Yesterday, the Moscow City Court’s ruling came into force. The Anti-Corruption Foundation and Navalny’s campaign offices were declared extremist organizations. They have been shut down. They no longer exist.
But there is something else. Remember this link — world.fbk.info. It is very important. We’ll tell you more about it a little later, so read this post to the end. This link is our answer to the court, the Kremlin, and Putin personally.
But first, let’s talk about why the FSB, the Investigative Committee, and the prosecutor’s office have spent three years trying to destroy us — and in return have gotten new investigations, election defeats, and even greater support for ACF and Navalny.
So, August 2019. The Moscow City Duma elections are in full swing, and we are actively promoting our new tool — Smart Voting. Interest in our investigations is growing. The Kremlin sees this, decides to crush us, and launches the notorious “ACF case” — to cut off all our funding streams. So that we can no longer make videos, host broadcasts, or launch new projects — because all of that takes money. Money for rent, salaries, equipment, and even for ordering a property registry extract from Rosreestr (Russia’s state real estate registry).
What did they think? We’ll freeze their accounts, and there’ll be millions from Western intelligence agencies in them. We’ll come to the ACF office, and there’ll be boxes of dollars. We’ll seize it all, and they’ll collapse without money. And with evidence like that, we’ll throw them all in prison too.
So they urgently start firing off letters to banks: freeze them, freeze all the accounts! They also block employees’ bank cards and even those of some volunteers and supporters. It seems like they’ve blocked everything, but we keep working.
Next, strapping guys in black caps burst into ACF’s Moscow office and regional offices. But what do they seize? Laptops, cameras, printers, and a coffee grinder. Once again, no dollars, no euros, not even pirate coins.
Putin’s police are not especially bright, so they repeat this procedure several times. To no avail. Why? The trick was very simple. While the repressive machine creaked along on its old wheels, we could hear it coming from a mile away and had time to act. We spent money on ACF’s needs in advance, leaving nothing in the accounts: we paid rent a year ahead, salaries many months ahead.
Only a year and a half later did the Kremlin realize this wasn’t working. So it attacked by another route — through the legal entity. ACF had officially operated as a nonprofit organization, and all donations went to the specific legal entity called “ACF.” Putin’s chef, Prigozhin, buried us in lawsuits demanding enormous sums. Sums that ACF could never have paid. And then there was no longer any need for a separate ruling on each account. The bank automatically blocked any newly created accounts.
Putin’s judges casually signed off on the required ruling, and the Kremlin held its breath. They waited for us to hand all our money over to Prigozhin and shut down.
But one day they woke up and saw that not only had we not shut down, not only had we told Prigozhin and his lawsuits to go to hell — we had slipped out of his trap and grown threefold on top of that. The old ACF had 7,000 regular donors. The new ACF immediately began receiving donations from 20,000 people!
Pens and pencils must have been flying around offices like never before. Because once again, they had failed to shut down ACF. And then, on Putin’s orders, the FSB poisoned Alexei.
Fortunately, that plan failed too. Navalny survived, recovered, and in the shortest possible time dealt the Kremlin three devastating blows. He exposed the secret squad of FSB poisoners, showed the world Putin’s palace, and was not afraid to return to Russia. Proving to everyone that with his “Novichok” nerve agent, the trembling old man in the bunker had achieved nothing.
Then Alexei was thrown in prison, and apparently the order was given to destroy ACF and Navalny’s offices once and for all. For this they chose the most absurd pretext — extremism. But also the most convenient one for the security services. Once someone is labeled an extremist, you can do whatever you want — hide evidence, terrorize witnesses, ban activities immediately, hand down huge prison sentences, and call it protecting the public.
It would seem that this was the end. There’s no defense against brute force, and now surely not a single investigation would be published, while Smart Voting would be remembered only in whispers around the kitchen table.
And what do we see? Investigations are still being published, Smart Voting still works, other projects still work, and there will be new projects. Most importantly, once again we have lost almost nothing. Because even by banning the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the offices, Putin cannot stop our work. And all of this is thanks to you.
Let’s remember how it all began. In 2010, the RosPil project appeared. A year later, the Anti-Corruption Foundation was created on its basis, with an investigations department and a whole range of other projects. In 2013 there was Navalny’s mayoral campaign; in 2017 his presidential campaign began, and that was when the offices and the YouTube channel “Navalny LIVE” appeared. A year later, we came up with Smart Voting.
These were all different projects, different legal entities, different structures, and different teams. Some people worked in one place, others in several, and some helped everywhere. But in essence, we were always one team — Navalny’s team.
We are all different, but we have one goal — a Russia without Putin. Because Putin means corruption, low wages, and low pensions. Putin means a shrinking economy and rising prices. Every year of Putin’s “stability” sets the country another year behind the rest of the world.
We must continue our work in order to shorten this dark chapter in our country’s history. And here is what we are going to do:
— We will continue publishing investigations into corruption in the Russian authorities, because investigations are what open people’s eyes to corruption best of all. We will show the dachas and palaces, yachts and planes bought with money stolen from the citizens of Russia, and we will keep doing it until everyone understands that Putin has robbed them personally.
— We will bring together as many supporters of change as possible, help them unite through Smart Voting, and turn every election into a nightmare for United Russia.
— And of course, we will continue to fight for the release of Alexei Navalny and other political prisoners by every available and lawful means.
All of this is a long and difficult road, but we have the strength and determination to follow it. Together with you.
We have the experience for this. We have the people for it — battle-tested fighters, former ACF and office staff who have decided to keep working as part of Navalny’s team despite all the difficulties. We know what to do next; we have a plan. And we are not ashamed to say it plainly: we need money for this work, and we need your help.
The principle behind funding Navalny’s team has not changed. We still plan to raise money in the most honest and transparent way possible — by collecting donations from supporters. Without this, a political organization cannot survive, and only this way of working keeps us from losing our way. If we do something you need, donations increase and we can launch new projects. If we do nonsense, we quickly get feedback in the form of supporters leaving, and we start correcting our mistakes. That is why it was vital for us to relaunch our crowdfunding, and we did it.
In one sense, everything has stayed the same; in another, a lot has changed. First, you can now support us not only from Russia. You can make a transfer no matter what country you are in.
Second, we have completely moved away from the Russian banking system and from the Kremlin-controlled financial infrastructure. We have taken many precautions to make our new fundraising system safe for donors. All payments are processed by the secure service Stripe, which has no connection to Russia, and are transmitted only in encrypted form. The final recipient of the money is not displayed anywhere — only the intermediary service appears. Your donations will simply be impossible to single out among the thousands of donations to other nonprofits and foundations that use the same system.
We no longer collect or store any user data at all. Before, if you wanted to donate, you had to enter an email address, although it could be a fake one. Now that is optional. You can donate completely anonymously. For full protection, we have even turned off Google Analytics. And to cancel a payment, all you need to do is send us a special anonymous code — there is no need to provide any personal payment details.
And you can still donate to us in cryptocurrency. It is a tried-and-tested method, and also completely legal and safe.
Our new donation system is up and running at world.fbk.info. If you send a donation using any of the payment details listed there, you can be sure it will reach us — not scammers, not Putin, not Prigozhin, and not the Investigative Committee.
Navalny’s team will stop working in one case, and one case only: if it loses your support.
All these years, we have worked only with your money. Every weapon of propaganda was fired at us. We were portrayed as Russia’s main enemies. But you always understood where the truth was. Every year, our supporters grew in number, and no matter what Putin did, he could not stop it. He will not be able to stop it now either.
We are sure of this because the best people in the country stand behind us. People who are not afraid and do not give up, who love Russia and want to make it a better, happier country.
If you want Navalny’s team to keep working, go to this link right now and sign up to donate: world.fbk.info. And also forward this video to all your friends and tell them that we have not gone anywhere, that no Putin-controlled court has the power to stop us — as long as you are with us.