Financier Bill Browder, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, did not think much of President Donald Trump's efforts to wind down the war in Ukraine during a phone call with his Russian counterpart this week.
During an interview with CNN's Sara Sidner, Browder slapped down Trump's spin this week that his phone call with Putin made progress in winding down the war.
"All this talk about having a great meeting and a great call and one-and-a-half hours, it doesn't change what's going on," Browder charged. "Putin continues to launch his unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine."
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Browder went on to point out that Putin didn't even keep the very limited promises that he made to Trump during their call.
"By the way, 57 minutes after... Putin promised not to attack energy infrastructure, they attacked energy infrastructure in Ukraine," said Browder. "And so Putin can't be believed. His promises can't be trusted. And and to put it quite simply, he's humiliating Trump in front of the whole world."
"Wow, that's quite a statement," replied Sidner.
She then asked Browder how far away we are right now from seeing an actual ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
"We're a million miles away from something larger, and we're a million miles away for one simple reason, and that is that Putin has no intention of stopping his invasion of Ukraine," he said. "This is a maximalist strategy and he has not altered from this from day one. The whole point of his invasion of Ukraine was to take Ukraine, to make Ukraine a part of Russia, and then to move on to other countries."
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