Today, the court upheld Alexei’s sentence — 9 years in a maximum-security penal colony.
We are publishing the full transcript of Navalny’s final statement in court.
— Thank you very much. Your Honor, are you going to interrupt me? I’d like to clarify, because I’m usually interrupted during my final statement. I can’t hear you — or are you just staying silent?
— Alexei Anatolyevich, we are listening to you carefully.
— Thank you very much. To be honest, at the last hearing I already said that I no longer even want to make final statements — I’m sick to death of these final statements. You know, I roughly counted it up: I returned to Moscow on January 17, was arrested immediately, and I’ve been speaking ever since. This is my sixth or seventh final statement, which turns the whole thing into a bit of a comedy. Of course, that says a great deal about what is happening in our country, but still, it is absurd when a person is giving his seventh final statement in a year and a half. And yet, during my last “final statement,” something happened that was very encouraging to me — something that shows these statements still need to be made.
How was our court hearing arranged? There was an assembly hall here, in my prison, and just as now, the judge, the defense, the prosecutor, and the court’s technical specialist were all seated here. And the trick is this, you see — you are all very cunning, and your government is very cunning and resourceful. On the day I delivered my final statement, the court’s technical specialist was absent. Instead, our major here, the one who deals with all the technical nonsense, was dressed in civilian clothes and seated in the technical secretary’s place. And what did he do? Every time I said the word “war” during my final statement, he pressed a button. I could see it, because on the screen in front of me a red crossed-out microphone icon would light up, showing that the microphone had been switched off. And he sat there looking very pleased, and the judge was pleased, and your whole system was immensely pleased that you had this button and could press it, so that the public, journalists, anyone at all, would not hear what I was going to say after the word “war.”
Of course, it infuriated me. You prepare, you say important things, and then bang — someone presses a button with a smug little grin, and no one can hear you. Of course it infuriated me. But on the other hand, what was the encouraging part? I thought about it and then understood. Because you have everything: power, you have seized power in the country, you have television, all these bought-and-paid-for journalists — you have everything, and yet you are afraid that some prisoner might say something to you. So afraid that you assigned a special staff member, dressed in civilian clothes, just to press that button. You are so afraid of those words — of the word of truth in general — that of course it must be spoken. That is what I constantly urge everyone else to do, and I do what I can myself.
A qualification regarding your esteemed court. I personally have nothing against you. I don’t know you. It is entirely possible that you are good people, that you treat children well, and that you probably even got top marks at university, especially in criminal procedure. But when I say “you,” I am addressing the court, of course, at this moment — but I mean your entire ruling system: I mean Putin, his Security Council full of senile old men, the State Duma packed with crooks, the Federation Council packed with old crooks, your entire government. After all, you are sentencing me in the name of the Russian Federation, so when I address you, I am addressing that very Russian Federation now seized by those same crooks, swindlers, and, of course, murderers.
My sentence is based on the claim that I insulted the court and showed it no respect. You know perfectly well yourselves that no one in Russia respects the courts. This is, in principle, an institution that commands not the slightest respect anywhere. People really are afraid of it, because some people in black robes can, in a completely lawless way — as is happening to me and to many others — send you behind bars at any moment, so yes, they are feared. But no one respects the Russian courts, and I truly do not respect them.
But this article about insulting the court — that is not a scientific approach. If there were an article about contempt for the court and contempt for this government, that would suit me perfectly, because I despise your court, I despise your system, and I despise your power. And most importantly — and this, it seems to me, is what is really considered a crime in your eyes — I am not afraid of this system. I am not afraid of this system. Of course, I do not want to be sitting in this cage instead of doing something useful and watching my children grow up. But life is not given to a person so that he can be afraid of a deranged old bunker-dweller and the system he built. So I am not afraid of you! And again, I urge everyone else not to be afraid either. In the end, what can they do to you? Put you in a cage. But your system rests precisely on fear, so you must not be afraid of it; to fear you is a crime against one’s own future, a crime against one’s children, a crime against one’s people.
That is why it is important now... Because I turn on the television and they show me how someone out there is killing Russians, oppressing Russians, or doing something else to Russians. But it is you — your system, your Putin, and your officials — who are Russia’s enemies now, traitors to the Russian people and, literally, murderers of the Russian people. In recent years, no one has killed more Russians than your Putin.
— Alexei Anatolyevich, please return to the subject under judicial review. We are considering the appeal of the final ruling of the Lefortovo District Court.
— That is exactly what I was doing. That is why I asked you not to become that same button trying to silence me. The Criminal Procedure Code does not regulate what I may say in my final statement. I am speaking about the court, I am speaking about the sentence, I am speaking about the grounds on which this sentence was passed on me — and not only on me; absurd sentences like this are passed on people like me.
If you want me to get closer to the point — fine, let’s do that. You don’t like it when I talk about the war — then I will use this war now underway, which is a hundred times more important than my sentence, as a metaphor for your courts and your trials. Because this war, like your courts, is built entirely, one hundred percent, on lies — on brazen, outrageous lies. Not a single word of truth, not one. Just as there is not a single word of truth in the sentence, so too this war is being waged. I watch television here all day long — in fact, that is an important part of the punishment: you are supposed to watch television all the time. And a few months ago, for three months straight, every report, every segment, every news bulletin said: what nonsense that we would send troops into Ukraine! That could never happen! It’s the Americans who are lying.
— Alexei Anatolyevich, the matter under judicial review is the March 22, 2022 verdict of the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow. We are listening to your objections to the final judicial act issued by the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow.
— Exactly. You see, this is still a speech in court. Look, there is a portrait hanging there on the wall to your right. I can’t make out who it is. Probably some esteemed jurist. As I recall — because back then I was sitting in the “aquarium” (the glass defendants’ enclosure) — there are also portraits of well-known figures on the left, and most of them became famous not because they mumbled into a microphone, but because they said important things, because they delivered speeches in court. And that is exactly what I am doing now. I am delivering a speech in your court, and I really am using the war as a metaphor for my sentence. Even though I am using something large to describe something small — though one could do the reverse. So I ask that, despite how terribly afraid you are that I might say something here, you still not act like that same button, because whoever instructed you to do that should be the one held responsible for what I say here. So you can simply stop me and switch me off, but I intend to… I will say everything I intend to say.
So: months of lies, simply months of them. And then, with a snap, troops were sent in — and everyone just forgot about it, you see? The memory of a goldfish. And your government is trying to make our entire population, our whole people, into goldfish too — including when it comes to court proceedings, including when it comes to the laws you change every day, including so that people forget there was once a law that barred me from running in elections, the so-called “Navalny law.” All of this is an absolute lie. All the facts cited in the verdict are the same kind of false garbage as all the facts used by the warmongers — or vice versa. When I hear talk of NATO on television, I feel like laughing out loud, because I am not a goldfish. I remember how in 2013, in the city of Ulyanovsk, a NATO base was being opened, and the governor of Ulyanovsk was explaining how wonderful it was that we were opening a NATO base there for operations in Afghanistan, because it was so great, because it would create jobs, because NATO was a very friendly alliance to us. And do you know who else strongly supported the NATO base? Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin. Does that name ring a bell? And now these same people are trying to convince us that we must stage a bloodbath here in order to stand up to NATO. At the same time, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, and the whole thing has become absurd. And I am talking about this because it is, of course, deeply defining for everything that is happening in Russia, including the Russian judicial system. Because there are brazen lies in every court. What was said yesterday is ignored with the snap of a finger, as if it had never been said. All of you reverse yourselves by 180 degrees not just often, but constantly. Our government, our courts, our Putin move in zigzags through the air, because each time you have to switch shoes mid-flight so that people forget that you were lying just a moment ago.
— Alexei Anatolyevich, the matter under judicial review is the verdict of the Lefortovo Court of Moscow. In your final statement, we are hearing your views concerning your disagreement with your conviction, with the verdict of the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow. Please return to the subject under appellate review.
— First of all, the matter under review really is the Lefortovo Court’s verdict and the reasons why such a verdict was handed down. And you know perfectly well the reasons why your court functions as it does. They are that Russia is now ruled by deranged rich people who, among other things, started a war, among other things so that they could hold court proceedings inside prisons, because against the backdrop of war no one will pay attention to it anymore. So, Your Honor, your profession has its advantages — immunity, untouchability, a large salary, an apartment in Moscow. But your work probably has some disadvantages too. In particular, if the lottery handed you such an unlucky ticket as having to pronounce my sentence, then you will have to listen to me, sorry. If you do not want to listen to me, you can simply switch me off and thereby commit yet another procedural violation. Just a little longer, please bear with me.
I want to say that these trials of yours, including the ones against me, are meaningless. What are you trying to achieve with them? Do you want some kind of control? You may indeed get temporary control. Do you want to halt Russia’s progress, do you want to fight the rising generation? What is it you want to do? In the short term, you can certainly intimidate some people, you will ruin a number of lives, you will break many destinies, but overall what you are doing, what your people are doing, is nonsense — a historical absurdity — and without question you will all suffer a historic defeat. Just as you will suffer a historic defeat in this stupid war that you started, that your Putin started, because it has neither purpose nor meaning.
It is completely unclear why you are waging it at all. Why are we fighting this war? To force them to do what? We simply took a nation of 40 million people, declared, “They are Nazis!” — and started bombing them. What are they supposed to do to make you leave them alone? Just imagine the situation: a person lives in the city of Kharkiv — let’s even say a judge, a judge in Kharkiv, a city of a million people, a huge city. He lives his life in this large city, works perfectly well as a judge, plans in the morning to take his child to kindergarten and then go off to judge someone. And then one fine day — say, February 24 — he is declared a Nazi, a missile hits his home, kills his child, and he runs around like a madman, unable to understand what he is supposed to do to make you and your government leave him alone. And I am absolutely willing, among other things, to sit here in prison in order to prove to the whole world — and above all to myself — that not everyone in Russia is this deranged, abnormal, perverse, bloodsucking sort of person who kills people for no clear reason and dies themselves for no clear purpose. Do you know that here, in the Vladimir region...
— Alexei Anatolyevich, we are compelled to bring you back to the subject under judicial review and remind you that we are hearing your arguments and your disagreement with the court verdict issued on March 22, 2022. You were convicted and found guilty on four counts under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code and Article 297 of the Russian Criminal Code. Please return to the question of exactly what you disagree with in the court’s verdict.
— Your Honor, thank you very much for that wise reminder. You see, I am an ordinary person. I am not a judge, with everything arranged in a perfectly logical and proper way. I was speaking about what I want to say, about my sentence, to the extent of my own capacity for judgment. And my capacity for judgment determines what I say. I speak as best I can. You know the saying, “Don’t shoot the pianist, he’s playing as best he can.” It is the same here. It is genuinely important for me to say here and explain to the court that everything in our country is broken, including the justice system, precisely so that wars like this can then be started. And in these wars, besides the obvious fact that we are killing innocent people for no clear reason, we are thereby destroying the Russian people. As I already said, here in the Vladimir region, where I am imprisoned, the entire leadership of the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) has been killed — four lieutenant colonels, dead. You see, this is both concealed and at the same time absolutely everyone knows about it. And why were they killed? Because one madman latched onto Ukraine. It is unclear what he wants to do, I do not know what he wants to do with it. And this mad thief hired a sick man to command the National Guard, and by the way, those are not my words. They are the words of Korzhakov, the former head of the president’s security service, who, describing Army General Zolotov, said: “I can’t call him an idiot, because he’s an imbecile.” And when one thief hires an imbecile to wage a war… Yes, they will kill many people in this war, but they themselves will all be killed there too.
— Alexei Anatolyevich, we would still like to hear your final statement regarding the verdict of the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow. Once again, I urge you: return to the subject of these court proceedings.
— Your Honor, there is no need even to urge me. It’s not even a matter of returning… The subject under consideration is this very metal grille, in the literal sense. Either I am clinging to it, or it is clinging to me…
— Alexei Anatolyevich, you were convicted on four counts under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code and Article 297.
— Article 159 of the Criminal Code will be applied many times over to the people I am talking about. Along with various other articles. Because these people keep people like me in prison precisely so that they can steal, commit fraud, rob, and kill — that is exactly why all this is happening, Your Honor. Now look, as for Article 159. You may find this interesting, since you insist that I speak about Article 159. Do you know when I kept thinking about it? On May 9. On May 9, the prisoners, as required, sat in the room very solemnly... They showed us the parade. And in the parade the Armata tank rolls by. And once again we are told that the Armata tank is the best, that the Russian forces have it and so on... And I think: it is now 2022, and I am watching the Armata tank. I watched the Armata tank in 2021, and in 2020, and in 2019, and in 2018, and in 2017, and in 2016. I think they have been showing us the Armata tank since 2015. But in the war, for some reason, I mostly see T-72 tanks and a few more modern ones, while there is no Armata anywhere near the battlefield. So, Article 159: perhaps the reason is that our supreme commander-in-chief is a thief and a madman, and our defense minister is a thief and a PR man…
— Alexei Anatolyevich, on March 22, 2022, you were convicted by the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow of fraud and insult. Please, I urge you to return to the subject under judicial review in this appellate court. You have not yet presented a single specific argument explaining your disagreement with the final judicial decision of the Lefortovo District Court of Moscow. Your defense spoke very clearly and set out all the arguments; we would like to hear your own position directly regarding the appealed judicial act.
— Your Honor, my lawyers are free because they speak very clearly, while I am just a prisoner behind bars because I am incapable of speaking clearly. I am speaking as best I can, and I do not have much left to say — these are simply important things. The important thing is that the Lefortovo Court’s verdict is handed down in the name of the Russian Federation, and it is handed down in precisely such a way because power in the Russian Federation has been seized by people who have lied to us for many years — including about weapons systems — who start wars, kill other people and their own people, and have turned Russians and Ukrainians into a bloodbath. And the consequence of all this will be a huge number of proceedings like the one against me, and I want them to stop. And if by my words I can do even something, convince even someone, do even something to help stop all this, then I will say it.
I am almost finished, so please do not stop me anymore. Your Honor, I look at you, and in your face I see that very phrase, “in the name of the Russian Federation”... Putin, Chemezov, Shoigu, all those Golikovas and Khristenkos, everyone we investigated — all of them stand before me in your person. And I want to say one thing: how wonderful it would be without you! How great it would be to live in our country without you, because for the first time in hundreds of years we have no enemies, no war, everything is fine, there is money in abundance, plenty of oil, expensive gas — Russia is a beautiful, rich country without you. So I would like all of you not to exist, and for Russia’s ideology… ideology is too grand a word — simply for the rules of our life to be “live and let live.” For everyone to leave everyone else alone, for us to let go of Ukraine and everyone else, for you judges to leave ordinary citizens alone, for the National Guard to do real work, for prison service officers to guard actual criminals rather than political prisoners, for the police to investigate crimes rather than arrest people for likes on social media, for you not to exist and for everyone to stop bothering everyone else — and then at last we would live well.
But for now, you do exist. And of course, the most fitting quote about you, from the most famous book (a reference to *The Master and Margarita*), one that is constantly used now and has been used many times in similar situations over the years, is: “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” The curious thing is that right now I can see in you, in your power, that this does not even offend you. When you hear that phrase, you understand that you are the power of darkness and that this is your time, but not only does it not trouble you — on the contrary, it inspires you. You are like: “Yes! We are the power of darkness, we are the coolest, this is our time.” And that is your essence: you are all villains, you understand that, and you revel in it. But I want to say that, of course, your time will not last forever, and your time will pass. And when you are all burning in hell, the ones throwing logs onto your fire will be your grandfathers, who did not want you using their portraits to start new wars in the 21st century. That is all, thank you.