Putin Betrayed: His Inner Circle Steals War Billions - Jason Jay Smart

[TexasTowelie]

Putin BETRAYED: His inner circle is stealing war billions as a $2.4B panic rocks the Kremlin. This is the story of how the system rots from within, forcing a desperate Putin to trap his last dollars.

The rot is now a full-blown financial crisis. Ukrainian drone strikes have triggered the "Carpet" plan nearly 500 times, costing Russia's aviation industry a stunning $2.4 billion. In a clear sign of panic, the Kremlin is drafting new capital control laws to ban all foreign currency operations by decree. This is a desperate move to stop the financial bleeding and fence in the economy. This economic stress is also causing strategic industries, like the world's largest titanium producer VSMPO-Avisma, to cut staff and halt production.

While the state panics, Putin's inner circle is cashing out. A massive corruption scheme, detailed in new reports, involves Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev and his "common-law wife," Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut. Over $120 million in state bank loans, meant for strategic war plants, were allegedly siphoned off by an oligarch. This stolen money was used to buy a luxury hotel in Turkey, private jets, and $50,000 Hermes bags for Minister Lut, a shocking betrayal of the frontline effort.

This internal rot has a devastating human cost. As the Kremlin pushes its "furnace" strategy at Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, it unleashes a brutal wave of internal repression to maintain control. The FSB is seizing control of all surveillance tech, while lawmakers push to jail 14-year-olds for sabotage. Political prisoners are being left to die. Activist Olga Komleva has lost her ability to speak in prison, and community leader Usman Baratov states from a punishment cell, “They are waiting for me to die like Alexei Navalny.”

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
01:23 - The Truth vs. Western Media Narratives
01:56 - Putin's Desperate Decree
03:11 - The Inner Circle's Betrayal
03:40 - Corruption's Fatal Blow
08:21 - Repression, Sabotage, and the End
12:14 - Outro