February 28, 2022

Unprecedented sanctions have sent the Russian ruble tumbling. The U.S. has now cut off Russia’s central bank from its $630 billion so-called sanctions-proof fund. Bill Browder is CEO of Hermitage Capital and the architect of the Magnitsky Act, used by President Biden to impose sanctions on Vladimir Putin and his oligarch cronies. He speaks about the tactic of cutting Putin off from his wealth.

Putin's war seems not to be proceeding as far and as fast as planned. But there is little hope for an early resolution to the conflict. On Sunday, Putin put his nuclear deterrent forces on high alert. David Petraeus, a former commander of U.S. Central Command and director of the CIA, joins the show to discuss.

The people of Lithuania have lived in the shadow of Russia since they won their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Several thousand Lithuanian women protested at the Russian embassy on Sunday, calling upon the mothers of Russian soldiers to rise up and stop the war in Ukraine. Dalia Grybauskaite was president of Lithuania during Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.