‘Something is going on’ Russian internet shutdowns expose Putin’s weak position | Sir Bill Browder

(LONDON) – Investor and anti corruption campaigner Sir Bill Browder says widening internet shutdowns in major Russian cities, mounting losses at the front and repeated Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure suggest the Kremlin is under greater pressure than it appears.

Speaking to Frontline on Times Radio, Browder said the Russian dictator has gone unusually quiet even as global tensions have risen, and argued that this silence may reflect a leadership increasingly concerned about its own vulnerability rather than confidence in its position.

Browder, chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management and head of the Magnitsky Justice Campaign, said the Kremlin still benefits from high oil prices, which remain the main source of funding for Russia’s war against Ukraine. He also claimed Moscow had gained from what he described as a temporary easing in the practical enforcement of restrictions on Russian oil exports, allowing it to continue selling crude to buyers including Cuba.

At the same time, he said, Russia has continued to support Iran with weapons related assistance, targeting information and intelligence, part of what he described as the external side of Moscow’s current activity.

But Browder said these advantages are being offset by serious setbacks on the battlefield and growing strain inside Russia itself. He said Russian forces are still suffering heavy casualties, estimating losses at between 1,000 and 1,500 personnel a day, while making little meaningful progress in Ukraine.

He said Ukraine has developed what he described as a “drone wall” along parts of the front, making Russian assaults increasingly costly and in some sectors ineffective. In some areas, he said, Ukrainian forces are not only holding the line but pushing Russian troops back.

Browder also argued that changes in United States policy have altered the battlefield in unexpected ways. He said Washington had previously placed repeated limits on how Ukraine could use Western supplied weapons, particularly against targets inside Russia, but that with US military aid now disrupted, Kyiv appears to have acted with greater freedom.

He said recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory appear to have become more aggressive and more economically focused, particularly against energy export infrastructure.

Among the most significant examples, he pointed to fires at oil export facilities on the Baltic, saying ports such as Ust Luga and Primorsk are central to Russia’s ability to sell oil abroad. He said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had long urged Western governments to target Russian oil exports through sanctions, but in the absence of sufficient action, Ukraine had effectively imposed its own sanctions through force.

Browder said the economic consequences could be severe if such attacks continue. He argued that the Russian dictator is now more exposed because oil revenues remain the backbone of the war economy.

He also said there are signs of concern within the Kremlin that go beyond the battlefield. Browder pointed to internet shutdowns in Moscow and St Petersburg, saying they are disrupting everyday life in Russia’s two largest and most politically sensitive cities.

He said many residents are now being forced to rely on paper maps and even walkie talkies as digital services become unreliable or inaccessible. For a population that had largely been allowed to enjoy relative convenience and consumer comfort in exchange for political passivity, he said, the disruption is significant.

“The Russian government has always had a deal with the people,” Browder said, arguing that the state effectively asked citizens to ignore the regime’s actions abroad in exchange for a stable and comfortable private life at home. “Now all of a sudden they turn off the internet and everybody is not living a happy life anymore.”

He said this points to “something going on” inside the system and argued that it is “not a great thing” for the Kremlin leadership.

Browder also said the Russian dictator’s broader claim to great power status is being eroded. Referring to a phrase once used by former US President Barack Obama, he said Putin increasingly resembles “a weak regional leader” rather than the head of a superpower.

He said Russia has presented itself as a patron and protector of partners including Syria, Venezuela and Iran, yet those relationships now reveal Moscow’s limits rather than its strength. According to Browder, many of the states and leaders that once looked to the Kremlin for backing are now either under pressure or receiving far less practical help than promised.

Asked whether US President Donald Trump might be deliberately isolating Putin while maintaining a personal rapport with him, Browder rejected the idea that this was a coherent strategy. Instead, he said Trump appears to want the war ended primarily so that relations with Moscow can be normalised and business opportunities can resume.

“I think that Donald Trump really, really wants to be close friends with Putin,” Browder said, adding that he believes Trump is motivated in part by the prospect of future commercial deals involving Russia.

He argued that Trump’s behaviour should not be seen as a carefully planned effort to weaken the Kremlin, but rather as a product of personal interest and a wider foreign policy that has produced inconsistent results elsewhere.

Browder said the Russian dictator’s weakness has also been exposed by his inability to defend allied or partner interests in other theatres. He pointed to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, saying Moscow had failed to uphold the security guarantees it had implied, reinforcing doubts about Russia’s reliability even among those once aligned with it.

On the financial front, Browder said reports that the Kremlin had sought “voluntary” wartime contributions from leading Russian oligarchs also point to stress rather than strength. He was responding to reports that Putin had asked major business figures to help fund the war effort.

According to discussion on the programme, businessman Suleiman Kerimov was reported to have pledged 100 billion roubles, which at current exchange rates is roughly $1.18 billion, while others, including Oleg Deripaska, were also said to be involved. The amount of 100 billion Russian roubles is approximately UGX 4.54 trillion and $1.18 billion at current market rates.

Browder said such a move would be unnecessary if the Kremlin’s finances were secure.

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

He added that even with stronger oil prices and continued export income, Russia appears to be facing a difficult economic position beneath the surface. However, he cautioned that the true state of affairs remains hard to assess because independent reporting from inside Russia has largely been eliminated.

“There’s no real good, clear, honest information coming out of Russia,” Browder said, adding that objective reporters are now “pretty much already dead, in jail, or in exile”.

He said this makes it difficult to know exactly how far internal stress has progressed, but he noted that Russian opposition figures have long argued that if the system begins to fracture, it may happen quickly and without much warning.

Turning to Ukraine, Browder said Kyiv has shown increasing effectiveness not only in holding the line militarily but in targeting the industrial and economic foundations of Russia’s war effort.

He said Ukrainian strikes are no longer limited to oil and gas assets, but are also hitting chemical plants, propellant production facilities and engineering sites linked to military output.

He also said Kyiv has sought to expand its strategic influence beyond the battlefield by marketing Ukrainian developed defence technology abroad, including systems designed to counter Iranian made Shahed 136 drones.

According to Browder, this has helped Ukraine build new relationships with states in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, at a time when some of those governments are looking for practical and comparatively affordable solutions to modern drone threats.

He said this emerging defence and technology diplomacy may prove strategically important, particularly as Ukraine seeks more long term and diversified sources of support outside the United States.

Browder also suggested that Trump may be frustrated by Ukraine’s resilience and growing diplomatic room for manoeuvre, especially as Kyiv demonstrates that it still has leverage despite repeated claims from Washington that it had none.

He said the international environment now appears increasingly unstable and less predictable, with traditional assumptions about who is strong and who is weak becoming harder to sustain.

On Iran, Browder said Trump now faces poor options following escalating tensions in the region. He argued that any failure to anticipate the risk of disruption in the Strait of Hormuz would reflect badly on Washington’s judgement, particularly given the importance of the waterway to global energy markets.

Returning to the war in Ukraine, Browder said the single most urgent strategic issue may now be financing.

He said Ukraine cannot sustain a long war without external support. Before Trump’s return to office, Browder said funding had come roughly 40% from the United States and 60% from Europe. With Washington now stepping back, he said Europe has been left carrying a greater burden.

Browder said European efforts to structure long term support using frozen Russian state assets had run into political resistance, including objections from Belgium and later obstruction from Hungary.

He said Europe had assembled a €90 billion support package for Ukraine, worth about $97.8 billion and approximately UGX 375.8 trillion at current exchange rates, but said implementation had become uncertain after renewed opposition from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Browder accused Orbán of acting as “Putin’s Trojan horse” inside the European Union, pointing to reports of close coordination between Hungarian and Russian officials on EU policy matters.

He warned that the issue is urgent because Ukraine could face a funding shortfall as early as June if fresh support is delayed.

Still, Browder said he believes Europe will ultimately find a way to continue backing Ukraine, arguing that the wider security stakes are too high for the bloc to allow one leader to derail support indefinitely.

If the money arrives, he said, Ukraine’s military position could continue to improve. He argued that Ukrainian forces are becoming more effective both at defending territory and at striking Russian economic and military targets deep behind the front.

The greatest remaining vulnerability, he said, is Ukraine’s civilian energy grid. Browder warned that with air defence stocks under pressure and deliveries of systems such as Patriot missiles disrupted, Russian attacks on electricity infrastructure could again become a major challenge.

Asked why no visible political opposition has yet emerged inside Russia despite these pressures, Browder said the answer lies in the scale of repression.

He said most credible opposition figures have been killed, jailed or driven abroad. He cited the killings or imprisonment of figures including Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara Murza as evidence that Russia now functions not merely as an authoritarian system, but as a totalitarian one.

Even so, Browder said dissatisfaction may still be building beneath the surface, especially as ordinary Russians begin to feel direct inconvenience and insecurity.

He said many in Moscow and St Petersburg may have ignored the suffering caused by the war so long as their own lives remained comfortable, but that internet blackouts and worsening disruption are now beginning to change that calculation.

Asked what advice he would give Kyiv if he were speaking directly to Ukrainian leaders, Browder said the most effective route to forcing Moscow into meaningful negotiations would be to eliminate Russia’s remaining oil export capacity.

He said Ukraine has already hit what he described as 40% of Russia’s oil exporting capability and argued that if that figure rose to 100%, the Kremlin would be left with little choice but to negotiate because it could no longer afford to continue the war.

Browder also suggested that if Ukraine can apply some of the same maritime and technological innovation it used in the Black Sea to wider regional security challenges, it could strengthen its international standing even further.

On peace talks, he said Trump’s leverage over Kyiv has sharply declined as financial, military and political pressure from Washington loses force.

By contrast, he said Putin is still unlikely to negotiate seriously unless he feels genuinely threatened. In Browder’s view, that pressure will not come from diplomacy alone, but from depriving the Kremlin of the money needed to continue the war.

He said the Russian dictator may still try to push Russia further towards a more isolated and repressive model, comparing the trajectory to North Korea. But he added that even heavily controlled systems can become unstable if enough people become angry at once, especially if money, military manpower and public patience all begin to run out at the same time.

Browder said Trump’s reluctance to confront Russia more directly may also be linked to personal and financial interests. Referring to past reporting in The Wall Street Journal, he said he believes Trump sees future business opportunities with Russia and is therefore willing to overlook actions that would otherwise demand a harder response.

He argued that this is one reason Trump appears willing to tolerate behaviour from Moscow that would normally be treated as hostile to US interests.

Despite that, Browder said he hopes the war will not still be in the same position a year from now.

He said recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure have been especially punishing and could prove decisive if sustained. If Ukraine continues to degrade the economic base of Russia’s war machine, he said, “all bets are off” for Putin.

The interview was conducted on Frontline with Philip Ingram and formed part of Times Radio’s ongoing coverage of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.