Transcript of 'Dialogue Works' edition of 24 December

Transcript submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:05
Hi everybody, today is Tuesday, December 24th, and our friend Gilbert Doctorow is back with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, thank you, Nima. I hope I have a few Christmas presents for all the listeners.

Alkhorshid:
Let's get started with this type of rumor that it seems that Zelensky tried to bribe Fico. What's the story behind this?

Doctorow:
Well, your listeners of this program certainly know that Fico has been in the news. Yesterday's papers, today's papers in the West are speaking about his two-hour meeting, tete-a-tete with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a meeting that was called, according to Peskov, when he was asked by Pavel Zarubin, the journalist who is always two steps behind Putin, he was asked when the meeting was arranged, because usually meetings with Putin are arranged way in advance. And Peskov said off the cuff, "Well, a few days ago". This was picked up by the "Financial Times" to suggest, well, it was arranged a few days ago, meaning that it had plenty of time for preparation.

1:29
It caught everyone by surprise, in fact. And he was coming precisely before the deadline expires on the pipeline that carries Russian gas across Ukraine and serves markets in three central European states, his own Slovakia, plus Hungary and Austria. That pipeline is going to be shut down on December 31st by Ukrainians as part of their their war on Russia, economic side of it, and also playing into the hands of the European institutions who want to shut off Russian hydrocarbons to the EU. Well, so this was an issue of very big importance to Mr. Fico, enough for him to fly in and discuss the consequences and what could be done about it with Vladimir Putin.

2:24
But preceding that, in the last week, he Fico was in public exchanges of what you can call insults, trading insults, with Vladimir Zelensky. And that was about this issue. And also as part of his payback to Zelensky, he mentioned in passing that Zelensky had offered him a $500 million, now I got the zeros correct, $500 million bribe for for he and Slovakia to change their position on Kiev's application to join NATO, and instead of opposing it-- which kills it in effect, because there has to be 100 percent unanimity on the admittance of any new country-- instead of opposing it, to join with everybody else and greet Ukraine as a newest member. Well, he says he declined that. Now this may have been covered somewhere in page 20 of one of our newspapers, or maybe it wasn't covered, but it was noted by the Russian news agencies and was mentioned on air.

3:40
So I take it for accurate. There's no reason for a person who's honest, who has come through as much threat in his public life as Mr. Fico, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt less than six months ago, for him to exaggerate or misstate his relations with Zelensky. Now, let's just consider what this means, because even if they barely covered it or didn't cover it, Western media, they should be considering what it means or what is gonna come out when Mr. Musk does his house cleaning job and starts to audit the monies that have been sent through Kiev without any controls.

4:29
What could be going on was suggested in a kind of cartoon fashion by Donald Trump in the last week when he showed that we ship money to Kiev and it goes to this and that and finally comes back to what? Comes back to Biden's pocket. Well, that is a crude way of looking at it. But why just Biden's pocket? There are a lot of senators, including some real loudmouths, who are demanding Russian blood and who want to fight Russia through Ukraine to the bitter end, the bitter end that they hope will be for all the parties who engage in the battle. Isn't it reasonable to think maybe they have a material interest and are receiving a few deposits to celebrate the holidays better?

5:20
I'm on side. And Americans in general, just to take the case of American exceptionalism, our commentators who don't subscribe, in the alternative media, who don't subscribe to that notion in general, may be subscribing to it when they call out the Israeli lobby as as having unusual exercise of power over US Congress and therefore over US foreign policy. I haven't heard anybody raise a peep about the possibility that American foreign policy on Ukraine is being bought with bribes coming from the funds that the US and the EU have extended to Kiev. And that is something which I expect will come out when Musk goes after the money, the money trail, to find out where it actually ended up. So there should be some interesting news in our papers in the months ahead when this activity gets going.

Alkhorshid: 6:26
How do they feel in Russia right now? Recently we've learned that Putin is talking about this is a war against Russian world. What does that mean in your opinion?

Doctorow:
I'm sorry, I didn't catch it. What is he talking about?

Alkhorshid:
He's talking about that the way that the West is treating Russia right now is a war against the Russian world. And it seems that he sees some sort of aggression in all dimensions.

Doctorow:
Well, yes, so this is a variation of the theme that he has been playing for some time now. He varies the narrative a little bit here and there, but that Russia is at war with the West, that has been part of his overarching view, as I say, expressed in one form or another, since the start of the special military operation. So I don't see a great change in that respect.

7:21
What has changed in Mr. Putin's narrative in the last week or two, has been this concession that he made on the 19th of December, when he had this combined annual press conference and direct line communication exchange with the whole Russian nation by a special call center. And at that meeting, he said that he regretted that he didn't start moving on Ukraine earlier, and that he waited too long. This is a very debatable point, but it raises something that is in the background here in US alternative media and is championed by somebody as well known and widely followed as Paul Craig Roberts, that Putin has been too mild, has turned the cheek, has been too much of a good Christian and not enough of good statesmen to do what should have been done in time and not to allow Russia's adversaries or enemies abroad to misinterpret his restraint as a sign of weakness, which could only encourage still greater provocations and encroachments on Russian national interests. That is an issue that he just barely touched upon when he said that he regretted it didn't start earlier.

8:51
Nonetheless, he's doing a pretty good job of catch-up, because what Russia's been saying in the last, what Mr. Putin has been saying in the last couple of weeks is really reading the riot act to the United States and the West. The stress on the power of the Oreshnik middle-range hypersonic ballistic missile, that has been a large part of the change. And it makes me ask how serious he is in saying that everything should have been started earlier.

9:30
There wasn't any Oreshnik two years ago. Russia's stepping out on the stage and acting in its own self-defense at the risk of enraging the global hegemon, that has coincided with Russia's ability to produce and to field new, decisive, strategic weapon systems. And that is all very current. As I've said in the past, the notion that all the problems could have been solved if Russia had been tough in 2014 is utter nonsense, because Russia was unprepared to withstand a US economic assault. I don't mean a military assault, that's a separate question, but an economic assault. All the sanctions from hell Russia would have gone under in 2014, if it had had a military victory over Ukraine, it would have been a Pyrrhic victory.

10:33
So going back to 2014, out of the question; going back a little bit, maybe, but not very far. 2018 is the year when he rolled out all these systems and rolling them out and showing them to the public because they had passed tests and were going into production. Going into production is not the same thing as having them in the field. And some of this equipment obviously takes time to produce.

The Oreshnik is said to have entered serial production and estimates coming from the States-- because the Russian Ministry of Defense naturally says nothing about its production capabilities-- but from the States, where I've heard estimates that 25 Oreshniks can be produced per month. That's 300 per year. Well, you don't start threatening to use the Oreshnik until you've got at least a few in your hands, because your bluff might be called. And so it is with the other weapons systems; not all of them have been put into production. I mean, there were six or seven different strategic weapons systems that Putin showed in March of 2018.

11:49
This was the last stage of the presidential election campaign at that time. Putin had foregone participation in the televised debates. And he made his presentation to the public in the form of the large segment, large section of his speech that we call the state of the nation speech, the annual speech that he makes to the bicameral legislature. And he rolled out these systems, and he had them shown, theoretical diagrams of how they work, on the screen. But that's not the same thing as having them in hand and ready to use them if need be. So I don't think he could have backed up very far to launch the special military operation.

12:38
What he could have done actually is to prepare the forces that were going to go and invade Kiev, Ukraine, better. Because all reports that I've seen, or that I heard, just to say accidentally, from a taxi driver who was a retired member of the military intelligence in Moscow, and who was complaining about what he heard from his former colleagues. This is two months into the special military operation, that the initial steps were disastrous because the troops weren't prepared. They didn't have all they needed. They were just rushed in, they were on military exercises and they were moved from exercises straight into an invasion.

13:29
So there things were rather sloppy, but how much better it would have been if the preparations were begun earlier? Well that's a debatable, interesting question.

Alkhorshid: 13:43
I think at the end of the day, we have to consider how much this conflict in Ukraine was important for the Russian military-industrial complex. The army has totally changed during this conflict from a defensive army, right now an army that is prepared to fight any sort of war with the West. And the way that right now the nature of the relationship between Russia and China, Russia and Iran, Russia and North Korea, they're going to sell a lot of arms to these countries.

This is a huge win for the Russian industry. And how do you see in that direction? Do you think that they're going to continue with this mindset of selling? Before that, if you remember, even Turkiye is part of NATO, but they're asking for weapons, they're trying to buy weapons from Russia. And right now it seems that Russia feels much-- it would be much easier for Russia to sell the arms to these countries.

Doctorow: 14:50
Well, I'm glad you put your question in the future case, because you said, will they be selling? They are not selling now, and they haven't been selling to anyone exports of arms since the start of the special military operation. All of the production of the Russian military-industrial complex has gone to the Russian front. And so the immediate impact of the war on the Russian military complex was exactly the opposite of what you're saying. The Russian exports, I think they were $35 billion a year, went to zero.

This kind of fact comes up in the "Financial Times" as if to say Russia can't do it. They have-- no, what would you do in a wartime when you're facing the whole of NATO? And, and this is a war of attrition, which means you better, well, you better have what you need in the field the whole time, because your advantage is precisely that you have it, and the adversary doesn't. So Russian sales abroad have collapsed, well collapsed, they simply stopped selling, and they stopped fulfilling pre-existing contracts. Now I'm not pulling this down from nowhere.

16:04
I was listening this morning to an interview, a very important interview, which maybe we have an opportunity to discuss a little bit later in this program. An interview that Russia Today's managing director, Dmitry Kiselyov, took with the Azerbaijan Prime Minister, Aliyev. And Aliyev was at one point in this. Kiselyov asked him, well, how do you see military purchases from Russia going forward? And what he has said is what I've explained now, that pre-existing contracts are not being fulfilled and the Russians asked for and received from Azerbaijan permission to delay delivery.

16:53
So that's the present situation. Of course, the evidence that Russian tanks are equal, superior to the best Western tanks, that Russian air defenses are superior to the best that the Americans have, whether it's Patriot or this still more advanced system that arguably they're taking to Israel and maybe also to Ukraine. Anyway, the point is that the Russian arms are demonstrated to be superior to the NATO arms against which they are sent. And that is watched closely by all of the world's procurement officers. So yes, Russian sales of arms will spiral once the war is over.

Alkhorshid: 17:47
And right now, in your opinion, the way that they see in Russia, they see Donald Trump and his administration, do they really think that there has to be some sort of patience on their part until this government, this administration, the Biden administration leaving office in Washington, leaving office and Donald Trump takes power? How do they feel about it? Because we did drone attack on the part of Zelensky and on a city called Kazan, which was, she's not of strategic importance in terms of military I'm talking about. But they did that out of desperation, in my opinion. How do they feel about it right now?

Doctorow: 18:37
This is discussed, what you are asking me now is discussed every day on these political talk shows, and I can tell you that the mood rocks back and forth between feeling it's utterly useless to wait for Trump, because look at who he has appointed and what they're saying, what Kellogg is saying, why would we wait a minute for Mr. Kellogg too? I'd say the latest mood seems to be, all right, let's give them a break. Let's see what Kellogg can do. Don't take it too seriously that what he has said till now is what he's going to bring to us when he comes to Moscow.

19:17
So I think that they are being cautious, prudent, responding, as Putin said, going back more than a month, they will, Russians are now reacting to the threats that they see from any given action by Ukraine, thought to be in line with their own exposure to these assaults from Ukraine. Now as for the wonderful, the executed 9-11 type attack on a high-rise residential building in Kazan, which was caught on video and became viral on social media. That was, let's say, very representative of the way that the Kiev regime and military there has been conducting the war from the beginning. It has been big public relations and a small military kinetic warfare activity. As you say, the military value of the attack on Kazan was close to nil.

20:37
Certainly the attack on the residential building is by all classic measures pure terrorism. That is what terrorism is defined as, an attack on civilian targets for political leverage. So that was all very indicative of weakness on the part of Ukraine. And at the very same time that their troops are being battered on the ground, both in Kursk and on the front lines of Donbass, where day by day you see significant changes in the map of the line of confrontation in the favor of the Russians who are advancing. Pakrovsk, a city which is said to be a logistics hub of great importance, is about to fall.

Further afield to the west, the, let's say, the historically important towns of Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, this is dead in the middle of the Donetsk People's Republic, they are evacuating the archives, the personal records and so forth, from the city's offices. The Ukrainians are doing that, which is a perfect indication they expect it to fall, to be besieged and to fall. What Putin has said about any ceasefire: that is unacceptable to the Russians because the Ukrainians are presently reeling. They don't have the time to fall back and build defensive structures to an advance of the next wave of Russian advance. And for Russia to agree to a ceasefire would be to give them exactly that possibility, to actually form a line that they could hold.

22:31
And Russia doesn't want that to happen. It wants to take full advantage of the strength that it has in moving on, encircling the vastly weakened and demoralized Ukrainian frontlines. So the Russian enthusiasm for meeting with Trump is tempered by this fact. No, they will not, under any circumstances, accept a ceasefire as an immediate measure. A ceasefire would come when there is agreement on a global settlement.

Alkhorshid: 23:14
When they're talking about freezing the battlefield in order to negotiate, it doesn't make sense, because when you look at World War II, they were talking, they were negotiating while the war was continuing in those days. And right now that could be the case. They can start negotiating, but as war continues on the battlefield. Is that the case in the mind of Russians in your opinion right now?

Doctorow:
There is something of a similarity with the World War II case at the very, very end. The Russians will not pause now to negotiate, with whom? They do not accept the government of Zelensky to be legitimate. And so it is, they only will make a halt or enter in negotiations with the United States. That is-- and that can happen only after after meetings. And preferably a summit meeting between Trump and Putin.

Alkhorshid: 24:30
Two cases, Gilbert. And if you remember in 2020, the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Joe Biden was hammering Donald Trump with JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between the United States and Russia which Donald Trump decided to withdraw from. And he said that he's going to revive the nuclear deal and all of that, and all of those rhetorics in those days. And right now, it seems to me that could be the same in the mind of Russians. They're thinking, is Donald Trump going to negotiate, going to have a clear mind when it comes to Ukraine to understand the reality of the battleground, to find some sort of permanent solution for the conflict, or he's going to be just like Joe Biden in terms of the way that he was bragging about, I'm going to revive the nuclear JCPOA between the United States and Iran, which he didn't do that. And even beyond that, he started all of these conflicts and this dangerous world that we're living in right now. How do you feel about Donald Trump?

Doctorow: 25:48
Well, what Donald Trump has been quoting for the casualty rates of Russia and Ukraine is utterly absurd. His statements about the disposition of forces is just reflecting the same rubbish that the Biden administration has been putting out. Now, what I'm waiting to see is what happens when Tulsi Gabbard is confirmed as the most senior intelligence officer of the United States, and she becomes a daily reporter to Trump on what is going on.

26:29
She doesn't have any such position now. We don't know that she meets him at all. And certainly she isn't, as a private person still, she has no access to intelligence that only goes to the presidential candidate. And who's providing that information to the candidate? The same people providing the rubbish to Joe Biden. Therefore, it's not surprising that the script that we've heard coming from Trump is a very misinformed script, which does not promise much for his leading a way out of this crisis.

27:07
What the Russians are taking comfort from and the reason why they want to be cautious and to leave options open to meeting with Trump and to negotiating with him over this crisis, that is the remarks he's made in the last week in which he called the use of these American-built medium-- attack missiles, the ATACMS, the HIMARS, or with US permission, the British Storm Shadow, to penetrate deep into the Russian heartland. He has called this foolish and very dangerous.

The Russians took heart, because for the first time they're listening to some normal observations of risks in this war, and not to the rubbish, as I say, that Trump has obviously been handed by the security personnel of the Biden administration in his capacity as the weight-in president. So that's what gives them some hope and has tempered their remarks about Trump being a change without a difference, going back two or three weeks.

Alkhorshid: 28:40
And we are witnessing Medvedev in China, Shoigu in Iran, and Belosov in Pyongyang. What's going on with the foreign policy of Russia right now? What are they trying to do with their friends?

Doctorrow:
Well, they're trying to do exactly what America is worried about. They're putting meat on the bones of this new axis, that is Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. The meat is being put on the bones. And I think it's forming in quite a solid way. The Biden administration has only added to the problem by its continued threats against China.

29:29
And Trump hasn't yet made any moves or suggested any moves that would lessen the solidarity between these four countries in opposing the American hegemony. So they xxx traveling a lot, they're meeting with their new friends. There may be, as you and I discussed before the show, a signature on a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Iran during January, which includes a large segment on mutual defense. And the Russian military position will be that much better consolidated. As for the North Korean presence, our Western media speak as if they're out there fighting on the front lines in Donetsk, they're not.

Any forces that have been made available by North Korea for use in Russia are being used in Russia. They're being used in the cleanup operation of the Kursk oblast or region that is part of the Russian Federation. And it's perfectly in line with the mutual defense pact. It is-- they are not moving into the the front in Donbass.

Alkhorshid: 30:59
It seems to me that the way that-- I have learned from the Iranian media that this agreement is beyond what we've seen so far. It's not just economic. It's some sort of advanced military agreement between Iran and Russia. It seems if something big happens in terms of any sort of world war, they're going to be on the same side fighting the enemy. Do you think that right now in the European Union, and we've seen that Fico, Orban today said they're going to reconsider their policy towards Russia. How do they feel, the Western European countries?

And I'm talking about Germany specifically, United Kingdom and France. How do they feel right now about the situation in Ukraine? Are they getting to the point that this is going to get, we know that Donald Trump at the end of the day, he knows, he has some sort of connection with the economy. His main concern is the economy of the United States, let's put it that way. And the policy in Ukraine wouldn't help that sort of mindset. How do they feel about it in the European Union right now?

Doctorow: 32:23
Well, as you were pointing out, the European Union is now sharply divided. You called attention to those two states, Slovakia and Hungary, who are the vanguard of resistance to the diktats coming from Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission, telling everyone to "shut up and just follow my orders" in conducting, proceeding in relations or absence of relations with Russia. I doubt that these two states are the only ones. There will be more dissent made public as the crisis, political crisis, in the two traditional lead countries of the European Union, Germany and France, proceeds.

33:10
Germany now doesn't have a government; it's a caretaker government under Scholz, because the government lost its vote of no confidence. And France is reeling from crisis to crisis with a newly-installed government. And we count the days, how many days this one will last, before Macron is forced out, not by demonstrations in the streets, I don't expect that, but by the people who put hiim into power, the bankers. The lack of government, the failure to take any measures to reduce the unacceptably high debt that's being incurred annually in the existing budget, what, six percent or more of GDP, is untenable and in complete violation of the rules of the EU. These factors and the fact that the French government paper now is trading worse than Greek means that the finance people are going to be looking for his head.

34:18
And I think they're the ones who drive him out of office. It's, I mean, it is impossible to consider that he will stay in office if this latest government also falls. And there's every interest in the socialists, in the Le Pen movement, to bring down this government as well, knowing what I just said, that the disturbance to financial markets will be such that he can't hold onto power.

Alkhorshid: 34:52
Do they see any sort of future for their relationship with Russia, or they're not considering that right now?

Doctorow:
I'm sure they're considering it, but not talking about it. Because it would be in strict violation of everything they've agreed to up till now. I don't think that Slovakia and Hungary are the only ones hurting from the shutdown of this pipeline or from the curtailment of their procurements of Russian oil in general, and of the trading relationship. And Slovakia is not the only country. Hungary also in this situation, where the attempt of Von der Leyen and her gang to include in future sanctions a ban on dealing with Rosatom and the Russian nuclear industry, that would be of enormous negative impact on the economies of these countries. And that, if it proceeds, will lead to a serious breakdown in dialogue within the European institutions.

36:06
I have to admit-- I mean we all should be transparent, and I will be transparent now and say that-- I'm a cheerleader for the deconstruction of the European Union into something resembling what it was in 1992, the European Economic Community, because this particular structure where the member states have voluntarily sacrificed a large part of their sovereignty to Brussels is working out very, very badly.

36:43
They have, the member states no longer have the competence nor the will to explore alternatives to their present foreign and military policies, which are convincingly failures. So, that's a discussion for another day. The European Union is doing very badly. And I think it will be doing still worse when Mr. Musk's audit takes place and we find out which European partisans have been on the take.

Alkhorshid: 37:22
Russia has revealed the list of nine countries to be BRICS partners on January 1, 2025. When you look at this list, it's Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Uganda and Uzbekistan. You don't see Turkiye being part, being among these countries. What's going on with the case of Turkiye, in your opinion?

Doctorow:
Well, Turkey wasn't, going back to the BRICS summit. Basically the BRICS summit in Kazan introduced the principle of a two-tier BRICS. Those that are core members for whom they have voting rights and a complete agreement is required of all of these members for any new policy to be adopted. Then there are the partners who are not in the inner core, don't have voting rights, don't determine the policies, but are eligible to profit from the infrastructures, financial and other infrastructures that BRICS creates. Turkey was named to be in that category. So you wouldn't have seen them in any case on the list for membership beginning January, 2025.

38:52
I think it may be early to say that they are out completely because of their double-cross on the Astana agreements relating to managing the civil war, or the ended civil war, in Syria and their position of support for the Idlib rebels or insurgents, [whatever] you want to call them, who brought about the removal, the replacement of the Assad regime. I have said already that Russians are not going to turn their back on Turkey, because the two countries have very significant projects, of great financial, economic value to their respective countries. And it would be harming themselves to use their difference over Syria and to break off relations. At the same time, I'd like to point out that there is room for complex agreements, for complex relations. They don't have to look for black and white. There are various grades in between.

40:16
And again, listening to this interview that I mentioned earlier, that Mr. Aliyev gave to Russia Today, and which was published yesterday, it's a one-hour interview, he was discussing the relations between his country and Turkey, which have a military, well, semi-alliance, going back to 1991, 92 rather, after the fall of Sevigin, and that they have received extensive training and upgrading of his countries, of Azerbaijan's military forces, thanks to Turkish participation, that they have 10 military exercises jointly and that his is the only country that has close relations with a NATO member state, as Turkey, and also has a comprehensive cooperation with Russia. So there you have it. Azerbaijan has a close military relationship with Turkey, which is a NATO member. And it also has a very close relationship with Russia, including a purchase a lot of military equipment from Russia.

41:38
In his latest, in this interview, as I've noted in an analysis of it, the language that Aliyev uses is precisely Putin's language to discuss geopolitics. He speaks about the neo-colonialism of France and Western and European countries, about the need for independence, sovereignty and so forth. This is Putin's language. And yet, he still has this relationship with Turkey. So I believe that some accommodation with Turkey and BRICS will come about. Not today, because of this unpleasantness over Syria. But in a year or two, yes, I think Turkey will be in the partner category.

Alkhorshid:
Yeah. Thank you so much Gilbert for being with us today. Great pleasure as always and Merry Christmas.

Doctorow:
And to you and to our listeners.

Alkhorshid: 42:37
Thank you.

Doctorow:
Bye bye.

Alkhorshid:
Bye bye.