Alexei Navalny on the program “Full Albats” dated April 18, 2013

... all computer equipment, mobile phones,

phones, and vitamins. I should add that Alexei

Navalny will be a guest in our studio

literally in just a few minutes.

Roskomnadzor (Russia’s federal media and communications watchdog) will soon remove

the Wikipedia article about smoking marijuana from

the blacklist of websites, as a source told RIA

Novosti, citing a representative of the agency.

Vladimir Pikov said the new version of the article

meets all the requirements

of Roskomnadzor and experts from the Federal

Drug Control Service

last Friday.

Representatives of Russian Wikipedia

published a notice that the article had been added

to the blacklist of websites

for information about methods of

drug use. The authors decided

to edit the article rather than delete it.

The dollar at

Tomorrow your photos of me in that vest

are just unbelievably persistent, really.

They’re just everywhere, all the time, I just don’t like it

and now everyone is teasing me, calling me a nerd.

Because of that vest. But a vest is an attribute

of a nerd.

Absolutely. Guys, when we start

the program, no filming, no little jokes.

Agreed?

Yes, if I hear it, I’ll throw you out immediately. Lawyer, politician, and

blogger Alexei Navalny on Full Albats

today after 8 p.m.

This Monday, the guest of the program

Flight Analysis is the editor-in-chief

of the publishing house New Literary

Observer, Irina Prokhorova. After two I’ll

step away. There you are filming him while we’re here, and

I’m filming you.

I’m filming—how could I not?

The agency—how could we do without the agency? Why the hell

do we need you then? Well, there you go, yes.

My wife—why? How?

[music]

Zhenya, what filming? We agreed on that.

None. Come on, guys, let’s agree:

right away. I really don’t like any of this

stuff at all. Yes, but since

the editor-in-chief

pushed me into it, I had no other

choice.

Shouldn’t it be turned off completely, or put on silent?

It’ll cause interference then.

You need to put it down, you understand, so that it

so that

I’m sitting down because I need

to spread out my papers. And it starts at 19:00 (7 p.m.).

Tickets at the Central House of Writers (CDL). Information by phone: +7 495

691 631. For viewers aged 12 and up.

[music]

years old. They left these frames here. Now this is a good

photo, by the way. Who is that? I don’t know.

A good photo. Lyoshka, I don’t even know.

It’s some really good photo of you. It

makes you look so glamorous.

That’s glamorous, exactly.

That’s a good thing. So why are you hanging my

photos somewhere near a church, I’d like to ask?

Well, because that’s what the artists said, ah—

I always… it’s good, but it’s just

well,

so… it really just needs a bear

there, and maybe a husky too. It’s just

really a bit much somehow. When it comes

to covers, I prefer to trust

the artists, because afterward I’m not

objective. And you’ll learn about that in the new

issue of Delta magazine. Also read about the main

operation… Ar—Lyosh, don’t you remember what

Beketov’s newspaper was called? Guys, no—

Khimki… Khimki Pravda, Khimki

Pravda, yes. And for academics and viewers: the story

of the escape of six American diplomats from

Iran, as well as David’s farewell—what

kind of weapon was used by the man who killed

the famous… and a new cartoon by

Andrei Bilzho. You can buy the magazine Diletant not

only in stores but also on the Diletant website.

Your pilot in the sea

of information. This program is broadcast by

company C. That’s it.

[music]

Let’s go. The TV company

RTVi and Echo of Moscow radio present

the program Full

[music]

Albats. Good evening, 20:07 on the air.

Radio station

… I’m Yevgenia, and as always on Monday I

begin our program devoted

to the key events of the week, the events

that will have an impact on politics

in the coming weeks and months. A few

hours ago, very sad

news came in: our colleague, the editor-in-chief,

the former editor-in-chief

of Khimki Pravda, Mikhail Beketov, has died.

He was a man whom

the attack had left maimed in recent years.

Beketov was a very

courageous man, a true fighter, a true

journalist. May he rest in peace.

Today is one of those days when suddenly

the news is full of all kinds of sad events.

Earlier today came the news that

has passed away

from this life

Baroness and the only woman prime minister

of Great Britain,

who carried out in Britain rather

painful market

reforms. Many will say that these were

controversial reforms. For our country,

Margaret Thatcher, like Ronald

Reagan, played a very major role because

in the end, because during

perestroika, Thatcher was the first

to recognize in Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Sergeyevich, then General Secretary of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union).

a man with whom the West

is ready, ready to speak not as with

the leader of an evil empire, but as with the leader

of a country preparing for reforms, and in

the fact that Gorbachev was able to undertake

the most important political reforms, which in

the end gave us freedom. There is

of course also the role of Baroness Margaret Thatcher

Those are the stories today.

Returning to events in Russia.

On April 1, a trial began in Kirov in the case

which has already

been dubbed the Alexei Navalny case. The outcome

of this trial will undoubtedly have

the most serious impact on Russian

politics, on the development of the political

situation in the country, not only in the coming

months. I think it will largely determine

the form and essence of the regime in

the country for years to come. And today, politician

and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

Rospil, Alexei Navalny, is in the Echo of Moscow studio.

Alexei, hello. Good evening.

Thank you for coming. The very first question:

obviously, those watching us on

Setevizor and those watching us on other

TV channels can see that your

arm is in a cast. Tell us, what kind of

gangster bullet was it? Whom did you beat up, or who beat you up?

Soviet film classics teach us that

there is one most reliable way to store

diamonds: in a plaster cast.

which, according to the Investigative Committee,

he had been stealing for many years. In fact,

it was actually an old childhood injury.

A broken little finger—it regularly

gets broken again. It looks scary,

but in fact it's nothing serious. I see. Yulia,

your beautiful Yulia didn't beat you, did she? Well, if

Yulia had beaten me, there would be much more

plaster. All right.

Then seriously.

Today online, on social

media, people are discussing your fate

for two reasons. First,

because last Thursday you made

what I consider a rather risky

statement on the eve of the trial, saying that you

want to become president of Russia. Yes, that

was a question on the program

asked, I think, by Tikhon Dzyadko and Filipp

—and you answered: yes, I want to be

president of Russia. And strangely enough, this

suddenly—even though this was not the first time you had

said it—caused

a very intense and, I would say,

very approving reaction. Well, for me it was

a great surprise that, first of all, it

provoked such a strong reaction, because

I said absolutely nothing new.

And my fundamental position is

that it's actually rather strange that people

who want to change something in the country and

feel that they can change something in the country

could say something

to the contrary. Yes, I want to change everything here.

I feel that I can change

a great deal, and in this situation I have many times

said that I would fight for leadership

positions, including the presidency,

in order to change something. But I

do not want, excuse me, to hear on the news

in my country that the editor-in-chief

of a newspaper has died, after being brutally beaten

several years ago, and before that his

car was blown up, and most likely he was killed by

the head of the local administration. Everyone

basically knows all this, but he is free. I do not

want to know that the Kashin case still has not been

investigated. I do not want my country

to have 20 people imprisoned in the Bolotnaya case (the prosecution of protesters after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square rally), and

so on. If I want to change everything, I want everything

to change. I feel I have the strength for it. That is why I

say that I will fight for

it, for all of it. Perhaps some people

see this as a kind of

self-protective stance on the eve of

this trial—that in the dock there will be

not just some kind of

blogger and anti-corruption fighter, but a man who

has declared presidential ambitions. Well, some people

may think so, fine. My position

has always remained consistent.

If someone had asked me, I would have said it; if they hadn't asked,

it seems to me I had spoken about it before

as well, yes. But if earlier, for the Kremlin, you were

the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

Rospil, you were a blogger, you were

a person who went out to street

rallies,

demonstrations, and probably some of them

viewed this, so to speak, to

some extent as populism, and so on. But now

with your statement you have set your sights

on the main thing—power. Yes,

I don't care at all what I am to the Kremlin. What matters to me is

what I am to myself and to those people

who support me. And if I

had said, let's say I will simply

fight corruption, but I am not ready

to take responsibility for anything

more, those people would have told me: well, sorry,

Alexei, we can't support you

because this is effective work,

whereas this is more the work of a human rights advocate.

or anti-corruption, but

as it is declared in Russia now,

is a sham activity, you see.

If a person says, "I'm just here

fighting corruption a little on Wednesdays and

Thursdays, but I'm not involved in politics," that is

an absolute fiction. If this kind of

opposition

says, "Well, we're the opposition, but we just

won't criticize Putin because we're for a

positive agenda," that's a fake

opposition. I'm not going to engage in a sham,

and I'm sure that the people

who support me, and whose support

I value, would turn away from me

instantly, because they are intelligent people.

Okay. If we have the chance, we'll

come back to this. I should tell our

listeners and viewers that more than

330 questions came in through the program's website.

Here are some of them. So, I printed them out

and tried to organize them; I'll ask as many as I can.

My next

question for you is this: online, a discussion has begun

about what you, Alexei Navalny, should

do ahead of the trial, since

many are convinced that the authorities

intend to imprison you.

And specifically,

today the well-known columnist Alexander

Morozov, on the website slon.ru,

posed the following question: Which is better from the point

of view of future political history:

to go to prison on fabricated

charges saying, "I will be a presidential candidate," or to leave

the country? And Morozov answers that for

all of us, it would now be better if abroad,

outside our homeland, there accumulated a large number

of educated, intelligent, and respectable

compatriots who will be needed

immediately after the wooden clog

is kicked away. I would like

Alexei Navalny to take his family and leave, because

in any case, time is on his

side. This is a question

that, believe me, is being discussed

by phone, on Skype, publicly and privately,

by many people who, uh, support you

and who see you as

a possible future president of Russia.

Many are discussing what the right thing to do here is.

What would you say? Well, first of all, I

am not inclined to heighten

the drama here. It is quite possible. I

have no doubt that this will end

with an indictment, with a guilty

verdict, but it is quite possible that it

will be a suspended sentence. That also solves many

problems for the Kremlin: I will never again be able

to run for office in this system as long as it

exists. That's the first point. Second, I

really do read such things regularly. They are

interesting from a journalistic point of view, but

for me, that kind of alternative has never existed.

Never. And this is not some kind of pose; it is

a clear decision that I made many years

ago, and my family shares it. I am

absolutely convinced that one cannot

engage seriously in politics here in

Russia without sharing the political risks

of every person who goes with me

to these demonstrations. If I call someone

to come,

I must share the risks with them, because

some people have been imprisoned, and those

16 people are in jail now. I regularly go to the hearings on

the extensions of their detention; I see the relatives of these

people. I want to have every

right to look them properly in the eye. I

do not in any way condemn those people

who are forced to emigrate now,

because who knows what kind of

difficulties and problems there may be, and so on. And

if a person, an ordinary activist, understands

that they may be arrested tomorrow, then probably

it is a good, correct decision to leave. But

for me, then all of this would lose its meaning. But if

you

are being given today, and we

published your answers to questions in

which, in particular, you say that if they

give you a suspended sentence, then they deprive you

of the opportunity to run for the Moscow City Duma

or, that is, for the post of mayor of Moscow. At

any moment, a suspended sentence can be converted

into a real prison term; that is, over you, above your

head—if they imprison you—you face a term of

up to 10 years. That's true, and it's not true, because

all these terrible threats have, in

fact, already been carried out many years

ago, because none of us could

take part in elections: everyone is either removed from elections

or it is pointless

to do so because the elections

are rigged. A person can be

thrown in prison right as they leave

a radio station. They can say that you

raped someone, or that drugs are lying

in your pocket. No problem. People are sitting

in prison right now for nothing, and before that

they were imprisoned too. Over the last 5 and even 10 years, we

have many examples of people

being jailed for nothing. All these

hypothetical threats have already been carried out.

I won't lose anything of that sort if Putin doesn't

—I don't know—pick up his red telephone and

whether it will be Judge Yegorova or me who tells them to put him behind bars

I don't know, someone there—well, tomorrow it will be

in prison. Anyone could be. And you have no

doubt that the instructions in your case

are being given personally by Vladimir Putin? Well, of course I

have no doubt about that. There are

not just vague feelings here, there are also

objective facts that point

to it. But there has never been a case like this one

with these charges being opened and

investigated at the level of the Main

Investigative Directorate of the Investigative

Committee. Nor has there been a case where I had more

investigators on my team than

Serdyukov did. Yes, the FSB is overseeing it, and there

the number of searches and seized items

is just off the charts. I don't know,

maybe some cotton case in

Uzbekistan in Soviet times

wasn't investigated on this scale. So

naturally, resources like that

and that level of organizational effort can only be deployed

if you have political instructions

from the highest level. And we all know that

Bastrykin values such instructions very highly

for one thing, and for another, we know

that, in principle, criminal cases in Russia are not investigated

without some kind of instructions

—direct political instructions. Otherwise there wouldn't be

such corruption. Returning to your

case: first of all, you wrote—and I read it—

that you filed a motion,

your lawyers filed a motion

for a preliminary hearing. Why were you

denied that?

We have no idea what that

was connected to. It's simply an obvious

violation of the criminal procedure

code, happening out of

nowhere. But we can see there is great

haste. First they limited us in

Moscow in our review of the case materials,

even though we were not dragging things out and were reviewing them

fairly quickly. There were 31 volumes there, yes, 31 volumes, and we had not

finished reading them when they

forbade us from continuing and sent everything to

Kirov. Remember that story where

the prosecutor's office, in a day—less than a day—

read all 31 volumes, approved them, and said

everything had been sent to Kirov, and now they had scheduled

a hearing on the merits right away for some reason. That simply does not

happen in practice. And most

importantly, it's a pointless violation.

Why was it necessary? Nevertheless, the judge

in Kirov went along with it. Maybe they

are trying to show in advance that, well, here we are,

we're so tough, and no kind of

lawlessness scares us. Well, it's that kind of, you know,

swaggering pose. Or maybe it's simply connected with

some general mess—they were told to move faster

with the proceedings, and so they made a mistake.

And after that, what did you file? Well, of course

we appealed it. In any case, they will

now proceed directly to the merits. We

have already filed complaints against the judge with the judicial panel,

we appealed, and in April witnesses will already be called.

Witnesses? What is this going to

look like at all? That's all at the court's discretion. Well,

of course, if he begins hearing the case

on the merits, he has to determine the procedure:

how many witnesses there will be, how many from which

side.

Right now they have listed

around 50 people as witnesses. Will they hear all of them?

Not all of them.

The issue of expert examinations is very troubling.

We will file motions, we will demand that all these

made-up figures that

the Investigative Committee is talking about be

confirmed by some kind of expert analysis. There is none of that

in the case file. We will file motions and demand all of that.

As for what the judge will grant

and what he won't, we'll see. All right, I

still want to dig a little deeper into

this whole story because

I have completely

read the previous case, the one that

came before this,

and I honestly cannot understand—no matter how

I may feel about you—I cannot understand how

the court intends to prove all of this. But first I have a few

questions for you.

So please tell me:

you went to Kirov when Belykh—

Nikita Belykh, after the Union of Right Forces (SPS) lost the

2007 elections, right?—after some

time

[music]

Right Cause or something like that, yes—and Belykh

was appointed governor of Kirov

Region, and he went there, as

he said, with his team, including

Maria Gaidar, and you went there with him. So

what was the argument for you personally to go to

Kirov Region? Why did you go there?

It was interesting—interesting to see how everything

was organized, to help with something.

At the time, Belykh invited me so that I could

work on

improving the transparency of property management.

I worked on that then, and I still

work on these processes involving the protection of

minority shareholders' rights. The largest

minority shareholder in Kirov

Region is the region itself,

which owns stakes in a huge number of enterprises.

A minority shareholder, yes, because in some cases it

owns 100 percent, in others 0.2 percent, in others 5 percent.

Naturally, its rights are violated, and this

property was managed, and still is managed,

not very efficient, like any

state-owned property. So that kind of

expertise was in demand, and a new team arrives

a new team—and in fact, it was Belykh’s team

it was completely new and, generally speaking, not

very tied to Kirov Region, that is,

they were absolutely new people. Nobody knows

anything, there’s no inside information, and it’s extremely difficult

to make sense of anything at all.

They say: here’s an enterprise,

a huge enterprise, employing 4,500

people, and it’s running at a loss—so what do you do with it?

Bankrupt it? Not bankrupt it? You need

to spend several months digging through all

the paperwork, understanding all the financial processes

and the economic processes taking place in order

to make any recommendations.

Naturally, all the local elites were

keeping a fig in their pocket (a Russian expression meaning hidden ill will). They were waiting for the governor

to fail somehow, and so

it was extremely important for Belykh to bring in

people who, on the one hand,

would engage in objective

normal work, investigations, and on

the other hand would be loyal

to him. Mm-hmm. And I think we should

say, for the benefit of our listeners and especially

our viewers in other countries,

that Kirov Region is one of

the poorest regions in the Russian Federation.

In Soviet times, it had a great many

military-industrial enterprises of various kinds

and prison camps, so that’s how it was structured.

Kirov was actually a closed city

in the Soviet Union. Absolutely right.

Yes.

And before he came there as governor—

before he was appointed governor—

Nikita Belykh—there had always been this kind of

mixture

of Communists and people from various

penal colonies who ruled the

region. Yes, so it had its own

very particular character.

A team went there, and in some ways it still

remains. Maybe it’s not quite as

peculiar now, but still, you mentioned several times

that you worked

as an unpaid public adviser.

That’s absolutely right. But how does that work—what

does it mean, an adviser who doesn’t

get paid? So you must have had some kind of

internal motivation, so to speak.

Why did you work for Belykh so much? What kind of

work in the world is worth doing

for free, or even

paying out of your own pocket? Well, many times in my

life I worked while receiving practically no

money. In Yabloko (the Russian liberal political party), there was a period when I was paid very

little. Still, in

Kirov Region, for some time

especially during the first six months, I was living between two

cities. In the last six months, my

family moved to Kirov too, so you can’t

say that I shut down all my Moscow

activities. I still had an office that

was still bringing in some

profit, and I also had some income in

Kirov Region. My expenses were

fairly low. I lived there in a

hotel

that belonged to the regional administration, something

like a retreat center. You didn’t pay for it?

I didn’t pay for it, and I ate there too.

They paid for it at the official

rates, which were very low, so

the cost of living there was very

low. The work there was very interesting,

and it was a very useful year for me.

All right. When you moved your family there and

Dasha started school there, what money were

you living on? I lived on the money that I

continued to earn, and on the money

that I had in savings in

Moscow. So you kept your office? I did.

It remained open; people worked for me there all

that time in the office. And the money—you

earned it as a lawyer? As an attorney, yes.

As an attorney. All right.

I still don’t really understand the point

of working for free. That has always

bothered me. Well, all right—you’re here in

Moscow making big money,

I assume. Well, sorry for such an

indelicate question. All right, let me

rephrase it.

People earn a lot of money and receive large

salaries, while many people work without

any fee at all. So the question is: what interest do you have

in working here without pay?

It’s interesting, probably. It’s simply a large

audience—you’re speaking now to

a million

people. Well—

All right, next question.

So, regarding Pyotr Ofitserov, who

is involved in the Kirovles case, yes, the alleged embezzlement at

Kirovles. So again, for listeners

who may not know, this is Navalny’s case.

It turns out Navalny organized

conceived and organized a criminal

community, yes—or a gang, or a

criminal group, a criminal group

involving

the general director, according to the latest version

of the investigator. Even before the trip

to Kirov Region, I had already come up with

a criminal plan to steal 16 million rubles (about US$250,000 at the time), back in

Moscow—back in Moscow I devised the plan, and for

this plan I recruited Ofitserov, then arrived.

there, there, and also brought in someone else there

deviously, that very Opalev

the director of Kirov and in 20092

already, uh, a criminal group of three people

and it was this group that stole 16 million rubles (about 16 million RUB), and moreover this is

case

the signs of embezzlement changed

it was assumed that this Opalev was not a member

of my criminal group, and I forced him

now he is already a member of the criminal group

and he admitted it. So, as for

the first case, the case that was

closed in April, which I read, yes, there

according to one

expert assessment, there was damage caused, without

signs of theft, amounting to 589,000 rubles (about 589,000 RUB) at first

it was 1.2 million, but then 589,000, yes. At first

it was 1,200,000, then 589,000. How

exactly, how did

this figure of 16 million come about? 16 million is the entire

turnover of the company Vyatka Timber Company

which belongs to Ofitserov for all four months

of its operation. That is, they did, well, this kind of

paradoxical, strange thing, but nevertheless

they simply took the entire sales volume

that is, all the money that passed through

the settlement account and said that all of it

was stolen, just like what was done with

Khodorkovsky, all according to the second case

against Khodorkovsky. Well, Khodorkovsky’s case

after all, that was a big case, a large

company, a huge number of companies

subsidiaries, sub-subsidiaries, and so on. I don’t quite

understand how all this is even going to

play out in court. But quite honestly, I would have

published all the materials online, and

many people read them. So the prosecutor will

say: Ofitserov, you stole 16

million rubles (about 16 million RUB), and then Ofitserov will

show him a payment record proving that for 15 million rubles (about 15 million RUB)

he bought this timber, sold it, and received

the difference, about half a million rubles (about 500,000 RUB), and this money

he spent on wages for people who actually

worked there; I think there were seven of them

people. How are they going to prove that

16 million people—16 million rubles—were stolen? I

just, well, can’t even imagine it

And is there anything in the indictment that

would show, like, their logic? In the indictment

there is nothing. The indictment simply contains these

16 million rubles, saying that they intended

to steal them and did steal them, and as

evidence they cite the fact that I knew

Ofitserov before, the testimony of this

Opalev—it is mainly built on that—and

some of my email correspondence with Ofitserov

of the sort where I tell him: set up

an email account on Gmail, not on Mail.ru

because Gmail is safer and you can

correspond secretly there, and this is presented

as some kind of conspiratorial collusion. Like,

they agreed on secrecy, so

they must have been up to some shady business. And that’s

all. We will publish the indictment

there is also wiretapping there

of phone conversations, from which, of course, to

everyone’s regret, people will see that I use a lot of

profanity. Publishing it in

the press, as we know, as of today, will no longer

be allowed; there will be lots of dots there in

10 days, it won’t be allowed; in 10 days there will be

lots of dots if someone wants to publish this

wiretap, but it also works in my favor

Yes, a person may, every oth-

there, swear every other word, but excuse

me, on the phone, so no one

is arranging something like: so, you

skimmed off a million rubles, bring me

200,000—or anything even remotely like that

there is nothing like that there. Of course, I knew in

detail and specifics how this

company worked, but I needed that in order

to understand what to do with this

Kirovles. I can say that in the end I

turned out to be right, because they bankrupted it

I kept saying for half a year that

that was it, Kirovles was doomed, they would bankrupt it

and they did bankrupt it, a year after I left

We have to take a break now and

we’ll return to the studio after

the news. We’re still live on the

internet, on the Vizor network, so

[music]

in

London, on Downing Street 10, at the

gates of the British prime minister’s residence

of the United Kingdom, as the news reports, people

have come to honor the memory of Margaret Thatcher

the country’s only female prime minister

who died today at the age of 87

among those gathered are many tourists

at a separate entrance to the residence stand

journalists with cameras and

photojournalists. On the parliament building

British flags are flying at half-mast. People

continue to arrive. What

is preventing

The Finance Ministry proposes raising excise taxes

on Euro 4 and Euro 5 gasoline; this was

announced today by the head of the ministry, Anton

Siluanov. According to him, excise taxes now

on high-quality gasoline are much lower

and are rising more slowly than those on

lower-quality fuel. Siluanov recalled that

the difference between excise tax levels was

introduced specifically in order to

encourage the transition to the production and

the sale of higher-quality gasoline

the Communist Party faction (KPRF) will not support

the candidacy of the current head of the NBA

Oh, how radical Zyuganov is, oh my

Zyuganov is not a radical, though

Support the principle—not for five minutes, he did not

Support it at the end of his term of office

of authority at the end of

June, the Moscow City Court found lawful the refusal

by investigators to open a case over a violation of

the privacy of Boris

Nemtsov; the politician's appeal against the court ruling was

rejected, lawyer Vadim Prokhorov reported

in December 2011, New published

recordings of Nemtsov's phone conversations in which

he used obscene language to

express his opinion about the protest rallies

for fair—expresses an opinion, in what other

terms can one express an opinion about

this rally? Sukhov left his post

by mutual agreement with the publication's management

he himself told RIA

Novosti that he parted ways with

his colleagues without conflict. He simply

had completed his tasks in the holding company and was ready

to move on. Pavel Sukhov was

appointed editor-in-chief of the Vedomosti website in May

2011, after that position was vacated by

Elizaveta Osetinskaya. In Moscow

tomorrow, variable cloudiness is expected

with light precipitation in places, plus 5 to 7 degrees Celsius

Irina Renko, Echo news service

[music]

of Moscow. Opinions

of Moscow present the program Full

Alba. Good evening once again, in the studio

Alexei Navalny, without any

preface

we continue the conversation we were having before

the break. Next, I have a question for you. You

were you planning to start some kind of business

in Kirov? No, of course not. So you did not

have the idea that since in Kirov

or rather in Kirov Region, aside from

the military-industrial complex, there is only timber, and that it would be necessary

to set up some kind of timber business? Well,

first of all, the timber business is a fairly

dubious enterprise, as the story of

Ofitserov, by the way, showed. Second, I

understood that I was going to Kirov for

a fairly short time, and third,

if some official really wants

to do business while sitting in the administration, he

of course does business with budget

money; it's much easier and 100 times

more effective. There it is, cash

just take it and

he says that Kirovles was practically already

bankrupt. And by the way, we should tell our

listeners that the Timber Company

is, in fact, a company that

belongs to Pyotr Ofitserov, an accomplice of

Navalny. Well, what else would you call him?

An accomplice is an accomplice, and a criminal case is a criminal case, and

there is a criminal case. But the business accounted for

VLK accounted for 2% of the total volume

of Kirovles, and he was counting on what

any normal

entrepreneur counts on. At first it was not

clear that things there were so bad

and, well, this is normal business. There are a great many

timber traders

some of them do quite well

make money and work perfectly well

He was counting on his own

entrepreneurial abilities and

responded to one of the many

statements that Nikita Belykh made, including

here on Echo of Moscow: come

entrepreneurs, help raise our Kirov

Region, work, and so on. That is true,

by the way, many people went there then, to Kirov

many went then, you remember, the first

six months, even the first year, it was terribly

fashionable to go there and start putting

some kind of

business structure in place

resulting from criminal activity

led by you, Alexei Anatolyevich

the Navalny group

This is also an interesting situation because

the injured party both does not exist and does

exist, because Kirovles itself and its

bankruptcy manager, and then

the arbitration court that reviewed these contracts,

said that there was no

crime and that, overall, all of this was normal

but investigators, as it were, have the right

to forcibly recognize someone as an injured party, that is,

in principle, right now you can be

recognized as an injured party on the grounds that I stole

timber from you, for example, yes. Well, we see in

the case materials that the investigator issues

a ruling recognizing as the injured party

the bankruptcy manager of Kirovles; he says

to him: I recognize you as the injured party; 16 million was stolen from you

16 million, to which below

he signs: all right, but I learned about this

only from your ruling. Well, that's

all. That's how an injured party appears. And

under our law, in economic

offenses, isn't an injured party required?

Well, formally there is one; that is, they themselves

recognized one. This is a state-owned

enterprise; they recognized it as

the injured party. But by law, for that

there must be an expert examination, because

it is assumed that the investigator does not

possess any knowledge that would

allow him simply to conduct an accounting

or have an economic expert assessment say that

your timber was stolen or that you sold the timber at

an undervalued price and that the damage amounts to

such-and-such rubles. An investigator cannot do that

that's why an expert examination is always conducted

accounting, merchandise, financial

whatever kind you like. In our case, there is no expert examination

not a single one. There is only an expert report that supposedly

in the previous case—one expert examination

spoke of damages without any signs of theft

1,200, then 500,000, and both of them 589

000, and both expert examinations were highly

questionable and were repeatedly

appealed. But now they have simply, without any

expert examinations at all, declared it to be 16 million rubles. But this

is by no means some exclusive invention

I mean, look at any of my other

cases. Take the case where my

brother is also involved—they simply took a company

that had been providing services for three years and

there had been no problems with it. They took

the total amount, the volume of those services over three years, and

said that all of it was stolen money

it's simply ridiculous, of course. Absolutely

because you can look at the

payment records and see that there was a contractor and

there was a subcontractor, services, cost price—but

they say that this entire

economic activity was

fraud, and therefore all the money that

passed through was stolen. And where it

went after being stolen is unclear. So

apparently those diamonds are still lying in

my cast, because the stolen money must be

somewhere—but where exactly, by the way?

And this, by the way, is an interesting thing, because

more often than not

with this kind of theft charge they also

tack on a money-laundering article, because

first you stole the money and then laundered it. Well

somehow it ended up in an account, in cash, and

so on. We don't have that in our case, because

everyone understands—you can clearly see how much

money came in, and you can see how it was then

distributed as salaries. That's all. And here

it's completely impossible to pin money laundering on it

but they managed without laundering

he agreed to cooperate with the investigation

the former general director

of Kirovles (a timber company). His case was handled under a special procedure

he was tried that way and received a suspended sentence. So

Explain this, because it is completely unclear:

which facts that were established in

Opalev's case are now being used as the basis

for your case? And is it really true that no

evidence in

court is required for the charges brought against

This concerns what is called prejudice (preclusive effect): there is a certain

fact

an established, established fact

set by a court decision that has entered into legal force. There is

a court ruling in his case which says

that Opalev was a member of a criminal group

consisting of Opalev, Navalny, and Ofitserov

and that they stole 16 million rubles. Therefore

theoretically, there is no need to prove anything

anymore—there is already preclusion, the court

has already established this

fact: that there was a criminal group and that

16 million rubles were stolen. But how can that be established without you?

How can it be established that there was a criminal group? Well

that is the legal peculiarity of

this very preclusion. But I think that

of course they will not

get away with it in our trial by relying

exclusively on preclusion and doing neither

expert examinations nor witness questioning, and so

on. That is unlikely. Of course, nothing

can be ruled out, but it is possible

Wait, could it happen that on April 17

the trial opens in Kirov and

the judge says: since in the case of

Vyacheslav Opalev it was established that there was a criminal group

led by Navalny, we find

Navalny guilty and send him

to prison, or give him a suspended sentence—could that happen?

Theoretically, of course, it could, but it is extremely

unlikely. As far as I have spoken with

lawyers, they explained to me that in any case

there still has to be a trial; it is necessary to

prove your and Ofitserov's guilt. Well, yes

since we are not being tried under the special procedure

that means they must call

witnesses and so on. But they could

question two or three witnesses and

then say that no expert examinations are

needed, and then still apply that very

Which specific facts were recognized by the court

in Opalev's case? As I already

said: that there was a criminal group, that

Opalev was a member of this group and stole 16

million as part of this group, for which he

received 4.5 years suspended. And were you

questioned at that trial? No, it was under

the special procedure—that is the peculiarity of it

it went under the special procedure; in half a day he was

convicted without expert examinations, without questioning

witnesses, without anything, because he

admitted guilt. He admitted guilt and entered into

a so-called deal with justice (plea agreement), and

the judge says to him, well, the logic, the logic of this

special procedure is that

you have admitted it, you agree with what

the investigators and the prosecutor's office are charging you with—quickly

Get a minor punishment and go

home. I want to—well, excuse me, I

really don't understand. So all of this

will be brought to court, yes, and the judge in your

case, relying on this prejudicial ruling, can

immediately say, that's it, Navalny—well, not immediately,

can't say that either.

There is evidence in the case file; he

has to question certain witnesses

he has to examine certain materials,

expert reports, and so on. Another matter is that

the judge may examine them, or may not examine them,

may examine them to one extent, or to

another extent; may question only

the prosecution's witnesses, may

also question defense witnesses.

The judge may already have given some local press outlet

an interview and said that this rather

lengthy trial—so why then cancel

the preliminary hearing altogether? I completely understa— I

as I already said, this case

is strange, because, well, here they are, these

payment orders, here are the bank transfers.

It's obvious you can't steal 16 million rubles if

you paid 15 million of it and can fully

prove it. It's simple. And what

happened to the 1 million? Well, that 1 million is

the margin, that profit which

remained in the company's account and was

paid out as salaries. All of this is visible.

The documents that were posted on

the internet—any accountant who goes in

and looks at them will see that this is exactly how it is. And

everyone who has looked said yes, that's

right. Were you acquainted with Opalev before

coming to Kirov? No, of course not. I had never been to Kirov

before arriving there; I'd never even heard of it.

So when you arrived in Kirov, what kind of

relationship did you have with Opa—? Well, he was

the head of one of the institutions

which, with regard to which, with regard to

that institution, I had instructions from

the governor to look into it, well,

he would come, sit in on meetings, and so on.

As I understand it, the investigation, the prosecution,

claims that you coerced Opalev

into making the deal. Right now they say I coerced him, and

then they said Opalev agreed to it,

that he was my accomplice.

So, are there any recordings

of your conversations with Opalev?

There are some, there are lots of different things there,

but basically all of it is based

primarily on Opalev's own testimony and

that of one of his employees. But here's the thing:

with Opalev, everything is quite clear; we can plainly

see it from the chronology. We also posted these

documents. A criminal case was opened against him

on charges of abuse of official powers

when he was

general director.

In 200—, that case was mysteriously

closed. And a week later, his

testimony against me appears. That's all there is to it.

It's completely clear, very simple. But unfortunately

we simply have very little

time. Tell me, is there any chance

at all—do you allow for the possibility that

you

will be acquitted? The main thing for me is that I be

acquitted in the eyes of public opinion. That's why

I'm posting all these documents.

You understand, of course I don't consider that possible.

I'm a normal person living in the real

world; I understand that no one will allow

Navalny to go and win

a triumphant victory, not just in court but

effectively over this Putin regime, over

this

crowd of crooks and the rest of them, because

the evidence of my innocence is

obvious to everyone. But nevertheless they went

so far as to

fabricate—well, everyone who studied

the materials of this case, and so on, knows that. So

why, why would they endure all the negative fallout and not

get some modest little

reward in the form of a guilty verdict?

So you rule out the possibility of acquittal, meaning

you definitely will— I rule out that

possibility. Because if such possibilities

existed, this case would have been dropped

several months ago, and criminal cases would have been

opened over the knowingly

unlawful prosecution

of me, against the investigators

and everyone else. Here we simply need

to remind our listeners and

viewers that when in Apri—

in 201— the previous criminal case over

Kirovles (a timber company) against Navalny was closed,

the investigator issued a ruling stating

that the prosecutor's office owed you

an apology. Yes, of course. When that case

for several months was dragged out in exactly the same way,

bounced from one level to another,

cancelled and reopened again, but in the end

they finally understood it was a dead end.

I had a document stating that I had the right to

rehabilitation, the right to an apology from

the prosecutor, and the right to compensation for all

expenses that I had incurred. And then you

published a post about the agent

Bastrykin's Czech agent

and a statement about that trip to

the woods with Sokolov, and then Bastrykin staged

a hysterical outburst at the deputy editor-in-chief

of Novaya Gazeta, who

as Sokolov claimed, Bastrykin had promised

him that his head would end up in one place

and his legs in another, and Bastrykin himself would

investigate the case. So yes, and then

Bastrykin staged one of his

remarkable hysterics at a colleague from the

Investigative Committee, where he shouted that

there is such a criminal as

Navalny

then later something about a foreign agent

then I was charged—that was at the end of

July 2012.

All right, one more question. There was a lot of

talk that the Kremlin had

offered you—don't shout, I'm already

—nevertheless, that you were offered

a deal back in December 2012, namely

specifically, please, I would like

well, stop bringing people out into the streets and

after, on December 15, 2012, you

came out and called people to an

unauthorized rally at Lubyanka (the square associated with the FSB security service headquarters)

that was when the decision was made: all right,

now we're going to put you in prison. Well, no

one ever made me any offers, at least not

in the form of proposals

stated orally. Never. I never

saw anyone there and never spoke with

anyone. There were no intermediaries

who came and said anything. That is,

there were some people who relayed

the Kremlin's view that if he wants to

engage in legal politics,

register, in their understanding, some kind of

puppet candidates, we won't allow him to do that. So

there is some confirmation for that version,

which is that

indeed, after I—well, they

knew that I had insisted that the December 15

action would be unauthorized—they

opened three criminal cases four days apart

and it was so blatantly

illegal. Three cases—what were they? The case

involving SPS was the first case where my brother was involved; it

still

exists to this day, yes. Then there was SPS, then there was also

that unfortunate distillery, and they

opened those cases, and Gozman, Nemtsov,

Gaidar, Belykh, and everyone else were running around

shouting, what nonsense—the SPS case, there was no

damage there and there could not have been; SPS does not

exist, there is no injured party. Nevertheless,

the case was opened. You are listed as

a defendant in two cases and a witness

in two more, in two more cases. All right.

You know, there is still one thing I don't understand.

And it's already been 10 years for them.

London, in Tver, which

bought the country's largest oil company

and so on. Why would they want the headache

of also having Navalny in prison? I don't

understand. No, it's all very clear. Where do they

need to repent? Everything is fine: they jailed

Khodorkovsky, he is in prison, and they feel

great. Sechin, who organized

that case, feels great; they took

it into

Rosneft, they throw money around, they brought in stolen assets

and profit from it; they feel

wonderful. There is a certain negative side,

connected with the fact that at every

conference, every press conference with

foreign journalists, they ask

about Khodorkovsky, to which Putin says, 'We

do everything according to the law.' And it's not only that

there is also the situation of capital fleeing

Russia, and that is already a more complex

matter.

Capital is fleeing Russia because

there is no justice in Russia, no rule of law,

no way to protect capital, and therefore

any capital, even stolen

capital that officials skim off

the budget, also flees to the British

Virgin Islands or to Cyprus because

there is legal protection there. Here, if you look at

state corporations, if you look at

the contracts of Rosneft or any state corporation

they sign, it says everywhere

in those contracts that the applicable law is

English law and everything will be

heard in the Royal Courts of Justice

in London. They flee because there is no

justice here for anyone—not for

Serdyukov, not for those unfortunate people who

are imprisoned in the Bolotnaya case, not for

Navalny.

All right, Alexei, I simply can't—so many

people sent in questions, so I have to

ask you at least a few questions

from this enormous list. Later

I'll give them to you; if you want, you can answer them yourself.

So, Alexei, after coming to power,

do you plan to limit the term

of holding the office of president, or

will it still be for life? That seems to be what

everyone already takes for granted when someone comes to power. Well,

I'm pleased that some people think that way,

but I'm not pleased that some people

seriously believe that the presidency—

that I believe the presidency in Russia

can be lifelong. Even now it is

formally limited. I simply believe that

all these consecutive/non-consecutive

these dubious legal tricks

need to be thrown out, and it should be clearly fixed: no

more than two terms.

no more than two presidential terms

terms of four

years. Then a candidate for president

[applause]

So it is time for us to do only one thing

to push for

fair elections in Russia, in which I and other

people seeking to govern

the country could take part. Because

when we are discussing things like this now

it really does make us look ridiculous

to ourselves, to those who are with us, and to those who are against

us. We do not have free elections anywhere. We

recently had elections in Zhukovsky

according to observers, I mean, the most

anti-Putin place, with the lowest level

of voting for United Russia and the lowest

support for Putin, and there there was vote-buying

of voters, some kind of incomprehensible

media manipulation—they were blatantly rigging

the elections. So what can we say about

the presidential election now? Come on, what kind of

election is that for you, if you yourself say that

if you are given a suspended sentence, then in that

way they will deprive you of the opportunity

to ever run for office, because for

their word alone they cannot forbid me anything

or decide it. There is the people of the Russian

Federation, and they are the ones who decide everything here. The fact

that right now some gang of crooks

has temporarily usurped power

and says that during this period

while these crooks are usurping power here

they can do something—our task

is to remove this criminal gang from power

then the time will come when there will be no

"they"—there will be law, rights, and order. I

absolutely believe that such times

will come. How

exactly can those whom you call a criminal

gang be removed? In the same way they are removed

in many countries throughout

the whole span of human history: people

will take to the streets and throw them out of the Kremlin

or they will flee from there themselves because

the system will stop functioning. We can see

that economic growth in Russia is falling. Right now we have

a forecast from the Ministry of Economic Development

of 2.5% economic growth. These people

have driven the country into a dead end—politically,

ideologically, economically, in every

possible way—so they are no longer capable of leading

Russia out of this dead end. But the country exists, the people

exist, and so sooner or later these

people, these crooks in power, will

be kicked out one way or another. So you

believe that elections in Russia are possible

only after the current rulers of the

Kremlin leave office? Elections are possible

after we force those people

who are sitting there now—or some new people

—or we ourselves carry out real

political reform and make sure that

the elections are fair. And I think they

themselves, under certain circumstances,

realizing that just a little more,

that thread will snap and they will lose

their lives, their freedom, and their capital—they may

agree to it themselves. And we saw that after

the first rally on Bolotnaya Square (a major Moscow protest site), they

were so frightened that they came forward with

the idea of political reform. Of course they

later backtracked when the initial fear

passed, but they did declare a political

reform. That means that they, as

crooks—but rationally thinking crooks—

they

So you allow for the possibility that

Putin could dissolve the State

Duma and call new elections? We will force him

to do it. It all depends on us. We

will force him to do it. If we work

ineffectively, why would he do it?

He will just enjoy his

stolen billions and fly around in a

private jet or whatever else, I do not know

No, this is no illusion—we will force him. Well, who else

is going to force him? There is simply no one else.

No one else, there is nobody. There is us

—ordinary people—and there is Putin, who fully

understands everything, who has usurped power. There is

a large part of the population that, for

one reason or another, is fairly

passive. So our task and our

responsibility is that of

the progressive class. There is no one besides us

—either we do it

or no one will. Who else—Barack Obama will help us?

Or the world government? No,

the world government is perfectly comfortable

interacting with Putin

because Putin transfers there his

stolen money, and here Putin controls

the nuclear missiles. Nothing else is

really of interest to Barack Obama, by and large.

There is, of course, a bit of rhetoric about

why you are mistreating human rights

organizations, but that is all. Uh-huh, and

Vasilevsky asks you: when you become

president of Russia, how will you restore

order in the courts, the prosecutor's office, and the Interior Ministry? This is

by the way a very serious question now, and

salaries have been increased many times over for all

the security services—for the FSB, the Interior Ministry, the military, and so

on. In this way Putin is creating for himself

this base, this support base—these are people who

If they were suddenly ready to defend, including

with weapons in their hands—which is exactly what did not happen

with the Soviet authorities in August of ninety-

one—they will not defend anything.

They will not defend anything with weapons in their hands, and none of

them needs any of this. Of course, some of them

feel grateful to Putin

for singling them out as a kind of

oprichniki (Ivan the Terrible’s personal enforcers) and raising their salaries,

but to suppose that these people, for the sake of

Putin’s billions, in the event of

a crisis, would go out and shoot at someone—I

simply cannot imagine that at all.

They obey him now and are ready

to endure all these ritual humiliations and

take part in the ritual humiliation of other

people because Putin currently has power

and strength. But as soon as that power and strength

diminish even a little, they will run away

instantly. The collapse of the Soviet Union

showed that clearly. They were all these supposedly

tough guys, fighters against extremism and

against human rights activists, but as soon as the wind began to blow

in the other direction, they were all blown away. Then it blew

the other way again, and there they all were once more,

coming running back and starting to talk about what great

patriots of the Soviet

Union they were, and how could anyone have destroyed such a

wonderful country.

These are the kind of people who are Komsomol members today,

democrats tomorrow, the day after that they are for Yeltsin,

then for Chernomyrdin, and then back again to

Putin. These people will support any

government that feeds them, and so on.

But to hope that in the event of a crisis

they will defend it with weapons in their hands—this is not something

they need. We have a few seconds left.

Have you already written your speech for

the court? We’ll go on the seventeenth, and then

we’ll understand how the trial will generally be structured

going forward. Then it will be time to write

the speeches. But of course I understand what I will say there; we

understand the line of defense. Well, I am absolutely not

guilty; all the documents point to that.

So it is not much of a problem for me

to write a speech for the court. So you already

clearly know what your approach will be? Will it be

a political speech? We have a clear

line of defense. Of course, I believe, and I am sure,

and it seems to me this is known to everyone and clear to everyone,

that I am being persecuted for political

motives. That is what I will talk about. I will

talk about political matters and about

persecution for political motives. I

have lawyers who will

focus on purely legal

Unfortunately, we have to leave the

air now. Thank you very much to everyone who was here.

Thank you, Alexei Navalny, and Alyosha,

good luck to you. Thank you. Goodbye, we’ll speak again.

Let’s hope in

a week I’ll be back...

But I don’t understand—they have to

somehow, they have to

prove something, the way they did in the second

Khodorkovsky case. There they went down the route of

transfer pricing; they

argued that in the second case too, they also

argued transfer pricing. Another

question is that they did all of that within the framework

of the legislation that existed at the time, but

in your case, I simply

don’t understand. Maybe they will

conduct some kind of expert examination that we

just don’t know about? No, no, that’s no longer possible.

A new examination can only be ordered in court now.

The investigation is already over,

that’s it. But the court can request an expert examination; the court

can order that a judicial examination be conducted. We

will demand that. But there is no other

expert examination there. I mean, of course

you can find an expert who will say that

black is white, but you understand, when

you take the number three and say that it is the number two—

not even any expert could

do that. By the way, we need to book, I mean,

I said book those hotels and tickets,

one hotel.