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June 11, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:44
Prof. Gilbert Doctorow : What the Kremlin Thinks.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, excuse me, June 11th, 2025.
Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be here with us in just a moment.
Just what is the Kremlin thinking?
And what is the Kremlin planning to do next?
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Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule and thank you for all of the off-air communications that we have informing me of your very thoughtful observations.
Are you satisfied that the Kremlin is satisfied?
That the drone attack two weekends ago was certainly perpetrated with the help of the British and probably perpetrated with the help of the United States.
I think that there's an article in today's Financial Times which the viewers of this broadcast should follow up.
I'm not a fan of the Financial Times regarding their Russian coverage because they're quite biased, but occasionally they come up with something that is important that cannot be ignored, and today was the day.
They had one of their reporters interviewed the people responsible for developing the drones that were used in the attack on these four Russian air bases, housing their strategic triad bombers.
And it comes out from that, that the Ukrainians We're entirely capable of carrying out this act on their own.
Of course, we go back 18 months.
Of course, 18 months ago, no doubt, the United States and Britain helped them to decide where to attack, what to attack, and maybe even the mechanics of the attack, not to be an attack from long distances, but from short distances.
I have little doubt the British, with their extensive espionage network across Russia, would have been facilitators.
In helping the Ukrainians to decide how and where they would hide their drones for eventual use.
Sleeper drones, we can call them.
But as it regards the attack itself, I don't think that the Brits or the Americans had anything whatever it had to do with it.
Because the Ukrainians were capable.
And this is an important fact, which is overlooked, unfortunately, by the whole, virtually the whole, of independent media.
We all assume that the Ukrainians are helpless fools, that they just throw their lives away by combating the Russians without their own means of producing weapons, and they're entirely dependent on what they get from outside, often which is misaligned with their needs.
The point that came out of this article today is that the Ukrainians are surely ahead of the United States.
And ahead of Great Britain in drone warfare.
And why shouldn't they be?
They're doing the battle on the battlefield, not the Americans or the Brits.
And they are up against an opponent who had to catch up in drone warfare, but has done, and the Russians.
And I'd say they are peers now.
They both are the world's leading fighters of drone warfare.
Now, why do I say that about the Russians?
Because I watch Russian television, which some people disparage.
But if you watch it properly, you'll get something interesting and useful.
The useful point is that the targeting of all Russian activity now on the front is not satellite reconnaissance.
It is reconnaissance drones.
That gives them instantaneous location of targets.
That's the article.
Instantaneous location of targets.
Even faster than you get from satellites because they're farther out and it takes longer for real-time information to arrive.
The Russians are doing it, so why shouldn't the Ukrainians do it?
They're not stupid.
They're very good at computer games.
Is the media narrative, and this is not mainstream, I mean, this comes to me from guests on this show who are former intelligence officers themselves.
That Ukrainian intel is wedded at the hip and subservient to MI6 and CIA, is that necessarily proving to be accurate 100% of the time?
It's accurate some of the time, not all of the time.
It depends on what weapons we're talking about.
And when you talk about drones, as I say, the Ukrainians and the Russians are way ahead of everybody else.
So what kind of help do the Ukrainians need from Britain?
None.
Once the drones were put in place, and this is months if not years ago, You don't need satellite reconnaissance.
That's the whole point.
The war is now done by drones which have artificial intelligence, and they are doing their own targeting.
That's what this article is all about.
and I say it is believable I understand that this supports the That's not the point.
It doesn't make their information less accurate.
Agreed.
And as you know, I devour the Financial Times every day, even though many times I grit my teeth at their editorial policies.
Watch Foreign Minister Lavrov on Monday.
on this very issue so Chris cut number eight it is obvious that the Ukrainian side is doing everything possible but it would be absolutely helpless without the support I was tempted to say Anglo-Saxons but probably without Saxons just without the support of the British although you never know probably by inertia some US special forces would be involved in that But
the British actually are behind all those things, I'm 100% sure.
Agree or disagree?
Or is this misleading when he says the British are behind it?
He didn't say they paid for it or they crafted it, but they're behind it.
It's misleading intentionally, which is another way of saying he's lying.
I don't see no reason to believe that Mr. Lavrov is an angel.
He isn't.
Why should he?
Angels do not serve They got thrown away long before that.
So of course he's saying what the current Kremlin policy is.
My insistence is that we as observers and as analysts should keep our sense of detachment from all sides, including the Russian side.
Is the Kremlin finding credible or not credible President Trump's denials of U.S. knowledge and awareness?
Because we do have this ambiguous statement from Secretary Hegseth, which I'll play for you in a minute.
But what does the Kremlin think of Trump's denials to President Putin on the phone?
If we follow up the logic of the article we were just discussing, I think President Putin was 100% confident that Trump knew nothing about this.
He knew nothing about it because there's nothing to know.
The actual The implementation or execution of this attack on the basis was 100% Ukrainian when it took place.
I'm not speaking about the planning or the assistance in putting these drones where they were, but that goes back months, if not years.
In the present tense, the Ukrainians did it themselves.
Therefore, I'd say that Putin had to know the capabilities of those drones, and therefore he would know.
That Trump wasn't informed because the U.S. and intel didn't know exactly when this would happen.
Here's Secretary Hague, Seth.
So it's long.
Chris will stop it after he says following the drones in real time.
He both, he says both.
U.S. and he's under oath before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
And he says both.
We didn't know anything about it.
Oh, and by the way, we follow the drones in real time.
You tell me what you think this means.
Cut number 10. Are we seeing the ushering in of a new era of warfare?
The use of drones from afar.
After all, these drones were smuggled into Russia, hidden for a great span of time, and then activated from 2,500 miles away.
Are we prepared, both defensively and offensively?
It was a daring and very effective operation that we were not aware of in advance and reflects significant advancements in drone warfare, which we are tracking in real time inside Ukraine.
Okay, we didn't know about this, but we tracked drone warfare in real time inside Ukraine.
I don't know if you realized what he said with the second part, but I have to ask you about the first part.
Is that credible that the U.S. didn't know about this?
Let's parse what you said.
Because you're smiling as I am over...
He didn't say that we follow this attack.
He said we follow drone warfare.
Generic.
Right?
I mean, you can interpret it as you wish.
I interpret it as a generic statement.
We are monitoring drone warfare because the United States is interested.
They have to have capability in this, too, eventually.
But he did not say that we saw this in real time.
You satisfied that the United States did not play any role in this, notwithstanding what Foreign Minister Lavrov said?
And then we'll jump to another aspect of this.
Look, Lavrov is not an independent party.
He has been a loyal servant of whoever is his boss.
When he was working for Putin in Putin's first terms in office, he was Putin's man and he was supporting completely the foreign policy that Putin sketched for him.
When Medvedev took over and was promoting a foreign policy, I wouldn't say 180 degrees opposite, but let's say 90 degrees at variance with what Putin...
He is today a loyal servant of the latest Russian explanation of their policies, which is what you were just saying.
Why would the Kremlin want to promote the false idea that someone was involved in this if they weren't?
Are they looking for an excuse?
To attack another country and widen the war?
I don't think so.
Well, the country involved was specifically named.
They want to attack the United Kingdom.
And let's face it, the Brits have been behind most every monstrous thing that has gone on in Russia, whether it's the Navalny killing or it's the Bucha massacre, but these are all false flag.
The catastrophes that they've put at the door of Russia.
Who is behind this?
MI6.
No question about it.
They have run way ahead of the Americans in this monstrous activity.
The Russians know it perfectly.
If they were to sink, let's just ask this question.
If the Russians were tomorrow to sink two British nuclear submarines, what would come out of that?
Nothing.
The Brits can't do a damn thing without American permission, and Washington If Donald Trump is telling the truth, and if Pete Hegseth is telling the truth, who's running American foreign policy?
Are it rogue CIA agents, or was the CIA's hands clean of all this?
Look, this is a very important question you're asking, and I've been in the middle of a debate over this.
Even comments on my appearance last week raised this question.
Oh, Dr. O 'Reilly says that the deep state is dead.
Ha, ha, ha.
I'm sorry.
My words have been misinterpreted intentionally.
There's always a deep state.
The question is, what kind of deep state?
A deep state, by definition, is bureaucratic continuity.
Officials have 20-, 30-year careers, and they see administrations come and go.
That is normal, and it should give some stability.
There's nothing wrong with that.
The question is, have they been purged to introduce a single policy or approach to policy?
Under Dick Cheney, they were.
American State Department and the agencies were purged.
People who knew anything about Russia, Eastern Europe, were thrown on the street.
Career analysts were thrown on the street, and a large part of American intelligence was outsourced to commercial operations using open sources.
Now, all right, that created a new deep state, which was deeply hostile to what you believe, what I believe, and I think most of the viewers believe.
Mr. Trump, in his first days in office, has had another purge.
And the deep state, running through, I don't know how many, 40,000 employees of USAID or more or less on the street, was going at the jugular vein of the neocon control of the federal government.
So when we speak about rogue CIA, I don't believe it for a minute.
I think those people have gotten the fear of God in them.
If Trump stops, all USA to Ukraine.
Can Ukraine continue to maintain the war using its superiority in drone warfare?
Unclear.
But the notion there have been apocalyptic statements by my peers in the last week or two, how Ukraine is going down the drain, how it's going to be overrun, how the Russians will be at the Dnepr tomorrow, I don't agree with that.
These are hyperventilating.
Does that mean that Ukraine will go on for 20 years?
I hope not.
I also, again, keep our distance.
Let's keep our distance from everybody.
I keep my distance from Mr. Medinsky when he said, well, leader of the Great fought for 21 years against Sweden.
We can do the same.
No, you cannot do the same.
Mr. Putin will likely not be in office five years from now, let alone 20 years from now.
Russia's event.
Russia got into this war.
In February of 2022, for one specific reason.
They had a window of opportunity where they knew that strategically they were five to ten years ahead of the United States in weapons systems, particularly in hypersonic missiles, and not only.
And they had made themselves sanction proof in the eight years while the United States was building up Ukraine, the Russians were building up themselves.
So on these two grounds, I had a window opportunity that will not extend forever.
The Europeans now are throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into defensive disputes.
There will be results.
What is the pressure, if any, from either his inner circle elites or the public perception of the war going on and on and on?
On President Putin, is that pressure to maintain the slow, methodical, patient, inexorably slow pace of the war, or to just get it over with once and for all?
We cannot say with any certainty.
And let me be specific why.
Look, I follow, you know, as I've mentioned elsewhere, this particular program has a very large Followership in Russia.
They now have, judging freedom is now, a few hours after it goes on the internet, it is available in Russian with a voiceover or synchronized lips, the whole thing, AI control.
Beautiful.
And it gets 100,000 views.
It gets as many views per program, per individual and per topic, as you get in the English original.
Now, I look occasionally at these videos, I look at the comments section, and I can tell you I don't like what I see.
There is a very strong xenophobic current, anti-Western current.
They are not kind to you, they're not kind to me, they're not kind to anybody in the West.
Now, is that justified?
Of course it is.
Is it nice to see?
It certainly isn't.
So, these people are defending Mr. Putin, by the way.
They're questioning you or me or anybody who suggests in any way that Russia does not support their president.
So that is a strain that is certainly present and that Mr. Putin's advisors, no doubt, are watching.
At the same time, as you have written, Russia is not the brutal, murderous dictatorship that it was in 1942.
It's now a democracy in which people can express their opinion.
And Putin relies in large measure for everything he does on popular support, as it should be.
By the way, the latest proof that it's not what it was in 1942 were the pictures of the returning young men who were prisoners of war and were released.
In the exchanges that took place on Monday and they were interviewed with smiling faces and the people like Medinsky and others who were interviewed were speaking about humane policies.
Now let's remember what happened in 1942-1945.
Russian prisoners of war returning for Germany were incarcerated if they weren't shot.
That was the dictatorship of the 1940s of Mr Stalin.
That is worlds apart from Russia today.
Is Mr. Putin susceptible to the currents of popular thinking in Russia?
Of course he is.
Last question, or last subject matter, Professor Doctorow.
The Ukrainian nuclear assets, who has them?
Does Russia have them?
Does the United States covet them?
Are they still Ukrainian?
Let's go back a few weeks.
This was a subject which I believe we discussed.
And again, I got some real flack from readers of my essays on this subject.
It's like, well, what right does Mr. Trump have to make claims on the Ukrainian nuclear reactors as a source of possible revenue to offset the shipments of arms to Ukraine during the Biden administration?
Well, it sounded like a really peculiar thing.
Where did he pull this out of?
Other than the fact that there will be money there, it's clear.
The coal burning and gas and the oil burning.
Traditional power generation has been knocked out by the Russians.
And I didn't touch the nuclear plants.
They've been shut down because of risk of the war, but they can be started up instantly.
And so this would be a likely source of important revenue, which Mr. Trump would like to tap into.
But there's more to it than that, and it's not my sake.
It was the Russian Deputy Minister.
Foreign Affairs Vyapkov, who was quoted in Kommersant, which is one of the more responsible business-oriented daily newspapers and online newspapers in Russia, as saying, we'll have to talk to the Americans about this.
He's speaking about the Zaporozhine nuclear plant, which is Europe's largest and, of course, Ukraine's largest, with six reactors on site.
We have to speak to the Americans about this, because, you know, four out of the six reactors are now fueled by Westinghouse.
And there are American technicians there who supervise the transition.
So it's more complicated than it looks.
Can't make this stuff up.
Professor Doctora, thank you very much.
Your analysis is always scintillating, even if you are iconic.
I welcome it here.
I welcome your views.
And, of course, I welcome all of our Russian viewers.
And thank you for reminding me that they are out there.
I did have the opportunity to speak via the Internet to a Russian gathering put together by our mutual friend, Dmitry Symes, and I'm happy that it was well-received, particularly when I referred to Russia as Mother Russia.
Professor Taktaro, thank you.
All the best.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you.
Okay.
And coming up later today at 11 o'clock this morning, Professor...
At 11 o 'clock, Colonel Douglas McGregor.
Bear with me a minute here.
Sorry for that.
At 11 o 'clock, Colonel Douglas McGregor.
At 3 o 'clock, Daniel McAdams, who's not new to the show, but who's going to talk about, do we still have a constitution?
And at 4 o 'clock, what are the British up to?
With our former British diplomat, Ian Proud.
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