MOSCOW IN FLAMES as Putin Pushes to "Surrender"—Ukraine HITS Russia's Capital with Surprising STRIKE

There's a rebellion brewing inside Russia, and even Russian politicians are not publicly warning about what's coming. We just saw one of the starkest warnings yet, and it came from the chief economist of one of the largest banks in Russia. Guess what? This guy actually used to work for Putin, advising him on economic matters. And now he's predicting the downfall of his regime and Putin's personal debt. It seems like this warning hit a chord with Putin, because someone from the Kremlin personally called the bank and asked for this guy to be fired. And next day, he was gone. Now unfortunately for Vladimir, this economist was not alone. We have other Russian political strategies, military analysts, all of them calling for the same thing. Millions of Russians don't want this war to continue. And while Putin deals with all of that, Ukraine just hit Moscow with yet another attack that led to a full day blackout in the Russian capital. Moscow's elites sitting in the dark because Russia could not stop the drones that Ukraine launched. So let's get into all that, starting of course with the biggest news. The warning coming from a man who was so close to Putin. This man's name is Andre Klopak, and he was part of Russia's economic team from 2008 to 2014, serving as deputy minister of economic development. After that, he became the chief economist for the largest state bank called VEB. This is Russia's state development bank, the primary state-owned institution that funds countries major infrastructure and industrial projects. He has been in that position as chief economist for last 12 years. And now unfortunately, it seems like his advice is no longer needed because he's saying things that make Putin too scared. Now, we'll get into his exact prediction in just a second, but this is the important part, even Ukraine realizes what this chief economist is saying. Ukraine knows that Putin will only stop this war when the cost for continuing the war get too much for him personally, when his own position is threatened by continuing the war. And this is something Ukraine's former defense minister just publicly confirmed. Take a listen to this short clip. I think that we will be able to stop the Russians with our strength, organization, asymmetry and partnership with the Western countries. The war will be meaningless for the Russians. They will not be able to achieve anything strategic and every day of the continuation of the war will be very dangerous for them, potentially to the level of the collapse and the great crisis. And at the moment when Putin or rather not Putin, the Russian government will understand that there is an existential threat and they will stop without getting any strategic advantage without achieving any of their strategic goals. And then there will be a ceasefire and peace in Ukraine. That's what is waiting for us. But before that, of course we'll have hell, difficult times, many challenges and many changes. But in the end, thanks to the wise and brave Ukrainian people, we will be able to achieve all this. This is exactly what Andrei is actually predicting. He says if Putin or I guess if Russia continues down the path that it's going, Russia will lose and it could lead to a dramatic social crisis. I want to show you guys the presentation he gave, because this is the presentation that led to his firing. Okay, so he made this presentation back in May and it was titled Russia's Economy and Geopolitical Challenges. And it was delivered at Nikitsi Club. Now this club is literally meant for high level Russian officials and advisors to come together and debate ideas so they can decide on what's the best path forward for the country. And that's important because this guy is not like anti-Pooten or he's not criticizing Putin. He's genuinely warning about something that he thinks could hurt Russia, meaning he wants to tell other people about this so they can figure out how to avoid it. But apparently his warning was just, you know, a bit too uncomfortable for Putin. So let me show you some key statements from that presentation. The first one goes, "After record growth rates in 2023 and 2024, the Russian economy slowed down in 2025 and judging by expectations, it will actually fall this year below the growth rates of the United States and Ukraine, with whom we're engaged in military political confrontation." So again, 2023, 2024 was basically Russia getting high of its own supply. It's like Putin was just printing so much money or shoving so much money into the defense sector that the economy was growing, but unfortunately we all knew that this is not a long-term solution and that's exactly what's happening. But let's continue with more comments from the presentation. We are losing both the technological and economic competition in the world. Moreover, we are losing it not only to China and the United States, but in some respects even to Ukraine, however unpleasant that may be for me to personally admit. His words, by the way, but like you can clearly see that this guy is not someone who's like pro-Ukrain or pro-The United States. He's very pro-Russia and he's trying to warn about something that's coming. That's like me getting mad at like my bathroom scale because it's showing that I'm heavy. It's not the scale's problem, but let's continue, let's continue. He goes on to say, "We will not win the competition in this war of attrition. We harboring an illusion that everything over there will collapse, over there meaning Ukraine. It hasn't collapsed and it will not." Meanwhile, our own cost are mounting. According to public surveys, the healthcare situation is deteriorating. Our scientific and technological sector is highly uneven. We have breakthroughs in certain areas, but overall, in my view, we are losing the competition not winning it. Now, Russian healthcare system is actually insane, and I actually have it on my list to do a video on this sometime down the line. But the situation is so bad that Russia is now fast-forwarding, not fast-tracking medical students, so they can go on to the field and, you know, be doctors because Russia needs doctors that badly. That's creating a lot of problems because, again, these people are not regular doctors. They haven't gotten the education they should be getting, like the entirety of the education. That's already a problem, but on top of that, because of this doctor's shortage, some of these doctors are so overworked and underpaid that they're leaving Russia even after, you know, getting a fast-track doctor's degree, which is creating a lot of problems, and of course, the occupied regions are suffering a lot more than far-flung Russian regions are suffering a lot more than elite Russian cities, but nonetheless, this problem is spreading and becoming really bad. And this is something that even countries elites are not talking about, so really something that Putin needs to worry about. But let's continue, because this last prediction, but this prediction, really scares Putin. He says, "Economy will endure, but a social crisis may emerge. And precisely when no one particularly expects it, I would remind you that no one expected the February revolution, either." Now, February revolution is the revolution that took place in 1917, so right when the World War was going on, and Russian revolution actually started, many people agreed that this was the first revolution that sparked the Russian revolution, the Bolshevik revolution, that basically, you know, creates the Soviet Union, turns Russia into a communist state, but more importantly for Putin, after the Russian revolution, the Russians are Nicolas II. I think right after the February revolution, he abdicates from his throne in March, and then I think all of you guys know what happens a year later, him and his family is shot to death by the Bolsheviks just a year later. So he's comparing current situation as to where Russia is heading to 1917, the February revolution, which could lead to a total collapse of Russia. Now he does say that he does not predict the collapse of Russia, but he does predict things that are definitely worrisome. So take a look at his last prediction that he says in this presentation, "I believe Russia will not fall apart, but I'm almost certain that we will reach a social crisis. We will not collapse economically, but our lag will continue to grow with all ensuing consequences." Well, this was enough, because apparently, according to Russian media, by the way, this is not information we were getting from, Russian media or Ukrainian media, Russian media published a report saying that he has been fired, and they could not get a statement from the bank as to why he was fired, but a person close to his position in the bank anonymously told the media, Russian media, that he was fired because there was a call that came directly from the Kremlin after this presentation. So this presentation was recently covered by the Moscow Times in Russian, so I'm guessing Russian public reads that a lot more. So after the presentation was covered in that publication, he was fired literally two days after that. So when it became major news inside of Russia, Putin just could not have this guy walking around in power or in a powerful position. So I'm guessing Putin himself called the bank and asked him to be fired. Now, if I were to speculate, I would say that bringing up 1917 was probably the thing that did this guy in, because Putin may be okay with some criticism about the economy, but I don't think he's okay with talking about the Tsar falling from his throne and then being killed. Because Putin is very fatalistic, is that the right word? He thinks about death a lot, and this is something we have learned from people who used to work very closely with Putin in his first, second term, and even in his third term. Take a look at this report. It is an old news, but I want to share with you guys because it goes with what we are talking about. Putin's worst nightmare is actually the video of Gaddafi's assassination. Not assassination, that according to sources close to him, who were actually with him at the time. Putin was so disturbed by the death of the Libyan dictator that he spent hours watching the footage just over and over again of Gaddafi being captured and killed. He clearly identifies with Gaddafi and he's afraid that one day he'll probably end up just like him. Now that you know this information, I think it kind of makes sense. why Putin is so afraid of being compared to 1917 when the last Russians was killed. Maybe, again, this is just me putting forward a theory because this was a big deal when it came out. Like, a lot of people talked about how Putin was really obsessed with what happened in Libya and on top of that, I think a lot of his decisions he made was to avoid in Russia what happened in Libya. So he did not want air of spring of sort. Now, unluckily for little Vladimir, though, this Klippa guy is not the only guy who's bringing forth this theory. There are other people inside of Moscow who are also saying the same thing. Just recently we covered how Moscow's own mayor basically said that economy will collapse if Putin goes forward with mobilization. Take a listen to this short clip because I want to point out that this news is actually becoming big news inside of Russia. We constantly hear talk about the need to mobilize everything to put the entire economy on a war footing and so on. But the modern economy is structured differently. If there is no peacetime economy, if there are no taxes, no personal income and the political situation is completely different, we will not succeed in the war. Now, keep in mind, there were rumors about this guy, this mayor, becoming like next stop after Putin. He was predicted to be the next president, next guy in power. So clearly someone who's powerful and, again, he's not really attacking Putin directly. He's not even attacking the war. He's just saying that, hey, if we do mobilization, we will lose the war. So he's criticizing a decision that Putin may make very soon. And now that a mayor is talking about this, we have other war bloggers talking about the same thing. Take a listen. "Moscow mayor Sergei Sobian in statement that the militarization of the economy could kill the country needs to be examined closely and in context. What does it actually mean? We understand that time and the depletion of resources being spent on the war are becoming the key factors." In other words, dragging out the war means tightening the new surround Russian statehood, not to mention the social sphere and so on. Then we have another Russian political strategies commentator talking about how there are actually millions of Russians who are not vocal, but they are against the war. Take a look at this statement. Commentator's name is Chadaf and he says, "The Yobloko storyline highlights the crucial theme of peace is better than war." Now, Yobloko is something we covered recently too. It's the only anti-war party in Russia that has now been banned from running in the election that's happening in September. And on top of that, by the way, there are some politicians that are getting jailed for a decade just because they're against the war. That's something we'll cover later in the video because it makes more sense at that point, but that's something you want to keep in mind. But let's continue with this statement. Peace is better than war. It's a thesis that enjoys support far beyond what is essentially a marginal party, even among the loyal and obedient United Russia electorate. There are millions of men, millions of people I think that's what he means, of both sexes quietly whispering. When will this end? It's time to negotiate. We have been budding heads like sheep and shedding so much blood for no good reason. We need peace. We need negotiations. We need diplomacy. Stop killing each other and raising what took decades to build for the sake of another Maliya Tomashka. I would venture a cautious guess that this is roughly what, if not majority, then at least a very significant portion of society thinks. Now, Maliya Tomashka is a city that Russia has been fighting for a very long time to capture and is just a normal city, but it has become a meme inside of Russia where people just joke about why do we need Maliya Tomashka? Why are we going to sacrifice another million people just to take over this small city? It's a city in Ukraine, but yeah, so that's what he's using, basically saying that don't destroy what took decades to build just for another Maliya Tomashka. This is coming from a Russian commentator who has decent size following inside of Russia. Now, I'm sure some of you guys are thinking that hey, these are just economists and commentators talking, right? It doesn't really matter as much, and I know a lot of people don't exactly hold economists in highest regard. I think there's a President Reagan joke about how all the chaos in the world is created by economists, which again, I make sense a little bit, it kind of makes sense, but it's not just these professions who are criticizing what's going on. We even have some military commanders and people who work with the military saying similar things. Next up, I have a clip from a military strategist who actually used to be member of Russia's general staff, Constantine Sikulf, and he's warning about the thing that we've been talking about, and he's warning about the same thing that all these economists are predicting. A social political explosion inside of Russia, so take a listen. This means conducting a strategic offensive operation aimed at the decisive defeat of the AFU. Everything else is a half-measure. A half-measure that is leading the situation to a critically dangerous threshold for our country. Yes, and what is the conclusion? All of this is being done in spite of everything, so the conclusion is very simple. That if we don't shift to decisive actions of this kind right now in the near future, then the risk of a sociopolitical explosion will gradually increase for us. What are the signs? The first sign is a clear demonstration of big capital's irritation with government policy. This indicates a deep split within Russia's political elite. In fact, big business has openly opposed the policies of the president and government. On the other hand, we see growing irritation in society. Now, I do want to be clear about one thing. Yes, a lot of people inside Russia do oppose this war, and slowly more and more of them are speaking up, but that does not mean everyone is against the war. In fact, we do have some alcoholics in the Russian government who are fully behind this war, and these people are publicly calling anyone who's opposing the war and idiot. Now, of course, some of you guys might have guessed who I'm talking about. I'm talking about Putin's favorite little puppet Dimitri Medvedev, and just recently he called out every single young person in Russia. He said, every young Russian who opposes the war, well, idiots, take a listen. The ideological confrontation is not going to end because these problems don't exist only on their side. We have them too. Look at how many idiots this difficult dramatic period has brought out into the open. Young idiots who often don't even understand what they're doing and fall for all kinds of promises, some pathetic amount of money, or simply want to tell their peers that they're against everything. That, of course, is often typical of young people, but what's the problem? We simply have to understand that many people have something wrong with their heads. That's why patriotic education, based on the finest examples set by our heroes, is extremely important. This gives us enormous opportunities to ensure that the vast majority of people better understand the truth about the war, about revenge, about our country's role, about what has been done to defend it over the centuries, and what is being done now. And, of course, this guy is in an official position, so he has to be a little bit more diplomatic, but Russian war bloggers who are behind this war still are not that diplomatic. They're taking it a step too far, in my opinion. But, before we get into that clip, I want to show you guys what's happening with this party that Putin just recently bent, the only anti-war party inside of Russia. Now, we covered in our last video about this party that they've been banned from running in the most recent election that's coming up because of copyright infringement and stuff like that. That's the excuse that Putin is using to kick out his opponents. But, unfortunately, the following actually grew. The party became more popular because Putin was trying to shut it down. I think this is what is it called? Not Denning Kruger effect. It's like some internet effect where you try to ban it, and it actually becomes more popular. You bring more attention to it. So, because of that, Putin is doing now is actually jailing one of the leaders behind this party, and he's been jailed for spreading misinformation about Russian army, jailed for more than 11 years, just for being anti-war. The only anti-war party in Russia, which has apparently a lot bigger support than what I mentioned in the last video. When we talked about this party, I think a week ago, I said they had like 3% of support. That's not actually true. I think now, they have more than 10% support according to Russian polls. So, these are polls that Putin could doctor if he wants. And according to these polls, the party is growing, and of course, outside of Supreme Court, where the decision was made, there are Russian youth who are going out there every day and protesting, and they're being arrested. So, Russian youth clearly is not for this war. They're very against it. They're against Putin banning parties, just because these parties are anti-war. And now, we have Russian war bloggers trying to get in this whole thing, saying that, "Hey, anyone in Russia, even if it means there's a young person who's against this war, they should be kicked out of the country." Take a listen to this clip. These bastards are writing that, for the first time in five years, Russian citizens have a real opportunity to vote for peace and freedom, to legally and safely stand up for a cease-fire agreement. Oh, you bastards and scumbags. Thank you to everyone who believes in us. You bastards, they believe in a peaceful and free future for Russia. It will be like that when we win, and we'll throw you out of here. And so, we call on you to join us and work together. This is written by some Nikolai Rybakov, the Chairman of the Yabloko Party, who, for some reason, reason is still not in prison. Why haven't they locked this bastard up? Why is he still not behind bars? What a bunch of degenerates. If we put emotions aside, of course, I am in favor of a broad political spectrum. But when people enter that political spectrum who, well, don't give a damn about the conduct of heavy fighting or the deaths of our guys, I mean, they're actually proposing this crap right now. Some kind of peace agreements? No, our president is also proposing peace agreements. Our president is ready to negotiate, but on one condition - demilitarization, de-notsification, the Russian language, restoring the status of the Russian Orthodox Church, Donetsk, and Luhansk, fully belonging to us, Zaporezhya, Kyrgyzstan region. All these bastards get the hell out of there, give back all our territories. Then we'll see, a non-aligned status, a free black sea, we'll see. These people want something else. They want the country itself to cease to exist, and they keep going. And what they're doing now, I'll tell you what they're doing. It's called a sondage. In operational work, there is such a term as an agent sondage, but here the term fits in the fullest sense of the word. These bastards decided to see how many of these pieces of crap are still left here, who would vote for Yabloko. Well, go ahead, sue me for calling you that. Yes, I believe that people who do not support the special military operation, people who hate my country, people who believe that territory should be surrendered, and so on, all of them. These are people who should be stripped of their citizenship. If you don't like my great Russia, get the hell out of here. Verkney Lars, there are plenty of cities and countries waiting for you. They'll even give you a job. Ukrainian security services and military intelligence. Now, while all of that is going on, Ukraine keeps on adding pressure from the outside. Just last night, Moscow's elite got a taste of what the rest of the country already knows. Here, you can see on your screen, Ukraine sent hundreds of drones all over Russia, some of them actually going to the capital city. We actually have a couple of clips coming out of Moscow with drones going off everywhere. The first one you already watched at the start of the video, here's the second one. Take a look. Now, here's a bit of a strange part. This attack happened at night and there was no power outage at night, but in the morning, there was a blackout that started right after residents heard a loud pop at the substation. Now, at that point, there were no drones in the sky, so I'm not really sure what the pop was. Maybe it was a drone that hit a substation and the damage from that substation later spread to some kind of blast, or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was just Russian infrastructure falling apart because it's going old, and let's be honest, that's not out of realm of possibility. Either way, whatever it was, it was a major headache for a lot of Russians, especially in Moscow's business district. Take a look. Parts of Moscow are reportedly experiencing a blackout. Around 10 people were set to be trapped in an elevator at the theater and unable to get out without assistance. Separately, outage reports have searched across numerous services in Russia, including telecom operators, banks, social network, streaming platforms, and other online services. The cause of reported power and internet disruption was not stated. In total, it seems around 10,000 Moscowites were affected by this blackout following the nighttime drone strike. And again, we don't know the exact reason, but you can probably put it on Ukraine one way or another, and I'm sure that's what Russia is going to do. And of course, because of this war, the Russian economy continues to struggle, and Russian stock market shows us exactly that. The banks are down, the warehouse companies, aka Wallberries. Even the Wallberries is a private company. I'm sure it's down, and you know the story wise down. Ozone is down too, which is a Wallberries competitor, and oil companies, which carry a huge portion of Russia's economy. They are falling pretty fast. Dr. Belian that the economist was warning about, well it seems like the market is already voting on it happening. Now, I do want to show you an interesting clip that I found recently. We have an American volunteer who's in Ukraine fighting for Ukraine. And I do want to clarify before we show you this clip is this is not an official soldier. He's just a volunteer who supports the Ukrainian cause for self-determination and he's going there and helping. Now, just recently, he shared his experience as to how it was like fighting with Ukraine, fighting for Ukraine. And so yeah, take a listen. Carl Sainz-Geezer from Memphis, Tennessee, USA. And I'm here to help the Ukrainian people however I can. Russia invaded the killing women and children, the world's doing nothing about it. The politicians are talking and Ukraine needs men of action. The people here struggle more than American soldiers do. It's a much harder war on the Ukrainian people than what I've seen American wars due to the American people. It's very different. America has a lot of money to throw at training. Ukraine does not, so Ukraine has to be very clever to figure out how to how to bring people who never expected that they would be soldiers and to turn them into warriors. Honestly, the best experience I've had was when I went through commando selection with the 25th. We had a 10-day very, very difficult selection to be admitted into the 25th as foreigners. And they ran us into the ground. So by the time we got to base of a pay, we were prepared for everything that they had and we understood the realities of what Ukraine is facing. I was worried about living and working next to the mobilized guys. I know many of them are unhappy. I know many of them are angry, but I found nothing but graciousness, nothing but generosity, nothing but friendship from the Ukrainian people. Even in this difficult time, they never stopped smiling. They keep offering me food. I've never eaten so many sweets in my life and they make a very difficult time, a lot more pleasant. It's an honor to work next to Ukrainians. You know, the most shocking part of this story is that Ukraine just carried out its biggest counteroffensive since 2023. It wiped out basically all the gains that Russia has made this year while losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers. But no mainstream media outlet is actually reporting on this. It doesn't matter what side you look at. The New York Times is not reporting on this news, at least not yet. The Wall Street Journal is not reporting on it either. And then, of course, we have the other side. We have Russian propaganda machine that's spending billions of dollars every single year to spread the lies that Putin wants everyone to believe. This is exactly why we do what we do to cover the truth about Ukrainian bravery and fight back against Russian propaganda. Now, I will admit, we don't have billions of dollars like Vladimir Putin, but we do have you guys. Recently, we launched basic insider. It's a way for you to support us and get bonus coverage in return. You can become a member right now by clicking the join button down below or by going to basicsinsider.com. Now, let me tell you what you get for becoming a member because this is not just some kind of charity. If you do become a member, you're getting exclusive videos that we're uploading every single day that don't appear here on YouTube. We go much deeper into the stories we cover, spend more time on details that don't fit into those videos. And of course, best of all, bring in experienced military veterans like Chuck Farg to break down the front line footage, explain what's really happening and separate facts from propaganda. It's really our unsensored extended coverage for people who want to understand these conflicts beyond the headlines. And of course, I'll be honest, your membership also helps us tremendously. And best of all, here's a segment from our exclusive video where Chuck Farg is doing his regular breakdowns. Take a listen. It just shows the aftermath of one of these wild berries facilities getting hit. You know what's interesting about this is everyone will think, well, look, they burned up a bunch of iPhones and skateboards and I love Putin t-shirts. But this was the kind of place you could buy 30 kilometers worth of fiber optic cable in an aerodynamic, you know, container that you could put on your drone. This is where you could buy thermal rifle scopes. You could buy night vision devices, body armor, ballistic helmets. And the other thing is these aren't just attacks on the merchandise, right? You're looking at a completely destroyed distribution hub, right? All the computers, the legit logisticians, the planning, you know, so you're knocking out the things that make an Amazon distribution network work. And that's wild berries is, you know, it's Putin's Amazon. You got to think if these things weren't stacked just wall to wall, they wouldn't be burning down like this. Yeah, and I'm not a fire science guy, but you got plastics, electronics, probably tons of lithium batteries. I mean, you know, it's what in the seals we call a sympathetic target, meaning if you hit it, it'll devour itself. And it couldn't happen to a bunch of nice bunch of guys. So expect delays. If you ordered something for Christmas from wild berries, look, I'll see you next Easter. They just passed a law to Adam that they're not responsible for drone damage. And they start, they pass that law about a week before these attacks started. So I saw that and I could keep here. People talk about how much money wild berries owes the, the Russian banks, you know, that's, they're not going to be able to pay that back. Yeah, I've got a colleague get the key post, Jason Smart. And, you know, he goes into the economics pretty deeply. Look, he is, he's a PhD. I'm a daughter kicker, but we discuss the, you know, the relationship of the breakdown of the credit and not and, you know, as this network of wildberries gets, you know, chewed up, it can make less money. And that means it can pay, it can't service its debt, et cetera. So it's a very interconnected system. And it's all happening at a bad time for Putin and Russia. So many knock-on effects that, you know, they affect everybody, all the citizens and they've got to be going to Putin and saying, "Hey, we're not going to deal with this anymore." Well, they have an incredible capacity for suffering the Russian people. They expect duplicity, shortages, rationing, et cetera. You know, come September. There's an election for a United Russia. They've got a 24 percent. If you want to watch rest of this video and more video like this, you can go to Basics insider.