Russia starts trials for Tu-160M bomber designed to strike remote areas with nuclear and conventional weapons

Washington should crank up the pressure on Moscow as Russian President Vladimir Putin is confronted by a powerful one-two punch of military and economic failures, former CIA director David Petraeus tells CNN.

“Putin is in a very, very difficult situation,” Petraeus said in a phone interview. “We need to continue to tighten the screws.”

The perception of Putin’s ironclad grip on power was shattered by last month’s Wagner rebellion, a short-lived uprising that nonetheless amounted to the greatest challenge to the Russian leader’s authority since he rose to power in the 1990s.

Petraeus, currently serving as vice chairman of the KKR Global Institute, said Putin faces “bleeding on the battlefield” as well as “in the economy, the home front.”

“It has not been as bad as a lot of us hoped it would be. Still, they are in trouble on the home front,” he said of Russia’s economic situation.

The retired four-star general cited a range of developments that illustrate severe pain in the Russian economy, including Moscow’s mounting budget deficits, the exodus of more than 1,000 major Western companies, the withdrawal of major oil producers and their superior technology, and the severing of much trade with Europe.

The Russian government’s revenues from oil and gas fell by 47% to 3.38 trillion roubles ($37.4 billion) in the first half of the year from the same period in 2022, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing finance ministry data. Tax returns fell because of lower prices and sales volumes.

Petraeus, the former head of US Central Command, said Russia also faces a brain drain caused by the sheer number of talented citizens who left the country since the war began in February 2022.

“They’ve lost hundreds of thousands of their best and brightest — who no longer wanted to live in a country that is a global pariah,” he said.

Western sanctions have not delivered a deathblow to the Russian economy. Some, including economist Larry Summers, argue that economic penalties on Russia haven’t bitten as hard as anticipated because not enough countries have imposed sanctions.

Others, like Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, say sanctions are “working tremendously” well against Russia.

“Russia is no longer an economic superpower. This is an economy that is hemorrhaging,” Sonnenfeld told CNN.

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