Judging Freedom - Prof. Gilbert Doctorow: LIVE from St. Petersburg, Russia!

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Prof. Gilbert Doctorow: LIVE from St. Petersburg, Russia!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May 7th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us today from St. Petersburg, Russia. Professor Doctorow, a pleasure. I have a lot of questions to ask you about the current state of negotiations between the United States and Russia and how the President Trump's statements have been perceived in the Kremlin, but before we do, you have been sending me some very interesting observations about life in Russia today,

particularly the time you spent in Moscow. As you may recall, I was in Moscow as a guest of the Russian Foreign Ministry just two months ago, but I'm interested in hearing your observations. The influence of the American and Western sanctions on everyday life in Moscow, food, clothing, travel, electronics, your thoughts? Well, the influence of the sanctions has been to change the sourcing for the things that Russians buy in their supermarkets every day. That's to say the product assortment is the same, quality is different, frankly, often superior to what it was before they changed the sourcing.

But the price levels are generally substantially below what we have in Europe, although some product categories have been creeping up in price where they rival the prices that I see in Belgium or even exceed them in some cases, but rather rarely. Nonetheless, the Russian consumer has everything you could possibly want, including some rather exotic things you might mention for the personal tastes of one visitor to Western Europe having the reminiscences of wanting to enjoy the comforts of Baileys or of Campari or things of that nature, not just

the ordinary French red wines. There's no problem finding anything in a supermarket that you would find in the best West European supermarkets. And they also have graded price levels of supermarkets similar to ours, starting with an economy level and going up to super premium. So then in the realm of food and how you fill your shopping basket, no problem. In the realm of consumer electronics and things that most people in the audience take for granted as part of their daily lives, I mean smartphones, notebook computers and so forth, there's been a dramatic change in what is on offer

in the mass market stores, big retailers. They require regular deliveries, predictable deliveries to satisfy their network of stores across the country. country, and so they have had to resort to new Chinese sourcing, but not the major brands of China, which are shy of American secondary sanctions and have left the Russian market. So there are the lesser, or less well-known Chinese producers who do not sell to the American market, but are now taking up the whole of the, or nearly the whole of the Russian market, except for what I found in the country's biggest retailer that has gone into marketing its own branded notebooks that are assembled in Russia and in Belarus are priced dramatically,

cheaply using Intel chips. So in that respect, the sourcing has changed, perhaps a lower quality for the mass market. For the premium market, for people for whom money means nothing, they can buy anything they want from the American and global producers of advanced computers in specialty shops that buy fixed lots of imports from the parallel market.

So for a premium, for an additional commission, shall we say, to intermediaries, they can get anything they want. All right. So let's take one or two examples and then we'll get to the special military operation in Ukraine. How does California wine get from the Napa Valley in California to a wine shop in Moscow? Honestly, the California wines are not doing too well Honestly, the California wines are not doing too well in Russia. All right. I can understand that. But can you find California wines? Is there some circuitous route around the sanctions?

And if you don't want to choose wine, choose anything else that's uniquely American, Dell computers? No, I haven't seen any Dell computers, but I haven't seen them for a very long time. I don't think it was a conscious decision of the retailers, they just didn't have advantageous offers. They had Hewlett-Packard in great quantities. How does Hewlett-Packard get from Dallas, Texas, to Moscow, Russia? Probably by way of Kazakhstan or China or some other third country where there are eager beaver merchants who buy up these products and resell them. They import them into their country where there are no sanctions prohibiting the import. And then they pass them along to Russian retailers in specialty shops, as I say, appealing

to consumers who are insensitive to price. Now look, the Chinese have taken more than half of the new car sales in Russia, but I was surprised on this visit to see new Chevrolets on the highways. And this is particularly surprising because Chevrolets were on sale, General Motors was promoting their product, but the economy level, the compact level, that is what you had before here on the roads before the Special Military Operation. Now I see full sedans with Chevrolet logos on them. So that is of course coming in from third countries parallel trading, possibly or more likely from the Middle East. Fascinating, fascinating. You have spent time with journalists, fellow academics,

journalists, fellow academics, even former government officials. Can you put your finger on the pulse of the collective pulse of these people? Is there a yearning for an end to the special military operation or is there an understanding of President Putin's patience or do you have some other analysis that you draw from your conversations with these folks? Well, I'm glad that you gave a list of contacts or possible contacts that I would have at the outset of your question because this is where my inputs to the program are different from that of my peers. The former government officials or present government officials with whom my peers meet or some correspondence, that is clear. What I am offering is the insights coming from conversations with the intellectual and creative community, which by and large, my peers in these programs of interviews have

no contact with, because this is something that would go back years, and they are not available accessible to occasional visitors. And what I would say, an answer direct to answer your question, that proves, I spent seven hours at a table talk with a partly retired journalist expert, a man who rose high to positions of administration in the Ministry of the Press going back to the 1980s, then became an editor-in-chief of the Union of Journalists magazine, and teaches part-time as a professor of journalism in one of the journalism schools in Moscow.

So what he had to say was not just anecdotal, or I just happened to know him, no, he's a person of considerable authority and experience. And I took with seriousness his remarks in answer to your question. It gives a certain more nuance or greater depth to the question of who thinks what about the war. It may amaze your audience, it surprised me me in fact that there are actually some pacifists in Russia. They always were here well hidden and they still exist and he is this acquaintance friend

of mine is in that category but he as I said he has occupied important positions in the official bureaucracy. He's not happy with the war, not at all happy with the war, though he's fully aware of the reasons for the war. He's fully aware of the incompetence, the terrible degradation of quality of leadership in Western Europe. That he's perfectly aware of the neo-Nazis and the neo-fascism in Germany and in Western Europe. Nonetheless, he is not happy with the war and he would like very much for it to end as quickly as possible. And I think there are many people, not just

of his age and experience, but among the creative classes in Moscow, particularly, because that's where, that's the biggest market for people in all kinds of arts and in social media. There are a lot of people in that stratum who are not fifth column, they are not anti-Putin or anti-Russian, but they're not happy with the way things are going. And certainly they're not happy with the censorship that has come into force and has been strengthened during the period of the war. Censorship that takes the

form of denunciation as of one or another journalist or publication as being foreign agents. Fascinating, fascinating observations. Is there a willingness to give him, President Putin, a long leash or is there an underlying grumbling of loss of political support? These people are not oppositional in an active sense. They're not gonna go out on the streets. They're not going to support the more notorious anti-Putin politicians such as still exist

in the Russian Federation. But privately among themselves, they are not at all happy and they really wish that Putin would stop this as soon as possible. That's as much as I can say. They're not politically active, but they do things that show where they stand. I'll tell you what, they subscribe to and buy the magazines

that are now being published by people who are chased out of an organization like Mr. Muratov, the Nobel Prize winner, was running when he received the prize for defending press freedom in Russia. His publication was shut down. There were very many competent, as my friend says, some of the best journalists in Russia who were out in the street as a result, and some of them have formed new glossy magazines with very good material in them. And he will buy that up just to give them support. That's an example

Understood Does the Kremlin take as far as you can tell does the Kremlin take Steve Witkoff seriously? Well, I'm sure they do They take him probably more seriously than they take Donald Trump I mean Donald Trump is in front of a microphone saying some outrageous things every day and flip-flopping. Steve Witkoff is not doing that. He's quite consistent in his positions with respect to Russia, which are generally friendly and hopeful for a detente with Russia.

And he doesn't say these peculiar things like Russia, Putin has to come to terms because the price of oil has gone down. So in that sense, they take Rydkov much more seriously than they do Trump. Here is President Trump on Meet the Press on Sunday with a rather startling statement. I wonder what your opinion is of the Kremlin's opinion of this. Chris, cut number 10. Ukraine there's been discussions they will have to give up some of the land. Russia will have to give up all of Ukraine because that's what they want.

All of Ukraine, meaning they wouldn't keep any of the land that they've claimed. Russia would have to give up all of Ukraine because what Russia wants is all of Ukraine. And if I didn't get involved, they would be fighting right now for all of Ukraine. Russia doesn't want the strip that they have now. Russia wants all of Ukraine. And if it weren't me, they would keep going. I don't think there's a scintilla of evidence that Russia wants all of Ukraine, but please, please weigh in.

What does Vladimir Putin think when he sees that? Well, I think he knows what Trump is doing. He's certainly perspicacious enough and certainly penetrating enough to say that Trump is setting up his listeners for the eventual ceding to Russia of all the territory that is taken. And then he will claim that thanks to his intervention, they haven't taken all of Ukraine. This is just a ploy. I don't think that... The American people won't believe that.

There's not a centilla of evidence that Putin wants all of Ukraine. In fact, he said he doesn't. The last thing he would want is to rule a country amidst guerrilla warfare. Yeah, but the American public has been listening to Biden and company for the past four years who are saying that Putin wants to take Poland and the Baltic as well. So I think that if Trump is saying all he wants is all of Ukraine, it sounds rather modest. So you don't think that statements like this seep their way into the Putin-Witkow negotiations?

I don't believe it all that's going on. I still think that Witkow is discussing with Putin many other things that are on the agenda should a genuine rapprochement with Russia take effect, and I bet I mean what's going on in the Middle East and in other parts of the world, including the conflict, potential conflict between Pakistan and India, in which both America and Russia have stakes and would like to see it cooling off. So there are many things for them to discuss and which Vitkov, some of them,

are in Vitkov's portfolio of responsibility. I wonder if President Putin is speaking to President Modi and to Modi's counterpart name escaping me. I guess it would be the head of the army in Pakistan since Russia's close to both countries. The last thing Russia wants is an India-Pakistani war, particularly one over behavior of some private individuals. It wasn't even anything either the governments did. Well, I think that Putin is much closer to Modi than is appreciated in the West in general, the United States in particular. And I say that I was just going over my materials. I'm doing an editing of the galley proofs of my about to be published book, War Diaries, 2022-2023. And I just was reading over the remarks I made back in 22 on how important

Modi was for Putin's decision to unleash the special military operation. All of our attention, all of my peers are talking about the essential contribution of Xi when he and Putin met the Olympics just before, a week before the operation was unleashed. Yes, of course, that was very important. But three weeks before that, Putin had met with Modi. And the position of India was of great importance in the first weeks after the start of this operation, when the General Assembly of the United Nations had a vote condemning Russia,

but in which two countries, India and China, both abstained. That was of decisive importance to Russia because it showed that more than half, four billion out of seven million, billion of the world's population did not support the resolution. Therefore, India from the beginning up to today has been a much closer discussion partner with Mr. Putin than I think most of our journalists give them credit for. Do you have a feeling for how much longer the war in or the special military operation in Ukraine will last, Professor Doctorow? In other words, how much longer can the Ukrainians hold out? As I was saying before, I collect information that indicates how important the drone aspect

of this war has become. The Russian television was saying that the Ukrainians themselves are producing one drone every 30 seconds. They are following closely the developments of Ukraine, itself produced in underground master shops. These are not big factories. They are small units, but collectively they're producing a lot of drones. And that is of decisive importance in the pace of Russian move westward.

It means that Russian troops are broken up into small units and not into a massive front that is advancing at once. It's a different warfare. And so for this reason, it's extremely difficult to predict the pace of the Russian advance and to say this will be the final date. I still hold that it will be before the end of this year, but not because of the capabilities of the Russian military, rather because the Ukrainian political elite will crack. Here's something of interest to you. The audience for this show is very, very pro-peace, as you know, and we've been posting some polls. This morning,

we asked the following question. Will Trump finalize a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine? in question, will Trump finalize a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine? About a thousand people responded during the conversation that you and I have been having. It's a fraction of those that have been watching. And the response is 87% no, 13% yes. How would you have voted on that? Yes. How would you have voted on that? I would have voted no, because I believe that the parties are too, a distant one from the other. And the Ukrainians under Zelensky do not accept a peace under any other terms

than essentially a Russian capitulation, which given the circumstances of a battlefield is utter nonsense. which, given the circumstances of the battlefield, is utter nonsense. The only way that Ukraine will come to terms under realistic conditions will be when this government is overthrown or physically eliminated. Look, if the Ukrainians fire on the parade in Moscow as they have threatened. I think Kiev's leadership will be wiped out the next day. I would think you're right. Just before you go, are there parades elsewhere?

Will there be celebrating tomorrow in Russia as like the 4th of July in the United States, maybe even grander because it's a big round number. It's the 80th anniversary of the Russian defeat of the German forces in World War II. Will there be celebrations in St. Petersburg and elsewhere besides the grand one, which we all hoped President Trump would attend, but that's apparently not going to happen, in Moscow? The whole country will have in every one million plus city, and maybe in smaller cities too. They all have their own parades.

The major cities will have state-run military parades, followed by parades that are organized by the people at large, this immortal regiment parade. The government is doing its most possible to ensure the security there. Here in Petersburg I will not go to it. I won't go because they've made registration to participate in it. Very difficult. You have to register online. Some days ago was the deadline. You have to send pictures of who your relatives who fought in the war were, what kind of placards you're going to hold up. it's really a pain. And I think they intentionally wanted to keep the numbers down for safety reasons.

But for those of the audience who want to see it in the original, let me just mention that there is a Russian internet channel. It is on Time TV, which you can find on any browser. And when you come to their homepage, it has the symbols of various of the major Russian TV channels, including Russia One. And you click on that and you can watch the live broadcast from Moscow. So you don't have to wait for whatever NBC gives you in minutes of time, you can watch the whole thing if you wanna wake up early.

Got it, got it. Professor, Doctor, thank you. Fascinating conversation. Safe travels, enjoy your time there and I hope we'll see you again next week. Thanks so much. Of course. Coming up, fascinating, fascinating observations about life in Russia today, the

American people should know about. The sanctions have not diminished economic prosperity at all. In many cases, they've enhanced it. Eleven o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at one o'clock, the former British diplomat in Moscow, Ian Proud coming to us from London. At two o'clock, the former British diplomat in Moscow, Ian Proud coming to us from London. At two o'clock, Aaron Mate. At three o'clock, Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm going to be a good friend.