Frontline special - 25 years of Putin
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. I'm Alex Dibble and I executive produce the podcast. The World in 10 is partnered with Frontline, the interview series from Times Radio, available on YouTube, with expert analysis of the world's conflicts. At the weekend, we bring you Frontline interviews in full. Here's one from this week. I hope you find it interesting. Hello.

Hello and welcome to another Frontline with me Philip Ingram. Now today this is Putin's 25th anniversary of him being sworn into being president. I think he was president without having taken the oath for a few months beforehand but

We're talking to Diane Francis and Sir William Browder about Vladimir Putin and what's going on around the world. Now, Diane is a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Centre. She's a well-known journalist, author, broadcaster and editor-at-large at the National Post. Yes, I am. You're still that, I hope, Diane.

Yes, I am. And Sir William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, head of the global Magnitsky justice campaign and author of Red Notice. And both of you are regular guests on Frontline. Great to be here. Welcome back to both of you.

Now, interesting times we live in. I was reading a post by Susan Glasser, who's FP's former editor-in-chief, and she wrote in 2020 that Putin's main qualifications for his job were that he was young, articulate and literally sober.

And then earlier this week, Anders Ashland said that Putin had effectively, since he's come in, stalled Russian growth and not progressed the economy in any way, shape or form. So after 25 years in post-war,

and leading Russia. How does he compare with other Russian and Soviet leaders? And what, in your view, are his strengths and his weaknesses? He's done a little much, much, much about bolstering the military in Russia.

in broadcasting his intentions and his belief that Russia is a great superpower that has to be part of everything in the world. And he has, of course, stoked and started wars all over the world from invading Ukraine to invading

Georgia and of course, I believe that the Hamas attack on October 7th was a birthday present to Putin by the terrorists because Iran is one of his allies. So he is an evil force throughout the world and he's made himself more evil and he's ruthless and he's psychopathic.

And he's driven, but again, he is sober and clear-headed about his intentions. And I think he's thoroughly underappreciated and undervalued and misunderstood by Trump, who's his principal arch enemy.

Yeah. And Bill, what are your thoughts? So Putin has a number of very strong skills. He's one of the most accomplished kleptocrats in the world. He's learned the art of stealing like nobody has ever done in the history of leadership. I think that Putin and the

Thousand people around him over a 25 year period have stolen a trillion dollars from the Russian people in the Russian state. So that's one of his great skills. Another great skill is that he's an extremely paranoid little man. Why is that a skill? Because he's taken his paranoia to lengths that nobody could ever imagine.

His paranoia is so extreme that he's been able to stay in power for 25 years. I believe that his attack on Ukraine, his war in Ukraine, is part of his paranoia. Not because he thinks that Ukraine is going to do anything bad to him. I think that he's so scared of his own people.

that he just dug out Machiavelli 101 and found a foreign enemy and started a war because that is what he needed to do in order to make sure that he stays in power because he understands that if he's not in power, then he'll be hung from a lamppost because that's what happens to people like him.

But we keep hearing that his motivating factor is he wants to regenerate the USSR as was, with him as the Tsar at the centre of it. Diane, do you think that is really what it is that's underpinning everything that he's doing and has done since he's come in power? Yeah, he's paranoid with delusions of grandeur.

for himself as well as his country. You know, that would be my street level psychiatric assessment of him. As Bill says, quite rightly, and he knows full well firsthand, that Vladimir Putin's autocratic aptitude is unsurpassed. He controls 11 time zones with money and with fear.

And, you know, there are 130 ethnic groups in that 11 time zones that are jailed.

that can't use their languages, can't apply their customs. And it's all run out of St. Petersburg in Moscow by white Slavs. And those are his, that's his base. And those people's children, by the way, are not going into the wars. The other people's children are going into the wars. And he has gulags and he has secret police and he has clamped down on dissent in any form.

And he's ruthless in that respect. The other thing is, it's not just the sticks, but it's the carrots. He's got the oligarchs who are custodians of his wealth. He has got to be the richest man in history. My guess would be trillions.

But all of these oligarchs that appear on the Forbes richest list are actually holding money on behalf of Putin, in my estimation. He tells them what to do with it and whatnot. So in that sense, they have absolutely no power. So this is the most powerful as well. And he's got a nuclear arsenal. So this is the most powerful man in history.

Well, I want to get into his oligarch network and how that holds him in power and the stability there is across Russia. You're building on what you said with St Petersburg and Moscow having to retain control over the Federation a little bit later. But you're going back to...

one of the comments earlier, and Putin and Trump, because we're trying to focus on what's going on in Ukraine and the geopolitics there. Putin at one point seemed to have the White House delivering its message almost verbatim. And then we get the likes of Pete Hegseth

And it's just come out this week that who's the US defense secretary making unilateral decisions to stop the supply of weapons to Ukraine without Trump's knowledge or approval. Or that's how the reports have gone.

How do you think Putin and Trump really get on? Who is the dominant one? And why would you think that? And what really does Putin have as his level of what seems to be control that's allowing him or influence into what's coming out of the White House? Bill, I'll start off with you. Well, this is like that trillion dollar question. Why is Trump dominant?

doing all this water carrying for Putin. And it really is truly remarkable. I mean, I've spent the last 15 years in a conflict with Putin, a personal conflict. And the country that was most robust in supporting me and in defending me and being on my side for almost all of that 15 years was the United States of America.

It was the and particularly the people on the right hand side of the aisle, the Republicans, the Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives, which doesn't mean the Democrats weren't on my side, but the Republicans were robustly on my side. And and so it's become a complete shock to me, probably the biggest shock of my life to watch the United States of America.

switch sides, to basically vote with Russia and Iran and North Korea at the United Nations when the United Nations, when a number of countries wanted to condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine, to cut off military aid for some period of time, to cut off the provision of military intelligence, to attack Zelensky verbally in the Oval Office. This is all stuff that

was unimaginable to me. And everybody, of course, asked me, why? Why is Trump doing this? And I can tell you why Trump, I can cross off a couple of the theories. I don't believe that there's any kind of compromise, that there's a big theory that somehow that Trump has caught doing unbelievably embarrassing things

in Moscow and they have them on tape. I don't believe that. And the reason I don't believe that is not because I don't believe that Trump would have done unbelievably embarrassing things. He does them every day. But I don't believe that Trump is blackmailable. He's the one person who is unblackmailable in the world. He could do anything he wants. As he's been quoted as saying, he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and the people would still vote for him.

And so I don't believe it's blackmail. And then there are other theories to say, well, this guy is borrowed a bunch of money from Russia. Well, he's borrowed a lot of money from a lot of different people over a very long period of time. I know some of them and he's defaulted on all those loans. And so why would he be so deferential to Russia's loans when it hasn't been deferential to people who lend money to his casinos and various other stuff? And so I don't believe that there is that.

I believe that Trump is in business, and I say business, for himself. And so what are the business deals or angles or incentives that Putin might have thrown his way? We don't know. We'll eventually know.

Everything always comes out in the end. But even if we know, it doesn't matter because he's been given a carte blanche to do whatever he wants. Anything he does in his capacity as president is immune from prosecution. So, you know, what is it? We don't know. But what we do know is that

He's completely done 180 degree turn from the way that America was going before in terms of Russia. The American people don't like Vladimir Putin. The Republican Party doesn't like Vladimir Putin. And so he's doing something which is different than in the national interest of Americans for reasons that are unknown, but he's definitely doing them. And that is a big problem.

So, Diane, we've seen in the last week or so, so it's too early to work out where Trump's going to go. It seems to be an easing of his support for Russia and going back to supporting Zelensky in Ukraine all after that very famous picture of the two of them head to head in the Vatican at the Pope's funeral. Do you think we're seeing a sea change or what do you think is driving Trump's team from your perspective?

Well, I don't know about sea changes, but what I would like to sort of put out there, and I agree with everything Bill said, that he's not co-opted. He's not a commie rat. You know, he's none of that. And I don't think he's on the take because he's ridiculously rich already. I imagine he sees the world as Queens. Okay. He's a real estate developer and a landlord.

He sees every country as an apartment building in Queens. And can I buy it? Can I co-opt it? Can I bully it? Do I have to demolish it? Just think in those simplistic terms. So this erases all of history, all of the diplomatic dancing that goes on around foreign affairs. And he's just saying, you know, Canada is a nice apartment building. I want to buy it.

It's not for sale? Well, it might be one day. With Ukraine and with Europe, he's saying the same thing. This is a troublesome guy.

Okay, now I want him to stop shooting out of the windows of his apartment building at the windows in Europe and Ukraine. So what am I going to do with this guy? So I'll try, you know, and convince him. So I'll sweet talk him, try and be nice to him. I'll ignore it. I won't, you know, dump on him for what he's doing. That's not going to help. So I think his negotiating technique is to make nice with Putin, do a few things for him to soften him up.

And then to be tough on the Ukrainians and the Europeans so they don't have expectations that are too high and hope that somewhere in the middle he can get things sorted out. And I really think this is a man with no historical background, no diplomatic or political background, no politesse.

It's all about looking at the world as a bunch of apartment buildings in Queens. Some have to be demolished, some have to be ignored, some have to be bought, some have to be improved.

Yeah, it's interesting seeing that tactic going through. Now, you've gone back to Putin and Putin's position. Bill, today, and you won't have seen this, but UK Defence Intelligence puts a daily assessment out. And today they revised, they reported on revised Russian oil revenue down by 25% this year and the Russian budget deficit up from 0.5% to 1.7% of GDP. The current

Or as of yesterday, the Russian euro's oil price was about $53 a barrel. And do you think that is having a significant impact on the Russian economy and therefore the freedom of maneuver that Putin has got? And is this economic position that Russia is in at the moment sustainable? It's not sustainable. It's a very expensive war that Putin is executing.

the sanctions that everybody criticizes as having not worked are almost all encompassing. The assets that have been frozen, the central bank reserves that have been frozen, the lending market that's been completely cut off from Russia, the SWIFT with the interbank payment system. But the one thing that does remain that Russia still has is their export of oil. They export a lot of oil,

and they make a lot of money from that oil export, and they use that money to continue to kill Ukrainians. And so that is the place that we need to focus on. And what's interesting is that there's a lot of talk and there has been a lot of talk since the war began, and I've been involved in a lot of this talk about how do you deal with that oil, that oil revenue? How do you cut off so you can't do this?

And and it's been a very sensitive topic because nobody wants to know. No politician, I should say, wants to embargo Russian oil because they produce 10 percent of the world's oil. And if they if that oil stopped flowing, then the price of oil would go up and we're in a world of inflation and everybody is scared of that. But what's interesting is that totally out of left field on Liberation Day,

the Trump's tariff threats

have caused all sorts of economic chaos. And one of the pieces of economic chaos is that oil prices are down 18%. And if oil is the only thing that Russia's got to help them fight their war, then that's got to be pretty painful for them. I'd like to see the oil price go down another 20%. I mean, there is a level at which Putin will run out of money, but it's not there yet. I mean, he will starve his people long before he stops fighting his war.

But at some point, there's just not enough money. And so that is the Achilles heel. That is the sensitive spot for Vladimir Putin is the oil. And we should be thinking about that. And I do hope that once we get past this fantasy that there's going to be a ceasefire, that we then say, OK, how do we really put the pressure on Putin? And that is the oil.

Well, we've heard Donald Trump come out and say that his reaction if Putin doesn't come to start to negotiate at the table, that he would take further economic measures against him. So it's clear that Trump recognises that. But, Dan, do you think that Putin is on a downward slope at the minute? Could we predict?

when the pressure is going to be on him where he's going to want to sue for some form of peace? Can he afford, and this will be to both of you, but can he afford to have a peace settlement with everything that's going on at the moment? Or is he stuck in this perpetual war that he can't afford to get out of? Well, I don't think he thinks in terms of economics. I really think he thinks in terms of the greater glory of Mother Russia.

And he really despises and wants to destroy Ukraine specifically.

The other thing that's kind of interesting, though, I'd like Bill to comment on it, too, is that I've noticed recently that the Saudis and the others in OPEC have been producing lots of oil, and that's also helped push it down. Maybe there's a little bit of a conspiracy afoot to dump a lot of oil around the world as Trump gets closer and closer to trying to get him to stop

as a pressure point. Now, the other problem is, of course, that while the world loves lower oil prices, the American oil industry doesn't. And so, you know, it means pain in Texas, it means pain in the red states.

and all of that sort of thing. But I kind of smell he's going to Saudi shortly. I kind of smell some kind of arrangement where, you know, he's going to rename the Persian Gulf the Arab Gulf. I think he's going to do some kind of deal perhaps with the Arab members of OPEC to help him wrestle down Putin.

in Europe and possibly also to stop it from helping Iran so much as well because of the Israeli-Gaza problem. So it's kind of interconnected, but the oil problem runs right through this. And I've been very upset actually to learn that throughout the war, since the invasion, the Europeans are still importing Russian oil and gas.

Yeah, and Bill, letting you come back into it again, but there must be oligarchs that are making huge amounts of money out of this as well. And they must be in a position to be putting pressure on Putin to try and influence things one way or the other, or with their contacts around the international community trying to pressurize things. Who's doing what, where, when, to whom?

Well, there's an easy answer to that question. Nobody is putting any pressure on Putin from inside whatsoever. So for 28 years, I've attended the World Economic Forum in Davos. And for about 25 of those years, the Russians were a big force at the WEF. And it was really interesting because you'd see these oligarchs strutting around like they own the place. They're thumping their chest.

you know, alpha male on steroids, you know, just the most aggressive, unpleasant, out there type of people. And what was interesting is that a couple of times Putin would show up at the World Economic Forum. And it was so, so interesting to see the body language. The moment that these guys came into a room with Putin, they became like these sniveling little schoolboys, right?

They completely, completely lost their swagger, their bravado. They were so scared of like looking at the wrong thing. I mean, they didn't know what to do. They're terrified.

They're so scared of Putin because at the stroke of a pen, Putin could take all their money away. He could put them in jail or he could kill them. They all understand that. And even though they're supposedly, as Diane said earlier, they're supposedly these rich guys, they're holding Putin's money. And at any point, he could take their money away from them completely. And so they're the least powerful people around. The people that Putin is scared of is the population of Russia.

If so, if something were to happen where, you know, it just sets off a chain reaction and there's a million people on Red Square, there's nothing he can do anymore. That's the end. You know, all Putin can do is kill individuals. He can kill Alexei Navalny, the leader of the opposition. He could kill Boris Nemtsov, another leader of the opposition.

That he can do. But if enough people show up at Red Square, then he's finished. And so that's the only thing he's really afraid of is just what does he do that where the people of Russia, their anger overcomes their fear? Because there's a lot of fear there right now, because at any point he could do, you know, he's he's a ruthless dictator. But at some point people say, you know, I don't even care anymore. I'm so angry and I'm no longer scared because I'm so angry. And that's what he's afraid of. Well, Diane, you're building on that. You know,

The USSR pulled out of Afghanistan in '89 because it suffered about 50,000 casualties, 15,000 dead, 35,000 wounded, and the pressure that came from the mothers of the service personnel. I think in Ukraine, we're...

close to 950,000 casualties. Now, Putin's information war has focused on his own people, has kept largely the reality of that away from Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, today in the run-up to the victory in Europe

celebrations. Zelensky's drones have stopped about 350 flights and there's 60,000 people stuck in different airports between St. Petersburg and Moscow. And therefore, I think the people of Russia will be beginning to realize that something is going on that the state, i.e. Vladimir Putin, can't control.

Do you think there is the green shoots of reality coming to the Russian people? And could that build up to, as Bill was saying, Putin's worst fears of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands getting out on the streets of Moscow?

Well, that's where the heart of darkness is, but that's also where the conflicts are. Everybody in Moscow and St. Petersburg are living pretty good lives. Everybody else lives in absolute poverty. I mean, and the level of alcoholism and misery and lack of health care and running water across these 11 time zones is just unbelievable. But these people are also very isolated.

And they're not close to being able to seize any kind of levers of power other than turning out in the streets, which happened in Bashkortostan recently. But that's just one off.

You know, this is the problem. And, you know, the other issue is that it's a very sick country. I came across the text of a speech he made, Putin, in one of his unusual forays to help recruitment for his slaughterhouse. And, you know, he was in the Siberian town and his pitch essentially was, well, wives and mothers and daughters, just think about the fact that

you know, if your husband or son or father go in the army, I'm going to pay you $100,000 bonus. And if he doesn't go in, he's just going to drink himself to death. So what do you want, a new house and a new lifestyle? That's actually the pitch he's making. And it's working. And, you know, it's just an awful, sick situation. On the issue of oligarchs,

I agree with Bill and they don't have any direct power, but they are insidious. They spread themselves throughout foreign countries.

They get the Rolodex of all the rich and famous and powerful. They have the leaders and the business leaders on speed dial. Look at Deripaska. He's done all kinds of things to curry the favor of Trump and other politicians, Mitch McConnell and so on. So they're kind of like a...

insidious spy network, an outreach network that is eyes and ears and mouths on behalf of the regime. And so they're very pervasive, as he said. They're at the World Economic Forum, they're at all the major conferences and they're in all the major business alliances. But Putin's not a young man. He's not an old man. I think there's too much speculation around his health and people are making assumptions. But he must know that at some stage,

he is going to have to hand over power. Who's he grooming? Who's going to be a natural successor? Or is it going to turn into a bun fight between all of the next tier with the oligarchs as they suddenly go, right, I have to move for this fast. And if that bun fight happens,

How does that bode for keeping the Russian Federation together? Bill, I'll start with you on that one. Well, the answer is that he has no designated successor for the very simple reason that if he designates a successor, that successor is going to accelerate his succession.

And as a properly paranoid little man, he doesn't want to do that. And so, in fact, anybody who sort of emerges as a possible successor who has enough charisma or popularity, that person gets sidelined very, very quickly.

And so if, and, and Putin is, is not, is not an old man. He's, he's in his early seventies. He's got the best healthcare that money can buy. You know, all these rumors that he's about to die are untrue. He'll, he'll live a long life and he'll, and he'll stay in power during his long life unless somebody comes in and, and, and, and challenges that. And so my, my, my theory on the whole thing is that, you

I mean, like anybody else, he could just die of a catastrophic heart attack. And if he were to die of a catastrophic heart attack, it would be very much like the death of the Pope in that then you get a bunch of what they call sylviki, the strong men, the head of the KGB and the army and all that. And they would all go into the Kremlin and they would figure out what they have to do to keep it all together.

And the reason that they would do that is that there's so much money at stake. There's all this money that they've stolen. And they understand very clearly that if there's a real regime change, if somebody else comes in that is not their designate, that person is going to want to take all their money away from them. And so they're going to figure out who the status quo successor will be.

And then when they figured it out, the white smoke will come out of the Kremlin and they'll emerge and say that so-and-so is the new leader of Russia or some version of that scenario, because there's just too much at stake.

And they're all so scared. And let me just add a little anecdote, which is that during those interesting days when Yevgeny Progozhin, the head of Wagner Group, was marching towards Moscow, all of the oligarchs were jumping on their private planes. There's a thing called flight radar where you can track airplanes. And you could just see all these private planes taking off from Moscow and St. Petersburg because they were all terrified. And it was only when he stopped that the planes turned around and came back and landed.

And so, I mean, that's the world that we live in, which is, you know, that they all want to keep it all going so that they don't also get hung from the lampposts and have all their money taken away.

Yeah, well, I think Prigozhin shocked himself as to how close he got to Moscow. He didn't expect to get 50 kilometers up the road, never mind as far as he did. But, you know, Diane, what do you think of the succession plans? And if it all falls apart, the stability that there would be for the Russian Federation, because...

The likes of China, as part of their support, will be investing heavily in Russia, i.e. buying Russian natural resources or big chunks of territory to pay for the support that they're giving for the war in Ukraine. They're going to want to protect that. Would we see a period of instability coming in?

Oh, I think it would be very, very unstable. But Bill's right. There's no success. I don't think there's even anyone that's training for the job. You know, this is a... Do you think Petrushev, sorry, Petrushev got a little bit too close? Was he getting a little bit too confident himself? And that's why he was moved out and Shogu was put in his place?

Well, I guess so. I mean, I'm not that familiar with the details of that, but he's bulletproof. If a lucky bomb hits him, that's about the only thing we can hope for. And then it wouldn't be necessarily one guy taking over or convincing the rest because they've preordained who's going to be replacement.

I think you'll see it break apart just like Russia, just like the Soviet Union did. You'll see bits splinter off. You'll see Chechnya declare independence again. You'll see some of these Central European areas sort of want to join the Central European Asian states. You'll see perhaps even something in the northwest of the country and around Mongolia.

So, I think you'll see the things sort of disintegrate, and then it'll be inoperable, and then something will have to happen. I think it's going to be messy, and there's always the concern about the nuclear arsenal.

I don't think the military is necessarily cohesive. If you looked at Prigozhin, he only got mustered a small battalion and everybody else fought against him. So I don't know. It's not anything I can imagine. But nothing's going to change as long as he's living.

So, Bill, are we in a game of better the devil you know than the devil that doesn't exist at the moment there? No. Putin is the devil incarnate. He's threatened nuclear war. He's invaded Ukraine.

Georgia, he's invaded, he's carpet bombed Syria, he's took Crimea, he's invaded Ukraine, he's assassinated people all over Europe, he's cut internet cables, he's poisoned people, cheated in the Olympics.

I mean, this guy is truly, you know, on a world class level of evil. And I would very, very, maybe very happy with anybody other than Putin coming in. So, Diane, do you think you've given Putin's motivations and what we're hearing about him and everything that

there's no way is he going to sign up to any form of ceasefire and peace agreement in Ukraine unless he gets exactly what he wants. And therefore, we're likely to see the war in Ukraine continue for the foreseeable future. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, he's gone for several truces and then he breaks them.

You know, he agrees not to build electrical utilities and then he bombs playgrounds instead. He doesn't care. This is all games, gamesmanship. He's trying to wear down Trump into saying, you know, to Ukraine, OK, you're not getting weapons. You bloody well sign or we're out.

or something to that. I don't know what he's thinking. I don't think he cares what happens. But that is where, to me, it's headed. You can't make a deal with Putin. Putin wants all of Ukraine, and he wants a big chunk. As Bill said, he wants to restore the Warsaw Pact and then some.

And he's not going to, he's going to maybe pause here, pause there, but it's all a game. He hasn't fulfilled any of the truce commitments he's made so far, which is why Zelensky said, when asked last week, you know, please don't bomb my parade in Moscow. And Zelensky said, well, why would I make you, you never keep your promises and, you know, and we're not going to make that promise. And I think people that go there should be very careful. And now we see what they're doing. So, yeah.

So, you know, I just don't think he's as long as he's there, he's got to be removed and or his his economy completely destroyed somehow. And I don't see that in the near future. Unfortunately, I really don't. And Trump has got to got to realize that soon.

Yeah, well, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, General Badanov, turned around and when he was asked about whether the victory in Europe Day parade was going to be attacked, he said he recommended people bring air defenders. Now, I don't know whether that was because of actions that he was planning or just because of Putin's speech and getting in there to take that away from them. But if there's no end to this bill...

How important are the relationships that Putin is building up with this axis of evil? Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and then expanding that out into the wider BRICS community. Or is Putin just playing all of them to get what he wants out of it and using any leverage that he can to try and maneuver Putin into a better possible position?

Yeah, Putin is sort of the master of incentivizing people to get what he wants. He can't get what he wants from the West for the most part. And so he's got to look to other places. And I mean, the fact that he's one of his main allies is North Korea shows you how he's really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I mean, North Korea is like, you know, truly acknowledged by everybody as being the most

horrific, disgusting, evil empire. And so for Putin to be allied with the North Koreans just shows how desperate he's getting. But he's also very good at like, you know, slinging a little cheap oil towards the Indians and the Indonesians. All of a sudden, the South Africans are, you know, it doesn't take a lot of money. And sometimes it's not even money to the country. It's money to the individuals.

There was a funny thing that came out from a journalistic investigation where they had hacked some of the emails of the Wagner Group because Wagner was doing a lot of their stuff in Africa. And they found out that in the Madagascar election, the Wagner Group had bribed every political candidate. They were completely hedging their bets.

And so, you know, he's out there wheeling and dealing and just doing what he has to do to kind of keep everybody to try to keep people on side and bring people on side. And it doesn't take that much. And there are these people, the KGB and Putin, they're masters at at.

finding, you know, people's weaknesses, finding where you can incentivize people, where you can blackmail people so that they come on side. And so they have a whole league of people that you wouldn't even think, why would they even care about Russia, except that they somehow do and they somehow are on their side. And that is a problem for us because we don't play the same way that they do. Yeah. Diane, I was very pleased to hear you say that you...

effectively hinted that Putin could have been behind or was gifted the support from Iran with the Gaza attack, the Hamas attack on Israel, because from my perspective, the one winner out of all of it was Putin because he disappeared off the front page headlines and has stayed off it since then. Do you think...

Putin is using that influence that he's got in the axis of evil? Or are those individuals wanting to play to Putin to get something out of it for themselves? And I'd have to question what Xi Jinping thinks he's getting out of this. Or is he just sitting watching and enjoying the West being occupied through Putin's activities?

Well, Xi Jinping has a problem with the Americans too now. I mean, he's enemy number one economically anyway, and possibly militarily. I think that what I would like to see is an understanding and an acceptance of the fact that we are in a hybrid World War III. And to switch metaphors, the primary cancer is in Moscow.

And he has little branches. It's metastasizing everywhere. He loves it. He causes trouble. He stokes trouble. And, you know, take Sudan. Sudan is the most horrible war that's been underway in the last two years, much more horrible than Israel and Ukraine's. And how was that started?

Sudan's war was started by the Russians not only backing giving military Wagner, giving military weapons to a corrupt government, but to all the militias that were against it. So they started a civil war by arming all the sides. And they're just and that's what's happening. That country is imploding.

They fool around. They fool around in Central America when they can, in Venezuela. And we know that they're doing it for sure. And I think China can be co-opted somehow by the West because I don't see China as being part of this World War III, although they're considered allies.

Iran, North Korea are pariahs. They'll continue. So I really think that it has to be looked at not as a guy and not as a country, not Russia, not Putin, not Ukraine. I think it has to be looked at a planned World War III hybrid warfare. And of course, as Bill mentioned, Europe is under attack.

And they're not admitting it, which is why they've been able to kick the can down the road in terms of creating their own proper military defense.

And, you know, this has got to stop. People have got to say, you know, this is what we've got to deal with. He's got to be dealt with. And we've all got to do it at once. And if China wants to play, you know, tiddlywinks with Putin, then you got to nail China with even more tariffs and sanctions. Same with India. I think India and China should be sanctioned for taking Russian oil because they're accessories. So, you know, we've got to get tough and that's the way it's got to be because he's playing all of the in-betweens.

Yeah. But Bill, do you think that Xi Jinping is playing Putin to help set the conditions due politically for him to then take Taiwan or to test and see whether the conditions...

could be right for him to take Taiwan militarily? Well, I think that he's watching every step that the West takes in relation to Ukraine to see how robust we are and how consistent we are so he can make his own decision about Taiwan. But I think his big benefit from this whole thing is that he's fundamentally opposed to democracies. He's fundamentally opposed to the West. And so it's very satisfying for him to watch us all depleting our resources

Fighting in, you know, either fighting directly or supporting the fight with all this money and and so on with Ukraine, because, you know, it's you know, he he anything that weakens us makes him stronger. And so and in the meantime, he gets a lot of cheap oil.

So I think that's his main game here. There's no friendship with no limits, as he declared. There's a national interest with every limit, and it all depends on what's in it for him and what's not. And so, for example, as Diane said, if we were to punish Chinese companies for buying Russian oil, they wouldn't because they'd rather do business with the rest of the world than with Russia. There's not that much of a financial incentive.

But if we were to abandon Ukraine, if the worst came to the worst, if Trump, you know, his original musings about just letting it all go, then the Chinese would say, well, you know, why not do our thing with Taiwan? Because the West, you know, doesn't seem to care about all these promises they've made and all these alliances and so on.

And and so it's not just about Ukraine anymore. It's about about Taiwan. It's about a lot of places. And so it's, you know, Ukraine is just the tip of the spear. So we're coming close to the end. I'm going to ask each of the same question to sort of finish.

Dan, what do we need to do to bring Trump online to end the conflict in Europe and to try and set the conditions for Russia to be reintegrated into global society again? Or is it even possible? Well, Trump is doing what he's doing. He's handing over Ukraine to handing it off to Europe.

That's what he wants to do. He wants to not prop up NATO. He wants Europe to be able to take care of its own neighborhood. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

either. But on the other hand, he's got to realize that if he doesn't keep the promises of weaponry to Ukraine while Europe gets its act together, then he is asking for even more trouble and heartache worldwide and globally, economically.

And so I don't think you can convince Trump to do anything other. He wants to get the shooting to stop and he will take that as a political victory, even if it sets the stage for the next invasion. And, you know, I don't see any way we can, you know, change his mind in terms of doing that, except Europe's got to get its act together. There's no question.

I'm sorry, flipping that slightly. Now, instead of Trump, Putin. What do we need to do, Bill, to get Putin on side? And is it even possible that we can set the conditions for him to agree to some form of peace in Russia?

Ukraine and peace in Europe and that he'll go back and be a nice little member of the international community again? Or is he unreconcilable? Well, he's completely unreconcilable. The one thing we can do, though, based on who he is and what he is,

is put him in a position where he has no choice but to negotiate and stop this whole war. And how do we do that? We triple down. We triple down on weapons for Ukraine. We triple down on all the economic attacks that we do on Russia. And we put him in a position where he has absolutely no choice but to cut a deal. And until we do that, the one thing that Putin does respond to

as all these Russian thugs do, is when there's a boot on their throat. And that's what we need to do with Vladimir Putin. And until we do that, he's going to continue to kill, maim, invade, destroy, espionage, everything. And it's going to affect all of us in a very negative way.

So boots on Putin's throat. I think that's a good place for us to sort of finish. We'll all go out and buy new ones and make sure that we can do that. But Diane, Bill, Sir Bill, many thanks for chatting to me once again on Frontline.

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