Morning Briefing episode of December 15, 2020. Navalny on the alleged poisoning attempt, the investigation, and his return to Russia

10 hours, 9 minutes. Maxim Kurnikov, Irina Babloyan. Alexei Navalny, the politician, is joining us. Hello, good morning, Alexei.

Alexei still cannot hear us. Now we will be able after all to talk with Alexei Navalny. Let me remind you that you can send your questions for Alexei Navalny to the number: +7 985 970 45 45. Let me remind you once again that yesterday an investigation with Alexei Navalny was released. He accused several FSB officers of being the ones who poisoned him. Accordingly, they obtained all this information from the billing of telephone conversations… Can you hear us?

I can.

Good morning, Alexei!

Good morning!

Finally, we can hear and see you. The first question — everyone is worried about this, a million messages are coming in — how are you feeling, how is the rehabilitation going?

Thank you very much! I am very glad to be on my favorite program. Our last broadcast ended with there being an inspection here over my extremist words…

Well, supposedly they want to open some kind of criminal case, yes.

So let’s say enough again for a couple of articles.

We have no doubts about you.

You are accomplices, guys.

No, no, this is a live broadcast. You bear direct responsibility, Alexei.

I am shifting it onto you in advance. Thank you very much, everyone. I am very glad to be on Echo of Moscow. Greetings to all radio listeners. I feel okay, much better than before. I have some minor problems, but the dynamics, as the doctors say, are positive, so I will recover and come back.

Alexei, since you mentioned our previous broadcast, which ended, indeed, with some strange, contradictory statements by the security services: first they open some kind of case, then they do not. Have you and your lawyers received anything, any claims, any documents, is this persecution real?

Or is it fake, as they wrote?

I think this is not fake, it is quite obvious — what is happening. Immediately after the broadcast there were such conversations. I think that the authorities had a task…

I’ll say what there was — it was not a conversation, there was a statement, apparently by some acquaintance of yours, a former assistant to Nikita Belykh…

My God!..

…Who wrote a statement somewhere to the FSB or…

I am sure that it was like this: it is very important for them to make sure I do not return, so they make many different statements. Peskov also said there that I work with CIA officers, and in every possible way they are simply trying to frighten me with some criminal cases or something like that. Therefore, I think they were preparing to announce this, at the level of the Investigative Committee, they cobbled together a little file, but then, when all this was voiced and it became clear that the criminal case would specifically be for the words that “people who leave millions hungry do not deserve to be in power,” simply someone already at the political level said: “Are you crazy? We cannot launch such a criminal case,” — and they canceled all of it. I have no doubt that the TASS sources — it was TASS that reported it — did not invent all this.

A. Navalny: I am returning to Russia, which is my country, where I enjoy support. I have things to do in my country

You just mentioned Dmitry Sergeyevich. Since we have started talking about such preliminary things before this big investigation. You filed a lawsuit against Dmitry Sergeyevich…

Yes. Dmitry Sergeyevich — who is that?

Peskov.

Ah! Okay. Dmitry Sergeyevich, all right.

Of course. A statement against him. So in the end, what is happening with this suit? Is it clear to you why…?

We filed it with the Presnensky District Court. And I still demand that Dmitry Sergeyevich apologize. Dmitry Sergeyevich, if you have decided to call him that, together with his boss he is a monstrous liar. He simply invents things. And already then, at that stage, it was clear that behind all this stood his boss Vladimir Putin, but now, it seems to me, there is irrefutable evidence of all this. Well, what else is left for them? So they lie, saying some monstrous things, which of course I am used to by now. But when such unequivocal statements are made, there it was, I quote: “We know that he works with CIA employees.” Well, if you know — then tell us. If I work with CIA officers — wow! — tell the whole country. Well, immediately after I said that I was suing him, he quieted down and did not repeat such things anymore. Our statement is in court, and we very much hope that it will be accepted and considered.

Let us move directly to the investigation.

First of all, of course, I wanted to say that I admire the humor with which you still, despite everything that is happening, made the video. And what feelings did you experience when you saw these faces?

For the first time.

That is an excellent question. Everyone asked me about this. None. I mean, I myself tried to understand. You look into the face of a person who tried to kill you — do I feel something or not? I feel nothing at all…

A whole group of faces, in fact, not just one.

Yes, a group of faces. Alexandrov, this little guy with the mustache — he can be considered the direct killer together with Osipov, who was there. Makshakov played a key role. It is clear that they are all a group of killers, but this mustached товарищ in glasses, he is literally the one whose face you need to peer into… And understand what I feel when doing that — I feel nothing. I was even a little disappointed myself. I don’t know, somehow I just have no feeling… no desire to tear this piece of paper up, or anything else. Probably this is connected with the fact that it still took quite a long time for it to sink in. When I woke up in the hospital, for the first few weeks I was not interested in this at all, and I could barely think at all then. And Yulia, after quite a long time, explained to me everything that had happened. It feels as if all this happened not to me, so… Maybe someday I will feel differently, but for now I do not have any big emotions.

Yes, in general, when you watch your investigation — it really is like a movie. By the way, have you thought about selling the rights for a screen adaptation, for a book — no, are there not already lines of agents?

Well, there really are… a lot of inquiries. Indeed, the story is completely Hollywood, I would even say cooler than Hollywood. That is, if I saw such a movie, I would say: well, of course, they exaggerated, guys. This cannot happen — all that happened in Kaliningrad, then in Moscow… And I think some more details will come out later. And this whole cover-up operation with the involvement of doctors at the highest level, your… our Dmitry Sergeyevich and Putin — this is, of course, an absolutely fantastic story. Yes, it is interesting who would play me. Maybe Al Pacino.

Naturally, who else — Bezrukov. What are you talking about!

Daniel Craig comes to mind for some reason.

That is interesting, of course.

Let us pause here for commercials, and then we will talk about those very details Alexei Navalny mentioned.

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Politician Alexei Navalny, or the “Berlin patient,” as they like to call him in our country. Maxim Kurnikov and Irina Babloyan.

A great deal in the investigation is based on the billing of telephone conversations and passport data. A very frequent question about your investigation: is it really possible just like that to buy data on people who work for the FSB?

It is possible to buy people’s data. That is precisely why in my video I showed — you can see links to a huge number of websites that trade in people’s data. And whether you, Maxim, work at Echo of Moscow or work in the FSB, the person who sells billing data does not see that. We simply give a phone number… not we — someone gives him a phone number and says: “Please give us the billing for 3 months.” He says: “7 thousand rubles,” and gives it to you. You understand, there is no note opposite every person, opposite every number saying “FSB employee.” Simply, let us think logically — then any police officer and all people who have access to this data could identify all FSB employees.

A. Navalny: The use of chemical weapons is a fact that really worries everyone. Regardless of me

Maybe it does not say “FSB”… I apologize for referring to yesterday’s broadcast with Kashin — he was with Plyushchev yesterday — and he said that once he tried to buy something, and for some things they say: “Sorry, there is a block on this person. I can’t give it to you.”

Anyone who says that is, of course, simply lying, he did not try to buy anything. You can simply talk to any investigative journalist who has worked with this kind of data. There cannot be any markings. Otherwise, by these markings… it would have been easier for us, we would simply have seen that all the phone numbers that “follow” me all have markings of FSB employees. And there would be no need to prove anything. It is simply arranged quite differently. The entire investigation is built 60% on flight data, which almost any operative in the country has access to. This is fairly easily accessible information. And the billings of telephone conversations. These are not the phone conversations, not the contents of text messages. These are simply billings: who called whom. And again, you can talk to any police officer. This is the very basis of investigating any crime — if any police officer in the country wants to solve a crime or, for example, carries out some illegal surveillance of his wife at the husband’s request, he simply gets these billings and trades these billings left and right. That is exactly why at the very beginning I thanked Irina Yarovaya, thanks to whom this data is stored. And this is actually a big business, primarily for the same FSB officers. They sell this data. It is available to any heads of security services of any companies, former FSB men. It is a very big business of trading in data. And you simply give a phone number — and they give you the billings. That’s all.

Alexei, I simply always hoped that you were a moral politician, you know, like Vaclav Havel, and that you would not use illegal methods. From the point of view of ethics, for a politician running for president, in this situation, to use such methods — is that okay or not okay?

From the ethical point of view, Bellingcat conducted a great investigation. And they obtained the data, this raw data. You understand why I do not have the slightest doubt about a single fact — first, we worked on this investigation with Bellingcat for a month, second, Grozev simply sat next to me with his laptop, and I simply saw with my own eyes how all this was done. And it is simply amazing work. It is simply painstaking analysis of a huge amount of data. There are hundreds of thousands of records there, all of them have to be analyzed and compared.

So, in general, bribery does not bother you in this situation?

In this situation I am not going to say bribery or not bribery, because I know specifically how they obtained the data, but that is their business. I think one should look at the essence of the investigation, not the mechanics of obtaining the data. The essence of the investigation is that a group of FSB officers, an entire department, followed me for almost four years and tried several times to kill me. Therefore, under conditions where billing data is freely sold on the market, and this is sold by FSB officers, police officers, I see no problem in using this data.

Alexei, in the investigation you say that this was done on Vladimir Putin’s orders. Do you have any doubts, that is, does it even for a second cross your mind that Vladimir Vladimirovich might have known nothing at all about it?

Maybe, in fact, he is not the one managing the situation.

Is Alexei Alexeyevich Venediktov managing the situation or Dmitry Sergeyevich Peskov? Well, no, I do not have the slightest doubt, of course not. Because when we traced this whole chain and saw that it was not just that there were three people — two went two or three times — then one could assume that someone through his own security service chief bribed three FSB men, they theoretically found this “Novichok” somewhere, went, smeared it on, and left. But here we see an operation lasting, I repeat, almost 4 years, involving dozens of people, involving FSB generals. And we understand how this works. And this is a formal operation. This is not that they met in the Daisy cafe and hinted something to each other. This was a formal operation, in which, after the attempted murder, just imagine how many police officers, FSB units on the ground were involved to cover all this up. This is a formal operation that the FSB carried out precisely as a state task. And, of course, Bortnikov would never have done such a thing, because this is a real terrorist act without exaggeration, literally under the Criminal Code. They would never have done this without Putin’s order.

I saw another version. Why do you think these FSB officers were not just unprofessional, did their job badly, but at the same time were flying with you and accompanying you, maybe even guarding you, and in the end simply failed to keep track? Remember, at the very beginning Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote that yes, indeed, they were following you: here are all the movements, here are all the checks that existed. But they simply failed to keep track.

They were trying to protect you all this time.

Maybe indeed it was just a group accompanying you.

That is actually excellent reasoning, because indeed there were FSB officers who were following me. Every time I arrive, the local FSB follows me together with the local police. But that external surveillance works as external surveillance. These flew on different flights. That is, one could assume that they traveled to save me in case of a chemical attack. I think they may well come up with something like that. These are chemists and doctors from the FSB, who communicate with the manufacturer of “Novichok,” who followed me, I repeat, for almost 4 years. It is clear why they were traveling. Wherever they arrived, they were near the places where these murder attempts were carried out. So this is simply an operation. In a routine manner they held a meeting, I do not know, in the Security Council, decided to do this after I ran in the election. They decided to kill me. Then there was a responsible person, an action plan, deadlines. General Bogdanov is directly responsible for organizing it. Makshakov is engaged in forming the team. Tayakin is the coordinator. Here in your group are doctors, here are chemists, here are operatives. And this is directly… we can see everything. Therefore it is precisely a planned, very clear operation. But the fact that it failed… We simply know little about how the FSB works and, accordingly, know little about their failures. And their successes are mainly what Bortnikov reports in some briefings: “We neutralized so many terrorists” — this, as we ourselves understand, is mostly lies. As I said in my video, the country has completely degraded over 20 years, so the FSB has degraded to exactly the same extent as the Ministry of Agriculture.

A. Navalny: The fact that I survived the last time is pure chance. It was the landed plane

Please understand me correctly, I am very, incredibly glad that you are alive, but people will tell you that they tried for so long — and still they failed. If they had wanted to kill you, they would have killed you. Maybe, really… Well, forgive me for such cynicism. There are such possibilities. Maybe they just wanted to expel you from the country. There is such a version too.

Do you allow for such a possibility?

Irina, there is no need to apologize. Everyone discusses this constantly. The thing is that the fact I survived the last time is precisely pure chance. It was the landed plane. I was supposed to fly another 2.5 hours, and I would certainly have died on that plane in about 45 minutes. CNN, which were participants in this investigation, interviewed some super-cool chemist guy. And he told them a very important thing — in order to understand what was happening — it is impossible to make an exact dosage outside a laboratory. It is always in some sense Russian roulette. You cannot calculate the amount of substance. And it is very scary to put more, because it may mean instant death and possible harm to others. So the whole thing was conceived well. If you kill him — he dies. And if you do not kill him — then he does not even understand anything, which happened to me twice. You really understand nothing, you tell no one, because it is such a strange thing. And so the last Tomsk operation was designed well. The pilots simply landed the plane so quickly… They turned back, they flew past Tomsk, turned back, landed the plane. And the doctors who arrived quickly gave me an atropine injection. Actually, that chemist said exactly this, that you can accurately calculate the dosage if these are laboratory conditions — a mouse or a person whose metabolism rate, working conditions, and everything else you understand — but in field conditions it is simply very hard to do.

I cannot believe it — Alexei Navalny is sitting here and saying that the operation to kill him was planned very well. He rated the planning of the operation highly.

I rated the planning highly, but the execution — so-so.

We will now listen to the news, and after the news we will return to the studio and continue talking with Alexei Navalny.

NEWS

Maxim Kurnikov, Irina Babloyan, politician Alexei Navalny is with us on the line.

Answering the questions that arose in connection with the investigation.

+7-985-970-45-45 is the phone number for your questions. If we have time, we will ask them. Alexei, in the investigation you talk about one person who lives in the same building as you. How is that possible? Have you ever seen him?

An amazing thing. To be honest, we still do not understand: either this is some kind of coincidence, which I find very hard to believe. But all we know is that suddenly, when we were checking (I think Pevchikh was doing it, actually), we looked at where he lives. Registered address — Lubyanka. It is clear who he is — registered at an operational address. We look at the previous registration: Lyublinskaya, 175 — my building! The neighboring entrance! But I have still lived in that building for 20 years. This Panyayev, I think, was born in 1980. That is, I should have seen him many times. Accordingly, Yulia should have seen him many times, my children — Dasha, at least, should have seen him many times. But I do not remember such a person. It is hard for me to imagine that there could be such a coincidence, that one of the killers who flew with me so many times lived in the neighboring entrance. So far we do not know. That is why I said it is some kind of Hollywood story.

And when was he registered there? Can you somehow...?

Well, I will not tell the details now, but he has been registered there for a long time. And at first glance it simply looks as if he is registered there. Maybe it is forged. After all, we know that they know how to erase themselves from databases and instead of themselves put “Russian Federation” or simply some code. Maybe they entered him there, maybe not. We even have a dispute about this topic internally. I will not tell the details yet...

For now it is a gray area.

Yes. But honestly, it looks wild. Just super wild.

Another question. Why did some of them have altered names, and some not?

They all had altered names. It’s just that at the stage when we were recording the video, we deciphered two of them. Already in the Bellingcat investigation, I think, 4 cover passports are mentioned.

But on that very flight from Tomsk, where it all begins, one person flies as if under his own name.

A. Navalny: We see an operation lasting almost 4 years, involving dozens of people

Panyayev, whom we found. It is hard to understand this system. They flew many, many times, dozens of times together with me, in different combinations. Sometimes they used cover passports, sometimes they used real passports. Sometimes they flew there on cover passports and back on real ones. In some sense this is not a bad idea, because it made it harder for us to understand. Because one thing is when you take only one name and see: the person flew there, flew back. But here he flew there, and coming back we simply do not see how he returned. Sometimes they flew there to one city and returned from another. That is, all of this was done in order to confuse everything. And as I explain in my investigation, they got cover passports, arranged them several months after the start of the operation, and used different ones in different ways. Apparently simply to make them harder to find.

And how did you decipher this code? Well, it is clear that it turned out not to be very complicated, but how did you feel your way to it, who did it?

We simply compared things — first of all the year of birth. They changed not the year of birth but the date of birth. They kept the day. Look, this is a thought experiment. Here is a plane. If you know that some FSB operatives were very likely flying on the plane, then you simply look there for men aged 27 to 50. Already a large part of the passengers is eliminated. Then you simply look, analyze years of birth and dates of birth, similar patronymics. As I already said, this investigation is amazing not because of where they got the data from (although that is also great work), but because of how they analyzed all of it. It is simply many, many hours of painstaking work, data analysis. You know, like in the movies A Beautiful Mind or something like that, people go crazy, build all these strings and lines. It was very close to that.

Another question: why did they turn on the phone? Do you have any understanding of why it turned on for some second? They could have worked with airplane mode off entirely, through wi-fi, through messengers and so on.

First of all, they did work through messengers. It seems the murder coordinator Tayakin corresponded through a messenger. We simply see from the billing that he used a messenger, but we do not understand to whom he is writing through the messenger.

Most likely you do not even see that he used a messenger — you simply see small traffic, as I understand it.

No, we see traffic details and can understand that he used a messenger. But in fact this does not give us any special information. This is connected with the fact that the FSB apparently believes that using a messenger is more dangerous, because some Pavel Durov in the case of Telegram or Zuckerberg simply reads all their messages in WhatsApp or Telegram. We do not know whether he reads them or not. But obviously they think that the probability that their SMS from an ordinary phone will be intercepted is lower than intercepting their message in WhatsApp. That is precisely why they used phones. And why specifically Alexandrov sometimes turned on his mobile phone — that is also quite explainable. You travel for 4 years, and it is clear that over 4 years (almost 4 years) you lose vigilance one way or another. Well, you went somewhere. You have, I don’t know, a sick grandmother. Or a child, or something else. Or a dog. Anything can happen. And for several days you simply turn on the phone a couple of times so that your relatives send you those messages. You receive them, read them, and that is all. And then you can use wi-fi, or whatever, or an operational phone. In principle, when they went out on a job, they always used operational phones. Which, in principle, can also be calculated, because they contact each other. But the person just relaxed. Just note: one person — this very killer Alexandrov — gave away his location in Gorno-Altaysk, in Novosibirsk, and in Tomsk. Therefore by geolocation we see a specific place. And by the tickets we see where he flew.

On Sunday information appeared in The Sunday Times saying that there had allegedly been a second poisoning. Do you know anything? What do you know about this?

Did they ask you anything? Where did it come from, what is it?

No, it is some kind of very strange article, very strange information. I was very surprised when I read it. Not a single person I spoke with — I do not know, doctor, police officer — no one told me anything. I know nothing about it. It all looks rather strange.

Next question about the billings. Where did you get them? I mean, how can you know that one source gave them to you? Did you order from several sources? How can these billings be verified, after all?

We ordered billings?! Come on, that would have been illegal.

Well, Bellingcat — they even have that word in the name, they can afford it.

A. Navalny: The whole investigation is built 60% on flight data, which almost any operative has access to

But they are Belling, not Billing. Bellingcat was engaged in looking for this data. We saw where it came from. It is not one source, and it is absolutely reliable. That is, we saw, traced — well, except for that phone, everything is real. Therefore there is no discussion here at all, no doubts. But we were not engaged in searching for data, data for analysis. We participated in this work together with Bellingcat over the last month, a little more. First we verified, then together with them we worked on it. But we were not engaged in searching for the data itself. We simply tracked where it was coming from. And it was not only us who did this. We understood that there would be many questions about this investigation, so it is very important that Spiegel, El Pais, and CNN, who spent a lot of time, checked exactly the same thing. Actually, yesterday’s funny report where they break into the apartment of this coordinator Tayakin — actually, Tayakin’s phone and the location of his apartment were found in this way.

Alexei, now that you have all this in your hands, what are you going to do next? Are you counting on some kind of international investigation?

An official one, not in the media sense.

Well, there can be no international investigation. That is what is astonishing about what happened, because no country and no special service can do anything. A Russian citizen was poisoned by other Russian citizens on a Russian plane flying over Siberia. There can be no international investigation of this very fact. Another matter is the use of chemical weapons. This is a fact that really worries everyone. Regardless of me, once the use of chemical weapons, which are prohibited, has been proven. This means that... Russia (let me just remind you) was one of the initiating countries for the destruction of chemical weapons. We spent a lot of time on this. Russia was one of the creators of this OPCW, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. And among other things thanks to our country, the whole world is so nervous about the existence of chemical weapons. And then bang! — it turned out that they exist. An international investigation in this sense has been conducted. The OPCW itself conducted an investigation and confirmed that chemical weapons were used. But there is no international gendarme that can conduct this investigation. We are going to do what law-abiding citizens can do. Here is the data, here will be a crime report — let them investigate.

Although, as we know, in 2017 the last piece of these chemical weapons was destroyed, as we were officially told.

In a solemn atmosphere. Yes-yes, “I order it destroyed,” and everything else. And Putin very joyfully declared that we had destroyed all of it. Kiriyenko was responsible, who is now responsible for domestic policy.

Therefore I am sure they were simply misled, deceived. They were sure that all this had been destroyed. Let me remind you that Alexei Navalny is answering questions, including those of our listeners. Alexei, the most popular question — I don’t know whether you will guess it or not, but let’s not waste time on guessing now: how are you going to return after this? Do you understand that with such an investigation you have closed the road to Russia for yourself? Exactly this wording from Vladimir in Moscow.

How am I going to return? Let me think. Probably I will buy a ticket. I will get on a plane. I will arrive at Sheremetyevo and see Maxim Kurnikov and Irina Babloyan there meeting me with a microphone and perhaps even with flowers.

Well, that is if we do not have a broadcast at that time.

I do not understand why I closed the road for myself with this investigation. Well okay, that is not my problem. That is Putin’s problem, who obviously hates me and, let us say, in my person all the people who disagree with corruption, who disagree with the usurpation of power. Therefore he decided to send all these people such a message by killing me. But such people still remain in Russia. There are many millions of them. And probably there will now be even more of them after this crime has been exposed. Therefore I am returning to Russia, which is my country, where I enjoy quite a lot of support, and I am very grateful to the people who support me. I have things to do in my country.

But when, you are not yet ready to say.

I am ready to say, but that question is not for me, it is a question for the doctors. I will just take tests, and they will tell me: like, everything is okay, you can go and boldly go on the air of Echo of Moscow. And if Maxim Kurnikov gives you tea with “Novichok,” then at least you have a small chance of surviving. Then I will return.

Since we have started talking, including in that vein, about who works for whom, do I understand correctly that from your investigation it is essentially established that all these organizations like SERB and so on are not connected with the FSB?

Why?

Because they attacked you at the time when the FSB guys were waiting for you in Astrakhan.

Ah, no, all these organizations that splashed me with brilliant green?

A. Navalny: If I saw such a movie, I would say: well, of course, they exaggerated, such a thing cannot happen

Yes-yes.

They work for the police. It is just necessary here to understand very well that there are many different organizations. Of course, the fact that there are groups of killers inside the FSB was known to quite a large number of people, because this is an entire department. But certainly not to the whole FSB. Inside this organization, perhaps its most secret part is engaged in murders. And, generally speaking, I certainly was not their only target. Therefore, of course, all these little guys who threw eggs at me in every airport, splashed me with brilliant green — they simply work for the political side, for some division of the administration. They work under police cover. Actually, all these brilliant-green splashers — they stand at every rally, and the police protect them. We simply see it with our own eyes. And the Moscow police refused and still refuse to investigate the fact that I almost lost an eye there. But these are just some small-time guys working for the police. And the FSB handles the murders.

Alexei, you said (surely not everyone knows this) that there are different groups. In fact, when people talked about “Novichok” in connection with the Skripals, the FSB, generally speaking, was not mentioned. The GRU was mentioned. Remember, there were also many jokes on this subject: that the British do not know that all of this has been disbanded here, and so on. Still, are there different special services that compete with each other? That is first. And second, you said the phrase: I am definitely not the only person they tried to kill this way. Why do you state that so confidently? Two parts to this question.

I state this so confidently because, first, I know something. And second, recently, obviously, everyone knows about poisoning cases. Kara-Murza — twice, Verzilov. All these people were at death’s door, also all lay in a coma — and also no investigations. We are simply told: “You know...” In Verzilov’s case — he is 31 or something. Kara-Murza is younger than me. And suddenly people just bam! — and lie in a coma for several days. Well, fell ill. Therefore there is not the slightest doubt that these people were also poisoned. And I think (not think, but know) and, honestly speaking, I have no doubt that this investigation will continue to develop. That they killed some people. This murder department is much larger. As I said in my investigation, this specific group that followed me for 4 years — they were dealing with me. It was formed. You know, “we are forming a working group for the murder of Navalny, and we include such-and-such people in the working group.” Why are you laughing? That is exactly how it is. This is just an ordinary meeting. So they formed this working group. How many such working groups there are, we do not know exactly. But it is not one, I guarantee you. And as for competition among special services, it is not even competition. That is why there are different special services. There is the FSB, which deals with internal affairs, there is military intelligence, the GRU, there is simply intelligence — the Foreign Intelligence Service. Therefore it is clear that this must be different training. In order to kill someone…

So once again: you and the Skripals were poisoned by different groups? Maybe even different structures?

No, that is not an assumption. That is how it is. Because in order to kill a person in Tomsk, you must have different skills than to kill a person in London. Of course, in London or Salisbury it is much more difficult to do. In Tomsk you do whatever you want. You come and seize the video recording, which they did. You come, show your ID, take the clothes. And there will be no investigation here. But in order to kill a person abroad, you still must possess some operational skills, a special passport. You must be an intelligence officer, a spy — however you want to call it. Therefore, of course, such operations are carried out by people who are trained and taught to act abroad. And inside Russia they can do whatever they want. Here the FSB handles it.

Alexei, now the most important thing: what next? What legal steps will you take in the coming days in order to achieve an investigation?

I will not tell you anything sensational here. I open the Criminal Procedure Code. I get to the article “Crime report.” And in accordance with the article of the Criminal Procedure Code we make a crime report, which will be sent both to the Investigative Committee and to the FSB. You can, of course, laugh here as much as you want, but actually there is no other procedure. Yes, we know for sure that it was the FSB that organized the murder. We know that the head of state, President Putin, gave the order to commit this murder.

How do you know that? You cannot know that.

We know this because we know how the FSB is structured. You understand, I exclude the possibility that some program on Echo of Moscow could be on the air for 4 years and Venediktov would not know about it.

Very much in vain!

Well, I know. I assume that Kurnikov and Babloyan cannot burst into the broadcast and do a program without Venediktov knowing. Or something else. Or that Plyushchev can do it at night for 2 months. But for 4 years such a program to be on the air, and guests to appear on it, and other media to quote them — that cannot happen. The same cannot happen in the FSB. We know for sure that Putin still not only gives instructions to Bortnikov — he runs the FSB in such an operational mode. He meets with Bortnikov’s deputies, with department heads. The FSB is the main structure. This crazy paranoid man in the bunker does nothing but run his favorite...

A. Navalny: It is simply painstaking analysis of a huge amount of data. There are hundreds of thousands of records there

There was a refutation about the bunker: there is no bunker.

There is no bunker? Fine, and there are no identical offices in Sochi and Novo-Ogaryovo either?

There was such a statement too.

Well, there was. What kind of statement is that? There are completely identical photographs. Sorry, such a long answer to your question. We understand that the system did all this. But formal steps can only be taken this way.

Sergey asks you how you plan to protect yourself upon returning home.

Protect myself? Well, how can I, listen, what kind of question is that?

Hire security.

And what will it do? Eat all my food and carry all my clothes?

An umbrella over you.

Lick the walls in hotels? Competing with the state is rather pointless. I do not need to be protected from anything.

A question. You said everything correctly about doctors, but here is just a specific question: will you return before the State Duma elections, and will you participate in the elections to the State Duma?

Discussing timing is pointless, because I do not know myself. I am sitting exactly like you are. I regularly take various tests. People are simply looking at my recovery dynamics, which are much faster than everyone expected. That is, everyone expected that I would now be in a wheelchair (which would have been a great development of events), but I walk on my own feet and even run a little. Therefore when everything is okay, then I will return. That is, this is a question where I, unfortunately, am doing everything. I spend whole days jumping around, doing some physiotherapy in order to return as quickly as possible. But I cannot name a date.

Accordingly, we also leave the State Duma elections without an answer: whether you will or will not go and participate in them.

But I am prohibited. Hello, Maxim. In accordance...

No, but you understand that participation can take different forms. Again, one can travel around the regions. We recall different stories.

Participate in the sense of whether I will try to influence the State Duma elections — of course, yes. I will do everything to help normal candidates. I will do everything so that as few disgusting United Russia candidates as possible get elected. That is precisely why even in yesterday’s video… We had a whole quarrel with our investigations department, who said: “How sick we are of your smart voting!”

A. Navalny: I have minor problems, but the dynamics, as the doctors say, are positive, so I will recover and come back

I noticed. I thought: wow, he even managed to stick it in here.

“Could you maybe not insert it here?” I said: “No, I have to say something here about smart voting.” Because United Russia is, whichever way you turn it, the political roof over all the nastiness happening in the country. Therefore, of course, I will influence it. But I am prohibited from participating. Well, fine. Lord, I can manage without it — I do not need a deputy’s mandate.

This was Alexei Navalny on the air of the radio station Echo of Moscow.