‘Cataclysmic’: Ambassador McFaul says Putin's ban on Facebook shows 'he understands he's losing'
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow, Russia, December 23, 2016. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on MSNBC said Vladimir Putin is suffering a "cataclysmic" loss of support for his regime as his invasion of Ukraine drags on.

"Putin's angry about what's happening in the war, he's disappointed there and he's feeling it inside Russia," he said, noting the closure of Russian TV stations.

"He just shut down Facebook. Think about that, he just shut down Facebook," McFaul said. "You don't do that if you feel like you're winning the war and winning the argument."

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McFaul said that this also had foreboding omens for the future of Putin's rule.

"And there is something cataclysmic going on in terms of the support for his regime. This is a major break, I think, inside Russia," he explained. "That's not to say the regime will fall or Putin will fall anytime soon, we're horrible at making those kinds of predictions, so we should be careful, but the fact he's taking more extreme measures, turning Russia into North Korea, suggests to me he understands that he's losing this war and losing his peoples' support for this war."

Watch:

Michael McFaul www.youtube.com