Forgery is the main—and only—thing the Kremlin has learned to do. Under Putin, we will never have rising household incomes or decent roads, whether highways or high-speed rail. ⠀ Nor will we have healthcare or veterans’ pensions like in Germany. They do not know how to provide that, and most sadly of all, the authorities are not even trying. But they lie with gusto, imagination, and swagger. ⠀ I’m saying this because the other day NTV “journalists” released a film about the “evidence in the Network case.” ⠀ To recap, the “Network case” involved young airsoft enthusiasts from Penza and St. Petersburg. They were drawn to anarchist ideology and created some kind of naive imitation of a secret organization. ⠀ They were arrested and subjected to inhuman torture. Under torture, they were forced to confess to creating a terrorist organization. They were then imprisoned and given monstrous sentences ranging from 12 to 18 years. ⠀ There is NOT A SINGLE VICTIM in the case. There are no fingerprints on the “seized” weapons. And then there is the torture, which the “judges” refused to take into account. ⠀ People are outraged. In Moscow and other cities, hundreds have been staging one-person pickets. Today, several bookstores across the country even announced a one-day strike in protest. ⠀ And now the NTV people, trying to sway public opinion, are fabricating the same kind of murky evidence. ⠀ You cannot trust them for a single second. All this “evidence” is of exactly the same kind as the recent shocking “investigation” claiming that U.S. Embassy cars are always there to meet me. ⠀ Here is a photo of Navalny. Here is a photo of an SUV. And here is some bald money-grubber labeled “political scientist,” explaining how terrible it all is. ⠀ And with the “Network case,” it is exactly the same—except this is not just a lying report, but several young lives destroyed. What are they in prison for? For another star on the shoulder board of the general who ordered a nonexistent terrorist group to be invented. For a line in Putin’s report, so that from some podium he can once again lie that “during the reporting period, the activities of such-and-such number of terrorist organizations were thwarted in Russia.” All defendants in the “Network case” must be released immediately. All those who tortured them must be arrested immediately and put on trial.