In 24 hours, the verdict will be read out, and I’d like to say a couple of things before it is. To, so to speak, “put the numbers in context.”
The sentence will be a long one. What in Russia is called “Stalin-era” (a reference to the harshly punitive sentencing of Joseph Stalin’s rule). The formula is simple: whatever the prosecutor asked for, minus 10–15%. They asked for 20 years, so they’ll give 18 or something like that. It doesn’t matter much anyway, because the terrorism case is already barreling ahead right behind it. They can tack on another 10 years there.
So here is my first request. When the number is announced, please don’t show solidarity with me by lamenting and exclaiming, “Just like under Stalin.” Instead, show solidarity with me and with other political prisoners by taking a minute to think. Think about why such an ostentatiously huge sentence is needed. Its main purpose is intimidation. You, not me. I’ll put it even more directly: you personally, the person reading these lines.
Have you noticed that the propaganda machine is silent about this trial? They don’t talk about it on television. Because for the “average Russian,” the story would have an ambiguous effect. Eighteen years for some kind of “extremism” with no victims and no consequences would seem obviously unjust, and people might even start sympathizing in secret. But you already know everything. You are the ones they need to stun and frighten. To use the severity of the sentence to knock any thoughts of resistance out of your head.
Please think about this and understand: by imprisoning hundreds, Putin is trying to frighten millions. We live in a country where tens of millions of people right now oppose corruption, war, and lawlessness. Right now, tens of millions support fair elections, democracy, and the peaceful transfer of power, and want Putin gone. We know for certain that if even one in ten of those outraged by Putin’s corruption and that of his officials took to the streets, the regime would fall tomorrow. We know for certain that if those opposed to the war took to the streets, they would stop it immediately.
But all of that is wishful thinking. That’s not how it works. Someone has to go first, and that is frightening. Russia is no exception here. In countries with dictatorial regimes, the discontented rarely take to the streets until almost the very end of those regimes—not here, not in the USSR, not in Iran, not in Cuba, not in the GDR (East Germany). All change is achieved by 10% of citizens—the most active ones. That means you. Repressing even 10% of them—jailing, punishing, fining them—that’s 1.5 million people, and right now that’s impossible both politically and logistically. So instead, they have to stun and intimidate, to strip people of any desire to do anything at all.
This Putin-style strategy—really, the strategy of any dictator—works. One example. The main source of our organization’s resilience was always that our funding couldn’t be cut off: we were financed by tens and hundreds of thousands of people making small donations. You can’t shut that down. But by inflating cases about financing extremism (one of the charges on which I’ll be sentenced tomorrow), the authorities managed to make supporting us from inside Russia—where 95% of our donors are—feel “too risky.” And finances are the foundation of any activity; without them, nothing is possible. The intimidation worked perfectly. By the way, here are instructions on how to support us anonymously and safely via cryptocurrency.
To be honest, we often help Putin’s strategy of intimidation ourselves, throwing hysterics and clutching our hearts over every arrest, frightening both ourselves and everyone around us even more. We must speak about everyone and forget no one, but at the same time firmly understand this: power in Russia has been usurped, seized unlawfully. Those in power cannot hold on to it without arresting innocent people. They jail hundreds in order to frighten millions.
This must be treated coolly and calmly. Putin must not achieve his goal. And I very much want him not to achieve it in my case either, when it comes to the sentence. So here is my second request: when the verdict is announced, please think only one truly important thought—what more can I personally do to resist? To stop the scoundrels and thieves entrenched in the Kremlin from devouring my country and my future? What can I do, weighing all the risks and taking all the circumstances into account?
My third request is the most important. When you answer that question for yourself, please do not dare say, “Nothing.” You can. Everyone can do something. Talk to your neighbors, put up a leaflet. Share our investigation. Send 500 rubles (about $5 / €4.50) a month to us or to other opposition organizations and independent media. Start a blog. Take part in DMP-2, post on social media. Support political prisoners. Paint graffiti. Go out to a rally.
There is nothing shameful about choosing the safest way to resist. What is shameful is doing nothing. What is shameful is letting yourself be intimidated. Whatever sentence they have planned, it will not achieve its purpose if you understand what all this is for and answer, “I am not afraid”—with a daily, cool-headed contribution, however small, to the struggle for freedom in Russia.
Acknowledgments:
Thank you all, of course. Everything that is happening to me is much easier to endure because I feel your support every day and every minute.
My enormous thanks to the side of common sense in the legal madness called the “trial in prison,” which will conclude tomorrow. To my lawyers Olga Mikhailova, Vadim Kobzev, Alexander Fedulov, and Dani Kholodny’s lawyer Svetlana Davydova. They are fighting like lions.
To the defense witnesses: Stupin, Kara-Murza, Roizman, Chanysheva, Ostanin, Gorinov, Yashin, Muratov, Demchuk, Golikov, Nikolaenko, Popov, Moroz.
A special thank-you. My main personal inspiration in this trial is my co-defendant, Dani Kholodny, a 25-year-old who ended up in this meat grinder by sheer accident.
A technician at “Navalny LIVE”, whom they turned into an “organizer” of an extremist community—on a par with me, Volkov, and Zhdanov. Unfortunately, I barely knew him. He was just a guy plugging in cables during broadcasts.
Dani has already spent a year and a half in pretrial detention (SIZO, a Russian remand prison). Unlike me, he was brought to the hearings in handcuffs. At lunchtime, they would take him away and chain him to some wall. During the investigation, they repeatedly offered him freedom in exchange for testimony against everyone else. Kholodny remained cold to those offers (couldn’t resist the pun). Kholodny is upbeat, cheerful, and has not lost his presence of mind. Most importantly, he understands why this trial was concocted, but he does not let himself be intimidated or his will be broken. Be like him.