Unidentified speaker urges shutting the "shadow fleet" and oil sanctions, calls Vladimir Putin a "war criminal"

An unidentified speaker urged negotiators to cut off Vladimir Putin’s financial and fuel lifelines and described the Russian leader’s conduct as criminal. "He is depriving civilians today of heat and other utilities, specifically a war crime," the speaker said, adding that Putin "deserves to be in prison, not at the negotiating table."

The speaker argued that ending Russia’s aggression requires stronger economic measures rather than "half measures on the part of the West." As a concrete policy prescription the speaker urged: "We need to shut down the shadow fleet. We need to enact the oil sanctions and make them real and cut off Vladimir Putin's ability to wage war."

To underscore the urgency, the speaker presented casualty estimates attributed to Russian forces: "Now, he's lost 35,000 men dead and wounded in December. 30,000 dead and wounded in January. It may be that in this month of February, he will lose 50,000 Russian young men dead and wounded." Those figures are presented in the transcript as the speaker's claims and are not verified in the record.

The transcript contains no named affiliation for the speaker and includes no response from negotiators, government officials, or other participants. The remarks are framed as direct advice to negotiators and as a call for punitive economic measures (shadow-fleet interdiction and expanded oil sanctions) intended to reduce Russia's ability to fund or sustain the invasion.

No formal motion, vote, or cited legal authority accompanied the remarks in the recorded transcript. The record does not supply evidence verifying casualty figures or whether the proposed measures are technically or legally feasible; those questions were not addressed in the provided excerpt.