Russia unravels: Cracks within Putin’s inner circle has him HIDING | War Files

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Could this man lead to the downfall of Vladimir Putin?

[00:00:05]While the world watches the front line in Ukraine, another war is being fought inside Russia. One for truth for power and control. This file tells the story of Pavo Durov, the elusive tech billionaire behind Telegram, hailed by some as the man who built the one platform paranoid Vladimir Putin couldn't silence. But is it really that simple? Is Durof a fearless defender of free speech or is there more to the story? That's why we're sitting down with Bill Browder, one of the Kremlin's most outspoken enemies to get his take.

[00:00:41]Pavo Duro co-founded Contact in 2006.

[00:00:45]It is another Russian social network.

[00:00:48]Since then, he has left Russia, moved to Dubai, founded Telegram with his brother, got on Forbes's billionaire list in 2023, and was arrested a year later by anti-fraud police in France. He was then released and allowed to return to Dubai. What has Durov been doing since then? Bill, both you and Pavo Durov are persecuted by the Kremlin in one way or another. Your fight with the Kremlin is very personal. Until 2009, you were one of Russia's largest investors. That is until your attorney, Sergey Mcnitzki, was killed for uncovering one of the biggest corruption schemes within Russia. Do you in any way identify your struggle with Pav Duros?

[00:01:33]>> Well, my my struggle is quite different than Paval Durov's struggle. So, um, after Sergey Magnitzky was murdered by the Putin regime, I went on a mission to get justice for him, which led to the passage of a piece of legislation called the Magnitzky Act, which freezes the assets and bans the travel of human rights abusers and crooks inside the Putin regime. Um, Putin really hated that because he's a human rights abuser and a crook. And he went after me personally with death threats, kidnapping threats, eight interpole arrest warrants, extradition requests, and all sorts of other nastiness in order to get me back to Russia to torture me and to kill me like he did Sergey Magnitzki. Paval Durov um according to reports and I don't have access to his travel records um during this time when he was supposed to be an enemy of the Kremlin traveled back to Russia I believe according to these reports more than 50 times and so if he was such an enemy um knowing what enemy what they do to enemies why was he allowed to go in and out without being arrested without being tortured without being killed like real enemies experience uh under the gaze of Vladimir Putin >> so it's not really as black and white as we might think it is. He might not actually be persecuted by the Kremlin.

[00:02:50]>> Well, there are many people um that present themselves as enemies of the Kremlin and actually have some type of arrangement with the Kremlin. Um we don't know, but um I think it's unlikely that he would freely travel in and out of Russia on numerous occasions um if he had been a real enemy of the Kremlin.

[00:03:07]They they don't tend to let their enemies go. What has been Russia's attitude towards social media in general, not just telegrams, since the start of the war?

[00:03:16]>> Well, once the war started, uh the the Russian government or I should say the Putin regime was desperate not to have people being told what was really happening with the war inside of Russia.

[00:03:29]So, what did they do? They got rid of of Twitter or X as it's now known. They got rid of of um Instagram. um they got rid of the BBC news and the New York Times and they got rid of uh all sorts of other um messaging apps um but uh they didn't get rid of telegram and so telegram became uh one of the principal ways in which people um uh were able to communicate were able to um talk about news and to talk about various events.

[00:04:00]Uh so f first of all if telegram had been such a um a a thorn in their side why do they allow telegram to exist and not for example WhatsApp or or uh Instagram and so that's my that's the first question I would ask um in in relation to to this whole um theory that Bob Durov is a big enemy of the Kremlin.

[00:04:26]It's a completely valid question and us journalists have been following telegram and you know pro-war propagandists coming straight from the Kremlin since the very start of the full-scale invasion and you know we this is just one of the propagandists we also follow Dimmitri Medve who's one of the biggest uh Kremlin men who has more than 1.7 million subscribers. So my question is how was Telegram really allowed to exist? So much is shared on the app and both Russia and both Ukraine have been using it in very different ways.

[00:05:07]>> Well, we we we don't know what what's in the mind of the um FSB sensors. The FSB being the successor organization to the KGB. Um perhaps this is um a way for them to if they if they had some backdoor entry into Telegram, maybe they could um keep track of who was saying what, who was who was on their side, who was against them, uh as a as a way of of monitoring social behavior. um uh you know it's impossible to get inside the mind of evil um dictators and understand why they allow some things and don't allow other things. Um it's they also allow for for example uh YouTube YouTube is still functional in Russia. Why do they allow YouTube and not X? Why do they allow Telegram and not Instagram?

[00:06:01]Who knows what their what their logic is, but um uh for some reason they did allow Telegram and and as a result of allowing Telegram um it created a uh uh a system where like 85% of Russians use Telegram. And so let let's say that they wanted to allow one and have some some access to it. We don't know how or why.

[00:06:23]Um uh and now everybody goes into that one. Then they can now see what everybody's doing. There's no mystery because that's the only one that's allowed.

[00:06:31]>> I tried to find you on Telegram. Do you have an account?

[00:06:34]>> I do not.

[00:06:35]>> Why do you not have a Telegram account?

[00:06:38]>> Well, in my mind, um, uh, it's it's run by a Russian who's supposed to be an enemy of the regime who travels back and forth to Russia without any problem.

[00:06:52]um why would I put myself in that kind of danger by having an account on telegram?

[00:07:00]>> We have seen a lot of losses on the front line, specifically Russian losses.

[00:07:06]Do you think Telegram is any way responsible for it? You can just see some screen grabs here of what we're seeing inside Russia and on the front line. What role does Telegram play?

[00:07:17]Well, um I I I don't know um how the Ukrainians are using whatever information they gather on Telegram, but there's a lot of people saying a lot of different stuff um perhaps not even so discreetly from the Russian side. And perhaps that gives the Ukrainians some opportunity uh to target people. But um you know again I I can't sit inside the minds of the Ukrainian military to know how they're going about targeting people and situations, but they're very clever.

[00:07:47]They've um figured out a lot of different ways of doing things. Um I suspect that they're um you know they're they're fighting for their very existence. And so um I imagine that they're going to be as industrious as they could possibly be. and and if somebody is saying something stupid on telegram which allows them to figure out where somebody is or who's communicating with who and and or perhaps an action or an inaction that the is being taken on the battlefield then of course the Ukrainians are going to take advantage of that.

[00:08:16]>> Absolutely.

[00:08:18]It's an interesting point because we have seen for whatever reason we have seen a ban on telegram inside Russia.

[00:08:28]How are Russians reacting to it? We have seen some people very sarcastically unfurl these large maps of Moscow in the metro station and apparently some people were using walkie-talkies and that's not only to do with the telegram ban but how are Russians reacting to this? Well, so so the um the objective of of Putin um in fighting this war was he he when he started the war, he didn't want to even call it a war. He wanted to call it a special military operation. And in fact, if you even were found guilty in public of calling it a war, you got sentenced to 8 years in jail. Why was he so determined not to call it a war and to call it a special military operation in order to convey to the Russian people that your your life this is some kind of thing in a farway land a special operation has nothing to do with you there's no sacrifice that needs to be made you can just live your life normally you can be as cynical as you want to be no problem um all of a sudden things are starting to affect people in Russia in ways where you can't come to any conclusion other than it's a war.

[00:09:39]And if you all of a sudden if the government turns off the internet or if the government bans the one social media that you were allowed to use, then all of a sudden people get angry and it starts to affect them personally. And I think that's why you're starting to see people grumble and say, "Well, actually, we're making sacrifices. What are these sacrifices for? What are we gaining from these sacrifices? Why is this in our interest? um wh what what's in it for us? Because the the Russian the Russian population is an extremely cynical population. Um it's they they've trained everybody to say, "Don't worry about big issues. Don't worry about idealism. Just worry about what's in it for you." And all of a sudden they're saying, "Okay, what's in it for me?" And they're getting mad because you can't communicate with your friends. You can't order a taxi because you can't use the mobile internet. your flights start getting cancelled because there's Ukrainian drones swarming Moscow airspace and all of a sudden it's like well how does this help me? Why is why is this good? Who's in charge? Oh, it's that guy Putin. And so it's this is not good u for Putin. This is this is the first time that people are starting to see that it really does affect them that they the Mosavites can't just go out and party in the nice restaurants and have a good time and just ignore the fact that Ukrainians are being massacred um just across the border.

[00:11:06]>> It's really interesting what you're alluding to and I definitely want to ask you about the popularity of Putin right now in Russia, but first I want to ask you about the mass blackouts and particularly in cities like St. Petersburg, in Moscow. We've seen mass blackouts for a short amount of time in other towns and cities, but not in St. Petersburg and Moscow. And this is really affecting the elites. How is that different to what we've seen previously?

[00:11:38]>> Well, the elites are the elite. And I mean, Russia is run by one guy, Vladimir Putin. There's no democracy. There's no council of ministers. There's no there's no in institutions. just one guy. But to the extent that he's worried about things, he's not worried about being voted out because there's no voting that happens in Russia. He's worried about either a general uprising that people get so angry or he's worried about a palace coup. And um he's got to be particularly worried about a palace coup um among the elites because they're the palace. And so um to the extent that that people regular people are getting angry that both the general uprising can happen or the palace coup can happen.

[00:12:21]And so Putin is in a much weaker position now than just about any time I can remember um since the beginning of his of his presidency.

[00:12:31]>> Russia is well familiar with palace uprisings.

[00:12:35]So this is definitely something that we're going to watch from a distance because we can't report from inside.

[00:12:41]But I also wanted to ask you, what is the Kremlin's big plan with this? What what is he trying to achieve? It's obvious that people are, as you said, grumbling about it.

[00:12:56]>> Well, so what what Putin is generally trying to achieve is avoiding either either a general uprising or a palace coup. This and and I I I go back in time. Um so he's a dictator. Um he's a dictator that doesn't have a judiciary, doesn't have a media, doesn't have laws that he has to adhere to, doesn't have democracy. Um but he is a dictator and a dictator can lose their position because either the general population isn't happy. Um and if if he can Putin can kill Alexi Nalli, the head of the opposition, or Boris Nemsoff before Alexi Nalli, but he can't kill a million people marching on Red Square. And so that that's what >> and we have seen protests previously.

[00:13:39]>> Yeah. Well, in 2012 there were big protests. Um but he was able to figure out how to get how to clamp down and and get rid of that. But his big fear has always been that the people of Russia at some point for reasons that he won't be able to predict or expect will rise up.

[00:13:55]And so if you're a dictator who's been around for a long time and um you don't know when your people are going to rise up um what's the best strategy to make sure they don't rise up? And the answer is very simple. It comes straight out of Machaveli.

[00:14:10]Find a foreign enemy and start a war.

[00:14:13]>> Okay?

[00:14:14]>> The Ukrainian people have never had any fundamental um problem with the Russians or vice versa. They were all intermaring, very similar culture and life was sort of carrying on. And one day the Russians made up this story to say that the Ukrainians were Nazis.

[00:14:37]Um they were fascists. Um they were going to kill Russianspeaking people.

[00:14:43]And as a gesture of humanity, Russia was going to go in and tamp this down. And that was and they put this out on on television and they brainwashed the people into thinking that the Ukrainians are enemies. And then they started a war. And the war is not because there's any fundamental disagreement between these people. Of course, now there is, but but before there wasn't. Um they manufactured this disagreement so they could have a war so Putin could have a war so that people were angry at somebody else other than being angry at him. Because if they get angry at him, then a million people in some scenario could march on Red Square. And it doesn't matter whether you have a a general election or not. If a million people are marched on Red Square, you don't really have much of a choice. uh as the dictator, you have you've got to run. And there's probably no place that Putin can run to. Um there's no it's not like uh um uh you know, the Ukrainian crook running to Moscow or the uh uh Syrian dictator running to Moscow.

[00:15:43]There's no other country that would take them.

[00:15:44]>> Everyone's running to Moscow at some point.

[00:15:46]>> Yeah. But but there's no place that Putin can run to because there's no place after he's gone that would protect him um if he ran to that place. And so, um, he he's he's kind of in a desperate situation for his own health and survival. He needs to have somebody to be angry with. War is a good way to be angry. The Ukrainians are the enemy. And so, that's what this whole thing is all about. But the thing is that it wasn't supposed to go like this. It wasn't supposed to be a 4-year war um with a 1.4 million casualties from on the Russian side. This was supposed to be a three-day war in which they could raise the Russian flag in Kiev and his popularity would would surge and then he could ride off of the the nationalism that came from that um for a few years until he had to start another war.

[00:16:31]>> Speaking of desperate situations, I wanted to talk about the strikes in the heart of Russia.

[00:16:40]We have just seen uh Putin declare a ceasefire um over its victory day parade on May 9th. And I want to ask you about that because I think the general concern from the Kremlin is that we're going to have strikes from Kiev to Moscow on Victory Day parade at a time when tanks are being rolled out. So currently Putin has one called a two-day ceasefire to cancel all the tanks in the biggest military parade in the country. Desperation.

[00:17:19]>> Well, I mean you're you're you're you missed out on one thing.

[00:17:23]>> Oh, tell me.

[00:17:24]>> Which is that Putin right now is hiding underground in a bunker. He is so scared that either someone internally or someone externally is going to kill him that he is now hiding underground in a bunker. He's not going to his house in Bulai. He's not going to his house on the Black Sea. He's underground. And um that tells you how desperate the situation has gotten for him. And of course, the internet blackout um is all about his fear of people rising up. And the Telegram ban is all about his fear of a bunch of people communicating with each other about something and and then using that to maybe march on Red Square or whatever. And so that's that's his he's he's in a he's in a a bad bad situation for uh for a dictator.

[00:18:09]>> So we have the telegram ban. We have the mass blackouts leaving people to use huge maps uh on the metro. We have potential strikes from Kiev on Moscow.

[00:18:21]We also have these strikes, Ukrainian strikes deep in Russia on oil refineries. we have seen footage and you know it's some of the most outstanding footage we've seen in recent weeks. Um is Putin in one way or another being exposed as a weak leader?

[00:18:41]>> Absolutely. I mean I think he's been exposed for the last four years as being a weak leader. Um here here Russia was supposed to be other than the United States the second most powerful military in the world. allegedly >> that's what they were that's that's how they presented themselves and the second most powerful military in the world was held back by a country onetenth their size with onetenth their resources um and they've been held back completely at at great at enormous cost to personnel 1.4 4 million soldiers either killed or maimed at unbelievable cost to the economy. The Russian economy is in a complete disaster. And all of a sudden the the Russian superpower myth has been fractured. And it's not just the military. Putin was supposed to be this unbelievable ally for the bad guys. If you were a bad guy and you wanted to um have somebody stand by your side, another bad guy, you could go to Vladimir Putin. And and that didn't help Bashier Assad. That didn't help Maduro.

[00:19:50]That didn't help the old Ayatollah in Iran. Um that didn't help the Armenians when the Azer Azerbaijanians took Norno Carabach. um that didn't help um the regime in um in Mali um in Africa that was supposed to be protected by Russia. There's all sorts of places where Putin was was projecting power internationally and the whole thing turns out to be a joke that Putin can't do anything. And so uh there's something that that um back in when President Obama was the president of the United States which he said which really upset Putin which is that Putin is not a superpower he's a weak regional power and that's what we're seeing objectively with with the strikes on the oil refineries with the allies with the um uh o uh all these other things that that closing down their military parade. It's it's not a it's not the actions of a superpower.

[00:20:50]>> I'm so happy you reminded me about the economic impact because amongst everything it feels like the economic impact on Russia and Russians is being left behind. Um but when you tally it all up, are we seeing more and more cracks within the Kremlin? Do people still believe in Putin's power to bring this war to an end and to bring it to an end for Russia to actually win?

[00:21:21]>> Well, Russia's not going to win. Um, what what the Ukrainians have figured out how to do and they've re recreated modern warfare is hold the Russians back not with personnel but with drones. And they've gotten so good at drone warfare that on the front line within a 40 mile radius, any Ukra any Russian that enters into that front line will be killed by a drone. They make no progress. In fact, if you look at the charts, they're actually losing territory right now. And so there's no chance that Putin can win.

[00:21:56]He he he he's stuck. He's in a frozen conflict. He in during the winter he said, "Okay, I can't get across that this front line because the drones kill everybody. But what I'm going to try to do is blow up heating stations in Ukraine." And it's a cold winter in Ukraine. Cold in Russia, too. I'm going to blow up the heating stations. So all these um 20story apartment blocks that everybody lives in in Ukraine, these concrete apartment blocks, they can't go up in the elevator and they they they because the electricity doesn't work and they don't have heat. They're living in freezing apartments, hoping that he would freeze the Ukrainians into into submission. And they didn't freeze into submission. Now the winter is over. And now the Ukrainians, because of because Donald Trump has cut off military aid to Ukraine, the Americans can't tell the Ukrainians who to target, who not to target, where to target, where not to target. And so the Ukrainians are saying, "Well, if if the West is not going to sanction Russia's oil, we'll sanction Russia's oil." And that's what uh this this picture is.

[00:22:56]That's what this picture is. Um is is the Ukrainians not being held back by anybody, hitting these major economic uh entities. And not just these oil refineries, they're also hitting oil export terminals where where the oil goes to go out to the west. Um uh there there's the um Uskim terminal in the on the Baltic which was on fire. There's the Touce terminal that was on fire.

[00:23:23]It's now becoming really disastrous for for Putin and not just the economic impact but the symbolic impact.

[00:23:33]Everybody I was thinking about getting one of these uh uh pictures and putting it on my wall because it's just so symbolic framed.

[00:23:39]>> Yeah, exactly.

[00:23:40]>> But it's so hard to choose from because there are so many good ones. There >> are many good ones.

[00:23:44]>> Which oil strike do you pick for your wall?

[00:23:46]>> Yeah. I'm so pleased you mentioned uh the desperate move because I do think it was a desperate move trying to freeze out the Ukrainians because I know Kia was particularly badly affected.

[00:24:00]Jumping back to Telegram, the Kremlin has tried to introduce this stateowned state regulated app called Max.

[00:24:11]Have you had a look? Have you? I >> I've signed up right away.

[00:24:15]>> I thought so. I thought so. I I'll befriend you.

[00:24:19]>> Well, I I I don't think that any Russians want to sign up to this, Max.

[00:24:22]And from what I've read, Pavle Durov has found some kind of way around the Kremlin ban on on Telegram. And so, people are still using it. But I think that that the technologists will eventually figure out how to ban Telegram. And then Russians will have to figure out whether they want to just not communicate or communicate under the watchful eye of the FSB. And I guess if they have no choice, they need to communicate. So they probably will eventually adopt this new Russian government system.

[00:24:50]>> But what is the point of Max? Is it to control the Russians or is it to try and repair these cracks? You know, saying we've banned Telegram, but we give you this new and shiny app called Max.

[00:25:06]>> Well, for what for whatever reason, they don't believe they control Telegram. I don't know whether they control it or don't control it or what what the relationship is, but it's a it's a murky non-transparent relationship as far as the outside world is concerned. And so what they don't want to have happen is a viral um uh movement to come to come through Telegram where everybody says, "Okay, let's march on such and such a day and march towards Red Square." and the first thousand marchers get shot and then they people continue marching and then the soldiers stop shooting and then all of a sudden a million people are surrounding the Kremlin and Putin tries to desperately get out of there and then he gets hung by his own people. That's that's his uh that's his worst fear and so he doesn't want people to be virally communicating to to for the message of to march on Red Square. Um uh if they if you if if you control the if you're you the government, you Vladimir Putin control the um uh the max system, people can communicate about you know groceries and you know dating or whatever they're doing. Um but if if all of a sudden you're worried about all that stuff, you just stop it >> and you if you control it then then it's stopped. And I guess that would be the hope and the dream of Putin, which is that social control. For a long time, the assassination of Vladimir Putin has kept us journalists busy and sort of the biggest threats to him. And I want to ask you whether this is his biggest fear and what is he trying to do about it?

[00:26:37]>> His his biggest fear is his own personal survival. He is a uh a sociopath. He doesn't care about anybody other than himself, but he cares very deeply about himself. and he understands that he um he's been around for a long time and there's there's no exit strategy for a dictator that's been around for 26 years. There's not there's not like he can just say, you know what, I've had enough. I'll let somebody else take over. I'm going to retire to the I'm going to and I'm going to run the Putin presidential library and maybe I'll paint on odd days and and so on. Um that's not how things work in that part of the world. If Putin for any reason were not in power, they would they would come on him like wolves and uh they would take his money away. They would put him in prison and they would probably torture him and kill him.

[00:27:25]That's what happens to these types of in these types of regimes. He understands that. And so he's desperately afraid of anything like that happening to him. The only way to prevent it from happening is to stay in power. And he's been very good at at preventing any of these things from happening. And he the he's he's a paranoid man. He has everybody looking at everybody else. He's arresting people he suspects of disloyalty. It's a very dangerous thing to be disloyal to Vladimir Putin. Many people have died who have thought about it. And um and it's worked so far. And so the only way it's not going to work is if they if they see him being weak and um and enough people see him as being weak so that they decide in in however these decisions get made by whomever that you know someone's going to make a play. And by the way, when when when this happened with Yavghenei Proogo, Yavghi Pojian was the head of the Wagner group, this paramilitary operation which was making up for all the deficiencies of the Russian uh official military at the very beginning of the Ukraine war. And then the regime or the people around Putin turned against um Yini Proogo and um and then he started to um go after them and then he eventually had was starting to march towards Moscow and what was very interesting is that two things one one if you watch flight radar which is the private jets >> we love flight radar >> they all started taking off from from St. Petersburg and Moscow, all the rich guys, because they were afraid of what would happen if progosion came in. And the second interesting thing is that the Russian people weren't saying, "Oh my god, you're going after our beloved President Vladimir Putin. We're going to stop you. We're going to, you know, shoot at your tanks." No, they were taking selfies with the soldiers and offering them flowers and everyone was just trying to figure out who's the boss. Who's going to be the boss so we know who to report to? There's no loyalty to Putin. There's just loyalty to whoever the strong man is. We have obviously seen attacks on Moscow and I'm actually going to put a pin here to make sure we know where the attacks are. We have seen the refinery strikes. When we're talking about an assassination on Putin, are we talking about a Ukrainian strike on Moscow? Are we talking about Ukrainian soldiers being deployed or is it soldiers within his own country? Or are we talking perhaps about a palace coup as you called it? Well, so here here you are laying out some of the options. You don't think that Vladimir Putin has thought about these things? He he spends every day thinking about these things and he spends every day figuring out how he has to avoid, you know, this this and that. And so, um, and the one thing he's not very good at most stuff.

[00:30:04]I mean, if you look, the Russian economy is not doing well. It's never done well.

[00:30:07]Um, it's not a a place of innovation.

[00:30:10]It's not a place of of population growth. It's not a place of anything good. He's bad at everything except for one thing. He's a very good paranoid dictator and he's very good at staying alive. And so my money would be on none of these things happening because Vladimir Putin is, you know, people have counted him out so many times, but he's he's got the one benefit um that most other world leaders don't have, which is that he's running a dictatorship where he can he can wait it out. he can wait it out and um and he can in the meantime he can arrest people, he can use the secret police, he can kill people who he thinks are a threat and so you know all likelihood Putin will be around for another 10 years and we'll be dealing with him for a long time to come.

[00:30:57]>> So you still don't think that this new reality that is ongoing in Russia could lead to the to his downfall? Well, so it's it's impossible to know what might lead to him being overthrown. And you can never predict in any country um when the dictator falls. Dictators do fall.

[00:31:15]They fall pretty often. Um but you couldn't have predicted the Arab Spring.

[00:31:20]You couldn't have predicted Mubarak, the the dictator in Egypt falling. Um you couldn't predict the Syrian dictator falling. You you you couldn't predict Yanukovic falling. They fall when they fall for reasons that are impossible to predict. There there's a a simple mathematical equation which is are people angrier than they are scared. But but to measure that is is impossible.

[00:31:44]And to know how how it all happens and it happens quickly when it happens. It's impossible to predict. What I can say is that none of these guys live forever.

[00:31:51]They all fall eventually. Sometimes they fall from natural causes. Sometimes they fall from being overthrown. But dictators fall. Um, but does that mean that that um Putin is going to be falling in in the next two weeks or two months or two years? I I think probably not. Um, but who knows? Nobody knows. He doesn't know. I don't know. You don't know. Um, and when it happens, it'll all happen very quickly. But, um, I think it's it's kind of a a fool's game to try to predict that Putin is going to fall just because there are these ugly signs of weakness right the second.

[00:32:23]It is hard to imagine that something as little as the telegram ban could lead to the downfall of Putin and the entire war apparatus. All eyes are now on the Kremlin, but perhaps we should divert them to Dubai where Pavo Duru could be plotting something big. Is this the clear sign yet Putin's downfall is imminent?