i want to first ask our viewers to join in our conversation if you have questions for bill browder, please tweet them to us at post live and we'll try to select the questions that come in over the next half hour and and put them to our our guest second. i want to ask you to focus before we talk about your book on the war in in ukraine it be interested in your sense of the the battlefield right now as russia launches its second round they failed in their efforts to capture keith. how do you assess this next phase of the war that began this week? well putin doesn't doesn't do humiliation. well. and he's been humiliated the first eight weeks of the war. everybody thought that well everyone thought in the first two days of the war that russia would would roll into ukraine they would take over kiev that zelensky would flee and and they could then raise the russian flag and and with great pride and and patriotism. and it turned out to be a total disaster the they've lost by by some estimates more than 20,000 troops, which is twice as many troops as the soviet union lost in afghanistan. they've lost more than a thousand tanks many planes, etc. etc. the their flagship the mosque of our was sunk. which is one of the greatest naval losses in the last quarter century, so this has been a big humiliation for vladimir putin and in that lead lead up with the introduction. i was saying on a different tv show that the purpose of this whole war is for vladimir putin to get everybody to rally around the flag to back him so he could boost his own popularity. and the russians don't know right now that some that that they're losing this war, but if they were to know putin would be really on on in dire straits for him to have have done something so costly for russia both in terms of lives and in terms of money and then having such a humiliation is not a it would be a very very dangerous thing for vladimir putin. and so i think what one can expect in this next next phase is a a very serious escalation how that's defined and what they do is yet to be seen but i think what we can say very very clearly is that that vladimir putin can't can't let matters lie where they are and be seen to be a failure and a loser and and that's what he looks like based on any objective analysis right now. let me ask you about the response from the us and and nato president biden was on television yesterday announcing a new 800 million dollar package of military assistance the second of that size in a week. they're all sorts of weapons in that in in that in that package, but i want to ask you as you look at. the order of battle if you will do you think the us is doing enough and if you're doubtful about that, what more do you think we should do? well, it's interesting because it because i think the us is doing a pretty good job. definitely not enough and i'll get into in a second, but i think that the us is doing a pretty good job, but it's it's always a little bit. too little too late i mean we should have started this whole, you know, huge military armament a lot much longer ago. we should have started sanctions sanctioning oligarchs a few oligarchs before the war even began to give putin a taste of what was to come. and it just seems that there is this. this overriding feeling that we don't want to provoke putin. we don't want to get him mad. and so every time he does something to to make us shocked we do something in reaction, but we not doing proactively and so yes, we have helped ukraine a lot. and i and i i'm and i'm very happy with the fact that that the us and in the uk and various other countries are supplying military equipment and in in large amounts to the ukrainians because that's what they need. but if you remember like a month ago. the polls wanted to transfer 20 planes and then the us said no, we don't want to do that. and as far as i'm aware, either those planes or some version of those planes have been transferred. and so why did we stop that a month ago? and and similarly every time you know that they're talking about a no, they've been the ukraine has been talking about a no-fly zone since the beginning of this thing and and in fact right now in moriopol, there's just, you know constant aerial bombardment of of that part of the country. you know, i think we're gonna get to a point when when we're gonna supply a no-fly zone we and and our allies and and you know and and when we get to that point we can look back and say why did we resist for so long? why did we have to lose 50,000 a hundred thousand ukrainian civilians before we got to that point and so on a military basis. i think there's there's more that can be done. we're doing a lot but there's more that can be done. and then coming to the sanctions. again, i i would say that that we're doing a pretty good job in in a certain way. i mean compared to what has ever been done before against russia or against any country for that matter. i would say that the current sanctions. that are being imposed are the most far-reaching the most dramatic that have ever been imposed. but we're not we're not there yet. yeah in in my opinion the purpose of sanctions at this point is not that we should expect the oligarchs to rise up because i don't think that i think they're all too scared to do that and the purpose of the sanctions is not also not to get the people of russia to rise up because at the moment because of all this sort of frenzy and of hysteria in terms of pro putin nationalism, they're all with him. i think the purpose of sanctions and this is very important is is to cut off the flow of money to russia so that putin can't fund this war. and we've done a bunch of good things to do that. we have sanctioned the central bank reserves of russia 60% of those central bank reserves are in currencies that are frozen by the us and its allies. we've cut off a number of banks from swift. about 70% of the banks from swift. well, we should cut off a hundred percent of the banks from swift. it makes no sense because if you can't use one bank to make dollar transfers or other transfers you can use and one of the un sanctioned banks and then on the oligarch front we've we've sanctioned about 32 oligarchs and when i say we the united states the sanction some the eu others, they're not all the same people. there's 118 oligarchs and the oligarchs are the ones who hold putin's offshore cash and they should be sanctioned all 118 of them. coming back to the question of what additional assistance the us can provide. that obviously one problem with say a no-fly zone. is that the military would tell you to enforce it? the us would have to be prepared to and probably would directly engage russian military aircraft and you'd have a situation where the us was shooting russian planes down. brushes and nuclear weapons state a dress the the fundamental question that we face here. what do you do when you have somebody our president is called a war criminal who also has nuclear weapons. how do you deal with that problem? well, we have that problem today before we ever shoot down a russian plane. so just imagine so here we are. we are telling vladimir putin the president of the united states is saying to vladimir putin, we're not going to get involved with you because you're a nuclear state and we don't want to shoot down a plane and engage with you nuclearly. so what's the message that vladimir putin gets so the message is very simple. so what does he do next? but let's just say that that he's had his fun with ukraine. he then pulls up at the estonian border. he points a bunch of weapons at estonia and then he points a nuclear warhead at washington berlin and london. and then he says to us. are you ready to have a nuclear war with me over this country? it's the same question. it's the exact same question. and then what do we respond? we say no, we don't want a nuclear war with you you can have estonia and by the way take lithuania poland latvia and romania as well that way, but it's not the same question because those are nato countries and we have an article 5 commitment to nato countries ukraine is not a member of nato. so it's just really not the same thing. is it well we have the budapest memorandum where we're we said, well you give up your territory you give up your nuclear weapons and we'll protect your territorial integrity. i mean these i i mark my words if we ever get to this point in estonia, there will be on every on fox and cnn and msnbc every all sorts of pundits and analysts are gonna come on and say do we want to risk, you know millions of people dying for for this country that most people can't locate on a map. i mean, it's it's the same thing at some point. i mean he is in a position right now where he's gonna he's challenging every rule. every every tradition every border in what he's doing in ukraine and and we can face it now or we can face it later. and so i would argue that it's better to help the ukrainians win this war then then ending up in a situation where where we are are basically folding to putin's bluff because he has the nuclear weapons either in the future or now, and he will threaten us with nuclear weapons in the future or now, and and the one thing he does respect and and i've seen this time and time again, is he restrict he respects strength. he understands that if he's in a nuclear confrontation with the united states, um, that that is something he doesn't want to do. and and but what he what he what he takes advantage of is all of us bowing our heads down and say we don't want to engage with you because we're because we don't want to get engaged with you that that is that that is an invitation for him to do whatever we're not challenging him on. so i want to come back to the question of how we will win this war short of a direct the military conflict with russia, which truly nobody wants the strategy that the the vitaministration with its. nato allies has is to impose that are so devastating that they effectively shut down russia's ability to make war and really cripple its economy sets economy economy back decades, you know a lot about the russian economy having invested there successfully when it just ask you whether that basic strategy it is viable and you talked about ways to to make it bite more extending various aspects of these sanctions how soon if if that was done. do you think russia would really be at its knees and forced forced to pull back. well, there's we're not we're nowhere near there yet. there's a couple of things i didn't have time to mention which are the elephants in the room. the first one is that yes is great that we've we've done the central bank sanctions as yes, it's great that we've done the oligarchs but every day without fail the west and i particularly mean germany and italy and so on are sending a billion dollars. to putin by buying russian oil and gas and that's a lot of money a billion dollars a day and since by some estimates, that's what russia's spending on their war effort. and so and then that's what europeans european countries are paying them and so it's kind of a wash, you know money in money out. and so if you look at it that way we're not degrading their ability at all were, you know from a business standpoint. there's there's you know, if you if you were to say russia as a company, they have a bunch of assets on their balance sheet, which we've frozen but they have a bunch of income coming in on their income statement. you have a bunch of revenue coming in all of this oil oil sales. and that we're not we haven't really messed with yet. and that's a harder not to crack but one because germany and italy and all these countries are so dependent on russian gas and two because the gas and oil prices are so high and there's there's two ways to deal with this and one thing which which would have which would be have an outsized effect. and be really crucial in this whole thing is if we could get the oil price down. and that is something that we could do because saudi arabia is the largest oil producer in the world in theory. there's still an ally of the united states. we provide all sorts of military protection for saudi arabia and if if they were to cooperate and turn on their taps, they could pump out an additional one or two million barrels of oil a day. and if they were to do that that would push the oil price down by 30% and if the oil price went down by 30% then russian revenues would go down by 30% whether the germans cut off any gas or not. and if that were to happen, then we would be putting a serious dent into russia's financial ability to wage this war. i should note that within the last few days saudi arabia's crown prince. mohammed have been salman had a lengthy phone conversation with one vladimir putin to talk about future continued cooperation. so i'm not holding my breath for saudi assistance on this course you you've made a point that i find fascinating when we're talking about really squeezing the russian economy, and that is that the oligarchs the the corrupt russian economy. we've been discussing are enabled by a network of people in europe in the united states primarily who do the banking who do some of the legal transactions who protect the flows of money who are really part of putin's russian network. how would the united states in the west really go after that network of facilitators are there specific things that you'd recommend are there? already on the books that if enforced would would make a difference. well, there's a really easy one. and this is one that i i was i was invited to testify about this issue in front of congress a couple weeks ago. and because i've been, you know a great witness and victim of these enablers working for the russian government who who are in sitting in the united states and in great britain in various places, and the first thing we can do and this is easy this this takes no effort is if you have a let's say a bunch of british enablers people that are known to be money launderers known to be lawyers representing the russian government attacking dissidents abroad, you know pr firms that are doing this this type of work. that that that's some that's something you could easily. the united states could say to the two to those people when they want to come to the united states. you can no longer have a visa to come here and similarly the uk could do the same thing for us the eu etc. and and that's something which it doesn't take much effort. a visa is a privilege. it's not a right if these people aren't conducive to the public interest of the country. they could be banned from entry and that's something that would immediately like within seconds scare the hell out of everybody in the legal profession and all these other professions who who rely on moving around to move money and and of you know coordinate attacks on on journalists and whistleblowers etc and it's something when when i aired this idea the co-chairment of the helsinki commission a guy named representative stephen cohen, he loved it and he jumped on to it and he wrote to the secretary of state proposing it and actually naming the first six names of british lawyers. and and this is something that which i'm talking to british politicians about and european politicians next week about because i think it's something that that would have an immediate effect and that now course, there's much bigger things that be doing if if these lawyers are are taking money or other people taking money from sanctioned individuals. they should be punished for violating sanctions and if they're taking money that's that are the proceeds of crime they should be prosecuted for taking money from that of the proceeds of crime, but the key is just enforcement and actually recognizing this as a problem. let's turn to your new book, and i'd ask you to tell our viewers that the basic story that you've narrated in in the book. you were a prominent investor in in russia you uh got into significant conflict with putin and those around him they turned on you and and began attacking you you're a lawyer sergeymanitsky died in in prison under horrifying circumstances. just talk our viewers through that story and and what it taught you about how putin's russia really operates. so we'll see you outline the first part of the story, which is the beginning of my book, which is the the murder the russian government's murder of sergey magnetsky my lawyer who uncovered a 230 million dollar corruption scheme and was testified against the officials involved and was subsequently arrested tortured for 358 days and killed for doing that. and his his murder really turned my change my life forever. it was the most heartbreaking awful thing that i'd ever experienced and he was killed because he was my lawyer and i felt a unbelievable feeling of burden of guilt since then and and i made a decision after he was killed to put aside my life as a businessman and to devote all of my time resources and energies going after the people who killed sergey to make sure they face justice and and my book is is about two parts of the campaign to get justice the first part. if something called the magnitsky act named after surrogame magneski, which freezes the assets and bans the visas of the people who killed him and the people who do similar types of things and the magnitsky act was passed in the united states in 2012. and and then it's been passed now in 34 countries around the world. the second part of my campaign to get justice was to find out who got the money the 230 million dollars that sergey had exposed. and testified against and was killed over and and we trace that money all over the world in including an up to going to vladimir putin. and so what i describe in my book is this is the process of getting these laws passed in other countries and and following the money. and all the unbelievable things that vladimir putin and his regime did to try to stop us and it included a number of people being killed or attempting to kill them. horace namsoft was one of my allies in this whole process. he was at almost every different lawmaking body in the world that has passed a magnetic act. he testified in favor of a magnetic ski act and i believe that one of the main reasons that he was assassinated. he was assassinated in february 2015 was his work on the magnitsky act. his protege vladimir karen morsa was also testifying in different lawmaking bodies. they poisoned him in moscow in 2015. and again in 2017. and in fact just 10 days ago. they he went back to moscow and he's just he's just been arrested and he's now the first person who's been or that i shouldn't say the first person but the first major political figure who's been charged with this new law saying that you can't mention the word war where they send them to 15 years in jail. and and then many other people including myself where we're vladimir putin has threatened me with all sorts of things up to and including death and they've they've issued eight interpolar arrest warrants and at the trump. summit in helsinki, vladimir putin even asked trump to hand me over. and and trump said for a brief period of time said yes. and so it's a crazy story my book from and and what it my book. that's kind of the the main conclusion that most people come to when they read the book is that and i guess it's not that that big of a leap these days it would have been three months ago, but that russia is effectively a criminal organization that it's there. it's not a sovereign state in the way we think of it. it's let him reputin is the mafia boss and he uses all the power of his sovereign state to steal more money and to shut up anybody who stands in their way. you've been very courageous in fighting this to tell our our viewers the remarkable story about how russia and its pursuit of you was sent somebody to meet a madame vaselnutsky as i remember her name that to meet in new york with some of donald trump's closest associates. i think jared kushner was at that at that meeting before the election trying to pressure the trump campaign to embrace a a resistance to your magnetic repeal of it tells about that that meeting and what it shows us about about putin. well, so after the magnitsky act was passed in 2012 vladimir putin like went out of his mind. he went he went crazy. he banned the adoption of russian orphans by american families. he wrote down on his his first major foreign policy paper after being reelected that he wanted to repeal the magnitsky act. and and he did everything possible and he was looking for an opening and he wasn't he hadn't been successful after 2012, but he saw that donald trump was gonna was the republican nominee. and so he sent an agent one of his agents who was a russian lawyer a woman made natalia vesselnitskaya. the trump tower june 9th 2016 to me with donald trump jr. jared kushner and paul manafort. and the the subject of the meeting to repeal the magnitsky act. and in theory she was offering dirt on on hillary clinton. and and this was it was quite remarkable when this information came out because this was the first sort of documented meeting between insider trump campaign officials and and people you know agents of the russian government and it's still unclear exactly what happened in that meeting. nobody. we all know what was asked for. we don't know exactly what was offered. but what it did show was two things one one how desperate putin was get rid of the magnitsky act and and the second thing it showed was was how crafty he was about approaching the trump campaign which which i thought was both ominous and interesting. in the in the time that we have left, mr. spreader. i want to return to the war in ukraine, which is the really the showdown for putin and putin's russia. and the outcome will obviously have lasting impact on the world and i want to ask you what i think of as the as the dave petraeus question famously on his way into iraq general petraeus turned to a journalist from the washington post rick axton who's traveling with him and said tell me how this ends. and i'm curious but not simply the war in ukraine, but but the larger story of of putin's russia this corrupt system ridden with inefficiency and and criminal activity. tell me how this ends. where does where does it go? do you see putin's falling from power? you see a russia stabilizing after that? some people think it'll be even more unstable and dangerous after putin. what what do you think? how does this story end? well, so i'm a sort of scenario analyzer. i don't have a one ending scenario. i i there's three scenarios that i see in how this could end. there's the good scenario which is i would put as a low probability scenario, probably 15% and that is that you crane defeats russia militarily that we supply enough equipment military equipment that they're fighting for their homeland. they're fighting better than the russians. the russians are are inefficient corrupt into moralized and that they win and they decisively win and they drive russia out of ukraine. as i say it's a low probability scenario, but if that were to happen. um is my opinion that the russian people would no longer allow vladimir putin to be in charge how he gets changed from that is anyone's guess it could either be a palace coup in which case you end up with some other kgb general doing the same thing or it can be a a massive uprising a violent uprising. and and in which case i can imagine a scenario where someone like alexa navalny would become the next president of russia and then we probably have a very good scenario. but as i say that that is low probability 15% um the more likely scenario and i this at 70% is that this thing carries on and carries on and carries on? that putin can't decisively beat ukraine and ukraine can't decisively beat putin and neither side has any interest in giving up the ukrainians are not going to give up their territory and putin can't back down and look weak from a conflict that he started. in that case this just goes on and on and on and i should point out that. you know, we say that this war started on february 24th, but in reality this war started in 2014 that that's when russia took crimea illegally. and that's when the russia sent in various people. they called them russian-backed separatists, but i think that that that term is really been very unhelpful and defining how this whole thing has been playing out because they're effectively russians or russian proxies for all intents and purposes and been fighting a russian war for the last eight years. so this thing in my opinion has been going on for eight years. and and there's no reason why it wouldn't go on for another eight years and with our all sorts of unbelievable heartbreaking tragedies along the way and that and i i dread to say this, but i think that's a more likely scenario with the 70% probability. and then there's the really terrible bad case scenario, which is when i alluded to before when we're talking about the no-fly zone, which is the and this is another i put 15% on this. this is the rolling up tanks on the estonian or lithuanian border. and then having this big showdown with us and and saying are you ready to go to war with us over this country that most americans couldn't locate on a map. and he's hoping that we will fold that we'll say, you know, actually we don't want to go to war with you. that's what he's hoping and everybody is interesting when i talk to people everyone says, well, you know with that that's impossible article 5 of nato but what does that mean article 5 of nato is just is just a sort of concept. it's it's not you know, no one's legally required to do anything. we break treaties all the time if it's in our national interest to do so and putin's hope is that we'll all reflect on that and say, you know what you can just go. we you can have everything past 1945 all those things that you that you know poland check republic etc. they can all be yours that that's his that's the nightmare scenario. so that's i think we need to end it there. it's a it's a grim forecast from somebody who knows putin's russia. extremely well, so to be taken seriously bill brader. thank you so much for joining us on washable. so i've talked about your book and talk about the issues. we're all following. thank you. thank you. so we'll be back with future wash both live programming if you want to see what we've got e postwar period and then we'll be there for the rest of the class. right? we're gonna start here in 1945 and go all the way until the end of the 20th century. as you know, this is the us survey so it's sort of the greatest hits of american history as my job. today's lecture though is a lecture that you get because of what i am a specialist in right? this is a lecture that maybe you wouldn't get from another professor in this department teaching this class. so this this lecture is really going to situate us in the 1950s and really tal