Dr Gilbert Doctorow on Russian war fatigue, Kremlin hawks, and the limits of restraint
Glenn Diesen interviews Dr Gilbert Doctorow, historian and political analyst, on the state of Russian public opinion, the growing pressure on Putin to escalate, and the strategic dilemma facing the Kremlin.
Summary
Glenn Diesen speaks with Dr Gilbert Doctorow, author of the War Diaries volumes, about the situation inside Russia following years of NATO-backed Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory. Doctorow reports widespread war weariness among ordinary Russians — from working-class movers to real estate professionals — and argues that if Russian pollsters asked the right questions, roughly 80% of the population would disapprove of how the war is being conducted. He describes a political environment where Kremlin hawks are growing louder in demanding decisive escalation against Ukraine, including strikes on government districts in Kyiv, while Putin himself remains in what Doctorow calls a "late Gorbachev phase" of empty speechifying disconnected from meaningful action. Doctorow warns that Russia's continued restraint is eroding its deterrence credibility, that European rearmament is proceeding on a timeline aimed at a direct war with Russia by 2029–2030, and that the only strategically coherent path remaining is the complete military destruction of Ukraine as a functional proxy — not attacks on European NATO members.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and the state of Russian public opinion
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We are joined again by Dr Gilbert Doctorow, a historian, political analyst, and author of the War Diaries volumes. Thank you for coming back on the program.
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: My pleasure.
Glenn Diesen: It appears that Russia has painted itself into a bit of a corner. Over the past four-plus years, NATO gradually increased its direct role in the attacks on Russia. Initially they were minor, then growing, and Russia seemed to make the decision that it was better to absorb the pain and rather focus on defeating the Ukrainian proxy through this war of attrition. The reason I say it has painted itself into a corner is that two things appear to have happened. One is that the NATO attacks are no longer small pinpricks — the long-range drones and missiles are well supplied by the West, well targeted, picked by the West, and of course directed by Western satellites. The second is that NATO countries, as a result of this, are no longer deterred. There seems to be a very firm belief that they can strike Russia with impunity. Anyone who disagrees is seen as someone coming to Russia's defense and has to be purged from polite discourse.
This creates a very dangerous position for Russia. It must escalate in a big way, otherwise the attacks will only increase in intensity and NATO will become even more convinced that Russia would never dare to respond — hence the Europeans can talk openly about going to war with Russia without any consequences. I was wondering how you see the situation. You spent quite a bit of time in Russia. What is happening there at the moment?
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: I spent a month in Petersburg and I met with people in all walks of life. I don't mean taxi drivers and hairdressers — I mean all walks of life. I was there on business as well as journalistic and fact-finding activity. I met with one of St. Petersburg's leading notaries. I met with an outstanding member of the real estate brokerage company that is the successor to Century 21 in Russia. These are people who have their fingers on the pulse of the middle classes — people who are buying and selling apartments not as speculators but for their own use, who are following mortgage rates and all kinds of things. They listen to people.
What they had to say was exactly the same thing I heard from the head of a moving team — working class by definition — with whom I spent twelve hours. This was not a cursory conversation; he was moving things out of our apartment, which we had just sold. We talked, and this fellow's question was: why is Putin dragging it out? He was thinking the same way as academics and professional geopoliticians. It is everywhere. It's everywhere except in the Russian polls, because they're asking the wrong question. Do you like Putin? Yes, people like Putin. People like the increase in their pensions and so on. That's not the question to be asked. The question is: do you approve of the conduct of the war? And I think if that question were asked today, you'd get something like 20% in favor of what Putin is doing and 80% against it.
As I said, I heard more or less the same thing from everyone. This doesn't mean that anyone is going out into the streets to demonstrate — nothing of the sort — but they talk among themselves. And you have the experience of real hardship being imposed on the border provinces, which are not being supplied necessarily by Western drones but by Ukrainian-manufactured drones in vast quantities, making life quite miserable for people in the oblasts adjacent to Ukraine, not to mention in Crimea, which has been particularly targeted.
I've spoken in the past about having friends who have a tiny house — I mean tiny — that they bought for $100 in 1995–96 when it was still Ukrainian. They go back every summer; twenty-five summers in a row they've gone there. Now they have very few neighbors who came, because of the risks, the fears of drones which are omnipresent, and the problems of transport getting there. The Crimean bridge is shut down at times. Today's news from Russia says there are a thousand cars waiting to pass the bridge.
Our friends are on a hill — you don't get an apartment in Feodosia for $100; they got a little shack on a hill. A hill is a hill. It's a long climb, and they don't climb — they're seniors. For years they had a Crimean Tatar driver who did taxi services for people in the area and took them up and down. He doesn't have any gasoline. So they are stuck up there with limited provisions and no ability to enjoy the beach below. They're cut off from communications as well — telephone, WhatsApp, and the rest of it come and go. They're not having a good time, and this is widely known in Russia.
That's not to say that all life is miserable. I took a photograph when I was in Petersburg which I entitled "War in Russia?" It was in the very center of Petersburg, a street that runs down to the Church on the Blood, just off Nevsky Prospect — a pedestrian street along the canal, the canal which leads to the church where Alexander II was blown up. It's all restaurants. It was a lovely day, temperature in the mid-twenties centigrade, the street life was busy, the waiters were attentive, the food was excellent, and you could imagine there was no war whatsoever.
Except that if you knew what had happened the week before — when the International Economic Forum opened — the Ukrainians had drone-attacked a fuel storage and refinery at the end of Vasilievsky Island, which is part of central Petersburg, sending black plumes up into the sky which were unmistakable. They had reached Petersburg with their drones. So the awareness of the war has come home. War weariness is omnipresent.
I don't even speak about the increasing numbers of amputees and other people mutilated by the war whom you see. I was in a bank branch twice doing some transactions, and twice there was in the reception area a double amputee whose affairs were being handled by the bank. The war is there. The Russians are tired, and they don't like what they see in terms of the present handling of the war by the administration of Vladimir Putin.
The strategic dilemma: restraint versus escalation
Glenn Diesen: That seems to be the objective, though. As the Finnish Prime Minister Stubb made the point, the only way for this war to end is when the people turn on his government. So for this to be achieved, they have to kill more Russians and bring the war home to Russia, make it felt by Russians. They're quite open about it. But where does that leave the options now for the Kremlin? Because it does appear that the former strategy of restraint is not working — it's only emboldening its adversaries. On one hand, they know that Zelenskyy is trying to bait them into a direct war with NATO. On the other hand, they know that if they don't respond, their deterrence is essentially useless.
I saw Zelenskyy make a speech saying he will do a major strike on Crimea, but first he has to consult with the G7 countries — making it very clear that the NATO countries are all in on the attacks on Russia. This dilemma — being baited by Zelenskyy to pull NATO into the war versus simply making European NATO countries a safe zone for industrial production and logistics while the Europeans are now very openly striking Russia — is a very dangerous situation. Where are the discussions going? Because I see a lot of uproar among what we can call the hawks in the Kremlin, who want Zelenskyy killed, who want the government districts of Kyiv bombed, who want the use of tactical nuclear weapons if the Europeans get involved. There seems to have been — maybe not with Putin yet, but among the hawks — a growing number and increasingly fierce rhetoric. Do you see any shifts?
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: I see big shifts. But let's come back to the strategy of Zelenskyy and his Western backers — to bait the Russians, to bring the war home to Russians, and the belief that this will make them revolt against Putin, bringing down his government. Russia is not in a pre-revolutionary situation. Even Zyuganov, the Communist Party leader — who should know something about revolutions — when he spoke three months ago about the dangers facing the government from its policy, he was speaking about economic policy, which is a safe thing to talk about in the Duma. If he had touched upon the real issue creating a political crisis in Russia — the war — that would have been less well received among his peers. But what he was describing was a pre-February 1917 situation, which I believe is the case: a palace coup situation, where it is the people in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin who overthrow President Putin. That is one possible outcome.
The main point I want to make is that in getting the public excited and putting pressure on President Putin, the consequence within Russia is exactly the opposite of what these grand strategists advising or pressuring Zelenskyy — and leading the European Union towards a war with Russia — anticipate. The Russians who express their dissatisfaction with the slow, imperceptible movement towards a conclusion of the war are not defeatists. They expect Russia to win, but they don't want it to go on for ten more years.
Now, I didn't hear from anyone, frankly speaking, the advice from the hawks that we should bomb the hell out of Kyiv. The people I talked to were silent on that point. I don't know how keen they are to end the war by violent escalation — that question never really came up directly in our conversations. But my surmise is: where else can you go if you say you want to end the war tomorrow without capitulating? It would have to be by a major escalation.
I don't know whether there will be a palace coup. It's not unthinkable. People say Putin has the full support of the military and so on. Well, Gorbachev wasn't exactly walking on eggs when he was retained on his vacation in Crimea — he was more or less moved out of power. That was a classic definition of a coup. That it failed is another issue. But the possibility exists in a place like Russia, with the stability and calm of the people, for there to be a coup. Of course there is. So that is one possibility.
The other possibility is that President Putin, as an accomplished politician, will come around to changing his policy. I've been asked about what he said recently in his address to graduating cadets — that a war with Europe is coming — and he sounded like he's getting tougher. Frankly, I have for more than fifteen years closely followed speeches by President Putin. I analyzed them, tried to make sense of them, listened closely to his remarks at his annual direct line conversations with the public and his speeches at Valdai. I was very admiring of him for his intellectual capacity, his fantastic memory, his command of the facts, and I gave him all due credit for that, as well as for reviving the Russian economy and military.
At a certain point I lost my enthusiasm for that type of exercise, and frankly speaking I find it hard to listen to any of his speeches now. He has gone into the late Gorbachev phase — let's call it by its proper name — a cult of personality. Every news program has to begin with ten or fifteen minutes of speeches from Putin. Every talk show has to begin the same way. This is ridiculous. And worst of all, nothing comes out of his speeches. I follow his actions just as I stopped listening to Trump — I only see what he does. And what he does has been utterly inadequate to the challenges Russia's national security is facing today, and still worse to the threats that Russian national security will face at the end of this year, when still more damaging missiles and drones will be ready in serial production to be supplied by the West to Kyiv.
Glenn Diesen: We might be a bit too early to assess, though, because this is a similar situation to what Russia faced towards the end of 2021 — NATO was essentially posing a dilemma by building up Ukraine and preparing it to retake Crimea. Essentially: capitulate or choose war. And Russia chose war. It just seems that the situation Russia is now faced with is not stable. There's no holding on to a status quo because that is disappearing. I feel it's going to go the other way at some point. This whole NATO strategy — Russia must capitulate or go to war — I see that Putin doesn't want the war option given that it means going outside Russia's escalation control, which can quickly escalate to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. But that being said, I haven't read a history book where the Russians capitulate either. So it just seems like this is where we're headed.
Zelenskyy's threats against Belarus
Glenn Diesen: I wanted to ask about another issue — Zelenskyy's threats against Belarus. He threatened to go to war against Belarus. I thought either this is just pressure, or it's a way of pulling NATO into the war. Either way, he seems to have been walking this back. Do you think this is the end of it, or is Belarus being pulled into this war as well?
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: Most major Western media, to my knowledge, did not pay much attention to this issue. To my surprise, La Libre Belgique, the second most important French-speaking daily newspaper in Belgium, gave two full pages to this very issue about three days ago. And still more curiously, they were putting forward as their own analysis talking points that I had read in Russian news — without credit, taking up Russian talking points on this very issue.
The most important relevant item here is that the Russians were saying, and La Libre Belgique repeated, that the threats Zelenskyy made were imposed on him when he was in the meeting with the G7. The European members of the G7 told him, "This is what you're going to do next, and if you don't do it, we can't guarantee your personal security." That's a pretty clear message. And so he did it.
What did he do? He threatened that if within one week Lukashenko, president of Belarus, doesn't deactivate the electronic devices at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border — which according to Zelenskyy are enabling Russian drones and missiles to properly target objectives in western Ukraine as they fly past — then Belarus would deactivate them by force, and also attack 500 sites in Belarus that he said are labeled as targets for Ukrainian forces.
For several days there was no response from President Lukashenko. We know that a day ago he went for consultations with Vladimir Putin, but he went to them after he did make a statement. He apparently met with two emissaries from Zelenskyy — I believe it was on Thursday — and he told them: if you start a war with us, or if you do what you've threatened, then the whole nature of this war will change. Let me decode those three dots. That means he's going to attack Kyiv. He will do what Putin is not ready to do.
Lukashenko is not Putin. Six years ago, Lukashenko stood up to violent demonstrators in the streets who were supporting Tikhanovskaya, the failed presidential candidate backed by Lithuania and Poland. He went out to the streets with a machine gun, with his son also holding a machine gun. I don't picture Vladimir Putin doing that. Nor did the Ukrainian president do that when he was challenged at Maidan. So I think it is entirely credible that the three dots in Lukashenko's subtle threat meant: we will decapitate too, even if our brethren in Moscow aren't up to doing it.
That was the end of that. I don't believe Zelenskyy will dare attack Belarus. This is the absurd situation: if someone doesn't respect your deterrence — which is what the NATO countries are doing against Russia — they probably wouldn't dare do the same against Belarus or a country like North Korea, precisely because the response would be unpredictable. Russia made itself very predictable by being cautious.
Glenn Diesen: As a European living in Europe, I'm kind of happy about the caution. But on the other hand, I also see the danger in a great power not having its deterrent respected anymore. It's not sustainable, and at some point Russia will have to do something very drastic. I think the things it could have done in 2022, when the first HIMARS and all these weapons were sent — it could have done something minor and restored its deterrent. Now essentially the Europeans and Americans have already set up a narrative: the Russians are considering striking Europe in a hybrid war, so all of this will be framed as unprovoked. This is essentially how they've set up the narrative — that this is a continuation of the war against Ukraine, that the prophecy is true that Ukraine was just the beginning.
The fact that they are deterred by Belarus and other minor states but not by the world's largest nuclear power shows that some decisions have not been made correctly in the Kremlin. But on the American participation in all of this — one of the reasons for Putin's restraint in 2025 was the belief that it would be possible to make a deal with the Americans, the spirit of Anchorage. That appears to be dead in the water. Was this diplomacy all nonsense, or are the diplomatic paths essentially now absent?
Putin's Western orientation and the limits of diplomacy
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: The reasons why that policy was put in place — let's be frank about it. Vladimir Putin always wanted some accommodation with the West. How did he come to power? How did he enter politics? He was Anatoly Sobchak's man for bringing Western investment, particularly German investment, because he was a fluent German speaker who invited many high-level guests from the German business world. So from the very start of his career he was deeply involved in and interested in accommodation with the West and Western investment. That never went away. His government team has always been balanced between some hardliners and a very significant minority of powerful liberals — with a capital L — coming out of the Yeltsin period. That remains: Siluanov the finance minister is in that category, Nabiullina who heads the Central Bank of Russia is in that category, holding a lot of power and running in absolutely the opposite direction of the geopolitical ministers within the cabinet.
Russia's strategic endgame and the risk of a pyrrhic victory
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: A lot of my colleagues hold the belief that when Russia reaches the Dnieper — which is entirely possible at the end of the summer or early autumn, although the progress has been vastly slowed down by fierce drone attacks on the battlefield — let's assume they find a solution and Russia does reach the Dnieper. Well, that doesn't mean the capitulation of Ukraine. Not at all. Even if they take Odessa, it doesn't mean the capitulation of Ukraine. This is a fiction that my colleagues seem to maintain for reasons I don't understand.
Ukraine is receiving $95 billion in aid and still more military and financial aid from the EU. It has no reason to capitulate. And it will be exactly what Putin didn't want to have — what prompted him to initiate the special military operation — that Ukrainian territory is used as a base for attacking Russia. Russia now is not just what Russia was in 2014. Russia is now what it is after 2022: it includes the Donbas, which is now also Russia. And there are people whose lives are being made miserable and untenable in Crimea and in the now Russian-controlled part of former Ukraine, who will be under constant attack as they were before 2022, while NATO military installations and supplies will be running in full steam.
Is that what Russia has achieved by five years of war? I would call that a Pyrrhic victory. That is not a victory. The only thing that could prevent a full-scale NATO installation in Ukraine would be if Russia finally declared war on Ukraine and made clear that anything coming in from outside will be subject to devastation. That could happen. But this is not an end of war of the kind that Colonel MacGregor or other colleagues have been describing on programs like this. It is an ongoing draining of Russian resources and infrastructure destruction in a period that allows Europe to rearm and prepare for a real war on Russia in 2030 or 2029. That is a very miserable legacy for President Putin to leave behind.
What the Kremlin hawks are demanding
Glenn Diesen: As a final question — what do you think are the main options now for Russia? What are the hawks in the Kremlin demanding? Do you hit the puppet or the proxy — Ukraine — because without Ukraine the Europeans can't continue, and it's a good way of avoiding a direct war with NATO which could lead to nuclear war? Or is it time to go after the Europeans? I can't imagine retaliating against American territory, not at this point. But where are they pushing hardest? Because at every round of escalation it's the Ukrainians who get the punishment, but this doesn't mean anything to the NATO states. They're not counting Ukrainian losses. If anything, they're continuing to block every pathway to peace. So what are we looking at?
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: I support the first scenario you just described. I see no reason for Russia to attack any of the European countries that are producing these munitions. Although there's a logic to it and although it would be permitted under international law, I think it would be counterproductive and would entirely violate the prudence and risk-adversity of the Russian side. So I think it's improbable that scenario would play out.
Although let me be frank: more passionate colleagues in the alternative media are saying that it's a nice cover-up for anyone who might suspect weakness, timidity, or cowardice on the Russian side to say, "Oh no, the Russians are preparing to brutally attack Germany." That's their latest talking point on these podcasts. I don't agree.
I think the Russians would be following the first course you described — concentrating efforts on the proxy, for the very reason you gave. You eliminate the proxy and Western Europe will have to stop all its preparations for war, because their boys aren't going to be going against the Russians. The Europeans want to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, just as Biden was very happy to do. They don't have the boys to send. And if they did, there would be a revolution on the streets of Paris over geopolitics if Macron or his successor dared to introduce a draft and send people off to fight the Russians. They want a war that the Ukrainians are fighting.
If Russia, by devastating all the military centers, coordination centers, and military intelligence centers, reduces them to ashes — end of game. People will say, "Oh yes, the Ukrainians will fight on as a guerrilla war." So what? Russia is not afraid of a guerrilla war on the other side of the Dnieper. It has every reason to fear military installations and military supplies coming from the West which enable and guide Ukrainian attacks on Russian critical infrastructure indefinitely.
The former ten-year-long Minister of Energy in Russia, presently Deputy Prime Minister Novak, said two days ago that the situation with fuel in Russia — fuel for cars and agricultural equipment — is under serious threat but manageable. When this man says there's a serious problem, there is a serious problem. Today's news on the Russian ticker tape, which I read this morning, says there is record demand for gas canisters across Russia today. People are running out to buy gas canisters across Russia, not just in Crimea. That tells you that the effect of these attacks on Russian refineries is real, not just a pinprick. If this type of war goes on, Russia's economy will suffer greatly and Europeans will be preparing nicely for a war in Russia in 2029. That has to be stopped by removing the proxy.
Glenn Diesen: It's amazing that there's not more discussion about this in Europe. There seems to always be this celebration — "Oh, look, the Russians are on their back foot," "Oh, look how much pain we can bring to their economy," "Let's try to increase the number of dead Russian soldiers to put pressure on Moscow." But the idea that they can control what's coming — if this goes out of control, yes, there's a lot of power concentrated in the president, but it just seems like it's not going to be sustainable anymore. The only reason there's been so much restraint, as I said in the opening, was because they were minor pinpricks. But as you say, if this will now bring serious pain on the economy, restraint is a luxury anymore. The options are limited: either go very hard against Ukraine — which means heavy bombing of cities, with all the collateral damage — or attack European NATO countries. If not, it's capitulation. And again, that's the destruction of Russia, an existential threat. I can't imagine any great power capitulating at the end of the day. The longer this goes on, the more radical the response will be. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
United Russia's political anxiety ahead of Duma elections
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: Yes. Moscow is worried. The United Russia party — there will be a poll on September 20th, the Duma elections — and I think it was worthy of note, though nobody has noted it, that there was a scandal this week in the Duma when a speech by Zyuganov, the Communist Party head, was distorted by a United Russia Duma member. They put words in his mouth saying that Zyuganov had declared the banking system is terrible, it's making enormous profits, and that there are two years' worth of the Russian budget volume sitting in time deposit accounts of Russian citizens and businesses — and that we have to confiscate them. These words were put into Zyuganov's mouth.
That is political death for the Communists, and it is the most alarming thing you could put into the mouth of the head of the Communist Party. Zyuganov threatened to take the Duma member to court for defamation. A day later, there was an official apology issued by the United Russia deputy acknowledging that he had distorted his words. They are really reaching for anything to save themselves, and the fact that they would do something as vile as that indicates they are deeply worried about losing the elections.
Glenn Diesen: Well, thank you very much for taking time out of your weekend. I always appreciate your perspective.
Dr Gilbert Doctorow: Very kind.