‘Judging Freedom’: edition of 5 September
Today’s discussion of the grim situation surrounding Kiev’s misadventure in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation that it invaded nearly a month ago was leavened by video clips from the latest surreal Congressional hearings into alleged misbehavior by the Russian global broadcaster RT. Indictments of Americans said to be in the pay of RT are now awaited, as they are charged with seeking to influence the coming presidential elections at the bidding of a foreign power. In fact, this is a McCarthyite style witch hunt that violates both spirit and legal protections of free speech in the U.S. constitution, as Judge Andrew Napolitano states at the conclusion of our chat.
As I said in the interview, if Congress wants to bring to justice disseminators of Russian propaganda, then they are going to have to arrest the lead reporters of The New York Times, The Financial Times and other mainstream which, since the first indications that the Zelensky gambit in Kursk was failing, have been bringing to their readers all the dismal news for Ukraine from the front lines that you will find to be indistinguishable from what is carried in Russian media.
Otherwise, the interview also dealt with the big cabinet changes in Kiev that yesterday removed from power the country’s very militant Foreign Minister, who was rumored to be a favorite of Washington to succeed Zelensky when Washington decides that his time is up.
The devastating Russian missile attack on the military communications institute in Poltava was another topic today. As I noted, the reported deaths in the attack have risen from an initial count of 41 or 50 to the latest estimate by Russian news of 200 killed and hundreds more wounded. By all accounts this was the most successful Russian attack on key military personnel, both Ukrainian and foreign instructors, since the start of the SMO. Notable, too, is the loss borne by Sweden. That there were Swedish ‘volunteers’ in Poltava was clear very quickly after the attack when their friends in Sweden confirmed their deaths. Obviously, the numbers were considerable, because earlier today Sweden’s Foreign Minister tendered his resignation.
As I mentioned online, the Swedes seem to have an unfortunate attachment to Poltava. This is where in 1709 the armies of their king Charles XII were decimated by the armies of Peter the Great in what was the decisive battle of the Northern War that put an end to Swedish imperial pretensions in East Central Europe. Now with the missile strike on the institute, Swedes lost round two.
I also used my time at the microphone to emphasize that the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian armies, the ‘crumbling of NATO before our eyes’ and other ‘breaking news’ statements these past several days of some of my peers on the leading video channels that we call alternative media are greatly exaggerated. I see in this the general human inclination to project as facts what is no more than our personal wishes. And I do not by any means exclude myself from occasionally falling into this trap.
To be more precise, I do not now see the war ‘ending on the battlefield,’ as Professor John Mearsheimer was saying in an interview on another channel yesterday. I assume he meant the Russians would be overrunning the last Ukrainian trenches and putting their flag atop the building of the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) just before what is left of the Ukrainian leadership signs papers of capitulation.
No, I cannot believe that Russians will cross the Dniepr river after liberating Donbas in the coming month or two to chase down and encircle what is left of the Ukrainian armed forces. That is a very big logistical challenge and it would be far more costly in Russian lives than Vladimir Putin is likely to risk. Instead, I think it is conceivable that the Russians will accelerate their bombing of Lvov/Lviv/Lemberg and Western Ukraine until they sue for peace or until their cities are flattened and most people flee to the EU as refugees.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
See Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Pressure on Putin’s Patience