Gilbert Doctorow : Ukraine War Hits Russians’ Pocketbooks

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-12

[00:00:03]Undeclared wars are commonplace.

[00:00:06]Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.

[00:00:19]To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.

[00:00:27]What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right?

[00:00:34]What if that government is best which governs least?

[00:00:38]What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?

[00:01:02]Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Npalitaniano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, May 6th, 2026. Professor Gilbert Doctoro. Well, Professor Dr. O was with us for a minute, but we seem to have lost him. Uh so he's coming to us from Hungary and has a lot of information to talk to us about the status of politics in Russia at the moment and I know that that's very much on his mind and that's of course what I want to ask him about uh as well. So Gilbert Doctoro are you out there?

[00:01:37]All right. He was just u he was just here. Um, I think I'm going to stay here and talk to you until Professor Dr. Row uh arrives. My column coming out uh this week, which you can catch on the Judge NAP pro series that we're uh producing, uh is called uh the Comey indictment and the freedom of speech. And in that column, I argue that the government can't prosecute Jim Comey for taking a picture of seashells on a beach because uh he has the right to do that under the first uh amendment. Interesting case I came across uh in doing my research. A young man in 1966 who was drafted and condemned the draft said as soon as I get a rifle in my hands the first sights will be set on Lynden Baines Johnson. It was the president at the time. Of course he was indicted and convicted of threatening the president. Supreme Court threw it out and said it was just speech. He didn't have the ability to harm the uh harm the president and he said it in front of an audience and there was no uh reaction. Looks like we're not uh succeeding in Here we go.

[00:02:50]All right. All right. You're back with us. Uh Gilbert, welcome back.

[00:02:58]Can you hear us?

[00:03:01]We can't hear you.

[00:03:02]>> Well, I'll tell you right now that there is a problem. I hear you. Okay. All right. We got you. We got you. So, welcome here. Uh, the audience was uh listening to me talk about free speech in America while you were dealing uh with internet uh issues to our conversation today. Is Russia winning its war against Ukraine?

[00:03:27]>> There is an internet issue here once again.

[00:03:30]Once again, there's double time. Uh, there's an echo. Two minute about 30 seconds after I make a statement. He's coming back to me.

[00:03:38]>> All right. I think we're both going to we're both going to log off. Chris, can we do this? We're both going to log off and uh and log back on.

[00:04:24]All right. How does that sound, Gilbert?

[00:04:26]Doctor, >> there's one of you and one of me. So, >> glad to hear it. Uh, back to where we attempted to start a few minutes ago.

[00:04:34]And with appreciation for your patience and with the audience patients, everybody's familiar with this internet problems that uh afflict all of us. I'm in New York City. Uh, Professor Dr. Row is in Hungary. Is Russia winning its war against Ukraine?

[00:04:52]>> Uh, two or three weeks ago, I would have said unequivocally yes. In fact, not just would have said, but I did say. And now in the present circumstances, I have to say nobody knows. uh the the notion that this was a stalemate and that Russia was not winning was the conventional um message coming from mainstream media.

[00:05:15]As you know, most of alternative media was saying absolutely opposite that Russia was on the cusp of a massive destruction of Ukraine and was winning the war in a matter of days to come. The latest news leaves me in very great doubt that anything like the latter narrative is any more true. And the what has changed things is the clear entry of massive new highly sophisticated missiles and drones on the Ukrainian side, probably coming from Great Britain.

[00:05:53]Uh yesterday there were 650 drone strikes against Russia. In one area in central in central Russia, dozens of homes were destroyed. A week ago in Sevastto, the capital of Crimea, 200 homes were destroyed by Ukrainian strike. We all know about the the destruction of uh port facilities for Russian oil export and of refineries in Russia. There was attack an attack two or three days ago on a major oil refinery uh situated between Moscow and St. Petersburg Kdishi. I know that place very well. It is an important provider of of petrol of gasoline to um distributors across northwestern Russia.

[00:06:44]These attacks are of a different nature, a different level of destruction than anything we've seen before. And to pretend that Russia reaching the nper will be the end of the war or Russia taking Adessa will be the end of the war is totally today irresponsible.

[00:07:04]The war will not end until the hunter in Kiev is utterly destroyed.

[00:07:11]>> Does uh President Putin understand that or stated it differently? as he finally reached the point where he's at the end of his own patience and recognizes the need to bring the war to a quick military end.

[00:07:29]>> We can come close to your second point.

[00:07:33]Judging by what President Putin said a day ago uh in light of the remarks made in Yeravan, that is in Armenia uh by uh the the um uh Zalinski speaking to the Europeans all of whom were gathered for a conference there and Zalinski said that um he did not accept Putin's notion of a two-day a truce for victory in Europe day the 8th and the 9th of of May and that his for armed forces intended to attack red square.

[00:08:14]The remarks of President Putin um later in the day as they were transmitted to us is breaking news on Russian state television news from coming from the department or the the ministry of defense. His remarks were that if there is any such attempted attack on Red Square, then Russia will use massive um missile and drone attack on the center of Kiev and that he warned the diplomatic community and the population of Kiev to leave the city. Now, that is as close as m as President Putin has come to satisfying the widespread and growing discontent and anger with the way the war is conducted among people in Russia. I don't talk about us abroad.

[00:09:09]I'm talking about the the um the um let's call it the establishment which sets the limits to what the president can do. Russia is not a dictatorship.

[00:09:22]Mr. Putin is subject to pressures from all sides. All sides those four more action those like those four um making a peace on on terms that are less favorable. All sides apply pressure to him. But the greatest pressure now is coming from this from the patriots who say enough is enough. Let's end this war before it gets worse. Did the Kremlin underestimate Ukraine, its military capabilities, the uh much as the United States has underestimated uh Iran, >> I think the parallel there is appropriate.

[00:10:00]Um, President uh Trump listened to MSAD instead of listening to the CIA. He heard what his own CIA people were telling him was an exaggerated and undependable appraisal of Iran's military might.

[00:10:19]The president Putin in February 2022 entered upon the special military operation against clearly against the best uh information of his closest associates starting with Shyu. Those of us who watched the announcement of the special military operation which had in the front row cabinet ministers including Shyu understood from their facial expressions that none of them was happy with that launch of a war. Now for various reasons they all had their own uh perspectives but one point which some of them must have known is that Russia's military forces were totally inadequate to the intentions of the special military operation and that President Putin had not asked the advice of his military uh intelligence people the same way that Donald Trump did not listen to the advice of the CIA. So there are parallels there in wars which two weeks ago we would have said we're going in opposite directions but as of the latest news of these drone strikes I'm afraid are going in the same direction.

[00:11:38]What is uh the Russian military going to do about this arrashnik at government buildings in Kev? I suppose he's being pressured to do that.

[00:11:51]At the same time, there is a certain um lack of vigor in the announcement that looks like a like a serious threat. If uh President Putin would take into account the way the world is running now where might makes right and there are no international laws that any major power is listening to let alone heeding.

[00:12:20]he would do the obvious when he received a direct threat to uh make a mass to make a damaging attack on the uh events in Red Square that is threatening the life of the Russian president, threatening the lives of his invited guests like Robert Fitzo from Slovakia and threatening the military personnel on that parade. The logical action in th that context would have been to give 24-hour notice at once because we're going to destroy you. He didn't do that.

[00:12:53]He's waiting for them to make an attack and what? Kill hundreds or thousands of soldiers on Red Square. Kill him and the invited guests. That will be the good basis for a strike on Kiev. I'm sorry. I don't buy it. has um the execution of the war and its attendant consequences caused Russia to lose influence in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East and in Africa.

[00:13:25]>> Well, a lot of countries are losing influence and a lot of countries are losing credibility these days. So, Russia would not be alone in that circle. But of course, it does not do credit to Russia to be seen as weak. And the present situation is precisely that.

[00:13:42]Russia looks weak when it has no reason to be in terms of its ability to defend itself. It has the wherewithal, but what it seems to lack is the will to use that wherewithal.

[00:13:55]>> Where is um foreign minister Sergey Lavough the smartest person in the room?

[00:14:01]And I I say that sincerely, not sarcastically.

[00:14:05]Uh where is he on all this? Is he saying, "Vladimir, let's get this over with before it consumes us." And then I'm going to ask you about the economic consequences of this. But before we get to >> the influ the the effect of this on the pocketbooks of average uh Russians, do you have views or do you have knowledge of the interaction between Putin and Lavough?

[00:14:32]>> No, I don't have a special reading on that. But I will say that judging going back three, four months, it is seemed to me that Lavough is caught between a rock and a hard place. He has wavered this way and wavered that way. He was first antagonistic to the message coming from his own deputy Serge Kov that diplomacy was finished and this battle this war would be resolved on the battlefield and then a month later he came around to the same position which is an anti-Putin position to be frank about it. Now he cannot hold that for long and stay and keep his post because there the two of them have to work in synchronization. So he's in a difficult position. I think he uh he's listening to the critics. His own deputy is a critic of the very mild uh way this war is being conducted. But he has to also maintain um dialogue and uh and some semblance of agreement with his boss, President Putin.

[00:15:39]>> Let me segue just a little bit off of Russia and Ukraine and stick with um Lavough. Mhm.

[00:15:47]>> What does Lavough think as far as you can determine uh Gilbert of the Laurel and Hardy team sent to negotiate in behalf of the United States, Kushner and Woodco?

[00:16:00]>> He cannot >> has forgotten more than these two together have ever known. I he cannot have very kind words for them because they set the precedent for uh his boss uh President Putin appointing Demetri, the equivalent of those two clowns uh to be his emissary to the negotiations.

[00:16:23]Demitrif was a terrible choice. He is in his own way a buffoon. Uh yes, he's a very highly educated, but the others aren't stupid. The question is not stupidity. The question is political orientation and he is an American asset.

[00:16:39]He is not a Russian asset. So in that sense I think Lavough must be very very unhappy. Uh the appointment of Dmitri took the negotiations out of the hands of his own ministry and put it in the hands of Ushakov who was no longer in his ministry but has for for I think close to a decade been a special adviser of foreign affairs to to President Putin and to Dmitri who was working together handinand with uh um with us. These are in a liberal camp. I've said before, Russia has its different camps. Liberals uh who we call westernizers and uh more traditional conservative patriots. Um the uh the Lavro I think is closer to the p to the traditional patriots. Um the the Demetri Ushakov side is the liberal westernizers for his own business reasons. Demetri has good reasons for making peace with the United States at any price.

[00:17:47]>> This is consistent with uh the allegations against Kushner and Woodco being war profiteeers as to compound their ignorance of Russia, their ignorance of Ukraine, their ignorance of uh of Iran. Let me go back to President Putin. Why did he meet with the Iranian foreign minister Arachi?

[00:18:12]>> Well, in the west uh most most of the mainstream and I think a good part of my peers in alternative are seeing this uh as a message given by Putin that he backs uh the Iranian cause in every which way. Uh I take it the contrary view. I think that uh it was in at the initiative of Arachi, not of Putin that this took place. After all, it wasn't in the Moscow. It took place where Putin happened to be at the moment, which was in St. Petersburg. And uh it was served the purposes of the Iranians to have a highest level meeting with the Russians to give a message that it cannot be properly deciphered in Washington. Maybe the Russians and the Iranians are really cooking up something together. And maybe they're not. No one knew or could know in Washington. So you had to assume the worst. And that's precisely what uh what I must have wanted. There the closing statements about this. As we know that President Putin has said in his talk to his telephone conversation with Donald Trump which followed um several days later in the same week that Russia gives its um its full support to Iran. But then after the three dots, you find out what kind of support, diplomatic support. That isn't going to change the the balance of power between Iran and the United States. It's not going to save Iran. This was not a military alliance that was being held out.

[00:19:45]Yeah. We don't know what the Russians are giving to the Iranians besides intelligence, but um this was not a threat by by Putin to Donald Trump that that Russia would intervene in Iran's favor. It was not.

[00:20:02]>> The uh White House claims Trump called Putin. The Kremlin says Putin called Trump. I think the Kremlin's version is probably more credible here. But what do you think President Putin's purpose was?

[00:20:15]uh in calling President Trump. Surely if if he's going to make a veiled threat, but it's just diplomatic, Trump's people would advise him that it's just diplomatic. You have nothing to worry about.

[00:20:27]>> Well, there are a number of things they could have had in mind. One of them is a deal that I could describe in exactly the opposite terms from way the New York Times or the Financial Times are describing it. um that um Putin would be proposing uh we'll help you get off get off this message that you've made in with Iran if you'll help us uh solve the problem with with uh Kiev by stopping your supply of military intelligence and and so forth that the way it's usually presented is that Trump was telling Putin that um he would uh he would stop supply gate to to uh Kiev. If if um Putin would persuade the the Iranians to capitulate, >> that would take um a thunderbolt from heaven to persuade them of that. What did Putin Why did Putin call Netanyahu?

[00:21:31]>> This I don't know. Their relations are uh shall we say they're stable. Uh they are not hostile. Uh the Russians make a big deal about their ability to speak to all sides in the Middle East and therefore that they are a potential brokers of a peace. But um they could have been a hidden warning against taking a strike on Iran. I don't know.

[00:21:57]Has the special military operation uh just like uh Trump's war in Iran affecting American pocketbooks? Has the special military operation after four years finally affecting Russian pocketbooks?

[00:22:16]>> It is, but the reasons in each case are quite different. I'll only focus on the Russian case. It is self-inflicted damage.

[00:22:24]um that what is going on is a very clumsy conversion of Russia's broadly based economy to from uh to a war economy at the expense of the consumer economy part and this is carried had been carried out by a policy of extremely high interest rates uh from the central bank of Russia administered by by its um its director um uh Elvier Mabulina uh and which has a 21% uh le prime rate when the inflation was 8 to 10%. So this was sold to the public as a means of fighting inflation when my argument is it has precisely the opposite effect. It is feeding inflation because the effect of these high high interest rates uh on the consumer economy was to drive a lot of consumer producers out of business that working capital at 20% peranom is not feasible.

[00:23:25]The large military industries many of whom are owned by oligarchs were receiving heavily subsidized loans uh thanks to the ministry of finance. But the small and medium-sized companies that are typical producers of hot dogs and all kinds of and clothing and other consumer goods, they were not receiving any subsidies. They're driven out of business. So at the very moment when more money is coming to the hands of the Russian public through these high subsidies for signing up for the war through the uh regrettable to say the payment of uh of blood money for the uh for those soldiers who die in action uh and through the very heavy um use of otherwise um lost industry across Russia. which are given uh small jobs to do just to uh to serve the military industry. There has been more money in circulation at the same time when goods to buy in circulation have stagnated or fallen for the very reason the production has been taken out from bankruptcies. Uh so if you look at it from a big level the Russian economy is suffering. We know this not my speculation. President Putin himself acknowledged that in the first two months of this year the Russia was in a negative GDP. They lost one and a half percent. Uh whereas in in years two and three of the war they had plus 4% and the president was crowing about how his country had survived the sanctions from from hell of Victoria Nuland and was doing splendidly. is not doing splendidly to now and the political consequences of this bad economy may very well be felt in the parliamentary elections in September.

[00:25:14]>> Can Putin govern with the uh strength and personal determination with which he's been governing if his party doesn't have a majority in the legislature?

[00:25:24]It depends on who is the beneficiary of the loss of of majority position of his ruling party, the United Russia party.

[00:25:32]If indeed the communists who were were from the 1990s the second largest party in Russia uh with close to 20% 18 20% uh balloting for them if they succeed in in taking votes away from United Russia which is possible then he will he will have a more difficult time managing parliament and may have to do a lot of his governing through decree which is what happened the whole 1990s when President Yelson had an oppositional communist dominated parliament Duma. So it could change the nature of Russian governance not in a way that President Putin would like.

[00:26:15]>> Wow. Uh Gilbert Dr. Thank you very much.

[00:26:19]Thanks for uh overcoming the internet issues and thanks for your insight as always my dear friend. Safe travels.

[00:26:25]We'll look forward to seeing you next week.

[00:26:27]>> My pleasure.

[00:26:28]>> Thank you. Coming up later today at 10 this morning if you're watching us live in 90 minutes live from Thrron.

[00:26:37]Professor Muhammad Mirandi at 11 this morning. Professor Glenn Diesen at 2 this afternoon I think he's in China Pepe Escobar. At 3 this afternoon the great Phil Geraldi judge Npalit town for judging freedom.

[00:27:01]Heat.

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