Author: Gilbert Doctorow

In a new 25-minute live broadcast devoted to the war, Iran’s Press TV showcases key issues from this week’s developments on the front lines, including the latest bombardments of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station and the missiles which fell on Polish territory, threatening to bring in NATO as full co-belligerents. The panelists were asked to comment on likely ‘end game’ scenarios for this war.

As we know, mainstream Western media is rock-solid in its predictions of ultimate Ukrainian victory, with the Russian evacuations of Kharkiv and Kherson as their leading arguments.  In the alternative media, opinion is divided over whether there will indeed be a new Russian offensive in coming weeks when the 220,000 recently mobilized reservists still in training are ready for action or whether the U.S. administration will push Zelensky into negotiations with the Russians that temporarily or even permanently put an end to the fighting.

A lot of attention is directed in world media to the resistance of Zelensky to entering into negotiations. That is explored as well on this Iran TV program. However, an issue which is not addressed there is the willingness and even the ability of the Russian President to enter into negotiations. 

Ever since the October mobilization of reservists, the military operation in Ukraine has de facto become the war of a nation in arms about which everyone in Russia now has an opinion. The fact is that Russian society from top to bottom is very unhappy with the present state of the war – but their discontent is with what they see as the pusillanimity of their own government in not responding more resolutely to Ukrainian provocations in the form of continuing artillery strikes on the Kursk and Belgorod regions from the Kharkiv oblast just across the border or through atrocities such as the just released video of the cold-blooded murder of Russian prisoners of war by gleeful Ukrainian soldiers. The withdrawal from the city of Kherson inflamed the passions of the Russian public who demand better explanations in their parliament and on their television than they have received so far.

The pressure on Mr. Putin is from his own patriotic supporters, and an untimely truce for negotiations right now could lead to civil disorder in Russia.  This is not idle speculation: it was perfectly clear from the latest edition of yesterday’s talk show Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov in which a deputy speaker of the Duma from the ruling party United Russia and a Duma committee chairman from the Communists took an active part, meaning that the nation’s elites are moving with the popular current against Defense Minister Shoigu if not against those still higher in the Kremlin. Meanwhile, discredited Russian Liberalism is taking down with it the commitment to free markets for the sake of more effective war production. There is serious talk of reintroducing Five Year Plans. And the recent official approval of plans to proceed with traditional celebrations of Christmas and New Year’s in Russian cities was denounced as inappropriate for a country at war in an existential struggle with NATO.

We may conclude that the Special Military Operation is indeed a watershed in Russian domestic politics.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/11/20/693093/Ukraine-War-and-Nuclear-Escalation

‘Spotlight,’ a leading news analysis program of the English-language service of Iran’s state television opens with a discussion of the latest remarks by their Foreign Minister on what exactly Iran has supplied to Russia by way of drones and..when. It proceeds to examine other highly topical questions with respect to EU-US relations in support of Kiev and with respect to Russian military capabilities.

I use this opportunity to add one further consideration which was not brought up in the on air discussion: all restrictions on sale of military hardware by Iran in export markets, including drones and missiles, which may have figured in UN resolutions of the past expired more than two years ago, so that the country is entirely free to supply such arms to Russia if it so desired. Therefore, all of the current insinuations by the United States and NATO that there is some illicit trading between Russia and Iran is empty rhetoric.

Translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus):

‘Spotlight,’ ein führendes Nachrichten-Analyse Programm des englischsprachigen staatlichen iranischen Fernsehens macht auf mit einer Diskussion zu den kürzlichen Bemerkungen ihres Außenministers dazu, was der Iran Russland genau im Hinblick auf Drohnen zur Verfügung gestellt hat und wann. Dann fährt es damit fort andere wichtige zentrale Fragen bezüglich des Verhältnisses der EU und der USA hinsichtlich der Unterstützung für Kiew und des russischen militärischen Potentials zu untersuchen.

Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book is Does Russia Have a Future? Reprinted with permission from his blog.

© Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

The single largest contingent of readers of my essays is in the United States, and it is for their particular benefit that I open today’s piece with some concrete facts on how Europe’s self-imposed energy crisis resulting from the ban on import of Russian hydrocarbons is making it impossible for your average citizen of France, Belgium and many other countries in the EU to make ends meet. I hasten to add that the unworkable arithmetic of monthly household finance is day by day, week by week bringing us to the social unrest and political instability that I and others have been predicting ever since the trend lines on cost of living became clear some months ago.

I will not introduce official statistics, because when the going gets tough they tend to be presented in a very selective manner by the authorities. My ‘anecdotal’ evidence comes from the energy bills I am now receiving at my home in Brussels and from what friends and acquaintances in this country and in France tell me about their personal situations.

Continue reading “Cost of Living in Europe and Further Aid to Ukraine”

Has ‘partial mobilization’ breathed full-blooded democracy into Russia’s parliamentary government structure and broader society?

It is normal to think of wartime as a period of tightened censorship and imposition of ever greater controls on society at large.  Indeed, Western journalists have in the past half year focused attention on the closure of several notorious anti-Putin broadcasting companies and print media in Russia, including Rain (Dozhd’) and Novaya Gazeta. They have covered the flight of editors and staff abroad after they were labeled as ‘foreign agents’ and could expect invitations to appear before the courts.

However, in the days since the announcement by the Kremlin of ‘partial mobilization’ of the reserves, it is increasingly clear to any outside objective observer that a full blast of social activism is underway, and that the dikes of state controls on free speech are being swept away. A week ago, following reversals on the battlefield and loss of territory to the enemy that could not be ignored, members of the State Duma openly denounced the Ministry of Defense for dispensing ‘fairy tales’ about the progress of the campaign in Ukraine and demanded transparency in communications to the public. Speaker of the Duma Volodin, who is a leader of the ruling United Russia party, must have been in shock.

Continue reading “‘Partial Mobilization’ and Democracy”

Draft evasion, escalation of military operations and other highly topical subjects in today’s Russia

Zelensky’s wildly irresponsible call for a "preventive nuclear strike against Russia": analysis on Iran’s Press TV

Once again I have the pleasure of recommending to my readership a live interview on Iran’s Press TV earlier today. Once again, I find their news presenter very well briefed on the subject at hand. Once again I find their political positioning remarkably friendly to the Russian side in the conflict with the West over Ukraine.

One might draw conclusions about a shift in Iranian state politics away from "kiss and make up" with the United States and towards alignment with its regional neighbors and with the great powers Russia and China. It is these last two which are raising Iran’s image of stable and constructive contributor to the world order in forums such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Caspian Economic Forum, presently being held in Moscow.

Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book is Does Russia Have a Future? Reprinted with permission from his blog.

© Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

Draft evasion, escalation of military operations and other highly topical subjects in today’s Russia

My good friend and “comrade in arms” in the anti-war community, Ray McGovern, yesterday published an article on how The New York Times is stoking the war in Ukraine and goading the Biden administration to be ever more aggressive and irresponsible. Ray went on to remind us of the ignominious role played by NYT news reporters and their editorial board in promoting the Vietnam War, from the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that heralded the start of the real US engagement to the bitter end, all without a word of apology or regret in later years.

As a member of the Vietnam War generation in the USA, mention of that war brings up for me two words of great importance in the Russia that I see around me on this three-week visit to St. Petersburg: draft evasion and escalation.

Continue reading “Draft Evasion in Today’s Russia”