CNN interview with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov: compelling for those who want to think for themselves

According to TASS, Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov released a couple of days ago has already been seen by more than 2 million viewers on the social network X alone, with presumably a great many more who watched it on Carlson’s own TCN network and on other media outlets.

That was, by Tucker Carlson standards, an important media exercise. For Carlson, it refreshed his seeming relevance to international developments that he established ten months ago by his interview with Vladimir Putin (21 million views on Youtube), still earlier by his interview with Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban (884,000 views on Youtube), an interview that also dealt largely with the Ukraine war and how to manage relations with Putin.

For Vladimir Vladimirovich, the Carlson interview was a rare opportunity to make his views on the Ukraine war and other key issues known directly to the American and global public. It was also a missed opportunity as I wrote at the time, because he was evidently very nervous, was uncertain how to deal with the intellectual lightweight Carlson, and wasted audience time with historical narrative, getting around to the present and future only towards the end of their hour-long chat when he surely had lost most of his audience.

I mention this shortcoming of the Putin interview, because it is also somewhat relevant to the new Carlson interview with Sergei Lavrov. Too much of it is backward looking. We come away impressed by Lavrov’s vast command of the subject matter, by his intellectual acuity and diplomatic skills, all of which one would expect from the world’s doyen among foreign ministers. But it is less effective than it might be in providing a glimpse into what may come next in Russian-American relations. In that sense it is also a missed opportunity in the ongoing multi-layered Russian information offensive directed at shaping expectations of the Americans and Europeans in particular over what may be achieved to bring an end to the Ukraine war at the start of the incoming Trump administration.

As another example of this ‘multi-layered information offensive,’ I call out the public statements by a leading nationalist Russian businessman and media personality, owner of the Tsargrad internet platform, Konstantin Malofeyev, in which he trashes the salient points in the published peace plans of General Kellogg, Trump’s nominee emissary to Ukraine and Russia. Malofeyev may be said to be close to the Putin entourage via his marriage to the official who oversaw the removal to Russia of orphaned Ukrainian children from war zones that brought indictments against her and Putin by the ICC. Malofeyev’s views on how the war may end were set out in a feature article of The Financial Times in the past week.

Within the context of Russia’s ongoing information offensive, we now have the 30-minute CNN interview with Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Ryabkov which came out a day ago in its full version.

This interview is outstanding in every way. It is especially valuable for explaining Russia’s disparagement of what we know of Trump’s plans for ending the war very quickly by use of threats and blandishments to the leaders of Russia and Ukraine. Per this official Russian position, a settlement is possible only if the core security concerns of Russia are addressed, meaning a settlement addressing the European security architecture and not merely a ceasefire, a frozen conflict, and other nonsense contained so far in what the Trump entourage is touting.

In what follows, I will not reconstruct Ryabkov’s talking points. I leave that to my readers to do for themselves. The interview is short and merits your time. Instead, I use this space to bring out some relevant facts about who is who in the interview, about how it has fared so far in viewer numbers and why you should spread the word to raise its public impact around you.

First, let me remind you that Sergei Ryabkov is a fluent English speaker who spent more than three years in Washington as an advisor to the Russian ambassador (2003-2005). As his career progressed, he served as director of the ministry’s department on cooperation with Europe. Later as Deputy Minister from 2008, Ryabkov has had responsibility for arms control and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This is to say that his long-time work experience is directly relevant to the present crisis situation between Russia and the Collective West that is being played out in Ukraine.

Ryabkov is the official who crafted and presented the ultimatum to NATO in December 2021 over the need to roll back the NATO European presence to what it was at the end of the Cold War, before the alliance expanded eastward under Bill Clinton. The refusal early in the new year by Washington and Brussels to enter into negotiations over the Russian demands led directly to the launch of the Special Military Operation and invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Russia determined to win by force of arms what it could not achieve by diplomacy.

It is also relevant to mention that the CNN interviewer was not some gal or guy from Atlanta who was put on the case thanks to good looks and readiness to read out some aggressive questions prepared for her/him by the CNN editorial board. No, it was the German jouralist Frederik Pleitgen, who is based in Berlin, who by education and work experience in Europe clearly knew what to ask and how to ask it to get meaningful and relevant answers.

So far, this full version of the show has been seen by 105,000 viewers and has generated 2,295 Comments.

Let me say without hesitation that the audience numbers are pitiful! When I appeared on ‘Judging Freedom’ a week ago, I gathered 120,000 viewers. When John Mearsheimer opens his mouth before any of the leading interview channels on youtube, he gets half a million views without difficulty even if he has nothing much to say. The same is true of Jeffrey Sachs. And NONE of us is an original formulator and implementer of state policy for the country most deeply involved in the existential struggle between East and West that is going on before our eyes. We are just commentators. Ryabkov is the source and I urge you to take the time to listen to him.

Do note that at 2,295 the number of Comments generated by his interview are a relatively high 3 percent of total views. From my experience, 1 percent is the norm.

I quote below the first two, which should be all you need to be persuaded that this show is extraordinary

@Traveler_SF 22 hours ago

22 hours ago

For the first time in years , respect to CNN. I’m impressed to see no hate from Rusian side. Compare that to USA officials whose blood is boiling when they talk Russia

@pascallefrancq8342

1 day ago

I rarely seen a CNN interview being so respectful in this kind of situation ! Congratulations.

Please ignore the spelling and grammatical errors of these comments which obviously came from viewers from outside the USA. Hopefully native Americans will share this enthusiasm for the Ryabkov interview.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024