Inside Putin’s Russia: Is the Kremlin getting nervous?

Summary

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Inside Putin’s Russia: Is the Kremlin Getting Nervous?

Podcast: The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
Host: Sky News
Episode Date: June 10, 2026

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Overview

This episode, hosted by Yalda Hakim, delves deep into the current atmosphere inside Russia amid the ongoing war with Ukraine. With Richard Engel away, Yalda is joined by Sky’s Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett, who shares his lived experiences reporting from Russia. The conversation explores the challenges of journalism under the Kremlin’s watchful eye, shifting moods in Russian society and government, the impact of Ukraine’s drone attacks on the Russian psyche, economic pressures, Russia’s portrayal of Britain, and the dynamics of leadership between Putin and Zelenskyy. The episode also features insightful commentary around Yalda’s recent interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and how both leaders are strategizing to maintain or shift narratives domestically and abroad.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reporting Under Pressure: Living and Working in Moscow

• Challenges of Reporting

  • Western and particularly British journalists are under stricter censorship following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Terms such as “war” are taboo; reporters have to be hyper-vigilant about accusations of “discrediting” the armed forces or spreading “fake news.”

    “These laws... you could be deemed to be discrediting the armed forces or spreading fake news about the military... There’s a line, but you don’t always know where that line is.”
    — Ivar Bennett (03:28)

• Constant Surveillance and Self-Censorship

  • Bennett describes a latent, building pressure that only abates when leaving Russia:

    “When you leave the country... you suddenly feel like this weight is kind of lifted off your shoulders.”
    — Ivar Bennett (05:07)

• Permits and Restrictions

  • Even filming in public requires repeated paperwork—access to innocuous sites is routinely denied, especially to Westerners.
  • Interview access is sparse: most Russian officials are off-limits, and ordinary citizens are reluctant to speak, especially on sensitive issues.

2. Tighter Atmosphere and a Sense of Claustrophobia

• The environment for foreign media has become steadily more tense:

  “The situation is always changing, but... right now certainly feels much more tense and on edge than it has been in the two years I’ve been there.”
  — Ivar Bennett (09:37)

• Recent high-profile events have led to Western press accreditations being pulled last minute, notably for military-related events such as the Victory Day parade and security conferences. Bennett interprets this as a sign of nervousness from the Kremlin:

  “The cancellation of a military parade is not good for Vladimir Putin. It shows that something is seriously wrong.”
  — Ivar Bennett (13:51)

3. Russia’s Parallel Reality: Economic and Social Realities vs. Official Narrative

• Drone Strikes, Economy, and Internet Outages

  • Three key issues dominate public discontent: rising prices, Internet outages, and anxiety over drone strikes.

    • Prices for staples like cucumbers and butter have spiked up to 100% in some cases (24:33).
    • Internet and mobile shut-downs, attributed to drone defense, disrupt daily life and business, causing frustration:

      “Can you imagine just living without your smartphone? ...if your business depends on [it],...none of that was working and people were very, very annoyed.”
      — Ivar Bennett (18:04)

  • Kremlin’s official justification for outages: “security” and “protecting innocent civilians.” Analysts view it as a test run for social control before elections.

  • Drone attacks, while infrequent in Moscow, are increasing, bringing the war’s realities home to Russians:

    “There is this anxiety that’s building and discontent over those other things.”
    — Ivar Bennett (21:42)

• Denial in the Face of Adversity

  • Despite visible evidence—like international delegates arriving in St. Petersburg to plumes of smoke—there is orchestrated public denial about the war’s domestic impact.

    “You walk into this parallel reality where the war just doesn’t exist and everything’s fine. It’s this massive elephant in the room.”
    — Ivar Bennett (16:07)

4. Britain as “Public Enemy Number One”

• The state narrative brands Britain as the chief Western villain, especially since improved US-Russia relations under Trump:

  “Britain is definitely public enemy number one in Russia.”
  — Ivar Bennett (25:50)

• The contrast between official agitation and popular affection is stark:

  “Officially, it’s hatred...but when you speak to people, normal, everyday Russians...there’s a real affection for Britain... T-shirts with a Union Jack, British music on the radio... a Harry Potter cafe, Gruffalo performance for kids, flowers left outside the Embassy for British celebrities.”
  — Ivar Bennett (25:50, 28:10)

5. Zelenskyy vs. Putin: dueling narratives (with Interview Highlights & Analysis)

• Shifting Moods: Zelenskyy’s Changing Role

  • Yalda reflects on multiple interviews showing Zelenskyy’s transformation from a ‘bruised, rattled,’ and frustrated leader to one now appearing “confident and buoyant,” “trolling” Russia with references to its disconnections and battlefield setbacks.
  • Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin, described as “cheeky” or “insulting,” prompts an unusually lengthy response from Putin.

• Zelenskyy’s Strategy

  • In his own words:

    “Putin understands only when there is a total pressure on him. When you are strong, when your answers are strong. That’s why we show that our drones will come to them cities.”
    — Volodymyr Zelenskyy (00:48, 32:50)

    “We will not just silently die and we will respond and we will be stronger and stronger each day, day by day.”
    — Volodymyr Zelenskyy (01:19, 31:48)

  • The goal: bring the war to Moscow and St. Petersburg so Russians can no longer ignore its reality.

• Putin’s Reaction

  • Putin’s uncharacteristic 10-minute response (without ever naming Zelenskyy) shows discomfort with the shifting perception that Ukraine, not Russia, is on the front foot:

    “He started by saying that he’d just skim-read it, but then he went on to talk about it for 10 minutes... He kept calling Zelenskyy ‘the author of the letter’ ... these kind of lines would have been prepped before. I think that betrays this uneasiness right now.”
    — Ivar Bennett (39:20)

  • Putin’s core message to the public: Russia has the upper hand and remains confident of eventual victory, even as real-world signals (prolonged war, losses, economic pressures) make this harder to sell.

6. Victory Narrative and Public Sentiment

• Putin’s message remains consistent: victory will be achieved “no matter what.”

  “The one thing that’s remained consistent is Russia’s red lines. They haven’t actually compromised or offered any sign of compromise at all... He still appears extremely confident that Russia’s superior resources will win the day and that will grind Ukraine’s resistance and resilience down eventually.”
  — Ivar Bennett (44:16)

• However, Bennett notes public mood is subtly changing:

  “Fewer and fewer people are talking about outright victory now. It’s more we just want this to end.”
  — Ivar Bennett (46:20)

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Memorable Quotes

• “The cancellation of a military parade is not good for Vladimir Putin. It shows that something is seriously wrong.”
  — Ivar Bennett (13:51)
• “You walk into this parallel reality where the war just doesn’t exist and everything’s fine. It’s this massive elephant in the room.”
  — Ivar Bennett (16:07)
• “There is this anxiety that’s building and discontent over those other things [drone attacks, economy, Internet].”
  — Ivar Bennett (21:42)
• “Britain is definitely public enemy number one in Russia... but when you speak to people, normal, everyday Russians... there’s a real affection for Britain.”
  — Ivar Bennett (25:50)
• “Putin understands only when there is a total pressure on him. When you are strong, when your answers are strong.”
  — Volodymyr Zelenskyy (32:50)
• “The one thing that’s remained consistent is Russia’s red lines. They haven’t actually compromised or offered any sign of compromise at all.”
  — Ivar Bennett (44:16)
• “Fewer and fewer people are talking about outright victory now. It’s more we just want this to end.”
  — Ivar Bennett (46:20)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic / Quote | |-----------|---------------------------------------| | 03:28 | Ivar Bennett on press restrictions and living under surveillance | | 05:07 | The psychological burden of reporting from Russia | | 09:37 | Growing sense of tension, exclusion of Western media | | 13:51 | Cancellation of military parade—a sign of Kremlin nerves | | 16:07 | St. Petersburg Economic Forum—war denial & smoke plumes | | 17:59 | The impact of drone strikes and Internet outages on daily life | | 21:42 | Public anxiety about drone attacks | | 25:50 | Britain as Russia’s official enemy, but loved by the public | | 31:48 | Zelenskyy’s open letter and strategy | | 32:50 | Zelenskyy: “Putin understands only when there is total pressure…” | | 39:20 | Putin’s lengthy response to Zelenskyy’s letter | | 44:16 | Russia’s unwavering public narrative—and private doubts | | 46:20 | Shift in Russian public sentiment: desire for war’s end |

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Conclusion

The episode masterfully presents the multifaceted reality in Russia: official narratives of strength and resolve contrast with the simmering tensions, economic pain, and personal anxieties on the ground. Yalda Hakim and Ivar Bennett provide rare insight into how the Kremlin seeks to manage perception both domestically and internationally—tightening its grip on media and public discourse while being forced to respond to Ukrainian pressure in new ways. As drone strikes bring the war home, economic distress grows, and international events expose cracks in the state’s image, both Russian leadership and society appear more nervous and weary than ever, even as the official rhetoric remains defiant.

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Transcript

[Ed Conway]

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow

[Yelda Hakim]

Sky News the full story first. Hello and welcome to the World podcast. I'm Yelda Hakim.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]

Putin understands only when there is a total pressure on him. When you are strong, when your answers are strong. That's why we show that our drones will come to them cities.

[Ivar Bennett]

He needs to have something to show for from this. Otherwise people will start to ask I think what's it all been for? Given all the cost, has it been worth it?

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]

We will not just silently die and we will respond and we will be stronger and stronger each day, day by day.

[Yelda Hakim]

Richard Engel isn't with me here this week, but I have a very special guest joining me. Sky's Moscow correspondent Ivar Bennett. Iva has spent the last two years covering Russia from Moscow. He lives there with his and he has had to deal with all the challenges that come from reporting from a country like Russia. In the last couple of years he's covered everything from the war with Ukraine to recently the economic impact of that war on the Russian economy. He spoke to me about the Internet outage that people across Russia are currently facing. He also spoke to me about Vladimir Putin's mood and his attitude now towards the war and some of the concerns growing within Russia from the public as well as from the Kremlin. I also discussed with him my exclusive interview with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. Have a listen to our podcast with Ivor Bennett and of course you can follow me and Richard on the World wherever you get your podcasts on Apple or Spotify and you can watch our podcast on YouTube. You can also send us any of your thoughts at the usual place the [e-mail] I hope you enjoy this week's podcast. Iva welcome to the World podcast. We're really excited to have you on the podcast and to really get a sense, I guess you've been there for for two years now to get a sense of what it's like working and operating in a country like Russia.

[Ivar Bennett]

Well, first of all, great to be here. Nice to speak to you in person rather than down the line. Speaking to a camera operating in Moscow is a challenge for any journalist, but especially I'd say a British journalist or a Western journalist. And because there's a number of challenges. First of all, all the censorship laws and all these kind of pitfalls and traps, kind of. That you could. You've got to look out for when you're reporting. And these laws were introduced following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, February 2022, as a way to kind of control the message and the reporting about the war, which is still called in Russia, this special military operation, remember the word war wasn't allowed. So you've got to watch out for these. And these laws, for example, are. You could be deemed to be discrediting the armed forces or spreading fake news about the military. And I mean, you tell me they're deliberately vague, right? They're very vague. They're open to interpretation. And so you're always wondering, is this reporting going to be falling under that? There's a line, but you don't always know where that line is. And you're always kind of just wondering. You don't want to obviously overstep it. You've got to stay the right side of it. But it's constantly shifting.

[Yelda Hakim]

So when you're reporting or doing a piece, or even when we're speaking down the line, are you thinking about everything you're saying in a calculated way, more so than you would if you were working somewhere else, for example?

[Ivar Bennett]

Absolutely, always. And it's very high pressure and that pressure, I mean, it's not. You're not always conscious of it, but you're. But it builds and it builds. And then you suddenly, when you leave the country, you go on holiday or come back to London for meetings and things like that, you suddenly feel like this weight is kind of lifted off your shoulders because. Yeah, I mean, when you're reporting about such a sensitive topic, you've got to be very, very careful and you've got to attribute everything, like we always do anyway. But you've got to be hypersensitive, hyper aware and vigilant that what you're saying cannot be misconstrued. And you've got to put across both sides of the story, Russia wants that. They have an answer for everything. And you've got to put that across like we would do anyway. There are two sides to the story. And so that's the job. I mean, the other challenge we face actually is like the practicalities of. Of reporting there are very, very, very difficult. Not like here. If you want to do a story in London, pick up the phone, ask to go and film somewhere, or you don't even need permission to go and film out on the street in Russia. You do in Moscow. You do, certainly around Red Square. You've got to have a piece of every single time.

[Yelda Hakim]

Or is it basically one permit, then they know and identify, or is it every time you want to come out every time.

[Ivar Bennett]

In certain areas in central Moscow, round the sensitive areas around the Kremlin near there, you need a piece of paper explaining your reasons with the right letterhead on it, signed, but that's quite easy. But then it's like if you want to get access to a. You're just filming in a shop or a cafe. As soon as they find out you're Western media, it's just safer for them not to. Not to say yes, not to give you access. So it's very hard to actually get any kind of access, even just quite innocuous stuff. And then it's very hard to persuade people to speak to you. Getting interviews from either side, pro Putin or anti Putin, government voices or not, is difficult because Britain right now is seen as the enemy, the number one enemy. And so there's a few people we can speak to from few officials from the government and the Kremlin. It's like they're on a very short list of people who are allowed to speak to Western media, but others aren't because it's what's in it for them. Speaking to. It doesn't look. It's not a good look. It's a very, very nationalistic, patriotic environment now. And any kind of. Kind of relationship with a Western organization can be damaging.

[Yelda Hakim]

And I want to get to how Britain is perceived in a moment and why Britain is perceived that way right now. But in terms of, as you say, you want to go to a part of central Moscow and film, do you also get the sense that you're being watched and monitored and your material is constantly being watched and scrutinized? So every piece. So if you were to come on my show five times in the week, that they would be dissecting and looking at each of that bit of material. And as you say, these laws that exist, you know, then determining whether it actually fits in the sort of framework of this is just straight reporting.

[Ivar Bennett]

Yes, they, they do watch everything. They've made that pretty clear. Things are watched and they. And if they don't like something, you kind of. That's fed back. How it might not be immediate. They might. And it's not direct. It's kind of a bit circuitous and around the House a little bit like. But the next time you go for a meeting or something or have any kind of conversation with say, Ministry of Foreign affairs, they might mention, oh, I saw that interview. Did a, well, that report you did a month ago, that was interesting kind of thing. It's a little reference like, okay, why are they mentioning that? And it's because maybe they didn't like it or maybe that was a bit too close to the bone.

[Yelda Hakim]

I mean, you've been there two years now. Have you found it easier to operate in that way or increasingly sort of almost claustrophobic?

[Ivar Bennett]

Well, it's both. I mean, you get used to it because you're doing it all the time. But at the same time, the claustrophobia, that pressure, it slowly builds. It's like this latent pressure and then you only kind of notice it when you leave and then that's that weight lifted off your shoulder I was talking about. But at the same time, like, there's a gradual. It feels like there's. The situation is always changing, but it's not fast, it's gradual. And right now certainly feels much more tense and on edge than it has been in the two years I've been there.

[Yelda Hakim]

So talk me through that change, you know, because we do see, you know, you and I talking the other day about my interview with President Zelenskyy and how his mood has shifted and changed over the course of the last few years. Each of those interviews has been sort of telling on about, you know, what's been going on in the battlefield and the mood of the country in that same way. If you can help us understand, you know, at different points how your job has become more difficult or easier, depending on how things have unfolded geopolitically in the region and, you know, the dynamics between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, for example, I guess.

[Ivar Bennett]

Well, first of all, on how we do the job. I guess what we've noticed is access. I mean, we are occasionally invited to Kremlin events. When I first arrived, there were quite a few. We got invited to quite kind of small, close, close knit ones. We were in just a few handful of networks who are invited. There was when Viktor Orban came to town the same day as the UK election. Actually last year after the victory day, I was one of four Western journalists there in the front row for this very intimate press conference with Vladimir Putin that turned out not to be a press conference. He didn't take any questions, but kind of 2am inside the Kremlin on Saturday, very intimate. So we do get invited, but Then recently, that's dropped off and it all came to a head. I'd say the victory day this year, normally marked by this big military parade on Red Square to mark the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Huge, huge moment for Russia, especially under Vladimir Putin. It's kind of the centerpiece of the calendar. It's how he. It exemplifies his vision for the country. Right. A huge projection tool for his power. And this year, there was no military parade because of the risk of attacks from Ukrainian drones. And initially we did receive accreditation like we always do. And then the day, two days before the event, got the call from the Kremlin saying, actually, no, you can't come anymore.

[Yelda Hakim]

Did they say why?

[Ivar Bennett]

Because the format had changed. Then the next day, Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, was asked about it, obviously, why have you revoked all these, all the, all the accreditation for Western media, foreign media, any. Oh, no, we're not revoking, we're not banning them. It's just the format has changed, therefore there isn't any more space. You know, there's always a technicality with Russia. I mean, clearly, I think, let's call it what you want. They say it's not canceled, not revoked, but either way, we had accreditation then we didn't. And then that was repeated with a security conference two weeks ago, three weeks ago in Moscow, this big international security conference that they trumpeted got accreditation. Would have been very interesting to go when they're kind of displaying all this new hardware, air defense machines, systems and drones, and then called up the day before. Can we still come? No, your accreditation is no longer valid.

[Yelda Hakim]

And yet your accreditation for the St. Petersburg conference was valid and you did get to go.

[Ivar Bennett]

Well, look, I think so. There's some things they still want people to come to. I think just going back to those two things where the accreditation was kind of annulled, I think that really speaks to that nervousness, because it wouldn't have been a good look. The cancellation of a military parade is not good for Vladimir Putin. It shows that something is seriously wrong. Right. This is this great moment for him to unify the country, get them behind, rally behind the flag. It's not a show of strength if it's suddenly cancelled. No tanks on Red Square, so he doesn't want that shown. Same with the security conference. Nervous, obviously, around anything to do with the military, but with the economic forum, that's like one of their big, big things. They want to show that Russia isn't isolated. They made A big thing of how there's 140 odd nations represented there. You know, loads of delegations from the global south are there, and it's a way to try and show Russians and the rest of the world that the country isn't isolated, despite what the west says and has tried to do, that everything is absolutely fine with the economy, because look at all these people who want to invest in Russia. They want us there for those kind of things. And it was the same with the Intervision Song Contest at the end of last year. That's their equivalent of Eurovision, which is a Soviet kind of model. They revived after they got booted out of Eurovision following the invasion. And it's the same there. They had these competitors and artists from, again, Asia, Africa, South America. And it's anything that kind of challenges that Western perception of Russia being isolated. They want us there for that.

[Yelda Hakim]

You talk about 140 odd countries arriving or representatives to St Petersburg and they want to show that they're not being isolated. And yet they arrived to plumes of smoke, because then Ukraine displayed, you know, the nervousness they had around the other two conferences in, well, the Victory Day parade and the other conference in Moscow. Reason why they called them off is exactly what was then displayed in St Petersburg.

[Ivar Bennett]

Yeah, I mean, that was extraordinary. Waking up that first. First morning and then the images of people arriving, delegates arriving, these huge plumes of smoke on the background behind them, rising above the city. And everyone kind of. Obviously they were facing forward because that's the direction they're walking away from the smoke. But it encapsulated the whole mood of the conference, that everyone was this huge kind of thing burning behind them, but no one's looking at it. No one will acknowledge that the war is happening. It's having quite a big impact, increasingly big impact on the country, Big consequences for the economy. And trying to ask people, are you worried about growth? Obviously, growth has dipped in. They did have a lot of. A long period of high growth because of all this rampant military spending, but it's dipped now because the revenues are dropping off. Oil production is down because of unscheduled maintenance to oil refineries. They won't explain why. Obviously, there have been drone attacks on oil refineries and no one's willing to kind of acknowledge it. It's like you walk into this parallel reality where the war just doesn't exist and everything's fine. It's this massive elephant in the room that everyone's kind of just walking around, just not looking at it. It's Bizarre.

[Yelda Hakim]

Well, I mean one thing I put to Volodymyr Zelenskyy is that the fact that 70% of the Russian population is now in the range of Ukrainian drones. And you know, that is something that he said. Well, we were launching drones on villages and no one was paying attention. So we had to on Moscow and St. Petersburg because that's where the population is. And so we want to target the population so that they know that the war has come to them. Do the Russian population know that?

[Ivar Bennett]

Yes, yes. So I think there's, there's, I think there's three things that people that has kind of shifted the atmosphere in recent months. Why I talk about being a much more tense time. One is the economy, the rising prices. I mean they've been rising for a long, throughout the war because of high spending means, high inflation. But it's really hitting people's pockets now because doing vox pops at the best time, vox pops for anyone who doesn't know is when we just ask a random person on the street what they think about something. Good way to kind of gauge public opinion. Doing that is quite difficult. As a Western broadcaster in Moscow and anything to do with war or peace talks, everyone's very wary. But there's, there's two things people are very happy to talk about. Rising prices. They just say, yep, everything's gone up. Dairy, eggs, bread, whatever, all the staples, fruit, veggies. And people are annoyed about that. The other thing is the Internet outages. In recent months in Moscow and other big cities, the mobile Internet has just been shut down, sending the city kind of back to the 1990s. This highly digitized city, everything's connected. Can you imagine just living without your smartphone? It's annoying just socially, but if you're, if your business depends on if you're a taxi driver, because we're using all the ride hailing apps, or a courier or your cafe that doesn't take cash, mobile payment systems, none of that was working and people were very, very annoyed. And that was the other thing that people would just, you ask them what do you think about the Internet? And straight away people just start talking. They're not criticizing the war, but they're extremely frustrated by the consequences from it.

[Yelda Hakim]

How is it being sold to the public?

[Ivar Bennett]

Security, safety. And they're saying that we need to do this because of the drone attacks, because this so called terrorist regime in Kyiv, that's how they describe the Ukrainian government is targeting innocent civilians. This is how we keep you safe. And that's because as we know, drones use the mobile Internet network for navigation or they can use it. But, but I mean there's, there's a school of thought among analysts, Western Alice analysts, is that it's not just to do with security. It's also kind of testing the water for how to control society. Especially. We've got parliamentary elections coming up in September, the first ones since Russia's invasion. And some say, some analysts are saying, well, this is, this is kind of a precursor of what's to come. This is how you control society and minimize any risk of discontent brewing. And it's just another repression on society and people are very unhappy about it. And then the third thing you asked about, drone shanks. Sorry, it's a very long winded answer to get back to it. That's one thing people much less willing to talk about, obviously. But you go to a site where, where a drone has hit, you know, people are scared, people are, people are very anxious. There was a, one very big one in, not bang in the center of Moscow, but pretty near, in a very kind of wealthy neighborhood. And it caused a very big explosion. I know people who woke up in the middle of the night quite far away and heard it. And so you get that kind of anxiety in the media aftermath. But also I've had a couple of times recently where people have told me how scared they are. One was someone I know, he's a Russian, Russian cameraman who works at another station. We were just talking how things recently and he said, well, I woke up in the middle of the night last weekend to the sound of a drone buzzing past and he talked about how anxious he was. And the other one was just someone I didn't know in the lift of our building. And normally Russians say hello and goodbye when they get into the lift and leave. There's no chit chat in the middle of it. But, but this was someone who did actually just out of nowhere. And there were other people in the lift just say the drone attacks are really scary, aren't they? So there is this and that's, that's strange and it really speaks to this. There's this anxiety that's building and discontent over those other things.

[Yelda Hakim]

Are the drone strikes now frequent? I mean, you know, in a week

[Ivar Bennett]

would you have several still infrequent in Moscow, but they're happening more. It used to be every couple of months, maybe one on the outskirts in the, in May it was much more frequent than in Moscow region, the area surrounding Moscow. There was a very, very big or the biggest Ukrainian drone attack of the war so far over the weekend in mid May, I think it was about a thousand drones in 24 hours going into Russian territory, a lot of them in the Moscow region. And that's. And as you say, as President Zelensky was saying, it's a way of bringing the war home, making people realize that the consequences of Russia's invasion, it's building up and it's impossible to ignore now back, back home. And I think the Kremlin is, is acutely aware of that. And you can see that you mentioned

[Yelda Hakim]

there the economy and you know, we talked a little bit about the grocery prices and the, the economy contracting. And while I think, you know, sometimes there's wishful thinking in the west when we hear these rumors circulating that, oh, Russia's economy is collapsing, well, we haven't seen any such thing. In fact, it done quite well given it's prosecuting this war that's expensive and

[Ivar Bennett]

has more than 30,000 sanctions against the most sanctioned economy in the world.

[Yelda Hakim]

Absolutely. You know, so. Exactly. Really important point. But Iva, just help us understand on a day to day basis, you know, examples of like those grocery prices, like how much of a hike. You know, I saw a piece that you did about the number of businesses, something like 250,000 businesses that have had to shut down. Just humanize the kind of costs that this is having directly on the Russian.

[Ivar Bennett]

Okay, so food prices in January or February, in the beginning of the year, it was. Cucumbers were the talk of the town, including in the Russian press, like there was cucumbers might laugh, but they're a real staple of the Russian diet. They're in all the salads and things. It's just like, and it's year round. They love cucumbers, pickled fresh, you name it. And they're insanely expensive. 500 rubles a kilo or something. 5 pounds a kilo. I can't remember exact figure, but it was something like 50 or 100% increase in price. A real huge spike in price. There was spikes in price in butter last year to the point where butter was being kept behind a locked cabinet in the supermarkets and stuff. It was just getting so expensive.

[Yelda Hakim]

We talked a little earlier about how Britain is being perceived right now in Russia. Just talk us through that. Why Britain has become the sort of boogeyman or the bad guy in all of this. I interviewed the Russian ambassador here and he sort of portrayed it as. Without Britain, you know, Ukraine couldn't do what it's doing in terms of intelligence and the, the scale in which it has developed its drone technology, for example.

[Ivar Bennett]

Yeah, so, so Britain is definitely public enemy number one in Russia. And, and that's, that's kind of rammed home on the state media, on state TV news bulletins, in papers, constantly hearing the kind of commentators and propagandists say, let's bomb Britain, or perfidious Albion, as it's called, among the kind of chief propagandists. And the reason for this is kind of, I mean, it's always kind of up there as a figure of hate in the west, but much more so. It's been elevated to that kind of prime spot since the kind of contact with the Americans since Donald Trump's return to office. Suddenly, this last year, there was signs of this rapprochement. Everything's very friendly towards the US because they used to hold that spot. They don't anymore. Vladimir Putin still has hopes, I think, clearly, of better relations, repairing relations with the US and they need this kind of bogeyman because it's their whole narrative, right. They're not just locked in a battle against Ukraine, it's the whole west, because it's not a good look. If Russia hasn't been able to beat this much tiny, much smaller neighbor in four and a half years, they need to tell the Russians, look, it's not just Ukraine we're fighting. We're fighting the whole of the West. And it fits into this wider narrative that the west has never kind of respected Russia. They always want to undermine Russia. It's full of. They're Russophobic. And Britain, because of all its support to Ukraine, has put it at the forefront of that narrative. But while that's the kind of official line and the kind of hatred we see in the papers and what we hear on the to telly in public, when you speak to people, normal, everyday Russians, it's the opposite. There's a real, real contrast. There's a real of affection for Britain. And you see people wear T shirts with a Union Jack on. You're in taxis and the radio stations are playing British music. There's a real love for the culture, the cuisine. There's a Harry Potter cafe that's open where you can kind of go in and wear the sorting hat and have your Gryffindor milkshake or whatever it is. And there's, you know, I went and took my daughters to see a performance of the Gruffalo last Christmas. And when Dame Maggie Smith died, there were flowers being left outside the British Embassy. Same when Liam Payne from One Direction died. There was this kind of. There was A kind of makeshift memorial there, pictures of him. So there's this real disconnect between what the officials are saying and actually what the public feel. I mean, and when people hear me and my family speaking English, you mean the lift or whatever in the playground or in the park, people will come up and say, oh, where are you from? You're from London. Oh, wow. We love having been there for ages. Really. Miss London. Love, love London. Or talk about football and things like that.

[Yelda Hakim]

Extraordinary, isn't it? What the official government line in many places, you know, what the government line is versus what actually the people are like and what they, you know, are interested in or how they view something.

[Ivar Bennett]

No, absolutely. It's. And I think that that says a lot. I think that speaks to that kind of weariness of the situation, of being of the isolation from the West. Okay. At the official level, Russia says we don't need the West. We've got friends, we've got the global majority is with us. The global South Asia, we've got this great, a great relationship with China now. But the people certainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, they miss that Western contact.

[Yelda Hakim]

We're going to go to a quick break, Iva, and then when we come back, let's discuss my interview with President Zelensky.

[Ed Conway]

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

[Yelda Hakim]

Iva, we've been speaking a lot about the view from Russia, from Moscow where you live with your family. I'd like to pick up on this interview I did with President Volodymy Zelenskyy. He was in London over the last few days. He met with the king, he met with the Prime Minister, he met with the French president was here, the German Chancellor was here. This effort to again put the Ukraine situation and war back on the agenda when the international focus has been on the war in Iran and to try and shore up some kind of, not just obviously the support for Ukraine, but support to bring Russia to the negotiating table and how to put the E3 together and build that coalition plus Ukraine. But I just wanted to get your take on that interview and how from your perspective, living in Russia and the sort of things that you hear from there, how Volodymyr Zelenskyy is, is perceived. And what I found interesting about my conversation was I raised that, that infamous letter that Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent to Putin, an open letter, where I described it as cheeky, but many have described it as quite insulting. Putin himself described it as rude.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]

I sent a letter, open letter, because I don't know if he will read, you know, or, or not open letter. It means that he has to answer to us and what is important to his society, because his society lives in some fantastic world that they didn't attack, that it's not the aggressive war that they're defending some Russian speaking people. So I mean, this, it's, it's, it's not serious. So, and that's why for me, it's very, very important to openly to share where we are. And it's important they close the Internet and a lot of different things and answer that we will not just silently die and we will respond and we will be stronger and stronger each day, day by day.

[Ivar Bennett]

I mean, first of all, I'd say that the contrast between Zelenskyy at Davos at the beginning of the year and the Zelensky we saw in your interview and then on the steps of Downing street is extraordinary.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]

Putin understands only when there is a total pressure on him. When you are strong, when your answers are strong. That's why we show that our drones will come to them. Cities. I said to the city, because we already did it during long period of time, villages and etc. Were spawned in small cities, but they live in St. Petersburg and they live in Moscow and they don't think what's going on in other cities of Russia. So we tried to show them that we will be closer and closer and will bring back their war on the territory from where this war came to us.

[Ivar Bennett]

At Davos, he was angry, angry at. And that was before the Iran war had started. He was angry at the lack of support from Europe, not putting their money where their mouth was kind of thing. And this kind of almost ambivalence.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]

Europe loves to discuss the future, but avoids taking action today. Action that defines what kind of future we will have.

[Ivar Bennett]

And there was a perception that maybe you'd overstep the mark there. And angry and frustrated and I think. And just. He'd been ground down, hadn't he? But you tell me. I mean, what came across to me was just, he was so, he was so kind of confident and buoyant, wasn't he? What did you think?

[Yelda Hakim]

Yeah, you know, Iver it's, it's just over a year since that incident in the Oval Office where Volodymyr Zelenskyy got a dressing down from the Trump administration.

[Ivar Bennett]

You're gambling with World War Three.

[Yelda Hakim]

You're gambling with World War Three. He got on a flight from Washington and came straight to London, and I met him at Stansted and we had a little round table and I chatted with him there. He looked shocked and deflated, even though he was putting a very brave face on. But he looked rattled and a lot of uncertainty about, where is this all going? And he was a man who was bruised. And my question to him is, are you going to step down for the sake of peace and for the sake of, you know, getting the Americans engaged and Donald Trump engaged? He said, I'll do whatever it takes. If I have to resign and step down, I will, but bring the Russians to the table. And that's just not gonna happen. Then fast forward to September last year, where he gained his confidence again, but he was frustrated again with the Trump administration. And he was much more critical ahead of Donald Trump's trip here to the UK and, and one of the reasons he wanted to do the interview then was to express that frustration with Donald Trump and the fact that he felt like an Alaska meeting had happened with Putin, Putin had been legitimized, and where had that left? Ukraine. Then you mentioned Davos and his anger at the West. This time round, it felt like a very different Zelenskyy, upbeat, confident. I talked to him about the fact that they were making gains for the first time since 2023. He was trolling, talked about the Internet outage. You. You talked about.

[Ivar Bennett]

Yeah, yeah. He said. What has he said? He said.

[Yelda Hakim]

He said, at least our guys on the front lines can get on Instagram and get on X and, you know,

[Ivar Bennett]

all of which is banned in Russia, so. And even more now. Telegram as well. Very, very popular app in, in Russia. And, yeah, he's, he's, he's making these tours because he feels he's in a position to do so because Ukraine is causing Russia problems. According to Western defense analysts, they're the ones making these gains on the battlefield. We've spoken about the more frequent drone attacks that are deeper and deeper inside Russia and speaking about support from Europe. He's not haranguing them anymore. He feels like they've got his back and almost like, well, actually, we're doing this pretty well on our own actually, as well. So, yeah, that was really quite striking in terms of Vladimir Putin's Response. I thought that was very interesting. So Zelenskyy timed this open letter on the middle of this economic forum in St Petersburg, a very, very big event for Vladimir Putin, this flagship event. And each year he has a Q and A with international news agencies. It dropped in the middle of that. It wasn't asked about in that meeting.

[Yelda Hakim]

So were people at that point scrambling around, reading their phones or.

[Ivar Bennett]

I don't think they had. I don't think they had phones in the meeting. I'm not sure they were allowed them. So it wasn't asked in the meeting, in the Q and A, it was then, but then Putin had his keynote speech to the forum to the delegates, thousands of delegates, and a Q and A there with a moderator who was from an Indian television network. And I think we all know that those questions are agreed on in advance. And if he hadn't have addressed the letter, it was the talk of not just Western press, but also Russian press, because the Kremlin, that morning, they were asked about it. Dmitry Peskov, he was asked about it in an interview by a Russian news agency.

[Yelda Hakim]

Sorry, just to interject. I mean, Russian press still feel comfortable reporting this stuff, talking about it, that kind of open letter, maybe publishing it in their publications. Is that something that's.

[Ivar Bennett]

Yeah, of course. I mean, yeah, they still report it. They report it, but they say, look at the insolence of the Ukrainian leader. He thinks he can push Putin around, kind of thing. That's the tone. And then they'll chase a reaction from the Kremlin. The Kremlin responded that morning saying, Vladimir Putin has been made aware of the letter, he's likely to comment. And then, sure enough, he did. It was the first question in this Q and A. As I say, it would have looked very odd if he hadn't, because we know the questions are greedy. It would have looked like he'd told the person not to ask about it. And that's a kind of sign of weakness. But then the response was very surprising, I thought, because normally he's not someone who responds to ultimatums and threats. He's the one calling the shots. Right. Normally he just bats it away, doesn't give it air time. But he talked about this letter for about 10 minutes, and he started by

[Yelda Hakim]

saying that he's just kind of made

[Ivar Bennett]

aware of just, just, just, just skim read it, just. But then he went on to talk about it for 10 minutes, and he had. And he had lots of taunts prepared of his own. Felt like his answer had been prepped, you know, He. So he was aware of the comment about his age. He'd had a retort ready for that, saying, it's not how old you are, it's how well you do the job that matters. He kept calling Zelenskyy. The author of the letter never referred to him once by name, and he used the term author of the letter about five times. And he also had a jibe about Zelenskyy's outfits. He can be a witty guy, but I think these kind of lines would have been. Would have been prepped before. And I think that betrays this uneasiness right now at this prevailing narrative that Ukraine has the upper hand because of all the reasons we've been discussing. And Russia wants to reclaim that narrative, put Zelensky in his place for the audience at home, because it's a bad look if after four and a half years, people start to question, well, hang on, we were supposed to just, this is a special military operation. Why are we now being bombed and hit by drones?

[Yelda Hakim]

Yeah. Someone, a military analyst, said to me, you know, we often say that Russia is moving at a snail's pace, but if you put a snail on the border in 2022, it would have reached Kyiv by now. So it's a bit of an insult to the snail, apparently. I don't know if that snail would have got there in four and a half years. But, you know, he was trying to make the analysis of. They expected this to be quick and swift and fast. Instead, we've got a Ukraine that's developed all this technology in the process, may have benefited in some way from this war. In some way. Given they've changed the nature of warfare. I'm curious to know, you've talked about the fact that he referenced that letter and talked about the author of the letter. How does he normally refer to Zelenskyy other than kind of what we hear, usually that, you know, the Nazis who

[Ivar Bennett]

are running Kiev, it's that he know. He doesn't talk about. He doesn't mention Zelensky, doesn't say President Zelenskyy because he doesn't see him as a legitimate president. He always refers to, at any opportunity, when he's asked about Zelensky, the fact that he has not had an election in when he was supposed to. And we know that because obviously there's martial law in Ukraine following the invasion, which means you can't hold elections under it. But he uses that as a dig. And it's a kind of way to say, look, he's a dictator. He's overstayed his legitimate mandate. Whereas we have elections here.

[Yelda Hakim]

99% of.

[Ivar Bennett]

Well, we all know that the outcome was a kind of foregone conclusion in the Russian presidential election 2024. But he used it to try and tell the Russian people, we're a normal society. They're the one. They're this regime, autocracy, dictatorship. And on the kind of gains, I think that that's another thing I think Putin is aware of now because it's. He's made his goal, the stated goal of the. Of the whole thing right to Russians was to protect Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine. Then they annexed these four territories quite early on. And now he's saying, if there's something to freeze the lines where they are,

[Yelda Hakim]

which is what I asked Zelenskyy, and

[Ivar Bennett]

that's always the topic of these peace talks. Well, that's not. That's a hard sell to say, look, we won, guys. Look, we got Luhansk and 85% of Donetsk. To not even get all of the Donbass is. It's very hard to say, look, this is a victory, because they were already in the Donbass when they started. And this war has lasted longer than the Soviet Union's fight against the Nazis in the Second World War. It's lasted longer. And in that time, Stalin went from Moscow to Berlin. Vladimir Putin's forces are yet to take all of the Donbas, so it's harder to sell as a victory. So he needs to have something to show from this, otherwise people will start to ask, I think, what's it all been for, given all the cost, has it been worth it?

[Yelda Hakim]

Ivor, I just want to ask you, has anything surprised you about Russia or the Russians? You know, did you go in there with a type of, you know, sort of a perception of how you'd cover this conflict and just living in Russia and sort of covering it versus where you are now?

[Ivar Bennett]

Two years on, there's an element of surprise at just how little has shifted in the Russian position. Nothing. When I first arrived, it was just two months afterwards, Vladimir Putin had a big speech at the Ministry of Foreign affairs where he kind of set out his conditions for a ceasefire, said, okay, you clear out of those four territories, you renounce any kind of ambitions to join NATO and then we'll, yeah, ceasefire next day. And they just stuck to that. They've stuck to that repeatedly. The one thing that's remained consistent is Russia's red lines. They haven't actually compromised or offered any sign of compromise at all, at least in public And I think that's quite, quite amazing. He still appears extremely confident that Russia's superior resources will win the day and that will grind Ukraine's resistance and resilience down eventually. And the time is on his side. But I think the conversations I'm having with diplomats and analysts is that people think actually time is no longer on Russia's side. Looking at the economy, looking at the losses. Russia doesn't publish its losses, but according to Western estimates, they're high. And that's one of the factors, the economy, another one, as to why people think that actually no, time is not on Russia's side. And gradually they're starting to realize it. But the public message still is that we've got this victory will be ours eventually. And we will. No matter what we'll get, we'll achieve our goals. Whether on the negotiating table, whether on the battlefield, we will get victory. But what is interesting is that you speaking to people on the street, fewer and fewer people are talking about outright victory now. It's more we just want this to end.

[Yelda Hakim]

I have a really fascinating talking to you. Thank you so much for joining us on the world and safe travels back.

[Ivar Bennett]

Thank you.

[Ed Conway]

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.