‘Putin is scared to death right now’ as Ukraine’s strikes rupture his inner circle | Bill Browder

(LONDON) – Sir Bill Browder says the Russian dictator is facing growing political and economic pressure as Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure deepen, internet shutdowns disrupt daily life in major cities and Moscow struggles to project strength abroad.

Speaking to Frontline on Times Radio, Browder said recent Ukrainian attacks appear to be inflicting far greater damage on Russia than before, particularly by targeting the infrastructure that underpins the Kremlin’s war economy.

“It seems to me, and I have not seen any analysis yet, but I’m sure it will come out, is that the Ukrainians are hitting the Russian targets much, much harder now in the last few weeks than they ever were before,” Browder said.

He pointed to major fires at Russian Baltic oil export facilities, saying the damage was especially significant because of the role those sites play in sustaining Russian crude exports.

“We’ve all seen those images of those oil ports in the Baltic burning for days. I think they’re still burning,” he said, referring to Ust Luga and Primorsk. “Those ports are responsible for a big part of Russia’s oil.”

Browder said Ukraine had struck the Russian dictator “right where it counts” by hitting Moscow’s ability to export oil, the Kremlin’s most important source of war funding.

He said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had for a long time pressed Western governments to impose tougher sanctions on Russian oil, but with insufficient action from abroad, Kyiv had effectively moved to impose its own sanctions through force.

“So he imposed his own sanctions on Russian oil and it’s been very, very powerful,” Browder said.

He added that the full scale effect of the campaign may not yet be visible, but argued that what can already be seen points to growing concern at the top of the Kremlin.

“What we can see is that Putin is not pounding his chest feeling very good. He’s scared to death right now,” Browder said.

He argued that this anxiety is showing itself not only in military and economic policy but also in domestic controls. Browder said internet shutdowns in Moscow and St Petersburg suggest the Kremlin is worried about internal instability and possible threats to the Russian dictator personally.

“He’s shut down the internet in Moscow and St Petersburg,” Browder said, adding that after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Putin may now fear that Ukraine could one day strike at him directly.

“He watched the murder of the Ayatollah and thought that the Ukrainians might be able to do that to him. And he’s really scared.”

Browder said the internet restrictions have exposed a weakness in the Kremlin’s long standing social bargain with urban Russians.

He said the Russian authorities had effectively allowed people in Moscow and St Petersburg to live relatively comfortable and politically passive lives while the state carried out repression and war elsewhere.

“The Russian government has always had a deal with the people,” he said. “We will do whatever we want, do all these terrible things with Ukrainians and other parts of the world, but you can sort of live a happy life at least in St Petersburg and Moscow.”

That arrangement, he said, is now under strain.

“Now all of a sudden they turn off the internet and everybody is not living a happy life anymore in Russia,” Browder said.

He said the practical effect has been striking in two of Russia’s wealthiest and most connected cities.

“It’s hard to imagine what life is like without the internet. It’s like going back 30 years,” he said. “People in Moscow and St Petersburg are having to buy paper maps. They’re getting walkie talkies to communicate. All sorts of weird stuff.”

Browder said these developments suggest there is a deeper problem inside the Russian system.

“There’s something going on which is not a great thing for Vladimir Putin,” he said.

He argued that the wider picture also shows that the Kremlin’s claim to great power status has weakened sharply.

“Perhaps the biggest thing going on is that he’s been proven to be, effectively, as Obama described him, a weak regional leader as opposed to a superpower,” Browder said.

He said the Russian dictator had long tried to portray himself as the leader of a powerful anti Western bloc, promising protection and influence to allies including Syria, Venezuela and Iran.

“He was saying, I’m the big superpower. Syria, Venezuela, Iran, you come with me and everything will be fine,” Browder said. “And all those countries are not fine.”

He added that Moscow has not been able to meaningfully protect or stabilise those partners and said this has damaged Russia’s standing with both current and potential allies.

Asked whether Donald Trump might be deliberately isolating Putin while publicly maintaining friendly relations with him, Browder rejected the idea that there was a coherent strategic plan.

“I think that Donald Trump really, really wants to be close friends with Putin,” Browder said.

He said Trump appears eager for the war to end not out of principle but because he wants to normalise relations with Russia and reopen the possibility of business.

“I think he really wants whatever business deals he can do with Russia. He can’t do those business deals until the war is over,” Browder said. “He just desperately wants this war to end so that he can normalise relations and get all this business done that he’s hoping to do.”

Browder said Trump’s broader foreign policy actions have often had little to do with Russia directly, but that the overall effect of events around the world has still exposed the limits of Kremlin power.

He pointed to developments involving Venezuela, Iran, Syria and the South Caucasus as examples of how Moscow’s reach has been overstated.

“He couldn’t even protect the Armenians from the Azerbaijanis,” Browder said, referring to Russia’s failure to prevent the loss of disputed territories in Nagorno Karabakh despite earlier promises of support to Armenia.

He said that episode, like others, showed Putin “is looking very weak”.

“He can’t even make any progress in Ukraine and every one of his allies that he’s promised stuff around the world is falling,” Browder said.

He argued that this matters because it leaves the Kremlin with little credibility in trying to recruit or reassure future partners.

“He can’t make any promises to any future allies. He really is isolated and that’s not a good thing for him.”

The interview also turned to reports that Putin had recently asked top Russian business figures for “voluntary” payments to support the war effort.

The discussion referenced reporting that Rosneft chief Igor Sechin had proposed the idea and that oligarch Suleiman Kerimov had allegedly pledged 100 billion roubles, which is about $1.17 billion at current exchange rates.

The Kremlin later denied it was directly seeking cash.

Browder said the reported meeting nonetheless suggested financial stress.

“Absolutely. You don’t go and try to squeeze the oligarchs for money if you’re in good shape,” he said.

He said that despite stronger oil prices and looser practical constraints on some Russian exports, the Kremlin appears to be in a much weaker economic position than it wants to admit.

“Even with the rising oil price and even with the sanctions being lifted, he’s in a very tough economic situation,” Browder said.

He added that internet restrictions themselves also point to insecurity at the top.

“Cutting off the internet shows how desperate he is as well,” he said. “I don’t think he’s in a good place at all.”

At the same time, Browder cautioned that it remains difficult to know exactly how severe the pressure is because reliable information from inside Russia has become scarce.

“It’s very hard to know exactly what’s going on though because there’s no real good, clear, honest information coming out of Russia,” he said.

He said independent journalism has been almost completely crushed.

“Anybody who’s an objective reporter is pretty much already dead, in jail or in exile,” Browder said.

That leaves only fragments of information, he said, making it hard to judge how events inside Russia are developing beneath the surface.

“You get bits and pieces, but it’s pretty hard to know how it’s all playing itself out.”

Still, Browder said some in the Russian opposition believe the system could unravel quickly if enough pressure builds.

“As some of my friends in the Russian opposition say, when it’s all going to come undone, it’s going to happen very quickly and unexpectedly,” he said.

“I don’t know when that’s going to be, but it’s nice to see signs of stress on his system.”

Those “green shoots of stress”, as the programme’s host described them, come as Putin appears increasingly silent while Ukraine presses ahead on multiple fronts.

Browder said Ukrainian forces have effectively stopped Russian advances in several areas and in some sectors are pushing them back.

He also said Russia appears less able than before to rely on the tactics it previously used, including fixed wing aircraft and glide bomb attacks, raising the possibility of broader difficulties within the Russian air force.

At the same time, Browder said Ukraine has expanded its strike campaign inside Russia, not only hitting oil and gas infrastructure and export networks, but also chemical plants, factories producing rocket propellants and explosives, and engineering facilities linked to military production.

He said this reflects a more systematic effort by Kyiv to degrade the economic and industrial foundations of Russia’s war machine.

Beyond the battlefield, Browder said Ukraine is also increasingly turning wartime innovation into strategic leverage abroad.

He pointed to Ukrainian technology developed to counter Russian and Iranian made Shahed 136 drones and said Kyiv is now exporting or marketing such systems to countries including Saudi Arabia.

This, he argued, has helped Ukraine build new relationships and attract longer term support that is less dependent on the United States.

He also said that despite Donald Trump’s earlier claim in the Oval Office that Ukraine had “no cards”, Kyiv now appears to have several strong ones.

Browder said Zelenskyy had already shown Ukraine could break Russia’s attempted blockade of the Black Sea and protect grain exports, and argued that if Kyiv could help secure wider shipping routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, it would further increase Ukraine’s strategic value to the wider world.

“If he can do that, the whole world owes him everything,” Browder said.

He added that Ukraine’s growing defence ties with Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern governments also appear to be irritating Washington.

Browder cited reports that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had rebuked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over a defence deal with Ukraine that had not gone through Washington.

“They’re pissed. They’re pissed,” Browder said of the US reaction.

He said the broader lesson is that the global balance of influence no longer looks as clear as it once did.

“We’re in a world where the superpowers aren’t so super powerful and the supposed weak powers aren’t so weak,” he said.

That, he added, may be especially frustrating for Trump.

“Donald Trump is watching all these Ukrainian actions and saying, ‘Well, you guys should have folded a long time ago so I could have done my business with Putin. This is really annoying.’”

The interview was broadcast on Frontline with Kate Gerbeau, Philip Ingram and Louis Sykes, produced by Times Radio.