change in how the Financial Times and the New York Times and their peers have dealt with developments in the Ukraine war, which were always very disparaging of anything Russia was doing and which were only rebroadcasting, redisseminating the kind of delusional remarks that you have just taken from Mr. Zelensky. Now they're telling it as it is. They have interviewed soldiers in the Ukrainian forces who have talked about how it was on the ground and how they were prepared or unprepared when they were sent to Kursk. And we're getting in these major media genuine information that shows and repeats what you and I know or what we have understood, that this incursion or invasion of Kursk has been a disaster militarily. The Ukrainians have lost at least 9,000 of their original 12 to 20,000 deployment in Kursk to death and mutilation.

And they've lost 76. This was two days ago, 76 tanks, probably a few more have been added, a lot of hardware, much of what they received from the States and allies has been destroyed on the ground. And the Russians have used missile attack on a communications institute in the city of Poltava. This, from the standpoint of Korsak itself, it's untenable, he can speak, Mr. Zelensky can speak of holding it, but that's unrealistic.

He cannot sufficiently increase the manpower there because he's already depleted the best reserves that were otherwise based in the on the Donbas front line where the Russians continue to advance. The situation on the ground for the Ukrainians is dire but at the same time, Judge, I would like to distance myself a little bit from the expressions, from the conclusions that some of my peers have given to you and have given otherwise on major YouTube outlets in the immediate future, nor do I see that this bad result in the destruction of NATO equipment as leading to an imminent crumbling of NATO. All of us who are following these events are subject to the same laws of human nature, where we'd like to project our wishes and present them as facts. I'm subject to this too.

A few days ago I was saying that in a month's time Mr. Zelensky will be leaving Ukraine either on a plane to Miami or in a casket to his burial ground. I think that was also an exaggeration and projecting a wished-for fact that is not likely, in retrospect, to be realized in the coming days. Two questions. You mentioned 9,000 dead. Are any of them Americans? Second question, are the troops in Kursk surrounded or are they still receiving fuel and food and supplies from Ukraine? Surely something is getting in, but not much. Are they surrounded? Well, the front is rather long.

It's not so much the Kursk front where they are surrounded. By entering into Russian territory, they inevitably are surrounded on three sides anyway by Russian forces. The big issue of surrounding entrapment, the closing of Pincers is now discussed with respect to the much bigger one that was the main area of conflict in the Donbas between Russian forces and Ukrainian forces. And in some parts of that thousand kilometer long line of confrontation, the Russians have indeed closed off or almost closed off some brigades of Ukraine. Some of them have as quickly as possible retreated, and this has been

picked up on videos of them throwing away their weapons, they're running for their lives. However, it would be a big mistake to consider these isolated places as typical of the whole front or to say the front is crumbling. I follow every day on the Russian news the maps that they present of each of the major parts, major parts, fronts and along that thousand kilometers. And you don't see a sweeping move, a steamroller, as Professor Mearsheimer described it a day ago, of the Russians sweeping to the damper. No, it's just a slow progression. Maybe it's bigger than it was before the incursion into Kursk. I'm sure it is bigger.

So it's not a few yards a day. Maybe it's several dozen yards a day. Maybe it's a kilometer or two a day. I don't see a 30-kilometer move, which I'd heard on Russian television several days ago. I don't see that. Otherwise, the map would change. It doesn't. How about American deaths of the 9,000? Are you aware of any? No, that hasn't been reported separately. The only deaths that have been called out in the last couple of days pertain to the Poltava event, and I'd like to bring that up to date. The initial report in Poltava about a missile attack was 41 people killed. That was raised to 51 last night, I heard Russian television,

the 200 were killed and several hundred more were wounded. If that is the case, then I completely agree with the appreciation that Scott Ritter gave a day ago, that this is a devastating blow to the Ukrainian general positions with operating drones and electronic warfare. And here's why I mentioned it, because of the question of deaths that you asked about. Yes, there have been a number of Swedes who were instructors there and whose friends in Sweden have said they were killed. This connection

between Sweden and Poltava was something for the gods to appreciate. As you may be aware, in 1709 there was a battle in Poltava between Peter the Great's armies and Charles XII's armies of Sweden, since then Sweden was an imperial power with great ambitions in Central and Eastern Europe. The Swedes were battered at Poltava, but for some reason there's a romantic attachment perhaps between Sweden and Poltava, and there they are again, and in the attack on that communications institute, the Swedes were battered again. We have also heard that some of the instructors at the communications institute who were killed were Polish,

either academics or Polish military officers. I'm going to guess military officers. I think this was more West Point than it was Princeton in terms of the students and the professors and the subject matter. Agreed? Yes. Okay. Your take on President Zelensky's cabinet shakeup this past week, the most significant of which was, I don't know if he jumped or pushed, I'll ask you, the beginning of the end of the Zelensky regime. I won't walk away from that entirely, but I take note of the spin or interpretation given to this development in major Western media. That is, it is a consolidation of his power by Zelensky.

But it is very hard to say what's right. Is this indeed a consolidation? Is this a less desperate act to remove those who might in the slightest way resist his power or might be available to blandishments and promotions offered by the United States and its allies to dump Mr. Zelensky and to replace him. It's hard to say. None of us can say with any certitude.

But the situation is unstable. That no one, I think, can challenge as a conclusion. And an unstable situation at the center of power is not a healthy situation for Ukraine at this dire moment on the battlefield. But speaking of dire moments on the battlefield, again, I'd like to come back to remarks of some of my peers, including Professor Miroshaimov, who has said that the battle will be solved, that the war will be solved on the battlefield. Here I'd like to add an important qualification. It'll be solved on the ground, but not with boots on the battlefield. Here I'd like to add an important qualification. It'll be solved on the ground, but not with boots on the ground. The Russians are not likely to cross the Dnieper River. Very interesting. The rumors in the Beltway, you know, that area

around Washington, D.C., was that the State Department wanted to replace Zelensky with his foreign minister. They may still wish that, even though he's been kicked out. I mean, do you have a feeling for whether he jumped or was pushed? Well, the last reports of his push, and this was shown on Russian television, they showed pictures of Kulibat at one moment, with which he's speaking as if he's going to be in his office forever. And then they showed this handwritten note to the Rada, to the parliament of Ukraine, attending his resignation, which was just shortly afterwards. The indication there is that he was pushed, didn't jump.

How near to the end of the military conflagration are we? It's impossible to say. Anyone who says that they know is, I'd say, looking for fans, looking for enthusiasts, but not looking for truth. As I mentioned a moment ago, it is to think that the difficulties that the Ukrainians have made for themselves on the most important frontline in Donbas,

by opening an additional 160 kilometers of frontline in Kursk. They made that problem for themselves. And now they're suffering both in Kursk, where they can't afford to send more to more reinforcements and on the front lines of Donbas, where they are pulling back, retreating to avoid being surrounded and annihilated. They're moving back. And let's say that in the next month or two, they are forced to abandon positions on the east side of the Dnieper River.

That is conceivable. But to say that that is the end of the Ukrainian state or Ukrainian army, I think is mistaken. It's exaggerated. For the reason I was just getting into, the Russians have little interest and maybe even not much possibility to move across the Dnieper River and to attack the Ukrainians on what is really Ukrainian soil, but I mean that soil that has a decisive majority of native Ukrainian speakers without an eye mixture of Russian speakers. That's the right bank of the Dnieper or the West Bank of the Dnieper going to Lvov. So what happens?

The Russians would hope that the Ukrainians would see the light, would sue for peace, and they could accept some of the terms that Mr. Putin outlined in June. However, that is very questionable given the position of the United States, which would find this very, very difficult to accept. So what happens? They reach the Dnieper, and then what? Well, as I said, I can't see the Russians putting boots on the ground on the other side of the Dnieper. They don't want to rule that area. They know this hostile will be forever hostile.

But I can see them destroying it. I can see them extending the bombing of Lvov, which just started seriously a few days ago, and substantially leveling wolf the wolf is the center of the Ukrainian arch nationalist movement they can do a lot of damage to what is left of the Ukrainian economy when you say the center of the Ukrainian arch nationalist movement you mean military or civilian? Civilian, ideological. This is not a new thing.

It goes back to the late 19th century. Lvov was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austro-Hungarians were on very unfriended relations with Russia. They had imperial ambitions. Both of them were land empires, and the Austrians were promoting the use of the Ukrainian language in print and in schooling as a method of undermining Russia's control of the eastern Ukrainian lands. So the nationalist spirit, the anti-Russian spirit of the west part of Ukraine, west of the Dnieper River, it simply goes back to the 19th century when it was officially encouraged by the ruling empire of Austria-Hungary.

And it stayed the same throughout the period since. So the Volf was pretty much spared by Russian attacks through most of this special military operation. But the latest attacks indicate that it will no longer be spared. And if the Russians want to destroy the economy and the political economy, the political life of rump Ukraine, they will flatten the roof. Okay. Can you spell the roof, please?

Well, it's spelled variously. L-W-O-W. The Russians have always spelled it L-V-I-V. I'm sorry, L-V-O-W. The Russians have always spelled it L-V-I-V. I'm sorry, L-V-O-V. And for the Poles, it was L-W-I-W. So it depends on your perspective, which country you're sitting in and the lines of the countries that moved. But generally pronounce L-W-I-V.

Except if you're German, then you pronounce it Lombard. Okay. I want to go back for a minute to the American fixation on Russian speech. Here is Christopher Wray, who's the director of the FBI, speaking with a little bit more tenacity than Attorney General Garland. He's right next to the Attorney General. It's from the same press conference as yesterday, cut number 18. Our investigation revealed that since at least last year, RT has used people living and working inside the U.S. to facilitate contracts with American media figures to create and disseminate Russian propaganda here. The content was pitched as legitimate

independent news when, in fact, much of it was created in Russia by RT employees who work for the Russian government. I submit that everything he just described is absolutely protected by the First Amendment. But this administration is determined to create this kerfuffle right now in the middle of a presidential election campaign. The next thing you should do is start investigating and issuing indictments against the journalists of the financial times and the new york times because this so-called russian propaganda has now become mainstream and it's become mainstream because it was the facts

not a propaganda this what they're saying is complete rubbish professor uh, Dr. Ruff, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for the history lesson and the linguistic explanation of Lvov, but especially thank you for your insight into Russia versus Ukraine, as usual.

We'll look forward to seeing you again back here next week, my dear friend. Thanks so much for the invitation. Of course. Coming up later today at 2 o'clock Eastern, Professor Larry Wilkerson. At 3 o'clock Eastern, the aforementioned by Professor Dr. Ruff,

the aforementioned Professor John Mearsheimer. And at 4 o'clock Eastern, Max Blumenthal, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Altyazı M.K.