Putin at war with the West

Ian Explains: Putin at War With the West | GZERO World

The West is already at war with Russia.

NATO boots may not be on the ground, but NATO-supplied arms and cash are. Off the battlefield, Western sanctions are hitting the Russian economy hard.

Vladimir Putin definitely sees all this as the West being directly at war with Russia, Ian Bremmer explains.

Still, the Russian leader is fighting a 20th-century war in 2022. And so far, he's losing it.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is beating Putin in global PR and on social media. What's more, cracks are starting to form even within Russia, where dissent is formally banned.

Looking ahead, the question is how, and when, the war will spread beyond Ukraine's borders. The conflict is already having ripple effects on global supply chains as well as the prices of energy and food.

But the countries watching most closely are those in Eastern Europe, including former neutral actor and now perhaps future NATO member Finland.

Watch the GZERO World episode: Putin past the point of no return

More from GZERO Media

A cargo ship is loading and unloading foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China on May 7, 2025.
Photo by CFOTO/Sipa USA

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva on Saturday in a bid to ease escalating trade tensions that have led to punishing tariffs of up to 145%. Ahead of the meetings, Trump said that he expects tariffs to come down.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks on the phone to US President Donald Trump at a car factory in the West Midlands, United Kingdom, on May 8, 2025.
Alberto Pezzali/Pool via REUTERS

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer achieved what his Conservative predecessors couldn’t.

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV (r), US-American Robert Prevost, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican after the conclave.

On Thursday, Robert Francis Prevost was elected the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Leo XIV and becoming the first American pontiff — defying widespread assumptions that a US candidate was a long shot.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson talks with reporters in the US Capitol on May 8, 2025.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is walking a tightrope on Medicaid — and wobbling.

US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on May 6, 2025.
REUTERS/Leah Millis

The first official meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump was friendlier than you might expect given the recent tensions in the relationship.