‘Putin is on the ropes’ as he faces ‘devastating’ blow on seized Russian cash | Bill Browder

‘Putin is on the ropes’ as he faces ‘devastating’ blow on seized Russian cash | Bill Browder

I I think it’s it would be devastating for him at the end of the day war is all about um resources um who has the resources to fight and what are the re what kind of weapons can you buy with those resources and Putin always had the upper hand in that because Russia is a rich country it’s an oil country they continue to sell their oil in spite of sanctions and um and Ukraine is a poor country they don’t have any significant natural resources and uh and all the money was coming from the west and Putin knew that we were all grumbling and there was problems in at the EU and there’s problems in Congress and so on if this money gets freed up uh it’s it’s a game Cher um and you can see and and by the way Putin values money more than human life and you can see Putin starting to like do nuclear exercises as a try as a way to try to dissuade us from doing this and and probably some people are even dissuaded it’s this is so important to Putin he’s ready to threaten nuclear war now of course he’s not going to start a nuclear war if we confiscate this money he’s just huffing and puffing but um just show his reaction shows you how serious and how meaningful this is hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio with Me Kate shabo and this time we are catching up with financia and political activist Bill Browder he’s the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005 when he was banned from the country for exposing corruption he now campaigns to impose sanctions against corrupt individuals linked to the Putin regime and to free Poli iCal activists that it has imprisoned Bill Browder Welcome Back to Front Line good to see you again um to that final Point let’s speak about your friend and colleague Vladimir karura currently serving a 25-year jail term in Russia his pursuit of corruption in Russia his criticism of Putin and the war in Ukraine landed him there but he’s just been awarded the pulit a prize in the US for commentary he’s written from prison from his prison cell how is he um I I I very frankly he’s not good as as um as he was doing all these things you described uh he he attracted the very angry and negative attention of the Kremlin of Putin and in on two separate occasions in the past in 2015 and 2017 they tried to kill him they tried to kill him with poison um the poison caused him in both cases caused him to go into a coma um multiple organ failure um in one of the cases he suffered a stroke while he was in a coma um and he then suffered the long-term after effects of this poison in terms of nerve damage and so when he was arrested uh in uh April of 2022 um they they weren’t arresting a a healthy robust man they were arresting a person who was um deeply um injured I would say from this poison and uh and he has has been mistreated since he’s been put in prison they’ve kept him in solitary confinement almost consistently uh since they moved him from Moscow to Siberia where he sits right now uh he’s he’s in a Cell uh 23 hours a day uh he’s not allowed to even lay down in his cell other than from uh 10 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. in the morning and then the bed goes up um on go sort of goes up into the wall he’s forced to sit on a a stool he’s allowed to write for one and a half hours a day and otherwise he’s staring at the wall and and because of this previous poisoning situation he needs movement he needs to move around he needs some uh and if he doesn’t then what happens is he loses the sensation in his extremities he has something called poly neuropathy and so he can’t feel his feet um he needs medical attention he needs um various types of therapy that he he was getting after his poisoning and there various doctors who have um seen him before this happened and even prison doctors in Moscow said that he won’t survive uh one year let alone uh 25 years from from where he sits right now and so he’s in a very bad situation and when was the last time anyone was able to have any contact with him well they they’ve denied him almost all contact with his family I think he’s had like I think one or two phone calls in the two years he’s been in prison with his family he is allowed um uh contact with a lawyer um strangely that they’re very um procedural about that and they allow him contact with his lawyer and so from that contact with his lawyer um he’s been able to communicate um to the outside world he also there is also a prison information system where they where he can send messages out and come and they come back in and in fact it’s that prison information system which is where he was able to send these articles he wrote um uh you know he just and he only had you know he really didn’t have much time because he’s communicating with everybody and but he’s able to slap together these articles these columns for the Washington Post which he wrote and we all read and everybody was amazed that he wrote them and and that they published them and that’s what led to him winning the Pitzer prize U which is uh quite remarkable because when you when you hear about what he’s been able to achieve you do wonder how on Earth he was able to get that information that commentary out the timing of this award it coincided with Putin’s inauguration for a fifth term as president um his bravery to write despite this great personal risk to himself it has been recognized with this award what kind of support is he getting um for his writing both to try and get it out from behind bars what kind of personal risk is he taken to do that and what greater risk what greater support does he have within Russia and abroad well we know what kind of risk he’s taking um just not even by doing anything just by existing based on on what happened to um Alexi Nal Alexi Nal was murdered by the Putin regime in prison um for being an enemy of the regime Alexi Nal was also making statements from prison and so we have to assume that um if Vladimir keram morza um uh you know if if he um well I should say not if um I think there’s only a question of when they try to kill him and and the only and we’re all just sitting here you know terrified you know terrified of his declining Health terrified of the of the intention that that um Putin has to kill him and and hoping and praying that we can come up with some type of arrangement um to get him out and and I and a number of other of his friends and supporters are are working feverishly um to try to organize a prisoner swap to get him swapped for some Russian prisoner in the west and and that I think is his only hope of survival interested that you say that Alexi noal was murdered because there have been some question marks of the circumstances of his death um in in so far as the CIA said there’s no evidence that President Putin signed off on him being killed in prison are you saying that because you know something or because the fact that the way he was treated led to his death anyway so de facto that’s how you see it well first of all the um uh what you’re referring to this this quote CIA determination um I don’t think that that was a determination that was a rumor um that was published as an article and um I I thoroughly dispute that it’s clear to me that Putin ordered the murder of Alexi naly um in 2020 with novichok that’s been that’s been determined as fact he was poisoned with novichok novichok only is in the hands of the Russian Security Services we were able to trace who did the poisoning they’ve done other poisonings in fact they were ones following around Vladimir camura before he was poisoned Alexi nalni miraculously survived the poisoning um they then tried desperately Putin tried desperately not to get Alexi nval back by threatening to arrest him Alexi naoli defied Putin’s threats came back he published a um an expose a video um showing Putin’s Palace his Billion Dollar Plus Palace on the Black Sea humiliating Putin um they then uped the anti by mistreating Alexi in the most horrible ways in prison like they’re doing Vladimir right now um Alexi was was perfectly healthy a day before day before he died and then he died now we don’t know the circumstances what exactly happened in prison that day but we know for sure that um he was an enemy of Putin that Putin tried to kill him once before that Putin was responsible for his his safety and his health and that he died and I think that um this this idea and it just looks to me I mean we we we have to assume um that uh that that I mean I I don’t know where this this rumor came from and I read that story and I scratched my head and I said this is completely doesn’t make any sense and uh I dispute it and I think that that that it’s it’s unhelpful to even give give a a inch of plausible deniability to Vladimir Putin in the murder of Alexi nalii thank you very much for putting that across it’s really good to have your your your thoughts on on that um for Putin a fifth term as president and if he lives it out and stays in power beyond 2030 he will surpass Stalin and be the longest serving leader since Katherine the Great how secure do you think Putin is looking at the moment well so why why would he kill Alexi Nali why would he send Vladimir K morza to 25 years in prison why would he round up any random demonstrator or blogger or or anybody who even says the the tiniest word of of criticism and put them in jail for eight years um Putin is is on the ropes there’s no question he used to rule with incentives he would he would tell everybody you know things will get better for you if you keep your head out of politics and and for a while in the economy things were getting better they’re not anymore things were getting worse and the economy is is not in good shape in Russia despite um all these uh statements from Russia that that sanctions aren’t working people are suffering in Russia it’s not a good situation people are dying in the war um and the fact that Putin is taking such harsh and Extreme Measures against anyone who even mutters a tiny bit of of opposition tells you that he’s he’s scared he’s scared of his own people and what Putin is most scared of specifically he’s scared of of any type of public Mass Uprising so from his perspective he can kill individuals he could kill Alexi Nali he could kill many other individuals he can kill um uh you havei progan but but what he can’t do is he can’t quell a popular Uprising so if for say a thousand people show up on red square and then let’s say they they try to kill whoever sort of was leading that that thing and instead of having everyone disperse 10,000 people go to Red Square he he can’t do anything and if that happens then maybe 50,000 go to red square and then a million go to red square and at that point he then will lose power and that’s what he’s most afraid of and that’s why there’s this absolute complete totalitarian clamp down on opposition you can’t say a word you can’t say it publicly there’s no no media that can say anything is he scared Ukraine has described the inauguration ceremony as seeking to create the illusion of legality for Putin as president however Washington has stopped short of refusing to recognize him as the country’s leader do you agree with that us position I think that every foreign government should not recognize Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia he was not elected legitimately he’s broken every rule to become the president it wasn’t a free and fair election we should not recognize him as president and and we should show him the disrespect that he deserves Russia’s Victory Day marks 79th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II what are your takeaways from this Year’s parade and speech well I mean it’s it’s a true irony that that um uh Russia was at that time uh fighting fascism was fighting genocide Etc on the on the side of the allies and now Russia is the um generator of fascism and genocide and and becoming a true power of evil in an axis of Evil with Iran and North Korea and China and it really is remarkable that that um where where where where Russia has come and where it’s gone in this whole in this whole terrible progress according to an assessment by The Washington Post Putin is setting the Russian Federation up as a bitter adversary to the West for decades K and he’s recalibrating his country for that purpose and you you mentioned about the potential for for uprisings snowballing um does he need to take the the people with him Vladimir Putin or how long can he rule his country with a cast iron fist in the way he’s doing at the moment well there there’s there’s two possible outcomes so the the first outcome is that that that um it doesn’t work that that that people’s people have had enough they they they can’t take it anymore and they rise up as we as we discussed um that that has happened it’s happened in a number of places that that’s happened in it happened in Ukraine with the Russian puppet yanukovich it happened in Tunisia it happened in in Egypt um and those are those are very clear examples of of where people said this is an illegitimate government and we we won’t have it but then you have the alternative scenario which is Kim Jong-un um in North Korea who has been ruling will continue to Rule and Rule and even before him his father and his grandfather and um and so you have the Iranians that somehow keep it all together and so it’s almost impossible to predict where these dictatorships go but what you can say is that they can go they can turn very quickly or they can carry on for decades and and that’s the problem for Putin himself he doesn’t know how it’s all going to work out he’s scared and that’s of course the problem for every citizen in Russia who’s sitting there living a much worse life having no freedom freedoms um because because of this terrible dictator who’s running their country and in that context what impact are the voices of your friend Vladimir kosza and the Widow Lexi naal Julia have that she said on inauguration day our country is being led by a liar a thief and a murderer but this will definitely come to an end don’t give up truth will prevail do you share her optimism well I I absolutely support her I support Vladimir and I support everybody in the Russian opposition the the big question is you know what what what’s the probability and and nobody knows and so all they can do is is keep trying keep fighting and and um and and there may be this moment um uh and I was thinking that this moment would come when Alexi nalni was alive where where the the system comes undone and then the Russian people are going to look for you know who’s you know who could be who could help us live a normal life and and that’s what almost everybody in Russia wants it’s just a normal life where they don’t have to be scared of saying anything to their neighbor that that they can they can say what they want they can do what they want they can think what they want without fear of of imprisonment and death which is what the consequences are in Russia that’s no fun for anybody and and so that that’s that that’s what people want and there may be a moment and I I shouldn’t say I share their optim her optimism because I’m not that optimistic but but I share her goal which is is that that that should be what what every Russian has and and and I admire her for in the in the face of absolute tragedy um heartbreaking tragedy of the assassination and I’ll say it again the assassination by Vladimir Putin of her husband um that that she’s ready to to carry on with his fight that that’s truly Noble worthwhile and and I I hope and pray that she succeeds and you have just returned from the US where you were discussing something which been personal to you in a fight for you this seizure of Russian assets which you’ve long called for we know the US has passed a bill allowing the use of 5 billion of Frozen Russian assets for Ukraine how close now is the US to sending this money well so the most important thing is so just just to back up for a second in total there’s 300 billion of Russian Central Bank Reserves that were frozen after the war started um nobody knew what were they were going to do with these reserves and and the intention was to just hold on to them until the war ended which every body thought was going to happen very quickly of course it hasn’t um we’re now more than two years into this war an enormous amount of damage done to Ukraine much more than the 300 billion that’s been frozen many many hundreds of thousands of people innocent people killed um and so the obvious moral morally correct thing to do is to take that money um and give it to Ukraine for their defense and reconstruction the original idea was was poo pooed when I first started talking about it everyone thought that that wasn’t going to happen and and of course now that we’re two years into it and digging deeper into our own pockets that’s now become a real a really sort of accepted idea generally among the voters in most countries um now in order for it to happen and as you mentioned the US passed a law to say that this should be done it can’t happen by the US by themselves it has to be done in in unison in conjunction with all of the allies and that means that the UK has to do it the EU has to do it Canada Switzerland Australia Japan we all have to do it together because we are all the countries with reserved currencies and if one country does it and no other country does it then then it creates risks for the uh currency of that country if all countries do it together then there there’s really no option but for people to hold hold Reserve currencies um the US will will will absolutely confiscate this money and I believe that the UK is now warmed up to it as well if you listen to um uh UK foreign secretary David Cameron he’s now speaking openly about confiscating the money as well the bottleneck at this point is the European Union the most of the money 220 billion of the 200 of the 300 billion sits in Euro clear in Belgium this is a place where sort of a custodian account in Belgium and in order for this money to be confiscated there needs to be an EU decision the EU consists of 27 countries that have to agree with each other unanimously to do it so far um there are voices of dissent within the EU and so the only thing that they can agree on up until today is is that the um interest on the money can be confiscated and they’ve came up they’ve came up come up with that decision which is a which is a good one okay so to be clear then the five billion stays where it is until the whole 300 billion is agreed no the the the five billion stays where it is until all countries agree to confiscate money in some way shape or form and I think at that point the money becomes available in which case at perhaps no time soon that that money will be available that five billion for Ukraine well it’s interesting because um just today the announcement was that that all the um EU countries have agreed to confiscate the interest and I think that’s going to happen pretty quickly and that’s another five billion so I think it’s it’s sort of it reminds me a lot of the conversations about providing arms to Ukraine at first nobody wanted to provide any arms to Ukraine and then and then eventually like someone stepped out and said we’ll do some missiles some long range missiles the UK did that then all of a sudden the US said okay we’ll do our missiles and so on and so forth that that’s how this thing is going to work and it will eventually the money will be confiscated because we we this war is going to go on it’s going to become too expensive for uh for the taxpayer to fund by themselves and Russia has 300 billion sitting right there that we should be taking it makes it it makes such logical Financial sense as well as moral sense it’s quite interesting because I was thinking about how you’d react to that to that news that the the EU had had agreed to uh seize the profits from the those frozen a assets they’re worth around3 billion EUR a year and I know that was never good enough for you and we’ve talked about this before because you wanted the 300 billion and to be completely seized um and I thought yes it’s a bit like the weapons and you’ll be I’m not sure how how are you feeling optimistic are you frustrated are you thinking well we’re getting there but slowly slowly well I I I’ve Seen It All Before I mean i’ I’ve spent almost my entire life in the last 15 years working on getting uh countries to impose what magnitsky sanctions named after my murdered lawyer Sergey magnitsky which freezes assets and bans visas and and over this time you know one country does something it started with the us then Canada did something and then the UK the UK passed the law but they didn’t implement it and then and then took a while for the EU after that and then we got Australia and so it’s it’s always timec consuming um it never works the way you wanted to but I mean I’d be highly confident no matter what anyone says right now that that 300 billion is going to go to Ukraine it’s just a question of time and if and when it does um what kind of effect is that going to have on President Putin um and the Russian Federation how damaging could that be for him and the Kremlin I I think it’s it would be devastating for him at the end of the day war is all about um resources um who has the resources to fight and what are the re and what kind of weapons can you buy with those resources and Putin always had the upper hand in that because Russia is a rich country it’s an oil country they continue to sell their oil in spite of sanctions and um and Ukraine is a poor country they don’t have any significant natural resources and uh and all the money was coming from the west and Putin knew that we were all grumbling and there was problems in at the EU and there’s problems in Congress and so on if this money gets freed up uh it’s it’s a game Cher um and you can see and and by the way Putin values money more than human life and you can see Putin starting to like do nuclear exercises as a try as a way to try to dissuade us from doing this and and probably some people are even dissuaded it’s this is so important to Putin he’s ready to threaten nuclear war now of course he’s not going to start a nuclear war if we confiscate this money he’s just huffing and puffing but um just show his reaction shows you how serious and how meaningful this is I I would say next to supplying um arms specifically supplying arms um to Ukraine this is the the the single next most important thing we could do to help them overcome Putin and win the war and should that happen at kremin is promising a harsh response does it have any power significant power though to retaliates and seize Western assets well there’s not that many Western assets left and what’s left everyone’s marked down to zero and everyone and and what’s left people shouldn’t have any any um there shouldn’t be any argument about that you know anyone who invested in Russia um took did So at their own risk there’s no reason why the rest of the world should pay the price because you know some big Western companies is going to lose money this is now you know for the for the security all of our our security our safety you know the um so that that the UK and the US and the EU don’t have to send soldiers our own soldiers in later on to fight Russia there are so many ways um in which Russia is reported to be circumventing sanctions be it uh using countries in Central Asia as halfway houses for exports neighboring countries for Luxury Car Imports EU ports to pass on exports of liquefied natural gas and partner countries like India Iran and China to refine and sell on its oil can you make sanctions work absolutely you can make sanctions work what you need to understand is that this is all new um for for most governments most governments had never wanted to sanction Russia in any way shape or form and so and and I I could see this because I spent years trying to get sanctions imposed now all of a sudden the war started everyone is like oh my God Putin really is a bad guy we need to do something to stop him and um and and everybody is just like sort of coming up to you know coming up with their skills to do it I mean uh you had to staff these departments with people who’ never done sanctions before now they’re starting to figure it out and as you mentioned all of those things those all those things you just mentioned are no no mystery to the governments the Western governments of the world I I speak to them all the time and they’re they’re lit literally like you know drinking from a fire hose trying to come up with ideas on how to how to how to close the loopholes and uh and and the thing about it is that you know people will do these um create these sanctions evasion loopholes until the risk of doing so becomes greater than the benefit and so how do you do that you create risks you start to go after the intermediaries you start to sanction the people who are helping the Russians defy sanctions and if you do it properly and I believe that we can it’s going to take time um all of a sudden all these loopholes will disappear it’s just a question of time and will there’s the will I mean as as long as Putin continues to do what he’s doing there’s absolutely the will to do it the one place where there isn’t the will is and and this is the biggest elephant in the room is that Russia continues to sell oil and and the oil is not sanctioned they they’ve created some some something called the price cap which is a nonsense um and and Russia makes between 500 million and a billion dollars a day selling oil and they use that money to buy weapons to kill ukrainians and then we’re sending billions over to the ukrainians to fight back on the Russians and and we we can’t or we don’t want to mess with the oil uh for a logical reason which is that Russia makes up 10% of the world’s oil supply and if we curtail that oil supply then the oil price goes to $250 a barrel um inflation spikes back up and then we have all sorts of other problems and so at the moment we’re not touching the oil I I my idea is that we have allies Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates other countries that are oil producers we should lean on them and the United States by the way is the biggest oil producer in the world United States should should export more oil should pump more oil and Export more oil um and then we should cut off Russia when when we have enough Supply in the system so it doesn’t matter and if and by the way if we were to properly embargo Russian oil the war would be over in nine months because they’d run out of money so what’s next for you Bill well the most important thing right now is my friend Vladimir korza I’m trying to do everything possibly can um to come up with a scenario probably a prisoner swap so that Vladimir um doesn’t die imminently in a Russian prison and are you getting close to that well um it helps when when the Pitzer committee Awards them a Pitzer prize the the um the key now is to make sure that everybody in Western governments understand first how important he is as a leader of the opposition and second how vulnerable he is as someone who’s going to die imminently if we don’t do something Bill BR I wish you all the best with your work thank you very much for your time thank you you’ve been watching Frontline for times radio with Me Kate shabo my thanks to our producers today Lis SES and Morgan berdick and for you for watching if you’d like to support us you can subscribe now or you can listen to times radio for the latest news and indepth Analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for watching bye-bye

“Putin is on the ropes, there’s no question…next to supplying arms to Ukraine this is the next most important thing we could to do overcome Russia and win the war.”

Putin’s Victory Day parade is a projection of his fear of a popular uprising as he risks losing the support of his inner circle over the impending delivery of frozen Russian cash to Kyiv, Bill Browder tells Frontline on #timesradio

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