Transcript of Press TV interview, 25 February

Transcript submitted by a reader:

http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/132805

PressTV 0:00
Joining us now out of Brussels is Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst. Hello, Mr. Doctorow, good to check in with you, always a pleasure. Now Gilbert, your initial thoughts on this, can we call it a monumental shift in US policy in dealing with Moscow and Kiev?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Yes, it is a sea change. It is something that could not be anticipated. And of course it has left Europeans reeling, running around like headless chickens, as one of their spokesmen said today, hoping to bring them together for a common position, because there is no common position accepted by all the EU member states. By most of them, yes, but by all of them, no.

o:48
The important thing I would like to call out is that there were two votes yesterday. One was the one that you have featured, which is dramatic, in that the United States text was passed by the Security Council, and this text is calling for a peace as quickly as possible and is not laying blame at Russia's door, which has been the case in all communications that have passed through the United Nations since the start of a special military operation.

1:21
The second vote which went on, which was in the General Assembly of the United Nations, in that place, the traditional litany of Russia's offenses, it's need that-- calling it the aggressor, saying that it had to withdraw from Ukrainian territory. All of this ritual, a denunciation of Russia, which has gone on for the last three years, was repeated, was approved by a majority, although there were a great number of abstentions. The point here is that your very remark on the rift, on the chasm, I would call it, in positions between the United States and Europe, is highlighted by these two different votes.

2:09
Europe, when given the chance to bring in all of its own vassals who could support its initiative, voted for war. And in the Security Council, Europe abstained and let the American initiative pass for the first time in the dealings with the Russia-Ukraine war in the Security Council. This is remarkable.

PressTV: 2:43
Right. And all the billions of dollars, all the billions in weapons, they have not given Ukraine, Mr. Doctorow, the upper hand in this conflict, or even come close to changing the fate of the ultimate outcome of this conflict. I mean, it seems like the current White House, this administration with Donald Trump is taking the most pragmatic and practical approach. This does not mean that he loves the Russians, he's siding with the Russians, they're now his number one ally. He's just basically accepting the facts on the ground that they're just basically throwing a lot of money away and causing a lot of death and destruction in Ukraine.

Doctorow: 3:20
It's very difficult to take a definitive reading of Donald Trump. He is throwing out a lot of, throwing a lot of balls into the air. Some of them are coming down to the ground, some of them are being caught, and it's hard to say what is a genuine statement by Trump, where he wants to go, and what is a tactical statement to try to entrap the people whom he is dealing with. I say that because yesterday there was another development, a very important one. That was the meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump in the White House, which ended in a press conference, at which it seemed that they had total rapport, or almost total rapport, with respect to the outcome of the war in Ukraine and the introduction of the European peacemakers.

4:09
Now this is, frankly speaking, running against the intent of Trump to end the war with the Russians, because unless there's something agreed that we don't know about, the Russians are dead set against having any international peacekeepers in Ukraine after the war is settled.

They don't want any soldiers of any kind from outside Ukraine to be there. Well, you know what happened the last time in Minsk 2 accords, when there were OSCE monitors watching the peace. Those monitors were standing there watching when the Ukrainians were firing artillery shells and missiles into the residential neighborhoods of the nearby Donbas Russian-speaking provinces that were rebelling against rule from Kiev. There were civilians killed, 14,000 civilians killed over the course of eight years from 2014 when the Minsk accords were introduced, to 2022 when the Russians started their special military operation.

5:23
Now, the notion that Macron is projecting is essentially condemnatory to Russia. It is saying that Russia will not keep the peace. Russia is a recidivist aggressor and will seek to renew the war and move to Europe if it is not held back by deterrent force, meaning these Europeans. That is not a good basis to conclude a peace, and it runs in the face of the position taken by the United States today.

PressTV: 5:54
And before we let you go, I have to ask you this final question, because we're mentioning the rifts, the rifts that have emerged since Donald Trump in his very short time has started his second term as president.

And it's not just about Ukraine, is it. It's about tariffs, it's about NATO, it's about a bunch of things involving the Europeans. And they're probably going to, logic says, become more pronounced as his presidency continues. So your thoughts on the long-term impacts once, long after Donald Trump is gone, that this is going to have on US-European ties.

Doctorow: 6:30
Considering the youth of his vice president, Donald Trump himself may be gone, but Trumpism is unlikely to be gone. And we may be looking at a 12-year period when his views hold sway in the United States. But looking at the immediate situation in Europe and the United States. Yes, the rift will deepen. I think that Trump is looking for a convenient way for America to pull back out of NATO. That is his intent, but he can't just do it himself. He has to let the Europeans help him do it by being offensive and by being opponents to the peace mission that he has set for himself.

PressTV: 7:08
All right. Thank you. Stay safe. Always a pleasure checking with you. From Brussels, Mr Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst there joining us.