‘Dialogue Works’: edition of 3 September
In forty-five minutes of conversation, earlier this evening, host Nima Alkhorshid and I covered a lot of ground, and it would be unreasonable to go into detail here when a full transcript will likely become available for posting within the coming 24 hours.
Of course, the Kursk invasion was a major part of our chat – where it is headed and how long before we see the consequences of this misadventure of Mr. Zelensky’s team, namely the conquest of the Donbas straight to the Dniepr river and the very likely removal of Zelensky from power. A month from now or less, he may well be either on a plane to Miami or in a casket on its way to a cemetery.
As I explain in this interview, I see the removal of Zelensky foretold by the radical change in mainstream Western coverage of the war ever since the incursion into Kursk. We now get in The Financial Times, The New York Times, the BBC and similar media very detailed, correct and damning information about the desperate situation of the Ukrainians on the Donbas front lines now that their very best, most war hardened and NATO trained brigades were sent off to Kursk to fight and die. The Russian estimates of Ukrainian casualties in Kursk running at 8,500 men, with losses of 76 tanks and hundreds of armored personnel carriers and the like – all this is being carried now by Western media. I believe they have been given license by Washington to pin the military disaster on Zelensky’s chest so as to make it more understandable and acceptable when the puppet masters get rid of him.
As I also say in this interview, I do not believe that the imminent loss of Donbas by Ukraine by itself spells the end of the war. Kiev still has large numbers of troops, good defenses on the other side of the Dniepr. And the Russians have no appetite for engaging in the conquest of Western Ukraine, which is predominantly populated by Ukrainian speakers who will hate the Russians to their dying day and will be very difficult to govern.
Because the conquest of Donbas will not automatically result in the war’s end, the risks of its still escalating to a nuclear exchange between Russia and the European states most implicated in the war, between Russia and the United States remain with us.
For these reasons, it is imperative that the warring parties be encouraged by global powers like China, Brazil and South Africa to sit down and negotiate a cease fire and hopefully a permanent resolution of the conflict without delay. I found it interesting to note that whereas Mr. Putin a week ago was insisting that the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk made it impossible to negotiate with Kiev, yesterday, during his stay in Mongolia, he seemed to backtrack from this and to express an interest in negotiations.
Meanwhile, the changing political landscape in Germany coming out of this past Sunday’s elections in the former GDR lands of Saxony and Thuringia, where antiwar parties of the right and left did very well indeed and relegated the ‘legacy parties’ of Mr. Scholz’s cabinet to minority positions, holds out the hope that European support for the Ukrainians will be disrupted. On the left in particular, Sahra Wagenknecht is calling for an end to German contributions to the war effort, and hers may be the only party acceptable to the legacy parties to form a governing coalition.. It may well be the cut-off of such European will compel Kiev to sue for peace regardless of what happens in the November U.S. elections.
See Dr. Gilbert Doctorow | Russia’s New Strategy: The Game-Changer No One Saw Coming?
Of course, in wide-ranging on-air discussions like this it is inevitable to err here or there. As some listeners correctly commented, the 15 million ruble reward which the Russian government promised to any of its soldiers who brought down the first Ukrainian F-16 comes to 150,000 euros equivalent, not 15,000.
©Gilbert Doctorow