Appearing on CNN on Monday morning, retired Gen. David Petraeus claimed the consequences for Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine will become all too apparent to Russia this week as the war continues to drag on.
Speaking with "New Day" host Brianna Keilar from his home, the former military officer and CIA director said the invasion of Ukraine has gone poorly for the Russian president and he could see troubles at home as the sanctions against the country take hold.
After claiming that Russian officials might be looking for an "off-ramp," host Keilar asked, "You said an off-ramp. What are you looking at that gives you an indication that Russia may be ready to find one and what might that look like?"
"Well, I don't want to predict something imminent, but, again, the fact is that negotiations are still taking place, the fact that clearly the economic consequences of this are going to start coming home to roost in Moscow probably this week -- at some point they're going to begin to default on the rollover of their debt payments," he replied. "At some point the [Russian] people are going to realize the stock market is never going to reopen, we aren't getting much for our ruble anymore. Various products that they used to take for granted are just not going to be on the shelves in stores."
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"Again, this is starting to happen and it will escalate in the weeks that lie ahead," Petraeus continued. "McDonald's is closed, for example. That's a real penalty, to be clear. So people will be unemployed, the jobs they previously had won't be available because businesses are decoupling from the Russian economy. As this continues, again, the pressure on Putin is going to build. He will not show it. He's going to try to appear to dismiss it and so forth, but I think that's a reality that he's going to have to confront. These are unprecedented sanctions; we've never seen anything like that."
Watch below:
Gen. Petraeus: 'Consequences' for Putin's war on Ukraine will soon 'come home to roost in Moscow' www.youtube.com
