‘Putin is scared’ as Kremlin continues crackdown while losses increase in Ukraine | Bill Browder

‘Putin is scared’ as Kremlin continues crackdown while losses increase in Ukraine | Bill Browder

well so we we have a situation in Russia where Vladimir Putin is is a evil dictator who’s invading foreign countries killing uh in Ukrainian babies and the hospital and Ukrainian soldiers and of course killing his own soldiers in the process and there’s going to be a moment in time when this war ends and it may very well end with the fall of the Putin regime and if it does end with the fall of the Putin regime there needs to be a a new regime in Russia that’s not hostile towards the West that believes in democracy and free speech and and good good relations hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio with me K Cho and this time we’re catching up with the financia and political activist Bill Browder he is 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 people linked to the Putin regime and to free political activists that have been imprisoned by it Bill Welcome Back to Front Line good to see you again um unfortunately um we are meeting again in the light of some worrying news about the health of your friend and former colleague Vladimir karura who was moved to prison hospital a few days ago I’ll ask you a bit more about that in a moment um Regular viewers will know who exactly he is but could you just remind people or tell people who don’t sure so um so F first of all my my whole uh claim to fame is is that um uh I’m some often considered one of Putin’s number one foreign enemies and um the reason for that is that um after the murder of my lawyer um Sergey magnitsky back in 2009 I launched a campaign to get sanctions imposed um on Russian officials asset freezes and Visa banss um that campaign was named after Sergey magnitsky and it led to legislation called the magnitsky act and one of the key people who helped me get the magnitsky Act passed um was Vladimir camura Vladimir is younger than me he’s he’s in his mid-40s he’s a um uh Russian opposition activist and also a British Citizen and um when I would go to different parliaments around the world to explain to them why uh the world needs a magnuski act um he would go and explain uh on behalf of the Russian people why a magnitsky Act was needed and together we made a very powerful case and we succeeded in getting 35 countries to pass magnitsky acts and in doing so um we completely changed the landscape for the Putin regime and many other dictators around the world and all of a sudden they had to start worrying about their assets getting Frozen and and their visas getting banned and Vladimir Putin took this very badly he um sent me me to 18 years in prison in absentia and has been chasing me around the world with interpole arrest warrants and death threats and kidnapping threats and Vladimir um uh when he was in Russia in 2015 he was poisoned and came within inches of dying he was in a coma multiple organ failure and then they poisoned him again in 2017 and this was absolutely directly in retaliation for his work on the magnitsky ACT and in 2022 when the War started when Putin invaded Ukraine Vladimir felt compelled to go back to Russia and to try to do whatever he could to rise up or raise public opinion against the war and in doing so within a day he was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in what they call strict regime which is like hard prison in Russia and they’ve since sent him out to a prison in Omsk Siberia which is is one of the worst prisons out there and he’s been now um almost 280 days in solitary confinement and Vladimir continues to suffer from the after effects of the poison uh the assassination attempts that they made against him he suffers from something called poly neuropathy which means he can’t feel his feet and hands and um has many other related health problems and um the doctors have said that that he he’s not going to to survive two years let alone 25 years and so we learned last week that he was U abruptly taken to the prison hospital and then he disappeared and for about seven days we feared that he he might very well have died and um thank god um we discovered that he hadn’t that his lawyers were able to finally see him and that he’s still alive but the whole thing is just the most nightmarish sadistic scenario you could imagine and what what has the lawyer been able to say about his condition well he continues to be in in what I would say bad condition he’s not in critical condition um but he’s not well uh Vladimir has lost about a third of his body weight and he was not overweight to start with he’s like a skeleton you look at pictures of him it’s like a he’s like a concentration camp victim and um and of course he has this Progressive um neurological disease and what’s interesting is under the Russian Penal Code they say that a person with such a physical impairment shouldn’t be in prison at all I mean it’s part of their rules but of course they don’t honor any of their own laws because if they did he wouldn’t be in jail in the first place you here in the UK um we have a new government and you took that opportunity and I presume the timing um was absolutely right uh with his disappearance and his emergence in hospital to to to to write an article in the Telegraph newspaper where you made a direct appeal to the new foreign secretary David Lamy to do something about uh the situation um he’s now he’s now replied hasn’t he on Twitter what’s he say well he’s basically saying that um what he should be saying and and which is that uh the UK government demands his immediate release he demands that we demand access to Vladimir to Health Care Etc um the most important thing and the reason I wrote this article is that we’ve had a change government it took me a long time to raise Vladimir’s case um uh to the level of of foreign secretary in the previous government and and uh Lord David Cameron was very good um in advocating for Vladimir with allies with the Russians any way he could and what my big fear was with the change in government that Vladimir would fall through the cracks that there’s so many things on on David lamby’s new agenda as foreign secretary that he might not know that this that Vladimir is one of the most important issues on the agenda and that’s why I wrote the letter and I was very pleased with his response and I believe he’s he’s going to carry on and and hopefully even work even harder on getting Vladimir back why why do you say it is one of the most important issues on his agenda well so we we have a situation in Russia where Vladimir Putin is is a evil dictator who’s invading foreign countries killing uh in Ukrainian babies in the hospital and Ukrainian soldiers and of course killing his own soldiers in the process and there’s going to be a moment in time when this war ends and it may very well end with the fall of the Putin regime and if it does end with the fall of the Putin regime there needs to be a a new regime in Russia that’s not hostile towards the West that believes in democracy and free speech and and good good relations and Vladimir camura is an opposition politician that represents all the things that we need in a Russian government a peaceful Russian government a Russian government that doesn’t kill neighbors that that treats his own citizens with respect and and so as as as much good work as we’re doing supporting the ukrainians and fighting back on these evil di dictator Putin and his regime um we also need to be supporting um a very small number of people in Russia who want to lead Russia towards a peaceful path and Vladimir is now after the murder of Alexi of that leader he’s really the the hope for the West um in having some type of decent relationship with Russia in the future after the Putin regime is over a prisoner swap was ruled out earlier this year by a former foreign minister um David Lamy has replied within days of becoming foreign secretary um have you got any indication that he might actually reconsider that earlier decision well he’s been in the job like you know five days so far and so I I don’t think that I’ve had I really I haven’t had a chance to push on that which I will for sure but it doesn’t necessarily require Britain if Britain has a policy of not doing it Vladimir is is an international um hero not just a British hero and um for example he was recently granted honorary Canadian citizenship which is something they’ve only done seven times before in their history Nelson Mandela Malala um a few others and um uh and so the Canadians are interested um Vladimir’s wife um is an American citizen his three children are American citizens he is a a permanent green card holder in the United States when he’s not in Russia the Americans are interested um Vladimir’s mother um is a German citizen she lives in Berlin the Germans are interested um and that’s not to mention the lithuanians Norwegians and so on and so I believe that that um uh when when a prisoner swap finally gets organized um for a bunch of prisoners in Russia that Vladimir um should and will be included in that and that’s one of my main objectives is to make sure that everybody understands that um that we need to save this man’s life we saw what happened to Alexi naly the same thing will happen to Vladimir if we don’t save his life the brutality of Putin’s Russia which you know well has been demonstrated uh very recently by this hor horrifying bombing spree on Ukraine this week it included the children’s hospital and a matern Center in ke what response would you like to see from NATO allies to this would you like to see a direct response well so there’s one thing which which bothers me to no end which is that that the American government um gives a lot of long- range missiles to Ukraine and tells Ukraine though you can’t use them on Russian territory um so it’s great that we’re giving uh uh missiles to Ukraine um but to tell them that they they have to fight with one hand tied behind their back is is insanity Russia is launching these these bombs the bomb that killed all these children in the cancer hospital from Russia how can you uh forbid them from hitting those targets and so it seems just the most obvious thing in the world that you know Russia has has uh deserves whatever it gets and Ukraine should be able to fight in the most effective way possible and there shouldn’t be conditions placed on the ukrainians using the Weaponry that they have to hit Russian targets and these are military targets we’re talking about I’m not talking about civilian Targets in Russia I’m not saying an eye for an eye no but no Russian children should should be murdered in the same way as Ukrainian children I’m saying that Russian soldiers and Russian uh Armament batteries and Russian arms factories those things should be open for targeting um by the ukrainians and the Americans and other countries that are putting restrictions on should lift those restrictions right away but there is some relaxation on that isn’t there because um when when the Russian offensive on harke was launched the the US did actually start permitting uh limited use of those weapons and it does and to just defend that particular area from attack and that has been relaxed a bit more and and the UK government is now saying Storm Shadow missiles uh literally just now um would be able to be used against targets inside Russia itself so it it does look like it’s moving in the direction that Ukraine wants so badly I think it I think it is and this is sort of a classic um development of this war everybody sort of too little too late you know we those children would still be alive today if we hadn’t um put those restrictions on and if you can remember at the very beginning of the war we said no tanks for Ukraine no that would be provocative that would that that would might uh provoke Putin to do something more and of course Putin is provoked not by uh Putin is provoked by weakness not by strength he’s a mafia Thug and so when he sees us putting these restrictions on he does more Terrible Things the one the time that he doesn’t do Terrible Things um is when he sees that there’s going to be a real um material consequence to him of doing terrible things on the front line it’s estimated that Russia’s suffering casualties of more than a thousand soldiers a day but is not making significant progress on the battlefield how long do you think um Russia and the Kremlin will allow Putin to continue to prosecute a war that’s no closer to achieving its aims well the problem we have is that Russia is not a democracy public opinion doesn’t matter the losses that Russia suffers doesn’t affect Putin in any kind of psychological way at all um and just put that that those numbers in perspective for a second in during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which lasted 10 years Russia or the Soviet Union lost 15,000 soldiers the numbers as you mentioned are a thousand a day right now so in 15 days they’ve suffered the same casualties as the entire invasion of Afghanistan and the numbers according to Ukrainian sources are well north of 500,000 casualties 500,000 dead Russian soldiers But to answer your question about how long could it last the answer is a long time Putin because Putin doesn’t care um and remember during the sovi during the second world war you know Stalin sent 25 million Russians to their death and so Putin has a great capacity for pain and what Putin is hoping for and and and he’s probably not wrong in his own assessment of probabilities he’s hoping that that uh Donald Trump will become the next president of the United States that America will cut off funding for Ukraine um that from uh lack of resources Ukraine’s defenses will crumble and that he’ll finally succeed even with all the casual ities he’s had to suffer and if he does that then from his perspective it’s been a a great Venture um going into Ukraine and from our perspective it will be an absolute disaster not just for Ukraine but then Putin will be lining up and targeting the Lithuania or Estonia or laia or even Poland and those countries are members of NATO and then we have this terrible situation of let’s say Donald Trump as president um will he honor the Article 5 of NATO and I think based on his statements about NATO so far he might very well not if if there’s no more Article 5 then the question is will Europe uh honor Article 5 without the Americans help and if not then then we one of two things happen either we’re directly at war with Russia without the Americans um or um we’re not um and and Vladimir Putin runs runs rough shot all all all former Soviet countries I mean the NATO Summit has just um been taking place 75th Anniversary do you take any comfort from the kind of things that have come out of that well the NATO Summit is is a summit of of um uh democracies that are all in agreement but the problem with these democracies that are all in agreement is that the leadership of these countries change we saw what almost happened in France Marine Leen um her her party almost became uh in government and it was only through a like last minute horse trading that that um that was prevented she she has publicly stated that she doesn’t want to support Ukraine and and um France is an important member of NATO we mentioned Donald Trump um of course you’ve got Victor Orban who is a member of NATO and a member of the European Union that doesn’t want to help Ukraine and so the problem with democracies is that whatever is said today is great but it may not be um uh the same people saying it tomorrow and they may be people with diametrically opposed views which is what what’s so terrifying about the situation because we know that as long as Putin um is alive and um he’s he’s gonna make every effort to stay in power and um he’s not going to change so his his view is the same but um there’s any probability that that one or many members of NATO may change in the future and that’s Putin’s big bet is that he can suffer losses 100 times greater losses than we can before we we may very well fold with one/ 100th of the pain that he’s suffering just because we’re democracies um since we’re talking about you mentioned sort of membership of big uh Global uh or contradictory um memberships of of big Global organizations um Russia has taken over the presidency of the United Nations security Council uh this month in July it was set up to ensure Global Peace and ironically what does it do it bombs a children’s hospital in ke um Russia’s place is secure there because it’s written into the UN Charter that permanent members are secure and have to agree a change in the charter in order to to be taken out in some way is this is the UN still fit for purpose the UN has has uh completely compromised itself long before this Russia be being head of the UN Security Council you’ve got Saudi Arabia that’s in charge of women’s rights you’ve got Venezuela and and uh other countries on the human rights committee it’s it’s it’s a complete farce at this point um it just doesn’t it doesn’t work um uh completely in a certain way uh the legitimacy of the United Nations covers up the the atrocities so often of so many bad members that there really needs to be a new architecture for peace and security and the United Nations is not it there is an interesting report by Bloomberg claiming Saudi Arabia Made A Veiled Threat over pursuing any proposals to seize that almost 300 billion dollars worth of Frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine saying they’d sell some European debt Holdings and that this may have influence the G7 to make a more conservative still significant though plan to use only the profits on those assets by way a loan to help Ukraine this has been denied by the Saudi finance ministry what do you know anything about about this well I I’ve read the same article and and if it’s true it’s total Bluster um there there’s really Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a lot of choices in terms of the types of assets it holds and currency it holds for its enormous profits from its oil sales there’s two basic currencies you can hold if you’re that wealthy uh dollars or euros and so if Saudi Arabia wants to like get out of the Euro um that’s absurd it it just doesn’t work um and if and if what else are they going to do they’ll buy more dollars okay fine buy more dollars um I know plenty of Finance years that would be happy to buy their French government bonds or whatever government bonds that they happen to be selling it’s a it’s an empty threat it’s a nonsense and anybody who’s scared of that um doesn’t understand how the international financial markets work and I’m sure the Saudis understand that too and I hope it’s just a wrong rumor because it would be a very stupid thing for them to be playing around with so do you think that kind of Bluster has any effect or is it just something for journalists really well I know that there’s a lot of of people um inside the bowels of the European commission and the US Treasury and various places like that that are all sort of scared of their own shadow you know that they scared of the sky falling um but at the same time as they’re sort of saying and they don’t want to do anything they want to just you know just uh action is riskier than in action you know you lose your job if something goes wrong you don’t lose your job if you do nothing and um and I think that that that mentality which we I’ve which you see the world over in all sorts of different situations but that mentality um is very unhelpful in this particular situation because uh Ukraine is suffering huge losses as we’ve seen with our own eyes on TV watching those children crushed in that hospital in Kiev and they need they need resources they need resources for weaponry and they need resources to rebuild the hospital and their and their electricity infrastructure and so on that Russia has destroyed and and we have custody of those resources we have $300 billion dollars of Russian central banks reserves Frozen in our custody that we can give to ukrainians and for all of these Chicken Little people that are saying the sky is about to fall if we were to to hand that money money over to Ukraine it’s just it’s just morally wrong um it’s factually wrong um it’s uh uh politically wrong and it’s and it’s financially wrong um we should hand that money over there will be no consequence other than um sending a very strong message to a lot of bad uh actors in the world that if you um invade foreign countries and you have foreign exchange reserves we’re going to confiscate them and I don’t think that’s a bad message I think it’s a good message and this is something that you you have wanted and campaigned for for for a while now are you getting any traction well um originally everyone said as a non-starter that we can’t take any of that money and then then uh as time has gone on and as the war is carried on and as the economic cost has increased we’re now in a situation where we’re where it’s been agreed that the West can confiscate the interest on that money which I think is a half measure for sure but any money is greater than is better than no money and uh eventually we’re going to come to the conclusion and I guarantee you we’re going to come to the conclusion that we need to confiscate all the money because um this war is not ending anytime soon and Ukraine needs the money and um it’s better for Russia to pay for it um than for us and of course we’re all going to have to pay for it but let’s grab some of that why should why should the taxpayers of Britain in the United States and France um pay for Ukraine’s defense when Putin can pay for it before we do um you mentioned Alexa Nal the opposition politician earlier an arrest warrant warrant has just been issued for Julia nalia his exiled widow um She’s accused of being part of an extremist community and the stakes are so high for anyone who dares to criti size the Kremlin why has she been singled out now do you think well um uh first of all it’s the most sadistic thing that that they could ever do they kill her husband in front of the whole world uh she’s calling for justice and now they issue an arrest warrant for her um it’s just sadism pure and simple but um uh most importantly um whenever they do that and and I’ve been subject to arrest warrants for a long time and and usually whenever they start like turning up the heat is because I’ve I’ve hit their Achilles heel somewhere and um she has too um the fact is that that she has stepped into her husband’s shoes um and she’s now leading the opposition Putin is scared of any type of opposition and she’s got a very powerful case she is a uh an AG grieved widow um who uh wants Justice and I think a lot of people uh would respond do respond um very a very uh emotionally to that call and and a lot of people in Russia and that’s very scary for Putin and so of course they’re going to do this this is this is a sign that that her presence in her campaign means something um and and um and and it’s also thankfully she’s in the west where um she can be kept safe and so no one’s going to arrest Julia navalia um but um but it does show that that her her presence in her campaign is threatening to Putin you’ve made it your life’s work to pursue corruption and to corrup and corrupt people linked to the Kremlin just to go back to that that mention o of the Frozen Russian assets $300 billion doar worth almost um if if you’re successful in that campaign do you think that will stop Putin what effect do you think that will have on him I think it would be a GameChanger um war is all about resources Russia has resources from the sale of oil UK Ukraine doesn’t so every time Ukraine needs resources they’ve got to go hand inand begging to the west and we give Ukraine some resources but um not enough and I’ve heard I’ve heard it stated explicitly by officials in the US government that that the United States wants to give Ukraine enough so they don’t lose but not so much so they win and the only way to stop this is to give them everything they need to win and if Ukraine had that money they could buy the weapons that they need need to win and and it’s it’s um it’s not a certainty that they would win from that but I can tell you something that the moment Putin started hearing about the idea of confiscating that money he starts you know throwing out the nuclear card he’s ready to like threat threaten nuclear war over that if he’s so upset by that it shows that that that’s something that would really change the Dynamics of the situation and so we should absolutely do it without any question a couple of times we’ve been talking you kind of alluded to the time it takes uh for things to to progress in the direction which you which you would like them to do so um when were you consider yourself to to have done your job well unfortunately my job becomes a bigger job and a bigger job in a bigger job I I started out with the mission of fighting for justice for Sergey magnitsky and then Boris nof was killed and now we need Justice for Boris nof and then Vladimir Kamura is arrested then Alexi nval is killed and then other terrible things happen of course not this is none of this is to mention the unbelievable um heartache and pain and death that the ukrainians are suffering and so it kind of feels like it’s never going to be done because there’s just so much work to do and you know you you kind of um uh you know the once you start to sort of fight evil evil metastasizes and there’s just a never-ending uh stream of problems to address um and that sounds very pessimistic and and unfortunately is the world is a very unfair and terrible place but but it’s also um from my perspective I used to be a uh hedge fund manager and and and I I would say it’s it’s uh it’s infinitely more satisfying fighting for justice for victims than it is fighting for money and so I don’t in any way dread the job I’m doing I I Rise up every day and with full energy to do my job bill bradder it’s good to speak to you thank you very much for your time you’ve been watching Frontline for times radio my thanks to Lou Sykes our producer to support the work off front line hit the Subscribe button you can also listen to times radio throughout the day or read it at times.co.uk thanks for watching bye-bye

“Yulia Navalnaya is now leading the opposition. Putin is scared of any type of opposition, and she’s got a very powerful case. She is a, an aggrieved widow, who, wants justice.”

Russia is continuing to crack down on internal opposition to the backdrop of Putin’s failure to make gains in Ukraine, Bill Browder tells Kate Gerbeau on Frontline.

📻 Listen to Times Radio – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio

📍 Subscribe to our channel – http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTjDhFuGXlhx9Us0gq0VK2w?sub_confirmation=1

🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/radio-3for3/

📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-to-listen-to-times-radio/app