Judging Freedom - Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Putin Calm and Patient

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Putin Calm and PatientSee 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, August 29th, 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure, my dear friend. I want to spend a fair amount of time with you analyzing the politics in Russia and the situation in Kursk. But what is the attitude in Moscow as you're able to glean it, either among the movers and shakers or among the population in general, over the persistent invasion and occupation by Ukrainian and other forces of the area around Kursk in Russia? Look, unlike Anatoly even, I wasn't in Moscow last week, sounding out notable personalities in academic life and in political life. So what I'm about to say is based on my reading

of television shows and a little bit of background contact with our family friends in St. Petersburg who have just come back from Crimea and were very happy to get across the bridge. The mood among the people I know has never been pro-war enthusiasm, nothing of the sort. They were sadly persuaded that this war was unavoidable and that the West is out to do Russia in. So nothing, I think, has changed in their outlook. As for the mood that's come out of the invasion of Kursk, I think the notable issue is a safety issue.

I think that that rides parallel with the experience of cities in the heartland of Russia that have in the past week or two undergone attack by Ukrainian drones. The fact is that there is no city in European Russia that feels itself totally secure from this type of attack. I think the answer, a kind of answer to your question, is the high level of civic involvement in providing aid to those who have been evacuated in Kursk. And this aid is vast. Of course, the need is vast. You're speaking about 200,000, possibly substantially more in the last few days since the other

two neighboring oblasts or provinces of the Russian Federation adjoining to the north and to the south of Kursk, as Bryansk and Belgrade, they have also been subject to breaches of the border by Ukrainian troops who would, if they had the opportunity, do in those provinces what they are now doing in Kursk. That is my overall impression. I don't say it is solidly based. I can't because I have not put my boots on the ground in Russia. Paul Jay

Do you know what's going on in Kursk? You mentioned 200,000 displaced Russians. Are there Russians who have not left? What is the military doing? Is it running a government? Is it cleaning the streets? Is it collecting the garbage? Or is it just fortifying itself defensively? What you're describing is an urban environment. And the part of Kursk Oblast, which is occupied by the Ukrainians, is anything but an urban environment. These are farming communities. Collect garbage? Nobody collects garbage in a hamlet of 100 people. So as far as it's possible to understand, the Ukrainian troops and among whom there are a substantial number of mercenaries, foreign mercenaries,

are running amok in these settlements and are shooting anything that moves. There are some Russians who disobeyed the orders to evacuate, and some of them have been roughed up by Ukrainian forces passing through. But there's no original report of that. The main issue was simply people who were compelled to leave their homes for the sake of their own, for their safety, and who are now in tent cities in Kursk city or who have been moved further afield into central Russia.

Those people are featured every day on Russian television, which is a major part of the war coverage, how they're being handled. And a lot of what they're receiving is volunteer work, volunteer care and shipment of blankets and of foodstuffs from ordinary Russian citizens. That is the kind of answer to your question, do the Russians support or support their own who are under attack, or do they turn on Mr. Putin? Certainly not the same. I've asked you this several times before, and I don't know if it changes from week to week. By the way, I'm deeply grateful for you joining us every week. Can you discern from your scrutiny of Russian media if there is notable pressure on President Putin to do something more aggressive in response to the invasion and occupation of

Kursk? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. There is in the public arena, in the public space,

of course, there are people who are calling for a more aggressive response by Russia to these provocations. Whether they have any impact on Mr. Putin is most doubtful. And as I have written in the last week or so, a firm answer to that was given by a man who was very close to the Kremlin, who was one of the top journalists in the country, and who interviewed Putin several times at length, that is Vladimir Solovyov, who on the 18th of August said flat out that nobody can pressure Mr. Putin, nor does Mr. Putin succumb to his own emotions, that he acts strictly in a rational way to what he perceives to be Russia's national interest. And I think that rule remains. People talk a lot, but as I've said at times, and some of your listeners may be disbelieving, Russia's a free country.

And nobody shuts them up unless they are calling for sedition. The Deputy Director of the American CIA said yesterday that their satellite photographs showed the Ukrainian and other people with them, forces in Kursk, building defenses, defensive mechanisms to defend against what they anticipate will be the coming onslaught. In this respect, your observations of Kursk have proven to be quite accurate, whereas some other observations of what's happening in Kursk thought it would be over with already, and the invaders would be slaughtered, and the villagers would be back to their homes. Well, in your opening remarks, you said, as I agree fully, that there are,

among the commentators and certainly invitees to your show, there are people who bring remarkable analytical skills and a great deal of relevant experience, primarily those in the military and intelligence. Among the intel people, people have different backgrounds. Some of them, like Ray McGovern, were precisely Soviet specialists and they practice today the arts of Kremlinology that they used 30, 40 years ago with great effect, and they're using those same talents today with effect. By that I mean parsing the texts that are published, the texts of speeches by Putin,

of Shoigu in the past, of Birusov today, certainly of Lavrov. These are issued in English, translation, and they are accessible to people who are not Russian speakers. In the case of Ray, he always was a student of Russian, so this is not so relevant with respect to him, but to others who are doing the same thing, using the speeches of leading figures.

I would also like to point out that, as I've said in the past, Russians are not bunny rabbits and their politicians are not truth seekers. They're politicians. And politicians tend to lie for reasons of state in Russia as they do everywhere else. Mr. Putin and they speak with different sides of their mouth to different audiences, and I speak with different sides of their mouth to different audiences, and I mean particularly their domestic audience. So Mr. Putin can be a real politician, which I believe he is,

but he'll speak in nationalist terms when he's addressing his citizenry, because citizens don't like to hear the real politics. Is there a perception that this invasion was orchestrated, calculated, and conducted by NATO? That is, that the West, led by the United States and Great Britain actually invaded Russia? And if there is that perception in the Kremlin, Professor, are there larger potentially nuclear implications to that impression? Well, it's not an impression. It's a certitude as far as the Russians are concerned. Okay. The facts speak for themselves. They have delivered the facts today in the session of the United Nations Security Council. Theirursion. And I'll give you an additional reason that comes out of my following these experts on talk shows. And that is that the not only it's not just the CIA, it's the Pentagon. The the the troops have been trained in NATO practice as the Ukrainians engaged in this are the elite troops of Ukraine. They have all been trained extensively by NATO officers under following Israeli-U.S. practices.

And they have been equipped with their weapons by the United States precisely to engage in this mission. That is the Russian, here I will say, perception. They're saying openly that the weapons being used against them in Kursk were shipped by the United States to Kiev for the purpose of this mission. That's about as close as you can get to Kaza's belly. Right, right. I mean, that is the reason why one of our regular guests, whose experience is both military and intelligence community, Larry Johnson, says outright the United States of America invaded Russia. That's not an impression in Larry's view. That is a fact. Do you agree? Is that statement safe to make? Is that statement made or understood to be so in Moscow? I think in Moscow it's perceived to be true. But is that statement true? I think, strictly speaking, no. done everything possible, including providing real-time satellite reconnaissance information directly to the Ukrainian forces on the ground in Kursk. It is deeply involved,

but to say that it is a U.S. invasion, I think is an exaggeration. There are some U.S. troops there, but there are a lot more Poles and French there. You said troops. United States military in American military uniforms inside Russia, Professor? That hasn't been proven. What the Russians are saying is that there are NATO and American, meaning American, Polish, and French. Those are the nationalities that are named, who are wearing uniforms of one kind or another, but who are called mercenaries. But from the Russian standpoint, they include people in active service. Wow. I asked you a few minutes ago about the broader and potentially nuclear implications of all this. I want to get back to it. And to lead off that part of our conversation, you may have seen this.

It's two minutes long, but it's riveting. It is Sergei Lavrov two days ago on August 27th, accusing the United States of being the moral equivalent of children playing with matches. Cut number 14. Americans have this direct association, these conversations, this talk of a world war. They think that if this happens, it would only concern Europe, which is a very showing thing that reflects the mentality of those geopolitical strategists in the US, because they are confident that they will just be safe across the ocean. And in this situation, one has to understand that we have our own doctrine, a doctrine of using nuclear weapons, among other things. And we are now making adjustments to this doctrine. And the Americans are well aware of this doctrine. And, you know, these are Freudian sleep. The World War III is a bad thing because we do not want Europe to suffer.

That's the mentality of the Americans, mentality of masters that are sitting on the other bank across the ocean. They are certain of their safety and security, and they are confident that there would be someone else to die for them, to do their dirty job for them, not only Ukrainians, but now Europeans as well. So we heard these speculations regarding allowing to use not only term shadows, but also American missiles, long range missiles. Anonymous source said that there is an ongoing effort that they are looking into a request from Ukraine in a positive light.

I do not want to add anything to that. The president has already spoken on these many occasions. And we reaffirm this once again, that playing with fire, and they are like little kids who are playing games with matches. It's a dangerous thing for adults who were trusted with nuclear weapons. What do you make of that from the senior most and respected most diplomat in the world today. He is the dean of global diplomats. I agree with you. At the same time, let me just set the record straight as I see it.

Mr. Lavrov is Mr. Putin. He is Mr. Putin with gentle words, diplomatic words. Mr. Lavrov has been in office for 20 years. Four years of those, he served as the foreign minister to Dmitry Medvedev. Not the Medvedev who you see today, who's a hawk and who's making up for the sins of the past. But Mr. Medvedev, when he was president, was the smiling face of Russia. The country never had a senior, the top executive, who was outgoing and friendly to the world as Mr. Medvedev was.

And Mr. Lavrov was a different Lavrov under Medvedev. He took all of his marching orders and tried faithfully to implement the very accommodating foreign policy of Medvedev. Now he has moved further and further to the right, shall we say, by right I mean hard line, as his president has moved to the hard line. The whole Russian diplomatic corps is one vertical unit, as the Russians like to say. The Russian ambassadors have almost no leeway, no freedom to say anything. They say what Mr. Lavrov allows them to say.

And Mr. Lavrov says what Mr. Putin allows him to say. Let's get that straight. So it's interesting to watch Mr. Lavrov, but you're really watching Mr. Putin. Now, to come to your big question, where does a nuclear threat come in and danger? Nuclear threat is very hinted at. It's much more clearly stated with the hardliner who is Mr. Lavrov's deputy, and that is Mr. Ryabkov. Larry Johnson has several times made allusion to Ryabkov, and I salute that observation that Ryabkov really is a man to watch because he was the one who set the terms in December of 2021

for the United States and NATO to renegotiate the architecture of security in Europe. And he was a tough guy then. Well, he's still around, and he made still tougher remarks than what we just heard from Mr. Lavrov in virtually the same time. Now, what is this all about? There's something that's being missed in public discussion what the Russians are thinking. And I'd like to fill those dots in. And they come to some events of the last months that seem to be confusing, if not inexplicable. Let's go back to the destruction of those two radar stations

which you and I discussed when that happened. These are radio stations in the south of Russia, which were early warning stations. And nobody could make much sense of it. Why in the devil would the Ukrainians with drones knock out these stations when they had no relevance, whatever, to the war in Ukraine? Well, that's what we thought then. As of this week, we think we should rethink it all. It has a lot of relevance to the presence of two aircraft carrier task forces now in the Eastern Mediterranean, which the Financial Times, New York Times, and everybody else will tell you are there to keep Iran under control and to use against Iran if they go out of control in their still not launched revenge attack on Israel.

Well, why do we believe that the Pentagon says what it means? Wouldn't it be reasonable to look at the configuration? Those battleships, those aircraft carriers, can be used to send, what, a hundred jets, nuclear-armed, on a decapitating strike against Russia. This is not my observation. I'm repeating to you now what I heard on Russian television by a very authoritative person. I don't want to fall into the trap of building a whole approach to the present global situation on the testimony of one man. That would be rather foolhardy. But that one man is rather an important man with experience extremely relevant to everything we're talking about. I'm talking about a certain Mr. Klinsevich, who served 20 years in the Soviet and the Russian Armed Forces in the heavy duty parachute division, who then served a term in the Duma, several terms in the Duma, who is now in the upper house of the Russian bicameral legislature, and who is on the

steering committee of Russia's governing party, United Russia. So this is not just a chap on the street. And he was giving a very pessimistic appraisal of the situation on the ground in Kursk. This was about three, four, five days ago, while helping to interpret the very diplomatic and rather cloudy language that has been given on Russian television by people who say, yes, the situation in Kursk is tense. What they mean is there's fierce fighting going on

and Russians are taking heavy casualties. They don't say that. That is what Mr. Klintsevich was broadly inting at. He also said something that people in Pentagon would like to hear, so they can put a star next to my name, that the Russian perception of an expert like Princevich is that the Ukrainian forces, together with their advisors and assistants from NATO, are better prepared for this battle than the Russian forces are.

Yes, this is a Russian military expert saying that his men are at a disadvantage in terms of equipment and particularly command and control. That will surprise Pentagon experts, but it is relevant to the discussion, and I don't see any of my peers saying that. And what is President Putin going to do about this? Bomb us. This is where I put it all together. Well, the implication in Foreign Minister Lavrov's statement is that we have recalibrated our nuclear protocols, meaning what? That they might strike first and they might strike the mainland U.S.? That was precisely his point. Your last statement was precisely his point. Do not think in the States that you'll get off clean, that we're

just going to bomb Europe and Europe will bomb us and we'll both disappear and you'll be left to do what you want with China. No, no, we will go after you first. That was his message. Now, why did he say that? If you backtrack to what I just said a moment ago, it makes sense. If the Russians are thinking what Mr. Klintsevich said they are thinking, that those aircraft carriers are there to strike Russia in a first strike, decapitating strike, that Mr. Putin's people are now preparing a preventive strike on the United States. Wow. We'll leave it at that. I had a lot more questions for you, but time is moving on. These are fascinating conversations, Professor Doctorow. Your knowledge of the history, culture, and contemporary events is without peer. And we are deeply, deeply grateful for the time you spend with us and already look forward to chatting with you next week.

Thanks again for allowing me to share some of these observations. Of course. Coming up later today at two o'clock Eastern, Dennis Kucinich, whatever happened to the party of anti-war at three o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. At 345, the Intelligence Community Roundtable. And at 430, the always worth waiting for, Aaron Maté. Please remember to like and subscribe. When you like, that sends the right signal to the computers of the venues that run us. And when you subscribe, it sends the right signal as well. We're up to about 432,000 subscriptions. Our goal, of course, is a half a million by Christmas. And you know, you can always go to judgenap.com. You'll see my columns there. You'll see a lot of

interesting information for you there. And should we ever have trouble getting on air, JudgeSnapp.com will always tell you how to find us. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.