Washington should increase the pressure on Moscow as Russian President Vladimir Putin faces a mighty double of military and economic failures, former CIA director David Petraeus told CNN.
“Putin is in a very, very difficult situation,” Petraeus said in a phone interview. “We have to keep tightening the screws.”
Perceptions of Putin’s rock-solid grip on power were shattered by Wagner’s Rebellion last month, a short-lived uprising that was nonetheless the biggest challenge to the Russian leader’s authority since taking office. power in the 1990s.
Petraeus, currently vice president of the KKR Global Institute, said Putin faced “haemorrhaging on the battlefield” as well as “in the economy, on the home front.”
“It hasn’t been as bad as many of us hoped. Still, they have problems on the home front,” he said of Russia’s economic situation.
The retired four-star general cited a series of developments that illustrate the serious suffering of the Russian economy, including Moscow’s growing budget deficits, the exodus of more than 1,000 large Western companies, the withdrawal of major producers of petroleum and their superior technology, and the disruption of many trades with Europe.
Russian government revenue from oil and gas fell 47% to 3.38 trillion rubles ($37.4 billion) in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2022, reported Wednesday. Reuters, citing data from the Ministry of Finance. Tax returns declined due to lower prices and sales volumes.
Petraeus, the former head of US Central Command, said Russia also faces a brain drain caused by the large number of talented citizens who have left the country since the war began in February 2022.
“They lost hundreds of thousands of their best and brightest – who no longer wanted to live in a country that is a global pariah,” he said.
“A bleeding economy”
Western sanctions have not dealt a fatal blow to the Russian economy. Some, including economist Larry Summers, say the economic sanctions imposed on Russia have not been as severe as expected because too few countries have imposed sanctions.
Others, like Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, say sanctions “work extremely well” against Russia.
“Russia is no longer an economic superpower. It’s a bleeding economy,” Sonnenfeld told CNN.
The slow erosion of Russia’s economic power is reflected on the battlefields in Ukraine. Although many in the West believed that Putin’s army would quickly overthrow kyiv, the war in Ukraine has been going on for almost a year and a half.
And Petraeus says the war won’t end until “Putin realizes it’s not sustainable.”
“Cat and Mouse Game”
Of course, this is one of the goals behind Western sanctions against Russia: to make it too painful for Moscow to continue the war.
Petraeus hailed the Treasury Department’s “very impressive” sanctions campaign led by Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo.
But the former CIA chief noted the complexity of modern sanctions, where target countries often find ways to evade restrictions.
For example, US officials say that to circumvent Western bans on technology sales to Russia, Moscow is importing dishwashers, washing machines and other kitchen appliances to use their advanced computer chips in rockets, planes and elsewhere.
“It’s a real game of cat and mouse. It takes a tremendous amount of perseverance and attention to detail,” said Petraeus. “The challenge is one of capacity and bandwidth.”
Petraeus called on the United States and its partners to “continue to strengthen” economic sanctions and export controls against Russia and to “minimize” the “disappointing” number of countries willing to trade with Moscow.
“We have to keep staying after this – and I’m confident we will,” he said.
Too careful?
Sonnenfeld, the Yale professor, agreed that more could be done to put pressure on Moscow, including better tracking of avionics parts and microchips that end up making their way to Russia via third countries.
“There are leaks in chips and aviation. It absolutely could be better controlled,” he said.
The KKR executive praised the Biden administration and Congress for doing an “extraordinary job” in supporting Ukraine and holding the Western alliance together.
However, he expressed disappointment that Washington had not moved more quickly to provide Ukraine with all the military hardware Kiev officials need.
“There’s a bit of a pattern where Ukraine asks for something, we say, ‘No’, then ‘maybe’, then ‘maybe’ and finally we grant their request. But you waste time in this effort,” Petraeus said. “We were a little too cautious.”
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