Gilbert Doctorow

What can you expect from a government headed by a comic actor named Zelensky? We see the answer to that question day by day in the way the Ukrainian armed forces are carrying out their much-anticipated spring counteroffensive: it is being stage managed by the Public Relations team with scant regard for their cannon fodder … Continue reading “The Ukrainian Army Is Run Not by the Generals but by the PR Department”

The word “Russophobia” has been used very widely in the past couple of years by Russians and by “friends of Russia” abroad to describe the campaign of vilification of President Putin in particular and of the Russian people more generally that the U.S. led West has practiced with rising volume and shrillness ever since the … Continue reading “Dehumanizing the Enemy”

Dear readers, to my great regret, I am once again duty bound to walk the streets bearing the sign "The End of the World is Nigh." I watched the news digest program Sixty Minutes yesterday on Russian state television’s smotrim.ru platform. Before turning the microphone over to the panelists in talk show format, the first … Continue reading “Judgment Day Is Fast Approaching”

From ‘special military operation’ to open war: significance of the referendums in Donbas, Kherson and Zaporozhie The televised speech yesterday morning by Vladimir Putin and the follow-up remarks by his Minister of Defense Shoigu announcing the partial mobilization of Russia’s army reserves to add a total of 300,000 men to the military campaign in Ukraine … Continue reading “From ‘Special Military Operation’ to Open War”

The UK and Commonwealth may be mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday. I am in mourning as well, but for a very different reason: the gathering in the Ramstein air base in Germany yesterday reshuffled the deck on Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine, raising contributions to the ongoing holy crusade against … Continue reading “US Ups the Ante: Are We Indeed Headed Into WWIII and What Can Save Us?”

For the first twenty years of the new millennium, it was obvious that Vladimir Putin and his team in the Kremlin were reactive, rather than proactive in nearly all dealings with the Collective West. Of course, I mean to say that was obvious to the substantial minority of professionals who trade in facts and follow … Continue reading “Meet the New Proactive Russia: The Kremlin Moves on to Plan B”

As the day of the US-Russian talks in Geneva over revising the security architecture in Europe approaches, analysts on both continents are publishing their prognoses of the outcome. Among them are great optimists that the ongoing acute confrontation can be scaled back, and also pessimists who see a clash of arms as inevitable with the … Continue reading “How Far Can Diplomacy Go? Awaiting the US-Russian Talks in Geneva on January 10”

The release a couple of days ago on the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs website of its draft treaties to totally revise the European security architecture has been picked up by our leading mainstream media. The New York Times lost no time posting an article by its most experienced journalists covering Russia, Andrew Kramer and … Continue reading “A Surprise Russian Ultimatum: New Draft Treaties To Roll Back NATO”

It is now the morning after the widely anticipated video conference tête-à-tête between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it is time to put our Kremlinology skills to work. By that I mean to say there is very little today in the public domain to provide clear answers to what may … Continue reading “Biden-Putin Summit: Who Won the Match of Wills?”

In my intense, nearly daily exchange of emails with the late Professor Steve Cohen in 2015 before and during our incorporation of The American Committee for East-West Accord, Steve often expressed his deep regret that American political dialogue on policy towards Russia had become so consolidated and closed to dissenting views, which were now vilified … Continue reading “Then and Now: Dissenters From American Foreign Policy on Russia in the 1980s and Today”