Hello everyone and welcome to Amanpour and Company.

Here's what's coming up.

Trump and Putin meet in Alaska, but can any amount of talking put an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

We bring you a special program, a look at the big picture, the history and what's at stake.

Make a peace in Ukraine.

This is our plan.

That's what we really want and that's what we will try to do.

And Volodymyr Zelensky in his own words on what it will take to stop the bloodshed.

Then, from railway hospitals to drone factories and a bookstore, my reports from a country ravaged by war, but fighting on.

And -- It's a serious operation with a serious purpose.

The Kremlin's view, a rare conversation with Putin's right-hand man on his reasons for invading Ukraine in the first place.

Plus, American investor Bill Browder talks to Walter Isaacson about Russia's endgame.

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Thank you.

Welcome to the program, everyone.

I'm Christiana Amanpour in London.

Donald Trump said he'd end the Ukraine war before even taking office, but the war is still raging and the president is still struggling with how to stop it.

Meeting Vladimir Putin face to face in Alaska is one of his ways.

It's the first such summit since Putin's full scale invasion.

Notably absent, though, is Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky.

But in virtual talks ahead of the Alaska meeting, he said Trump agreed on the need for a ceasefire first.

Trump also threatened severe consequences if Putin isn't serious.

Since Zelensky will not be at the meeting, as we said, we want to devote this program to Ukraine's position.

Remarkably consistent from the beginning, as you'll hear, when we spoke at the Munich Security Conference in February, just after Zelensky has spoken to Trump on the phone.

You after your phone call with President Trump said that you did not hear enough detail to make this a peace plan.

Can you just elaborate what you meant by that?

Can I speak Ukrainian?

No.

OK. Don't pressure on me.

OK.

So, yeah, we had really a long conversation with the President of the United States.

Not first one and not last, I'm sure.

I mean, really between us.

I'm not sure that by phone we can manage all the plan, all security guarantees with all the details, because, you know, devil in details.

Yes, and we know where is this devil in what country now.

Yes, that's why we have to stop him, to stop Putin.

And it's very important for me.

That's why the atmosphere of our discussion is good, but really it's always good.

Yes, but we need urgent, very concrete steps.

And I think we have to work on it, our teams.

We began, but I think that we have to start immediately to do more deep decisions.

We'll get into that in a moment, but you did also have a separate conversation with Vice President J.D.

Vance.

We have to bring up that in 2022 J.D.

Vance said he didn't, and this is a quote, "I don't care what happens to Ukraine one way or another."

Do you feel that he's changed, that the Trump administration and the actors you're dealing with understand what's at stake?

I'll be honest.

We have to work on it.

All of us, not only me.

Me is not enough, really.

I think we have to work, because I think that, you know, we together in Europe, the war is in Europe and America is far from the invasion.

And I think that we need to share more details, because to my mind, there are a lot of different voices around new American administration, and I'm not sure that all these voices on our side.

Mr. President, Trump was asked whether he trusted Putin.

And he sort of basically ended up saying, "On this, I do."

But he has also said that, and frankly, it's quite difficult to extract what all the different administration officials have been saying.

On the one hand, potentially that, you know, maybe Ukraine had a responsibility for this war.

Maybe Ukraine can't ever expect to get back.

It's unrealistic, according to the defense secretary, its territory.

Maybe Ukraine will be safe and independent.

Maybe it'll be part of Russia.

Do you understand what America's position is?

Yes.

Which is?

I think, to my mind, they are preparing atmosphere for their dialogue.

For their dialogue.

Which will be?

For the dialogue between Trump and Putin.

And I think this is -- I mean, this is up to them, but they can discuss everything they want, but not about Ukraine without us.

And that's why in this case -- that's why especially in this case, I think it's a little bit dangerous.

That's why I said that we need to talk more with the president and to talk more with his people, with his teams.

We had good conversation, and I think that I opened some new details for vice president.

That's why I said we need -- it's not waste time.

It's really very important, I think, diplomatic investment for the future, just and lasting peace for Ukraine.

You said Putin doesn't want peace.

I mean, you just said it loud and clear here.

Yeah, that's true.

So, what is the dialogue?

And have you convinced the Americans that, A, Ukraine has to be at the table, and B, I guess the Europeans have to convince that they have to be -- On all the levels, we directly, yes, very directly send these messages that we have to prepare security guarantees like a main part of the stopping Putin and stop this war, and very important, essential, and we said that it can't be without us.

And that's why I don't know if we don't have, from my point of view, if we don't have for today common plan, it means for me that United States doesn't have.

Because if they have something, it's not about us.

First of all, we have to make a plan with you, I said to the president.

It was the day when he had phone calls with Putin and with me, and first with him and then with us.

And how did that sit with you?

No, I said that -- But first with Putin and then with you.

Oh, I'm not happy, yes, but I think that more dangerous if first meeting will be with Putin and then with Ukraine.

And there are things I shared with the President Trump that, first of all, we have to see common view.

And I said also that at the table we need Europe also.

It's very important for us.

We are Europe, we in Europe, and we see our future only in EU, like a member.

So, that's why for us it's very important.

Do you believe it will be the year of peace?

And more to the point, do you believe Putin has any intention of allowing an independent, sovereign Ukraine?

We really want peace and we work on it.

We will prepare security guarantees like we see.

We will share it with the United States and I hope they will share their view.

As I said, common view for me is very important to hear all our partners in Europe who helped us in EU plus, of course, because UK, our partners, big partners, and that's why it's very important to prepare during months all these things, to share it with the President of the United States, to find time for this, to our common meetings, to make this common plan, then to put it on the table for Putin and do everything.

That's things what really President Trump, he's strong, he can do.

Put sanctions or pressure in any ways, in any case, how he wants.

And after that, to stop this war this year, 2025, make a peace in Ukraine.

This is our plan.

That what we really want and that what we will try to do.

Did you tell, as was reported, President Trump that Putin is only doing this and agreeing to talks because he's afraid of Trump?

Did you tell him that?

I told Trump that Putin afraid of him.

Yes, and he cured me.

And now Putin knows.

I shouldn't be laughing, but you do make me smile.

So, Mr. President, thank you very much.

We want peace.

We have to live and we have to smile when we have time, of course.

That's true.

That is true.

Thank you.

Remember, just after that Munich conference, Zelensky accepted Trump's demand for an immediate ceasefire.

Putin has not yet.

So, the flood of casualties flows from the front in Ukraine.

I jumped aboard one of the countries constantly running railway hospitals.

They had never been filmed until we were given this exclusive access.

And for security reasons, we could not reveal its route or identify anyone by their full name.

On a hot late summer morning, departure time is fast approaching at this railway station in Ukraine.

But this is no ordinary train.

It's a hospital on wheels, evacuating dozens of wounded military personnel away from the Eastern Front as Russia's brutal offensive grinds on.

Paramedics carefully loading patient after patient, many of them unconscious, onto repurposed carriages.

It's a highly organized special operation and it's never been seen before.

CNN gained unprecedented and exclusive access to what so far has remained a closely guarded military secret.

Before the train moves off, I meet 35-year-old Alexander, wounded by a drone strike, which has caused him to go deaf in one ear.

His call sign is positive, but he doesn't feel it.

Very tired, but hard times and we must - we must continue to fight, no matter how hard it is.

Do you feel that you have enough people, enough weapons to defend?

No.

You don't have enough?

No, enough.

As the train rolls on, we make our way to the intensive care unit, where several soldiers are on life support.

Bed after bed of broken and battered bodies.

Lives shattered in an instant.

Ninety percent of the wounds being treated here are from shrapnel.

And yet, many of these patients know they'll be patched up just to be sent back to the front as soon as possible.

This train and its cargo sum up Ukraine's state of military affairs.

Mostly, ordinary citizens who've answered the call.

Outmanned, outgunned by Russia and yet, still putting up a hell of a fight.

Nurse Yulia makes this journey twice a week.

How do you feel being in here with these very badly wounded soldiers?

How does it make you feel?

I'm an empathetic person, so it's difficult, she tells me.

But you have to switch off your feelings at the moment of work, and later, you can reflect.

And the story of frontline morale is on display here, too.

If electrician Alexander was feeling down after 18 months fighting this brutal war, Stanislav, who signed up in March, is still full of patriotic fervor.

He can still summon a smile, even though he has shrapnel in his body and damage to his lungs.

Personally, I was ready for it.

I was ready to trade the shower stall, the good sheets and the bed, the good conditions that I had at home for a foxhole.

I knew where I was going and what I was doing.

The most difficult part is evacuation from the front line.

Combat medics who work on the front are dying, just like soldiers.

As these carriages rumble on through fields of gold, think for a moment of history repeating itself in Europe, when thousands of ambulance trains evacuated casualties from World War I's trenches, more than a million to the U.K. alone.

Tonight, darkness descends as we arrive at the destination, and suddenly, there's activity everywhere again, as ambulances line up, collecting and dispatching to hospitals across the country.

On the platform, the railway chief describes his pride and his sorrow.

I see these kids who are saying goodbye to their dads who are heading towards the front lines.

So, seeing those same guys coming back effectively unconscious or with amputations, it feels like the price of the war is incredible.

Like a conveyor belt, industrial scale conversion of healthy young men and women into this.

And yet, as one of them told us, Ukraine is strong and motivated.

While Russia has quantity, we have quality, and we will win.

Moscow has been denying cold, hard facts since the beginning, like the accurate U.S. intelligence that warned the world of Putin's planned invasion in 2022.

When Russia did invade, the Kremlin denied it was an invasion, calling it a special military operation.

I had the rare opportunity to ask Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, about the motivations for this illegal war just after it started.

Here's what he said then.

It's a serious operation with serious purposes.

And I think if we try to remember those purposes, those main goals of the operation, it's to get rid of the military potential of Ukraine.

And actually, this is why our military are targeting only military goals and military objects on the territory of Ukraine, not civil ones.

Russian military are not hitting civil aims, civil targets.

Number two is to ensure that Ukraine changes from entire Russian center to a neutral country.

And in this sense, let's remember that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, actually, the neutral status was fixed in a declaration of independence of the country.

Number three, to get rid of the nationalist battalions and nationalist regiments, who are now actually -- who are now opposing Russian troops, who are now trying to cover themselves under the shield of civilians, thus paving a way for civil casualties.

And also -- and also -- I beg your pardon if you let me.

And also to ensure -- to ensure that Ukraine acknowledges -- acknowledges the fact that Crimea is also an untakeable part of Russia and that People's Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk are already independent states, that Ukraine actually has lost them after the coup that happened in 2014.

OK.

So, basically, you are putting and laying out the original demands from President Putin, which I understand seem not to have changed.

Indeed, they haven't changed to this day.

Obviously, I was trying to point out that the targeting by Russia was not just on military targets, but also on civilians.

And it has remained so for more than three years.

So, the same maximalist positions from Russia.

We will see how and if that changes at the Alaska summit.

Russia controls approximately 20 percent of the territory now.

And the fierce bloodletting has only incrementally moved the front lines.

Drones have become a game changer here, altering perhaps the very nature of future wars.

Under pressure to manufacture and master homegrown weapons, even ordinary citizens have been recruited to Ukraine's drone training centers, as I saw myself.

Any support is welcome in Ukraine, especially if it appears blessed by Jesus, say these drone students, set up in an abandoned church, working on their simulators, and convinced their cause is just.

We do whatever we can now to resist, because Russians want to kill all called us.

This is genocide.

A store in the construct and repair class, Yulia solders and tweaks and teaches.

This part is fairly simple and fun, she says.

And did you study engineering?

What are you in normal life?

I'm a writer and a film director.

You're a writer and a film director.

Yes.

And now you're a drone operator.

Yes.

We're not allowed to disclose the location where Yulia and the others put theory into practice.

Here in this innocuous looking field, with a rudimentary obstacle course, this could almost be child's play, but with deadly results, of course.

These are all civilian drones that the Ukrainians are repurposing for their current war effort.

They can be bought off store shelves.

But this signifies a turning point in the conduct of modern warfare.

A $500 drone that's been weaponized can take out vehicles and weapons systems worth millions.

Software engineer Lyuba Shipovich started the Victory Drones Initiative.

The most advantageous, it's one of the most cost effective weapon.

And it's also weapon and it could be used as reconnaissance.

For reconnaissance purposes, if you see the enemy, you can hit enemy, you can hide your soldiers.

But enemy can see you.

Yes, if you don't use security measurements.

Like hiding or disguising their signals, because the Russians are adapting fast.

She says they're mostly crowdfunded and have deals with the Ukrainian military to train front line troops, tens of thousands so far, in what's become indispensable strategy.

That was just practice, dropping a water bottle full of sand.

But just a few days ago, the group says one of their former trainees took out this Russian tank on the Eastern Front.

They can also wipe out artillery positions and troop carriers.

How long did it take you to learn to fly?

Many of these citizen soldiers are women, busting stubborn myths.

And Yulia, of course, agrees.

In fact, she assembles the drones her husband flies too.

And a lot of women have taken up this fight.

We are all people and we are fighting for our existence.

And those drones are now really the main weapons.

Remember, when Ukraine was supposed to fall within days of Putin's full scale invasion?

Instead, it's resisted mightily.

It's neither fallen nor surrendered.

But it has had to fight to keep American support in the face of Trump's reluctance.

Zelensky himself has been transformed from a former comedian to a Churchillian wartime leader, rallying his people and the world in the face of death defying odds.

As I found during an interview at the presidential palace in Kiev.

And for the first time, first lady Olena Zelenska joined him.

Both were tired, but determined.

Did you expect it to last this long?

Do you have any idea of how long it might last?

Thank you for the question and thank you for the meeting.

You asked whether I thought this war would last so long.

No, because I didn't start this war.

And I'm sure there isn't a single Ukrainian who knew what this will be and what tragedy this will bring to every home in our country.

Because I repeat, we did not start this war.

But Ukrainian society united and showed that it was ready for what unfortunately was such a tragedy, showed that it was ready for these challenges.

I was really impressed by the power of one nation and was impressed by the swiftness of the response of Europe, the whole world and the whole international community that rallied around Ukraine for this challenge.

First lady, what motivates you to get up in the morning?

How do you feel that you've endured this war?

Well, thank you.

It's a big question.

It covers many spheres of my life.

And what helps me get up in the morning, I'm sure, as you said, it's my husband's example.

I know that if he endures, then I have to endure.

If the day has begun, then we have to keep fighting.

That keeps me going.

It's not easy every day, but you know, you need to keep running.

You cannot stop.

As Alice has said, in order to stay in place, you have to run even faster.

That's why we run.

And I get some inspiration from the kids, from the children.

First and foremost, there are some ordinary things that every family is doing.

You need to get your son ready for school, you need to make sure he has had breakfast.

Well, unfortunately, I don't have the assurance that my child would go to school every day because of those strikes with missiles and drones.

There's a lot of work, a lot of humanitarian projects that we will continue after the war.

That helps a lot.

We've heard of many Ukrainian children being taken over to Russia.

We don't know really what's happening to them.

Here in Kiev and in the area, I've met and watched over the last few days kids who've been obviously traumatized by the war.

The air raid sirens frighten the little ones.

Kids who've been told to be quiet and hide quietly have a difficulty speaking and communicating.

Some kids have seen horrible things happen under occupation.

Their mother was raped, for instance.

Obviously, you're a mother, but you're very involved in the mental health aspect and with your foundation also with women and children.

First of all, it's a big tragedy that our children are being taken away to Russia.

There is a large number of children who our social services lost connection with and we can't find them.

Sometime in summer, the Russians relaxed their adoption legislation.

They simplified the procedure to adopt Ukrainian children, which is horrible.

And we understand we'll have to fight for them and we keep talking about it at all international forums.

I heard the news that a children's home has been moved from the occupied territories in Kherson region.

We cannot reach them, unfortunately.

We cannot save them.

But hopefully, the international community will help us return our children.

Now, as regards helping those children who suffered psychologically from the horrors of war, now there's hundreds of these children already.

And we can't even imagine what those children suffered, who had to bury their own mother in the yards of their homes, who saw their relatives murdered, who stayed in the basements of Mariupol.

We can only observe them and try to help.

And for that purpose, we are establishing a national program on mental health and psychosocial support, which I hope will have a lot of projects for kids.

I can give you an example.

Once, fairly successfully, I believe, we organized a camp together with Ukrainian psychologists and donors.

There were 20 kids with psychological issues.

We took them to a special camp where the tutors were psychologists.

They spent 20 days in Spain under constant 24-hour psychological monitoring.

And this therapy had wonderful results.

The children who didn't speak started speaking.

The children who had eating disorders, who didn't eat at all, and there was a boy who never slept.

The tutors had to sleep beside him, because he could only sleep if there was somebody next to him.

And indeed, we saw wonderful results.

We want to scale up this project.

We are supported by experts from Israel and Belgium.

The next training destination for our specialists will be the U.K.

Very soon this month, we will be sending our psychologists and psychotherapists for training there.

We choose the world's best practices for coping with PTSD.

I can see it makes you very sad, both of you.

I can see you listening to your wife and this assault on the children is difficult to take.

It's difficult to live with this.

I believe the main thing is not to get used to living with it, but to fight it, as Olena said, with various programs.

Mr. President, you've obviously heard there are all these articles being written, there are these foreign policy analysts who are saying, isn't enough already for you?

Do you -- should you go to the negotiating table?

Some of these countries with economic pressures on their own who are supporting you now, are they -- are you feeling any pressure to go to the negotiating table?

Look, they don't want this war to be finished.

Now, before having any fatigue, everyone has to understand that it's only the Kremlin and only one person, the head of the Russian Federation, who is not tired of the war.

He might be tired of life in principle because of his age, but he's definitely not tired of the war.

And then, for our part, we say, please, respect our principles of the UN Charter.

Please, respect our territorial integrity.

Please, respect our people, our rights, our freedom, our land and our choice.

That's it.

So, this word "fatigue" is a big word.

You can't get fatigued.

So, it's too early for all of us to get fatigued.

But when Russia truly wants peace, we will definitely feel it and see that.

But, you know, you can't wish for peace with words alone.

Words are not enough.

Stop the war.

Withdraw from the territory.

Stop killing people.

Start reimbursing the damages inflicted on our country.

Criminals must be prosecuted.

So, words are not enough.

Other than ultimatums, I've not heard anything from the current president of the Russian Federation.

Starting from the 24th of February, there have been only ultimatums, denazification, denationalization.

Every issue they raise starts with a "D".

They always want to deprive us of something violently on our own land.

So, I said that I'm not going to talk to this person if this person conducts these sham referendums and recognizes all those sham authorities that they set up as legal.

We said this clearly.

But I haven't closed the door.

I said we would be ready to talk to Russia, but with a different Russia.

One that is truly ready for peace.

Bring back justice.

And so far, I haven't heard statements like that from the Russian Federation, either from Putin or from anyone else.

And I want to ask you another question, because I've noticed that Ukrainians are not afraid to poke the bear.

So, the bear is the Russian bear, and you guys are constantly poking on the ground in the battle, in the airwaves, in the Twitter accounts of the Ministry of Defense all over.

A lot of people outside are afraid of Russia and what Russia might do.

Where did this come from?

You know, I think that Russia feeds on these fears.

And I think this is a big mistake of the last few decades.

Russia feels it has this power.

The more you give it, the more it feels your fear.

It lives by it.

I think historically we've been under pressure for so long, it's no longer scary.

It's not even interesting.

We just wanted to stop.

It's more of an emotion rather than a fear.

Centuries of Russian empire, then dozens of years of Soviet Union, with all these famines, with all the repressions, with all the expulsions of Ukrainians to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

We've suffered so much from them that if we don't put an end to this now, there may be no chance in the future.

This is our last stand.

And when it is a last stand, we've all seen it in the movies, there's only one winner.

And of course, our sole desire is to be that winner.

Otherwise, we will have no future for this nation, because everything that's happening is elimination on ethnic grounds.

All these calls for denazification, this is all about the Ukrainian nation being wrong, not having a right to exist.

The Ukrainian language is not a real language, it's just bad Russian.

It's all about losing the values.

There are no values for humanity.

This is something we can never put up with, really, because it would mean rejecting ourselves.

Therefore, there is no fear.

There is resilience, there is bravery.

All we need is swifter and more powerful support than we are getting now.

That was late 2022, when they were racking up battlefield successes.

It's become much more difficult now, with amped up nightly attacks by Russia on cities like Kyiv.

But still, ordinary citizens mount their own resistance by simply carrying on.

Just buying books and reading them is an act of defiance these days, as I discovered in Kyiv.

This bookstore is called "Sens" or "The Meaning."

And opening in Kyiv just days before the Russian war enters a third year sends a clear message.

And Ukraine's greatest living novelist, Andrei Korkov, tells us there is much to say about Ukraine's culture, identity and resistance.

He wrote the foreword for this tome full of 12th century artifacts.

So, when Putin says this is all greater Russia, what's your answer?

Well, he is silly and he is not historian.

Kyiv is 1,540 years old.

Moscow is only 870 years old.

An army of workers is still getting the bookstore cafe ready.

But it is open and people come in hungry for non-fiction these days, for the history of their region.

Ukrainian identity helps them fight and resist, says Korkov, reminding us that Russians have looted and destroyed libraries, theaters and museums in parts they now occupy.

What would you be saying if you were to say anything to the people of Russia?

It's a very good question.

I would probably ask them to put mirrors all around them and to look themselves in the eyes and to ask themselves a question if they are living in 21st century or they are still living in Stalin's gulag.

Korkov, like most Ukrainians, see themselves, their land as the front line between the authoritarian and the democratic worlds.

Kyiv is further away from the fighting, but over in the northeast, Kharkiv, the second largest city, the danger is real and ever present.

Some 40 miles from the Russia border, their massive S-300 missiles reach the city in less than 40 seconds, no time to hide.

Memorials to the recent dead spring up all over.

This is a place where material evidence of war crimes committed by the Russian Federation is stored, including multiple launch rocket systems, grads, cruise missiles, Shahid drones, artillery shells.

This Kharkiv radio station is called "Boiling Over."

It started up 10 years ago after Russia's first invasion as an alternate voice.

Just a month and a half ago, you could listen to dozens of Russian stations, says the founder Yevhen.

All of these are Russian propaganda stations that tell us that Ukraine doesn't exist, that it's in Russia, and that Ukrainian soldiers should surrender.

Natalia, the radio host, tells us it's also become a sounding board for the terrified and depressed Kharkiv listeners.

Feedback can be varied, she tells us.

Sometimes, they just thank me for the show and for the fact that they got out of bed thanks to the program.

And I consider this a victory, because it could be someone in a state of absolute despair.

Like Ukrainians everywhere, the novelist Kirkov tells me, he is hoping for America to step up now.

And remember that America was always a symbol of freedom for Ukraine, for many countries, and I wish America remains the symbol of freedom and the country which set up the standards of democracy in the world.

Kiev and Kharkiv, a tale of two cities and separate states of anxiety.

So, while all eyes are fixed on the U.S.-Russia-Alaska talks, Trump set about lowering expectations, while also raising the possibility of a second meeting to include Zelensky.

So, what is Putin's ultimate goal?

Well, Bill Browder, who was deported from Russia in 2005, is the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and the head of the global Magnitsky justice campaign.

And he speaks to Walter Isaacson about the significance of this meeting.

Thank you, Chris John and Bill Browder.

Welcome back to the show.

Great to be here.

So, this week, we are having this Trump-Putin summit about Ukraine.

We are speaking right before that summit.

But tell me, what do you think Putin's goal really is?

Well, I don't think that Putin has any particular goal about bringing peace to Ukraine.

Putin has never altered his objectives, which are, you know, a total victory in Ukraine.

I think that what Putin is doing this for is very simple.

He needs to help Donald Trump save face.

Donald Trump has sort of boxed himself into a corner by promising to end this war in 24 hours.

He was saying that during his campaign.

And he keeps on saying that.

And he has also made all sorts of ultimatums to Putin that he has to, you know, end this war, stop the killing, all that kind of stuff.

And so, Putin needs something so that Trump doesn't look terrible.

And so, the summit is a way for him to show up, make some offers, which are offers that are totally unacceptable to Ukraine, and then flip the script so it's no longer Putin standing in the way of peace, but it's Zelensky and the Ukrainians standing in the way for peace.

Ukrainian President Zelensky said pretty much the same as you did right before the summit began, which is that he says Putin is bluffing.

He doesn't really want peace.

He wants to occupy Ukraine were his words.

Do you think that Putin is dedicated to that or is there some possibility of a compromise someday?

There is no possibility of a compromise any day as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned.

And what you have to know and what's hard for people to understand who haven't been close to Putin or Russia is that in Russia, the culture is one of domination.

It's like a jailhouse.

It's -- you're either the winner or the loser.

You're the killer or the killed.

In any conflict in Russia -- and I've been involved in many conflicts in Russia with Putin -- there is no letting off.

There is no compromise.

There is no negotiation.

It's just total victory or total defeat.

That's how they think.

And moreover, because of that, Putin is in a very precarious position himself.

Once you start a fight, if you do anything that you show weakness, then the people underneath you who want your job, want your position, want your privileges, will use that against you to say, look, this guy is not tough.

He's not a proper uncompromising Russian.

We could do better.

And then Putin is in a position where he potentially could lose power.

And so -- and by the way, for Putin, losing power means Putin loses his life.

So, for him, this is a truly existential battle.

This is a battle for his own survival.

And he has no intention of compromising.

He has no intention of negotiating or in any way showing any type of leniency or halfway towards what the Ukrainians would need to come to a deal.

So, what you're really saying is that for President Putin, it's in his interest for the war to keep going on.

If this war ends in any way other than total occupation of Kiev, which it won't, he's in a precarious position, you say?

That's correct.

And what he's also banking on is he's banking on the fact that he doesn't care what his losses are.

And the Russians have lost, according to Ukrainian estimates, about 1.1 million men, either through death or disability.

And in a normal democratic society, that would be devastating.

No leader could survive that.

They would be replaced 10 times over.

You know, if we lost in the West, any -- you know, United States or UK or wherever, if we lost 20,000 men, there would be a -- you know, total protests in the street.

But Putin is running a dictatorship, a totalitarian regime.

And so, those kind of losses don't affect him because people -- he doesn't need public support.

He just needs public fear, which is what he's got.

And so, he's betting on the fact that he can just carry on doing this and sooner or later, we're going to cave in the West in terms of supporting Ukraine.

And we're already seeing that to a greater or lesser extent in the United States.

And he's also betting on the fact that in a war of attrition, he wins because he's 10 times bigger than Ukraine.

How bad is the Russian economy at the moment?

It's bad.

It's very bad.

The major companies of Russia, Gazprom, the Nestor Bank, all these companies that used to be very big, successful companies are all losing money.

The government budget is squeezed.

Their -- the banking system is in a state of collapse.

The ruble is weak.

The only thing that they have going for them, and it's not a particularly great thing having going for them, is oil.

Oil is the one thing that keeps them afloat.

They sell their oil to the Chinese, to the Indians, to the Turks and a few other countries.

And they also sell some of their gas directly into Europe.

And it's the revenues from that that basically fund their war machine.

But I wouldn't say that the Russian economy is doing well.

I wouldn't say that people feel flush and happy about the economy.

But again, it doesn't really matter from a public -- he doesn't need public support.

He just needs the cash.

And he's got the cash.

You probably know more about the internal workings of the Russian economy than any other Westerner.

You were, I think, the largest foreign direct investment there for a while before it all blew up.

Tell me about the economy.

And you've talked about oil.

Let's start there.

Oil is now down to about, what, $62, $63 a barrel.

That's pretty low.

How much is that hurting Russia?

Well, I think that their budget revenues have come in about 20 percent less now from oil than they did a year ago, which is, of course, a lot of -- that's a big percentage move.

But it's not so big that they're bankrupt.

So, if oil were to come in at $40 a barrel, that they would be in deep, deep trouble.

And you mentioned the word of the Russian economy.

There really isn't much of a Russian economy other than oil.

I mean, yes, they have gas, oil gas.

They have minerals.

They have aluminum, steel, fertilizers, a bit of timber.

But that's it.

This is not like China that has, you know, hundreds of thousands, not millions of small and medium-sized businesses.

Nobody in Russia ever felt confident to start a business there because they knew that if they did, someone would take it away from them, that the police would come and arrest them and take their business away from them.

And so, you've got this unbelievably skewed economy, which is just the largest state enterprises which are basically in the business of selling resources.

And they don't bend the metal into anything.

They just sell the metal raw.

They have no capacity to make things in Russia.

It's not like you've ever heard about a Russian cell phone or a Russian car.

Because, I mean, yes, they make a Russian car, but no one would buy it.

Even the Russians don't want to buy it.

Because there's no incentive to do any type of ingenuity to any type of innovation.

They just strip the ground of whatever they've got and then they sell it to other countries who have much greater capabilities than themselves.

So, you said that the Russian economy depends on selling oil, oil and gas, but mainly oil.

And we've watched in the past week or so this notion of trying to put sanctions on India to stop India from buying Russian oil.

It seems to be the one thing that President Trump and Lindsey Graham has got a whole bunch of supporters trying to force this.

How realistic is that and could you stop India from buying Russian oil?

What would that do to Russia?

Well, so first of all, it's kind of a strange story.

So, there are three countries that are the major buyers of Russian oil.

The biggest is China, the second is India, the third is Turkey.

So, why he's picking on India at this point is kind of odd.

Right now, they're saying if India buys Russian oil, then India as a country gets sanctioned with extra 25 percent tariffs.

What could be done a lot less aggressively is to say that if any Indian company buys any Russian oil, then that company can't trade with us, can't trade with European Union, can't trade with the U.K. and they can't sell their refined products or they can't bank, they can't do whatever.

And guess what?

If that were put in place, then the Indian companies would stop buying Russian oil.

And if the Indian companies stop buying Russian oil, and the Chinese did and the Turks did, the Russians would still sell their oil, but it would be selling at $10 a barrel because nobody would want to get into the trouble and cut off the entire world from the -- you know, from their business.

And so, I think that it's plausible.

Now, you might ask, why haven't we done that before?

If Russia's war machine functions off of oil and if we could stop that oil and stop the war machine, then why wouldn't we have done that?

And the answer is that Russia produces about 10 percent of the world's oil.

And if you take a country with 10 percent of the world's oil and you take that off the market and you have the same amount of oil demand, then what happens?

Supply goes down, demand stays the same and the price goes up.

And we're living in a world where inflation has been plaguing most central banks and most governments and most politics.

And nobody wants inflation to go up.

And so, there's this very fine line between, you know, how do you balance out your inflation objectives with how do you balance out trying to end this war?

And up until now, everybody has been really tiptoeing around this issue.

Could India just end this war if India decided it wanted to just stop all imports of oil or would that not help?

Well, then the Chinese would say, we'll take that supply as long as you give it to us at another 20 percent discount.

So, you need to have India and China out of the picture in order to make this thing happen.

What then could be done economically to put even more pressure on Vladimir Putin?

Well, there's basically two things.

One is, as we've been talking about the oil, and the second thing is that when the war started, the West, the United States, the EU, Canada, UK, Australia, froze $300 billion of Russian central bank reserves that were held in the West.

And that money has sat there in the Western banks, Western central banks, and that money could be confiscated, and it should be confiscated.

And if that money is confiscated and then given to Ukraine and the damage is greater than that amount that they've done to Ukraine, and that money is owed to Ukraine, then Ukraine could afford to basically fund the war.

All this talk about who's going to pay for it goes away, and Ukraine would have the resources then to look Russia in the eye and say, OK, we're going to be fighting you right up till the end.

And then again, that puts Ukraine in a much stronger negotiating position and Russia in a much weaker negotiating position.

But, Bill, you've been pushing for that for two years and nothing's happened.

Why not?

Well, something has happened.

I mean, it's sort of - it's an obvious thing.

I mean, I'm sure everybody is listening to this conversation and say, yeah, Russia started the war, they invaded the country, they did a trillion dollars of damage.

We have $300 billion of their money and of course we should take it.

And then you've got a bunch of lawyers whispering in the ears of their presidents and prime ministers saying, well, that's complicated, et cetera.

But slowly but surely, it's coming - that idea has come around.

And so they have agreed, the governments of the world, that they can confiscate the interest on that money, which is, in my mind, legally the same as confiscating the whole amount.

But it's kind of this negotiating with oneself type of thing where you sort of take baby steps instead of taking the whole step.

I'm pretty sure at the end of the day, as this war continues - and I think this war will continue, I don't think that the war is going to come to an end any time soon - at the end of the day, a lot of these European governments who have to make a choice, do they want to raise taxes on their own citizens or do they want to confiscate Vladimir Putin's money to support the war, will say, I think it's easier to confiscate Putin's money.

You know, this week's Alaska summit, do you think there's a real problem of not having Zelensky being part of these negotiations?

And can Trump and Putin try to just negotiate them - themselves?

Well, I mean, I think - I think that there are two parties in this war.

There's Russia and there's Ukraine.

And those are the two parties that have to negotiate.

And to have Trump negotiate or sort of foist a deal onto Ukraine is sort of completely an inappropriate thing.

Secondly, the U.S., since Trump has been elected, has stopped funding Ukraine.

There's no longer - there's no bills in front of Congress for another $60 billion for Ukraine, et cetera.

And that has been the U.S.'s main leverage.

Not its only leverage, but its main leverage.

And so, I don't think that Trump can say to Zelensky, you know, you've got to give this up, you've got to give that up, you've got to agree to this, you've got to agree to that.

I don't think that that's - I don't think he can make those demands and have Zelensky agree to them.

And I don't think he can make those demands and have other countries in Europe who are also supporting Ukraine agree to that.

You know, President Trump has said if we can't really get a lasting peace, maybe he'll just walk away from it and let this war continue.

J.D.

Vance, the vice president, has said - Americans are sick of funding it.

We're not going to fund it anymore.

As you say, there are no more bills in front of Congress to fund it.

What happens if the U.S. just walks away and quits funding this whole thing?

Well, I mean, it has.

The U.S. has already walked away.

There is not any really explicit support.

The Trump - Yeah, but there are still American weapons going to Ukraine off and on.

So, Donald Trump made a big deal about the Europeans buying the weapons from the American defense industry.

And to the extent that Trump wants to cut off his own defense industry in order to make a political point, that just doesn't sound to me like Donald Trump.

So, I don't think there's a risk of that happening.

There are some things that are really important.

One is that the U.S. has unbelievable intelligence as far as satellite intelligence about what's going on on the ground that nobody else can replicate.

And when that's withdrawn, if that's withdrawn, that's not very helpful.

But the main thing, the main leverage that the U.S. has at this point is NATO.

So, the U.S. is the - I would say the leader of NATO.

You've got a bunch of other European countries that are part of NATO.

And to the extent that Trump threatens NATO allies to say that I'm not going to do NATO if you continue to support the war, I think that that's really where the leverage continues to be.

And if he says I'm going to walk away from NATO, that creates a much bigger problem, not just for Ukraine, but for the security of Europe more generally, which is why you've got all these European leaders tiptoeing around, trying to flatter him, trying to cajole him, having talks with him, because everybody is just trying to keep the transatlantic alliance going so he doesn't - so Trump doesn't do something abrupt and moves on to his next issue and forgets about all those threats that he made a week ago or a month ago or six months ago.

Let me ask you a question I asked you two years ago, saying this thing continuing is certainly not in Ukraine's interest.

What happens if you just had a ceasefire in place?

And you said, OK, we're not going to resolve all the territorial issues now.

We're going to have a peacekeeping force that keeps a ceasefire in place.

Would Russia, would Ukraine accept that?

And is that some type of solution?

I think Ukraine would accept that in a heartbeat.

I think that that would be a very good outcome at this stage of the game.

You know, freeze the battle where it is.

Nobody recognizes anything.

You know, put up a bunch of demarcations, get a bunch of peacekeeping forces in there, real peacekeeping forces, have NATO threat to Russia.

If you move any further, we'll come after you.

I think that that's all they want at this point.

The Ukrainians just want to, as best as they can, get back to their lives.

They don't want to accept that they've lost territory, but at the same time, they're not going to say we have to have it all back.

I mean, you know, they've made those statements, but I think they would jump at that deal in a heartbeat.

And I think that that's what the Europeans are telling Donald Trump right now, which is, you know, there's no land swaps that are going to go on.

There's no recognition of Crimea.

That's not going to happen.

But what could happen is we all just put down our weapons and then negotiate for the next 10 years, have a frozen conflict, but allow the killing to stop.

I think that that would be a solution that most everybody would get behind.

Bill Browder, thank you so much for joining us again.

Thank you.

And that is it for our program tonight.

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