(LONDON) – Ukraine’s continued attacks on Russian oil refineries and data centres could force the Kremlin to accept an air truce, according to financier and anti-corruption campaigner Sir William Browder.
Speaking on Frontline with Philip Ingram, Browder said it would “just not be possible” for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to continue if Ukraine maintains pressure on critical infrastructure targets, including Yandex data centres.
“It will become too painful for Putin to continue,” Browder said. “And I think we were getting there before, and that’s why Putin asked Trump to intervene.”
He predicted such pressure would lead to an air truce rather than the end of the war, with the conflict eventually shifting to a ground war that Russia cannot win because Ukrainian forces have “figured out how to kill every single soldier that comes across the front line.”
The conflict would wind down not through a peace treaty or grand bargain, but because it becomes “too painful to carry on,” he said.
Browder’s comments come amid growing concern about Russian hybrid attacks across Europe, including sabotage, assassinations and attacks on undersea cables.
He called for NATO’s North Atlantic Council to redefine Article 5 thresholds and to deny visas to Russians involved in such activities. “We should absolutely do that,” he said. “It’s like we’re in war.”
Browder criticised the term “hybrid war” for diminishing Russia’s responsibility, drawing parallels to the post-2014 description of Russian forces in Ukraine as “Russian-backed separatists.”
He expressed deep scepticism about the future of NATO, warning that if US President Donald Trump is “siding with Vladimir Putin,” Washington may not come to the defence of allies even in an Article 5 scenario.
“I don’t think NATO exists in the form that we have known it to exist,” he said.
However, a former NATO planner interviewed on the programme countered that the alliance has demonstrated flexibility in operations from Afghanistan to Kosovo, including when Russian troops served under NATO command. The planner warned against attacking NATO, saying it “plays into Putin’s hands.”
Browder agreed that NATO should not be attacked but said Europe must “wake up to the fact that America is not going to show up when we need them.”
He called for a mutual defence organisation comprising all previous NATO members minus the United States, alongside Canada and Turkey, arguing that collectively these countries could “cause Putin no end of pain.”
On sanctions, Browder said the Western regime against Russia was among the heaviest ever imposed but contained a “loophole so big” that it allowed Russia to continue funding its war through crude oil sales to China, India and Turkey.
He said the late US Senator Lindsey Graham championed legislation to penalise buyers of Russian oil, which passed the Senate by 86 votes and was signed into law by Trump approximately a month ago.
However, Browder claimed Trump then issued an executive order refusing to impose the sanctions. “Donald Trump has saved Vladimir Putin and he’s expecting a lot of financial rewards in return,” he said.
Asked whether Congress might act after midterm elections, Browder noted the law contains a carveout allowing the president to waive it on national interest grounds. He said new legislation would be needed with sufficient support to override a veto, but Trump would likely pressure Republican colleagues to block it.
He added that the House of Representatives holds the power of the purse and could withhold funding to extract concessions.
On Russia’s economic resilience, Browder said Moscow’s debt-to-GDP ratio is roughly 25 to 30 percent of that in the United States, leaving no imminent default risk. However, with no access to international capital markets, Russia must fund deficits through domestic savings at interest rates around 15 percent.
“Putin is ready to starve the entire country the way the North Koreans do if that’s what it takes to continue the war and stay in power,” Browder said.
He said Putin has sufficient funds to offer Trump personal financial incentives, describing it as “a hell of a lot cheaper than finding himself cut off from the export of crude oil.”
On oligarch dissent, Browder said he is “100 percent sure” every Russian oligarch considers challenging Putin privately but none discuss it with each other due to grave personal danger.
“They’re the least likely to do anything because they have the most to lose,” he said, drawing parallels to US billionaires “playing along” with Trump.
Looking ahead, Browder predicted Ukraine will not surrender despite Trump potentially withdrawing intelligence support, Starlink access and already-paid-for weapons. He warned more Ukrainians will die and cities will suffer from lack of water and heat.
But he said Ukrainians possess something no previous adversary of Russia has had: the ability to inflict pain on Putin.
“You had the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union, Chechens fighting the Russian Federation, Georgians fighting, but none of them really had any tools to inflict pain on Putin,” he said. “But the Ukrainians do.”
The war may take a long time to end, with significant Ukrainian casualties in the meantime, he warned.
Sir William Browder was speaking on Frontline with Philip Ingram, broadcast on Times Radio.
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