Alexei Navalny contrasts the “Russian world” as a voluntary cultural and political sphere of attraction with Vladimir Putin’s imperial policy, arguing that the annexation of Crimea led to strategic losses for Russia, above all the alienation of Ukraine and the deterioration of relations with neighboring countries. He believes that the foreign policy agenda and military rhetoric have pushed real domestic problems out of public discussion—illegal immigration, corruption, alcoholism, drug addiction, and the ineffective use of oil revenues—and emphasizes that addressing these issues is what truly serves the interests of Russians. Navalny is also skeptical about the significance of high government approval ratings in an authoritarian system, does not expect Russia’s economy to collapse immediately, although he sees negative trends, and opposes the demolition of old monuments, proposing instead the creation of new memorials to the victims of repression and, in the future, the burial of Lenin’s body.
Text version
A. VENEDIKTOV: Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny, Lesya Ryabtseva, Alexei Venediktov. Our listener Monblan2000 asks: how is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s Russian world different from Alexei Navalny’s Russian world?
A. NAVALNY: Oh, no one is forced into Alexei Navalny’s Russian world, and therefore Alexei Navalny’s Russian world develops much better than Vladimir Putin’s Russian world, because everyone goes into Alexei Navalny’s Russian world willingly.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Crimea willingly went on its own into Vladimir Putin’s Russian world.
A. NAVALNY: Yes, but from the Russian world there fled—you see, we annexed Crimea with its population of two million, and we lost, unfortunately, possibly forever, the forty-million-strong Ukrainian state. We greatly complicated things for and frightened Belarus as well. It is also part of the Russian world, although Belarusians probably won’t like that. The Baltics, Kazakhstan, and so on. That is, we are losing what, uh, were our natural trump cards. The existence of such a large friendly people as the Ukrainians—Ukraine—was a colossal strategic trump card for Russia in Russia’s future, in Russia’s development. Now we have lost it, and lost it simply because of some ambitions, because of stupidity.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Well, now let’s move on precisely to the topic of interethnic relations. Lesya.
L. RYABTSEVA: We recalled Western Biryulyovo and remembered past years, let’s put it that way, when there was already tightening of borders, talk about the Customs Union. Last year all the media were blaring about this, yes, about illegal migration. Why has this topic faded away this year?
A. VENEDIKTOV: Moreover, I’ll add that in the Moscow mayoral election, as you remember, yes, when polls were being conducted, the topic of illegal migration, gastarbeiters, was number one. Everything else came later. Now in the elections to the Moscow City Duma, in my opinion, it is seventh or eighth. What happened over the year? In people’s minds—after all, it’s in people’s minds.
A. NAVALNY: Strictly speaking, this is the answer to your— to the question of why Putin did all this. He changed the domestic political agenda very seriously. The topic of migration is still discussed at the everyday level, it exists. Just step outside here in Maryino under my windows and look around. This topic will immediately arise in your head. But it has been pushed out of the agenda because there are, well, some much more powerful things there. Questions of life and death have been invented. When they tell you on television about a crucified child, you stop thinking about migrants. Therefore it has truly been displaced from the political agenda. But it exists, and the problem of illegal migration exists. And I still support the introduction of a visa regime. And I still believe that from the point of view of Russia’s development, the Russian world, and whatever you like, the topic of illegal migration is a hundred times more important than any Ukraine.
L. RYABTSEVA: Alexei Anatolyevich, the Russian March is coming soon. What do you say?
A. NAVALNY: That now I can only wave to it from the window. It passes nearby here in Lyublino.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Will you wave?
A. NAVALNY: I will. I’m just watching very closely what is happening around the Russian March. And I’m very interested in the discussion going on there, because the nationalist movement is far from homogeneous. There were even polls there, note, about what Russians should hold the Russian March for: first, for Ukraine—that is the main Russian topic—for Novorossiya. Second, to discard the Ukrainian question entirely and focus only on Russians. And third, as it was formulated: a march for Russians against quilted-jacket chauvinists. And there are such nationalists, quite a large number of them. Therefore I am very interested in which agenda will win. And I will be very upset if the Russian March nevertheless turns into a kind of Soviet march in support of Putin.
L. RYABTSEVA: Alexei Anatolyevich, should I go to the Russian March? Whatever you say, that’s what I’ll do.
A. NAVALNY: I don’t know what the Russian March will be now. If the Russian March degenerates into, as I already said, a march of Soviet patriots—let’s seize, uh, let’s seize all the countries and revive the Soviet Union—that will not be a Russian march, that will be an anti-Russian march. Because there is nothing more harmful to the interests of the Russian people than this imperialist chauvinism. It is not in Russians’ interests to be busy seizing the nearest republics; it is in Russians’ interests to fight corruption, fight alcoholism, and so on, to solve internal problems. It is in Russians’ interests to make sure that the still-colossal oil rent works for Russians. But seizing the Baltics, Ukraine, or Kyiv, or Donbas is not needed by Russians. Therefore if the Russian March is, yes, about Russians’ interests, then go. If the Russian March is about, let’s land troops on the Moon—then we do not need such a Russian March. Fine.
L. RYABTSEVA: I’ll write to Yulia Navalnaya and ask what she thinks about this.
A. VENEDIKTOV: By the way, incidentally, I just thought: why are you and I sitting here, Lesya, and not Vladimir Solovyov, who at one time, or Pyotr Tolstoy from Channel One, said that Navalny had such views, nationalist views? Now, in my opinion, they are repeating much more what you said or what was attributed to you.
A. NAVALNY: This is a very interesting thing, because now I am being branded a national traitor by the very people who six months ago called me nothing but a Nazi. This is a very interesting transformation. I want to point out that this is not a transformation, it is the same as before. I am standing where I stood. It is all these media crooks who are quickly darting back and forth.
L. RYABTSEVA: So you have become neither softer nor tougher while sitting here?
A. NAVALNY: I keep drawing atten— there is a real agenda, there is illegal migration, and we need to fight illegal migration. There are some other issues, uh, that are usually classified as part of the nationalist agenda: ethnic crime, problems of Russians connected with alcoholism, drug addiction, and so on. These problems exist, they remain. You can talk on television as much as you like about Donbas and so on, but just as Russia was number one in absolute terms in heroin consumption, so it remains. And this thing is much more important from Russians’ point of view than any Donbas.
L. RYABTSEVA: I have one more question from a listener on a completely different topic. Andreika71 asks: if you were now offered a high government post, would you agree?
A. NAVALNY: What is meant by a high government post?
L. RYABTSEVA: As I understand it, to replace Shuvalov.
A. NAVALNY: In this same system? Once again: my principled position is that you need to do everything you can do. But within the existing system, no government post can work effectively. I am more than sure that in your conversations and little sit-downs with Shuvalov, Ulyukayev, and so on, when you turn off the microphone, all they do is tell you how awful everything is, how nothing can be done, what fools and crooks are sitting everywhere. Isn’t that so? And how do they tell it?
L. RYABTSEVA: Usually we are the main pessimists, and they calm us down, saying that everything is wonderful for them. On the subject of pessimism, there is yet another question. Anton Nosik recently asked about Russia’s disappearing economy: where is rock bottom? My question to you is: where is Russia’s rock bottom?
A. NAVALNY: Well, right now we can't even glimpse the bottom. Yes, the price of oil has fallen. We do see, of course, a very threatening negative rise of the dollar, but we are not even close to rock bottom. Russia is still fulfilling its budget. We still have a fairly low level of external debt. Right now, apparently, we simply won’t be able to borrow. But at least for now, in the current situation, I do not see anything terrible that could promise us an economic collapse tomorrow. In dynamics, this suggests that in a year they will not be able, well, at a minimum, to index salaries there. Quite possibly, at some stage they will not be able, as I already said, to carry out those May decrees. But no direct—right now it is very funny for me to watch how everyone, including me, is following the price of oil. As if right now it will fall to eighty-three, and something will click in Putin’s head. This is complete nonsense. If we look at the chart of this price over a longer period, we will see that back in 2008 it fell to thirty dollars. And we remember perfectly well all the talk at that time that, my God, everything will collapse, Putin’s regime will collapse tomorrow. Nothing collapsed. Therefore these economic problems may come. I am sure they will come. And the current Putin economic course suggests that he does not want to avoid these problems, but is simply heading straight for this iceberg. But no current catastrophe is being observed.
L. RYABTSEVA: Shuvalov and Ulyukayev say exactly the same thing.
A. VENEDIKTOV: You took the words right out of my mouth.
A. NAVALNY: Well, because we are looking at the same figures. We interpret these figures roughly the same way. But I think that even from Ulyukayev’s public statements we can see that, in principle, everyone assesses the dynamics and direction of movement negatively. Look at Gref’s speech, that very same one.
L. RYABTSEVA: A bit of a blitz round. Korkornilov asks: do you believe in eighty-six percent?
A. NAVALNY: After we created a sociological service, let’s say, I figured out these eighty-six percent. Yes, there are eighty-six percent who, for a combination of reasons—Crimea, Ukraine, propaganda, and the absence of competition in elections—support him now. But that means nothing. I’ll tell you: I have more than eighty-six percent, because our campaign for the ratification of Article 20 and the introduction of criminal liability for illicit enrichment is supported by eighty-seven percent. So what does that mean? That I have an eighty-seven percent rating? That is not how it works. What was the Politburo’s rating in 1984? Probably very high. What is the current rating of the leader of North Korea? Also very high. Or in Cuba, what is the rating? In an authoritarian state, this has no significance at all. I see the main thing for me, important for me, that our main political themes—fighting corruption, decentralization, reform of the judiciary, and so on—are supported by no smaller a number of people. On these issues we all have seventy percent.
A. VENEDIKTOV: Well, look, Vlad Leks asks how to defeat propaganda. On the one hand, yes, there is propaganda in one direction; on the other hand, more than half of Russia’s population, more than half of adults, sit on the internet, that is, they have access to alternative information. Why these eighty-six percent?
A. NAVALNY: Let’s put it this way: we, myself included, at some stage overestimated the internet. Remember, I had a project called The Good Machine of Truth, when I believed that we needed to launch mass propaganda through the internet, and that in this way we could somehow influence or defeat television. They also began doing something similar on the internet, and we saw that their financial infusions and efforts also bear some fruit. Therefore in this kind of direct competition of propaganda, we will of course always lose to the state machine. But in this sense I am sure that Putin’s propaganda will expose itself, one way or another. They could say as much as they liked that, for example, high-quality Russian products would appear after the introduction of sanctions. These products simply will not appear, and everything will become clear to everyone.
L. RYABTSEVA: Continuing the blitz round. A question from a listener: are there monuments in Russia that should be demolished? This could be Soviet rulers or others.
A. NAVALNY: I do not think it makes sense to demolish any monuments. Let them stand wherever they stand; we just need to make new ones. Right now there is an absolutely fantastic project called Last Address. What many people are doing, including Sergey Parkhomenko. Let’s make new monuments to remind younger generations and ourselves, for example, about Stalinism; we do not necessarily need to blow up a monument to Stalin, wherever any still remain, somewhere, probably, on some museum grounds. We need to hang plaques on houses with the names of those people who disappeared when they were taken away from these houses. Therefore we simply need more monuments.
A. VENEDIKTOV: This is echoed by a question from a person from Cherepovets whose nickname is Cherepovets. What is your attitude toward burying Lenin, since we’ve gone there?
A. NAVALNY: I have no particular attitude. As an Orthodox Christian, it seems a little wild to me that we do in fact have a body there; as far as I understand, correct me as a historian, this contradicts Lenin’s wishes and those of his relatives and so on. It is unlikely that he wanted to lie in that form.
A. VENEDIKTOV: That is true.
A. NAVALNY: Therefore I rather support the idea that, naturally, the body should be committed to the ground. But this question is such a political question that perhaps there should be a Moscow referendum.
A. VENEDIKTOV: A Moscow one?
A. NAVALNY: A Moscow one, yes.
A. VENEDIKTOV: This was Alexei Navalny visiting Lesya Ryabtseva and Alexei Venediktov. Or rather, the other way around: Lesya Ryabtseva and Alexei Venediktov were visiting Alexei Navalny.
A. NAVALNY: Thank you very much for coming.
L. RYABTSEVA: Thank you.