Vladimir Putin attended the 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), even as the realities of his war encroached on the host city. On The Bulwark Podcast, Anne Applebaum described the stark disconnect of the event, noting that on the morning of the conference, Ukrainian drones "hit the refinery in St. Petersburg, and there were kind of billowing black smoke over the city while people were walking to the conference hall." On The Prof G Pod, Fiona Hill observed that the Russian leader is "starting to get very nervous about, uh, Russian society and perhaps the elites," as his strategic choices continue to shrink.
The debate over how to handle Vladimir Putin continues to divide political commentators. On The Tucker Carlson Show, foreign policy scholar John Mearsheimer argued that Western leaders have "convinced themselves, uh, that Putin is the second coming of Adolf Hitler," pointing out that the Russian president is actually "being criticized, uh, far and wide inside of Russia for not having waged the war vigorously enough." Meanwhile, on Pod Save America, Tommy Vietor criticized Western hesitation, arguing that the U.S. is "allowing the Ukrainians to just kind of dangle in the wind in their effort to fight back against Vladimir Putin."
Podcasters also reflected on the personal mythology surrounding Vladimir Putin and his past interactions with Western figures. On Desert Island Discs, journalist Gary O'Donoghue recalled asking Donald Trump in the Oval Office if he trusted the Russian president, yielding a chilling response: "I trust almost nobody." Dax Shepard of Armchair Expert brought up an old encounter where Joe Biden looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and told him, "I think you're soulless," or words to that effect. Conversely, on No Such Thing As A Fish, James Harkin shared a surprisingly tender description from a French theme park director's son, who characterized the autocrat as having "sweet eyes and sweet words."
Even teenagers are finding themselves in Vladimir Putin's crosshairs. On the Global News Podcast, Celia Hatton detailed the case of seventeen-year-old Alexander Browder, the son of campaigner Bill Browder, who was sanctioned by Moscow after publishing a school project on how Russia uses cryptocurrency to evade Western sanctions. As the war drags on, the international community faces the looming reality that, as Alastair Campbell warned on The Rest Is Politics, European governments remain highly vulnerable to Vladimir Putin's ability to manipulate global energy supplies.