The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Bill Browder: Why Putin Will Not End the War

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

After more than three years, is there an end in sight to Russia's war on Ukraine? Is Vladimir Putin serious about peace negotiations? And how has Donald Trump's second term changed Russia's place and power in the world? Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice campaign, and author of "Red Notice" and "Freezing Order," talks with Steve Paikin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After more than three years, is there an end in sight to Russia's war on Ukraine? Is Vladimir Putin serious about peace negotiations? And how has Donald Trump's second term changed Russia's place and power in the world? Let's get into all of that with Bill Browder. He is the CEO of Hermitage Capital, head of the global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, and the author of two books, Red Notice and Freezing Order, both of which he's discussed with us here and he joins us on the line from London UK. Bill Browder, it's great to see you again. How are you doing? Well, I guess I could be better in terms of all those questions that you

just asked about the war and Putin and so on. I think that I don't see any good news on the horizon at all at this point. And as a big supporter of Ukraine and a big critic of Vladimir Putin, that doesn't make me feel very good at all. Well, let me get your sense of where things are, because I think a few years ago when you were on this program, you looked at the war and you said it's a stalemate. How would you characterize it today? It continues to be the exact same stalemate it was on the day that it started.

Putin has absolutely no intention of backing down, of negotiating, of stopping the war. And Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian people have no intention of surrendering and basically subjecting themselves to Russian murder, rape, and kidnapping. And so we're in a situation where both sides are fully committed. Neither side has a decisive military advantage. And as such, the war will sadly and tragically continue. Politically, financially, is Russia better off or worse off today than they were three years ago?

They're worse off in every possible way today than they were three years ago. Russia has lost, according to Ukrainian estimates, a million young men in either death or disability from the war. Another million men have left the country so they didn't become cannon fodder. The economy has been totally wrecked and destroyed. They can't export their gas to Europe. They can't participate in the international capital markets. The assets are frozen all over the world.

They can't travel to most places. It's a real ugly mess for the Russians. It's also an ugly mess for Russia because they're isolated, at least from a certain group of countries. I would say what I call the allies, the G7, the European Union, Japan, Canada, et cetera. It's not a good situation by any measure for Russia. the European Union, Japan, Canada, etc. It's not a good situation by any measure for Russia.

It's much worse than it was before. When you were on this program for the first time back in 2017, we talked about Vladimir Putin, we talked about how firm his grasp on power in that country seemed to be. Here's what you had to say, then we'll come back and do a check-in on that issue after you've seen this clip. Go ahead, Sheldon, roll it if you would. I believe he's worth $200 billion.

And where's his money? He doesn't keep any money in his own name. All the money is held by people in what I call in trust, which means that they hold it in their name. Why does he hold it in other people's name? Because he doesn't ever want to have anyone have a piece of paper that they can use to blackmail him. So he has to, so he holds $200 billion in the names of other people.

And this is a very precarious situation, because what happens if he's not president? And he calls up and says, hey, Oleg, can you send me some money? And Oleg says, Vladimir who? And so he's got to stay in power in order for this money to be his. Seems to be doing well at that. Well, he's doing well at that by basically running roughshod

over all the rules of modern democratic society. Let's get your take now on how firmly ensconced in power Vladimir Putin is today compared to when we last discussed that in 2017. What do you think now? Well I would say in a certain way he's probably even more ensconced in power because he's still there so that was eight years ago. He's gonna be president for life as long as he lives. And, and, and so he's, he's there as, as much as he could ever be there. Now, the one thing I would say is that he is extremely scared of losing power. He's so scared of losing power that he sits at the tables, 30 foot long tables

where people sit at one end of the table and he sits at the other. He murders his, his opponents. 30 foot long tables where people sit at one end of the table and he sits at the other. He murders his opponents. He murdered Alexei Navalny. He murdered Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner group, and many other people whose names nobody will recognize. And so he's staying in power and in a truly Machiavellian way, which is to run the country with an iron fist to get rid of anybody who possibly threatens him and to not put anybody as his successor because that successor will then become the president much quicker than he would like.

Maybe you could help us understand this conundrum, because you just told us a moment ago that you thought Russia was worse off in every way imaginable, politically, geopolitically, financially, militarily, certainly, socially, and yet Vladimir Putin is more deeply ensconced and in some strange way more secure in power than ever before. How can both of those things be true? Well, because Putin is no longer trying to win the love of his people. Before you could argue that there was sort of carrots and sticks. The carrots, the economic benefits were available to people who were supporting him and the sticks were

there for people who weren't on his side. He now no longer can afford the carrots. There's no more gifts to anybody and all there is is sticks. And so he's gone from back in 2017 when I would say that he was running an authoritarian regime. He's now running a total dictatorship, a totalitarian regime where there's no, no oxygen whatsoever for political opposition. Uh, there's no place for any type of independent media.

There's no voices of any sort that are different from his voice. And so it's not as if he has the love of the Russian people. It's not as if all of a sudden he's there because everyone thinks he's a good guy doing a good job and they want him there. He's there in power because everybody is absolutely petrified that if they turn against him in any way, they'll either be put in jail, sent into exile or killed. And so there's, it's, it's, it's a power base that's secure until it's not. It's a very brittle power base.

It's a power base, which at any point can be unstuck. But as long as he's in power, as long as he's threatening people, he sits there. Does the status of the war on Ukraine affect at all, one way or the other, his ability to remain in power in your view? In my view, the war is totally and absolutely determinative of his being in power. In my opinion, the reason that he went to war was because the economy wasn't doing great. He had been around for 23 years and someone was going to blame him for their hardship. And so coming back to my Machiavelli comparison, he did what any good dictator will do if he's afraid of his own people, which is he finds a foreign enemy and he starts a war.

So instead of people being mad at him, they can be mad at the foreign enemy. And so this war, in my opinion, is a war of distraction. This is a war to distract the Russian people from his own failings. And the problem for him is that in addition to it being a war of distraction, Russia is also a country where you cannot show any kind of weakness. And so for him, if he were to end the war right now, if he were to negotiate, if he were to compromise, that would be a sign of weakness. And if he showed weakness, particularly after he's riled everybody up into getting mad at this foreign enemy,

they're going to say, well, why should you be leading us anymore? We're going to pick some other guy. And so for that reason and that reason only, he can't end this war. And he will not end this war. And if you look at everything he said from the beginning of the war until now, he's not shown any inclination

whatsoever about compromising in any way, shape, or form. And I don't believe he wants to from the beginning of the war until now, he's not shown any inclination whatsoever about compromising in any way, shape or form. And I don't believe he wants to end the war. His whole objective is total victory, is a Ukrainian surrender. I mean, presumably though, if he controls all the levers of power in his country, and he sustained a million casualties. Surely he could spin. Surely he could just simply say, you know what? We've won this war.

We've got 20% of the territory of the former Ukraine. We declare victory. We're going home, and we're going to get on with making Russia great again. I mean, that would not be too tough a sell for him, presumably, no? Well, he could say that, and he probably would say that if that was what he was forced to do.

But the other thing you need to understand is that he doesn't operate like any other world leader. He's not accountable to anybody. He doesn't have to worry about being re-elected. He doesn't have to worry about the media. He doesn't have to worry about the courts. He doesn't have to worry about regulators. He has absolute power.

And so for him, it's a much safer situation, not to have to spin it because that spinning could go his way. Or somebody could say, well, actually, that's not true. Look at all the pain we've suffered for what? For some small portion of this country next door. If you look at a map of Russia, it's an enormous, enormous country, and they're getting this tiny sliver of Ukraine for all that pain and suffering. Somebody may point that out.

And so the easiest thing for him to do, because it doesn't cost him anything, he doesn't care. His heart doesn't start beating any faster if he loses a million men or two million men or five million men. He has no empathy. He doesn't care what the consequences are. And so for him, a guy who's, he only cares about one life and that's his own, he's ready to sacrifice everything and anything to make sure that he's solid, secure, and in power. Because he knows that if he's not in power, the likelihood is he'll go to jail and die. And so for him, it's an easy choice, carry on with the war.

You know Russia well, so maybe you could help us understand this, particularly since you and die. And so for him, it's an easy choice. Carry on with the war. You know Russia well, so maybe you could help us understand this, particularly since you just said he's prepared to lose a million people, two million, five million people. There seems to be just a limitless capacity by the Russian people to suffer. And presumably that is part of what allows him to keep doing what he's doing. Where does this willingness to suffer all kinds of harshness in life come from? Part of it comes from their own history. If you look back in Russian history, if you read any Russian literature, they've suffered

far more than we have in the West. It's a country of great despair. You know, you read Chekhov, Dostoevsky, any of these authors, and you see this goes back hundreds of years. And so that's the first thing. And the second thing is that they do suffer because they understand that if they raise their head above the parapet, something terrible is gonna happen to them. And Russia's not the only country

that has that type of scenario. If you go to North Korea, same thing is true. Probably very true in Iran today. And so you have all the sort of incentives and punishments to keep everybody down. And then you've got a long history and a culture where suffering was part of it. And so that's probably how it carries on. However, there is also a part of Russian history where they suffer and suffer

and suffer, and then one day it all kind of blows up. And we've seen that with the Russian revolution and we've seen that in other times. And so, you know, Putin doesn't know for sure whether it's going to work out for him, as much as we don't know for sure if it will. And we've seen in other countries where dictators last a very long time and then suddenly over a one week period, it all comes undone. We saw that happen very recently in Syria. Remember Assad?

We thought he was going to be there forever. And then all of a sudden, one week later, after the rebels roll through the country, he's gone. And so I think Putin, I think our expectation should be that Putin will be there until the end of his natural life. But anything could happen. But I think the probability of something happening other than that him dying in his bed of old age

is probably pretty low. Well, in fact, we did see that in our lives 34 years ago when the former Soviet Union fell apart. Mikhail Gorbachev was eased out unceremoniously. Boris Yeltsin took over. This kind of thing can and does happen. But do you see any signs that it's, I don't want to say imminent, because it's not, but are there any any kernels of something that you can look at and say, hmm, could happen here? Well, the one thing I would look at is, is the, um, the, the famous March towards Moscow of Evgeny Progozhin, the head of, of the Wagner group, and that some of you will remember seeing that two years ago. And, um, as I watched that, I saw something very interesting, which is that this guy

who was head of this paramilitary group, the Wagner group, got into a big fight with other people in the military establishment, took over Rostov and then started marching towards Moscow. And what was interesting is that you didn't hear random people all over Russia say, this is outrageous, we need to stand up for Putin. You didn't hear random people all over Russia say, this is outrageous. We need to stand up for Putin. They were putting flowers on the, on the tanks and getting, taking selfies with their cell phones.

And what was even more interesting was the, if you, if you subscribe to this app flight radar, you can see all these private jets taking off from Moscow and St. Petersburg. These were all the oligarchs that were all worried about getting hung from a lamppost if, if, uh, per Goshen took over. And of course we all know what happened to per Goshen. He went down in his airplane, which was clearly exploded by, by Putin.

Um, but during that one brief period of time, it was over like a Saturday, half of half of a Saturday, everybody kept their mouth shut because nobody knew who was going to win this conflict. And everyone wanted to just know who the strong man was that they should report to. And that gives you some clear indication that Putin's grip on power is only as good as his ability to terrorize people so that they see him as the strong man, as opposed to someone else. And that's a very hard thing to speculate on, to hold onto and to predict. And he could easily at some point, there could be another pregogian or some other

version of that scenario coming around. And if it does, you can tell that the Russian people just want to know who the boss is. Do you believe that six months ago when Donald Trump was re-inaugurated as president of the United States, that that further solidified Putin on his throne in Moscow? Well, that's certainly Donald Trump's intention. And that certainly is the Putin is getting a huge benefit from that whole thing. Donald Trump was very negative throughout his whole campaign about Vladimir Zelensky. He was always very positive about Putin.

He didn't want us to continue to support the Ukrainians in their war. And that's what he said during the campaign. And that's what he has delivered in his presidency. And so Putin, who is really sort of hanging out to dry, at least economically and militarily, because of the Western support, because of the US support, and European support, Canadian support, et cetera, now is all of a sudden getting this one huge benefit,

which is that America seems to effectively have withdrawn from supporting Ukraine. America hasn't quite gone over to the other side in terms of openly supporting Russia, but Putin doesn't need America to openly support Russia. He just needs America to step back. And hopefully, and from Putin's perspective, hopefully that gives him the military advantage so he can succeed in a war that he has failed in up until now. Trump and Putin clearly appear to have some kind of special relationship based presumably on the fact that they both see themselves as somewhat authoritarian leaders.

But every now and then, Mr. Trump will do something like get on Truth Social and in all caps say, you know, Vladimir, what are you doing? Stop the bombing. We've got to bring this to an end. Which is the real Trump in your view? Well, so you said something which is Slightly inaccurate which is you say he would do something. No, he would just say something about Vladimir Putin He has never done anything to cause Vladimir Putin any harm. Well, he could do a lot of things. He could double down on weapons deliveries. He could sanction Russian oil.

He could do a lot of different things, which would bring Putin to his knees, but he hasn't done anything. He said a lot of stuff. He goes sort of schizophrenic. He says something nice to Putin. He says something mean to Putin. He's, then he attacked Zelensky. But these sort of schizophrenic. He says something nice to Putin. He says something mean to Putin. He's then he attacks Zelensky. But these are all empty words.

You can't look at what he says. You have to look at what he does and what he does is consistent. He's consistently not doing anything to harm Putin in a world where Putin is the bad guy. In our last minute and change here, you have already told us that you see Russia as pretty much a mafia state. And I don't want to be needlessly inflammatory here, but I do hear other observers making the same comments about the United States nowadays under Donald Trump.

Would you be in that category? Not yet. I believe that the US has institutions which in some cases are holding. You have the judicial system, which is rejecting 96% of Donald Trump's decisions. You have the media, which keeps reporting on all of the things that are going on. You have midterm elections, which are coming up. You have the public, you have the markets. And I think that we're a long way between the America we used to know and Russia.

There are certainly some, some movements in that direction. The corruption is, is off the charts. The inclination towards ignoring institutions is all over the place. But I'm still an optimist in believing that the people of the United States don't want to be like Russia. And when push comes to shove, they're not going to let it be like Russia. I wonder what your old friend Mr. Magnitsky would think of all of this and what he went to jail for and gave his life for only to see America turning into what it's turning into. What do you think? I think that he would be heartbroken

in the same way as I am and many other people are watching what's happening as we speak. Understood. Bill Browder, it's always good of you to join us here on TVO. We thank you for your many visits to our program over the years and take good care. Thank you.