brinkley with his book, silent spring revolution and alexaer novo, the treeond geration with undocumented motherhood hear me sorry, in his book, civilar by the means and at 10:0p. eastern on afterwards, cbs news major garrettnd sitter election innovation research founder david becker discuss the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election and rebuilding confidence in american democracy come there interviewed by politico national investigative personally, heidi - watch book tv every sunday, on "c-span2" d find schedule in your program guide, or watch online anytime at booktv.org. >> we kandiss on "c-span2" are an intellectual feast, every saturday marking history tv documents american story and on sundays, book tv brings you the

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murder and surviving vladimir putin's wrath. ... before we talk about your bo. 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 now, they felt their efforts to capture track five. how do you assess this next phase of the war that began this week?

can he has been humiliated.the first two days of the war that russia would roll into ukraine, they would take over kyiv and zelenskyy would flee. and they could then raise the russian flag with great pride andst patriotism. started out to be a total disaster. they lost by some estimates more than 20000 troops which is twice as many troops as the soviet union lost in afghanistan. they have lost more than 1000 tanks, many planes et cetera, the flagshipth was sunk which oe was one of the naval losses in the lastth quarter-century. so this is been a big humiliation for vladimir putin. with that lead up to the introduction of sing on different tv show the purpose of

this is to rally around the flag so he could boost his own popularity. the russians do not know right now that they are losing this war. but if they were to know putin would be really in dire straits to have them have done something so costly for russia both in terms of lives and in terms of money. and then having such a humiliation would be a very, very dangerous thing for vladimir putin. i think what one can expect in this next phase is a very serious escalation. how that is defined and what they do is yet to be seen. i think what we can say very clearly is a vladimir putin and not let matters light where they are and be seen to be a failure and a loser.

that's what he looks like based on any objective analysis right now. >> let me ask you about the response from the u.s. and nato. president biden was on television yesterday announcing aa new package of military assistance the second of that size in a week. there are all sorts of weapons in that package. but i want toe ask you, as you look at the order of battle if you will, do you think the u.s. is doing enough? what more do you think we should do? >> it is interesting. i think the u.s. is doing a pretty good job. maybe not enough to get that in a second producing a pretty good job it's always a little too little too late. we should have started this whole huge military armament

much longer ago. we should have started sanctioning oligarchs a few oligarchs before the war even began to give putin a taste of what is to come. we don't want to put vocal we don't get him mad. doing things proactively we have helped ukraine a lot. and i am very happy with the fact that the u.s., the uk and various other countries are supplying military equipment in large amounts to the ukrainians because that is what they need. if you remember like a month ago the polls wanted to transfer 20 planes. and the u.s. said no, we do not want to do that. as far as i am aware is that those planes or is some version has been transferred.

when we stopped at a month ago? similarly every time there ukrainians have been talking about a no-fly zone since the beginning of this thing. in fact there is constant aerial bombardment were going to get to that point when we supply a no-fly zone with our allies. we get to that point why did we resist for so long? why did we have tod lose 50000, 100,000 ukrainians before he got to that point? sauna military bases there is more that can be done. we are doing a lot but there's more that can beth done. and then coming to the sanctions were doing a pretty good job in a certain way. comparator was ever done before against russia or any other country for that matter per the current sanctions that are a beg

imposed are the most far-reaching the most dramatic that have ever been imposed. but we are not there yet in my opinion the purpose of sanctions at this point is not that we should expect the oligarchs to riseth up. i think they are all too scared to do that. the purpose of the sanctions is also not to get people of russia to rise up. because at the moment because of this frenzy and hysteria in terms of pro- putin and nationalism they are all with him. i think the purposes of sanctios and this is very important is cut off the flow of money to russia so putin cannot fund this war. we found good things to do that we have the sanctions the central bank reserves of russia 60% are currencies that are frozen by the u.s. and its allies. we have cut off a number of banks from swift about 70% of the banks from swift. we should cut off one 100% of

the banks from swift. if you cannot make one bank to make dollar transfers or other transfers you can use one of the unsanctioned banks. and then on the oligarchs front we have sanctioned about 32 oligarchs braiding the united states is sanctions on the eu, others, they are short they should be sanctioned by 118 of them. additional assistance the u.s. could provide a problem with the no-fly zone the u.s. would have to be prepared and probably would directly engage russian military aircraft and you would have a situation where the u.s. was shooting russian planes down. russia is a nuclear weapons state. address the fundamental question

that we face here. what you doing you have some of the present is called a war criminal who the president has also has nuclear weapons how do you deal with that problem? >> we have that problem today and forever shoot down a russian plane. so here we are telling vladimir putin the president of the united states ascend to vladimir putin we are not going to get involved with you because you are nuclear state we do not want to shoot down a plane. what's a message vladimir putin gets? it's very simple what is he do next? mr. saiz had his fun with ukraine, even t pulls up at the border. he points a bunch of weapons and then he points a nuclear warhead that washington, berlin, and london. and says to us are you ready to have a nuclear war with me over this country? it's the same question. it's exact same question. and what do we respond? we say no we do not want to have

a nuclear war with you and by the way take lithuania, poland, lafayette and romania as well? >> is not the same question those are nato countries. we have an article five commitment to nato countries. ukraine is not a member of nato so it's really not the same thing is that? ask we have the budapest memorandum you give up your nuclear weapons and we will protect your territorial integrity. mark my words if we ever get to this point there will be on fox and cnn on msnbc, all sorts of pundits and analysts are going to come on and say do we want to risk millions of people dying for this country most people can't locate on a map? it is the same thing. he is in a position right now he's going to challenge every rule, every tradition, every border and what he's doing in

ukraine. we can face it now or we can face it later. i would argue it's better to help the ukrainians win this war than ending up in a situation basically folding to putin's bluff brady has nuclear weapons either in the future or now. and he will threaten us with nuclearr weapons. the one thing he does respect and i have seen this time and time again is he respects strength. he understands that he is in a nuclear confrontation with the united states that is something he does not want to do. but what he takes advantage of it isan all of us of bowing our heads down thing we do not want to engage with you because we do not want to get engaged with you. that is an invitation to do whatever we are not challenging him on. >> i want to come back to the question of how we will win this war short of a direct military conflict with russia would

certainly no one wants. the strategy the biden administration with its nato allies has is to impose sanctions that are so devastating, they effectively shut down russia's ability to make war. and cripple its economy. sets the economy back decades. you know a lot about the russian economy having invested there successfully. i just want to ask you that basic strategy is viable? you talked about ways to make it fight more by extending various aspects of the sanctions. how soon if that was done do you think russia would would be at nowhere near there yet the elephants in the room yes it's

great we have done the central bank sanctions. yes it's great which on the oligarchs. but every dayho without fail in the west, i particularly mean germany and italy and so on are sending $1 billion to putin by buying russian oil and gas. that is a lot of money, a billion dollars a day. by some estimates that is what russia spending on their war effort. and that is what european countries are paying them. so it is kind of a wash. money income money out. if you look at it that way were not degrading their ability at all. from a business standpoint if you were to sit russia is a company their assets on a balance sheet that we are frozen. coming in on their income statement a bunch of revenue coming in.

all of the oil sales. that we have not really messed with yet. that's a harder nut to crack. one becauseav germany and italy are so dependent on russian gas and to the gas and oil prices are so high. there are two ways to deal with it. one thing which would have an outsized effect and be really crucial in this whole thing is if we could get the oil price down. that is something we could do. saudi arabia is the largest oil producer in the world. in theory they are still an alley of the united states. we provide all sorts of military protection and if they were to do that that would push the oil price down by 30%. and the oil price went down by 30% than russian revenue would go down by 30% by the germans cut off any gas or not.

and if that were to happen would be putting serious dent into russia's financial ability to wage thispu war. >> i should note within the last few days saudi arabia's crown prince had a lengthy phone conversation with a vladimir putin to talk about future continued cooperation. i am not holding my breath first saudi assistance on this front. you have made a point i find fascinating when we are talking about really squeezing the russian economy. the oligarchs, the corrupt russian economy we have been discussing are enabled by a network of people in europe and the united states primarily to do the banking, who knew some on the illegal transaction to protect the flows of money, who are really part of putin's network. how the united states really go after that network of

facilitators? are there specific things you would recommend are there laws on the book would make it difference pictures a really easy one is when i was invited to testify about this issue in front of congress a couple weeks ago. a great first thing we can do it takes no effort is if you have let's say a bunch of british enablers, people who are known to be money launderers. known to be lawyers representing the russian government,nm attacking dissidents abroad, pr firms that are doing this type of work that is something you could easily the united states could say to those people when

they want to come to the united states he could no longer have a visa to come here. and similarly the uk could do the same thing for u.s. enablers in the eu et cetera. that is something a visa is a privilege it is not a right. if these people are not conducive to the public they could be damped from entry. that is something that would immediately within seconds scare everyone in the legal profession and other professions to rely on moving around to move money and coordinate attacks on journalists, whistleblowers, et cetera. representative stephen cohen he loved it. he jumped on it and wrote to the secretary of state's of proposing it and naming the first six themes of britishsh lawyers. it something to which i am talking to british politicians

if these lawyers are other people taking money from sanctioned individuals they should be punished for violating sanctions. if they are taking money with the proceeds of crimes they should be prosecuted for taking money for the proceeds of crimes for the key is enforcement and recognizing this as a problem. >> let's turn to your new book. and i would ask you to tell our viewers the basic story that you have narrated in the book. you were a prominent investor in russia. kind of the significant with putin and those around him. they turnedon on you and began

attacking you. you are a lawyer. right under prison under horrifying circumstances. just talk our viewers into that story and what it talk to you about how putin's russia really operates. >> so you you have outlined the first part of the story which is the beginning of my book. which is the russian government's murder of my lawyer who uncovered $23 million corruption scheme and testified against the officials involved and was subsequently arrested, tortured for three and 58 and killed for doing that. in his murder really changed my life forever. it was the most heartbreaking awful thing i had ever experienced. he was killed because he was my lawyer and i felt an unbelievable feeling of burden of guilt since then. and i have made a decision after he was killed to put aside my life as a businessman and devote all of my time, resources and

energies going after the people who killed surrogate to make sure they face justice. i book is about two parts of the campaign to get justice. the first it's named after survey which freezes the assets and bands the pieces of the people who killed him and the people who do similar types of things. it was past the red states in 2012. and has been passed down 34 countries around the world. the second part of my campaign to get justice was to find out who got the money the tune of $30 million survey had exposed and testified against. and it was killed over. we trace that money all over the world including an up to going to vladimirinin putin. and so what i describe in my book is this process of getting the laws passed in other countries.

and following the money and all of the unbelievable things that vladimir putin and his regime did to try and stop us. it included a number of people being killed or attempting to kill them. boris dumps. off it was one of y allies in this whole process. he was almost every different lawmaking body in the world. he testified in favor of the act. and i believe one of the main reasons that he was assassinated in a fibroid 2015, was his work on the act. his protégé was also testifying in different lawmaking bodies and they poisoned him in p mosc. that was in 2015 and again in 2017. it is ago he went back to moscow and has just been arrested and is now the first person but the

first major political figure who has been charged with this new lawre thing i want mentioned or they send you 15 years in jail. and many other people including myself or vladimir putin has threatened me with all sorts of things. up to and including death. they have issued eight interpol arrest warrants it. at the trump assignment in helsinki vladimir putin even asked trump to hand me over. and trump said for brief period of time, said yes. it is a crazy story. the main conclusion that most people come to when they read the book is that -- i guess it's not that big of a leap these days. it would have been three months ago. that russia has i effectively a criminal organization. it is not a sovereign state in

the way we think of it. it is a vladimir putin is the mafia boss and the uses all the power of a sovereign state distill more money and to shut up anybody who stands in their way. >> you been very courageous in fighting this. tell our viewers remarkable story about how russia and its pursuit of you sent somebody to me madam -- to meet in new york with some of donald trump's closest associates but i jared kushner was at that meeting before the election. trying to pressure the trump campaign to embrace resistance to your acts, repeal it. tell folks about that meeting and what itut shows us abou putin. 2 >> after the act was passed in 2012 vladimir putin went out of his mind.

he went crazy pretty ban the adoption of russian orphans by american h families. he wrote down this first foreign policy after being reelected that he wanted to repeal the act. and he did everything possible. he went looking for an opening and he had not been successful after 2012. but he saw that donald trump was the republican nominee. and so he sends an agent. one of his agents up who was a russian lawyer, a woman named natalia to trump tower june 9, 2016 to meet with donald trump junior, jared kushner and palmetto ford. the subject of the meeting was to repeal the act. and in theory she was offering dirt on hillary clinton. this was quite remarkable when this information came out.

this was the first documented meaning insider trump campaign officials. and agents of the russian government. it is still unclear exactly what happened in that meeting. we all know what was asked for we do not know what was offered. what it did show is two things. one was how desperate putin was to get rid of the act. and the second thing it showed was how crafty he was about approaching the trump campaign. which i thought was both ominous and interesting. >> and the time that we have left, i want to return to the war in ukraine. which is the showdown for putin and putin's russia. in the outcome will obviously have lasting impact on the

world. and i want to ask you is what i think of famously on his way into iraq turn to a journalist with the war in ukraine but putin's russia ridden with inefficiency and criminal activity. tell me how this ends.s where does it go? you see putin falling from power so you can see stabilizing after that. some people think will be more unstable and dangerous after putin. what you think? how did the story end? >> i am a scenario analyzer. i do not have a one ending scenario for their three scenarios that i see and how this could end. there is a good scenario i put

is a low probability about 15%. and that is that ukraine defeats russia militarily. we supply enough equipment and military equipment there fighting for their homeland. russians are inefficient, corrupt, demoralized and theyy win. and they drive russia out of ukraine. it's a low probability scenario. but if that were to happen it is my opinion 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 be a palace coup in which case you end up with other kgb general doing the same thing. or it can be a massive uprising a violent uprising. and in which case i can imagine a scenario or someone like lexi would become the next president of russia. they would probably have a very good scenario.

as they say that is low probability, 15%. the more likely scenario and i put this in 70% that this thing carries on, and carries on, and carries on. in an either side has any interest in giving up. the ukrainians are not giving up their territory. and putin cannot back down from a conflict. in that case it goes on come on come on. they said the war started in february 24. but in reality this war started in 2014. that is when russia took crimea illegally. and that is when russia sent in various people. they called them russian backed separatist. i think that term has beent very unhelpful in defining how this

whole thing is playing out. they are effectively russian, russian proxies the other heartbreaking tragically i dread to say this there's a likely scenario. deservedly terrible bad case scenario which what i alluded to before' which is i put 15% on this. this is rolling up tanks or lithuanian and border and having a big showdown with us and sing are you ready to go to war this over this country most americans could not locate on a map. we do not want to go to war with you.

it's interesting everyone says that's impossible because article five of nato. but what does that mean? article five of nato is a concept known as legally required to do anything. we break treaties all of the time international interest to do so. and as putin's hope is we will all reflect on that and say do know what? you can have everything passed 1945. all of c those things czech republic that is the nightmare scenario. >> i think we need to end it there. it's a grim forecast by somebody who knows putin's russia extremely well. bill, thank you so much for joining us. talk about your book and talk about the issues we are all following, thank you. >> thank you. >> will be back with the future live in program viewing to suits

coming up registered for our program. thank you for joining us today i look forward to seeing you in the future. book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features ldi authors discussing latest nonfiction books. noonasrn light at the texas book festival in depth wit historian a author his books includ the last republicans and the incomparable grays. k in the presidency. then at:0p.m. eastern watch our live coverage book festival uglas brinkley,is book silent spring revolution. in the trave on generation. with undocumented motherhood and jeremy civil war by other means. on after words, cbs moon news center for eleio innovation

and research founder david becker discuss the allegation of voter fraud in the 2020 ection rebuilding confidence in american democracy. find politico national investigative correspondence. watch book tv every sunday on cspan2 and find a schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at booktv.org. on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sunday book tv brings you the latest nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comes from these television companies and more including cox. >> homework can be hard. but squatting in a diner for internetwork is even harder. that is my we are providing lower income students access to affordable internet. so homework can just be homework.