Author: Gilbert Doctorow

With administrative assistance provided by an RT television crew who had invited me to the Russian Embassy, Brussels to give an interview on the results of yesterday’s NATO-Russia meetings, I had the opportunity to witness most of the press conference given there by Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who co-led the Russian delegation earlier in the day.

In the spirit of my writings on this website generally, I provide here an account of the press conference that reflects the facts but also my personal impressions of the event and of its main actor, Mr. Grushko. I conclude this report with the link to my 15 minute interview with RT.

I know Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Grushko from face to face meetings we had in Brussels back in the time when he served as Russian ambassador to NATO. He had to leave that post in 2018 after savage cuts imposed on the Russian staff as part of the global US-led move to cut ties with Russia, to denigrate its leadership and move the country to pariah status internationally. Once back in Moscow, Grushko further climbed the hierarchical ladder to assume deputy minister status.

Continue reading “‘Fly on the Wall’ at the Press Conference of Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, Russian Embassy, Brussels, January 12, 2022”

Information provided to the press by both American and Russian sides following the 50 minute telephone conversation between presidents Putin and Biden is very meager. That has not prevented major Western media like the New York Times and Financial Times from putting out this morning normal sized articles filled mostly with background information for those readers who have been asleep for the past few weeks. The few statements about the meeting from official sources on both sides have just been repeated at face value in their articles, without any attempt at interpretation.

In what follows, I will provide precisely that: a Kremlinologist’s deciphering of what we used to call ‘the wooden language’ of diplomacy and of officialdom.

Let us begin with the remark in the FT that “the telephone call between the leaders…was arranged at Moscow’s request.” They take it no further, but it certainly bears mention that until now all contacts – phone calls and in-person or virtual summits between the two leaders – have been called at the request of the American side, which was unnerved by the buildup of 100,000 or more Russian soldiers at the Ukrainian border and assumed that an invasion was being prepared. So, I ask why did Russia take the initiative this time? And why a conversation now, just days before the official delegations from both countries meet in Geneva. I will hazard guesses.

Continue reading “Deciphering the Biden-Putin Telephone Chat of December 30, 2021”

These days “cyber warfare” is all the rage among those doing military threat analysis in geopolitics. Mutually Assured Destruction by launch of ICBMs is passé, vulnerable to ABM systems, although Russia insists its latest variable range hypersonic missiles Avangard, Tsirkon, and Kinzhal evade interception and will get the job done.  The West does not yet possess hypersonic missiles, whereas it is going full blast on cyber, so that is the talk of the town here.

All of the foregoing ignores a much older martial art that also gets the job done without harming a soul. I have in mind psychological warfare, in military slang “Psy Ops.”  In what follows below, I argue that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been applying precisely that art on us these past several weeks and months, with some notable successes already scored and likely more to come in his ongoing pursuit of a US-NATO capitulation, meaning the rollback of physical threats to Russian national security from the forward positions at Russia’s doorstep presently obtaining.

Continue reading “Psy Ops as the Key to Understanding What Russia Has Been Doing Lately To Force a US-NATO Capitulation”

Given the fast pace of breaking news in Russia-US-EU relations over the past three weeks, it was high time to tamp down speculation about possible imminent outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine and to let us all enjoy what is left of the holiday season within the limits permitted by the ongoing Covid pandemic. Vladimir Putin obliged by staging an intentionally dull and low key annual press conference. The press conference lasted over four hours but at the end I only had two pages of notes.

There were 500 + journalists present in the Manezh, which was chosen for the first time because it is more capacious than the venue across town traditionally used for the purpose. Maximum consideration was given to sanitary measures. All journalists had passed three PCR tests to be admitted, all were masked and seating ensured social distancing. The microphone sponge cover was removed after each journalist spoke and handed over as a souvenir. Vladimir Putin sat alone on a dais behind a draped white table perhaps 10 meters long. His press secretary Dmitry Peskov was also at the table but half a room away.

Continue reading “Vladimir Putin’s Annual Press Conference, 23 December 2021”

In the past couple of days, my peers in the community of Russia analysts have addressed the question of “what if” – what is it that Russia can and may do if the negotiations with the United States over its draft Treaties on security in Europe fail within the very short time period the Russians have set, apparently one month. Parenthetically, I am amused that spokesmen for the U.S. State Department say that they may enter into talks with the Russians some time in January. It seems they did not catch the short timeline the Russians have set or mistakenly believe it was a bluff.

The best of the analyses by my fellow analysts was posted yesterday by former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong. I recommend this read to everyone, because it is in its own way reassuring, setting out possible Russian options that are far removed from pressing the button and blowing us all, and themselves, to bits.

Continue reading “Putin’s ‘Military-Technical’ Measures if Negotiations Fail”

The opening remarks Sunday night by Dmitry Kiselyov on Vesti Nedeli, the widely watched weekly round-up of news from Russian state television, minced no words: “Russia has made a proposal to the United States which it cannot refuse. The moment of truth has arrived.” He was referring, of course, to the draft treaties on mutually assured security presented to the United States and NATO through diplomatic channels and simultaneously posted on the website of the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs last Friday.

These proposals, demanding in effect a roll-back of NATO to the status quo before its expansion eastward in 1997, was immediately understood by the Russian public to be an ultimatum and evoked various reactions. The move was clearly not deemed to be an open and shut case, as Mr. Kiselyov would have us believe.

In what follows, I offer a translation of commentary posted on three Russian websites during December 18-19. Two of the websites are middle of the road, fairly neutral platforms. One, Ekho Moskvy, is the boldest anti-Putin news website in the country with an audience cutting across the social strata.

Continue reading “What Are Independent Media in Russia Saying About the Country’s Ultimatum to the USA and NATO?”