Transcript of interview with WION, Indian global broadcaster, 28 November 2024

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WION: 0:00
All right now to give us more perspective in terms of where this war in Ukraine is headed at the moment, we are joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, who's an international affairs analyst, who's an author and also a historian, and he's joining his live on this broadcast. Doctor Doctorow, you know Joe Biden at the moment is coming out his final days as the lame duck president in the White House. But what do you think is the thinking behind this strategy of turning up the temperature in the Ukrainian war by supplying more long range missiles to the Ukrainians to strike targets inside the Russian territory? The Russians are very clear, if Ukraine uses these Western long-range weapons, they would hit back with much greater force.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:42
I think that Biden's purpose is to hold the line in Ukraine, to prop up the armed forces and the government there, till he leaves office, to ensure his legacy. I think he and the people around him know very well that the days of the Kiev regime are numbered. They would prefer, however, if the collapse comes on the watch of Mr. Trump and not on his watch. What he is now supplying to Ukraine and authorizing to use against the interior parts of the Russian Federation are pinpricks.

1:21
They will not change the balance of the war. They will distract the public from the progress that the Russian army is making daily in beating back the Ukrainian forces, moving the line of confrontation closer to the Dnieper River. So it's a distraction. And as they say, for him, for his pride, it is to shift the blame for the collapse of Ukraine from his administration to the incoming Trump administration.

WION: 1:52
Interesting. And also, what in your assessment is the change that this new Russian missile, Oreshnik, has brought about? Now, since the end of the Soviet Union, in Western capitals, there was a feeling that qualitatively the Western weapons perhaps were better. Has that reality now changed, with Russia having exhibited what the Oreshnik missile can actually accomplish on the battlefield?

Doctorow: 2:18
The balance changed in 2018, when in March of that year, Putin made a state of the nation speech and rolled out the various new unrivaled, unparalleled weapons systems, strategic weapons systems that Russia had developed. And he said at the time that this was a change in history. In the 70 years of Soviet Union, Russian arms were always years behind the United States and other Western countries in technological development. This time in 2018, when these new weapons-- including the forerunner of the Oreshnik that was rolled out a week ago-- these new weapons systems put the Russians a generation ahead of the United States. A generation here would mean 10 years.

WION: 3:11
You know, it's interesting that you say that this has put the Russians a generation ahead, but the advisors of Joe Biden, who are advising Joe Biden as to how he needs to proceed in this war in the next two months till he ends his days at the White House. Do you think they're telling him this? What do you think they're telling him?

Doctorow: 3:29
Well, they should have told him that this was coming, or they should have told his predecessor, Donald Trump, that this was coming in 2018. But unfortunately US intelligence has been asleep at the wheel for the last 14 years or so. They have very few competent people who speak Russian, know Russian well enough, and who are working within the federal government as opposed to being outsourced, independent commercial suppliers of intelligence.

3:55
So United States intelligence on things like this new development have been woefully weak since before 2018; in fact, going back to the period immediately following the attack on the World towers when the US government reoriented its intelligence, staff, and interests to the Middle East. Therefore, the United States has been blindsided. Mr. Trump was not properly briefed and Mr. Biden was not properly briefed.

WION:
All right, interesting. Thank you very much indeed Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, for joining us and getting us that perspective there, sir.

Doctorow:
Thank you.

WION: 4:36
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