Putin Is ‘Mentally Ill’; A ‘Psychopath’ Since Childhood, Billionaire Investor Says

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a “psychopath” since childhood, a billionaire investor and critic said in a new documentary.

In the “Secret of the Oligarch Wives,” which will stream on Paramount+ starting June 28, CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management Bill Browder said Putin has been mentally ill since he was a child, adding that he lacks empathy on things that concern the fate of other people.

“Putin is ill, but not in the way that most people think Putin is ill. Putin is mentally ill, but he has been mentally ill as a psychopath since childhood,” Browder said, according to The Business Insider which viewed the documentary ahead of its debut. “Putin's illness leads him to lack any empathy, lack any conscience, lack any normal human emotions when it comes to the fate of other people.”

Browder is an international investor who once ran the Hermitage Fund, the largest foreign investment fund in Russia. In 2005, he was barred from entering the country after he accused Russian tax officials of corruption and embezzlement.

Browder also lobbied for a landmark piece of legislation called The Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian human-rights violators and other officials involved in corruption and abuse-of-power cases.

The landmark legislation was named after Browder’s tax adviser Sergei Magnitsky who died in a pretrial detention center in Moscow due to what Putin claimed was a heart attack. Magnitsky had been imprisoned by Russian authorities after he blew the whistle on an attempt by the Kremlin’s police and tax authorities to steal $230 million in Russian taxes paid by Hermitage Capital.

Browder is one of the several people who have spoken out about Putin in the new documentary. The film also featured the wives of Russian oligarchs who claimed Putin was a vindictive president who forgives nothing and sees treachery at every turn.

“Whenever you make a contract with the devil, there will be consequences … if you deal with the dark side, it will come to haunt you later,” Tatiania Fokina, wife of Euroset founder Evgeny Chichvarkin, said. Euroset was previously one of Russia’s largest mobile phone retailers.

The documentary, produced by See It Now Studios and Blink Films, will have a run time of 90 minutes.