“Judging Freedom” edition of 5 December 2024
In this session our discussion focused on two of the most important questions of the day:
1. what damage can the Oreshnik hypersonic missile do to justify its description as a game-changer in the Ukraine war and
2. whether the proposals to end the war in Ukraine put forward by Trump’s designated emissary, General Kellogg, will be accepted by the Russians and lead to an early cease-fire once Trump is inaugurated in January
The first question is so important because Vladimir Putin’s plans for responding to any further U.S., British and French provocations is now to concentrate his firepower on Ukraine, threatening to destroy its decision-making centers, meaning to kill Zelensky and his confederates by Oreshkin strikes, rather than to attack military installations in the United States or other NATO countries. We should assume that he knows the capability of his weapons when he takes such strategic decisions, but some of our experts, including MIT Professor emeritus Ted Postol are saying that Putin does not know what he is talking about, has been misled by his advisers.
The second question is in the news because a Kremlin insider, Konstantin Malofeyev, was featured this week in a Financial Times article, saying that Moscow finds the terms of the settlement drafted by General Kellogg to be utterly unacceptable. And then Kellogg responded publicly challenging Malofeyev’s credibility as a voice of the Russian President.
Of course, in our 30 minutes we covered several other key issues in the international news of the past week, in particular, what Russia is saying about who is the mastermind behind the Islamic ‘rebels’ storming of Aleppo and threatening the Assad regime; and whether Moscow will fight to save Bashar al-Assad as it did during 2015-2017.
See Dr. Gilbert Doctorow : Russia’s Next Moves.