Judging Freedom - Gilbert Doctorow : Are Russians Happy? Are They Patient?

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Gilbert Doctorow : Are Russians Happy? Are They Patient?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least?

What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 10th, 2006, Gilbert Doctor-O will be with us now. What do the Russians really think about a war now in its fifth year? But first, this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the direct result of the Federal Reserve's relentless war on the value of your dollar. For centuries, gold and silver have been the ultimate shield against the state's favorite tools. Monetary expansion and runaway inflation. To protect your wealth is to protect your liberty. And you can do that with gold and silver. I own both and continue to buy because J.P. Morgan is now lying gold at over $6,300 an ounce.

And Bank of America is suggesting silver could reach $300. That's great news for precious metal investors. Don't wait for Washington to fix a mess they created. secure your freedom today take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver call 800 511 4620 to see if you qualify for up to twenty thousand dollars in bonus medals that's 800 511 4620 or go to lear judge nap dot com guber doctor welcome here i know you're traveling we missed you and we welcome you back and look forward to your analysis as always from your travels in Russia, which is where I believe you are now, are you able to gauge with any degree of confidentiality the attitude of the Russian people, their attitude about the economy, their attitude about the war, their level of happiness?

Well, what I'm about to say I do with a much higher level of confidence than I would have done a few weeks ago. because of the different people I've been meeting, the different levels of people I've been meeting, and the numbers of people I meet with as a result of what I've been doing here, which has been involved in a real estate transaction, meeting with one of the leading notaries,

was also active in the courts of St. Petersburg, meeting with one of the most effective real estate agents in the city in what used to be called Century 21 since St. Petersburg office until the U.S. company pulled out of it. But the people were all trained by Century 21 and their high professionals. And they all have their finger on the pulse of the middle classes, let's put it that way,

who are involved in real estate transactions and who are buying apartments and selling apartments and making investments. So it's the business community at the middle level that I feel very confident about today when I speak to you. And also and where I'm situated now. Being in an apartment is one thing where you really don't meet a lot of people in the apartment complex.

But being in a hotel, I like the October sky where I am now, which is heavily booked and which is almost entirely populated by Russian guests, travelers from all over the country, who are chatty and whom you meet over breakfast and talk, I have a pretty good confidence in what I'm about to tell you. And that's added to by my meeting with bank bankers. The general feeling is war weariness and a desire for it to end now and what's important. The conviction widespread that Putin is dragging it out. There's a lot of speculation of all kinds why he is dragging it out. But the fact that the war has been continued without necessity is a generalized opinion.

of people whom I meet here. And what does this suggest? It suggests that the United Russia, the governing party, will badly lose the elections that are coming up in September, unless there is massive fraud. If they are held legally and properly,

which we can expect, then they will simply lose. That's the election for the legislature, for the Duma. That, of course, it's not an election for president. But why is he dragging the war out? How could that conceivably help his party politically?

I don't think that his party's fortunes are the first thing on his mind because he's been confident of their election until, well, maybe he still was confident. But why he's dragging it out, speculations on his carrying out the wishes of the oligarchs, carrying out the wishes of the security forces whose powers are enhanced greatly by a war situation. And his indecisiveness in taking sides between the liberals and the conservatives who are in his government precisely for the purpose of balancing one against the other and maintaining himself in power.

That's not an unusual thing for high administrators or presidents to do. but the negative fact comes out of it that is a very indecisive conduct of the war, which people can interpret as dragging it out. You feel that you got a good cross-section of views, and if you did, how do you gauge President Putin's approval, not personal popularity, not likability, but approval in office? I think the number one issue before the Russian people, today is the war and ending it. We had here in St. Petersburg last week what has normally been a

major domestic and international event, St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. And for the first time in years, it received very little, almost no television attention. Only the day of the plenary session, Friday when Putin made his speech and other leaders, the featured leaders from abroad made their speeches, that was carried by live television. But this was a great departure from the past, when for the whole week conference meetings, breakfast meetings, all were televised live. And I think that the broadcasters knew what they were doing, because they understood that the Russian people did not give a damn about this love fest in Petersburg called the Economic Forum. They have one thing on their mind. When will this war end? What is the, if you can get a handle on,

on it, condition of Russian banks, or what is the level of confidence that people have that when they put their money in the bank, they're gonna be able to get it back? I recently was watching on YouTube, the 1956 movie of George Orwell's 1984. And unfortunately, it brought to mind exactly what's going on now in Russian society.

There is a hysteria over, fraud over crooks, thieves who are praying on the weak and on the feeble-minded. And this hysteria is fanned by the government. For almost anything that you do officially, particularly any interaction you have with a bank, you have to state that you are not under the influence of some third party. If you go to take money out of a bank cash window, you can be the only one in front of that cash officer. They can be no one else in view.

And the whole thing is televised. Say the government is officially enhancing fanning the kind of hysteria over insecurity in official transactions, over your bank account being robbed by Ukrainians in Ukraine or Ukrainians telephoning in from Ukraine to rob you of your assets. This is a kind of hate-week hysteria. And it cuts into all banking transactions.

The banking transactions now are amazingly difficult, not just because of what I've just said, but because of the failure of the Internet. The Internet is only intermittently available. In this past week, when I visited Vaitébe, the country's most politically connected, and largest bank, which has taken over that position from Sberbank. It is headed by Andre Kostin, who was a close supporter of the government, of Putin,

and is also in charge of all shipbuilding construction in Russia. Well, this bank's entire national network was down for several hours. Obviously, they didn't say why, but it's pretty clear under an internet attack. attack. I think that their viewers have a very poor understanding of just how advanced Russian bank transactions, economic activities are. The level of digitalization in Russia is much higher than it is in my Belgium. I was on the trolley bus yesterday and a gal came up and put her phone next to this little gadgets that you pay your fare. And she held her telephone there with a QR code generated by her phone

to be read by that gadget. You don't have that sort of thing in Belgium. Probably it comes from China, I don't know. But I want to say that this high advanced digitalization makes this country very, very vulnerable to cyber attacks and to drone attacks. Does the pressure remain on purpose? President Putin to bring about an end of the war now in its fifth year. Absolutely.

And if so, I'm sorry, I came up for air. And if so, from what source? From security, from military, from diplomats, from the Kremlin, from the middle class? From the middle class. Look, people are not talking about Putin. They are talking about the war and how it should end. but their remarks are definitely pointing in his direction. Why is there definitely is a consciousness among all kinds of people,

not and I don't mean just store owners or upper middle class. Also among upper working class. Among the people I was associating with this past week were the movers who moved out my furniture from the apartment that we disposed of and put it into storage. These are movers. They're not, they're not, certainly not intellectualism.

And they're the head of that group told, was talking to me about why he's dragging it out. So I say this is very widespread, and the polls that are officially published do not touch this question. It is precisely about his conduct of the war that there is the question, not about whether he's likeable

or has done much for the country. What was the, the Russian military response to the Ukrainian recent attack on a girls dormitory at a college that killed between 21 and 25 girls and enraged the Russian public? Well, I just would like to add that the Russian Republic has been enraged daily ever since, not just over that. That's been called out as a summing act of terrorism, but there had been subsequently a attacks. For example, several days ago, there was an attack on a train within Crimea.

And although the passengers weren't injured, the engineers were killed. And everyone had to be unloaded from the train. This was traveling from one town to another in Crimea. The Ukrainians are making a special attack to cut all transportation to cut off Crimea from Greater Russia. And they've cut off, they've already caused great damage. caused great damage to the supply of petrol, fuel for cars, which impacts on people's daily lives and visitors to Ukraine, to Crimea. And they are conducting daily what the Russians call terror attacks on civilians. But those 21 killed were, of course, the iconic act of terror.

And the Russian response was, I'll say it, utterly inadequate. The response was to attack the... Ukrainian military production centers, factories making gunpowder, and artillery ammunition. And wait a minute. This is year five of the war. These factories did not come from anywhere, from nowhere. They were well known. Their addresses were well known. Why did the Russians wait till now to attack these factories? There's something wrong here. And what I'm saying is repeating to you what other people are saying, what ordinary people are saying, not people around the circle of Putin who are cheerleaders. Well, what is wrong? Why this hesitation, particularly when a massive

response to the killing of these little girls would have been met with a tremendous approval by the Russian people? If Warren were to follow, the logic of Russia's deterrence that was stated by President Putin in the first days of the war, the response to this attack should have been a destruction of the decision-making centers, meaning the political leadership of Ukraine. And I tell you, it wasn't. Instead, they're going after factories that they should have gone after five years ago. The real issue that all of us do not understand is why this inadequate response. Why is Kielov allowed to take time on television to announce to the world that he and the Americans have a reached an agreement on a tunnel under the Bering Straits? This is absolute folly.

And to say, to hold this up as a reason why relations with the United States. United States should be maintained and encouraged and look forward to some kind of partnership. It's beyond comprehension, Judge. So if I were to ask you why Putin doesn't decapitate the government, I don't mean literally cut the heads off of the people, but destroy their buildings, destroy their means of communication. Nobody knows. Right. I'm sorry. I misspoke. It's sort of, Carol Demetriov is the one I mentioned. Right. Right. So why not an attack on government buildings? Why doesn't he attack the military

headquarters, the Ukrainian equivalent of the Pentagon? What doesn't he attack the Ukrainian equivalent of Langley, where the CIA is? What does he cause major disruption and chaos amongst government decision-making persons. And why doesn't he put an end to the diplomatic tourism of Ruta and the European Commission people and the European Prime Ministers who still continue to come here? This is beyond comprehension. And as I say, Russian people are very patient, and nobody is pointing fingers, but they do raise the issues that I spoke about a moment ago. They do not understand and they are not in favor of this war being

dragged out. And of course, there is the issue of Mr. Zelensky's very aggressive and unpleasant open letter to Vladimir Putin, which hit home, which stole the show of the St. Petersburg Forum and caused big stress. You and I share an appreciation of the body language. And if you look closely at President Putin's answer during the, when he was questioned at the forum, about Zelensky's letter, there is great tension in his face. Bear with me just one second. Does the EU still fear Putin or Kayakalis and von der Leyen and Ruth? And Ruth, uh, Ruehlian and Ruta still fanning the rush virus of resophobia? No, they smell blood.

And the idea of the smelling blood was in Zelensky's very well-crafted and very nasty open letter. The points that he made are true. Russian casualties are rising fast because of the drone warfare. And the political instability that Zelensky is trying to promote within Russia is not inconceivable. So the letter has to be taken with great seriousness, although Putin spoke about it in the most derogatory terms as if it were written by somebody insane. It certainly wasn't. And speaking about Zelensky as an arcoe to disdust. to describe why his letter should be ignored was utterly inappropriate.

Well, but the letter suggested that Zelensky and Putin would meet in person together. And that, of course, is inconceivable, is it not? It is inconceivable. I don't think he really was expecting it to happen, but he wanted to put President Putin in an inconvenient situation, explaining why he would never meet with Zelensky. Wow. All right. We have a clip from President Putin

where we're trying to find it amidst our thousands of clips so that what you're talking about, the audience can experience itself. Why do the Russians bomb Kiev utilities rather than Kiev munitions factories? This is another conundrum. It was clear very quickly. Well, the first year of bombing energy in Ukraine was just bombing substations,

which can be replaced in several months. It took a year, a full year, before the Russians moved to attacking the power generating plants. And they did, and they've wiped out a great part of it, although you have to understand that at least one third of Ukrainian power is coming from renewables, from solar and wind and so forth. So the notion that all electricity could be taken away is a false notion. Nonetheless, the major power generating centers were destroyed and the war kept on going, which is not surprising. If you go look at World War II or other wars,

where similar action was taken on energy, it doesn't stop the war. And why they didn't move to destroying the political centers, again, is the open question for all of us. Is there an opinion amongst Russians that you can discern to Trump's disastrous and Netanyahu's disastrous war in Iran? Well, the Iran war has had a very big effect on thinking in Russia, because the Tehran has been brave. Tehran has stood up to a cut to the United States, which was militarily superior to it. Everybody knew that from day one. And they found an asymmetrical solution, which is economic warfare, in which they have the upper hand and have frustrated completely Trump's efforts to lay them low.

The Russians watched this, and it raises question about their own leadership. Why isn't it similarly defiant? and decisive in defending national sovereignty. Wow. What do the Russians think of President Trump? That he's a clown. Which Russians, among the public, I think, there's a very dim view of Trump.

Among the elites and the foreign policy establishment, and indeed around Lavrov, and they have a lot of research. respect for what Trump achieved in Venezuela by his might-makes-right approach, which is a variation on real politic, which has been since Soviet days, the preferred foreign policy position of Russia itself. So in that regard, they have more respect for Trump than I think most of the audience of the show has. We'll watch the question to President Putin about the letter from Zelensky and see if the audience

agrees with you. So we shouldn't be addressing the authors of the of this letter, the ones to be addressed, our combatants, our soldiers at the line of contact, and I'm addressing them. And I would like to tell them, comrade, soldiers and seamen sailors, admirals, generals, officers, the country's gays are fixed upon you. The country is proud of you and places its hopes on you. Keep working brothers. So I'll take that as a no. That you are not going to meet the author of the letter.

So far, I see no point. Well, I think you're right. He looked exhausted and slovenly, which is not the usual appearance that he gives. Yeah, he's not relaxed. He's not genial. He's under pressure and he's searching for an answer. So Zelensky hit home and the Putin's attempts to make light of this are not successful. I don't mean to say that Zelensky is right, but as a means of goading Putin, he succeeded and showed the strain in Putin.

Wow. Well, the Russians, and in my view, with a lot of reason and logic behind it, do not consider Zelensky the valid lawful, the head of state. and therefore why should they meet with them? Why should they deal with them? Why should they negotiate with him? I don't know who is the valid, lawful head of state, but he's a serious holdover serving a term to which he with no end, to which he was never elected. Let's remember that the Russians in the last 10 days

in the person of Sergei Yapkoff, the deputy foreign minister, have threatened to use nuclear weapons. They call them special weapons against Ukraine if the attacks deep into the heartland of Russia continue. There are some who say, oh, the Russia will strike Western Europe, nothing of the sort. But to demolish Kiev and wipe out leadership who may be in bunkers 90 meters below the ground, therefore inaccessible to Aresnik, I think the Russians, the army is considering that very seriously. Well, Gilbert, thank you very much. Another great conversation. We missed you the past week or so. I'll look forward to seeing you next week. Safe travels, my friend.

Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Aaron Mote at 1.15 this afternoon, Robert Barnes, the lawyer with the inside track on how Trump makes his decisions in the Oval Office. At 2 o'clock, Professor Glendee's, And at three o'clock, the great Phil Giraldi. Justin Palatano for judging freedom.