Some additional thoughts to bring good cheer
Yesterday evening I tuned in to the Vladimir Solovyov talk show hoping to hear a serious discussion of the causes and significance of Victoria Nuland’s resignation, which caught so many of us unawares earlier in the day. However, in the first fifteen or twenty minutes, the discussion rambled in all directions about the coming attack on Russia from Europe, about how Russia had always defeated the European attackers in decades and centuries past, about how escalation of the Ukraine war to nuclear exchange remains a distinct possibility, greater than during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, etc. That is to say, the discussion was stuck in the same rut as in days past, as if nothing had happened in the USA just hours earlier worth mentioning.
At first, I thought that perhaps the show was taped before the news of Victoria Nuland’s resignation reached Russia. After all, the Solovyov show is regularly pre-recorded in the afternoon Moscow time. However, a few minutes later one of the panelists mentioned in passing Nuland’s departure from State, so they all did know about it. I was puzzled by the clear failure of the windbag panelists and of Solovyov himself to recognize what was in front of their noses.
Today’s late morning edition of the Sixty Minutes talk show paid more attention to Nuland, though the moderator, Olga Skabeeva, expressed the same deep pessimism as had Solovyov about the still existing risks of war. She directed attention to Macron’s speeches last week in Paris and again yesterday in Prague about Europe sending to Ukraine regular military detachments for one purpose or another. His latest proposal was to install NATO troops along the Ukraine-Belarus border, replacing the 150,000 or so Ukrainian soldiers there now and releasing them for repositioning along the line of confrontation with the Russians.
Fortunately, there was one panelist on hand to address these layman anxieties, a panelist named Yevgeny Buzhinsky, Lt. General in the Reserves, who appears regularly on both Sixty Minutes and on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov show. The difference is that whereas he is constantly interrupted by Solovyov with irrelevant and often frivolous questions, Skabeeva mostly let him say his words of comfort to their audience without hectoring. Indeed, on shows like Sixty Minutes you can say almost anything you like, so long as you finish off your remarks with assurances that “we will win” in Ukraine.
Buzhinsky told Skabeeva directly ‘to calm down,’ ‘to relax’ because all of Russia’s former ‘partners,’ now ‘opponents’ if not ‘enemies’ appreciate full well that the game is up now that the Russians took Avdeevka, the fortress city which the Americans had deemed invulnerable. Moreover, following Putin’s remarks in his State of the Union address, Pentagon officials now see that they face a very serious Russian response to any dispatch of troops to Kiev, to any use of long range missiles to strike within the Russian Federation.
At this point it bears mention that Buzhinsky likely had ample opportunity to take readings on his Western officer counterparts from his eighteen years of service in responsible positions within the International Treaty Administration of the RF Ministry of Defense. He is a graduate of the prestigious Frunze Military Academy and holds a Ph.D. in military sciences. In retirement, Buzhinsky is today a member of several NGO think tanks on international security issues.
‘But what about the dimwit, Biden, does he understand the risks of challenging Russia?’ Skabeeva asked.
Dementia or no, Biden has gotten the message, per Buzhinsky. And in any case, those around him understand and under long-existing procedures no one leader can on his own press the mythical ‘red button.’ This was demonstrated back in the final days of Nixon’s tenure when the Pentagon boss instructed his subordinates not to follow any orders coming from Nixon that he did not countersign.
In short, Buzhinsky argued that there will be no dispatch of NATO forces to Ukraine. Apart from France, he said, the only countries agreeing to participate directly in the conflict are the Baltic States, each of which has no more than 5,000 or 10,000 men at arms in total. As for the Czech republic, whose president yesterday seemed to approve Macron’s call to dispatch troops, that is all empty rhetoric since the Czech units serving in NATO have a very narrow mission relating to chemical warfare, and have no suitable troops ready for service in Ukraine. What they all want is for the United States to send troops, and Biden has more than ten times explicitly said that there will be no American troops in Ukraine.
Skabeeva persisted, making reference to what one or another Western leader has been saying. At this point, Buzhinsky cut her off with a bit of old Russian folk wisdom: “у языка нет костей”. Literally this translates as “a tongue has no bones.” In proper English, we would say “talk is cheap.”
I suspect that Buzhinsky’s confidence that the situation on the Western front is under control as Russia advances was helped along by news of Nuland’s departure. At any rate, his habitual restraint was not evident today.
*****
For those who have never watched Russia’s talk shows broadcast in Russian to the domestic audience, allow me to explain that for decades they have been a source of entertainment as well as information for a broad swath of the population. Shouting matches were not only tolerated by the audience but were eagerly expected.
From my own experience as an invited guest panelist on most national channels in 2016, I understood that the same dozen experts from universities and think tanks were spending the greater part of the day serving on various shows. Their availability to appear in the studio on short notice to comment on breaking news was a factor in their being ‘in the pool.’ I assume that they got some modest compensation.
Back in 2016, before the isolation of Russia from the Western world that came with Covid and then with the sanctions relating to the Special Military Operation, there was always one or another panelist from the USA or elsewhere in the West to play the special role of devil’s advocate and take a verbal lashing from the host and/or other panelists. It was rumored that one of these foreigners, a certain journalist named Michael Bohm, was earning over $100,000 per year from his guest appearances on multiple channels each weekday. Bohm is a gifted linguist who made good use of Russian folk expressions. He was also a reliable purveyor of the CIA narrative on any issue. Those days of invitees from ‘unfriendly nations’ are, of course, long past.
I referred to the panelists on the Solovyov show last night as ‘windbags’ but that is not true every evening. Some days he has a strong collection of experts. And on others, like the evening following Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation Address, Solovyov assembled a powerful group of legislators to comment on the speech, including Alexei Pushkov, Senator from the ruling United Russia party, committee chairman in the upper chamber of the legislature; Alexander Babakov, Duma member who works closely with the Just Russia party of Sergei Mironov; and a Duma committee chairman from the Communist Party. All had been picked up by the cameras scanning the audience in the Gostinny Dvor hall during the live transmission of Putin’s speech.
*****
I close this essay with some remarks on Victoria Nuland’s resignation.
A former CIA analyst who should know better yesterday speculated that perhaps she left due to health problems given that she is grossly overweight.
However, saying that Nuland left for health reasons is the same as saying that Navalny died of natural causes. It is to ignore coincidental timing of her departure with other relevant developments all of which establish circumstantial evidence pointing in other directions.
This same analyst suggested an alternative explanation that does take timing into account: that Nuland was reacting to a speech made last week by Vice President Kamala Harris directly criticizing Israel for its ongoing atrocities in Gaza. This would have suggested to Nuland that her control over U.S. policy amounting to full support for Israel whatever it does is coming to an end.
However, I find the notion that anything said by Kamala Harris would cause Nuland to depart is not persuasive. This rhino skinned ideologically driven lady needed a kick in the ass to leave, not a pout over diminished influence going forward.
And the kick in the ass had to be the fiasco over the Bundeswehr plot for using the Taurus to attack Russia. Let us remember that Nuland had been working in cahoots with Pentagon officials over a year ago to get long range American missiles delivered to Kiev, and she was said at the time to be acting in opposition to the more cautious approach of her boss, Antony Blinken. It is easy to imagine Nuland reaching out to Bundeswehr generals for the same purpose over recent months. And then thanks to the audio tapes released by the Russians, this plot was exposed and the threads all led back to her. Thus, the kick in the ass administered corporate style, which means she was released with all honors and surely with additional compensation against the legally binding obligation to keep her mouth shut.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
all the best