Putin 'desperate' for North Korean troops as Russian casualties near 700,000 | Bill Browder

what Putin realized at a certain point was that he had stolen too much money and so um uh by having all that money and the Russian people not having that money he understood that all it was going to take is like spreading gasoline on the floor one match and blows the whole thing up and so the the next thing he was concerned about is staying in power because if he could no longer stay in power um first of all he would lose all his money and then he would lose his life and so it's much

more important than money because there's not a presidential Putin Presidential Library he can retire to if he um if he's not in power they'll string him up from a lamp post like they did uh chesu or or um or ban at him in a in a tunnel like like they did Gaddafi and at The Brick Summit uh Bill perhaps surprisingly president XI has a warning not to expand the war in Ukraine clearly in reference to North Korean troops and we've heard a lot why North Korean involvement would upset president XI but the question remains why

would Putin risk whatever Alliance he does have with China is this part of Kremlin dark strategy or is Putin really just an agent of chaos well I think first and foremost um why why does he have North Korean troops there it's very simple because he's burned through um Russian troops um according to Ukrainian estimates um the number of of dead Russian soldiers is now closing in on 700,000 700,000 dead Russian soldiers and and um you know it's just not that easy for them in Russia to get more soldiers and he needs more soldiers because that's

the only way that he can continue to sort of um bombard and and invade Ukraine and um and so Putin's going around and and and by the way the the um signon bonus um for a Russian soldier has has gone up by 10 fold it's gone from like four to $40,000 to be a soldier to go and die in war um because they just running out of people that they've cleared out their prisons it used to be that if you're a prisoner you could um uh get out of your uh sentence by being a Soldier

um and so they cleared out all the prisons they theyve now made it something where even if you're under criminal investigation you can uh get rid of that criminal investigation by becoming a soldier um uh they're looking for soldiers anywhere and everywhere they can and so Putin's running out of soldiers so what does he do well he goes to the one country where there's you know even worse human rights than there are in Russia in North Korea and he says we he says to his friend Kim uh we need some Cannon fod and and Kim

says yeah great and by the way can you send me some money and perhaps nuclear secrets or whatever else they're cooking up over there and um uh and he ends up getting more soldiers and and and um now on one hand uh the Chinese G doesn't want um to expand the war um on the other hand he's not micromanaging Putin you know that they're all sort of um players in their own right and and he can make suggestions and so on but I I think that at the end of the day what this move shows

is is Putin's um desperation and the main one thing Putin can't have and this is really important important is if he does a general conscription if he says that we're going to go out and just draft regular people off the street if he does that um then then he's afraid and very afraid that that um the Russian people will no longer tolerate what's going on so far they have but that would be the the red line the point too far so clearly you see the relationship with North Korea as one of desperation is that right

definitely desperation I mean you know this is this is the most isolated alienated country in the world um they're on every sanctions list their their sort of Rogue regime the fact that Putin is going to them for help is really a remarkable Fall From Grace um for Russia and and a total sign of desperation and might that help for uh the need for help be intensified by the fact there have been strikes on Iran's weapons factories absolutely everything is related to everything so that the two countries that are openly supporting Russia in this war are

Iran and North Korea why why are they doing it because there's no more there's no sanctions um that could be greater than the sanctions they're already experiencing they're both isolated regimes and so those countries are the ones supporting and and of course Iran is also supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and so on and so the Israelis strike on their weapons factories is is really a sort of um unexpectedly um helpful for Ukraine because hopefully that means that that whatever weapons they were supplying aren't going to be supplied and it's one less thing that the ukrainians have

to worry about um now I I think that they probably still have military capabilities it's a big country there's a lot of people there A lot of things going on so I don't think that they're all of a sudden they're out of the game uh I I mean I do think uh the Israelis have done a good job of getting rid of their air defenses and could probably go in there and do some more stuff now that that they're sort of free and clear to fly anywhere they want but um at the moment uh yeah

sure it's helpful it's not the end of the story for Iran helping Ukraine I mean helping Russia and you and you have often said to me that President Putin only cares about money how badly do you think his personal Fortune is being affected by the war and how bad does it need to get for him to actually want to end it well so so let me just take you through the the the psychology of Vladimir Putin so when he first came to power he's like every crook that um uh ever is in any position in

government in Russia he went for money and over a period of time over 24 years he accumulated a ton of money he's probably the richest man in the world I would say you know well north of $200 billion maybe much higher than that um but that was his initial um uh sort of motivation however by stealing all that money and and I should point out that the people around him had stolen probably another 800 billion you know if you add it all up as a trillion dollars of money stolen from Russia over a 20 year

24 year period from the Russian people and what Putin realized at a certain point was that he had stolen too much money and so um uh by having all that money and the Russian people not having that money he understood that all it was going to take is like spreading gasoline on the floor one match and blows the whole thing up and so the the next thing he was concerned about is staying in power because if he can no longer stay in power um first of all he would lose all his money and then he

would lose his life and so it's much more important than money because there's not a presidential Putin Presidential Library he can retire to if he um if he's not in power they'll string him up from a lamp post like they did uh chesu or or um banet him in a in a tunnel like like they did Gaddafi and so he he understands that his whole survival now um is is dependent on staying in power and so he's now gravitated from maximizing money um to maximizing survival um and so that that that's what he's concerned about

right now is purely survival of course he's worried about his money but now it's just it's a much more grave situation and so basically um you know he made the mistake of stealing too much money and then creating this situation where he's worried about his own people turning on him on Ukraine itself the aid measures are secured from the US until the end of the year we were told by a leading Economist who's advised both Ukraine and Russia in the past that an extra $50 billion dollar a year and allowing Ukraine to fire long-range missiles

deep into Russia would mean Ukraine could win the war do you agree with that well I'm not sure where the 50 billion number comes from I think the number is probably higher than that but the long-range missile number I completely agree with that that Ukraine if they can fire longrange missiles then what they can do is is they can um destroy the Russian troop formations that are forming inside of Russia they can destroy the logistics hubs they can destroy the weapons factories and all sorts of other stuff and by doing that they would seriously incapacitate

Russia and um the Russians are not very good at at War um but they're just brutal and they're ready to throw lots of resources at it but if the ukrainians are able to have the freedom of of attack that would be a very good thing to do and and particularly when the Russians are attacking all of Ukraine why should the ukrainians be limited on on on firing back they can only fire back to Russians inside their own territory that doesn't make any sense at all as far as the number goes I think the number is

probably higher than 50 billion but what I do think is there's an easy solution to this whole thing which is that when the war started um the West froze $300 billion dollar of Russian Central Bank Reserves um that money is in the custody of the the US Federal Reserve of the European Central Bank and Bank of England if that money were were to be confiscated outright and handed to Ukraine that would be that that would be the decisive Financial blow um for Russia because the the ukrainians could then um have whatever resources they need to

finish this war now so far the West has agreed to confiscate the interest on that money but not the principle I think they need to go a step further and you have been long campaigning for that to happen are you getting anywhere well we got somewhere which is the that that they they they took the the sort of baby step of saying okay we can confiscate the interest but you know we're in a world right now where um uh the West is is becoming less and less financially capable to to support this war um you

know in Britain there was a you know big budget yesterday where they were talking about cutting cutting costs here and cutting costs there and now we also have Donald Trump uh potentially as the next US president he's threatened to cut off funding for Ukraine um there's a lot less Western money available and so the what the best way to solve this problem is to let Putin pay for uh the U the war that he's to pay the ukrainians to fight back against him and if that doesn't happen and if uh the US does decide after

the election to cut off all support for Ukraine can it continue to fight next year well um they're going to have to continue to fight because that's their only choices to fight um and what the ukrainians have shown us is that um no matter how dire the predictions are um they somehow are able to survive you remember the war started and there were the Russians had 10,000 tanks the ukrainians only had 1,000 and everybody predicted it would be a three-day war and of course we're now um you know coming in almost to to three years

of this war and it's nowhere near over the ukrainians have also shown that you know they can make $500 drones destroy $3 million tanks so I would never count the ukrainians out but I think there could be a lot of terrible violence Bloodshed and and disaster and loss um if the West stops funding Ukraine's defense against Russia and Bill um finally Before I Let You Go um I can't do that without flagging up the 10th anniversary of the magnitsky human rights Awards which are taking place in London on the 14th of no November can you

first I mean you know you spoke about this briefly mentioned the name at the beginning can you tell me about the in whose name they are awarded and what they aim to do well thank you for mentioning that so um uh you know what what changed my life completely um uh was was when my lawyer a Russian lawyer named Sergey magnitsky um was killed in Russian police custody I was once uh the largest foreign investor in Russia and Sergey was my lawyer and he discovered a massive corruption scheme in Russia he exposed it and for

that he was arrested tortured for 358 days and killed and it changed my life completely and I went from being a a uh fund manager to being a full-time human rights activist and um uh started out to trying to with with the intention of getting Justice for Sergey and it's now morphed into a much bigger campaign but uh serg was killed on November 16 2009 which was 15 years ago and um every year on the anniversary of his death we we um we said what can we do to remember and honor Sergey and and about

10 years ago we came up with this idea of creating something called the magnitsky award which is where we would recognize um human rights activists lawyers opposition politicians all over the world um who have stood up to dictatorship and tyranny um very bravely and made great sacrifice and this year we'll be recognizing seven of these Heroes on the 14th of no November in London and um uh and and every time we do this I always walk away in awe of The Bravery of of of certain people around the world and it gives me hope and

it gives me confidence that no matter how hard and how terrible we see things happening um there are forces for good as well as forces for evil out there and Bill I'm delighted to say that we will be meeting together and talking to some of those winners of those Awards uh very soon and look forward to those going out in special editions of Frontline thank you so much for your time today thank you you've been watching Frontline for times radio with me K chabo my thanks to our producers today L syes and Morgan berdick and

for you for watching if you'd like to suppor USS you can subscribe now or you can listen to times radio for the latest news and in-depth analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for watching bye-bye