Alexei Navalny on the program “Morning U-Turn” dated April 27, 2020

the Telegraph newspaper reports, citing

sources close to Prime Minister

Boris Johnson. Officially, the restrictions

in the country remain in effect until May 7. Preparations are underway

to ease restrictions in Belgium. In the Czech Republic

small

service businesses will reopen as early as today.

Dental clinics, beauty salons, and car washes

are resuming operations in Switzerland.

>> The number of confirmed coronavirus infections

worldwide has reached nearly 3

million.

It has been proposed to add to the new Code of Administrative

Offenses

liability for violating quiet hours

at night. Citizens would be penalized,

in particular, for barking dogs and faulty

car alarms, Konstantin Pakhmelov reports.

The Ministry of

Justice noted that the draft article of the

code, which provides for

administrative liability for

committing acts that disturb the peace and

quiet of citizens at night, has been supplemented with a provision

covering the possibility of inaction in

committing this offense. As

the Justice Ministry explained, this refers

to citizens who, for example,

leave in their apartment for a long period

a dog that, with loud barking

or howling at night, disturbs

the neighbors, and those who do not switch off

a faulty alarm that has gone off repeatedly

in their car. It has also

been proposed to enshrine in the draft of the new

code a provision on the presumption

of innocence for citizens. The

relevant article will state

that a person brought to administrative

liability is considered innocent

until their guilt has been

established in the manner

provided for by the procedural code on

administrative offenses.

>> The updated version of the code is expected to come

into force on January 1 of next year.

The price of Brent crude on the London exchange

has fallen below $20 per barrel.

The price of Brent crude futures

for June delivery is down nearly 7%.

This was just reported by the

TASS news agency. As for the weather in Moscow: 10°C, and during the

day 9 to 11°C, partly cloudy,

with light rain. Elena Lekhovskaya, the

Echo of Moscow news service.

>> What kind of teaser can we even do here?

>> A quick teaser.

Alexeina, well, we still have another minute of ads

coming up.

10:06. Maxim Kurnikov, Irina Bubline. You’re

listening to Echo of Moscow radio. Quickly,

instead of a teaser, I’ll give the number for your

messages to Alexei Navalny, who

is already connected with us. And on Zoom, +7 495...

I—oh, that’s it, I’ve even

forgotten the phone number from excitement. Yes.

570 4545. Yes. And after the half-hour mark we’ll have

musician Vasya Oblomov in our

sort of remote singalongs. And on top of

that, if everything works out now,

we’ll have the mayor of Prague, whom you

heard about in the news this morning.

>> Commercial break.

>> Can you hear us, Alexei? So far only

YouTube can hear you. Yes, you were coughing there, I

saw it.

Are you feeling all right?

>> I wasn’t coughing, I was trying to draw

your attention to me, because you were there

whispering about something with Kurnikov

in a suspicious way.

Clearly, you were not observing social

distancing. I decided to break you up.

>> It’s Maxim’s birthday today. In honor

of his birthday, I

decided that for one day I could sort of

not keep my distance, although I didn’t even hug him,

actually. So, in honor of his birthday,

Maxim, happy birthday. Did you decide to

infect him with some terrible disease?

>> And Maxim can’t hear you? Yes, yes. I decided

to infect you as a birthday present.

>> That’s what she says. All right, in just

a couple of seconds we’ll be on air.

Nova 19897, St. Petersburg, Ogorodny

Lane, Building 23, OGR 127802770159.

>> To everyone who has used it at least once.

>> We’ll finish this later, thank you. Advertising department.

>> Can people hear us talking? I mean,

when the ads are running there, or is it just

>> so this is no longer on YouTube, it’s on the radio...

>> don’t worry

At 08 minutes past the hour, finally joining us live is

politician Alexei Navalny. Good morning,

Alexei.

>> Good morning, everyone, good morning, Maxim, happy

birthday.

>> Thank you, Alexei.

>> Well then, let’s do this for the hundredth time, but

still, on our radio station we

haven’t yet talked with you about these five

steps—where to, what five steps? Tell

us. Thank you. Thank you very much. We need to repeat it for the

hundredth and the thousandth time, because

this is an absolutely crucial measure right now. That

is, people are simply sitting at home, and they

have no money. And our proposal is based

on very simple things. First,

Russia currently has more than 17 trillion

rubles in reserves. Second, the state is asking citizens

to stay home, and because of this

a huge number of people are left without

income. And third, we are saying that

let’s direct part of this money toward

giving out, right now in April,

20,000 rubles to every adult and

10,000 rubles per child. Many

developed countries are doing the same. This is entirely

a reasonable market-based measure. In addition, we

propose helping people save money right now

by ensuring that every family does not have to

pay for housing and utility services, that is, simply

introduce a benefit for the duration of the quarantine. We

propose providing direct support

to small and medium-sized businesses in the amount of about 2 trillion

rubles. And we are also proposing additional support measures,

state support measures for business in the form of

tax cuts and the cancellation of taxes on

>> Well, as for business, for me, for example,

that is more or less clear, but let’s go

step by step. Payments of 20,000 rubles to adults,

10,000 rubles to children. If I’m not mistaken,

Sergei Guriev was on with us on Friday via

remote connection, and he was specifically asking

how payments to children could be arranged. Can you

envision how this could

be done?

>> All children have parents. The parents

receive the money into their accounts for the children. That’s all

there is to it. There is absolutely no

problem here whatsoever. Child benefits are already paid

in one form or another, right? And

small child allowances

have been paid for many, many years. Through exactly this

mechanism, um, guardians and parents

receive them. If the state had the will,

then this money would be paid out. I just,

forgive me, want to pick up on your little

remark, which, it seems to me, um, well,

probably came from good intentions, yes, but

it strikes me as a little outrageous.

Very often you hear: "Well, as for

business, that’s clear, but let’s discuss

how exactly we are going to give money to people." And that

is an absolutely wrong approach. Both

groups need money because, first and foremost,

it is people who need it. Really, just imagine:

a person was working in the informal sector,

and now they have no money at all. I mean,

they literally do not have money even to buy food. And

therefore, of course, first of all we

insist that right now

everyone be given these modest 20,000 rubles so that

the burden can simply be eased.

>> Alexei, some politicians

point out that this is not your

fund, right, so you cannot

dispose of it. But let’s imagine,

let’s imagine that it is your fund.

In other words, that at the very least you can manage it.

Explain to me, as a prudent manager,

why we

should be paying money at a time like this

to those who have not lost their usual

income. People who were receiving

salaries from the state budget, and the same

security officials, after all, and Sechin (Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft), after all. Why should we pay 20,000

rubles

to them?

Ah, excellent question, but the answer to it

has to begin with the fact that, of course,

the reserve fund belongs to me and to you and to everyone

else, because it was accumulated not

through some kind of, as the state tries

to present it to us, supposedly special

state fund that

belongs to the state, while we, supposedly,

just want to squander it. There is no such thing

as a state fund in that sense. This

fund was filled specifically with taxes paid by people

and by businesses. So it is our

common fund. And, properly speaking,

it was created precisely for purposes like this

in the first place: to help

people in a crisis. As for

helping those who have not

actually lost, for example, their job—someone who is

a state employee or someone else—I proceed from

the idea that, well, first of all, Sechin

and his friends, together with those whom

you just mentioned, still make up only about

half a percent of the population, whereas we should

be thinking about 100% of the population. Even those people

who are still receiving a salary now, even if they have not

lost it, will in any case

become poorer. The overall downturn

in the economy will make all of us, and even

Sechin, a little poorer—well, Sechin

probably not, but everyone else will become

a little poorer. And so, you know,

I would prefer that even Sechin also receive

20,000 rubles rather than be afraid to give it

to Sechin and end up not giving it to some Polya

or Masha from the city of Orenburg, who

desperately need that money.

Alexei Anatolyevich, I agree that

yes, I myself certainly would not mind receiving 20,000

rubles either. But in that case, what concerns me

is this question: could it happen

that the quarantine—well, the notional quarantine—

lasts much longer and there is no money left

by the time things become really

dire in the country?

>> We have calculated everything. And the reserve fund is very

large. And right now, if we implement

all our measures, which provide in

April for 20,000 rubles per adult and 10,000 per

child, and if the quarantine continues, then also

in May and June we can give each person

10,000 rubles. And all these measures that I

wrote about—look: payments in April,

payments in May, payments in June, the cancellation

of taxes for small businesses, and 2 trillion rubles

for small businesses—all of this together would amount

to approximately 10.5 trillion rubles. That is

far less than what the government currently has at its disposal.

And if we also take into account

the government’s gold and foreign exchange reserves, then

it has vastly, vastly more

money. In other words, the measures we are proposing

have been calculated, and they are not, well, so

shockingly large. That is, we would not blow

a hole in the budget; we would not have to economize

on anything. We would simply use what exists now.

I just wanted to remind

radio listeners and you that crisis

There have been situations like this in recent years

twice when we had to spend

the reserve fund. Each time, we

used it up completely, but each time we

spent it entirely on oligarchs.

>> And nothing,

>> well, it just went through them. They

were simply the distributors of that money.

>> Great, Maxim, great. So maybe

for once in our lives we should do the opposite,

so that

it isn't the oligarchs doing the distributing, because they,

their way of distributing it is that they

buy themselves a yacht, buy themselves a palace,

and send a little bit to everyone else.

Maybe then 147 million people will be

fairer distributors of this

money, because Irina will get her

20,000 rubles. Irina, please tell us, will you

buy yourself a yacht, a palace, with those 20,000,

I don't know, drugs, or will you go

to the store and buy yourself food? You know, I

know Irina, she might even save that

money, and then where will we channel it? It won't

benefit the economy.

>> If—if Irina saves that money,

then she will probably save it, and then

save some more, and then, I don't know,

in the fall buy herself, I don't know, a new

$100 phone.

>> Well, I hope it's at least a little

more than that. In any case, listen, we

proceed from the idea that distributing this

money among 147 million people, from the standpoint

of inflation, from the standpoint of, uh,

using this money wisely, is

far, far better than handing this

money to five people, about whom we have

clear historical evidence that they

will spend it badly.

>> All right. Then the next aspect. I've already

heard that on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel) you told Tikhon Dzyadko

about migrants, that they should also be

given money. Were you counting only legally

registered migrants?

>> Well, listen, right now we are not in a

situation where that matters. Legally registered,

illegally registe—

>> the question is simply how to identify them. And

>> whom do you pay, to whom?

>> Whom to pay, how to pay them, and so

on.

>> Well, you know, like in poor—if it comes to that,

if we really get to the point

which is now beginning, where

people are being robbed in the streets and old women are having

their bags snatched, then we'll

have to act like poor African

countries: take fingerprints,

scan people to see whether they've already received aid. I'm

not saying that every

migrant should be given 20,000 rubles, like

a Russian citizen. That's impossible. But

the fundamental task is to make sure there is no

hunger right now, because someone who is hungry today

may be a criminal tomorrow. He will not remain

hungry.

>> Well, in a sense, here you agree

with the Moscow authorities. They are also creating

various mechanisms to keep this

group of workers afloat in some way.

>> Well, we do not agree with the Moscow

authorities. The Moscow authorities say

that we should not shut down construction sites,

because they should keep working on

construction sites and earning wages. But,

excuse me, if they are working on

construction sites, then what is the point of my,

for example, quarantine, or the quarantine of

everyone sitting in my building? Because

these people on construction sites, obviously, are

poorer, they have less money, they can't

do what I do—for example, I go to the store in

gloves, a mask, and with hand sanitizer; they

go about things very differently. So I

believe that if the state's currently declared task is:

"Everyone stay at home,

including migrants," then let everyone

stay at home, but give everyone money

so they don't have to worry that tomorrow they will be

hungry. Alexei, questions from

listeners are pouring in, and I'm very

afraid of missing them. Yuri from Chernogorsk

asks you: "Why should the state

pay out of tax revenues

to people paid off the books for something they have never

paid for?" That is, yes, they

never paid taxes, while I, as a person

who always did, will receive the same amount

as someone who spent their whole life

evading taxes. Wouldn't it be more appropriate

to pay those who received

official salaries?"

>> That's a very good question. A very

good question. Well, I want to say that,

you see, 99% of the people we call

off-the-books workers—well, that is,

people who work unofficially,

receive wages, but are not formally

registered anywhere. This is not some malicious intent on their part. They

are not some kind of secret

financial tycoons who decided

not to pay taxes. They are simply people

whose employer did not register them because

he said: "You know, uh, Maxim, I'm not

going to register you, because payroll taxes

in our country are such that they would

strangle our business."

>> Or the employer tells me:

"Choose: either I deduct it from your

salary," and I choose.

>> Or that too? That's true, actually. It is

true. Absolutely, that's how it is. By various estimates,

40% of the country's economy

is in the shadow sector. But right now we are talking

about a crisis situation. And, you know,

the fact that we now punish the person

who worked unofficially,

and leave him without bread, without money, and his

children hungry, no one will

benefit from that.

>> So am I understanding this correctly? I wanted to add

one more fact. I'll interrupt you for just

a second. Besides, the most important

thing—sorry, I forgot to mention it.

A person who isn't even officially

employed, someone paid under the table, still

pays indirect taxes, excise tax on gasoline,

excise taxes on everything else—one way

or another, he still does; he and his family

pay a large amount in taxes,

so there can be no complaints

against them at all here.

>> Well, at the very least, this is where you and I

disagree, because it seems to me that this is

unfair, just as our listener

Yury from Chernogorsk thinks. But one more

question—and you know, this one is much

more philosophical. Uh, people are saying here

that the authorities may have

been planning something similar, but after

you announced it, the authorities

will never do it now. They'll have to

thank you for preventing

such a decision. I've heard that opinion,

but you know, if our government is such

that just to avoid going along with

my proposal, just so as not to do

something that might benefit me, they want to leave

some 60 million people hungry, then such a

government definitely needs to be overthrown

right now. Quite possibly even

by force, because you're not

calling for it, you're just reasoning hypothetically.

Listen, if they're now saying

that, you know, well, Navalny

will score some political

points because he proposed it, so

to hell with it—let them just sit there

hungry—then such a government

it truly deserves the worst

treatment, plain and simple.

>> Alexei, but what if some authority, on the contrary,

hears you in some region,

introduces something similar—would you then record

a video message saying that so-and-so

is great and that you support him now?

Listen, no one except Sobyanin can

do this, because no one else

simply has the money. If Sobyanin

does something like that, well,

>> Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug might, maybe,

also be able to,

>> Well, maybe, though I doubt it. But in any

case, even if, you know, even if they

don't have the money, if tomorrow some

governor—well, let's say, who's the most

awful governor? Beglov, I don't

know, or who else is really one of those

Khabirov,

>> Kadyrov. Ah yes, yes—even Kadyrov

if he says tomorrow—sorry. Well, my view of

Khabirov is more complicated than

Alexei's. So,

>> Well, if any one of them, together or

separately, says: "We believe that

citizens need to be given money right now." I

will simply record a video message and say

I won't struggle against anything; I'll just say

it as it is. I'll say that the statement by

Kadyrov, Khabirov, Beglov, and

all the others, Sobyanin, all

the rest, is absolutely correct, because, well, people

need it. There is, after all, a bigger issue. We are

for the first time in all of human history—

well, at least in the period we can reasonably

observe, not all of human history,

of course—facing what we are

facing now. This is a truly

crisis situation. In this crisis

situation, well, we need to resort to

extraordinary measures. I am not going

to let my political preferences

lead me to criticize someone unfairly.

>> Then am I right in understanding, Alexei

Anatolyevich, that the logic for housing and utility payments

is roughly the same—that I, say,

Irina Bublaenyan, pay little, while the same

Igor Ivanovich Sechin, who has probably

been hiccuping all morning, pays

a completely different amount, and that we should

also turn a blind eye to that and simply cancel

it for everyone. Here we've made provision so that

you would have equal rights with Igor

Ivanovich Sechin. Therefore, in the

expanded version, which is also posted

on the Five Steps website—I want to take this

opportunity to urge everyone to go there and sign it. A

10,000-ruble cap. If your payment for

housing and utilities is more than 10,000 rubles, the state

should compensate you 10,000 rubles,

no more.

>> Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

>> Let me remind listeners that joining us via Zoom is Alexei

Navalny, a man who, according to Dmitry

Peskov, does not have merely a superficial understanding of

economics—at least in Dmitry

Peskov's opinion. By the way, have you, uh, received any

initial reaction, uh, from

both the authorities and society? Do you

see that, yes, perhaps some things could

be adjusted—have you received

some positive feedback? Maybe here,

perhaps, it could be done a little differently.

>> Before

publishing the initiative, we actually

prepared quite thoroughly. I

of course sent it to many economists,

very well-known ones, so they could review it

and give their assessments. They made comments,

and we took them into account. By the way, about those

10,000 rubles I mentioned—the upper

limit for housing and utility payments—we didn't

have that at first. That was a mistake. And a smart

person—I'm just not going to name

their surname, because they didn't give me

they allowed it, but then various experts

looked it over and said that here

it needed some adjustments. So, so,

basically, what we see now is that

there is no substantive criticism, well,

apart from Peskov (Putin's press secretary), right, we don’t see any.

No one is picking apart our numbers,

no one is disputing that this can

be done. Simply because we

prepared it properly. After all, this is not just

a proposal from Alexei Navalny,

>> There is indirect criticism that helicopter

money will drive up inflation.

>> But this is not helicopter money.

Actually, on this subject there is

a major debate between Konstantin

Sonin and Nabiullina. He has written about this

in a million posts. This is not helicopter

money handed out indiscriminately to everyone. It

will not fuel any inflation, because

it is a small amount that people

will spend right away on food, not on

any major purchases. Besides,

there is no need to print

money for this. The big deception from Elvira

Nabiullina, the head of the Central Bank, when she talks

about this, is the claim that supposedly

money needs to be printed. We are talking about

using existing reserves. There is no need to

print anything. And if nothing needs to be printed,

there will be no inflation.

>> Alexei, really, the main point in the questions coming in right now is

precisely this

disagreement: why should the rich be paid

these 20,000 rubles? In other words, people do not understand

why, through their taxes, they should essentially

be supporting, among others,

people who clearly do not need

this kind of assistance right now, unlike the

poorest members of the population.

>> Ah,

that matters, so let me clarify. Help is needed

urgently. It needs to be given out, you understand,

for example, in September or, I don’t know, next

September—that would not be as

important. People are sitting here right now without

money. They need to be given

money right now. Small businesses will go under. Well, many

of them. And a large number of small

business owners will go bankrupt in the next 2

months if we do not help them.

So, well, there are very few rich people in Russia,

in general, very few rich

people. So our task right

now is to provide emergency assistance to those

who literally have no money.

If that means that an additional

I don’t know, million

people who could be classified as

rich—in Russia there are even fewer than that, ah—

will receive these 20,000 rubles, there is

nothing terrible about that, I think.

>> Well, there is also a view that

perhaps they will do something like this,

but closer to September, that is, closer to

the vote.

>> Well, they may do that. They are

very cynical people. They could

do it by September. I assume they

will not even do it by September, and instead

they will push the vote through

using the usual methods—propaganda

and falsification. The voting is structured in such

a way that in any case

the result will come out as required. But

our task—that is why, if I am trying

to gather several million signatures—we

must make sure that assistance is provided

right now. People should receive it

when they need it; for the first time in

their lives, they should get it at the right

time, in the right place. Alexei,

a question that no longer directly concerns

the five steps, but does concern the economic

situation we all find ourselves in, and the

political reaction. When Alexei

Navalny looks at the oil price chart

and sees it going into negative territory, what

does he feel? More anxiety,

worry about what will happen to all of us,

or rather a sense that the moment is coming,

it seems, that Alexei

Navalny had been waiting for, and that the political situation

because of such oil prices will clearly

change?

There is no direct connection, you know,

between expensive oil and the presence or absence of

democracy. In Venezuela, when

the economic situation completely collapsed,

that did not lead to any democratic, uh,

changes, at least not so far.

So I am

a normal person. I understand that,

first, the next government after Putin

will have to deal with the heavy

economic legacy of the Putin era.

Second, falling oil prices will simply

lead to a large number of

people definitely becoming poorer. Well, I mean,

not just a large number—everyone

will become poorer, the ruble will lose value, and all goods

will become more expensive, from food to everyday items.

So I do not feel any such, uh,

sense that, well, it will now

be easier for me to do politics.

On the contrary, Putin will obviously compensate for

the lack of economic levers with

repressive ones.

>> So in that sense, the coronavirus situation,

in your view, plays into

Vladimir Putin’s hands?

The coronavirus situation simply showed once again

the incompetence of Putin’s

government: that in 20 years they built nothing,

that what there was

was all a complete lie, deception, fraud. All this

so-called healthcare optimization. Here

the discussion about optimization

healthcare—you can see it yourself, it has been

going on in Moscow and in the regions for many years, and

they kept arguing with us about one thing or another,

trying to prove their point, but now it is clear that this is

an emergency situation. The whole world turned out to be

unprepared. We managed to get hold of someone in

Italy, and he said, frankly,

well, maybe it is not worse, of course,

than in Russia, but it is certainly no better.

>> Ah, Maxim,

you know, the situation in Italy is difficult, but

to compare the situation even in Italy

or in France, one of the hardest-hit countries,

or especially in Germany, with Russia’s situation

is absolutely impossible, because

just look at the conditions. Here, people are lying

there with no protective equipment whatsoever.

Doctors are walking around, patients are lying there, and

cockroaches are running over them; we are in a terrible state. Doctors

are still being paid next to nothing.

They are not even being paid the 80,000 rubles promised by Putin

(about $860). So, you know, it is a case of

some people having thin cabbage soup while others complain their pearls are too small (a Russian expression about unequal hardships). In

Europe, the problem is “small pearls,” but here

everything has completely fallen apart. So

the coronavirus situation has shown

the failure of Putin’s

state. But what further

consequences this will lead to, I do not know. But what

I am urging everyone to do is,

to realize what is happening, to look at all of this, and

finally stop voting for them

and supporting them. I hope that even

those segments of the population that are, in

general, susceptible to propaganda

will still draw their own conclusions. But you

have given them a hint—you have shown them how they

might act so that by

September support would simply

>> Let them, let them, let them—of course,

our campaign, if it is

implemented by Putin, will lead to

a sharp rise, probably, in the authorities’

approval ratings. I mean, look—Angela Merkel,

for example, her ratings had been falling, and

now they are at 80–90% approval, because

she acted correctly during

the crisis. Let

Putin’s rating go up—but let him

give people that money. But I

think that many of the people who

see this will, at the very least, not

forget that we were among those who started this

campaign.

>> Alexei, there are people who have long followed

your political career and your

rhetoric, among other things, and they say:

“Are they really going to help even the Caucasus? And

what about ‘Stop feeding the Caucasus’?”

But what is happening in the Caucasus right now

is in fact one of the most horrific

situations we are seeing—in Makhachkala, in those

hospitals. You have probably seen the video of how

in a linen storage room, piled up in rows, lie

those poor nurses. And yesterday I posted

a post by a doctor from a hospital in Dagestan,

not even from Makhachkala, who writes that

in my hospital alone, 12 people have already died

from coronavirus, while

the official statistics tell us there have been 11

in the entire republic.”

>> Alexei, this is an important topic; after the news

we will finish it. All right, let us listen to the news and

then come back to it afterward.

>> How much time do we have

>> That is exactly what I want to find out. Just a moment—

>> It is 10:30 a.m. in the capital; this is the news on Echo. At the

microphone is Elena Lekhovskaya. Hello.

Nurses have reportedly been quitting en masse from the infectious diseases hospital in Kommunarka

according to the website Open Media. Medical workers

complain that, while working in dangerous conditions,

they are earning less than they did at their previous

jobs. One employee, who

worked in Kommunarka as a nurse from

the beginning of March until late April,

said that during that period

several dozen nurses and junior

medical staff resigned. According to her, the vacant positions

were immediately filled with

new people, often migrants from

Central Asia. There has been no official confirmation

of this information. The Kremlin

expects that the number of people infected

with coronavirus in Russia will stop

increasing by mid-May. In an

interview with the newspaper *Arguments and Facts*

this was stated by the presidential press secretary

Dmitry Peskov. He added that in

a month or two, everyone will struggle to

remember today’s hardships. The day before,

Peskov said there would be no immediate

exit from quarantine.

>> I think that this week we will hear

new statements from the head of state with

an assessment of our prospects. It is obvious that

the way out of this situation will be gradual.

That can be said with certainty. This

step-by-step plan still has to be worked out.

As of today, the statistics have not yet

been published. Yesterday, the оперативный штаб (government coronavirus task force)

reported that the number of people infected

with coronavirus in Russia stands at nearly

81,000 people. Vladimir Putin, while in isolation,

is working, swimming in the pool,

using exercise machines, and reading books.

This was also reported by the presidential press secretary,

Dmitry Peskov. He

emphasized that work takes up most

of the head of state’s day. The president

is in Novo-Ogaryovo, has minimized

his contacts, is taking coronavirus tests, and

is trying to keep his distance. Residents

of Sverdlovsk Region will be required from May 1

to be in enclosed public spaces

only while wearing masks. This, as

the TASS news agency reports, was announced by

Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev. According to him

According to him, people without masks in stores and

on public transport will be

fined. Meanwhile, the day before, Kuivashev

admitted on his Instagram page

that there is a shortage of personal protective equipment in the

region. Responding to a question from one of his

followers, he wrote that there were problems with masks,

although the situation

had begun to improve. Earlier, authorities in the

had announced mandatory mask-wearing

Oryol, Lipetsk, and Ivanovo regions

as well. In Moscow, near the

Shabolovskaya metro station, police the day before

detained three people while they were out walking

a dog. This was reported by Novaya

Gazeta. According to an eyewitness, security officers

threw one person to the asphalt and

sprayed the contents of a

pepper spray canister into his face. The website Mediazona

writes that those detained were reportedly

drunk and were on a children's

playground. Police arrived following a complaint from a

local resident. No comment from the Interior Ministry has

yet been received on the matter. As for the weather in

Moscow: 10°C, rising to 9-11°C during the day. Cloudy with

sunny spells, with light rain in places.

Elena Lekhovskaya, news service, Echo

of Moscow.

We can talk with the chat for now, it's just that

I will be able to hear you. Maksim will not be able to hear you.

I was just trying, Alexei,

to find it on Facebook. Someone I know,

I can't remember who right now, I can't

find it, did a detailed breakdown of the books

behind you.

>> You can't hear?

>> All right then. No, there's nothing you can do.

Nothing you can do. All right.

Call in. It'll be fine in a moment.

>> You still can't hear now. There's no sound.

>> It'll be fine.

>> Ah. All right,

>> we know how to achieve success and always

rush to pa.

>> Well, we'll make the transition somehow, yes,

faster on the tasks. They have proven that

they know how to reorganize production and

respond to Muscovites' needs. What

is the city doing today?

>> You're not letting Navalny speak.

>> We're not letting Navalny speak. We are,

of course, absolute monsters.

Watch the live stream of this program on

our YouTube channel and on Yandex.Efir.

I never changed the con.

>> Oksana was switching it, I mean the little box.

>> We'll continue for a few more minutes with

Alexei Navalny. We started

talking about the Caucasus. So, has

Alexei Navalny's position toward the

Caucasus changed? Yes,

Alexei.

No, Alexei...

>> Right, Alexei can't hear us. I very much

hope that things will somehow

get sorted out. Just a moment, just a moment. We have

Alexei.

>> Alexei Navalny's position on the

Caucasus has changed. Correct.

So, Maksim, first I would like

to draw attention to the news.

The news itself has directly disproved your thesis

that things are no worse here than in Italy.

Uh, you know, the news just now

said that nurses from the

showcase hospital in Kommunarka (a Moscow settlement known for its COVID hospital)

are resigning, right? So things here are in fact

much worse. That doesn't happen in Italy.

Returning to the Caucasus, on the contrary, it seems to me

that what is happening there, that is,

just a complete trash fire and a failure, things there are

worse than anywhere else, has shown that all the

money that was poured into the Caucasus

never reached the residents, it did not

go to infrastructure either; it was simply

stolen by certain people. After all, in

the campaign I took part in,

of course, 'Stop Feeding the Caucasus,' but

the idea, which we stated many times,

was that we should stop feeding

the corrupt elite. And that was an

absolutely correct idea, because

all the money was stolen

by the corrupt elite of the Caucasus.

Alexei, just a few questions and that's it. And

then we'll wrap up, because we have more coming up.

First, Anya asks you: "Do you have

any parallel statistics on

coronavirus? Are you trying somehow, through your

headquarters, to monitor this situation,

keep track of it, or are you relying

mainly on the figures from official statistics

instead?"

>> We don't have any parallel

statistics. I think no one has any

real parallel statistics

at all. But even simple mathematical

calculations show that compared with

the official statistics, especially on

mortality, the authorities are, of course, lying. Well,

I gave the example of Dagestan, right: in

one hospital 12 people die. And they

tell us that in the whole republic there were 11

deaths. The authorities are very seriously

reclassifying deaths. A person dies.

They do not record it as if he died of

coronavirus. And we understand that this is,

well, apparently, the standard practice. So the figures

differ greatly, but no one has any real

alternative statistics.

Alexei, they are asking you about

Pozner's appeal, in which he called on you

during the epidemic to, well, criticize the authorities

a little less and help more in the

common struggle. Why do you disagree

with that?

>> It was very unpleasant for me to watch

Vladimir Pozner's appeal. I know that

Many people treat him with respect

because of his very gentle manner of conducting

a dialogue. He always sits there in a little jacket,

and speaks very, very well. But, you know,

for me, Vladimir Pozner—no matter how

pleasant he may be in person—still

remains a propagandist.

A propagandist who, you know, has

always found a reason why it was necessary

to lie for the authorities and why one had to help

the authorities. In the 1960s, in the 1970s, in

the 1980s. He always lied about

the war in Afghanistan, about the downed airplane,

he always lied about dissidents. And now, in

2020, he is once again calling on all of us

not to criticize and continues to lie,

because now he has to lie in the name of

the epidemic. No, I believe that first

of all—look, guys—I want

to make sure that people are now given

20,000 rubles each (about 20,000 RUB). Am I supposed to

protest, stop criticizing

the authorities? I will criticize them precisely

because they are not helping people.

>> One last question, Alexei. When you

call the public discussions of your

opponents stupid, corrupt,

"Bobroets-style" and so on,

>> do you feel any responsibility for

the decline in the level of political discussion in

Russia?

>> I really do have a fairly

informal style, and often, honestly, well,

you can’t take words out of the song, a somewhat rough

way of conducting a discussion, but certainly when it comes to

people who—well, that Russia

Today channel and its management—are stupid thieves,

>> so you don’t consider that your problem?

Ah, well, probably, if there were

a magic dial that I could

turn a little and make my manner

of communication perhaps somewhat more

elegant, I would probably

turn that dial a bit. However, if I

turned that dial and became more

like Vladimir Pozner, you understand,

and avoided the truth in favor of

some kind of more

beautiful wording, I would refuse that. I

remember one of your interviews in which

you said that during Great Lent (the Orthodox Christian fasting period), every time

you try to restrain yourself and not

go after anyone. Did it work? It did.

>> Thank you very much. This was Alexei Navalny

joining us on

>> Subscribe. Thank you very much for

inviting me, guys. Let me urge all

radio listeners to go to the Five Steps website

and sign in support—those who

support these initiatives, because

some people surely do not support them.

>> Everyone else needs to be persuaded. Bye,

bye, bye. Alexei Navalny. Well, and for now we

for now we