Why won't Putin end the war in Ukraine? “He must have an enemy”

Vladimir Putin is waging war because he stole too much money and is afraid that at some point the angry Russians would crack down on him, says Bill Browder, an American-British entrepreneur who has been a critic of the Russian leader for years.

Russia has laundered up to $1 trillion in the West, estimates Browder, founder of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund, which was once the largest foreign investor in Russia.

If you don't know what this is about, then…

As he noted, these funds belong to Putin and about 1,000 people from his entourage. – This is money that should be spent on schools, hospitals and public services. Instead, they were spent on private planes, yachts, villas in southern France and Italy – he emphasized during the conference “Why won't Putin end the war?” organized in Washington.

– A thousand people enjoy this incredible wealth, and 140 million people in Russia did not receive things that they should have received from their government. And it's literally like pouring gasoline on the floor of Russia. Putin was afraid that at some point someone would light a match and everything would catch on fire. He was especially afraid that if one person, like Alexei Navalny or Boris Nemtsov, were to pursue him, a million angry Russians would gather on Red Square and hang him from a lamppost, he continued.

– So what does a dictator who has stolen too much money and is afraid of his people do to prevent them from hanging him from a lamppost? He creates an external enemy and starts a war. And this is what the war in Ukraine is about. It's about Putin's desperate fear that people will come for him and deal with him, Browder said.

According to him, Putin wants to stay in power and alive. – He must be at war because he stole too much money. And that is why we are in a very difficult situation, because there will be no negotiations that he will agree to, because nothing that can be negotiated will make his problem disappear, he emphasized.

Two solutions

– That's why there are only two solutions: Russia wins the war or Ukraine wins the war. We can help Ukraine win the war by giving it the weapons it needs and completely cutting off Russia's financial opportunities. And that's what we have to do. “Hopefully as time goes on the pressure will increase and that will happen,” Browder added.

He said that what scares him most is that “various people are getting tired of the war and starting to move in a different direction, and that's exactly what Putin is counting on.”

– I don't know how it will end, but I know that the war will not end with negotiations because Putin will not end it – concluded Browder, who has been exposing corruption and human rights violations in Russia for years. In 2005, he was banned from entering this country.

Browder's fund was busted by the Russian tax service. Irregularities in the case were revealed by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. He was arrested in November 2008 after accusing Russian officials, including the Interior Ministry, of multi-million embezzlement. He was subjected to torture and denied medical care in the hope that he would withdraw his accusations. Magnitsky died in 2009 in a Moscow remand prison. Putin's regime claimed the cause of death was heart failure, but independent investigations suggest he was murdered.

From Washington Natalia Dziurdzińska (PAP)

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