Alexei Navalny’s Interview with Alexei Mazur

I’m not waiting for a perfect world to arrive.

A perfect world will never come if

we do not fight for it. We need

to fight right here and right now.

Alexei Navalny was born on June 4,

1976, in the military settlement of Butyn

in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region.

In 1998, he graduated from the law faculty of RUDN University. In

December 2010, he launched the RosPil project. In

September 2011, he founded the Anti-Corruption

Foundation (ACF). In December 2011, he became

one of the leaders of the white-ribbon protest

movement. He took part in the 2013

Moscow mayoral election. He finished second,

winning 27.24%

of the vote. Since the late 2000s, he has appeared

as a defendant, witness, and subject of investigation

in a number of criminal, administrative, and

commercial court cases. Convicted three times.

He received suspended sentences and does not admit guilt. Since

November 17, 2013, he has headed the Central

Council of the liberal political party

Progress Party. He is married and raising

two children.

Today we have an unusual guest on the program,

Alexei Navalny. Hello,

Alexei.

Good afternoon. Usually, when you say “unusual guest,”

you mean some kind of circus

performer or someone like that. I work in a more

traditional genre.

Well, for Novosibirsk, [laughter] how should I put it?

Especially since for three years you had been stuck

in one place.

in Moscow without leaving, for reasons beyond

your control. Thank you for

coming to speak with us. Let’s start with

the past. In 2011, it seemed that in

Russia a renewal had begun, and many

people took to the streets; there were large

opposition rallies, with your

participation—if not to say leadership.

And today, three years later—more than three,

in fact—we see in the opposition camp

confusion and wavering, while reaction is triumphing,

so to speak, and, well, the prospects are

unclear. So here is my question in that regard.

Did this happen because of objective circumstances,

or were there some mistakes by the opposition,

three years ago?

As for 2011, those

protest actions, those protest

rallies, took place in a different country; they

were fighting the regime of a different country. Russia

in 2011 and Russia in 2015 are completely different

countries with completely different political

regimes. That is why the protests of 2011–2012

in some sense achieved their

goals,

because they changed the political

regime. You remember that Medvedev’s constitutional

reform was announced, the procedure for registering

political parties was eased,

and for a short time there were nominally direct

elections of governors introduced,

and so on and so forth.

In other words, many promises were made.

But then, at some point, the authorities

realized that all these democratic

changes would simply lead to

their being removed from power

in fair elections by the very parties

they had allowed

to register. And the political regime

was changed. Russia in 2015 is a country

with many political prisoners.

In 2011, effectively the only well-known

political prisoner was

Khodorkovsky. Russia in 2015 is a country

where almost no opposition is allowed

onto the ballot at all. It is a country where,

for example, I am banned from taking part in

elections altogether, Khodorkovsky is

banned from participating altogether, and so are

many other people. So drawing any

direct analogies here is, well, not very

appropriate. Those protests could not and cannot

stand up to the now fully

authoritarian system that

has taken shape now, in 2015, when the

country is actually, well, waging a war. Could

anyone in 2011 have imagined that,

when in 2011 President

Putin was saying that NATO was our

ally, that Ukraine should remain indivisible,

and that any territorial claims against

neighboring countries were impossible? In

2015, we see different

rhetoric; it is simply a different country.

Of course, back then, in 2011 and

2012, the opposition

made some mistakes. If those

mistakes had not been made, we would probably

not be in the situation

we are in now. But overall I want

to say that we need to stop dwelling on that.

We need to stop living by

romantic notions. Ah, if only

in 2011 we had done

something differently, gone to

a different place for a rally, then everything

would have changed. We live here and now, and

the regime is completely different, and now we

must do everything in our power

to steer the country in the right

direction, because right now it is developing

in a completely wrong way. The opposition is not

in disarray and confusion; that is

a mistaken impression. It has simply been

pushed outside the legal framework. A huge

number of opposition politicians,

myself included, have been labeled the so-called

non-systemic opposition. But what is

the non-systemic opposition? It simply means we are

forbidden from taking part in elections. Why

are there 74 parties, 70 of which are some kind of

strange parties with obscure

names are allowed to take part

in elections? But the Party of Progress, which

even according to official polls—Levada

and FOM—is in fourth place

in popularity, is banned from taking part in

elections and has even been officially

dissolved. We are simply operating in a different

political system, but that does not

mean we should give in to

despair, look back nostalgically on

2011, and agonize over it. No,

here and now we can do a great deal.

This country today, which, as you

say, is completely different from what it was in 2015,

is made up of the same people. Well,

roughly speaking. Of course, there are

new people, some have died, and the authorities are made up

of the same individuals personally. I mean,

only two people there have switched

places, but otherwise everything is still the

same. So, well, it turns out,

the agenda is different, a different agenda. We could not

have imagined it, no one could

have imagined that there would be a war with

Ukraine. If back in 2011

someone had told us that Russia would

be waging war against Ukraine, we would have simply

thought they were crazy. Nevertheless,

it is really happening. And we are now living

under sanctions, in conditions of

real confrontation with the European

Union, which until quite recently was our

main partner, and Germany was our

closest friend. Now we have been thrown out of

the G8 and so on, and so

forth. The rhetoric has changed, and our

government—the main difference is that our government

has realized that the only way for it

to survive, to preserve this

power and use it for its own

personal illegal enrichment,

is simply to

mobilize everyone around the war,

around some kind of island that

everyone is attacking. And we can see that the real

political agenda has, well,

been pushed aside. For example, it is even

interesting to trace this in our

interview. In Novosibirsk there are a lot of issues

concerning Novosibirsk Oblast, the real

political agenda. But everyone asks me

about the war, about the West, about

relations, because the authorities are deliberately

pushing aside the real issues that

should concern the public, issues to which

they have no answers, replacing them with

questions for which they simply

invent some tales about how

the whole world is supposedly preparing to

attack us.

Well, it would be strange to expect you to have

deep immersion in the Novosibirsk

agenda. That is, I do not have a deep

grasp of the Novosibirsk agenda either, but

our democratic coalition,

which is running in the elections on the basis of the party

RPR-PARNAS, has a very clear and

direct proposal that concerns

the regional agenda as a whole. The main thing

we are taking into this election is the slogan

of decentralization: that money and

powers should remain where

people live. For Novosibirsk Oblast

this means very specific things.

We demand, and we want

Novosibirsk Oblast and Novosibirsk

deputies to demand this officially:

that 40% of the VAT collected here,

in Novosibirsk Oblast—which is now

sent 100% to Moscow—should remain

here; that 60% of the excise taxes

collected here, in Novosibirsk

Oblast, should stay here as well; and that 15% of the mineral extraction tax

should remain here. This would bring

several billion additional

rubles, which Novosibirsk badly needs.

This is the Novosibirsk agenda; it is also

the Kostroma agenda, the Kaluga agenda. It is

a regional agenda in general. This is

the main thing we are taking into the election. We

are saying: enough of Moscow—I mean

Moscow as the federal center—acting like a

vacuum cleaner sucking everything out of the regions,

because it is absurd that

Novosibirsk Oblast is considered a

subsidized region. Why is it

subsidized? Who made it subsidized?

By every objective measure—industrial development,

education, population size—

Novosibirsk Oblast is a

self-sufficient region. It is a

donor region that earns money. And we

want that money to stay here

without much damage, incidentally,

to the federal center. That is why we are confident

that this agenda will resonate in the minds and

hearts of the residents of Novosibirsk Oblast.

Do you have a plan? I mean, the situation is

as you have described it, well,

let us assume the agenda has changed completely,

the public has been mobilized around the

situation with Ukraine. By the way, there is also

a disputed view as to whether Russia is

waging a war or not. Officially

it is not at war. There is, so to speak,

an obvious trend on the part of the authorities to clamp down on everything,

to let nothing through, and so on. So what,

strictly speaking, is the positive plan

for a way out?

The plan is very simple. We talked about this

2 years ago, 3 years ago. We have

specific, positive, very specific

proposals that

every region of Russia needs, and that

Novosibirsk Oblast, as a

self-sufficient region, may need

above all. We have set out specific

draft laws on this issue. In these

elections in Novosibirsk Region

we are trying to reinvent the opposition so

that the opposition—the democratic

opposition—goes into the elections not simply with

some list approved in

Moscow, but with one that will be chosen through

primaries in which

the region’s residents themselves will take part. The faces of the opposition

will be determined by the residents of Novosibirsk

Region, not appointed by Navalny,

Kasyanov, or anyone else. That is the first point.

Second. We believe that our deputies

will undoubtedly win seats in the Legislative

Assembly and in the city council in

Novosibirsk. They will be the main

driving force in persuading

your fairly strong opposition—

the Communists and A Just Russia—

and forcing United Russia to adopt these

measures that are supported by all

the region’s residents. Because according to our

polling, and any other public opinion surveys,

we know for certain that the residents of

Novosibirsk Region, first of all,

demand that more money and more

powers remain here rather than

being siphoned off to Moscow. We simply know this

is a real public demand.

Second, we know that they demand

a fight against corruption. This is one of our

main priorities. And we can

guarantee that the people who

become deputies from our side will truly

become guardians of the budget, who will

either prevent or seriously

hamper corruption. We know

for certain that in Novosibirsk Region

and in the city of Novosibirsk there are strong

democratic traditions. And here

the population is unquestionably in favor of

direct elections of city mayors,

the free right to take part in peaceful

demonstrations, and the independence of the mass

media. This is the agenda on which

85% of the population is with us. Our plan is

to talk about these real problems,

mobilize our voters, hold

primaries, and make sure that in the

Legislative Assembly there is a very powerful

opposition that will force the authorities

to change for the better.

Alexei, everything you’re saying sounds great,

but there are some small problems,

nuances.

Nuances, yes. And one of them is that

you said, for example, that you do not

know the candidates from the

democratic coalition who are taking part in the

primaries, except for Artyom Loskutov,

whom you have seen once. And yet here you are

telling us that they will be

guardians of the budget, that they will do

this and that. I wouldn’t vouch for even one

out of ten of my acquaintances, even the very

best ones, being able, as a

deputy, to do this kind of work

well. But you are seeing these people

for the first time and saying they will. So

what, exactly, is that confidence

based on?

On the fact that I believe in democracy. I believe

that out of five people, out of 14 or 13

people who registered for the

primaries, the region’s residents themselves will choose

the very best. And it is wonderful that I

do not know those taking part—I have not

personally known those participating in the

primaries—because that shows

that they are real. You have to admit,

there has never been a case where the leaders

of a party or the leaders of some coalition did not

know their own election lists even though

the election was near. That has never happened. But

we are proud that we do not know. We

are proud of it; I gladly repeat this

over and over, that I am happy

that I do not know who will be on the list. Whatever

the residents of Novosibirsk Region decide, that is how

it will be. Random people off the street do not

take part with us just like that. Everyone participating in these

preliminary elections are people

who share our values, who

sign certain

agreements. We have a set of

draft laws already written, so I

am confident that people of quality will be chosen,

people who are sincere and who will genuinely

work. Most importantly, they will

depend on the voters, not on me. They

will feel constant pressure

from their voters, whom they persuaded

to vote in the primaries. That is the most

important thing. There can be no other guarantee.

It is precisely the guarantee of democratic

elections that is the main thing that

forces a politician to be good,

hardworking, and effective.

There is also the problem that we have already had

honest elections, and there were candidates

who depended on the people.

There were

in that year

there were elections, anyone could run.

A great many got elected. There was no money then,

or not much of it. There was censorship, but it did not

have much influence at that moment. So many people

were newly elected who were supposedly all

from the people, who were supposed to depend

on the voters. They sold out within three years,

and starting in 1995, we

essentially no longer had normal

elections. There were elections bought with

money, and later simply through

administrative leverage. So we went from

a situation where there were competitive,

honest elections, freedom of speech, freedom of

the media, and ended up with the system built under Putin.

not to the vertical power structure, but, so to speak, to the tightening of control over

elections and the monopolization of the information

space. So the question is: what

guarantees are there that now we won’t see the

same thing again, just on a smaller scale?

Well, I have a counter-question: are we really

such bad, hopeless, miserable people

that we don’t deserve anything better? What you

said, essentially, is exactly

the main shocking fact explaining why we

are obliged to do this now. You said that

our last fair elections were in

1990, 25 years ago. We have no

fair elections. That— that tells us

only one thing: that right now we must

do everything possible to bring back

fair elections. Of course, Yeltsin,

and the government of that time, unfortunately,

disappointed all of us in many ways. I

as a former ardent admirer of

Yeltsin—when I was studying, when I was a student,

I was a big fan of his. With great

disappointment, I look at how these

people really changed their colors, broke

everything, and created a system that

reproduces them, re-elects them

endlessly. But that doesn’t mean

that I should say: well, you know, for 25

years there have been no fair elections, so who cares.

Let there never be any. I want them

to exist; I have no other country. I

live here, my children live here. I know

one thing: I must do everything I can

to make fair elections return. I

know there are lots of people here, in

the Novosibirsk Region, in Moscow, in

Kaluga, in Ryazan, in Vladivostok—wherever

you like—who share this

idea too. You want fair

elections too, like any normal person.

So we will do everything we can.

We understand there is a danger that

a deputy gets elected and then changes sides. That is

precisely why we hold primaries,

because a deputy changes sides when

he depends only on his party

leader. We want deputies

to depend not on a party leader, not on

the party structure, not on the presidential

administration, but on the voters. When

everyone knows that democrats go into

elections and form their lists

in only one way—through primaries.

They will behave, or try to behave,

decently, because in the next

election they are guaranteed to lose out,

because there will be primaries again. There is no other,

you see, no other mechanism

exists. I can get any kind of papers

signed by them, but they will still

change sides if they want

to.

Alexei, there are necessary and

sufficient conditions. Yes, fair elections are a

necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

Back in 1990 there were already fair

elections. What else must there be, besides

fair elections?

We are working here and now. Of course,

fair elections are a necessary condition, but

not enough. We need fair courts.

We need to be allowed to take part in

elections. Do you understand? The paradox

is that if not long ago we were

demanding fair elections, now we are

demanding at least elections. In fact, the main

danger is not that we won’t

clear the threshold—we certainly will—

but that the main danger is

that they simply won’t let us onto the ballot.

So, of course, in an ideal world we would have

free elections, we would have

an honest judicial system, we would have

officials who are more inclined

to allow everyone to participate and to conduct these

elections fairly among all candidates and

parties. But that won’t happen. Nevertheless,

we know that the Novosibirsk

Region, for example, unlike

Tatarstan, does not have a strong tradition of

electoral fraud. In the Novosibirsk Region,

United Russia has traditionally

not exactly lost, but almost

lost in the city; in fact,

it has even regularly lost here, and this is

a place with an extremely low level of voting for

United Russia. The Novosibirsk Region is

one of the most educated regions, and

the city even more so. We know that here

we have our voters, there are people here

with democratic views. They are the people

we will try to rely on. I am not waiting for

the arrival of an ideal world. An ideal

world will never come if we do not

fight for it. We need to fight

right here and right now. [music]

Let’s move on to reality. Again, as you

say, the world is far from ideal,

and we understand that at best you

will get a faction of, say, three deputies in

the Legislative Assembly of Novosibirsk

Region. Well, maybe roughly

a similar faction in Kostroma and in

Kaluga. That’s out of 70 deputies. So

what can such a faction do? Well, basically

nothing. As practice shows,

they are simply ignored and no one

pays attention to such factions. In

electoral terms, you say: "You have

your own voter base in the Novosibirsk

Region; in Novosibirsk it is estimated at

eight to—well, the very, very

most optimistic estimates put it at 15% at the

moment. That’s not enough to change the world.

Yes,

those estimates are wrong. And none of this is

true. When I ran in the Moscow mayoral

election, they told me the same thing: "So what

What do you mean? Your electorate is 8% at most,

even after a successful election campaign

it will be 11% at most. Even so, I received

a third of the vote in the country's largest city

in the country. Here's the fact: polling

measures what existed yesterday, while real

elections show what exists today.

In the city of Novosibirsk

there are up to 40% of people who share our

views, who share the basic

values. Across the region as a whole, at least

30% are such people. They have no one

to vote for. They had no one

to vote for yesterday, the day before, as you yourself

say, since 1995. They have no one

to vote for. That is why we

are aiming for a much larger number of

voters. Simply because, as I

already said, our agenda is supported by

absolutely everyone. At the same time, this is

the paradox. Look,

everyone in the region—just about everyone, I don't

know, 90% of voters—says: "We

demand that more money stay in

the city of Novosibirsk, in Novosibirsk

Region, and not go to Moscow." But where is the

political force that says

that? There isn't one. The official position

of United Russia, which has taken over everything there,

is: "That's it, we'll hand the money over

to Moscow."

We will come in and represent those

voters who want exactly the same

thing. The same goes for, the same applies to

corruption, the same applies to

the election of city mayors, and so on. It is

very important that in our platform we

represent the interests of the majority, not

some marginal group or

some wonderful, progressive, but small 8%.

We are confident that we will create a large

faction if, uh, we manage to ensure that

we are allowed onto the ballot. As for

the saying that one man alone can't fight the battle—well, I can only recall

the late Nemtsov. He was alone in the

Yaroslavl regional legislature. He

brought down a corrupt deputy governor. He

fought for the interests of cancer patients,

turned the entire medical system there upside down,

and made sure that the medications cancer patients were entitled to

receive were provided

free of charge. One person was like a whole faction; the entire

region was talking about him. He was

the main, uh, newsmaker. Despite

the fact that Borya (Boris) was, of course, someone

extremely vulnerable to criticism. The 1990s,

former deputy prime minister, and so on, and

so on. There was a lot one could hold against him,

but we saw that one

truly active, sincere person

can do a great deal. And we

are absolutely certain that we will become

the most influential faction here, in

Novosibirsk Region. Besides, well, you have

a very specific region. After all, it was

you here, not us in Moscow, who elected

an opposition mayor. Never mind what kind of mayor he is,

what he has become now, and so on, but

he is genuinely one of the few mayors not from

United Russia. Here in Novosibirsk Region

United Russia candidates were getting fewer votes than

the Communists, and so on, and so on.

The balance of forces here is completely different. And we

are confident that we will be able to use,

on the one hand, the voters' desire

for real change and, on the other hand,

the existing balance of forces in order

to compel the adoption of

the right laws so as to

truly change the situation for the better.

Well, the agenda you are talking about,

changing budgets in favor of the regions,

greater autonomy for local authorities,

the election of mayors, and so on,

is indeed supported

by the majority of the population. But for

most of the population, for most

voters, these issues have been pushed aside, well,

they have become secondary. And the divide

is over Ukraine, roughly

speaking. Sitting where you are now, for example,

was Zakhar Prilepin, some two or three years

before the events in Ukraine, and he was explaining to me

that the opposition had a wonderful

unified presidential candidate,

Alexei Navalny. Right. And therefore we should

rally together and, so to speak, elect him

president. Now, I think, he doesn't say that

anymore.

Well, ask him—maybe he suddenly will. [laughter]

Another acquaintance of mine, who helped you

in your election campaign in Moscow,

now says: "I won't vote for Navalny

because he is,

well, not 'Crimea is ours.'" How are you going

to build a dialogue with these people? For all the

appeal of the local agenda,

well, proposed by the democratic

coalition, they will not vote because of

this disagreement over the issue of

Ukraine.

I will talk to these people,

I will explain things to them,

you see, just because there is Crimea and Ukraine,

doesn't mean everything else should go up in flames. So

let the whole country collapse, and we will no longer

talk about anything else, we will only

talk about Ukraine. This is the authorities' strategy,

a relatively effective one, which

has changed the entire agenda. They do not want

people talking about corruption, about real

problems, about the cancellation of commuter trains, and so

on. And for that very purpose, they actually

started this war. In order

to change the agenda, in order

to sell the public the idea that

some terrible

legionaries are advancing from the side of

Europe. Any moment now they’ll seize Ukraine,

and then, who knows, they’ll take a bite out of the Smolensk region too.

It’s all a complete myth. And

that myth does not cancel out the real problems.

Of course, there are many people who do not

agree with me on foreign policy issues,

particularly on Ukraine and so

on. But with these people I can find common

ground on corruption. With these

people I can find common ground on housing and public utilities.

These people, just like me, also

believe it is wrong that in the city of

Novosibirsk only 18% of the housing stock is

connected to gas, while Gazprom at the same time

spends colossal sums on buying

football players. That doesn’t, that doesn’t

change anything. Fine then, Crimea is ours.

Fine. But does your home have hot water

or not? In our Novosibirsk region,

85% of households do not have hot water

supply. Therefore

in rural areas,

ah, well, outside the city

of Novosibirsk. Yes, of course, Ukraine, all of that

we can discuss. I have answers to

these questions. Perhaps some people will not

agree with them. However, I am absolutely

certain that when we discuss, well, more

pressing, if you like, bread-and-butter

issues,

many will vote for me. Now,

one second,

for us.

Well, let’s suppose that I am exactly the kind of

opponent who disagrees with you about Ukraine and

Crimea. I have the following

question. You say: "None of this

matters, but how can that be? Civilians are being killed

there under shelling in

Donetsk. And is Russia supposed to, you know,

just watch calmly?"

Russia must stop sponsoring

this war. No one will be dying if

Russia does not finance

these military actions. Putin’s strategy

is aimed simply at

turning Ukraine into a failed

state so that it cannot

carry out reforms. His position

is that Ukraine must

split apart, collapse, and there must be another

15 revolutions there, and so on. My

position is this, and I am ready to

defend it: it is in Russia’s interest, and in our interest as

citizens of Russia, for Ukraine to

be a rich, prosperous state

that could buy our goods.

By all means, let them integrate into

Europe, and we should integrate into

Europe as well. That is the strategy. And I believe

that what is happening now is

simply Putin’s response to the anti-criminal

revolution that happened there. There

really was a revolution. There

people rose up and overthrew their

own Yanukovychs, who were

enriching themselves on a colossal scale

by looting the entire country. The current regime

in Ukraine is far from ideal, but Putin

simply saw an anti-criminal

revolution and fears the same kind of

anti-criminal revolution in Russia.

So telling all sorts of tales about

U.S. influence and so on and so forth,

people in Donbas will stop

dying when Russia stops

doing all this, when we

stop making it so that in

every news broadcast for more than a year now

the first four stories are about Ukraine, and we

even hear about Ukraine in the weather forecast,

if you can believe it. I say: "To hell with

Ukraine, we need to deal with our own

problems, disinfect the Novosibirsk

region."

But there are 3 million Russian people there in

Novorossiya. How can you just ignore them? You

mentioned Zakhar Prilepin here. Back when

I, together with Zakhar Prilepin, in

2011, created the movement

NAROD, which stood for National Russian

Liberation Movement, we declared that

the state’s official position should be

the formal protection of Russians outside

Russia. All those TV hosts

used to say that I was a Nazi and that I

should not be allowed anywhere because I was a

Nazi. Now they say that I am a

sellout liberal. Our position has not

changed. The rights of Russians really were

violated and continue to be violated in the Caucasus,

in Turkmenistan, in Uzbekistan, and so on and

so forth. Those rights must be defended.

They should have been defended everywhere, in all those places.

Putin did not defend the interests of Russians

in Turkmenistan when all those Russians were simply sold out

for gas. They were stripped of their pensions there. He

sold them out for a gas contract. Hundreds of

thousands of our compatriots. He did not

defend the interests of Russians in the Caucasus and

so on and so forth. How many Russians lived in Chechnya?

450,000 people. Now

only a military

contingent of 25,000 remains there. That is where the

interests of Russians are. Those are what must be defended.

And in Ukraine everything was fine until

Putin began instigating

the war. The war will end, there will be

no violence. I very much hope that, in

full accordance, by the way, with the

position of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ukraine

will remain a single state. Donetsk

and Luhansk regions will receive

some necessary degree of autonomy.

They will settle the issue of Russian-language rights and

will build a difficult but shared

life together. By the way, in every

European—well, not every one, but in many

European countries have the very same

language issues and separatist problems,

but they manage to resolve them somehow. And in

Ukraine, all of this will be resolved too. You just

shouldn't send secret troops there and

instigate military action.

Do you discuss this there with

Prilepin, with Krylov, for example, or

is that it? [laughter]

Well, I do talk to people, I try to talk to

everyone. Those

crazy people from

the so-called NOD (National Liberation Movement), who

follow me all over Novosibirsk. I

am willing to talk to them too. If they

start telling me about terrible foreign agents,

I show them that the current government

is itself made up of foreign agents. I talk to them,

I talk to everyone. Please note

that, despite the fact that I

really do have different views on the

situation in Ukraine, on all other

issues I am in complete agreement with

many political forces. Or rather, they

agree with me—those on the right, those on

the left, liberals, anyone. And so,

let's say you win caucuses in

Novosibirsk, Kostroma, and Kaluga

regions. What then? I mean, these are

just several not very large caucuses in

not a very large number of regions in

Russia.

First of all, to begin with, we did not win

caucuses; we successfully carried out

primaries. These elections and this

experiment with primaries are very

important for us, as I already said:

the rebuilding of the opposition. We want to do

everything from scratch so that

personnel in the opposition are formed differently,

in general. Because, well,

right now, regional figures, who are important—important in

any party and influential in any

party—are most often simply

favorites, or people

with business connections and so on, of the leaders

of the Moscow-based party leadership. That's how it works in

the Communist Party, in A Just Russia, in

Yabloko, as you know, and in any other

party. It has always been this way. We want, in

principle, to change this system so

that the regions, even within

the democratic coalition, within

the democratic movement, are

independent and decide for themselves who

their key people are. This is the main issue

we must resolve. And then we must apply this

system in the elections

of 2016. And I am sure that if

in the 2016 elections we, the

united democratic opposition,

form our candidate list in the same honest, transparent, and open

way for everyone,

it will receive broad

support. And then a serious opposition

caucus will be sitting in the Russian

parliament, which, as you

yourself know, has not happened since 2003. And a truly

genuinely oppositional

caucus has not existed since

1993.

Fine, you win a caucus—then what? I mean,

if that caucus is in the

minority, it changes nothing. I mean,

the majority can always

It changes everything. But who is the opposition

in parliament now? Right now, in

a parliament of 450 people, there are only

two or three decent deputies.

All right. And what is the fundamental

difference between the capabilities of a caucus and

the capabilities of two or three people?

The difference is fundamental. First, what we

must achieve, what we are striving for,

is for people who share our views, people who

stand for fighting corruption, for

direct mayoral elections, for freedom of

assembly, to gain political

representation. We do not have it. That

is task number one right now: to gain

political representation; in the

next electoral cycle, to deprive

United Russia of its majority in parliament and

force the formation of a coalition

government. And then, in the following

political cycle, we will simply win.

That will happen.

So: 2016, 2021, 2025.

That's all very conditional arithmetic. You

can see that not a single election here has

been held under the same rules as the

previous one. Even now, they are

planning to shorten, by six months or a year,

the terms of office of State Duma

deputies.

Well, incidentally, they're carrying out the demand

of the opposition rallies to dissolve

the State Duma.

In a sense, yes, they just should have done

it earlier. That demand still stands for us.

We demand the dissolution of

the State Duma. We demand fair

elections, but this is, you understand,

an evolutionary political process. We

still believe—I personally still believe—

that Putin is leading the country toward

catastrophe. And sooner or later, the

things he is doing now,

the endless squeezing of everyone, the endless

installation of his own thieves in every

post—or even his relatives and friends

in every post—will lead to a situation where in

Russia, well, some kind of

revolutionary scenarios become quite possible. Such

revolutionary scenarios are undesirable

for anyone. That is why we support the idea that

the transition—the transfer of power—must be

peaceful.

So you are against a Russian Maidan?

Is that right?

Well, Maidan is, in principle,

the wrong word, because nothing that

happened in Ukraine could happen in

Russia. What happened in Ukraine was

an anti-criminal and anti-imperial

revolution. It was a national

revolution there, a typical revolution of a colony

against the metropole. Russia itself is

the metropole. Against whom would we

rise up? Well, only against, against,

against those American

masters to whose tune

Putin and his camarilla dance. All those

Rotenbergs and Timchenkos with Finnish

citizenship, Swiss citizenship, and

so on. So what happened in

Ukraine is not relevant to Russia at all.

We will never have that kind of scenario.

It may simply be much worse. Much,

much worse could happen: the breakup of the

country. Look at what we are seeing in the

Caucasus right now. There, effectively, with

the connivance of Putin and his friends, with

federal funding, there has been created

a Sharia-based Wahhabi army that

prays there four times a day, and

somehow gathers in a stadium

20,000 armed men. That is, in principle,

already a criminal offense. Under

Russian law, you simply cannot

have some thugs with

machine guns gathering in a stadium and shouting things. That, that

means they are already criminals.

So the processes now underway

could lead to something

far worse than what happened in Ukraine. And,

of course, as a responsible politician, I

call for a scenario that is

evolutionary. That means that we,

by taking part in elections, must first

gain political representation,

then, having an influential

faction, force this government to carry out

the reforms that society wants,

that society demands. And we know for certain

absolutely that, as I already said,

decentralization—money and powers to the

regions—and the fight against corruption are the two

things that everyone is simply demanding. One

of the reasons, it seems to me, for those

problems that occurred was that

the opposition's agenda was completely

at odds with the Kremlin's agenda. That is, there

was no room for bargaining. That

is, the opposition's demands were, roughly

speaking: you all must leave, run away,

or disappear.

Not exactly.

Well, you can round it off to that with a high

degree of accuracy. This is not, not a reproach to

anyone, because people were out there for the first time,

they had no political

experience, and naturally the radicalism

was off the charts. Now you are saying that there

must be an evolutionary path.

An evolutionary path implies, uh, well,

some kind of bargaining. But an evolutionary path

implies

pressure. And if that pressure is justified

and the authorities see that some points of the

opposition's program enjoy real

support, then they are obliged to yield, which

if, if it is not mortally dangerous.

When you say that the authorities have

one agenda and the opposition another,

there is a key mistake in that line of reasoning.

The authorities have no agenda at all. What agenda is there in

just staying in place? And

that is not an agenda; they do not say it outright.

They make up whatever they like. As

I already said, Putin once said:

"NATO are our friends. Russia should

join NATO." Long live indivisible

Ukraine. Now he says: "NATO are the

main enemies." First they said that

we needed to cancel commuter trains, then

they brought them back, then started canceling them again. They

said, they guaranteed that

citizens' pension savings would not be stolen,

and then they steal them. He declares that

the retirement age must not be raised,

and now he raises the retirement age, and so

on. This government has no

agenda whatsoever. Its agenda and real

desire are one and the same: to keep their places in

power and use them for

endless self-enrichment.

Let's talk about the real agenda.

But that is the real agenda; they just cannot

say it out loud. Putin cannot

go on his live call-in show and say:

"Guys, I am going to lie endlessly and

keep inventing all sorts of new

things for only one purpose: to remain

emperor, to put my Sechins, Kovalchuks,

and Rotenbergs into all the cushy

positions, to place my children and their children

at the head of state companies so that I can

be a billionaire while you serve me." He

cannot say that directly. So

he makes up different things. We do not

That is why we do not want to and cannot constantly

follow the authorities' agenda. We have

real demands. They existed yesterday,

they exist today, and they will exist tomorrow. These

demands are reinforced by the fact that this is what

the entire population is demanding along with us. So

we will keep demanding it. [music]

Alexei Anatolyevich, one of your

main areas of activity is

the fight against corruption. In particular, one

of the important points in the program is

the ratification of Article 20 of the Convention,

which requires an official

to explain where his palaces,

steamships, and airplanes came from, if he suddenly has them

appear. If the value of these

steamships, palaces, and airplanes

significantly exceeds his income, then he

is automatically found guilty, without

any inquiry into, so to speak, whether it was

corruption or whether all of it simply fell

from the sky. But in our current reality, with

the kind of justice system we have, with

the law enforcement agencies we have,

what would the adoption of

this article lead to? To less corruption,

or to higher incomes for employees of

the oversight

agencies? Again, we are not talking about

the ideal world, but about the here and now.

Indeed, one of our most important

demands is the ratification of Article 20

of the UN Convention and the adoption of the law

that we drafted on combating

illicit enrichment. It contains a completely

specific mechanism. You are right

that if an official earned 2 million rubles, but

bought himself a house for 10 million or a yacht for 15

million, that automatically means that

there are grounds for a criminal

offense here. And not without evidence,

as you said. Then a criminal case is opened

against him, he is taken to

court. It is proven that the yacht costs 15, while your

official income is seven. And sorry,

but you go to prison for five years for that. This

needs to be done in Russia. We believe that

despite the fact that, of course, the judicial

system and the corrupt

law enforcement system cannot

effectively fight corruption. And

the main thing needed to fight

corruption is political

competition and free mass

media. Even a declaration of fighting

corruption is impossible

without ratifying Article 20.

In principle, you see, in our country,

if society, the state, and the authorities

allow a completely

common situation in which some

CEO of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin,

earns

quite a lot of money, but in reality

his lifestyle is like that of some kind of

Persian sheikh—well, that is absolutely

unacceptable. We want to make sure

that this at least becomes a formal

crime, because right now we

simply keep documenting it. There is

former Deputy Prime Minister Golikova, who

was responsible for Russia’s social sector. She

had a salary; she has spent her whole life

in public office. Then, bang,

she buys herself a luxurious cottage in an elite part of Moscow.

Where did that money come from?

Right now I cannot even formally

bring a complaint, because

they say: "Well, it’s not a crime, so

she bought it, she bought it." Why do you care

where they got the money? If our

FSB director buys a dacha in Serebryany Bor

—or rather, for his wife, who

has no income at all—for 155 billion rubles. This

is not even considered something

reprehensible now. That is, you cannot even

say that they are criminals. I can say it,

and I do say it. To which they

reply: "Then we’ll sue you for

defamation." You have no right

to call us criminals, because

it’s none of your business. Where did we get the billion?

That is why adopting a law on combating

illicit enrichment means making sure

that it is our business. Where do

officials with modest salaries—or even with

high salaries—get a billion from? Without that,

any further fight

against corruption is simply impossible.

This is the foundation; everything else follows from it. And we

believe that when we criminalize

illicit enrichment, even under

current conditions, with our current

law enforcement agencies and current

judicial system, first, we will ensure

that a significant number of

officials are brought to criminal

liability, and second, we will ensure

that society begins to

take an interest, journalists begin to

take an interest, and we will simply bring more

claims—well, including

as part of our political struggle.

We will raise this as a banner and say

very specific things. Well,

look, these people are criminals. Here

is his salary, and here is his house,

which costs 100 times more. They are

criminals, so vote for us

and fight them.

All right. Well, suppose the situation in

Russia becomes more ideal than

it is now. In what sense? Better, let’s say,

better, yes. How acceptable or

unacceptable would the participation of those officials

whom you consider

corrupt

be in governing, well, a future Russia?

That is, should they be completely

lustrated, or is there some

chance that someone will reform and, uh,

continue working?

That’s an interesting question. Thank you very much.

We simply need to distinguish between two things. What

is lustration? Lustration is when

we take people based on some criterion,

for example, officials up to the level of

vice governor, and simply forbid them

from holding certain positions,

from working for the state. That is one thing; it is

a more complicated issue. And the other thing is

simply to bring to criminal

liability those who violate

the current laws, or is involved in the same thing

— namely, illicit enrichment. Well,

for example, when a criminal case is fabricated,

against such people there is no need, they do not

need to be lustrated. Under the current

law, under the existing

legislation, they should all go to prison

for eight years. All these judges, all

these investigators who fabricate cases, they

must be brought to criminal

liability. This is not a thousand people, and

not hundreds of thousands of people, and so on, but it is

hundreds of people — hundreds of judges, hundreds of

officials. Take, for example, Yakunin,

the head of Russian Railways, or Sechin, the head of Rosneft, or

Kostin, the head of VTB, and all these

state company executives — they do not need to be

lustrated. They have repeatedly violated

the current criminal code. Therefore,

the number one issue is this: everyone who violates

the law must, through a fair court with a jury

of honest prosecutors, honest defense lawyers, and

honest judges, be brought to criminal

responsibility and sent to the defendants' bench

themselves. Second, there is the matter of some kind of

lustration and purging of officials. This is

a more complicated issue, and there are different

views on it. I believe that some

elements of lustration should be introduced,

for example, against those people who

work in bodies that have no

other purpose except repression.

For example, all these so-called centers for combating

extremism are simply

gangster structures created

to suppress the opposition. In its current form,

the presidential administration and its

subdivisions, which were created in order

to falsify elections, and so

on. But in any case, the crucial

point is that all such lustration

measures must be carried out by decision

of a court. In other words, this is not an administrative

decision. You cannot allow me,

Navalny, to lustrate everyone, because

with a personal grievance, including

personal motives, I would ban everyone

altogether. That cannot be done. This must be

done by an independent judicial body.

And where will you find so many independent and

honest judges?

There are 145 million people living in this country. There are

enough decent people here. What is a

judge? A judge is a person who

must first and foremost possess

life experience, along with a basic knowledge

of the law, and so on. We have a sufficient

number of lawyers, attorneys, and people in the

academic community to

recruit people who will judge according to

justice. Even in the current judicial

corps — the current bench, that is. Well,

why do these people rule by "telephone justice"

(decisions dictated by phone from above)? Is it because they like it? No,

it is because they are forced to. If tomorrow

the judicial system is truly

independent, and judges are not appointed

by the president, as they are now, then there will be

courts judging properly, when they know

that any judge who engages in corruption

goes to prison, that any judge who follows "telephone justice"

goes to prison, and that if they judge properly,

they remain there with society's support,

then the courts will judge properly. I believe in

Russia's future. I believe that the Russian

people are not lost. We have people from whom

we can draw honest judges,

honest prosecutors, an honest police force, and

honest traffic police officers. What you are saying

implies that there will be someone who

determines whether a person is honest — whether they can

be appointed or not. Well,

Parliament — an elected parliament. Well,

look, such a body is elected from private

citizens?

Ah, it will be elected from different kinds of people. It is

a balance. They were elected, they formed

a coalition government, and they

formed special bodies

that can, among other things, deal with

certain lustration measures and so on. They

can also form special courts or

special commissions that will investigate

criminal offenses that were

committed — purely criminal ones, such as

corruption, or political ones. And

there is no other method. Well, you can

appoint special prosecutors, as

is done in the United States, or use

the existing prosecutor's office. All this can

be done by parliament; parliamentary

commissions can be created, and different

people will sit on them, people

with different political views. And that

is a guarantee that whatever

joint decision they reach will be balanced.

It will be neither Democratic, nor

liberal, nor conservative, nor

United Russia-style. It will be something shared, and

that is the most important thing that must happen.

We must consolidate around those

points that are acceptable to everyone.

There are philosophical views of people,

and one of them is that people are divided into

good and bad. Here are the good people, here are the

bad ones. And the whole world then appears,

accordingly, as a struggle of good

people against bad people. So, roughly

speaking, right now the people in power are bad

people, and the good ones must replace them, and

after that things will become good. Another

view is that every person is

bad in some ways and good in others. And it may

happen that, well, their bad

side gained the upper hand, that they

gave in to temptation and began doing

bad things. Which of these theories

do you subscribe to?

Of course, there is no such thing as a black-and-white world.

I simply subscribe to the idea

that in a bad system, any

person is forced to play by the rules

of a bad system and becomes a bad

person. The current system is

a system of negative selection, in which

the worst rise to the top. That

is, in order to move up

the career ladder in Russia today, you

have to become venal, deceitful,

corrupt, and so on. That is why,

well, you can see that even those who are

in power now—many of them,

for example, come from liberal, including

parties. Take Yarovaya, that

odious deputy—she used to be our

colleague in the Yabloko party. And we

both remember very well how at Yabloko

congresses she shouted: "Terrible Putin, terrible

United Russia, they are all scoundrels, we must

fight them." And now she has simply

changed colors precisely because a bad

system is exactly what lifts up

the most disgusting, hypocritical people.

If the responsible class,

those at the very top,

demonstrate to the entire system below

that they themselves live by

honest rules, that they themselves are

not corrupt, and that they have the moral

right to hold people accountable for

corruption because they themselves do not

steal, the system will begin to rebuild itself,

because, well, I believe that people are

more inclined toward good, so

they are not good or bad; they are more

informed or less informed.

Rather, what we are talking about now is this: I do not

judge people who say,

"Navalny is a foreign agent"—how could

they know anything about my activities

except from television?

They simply do not know anything. But I

meet with these people and do

explanatory work. And very often

it happens that our conversation

ends with them saying:

"All right, we will think about it; perhaps we will

vote for you or for your party

vote." The world is multifaceted and complex.

I believe that the leading class should

demonstrate the best moral

qualities. And then those best moral

qualities will be followed by the entire system, which will

turn bad people into good ones or,

at the very least, not open the way

for bad people.

Well, we also see the opposite example. You

gave the example of someone who moved from Yabloko

to United Russia and, so to speak,

sharply changed her views. We see

examples such as Kasyanov or

Khodorkovsky. One of them was

prime minister, and moreover he was

prime minister in the system,

that brought Putin to power.

Frankly speaking, I do not think that

the rules of the game in that system have changed much.

That is, perhaps the scale

of corruption has grown, perhaps the scale

of arbitrariness has grown, but it is clear

that Putin's system is a direct

continuation of Yeltsin's system, no matter what

people from NOD (the National Liberation Movement) may think. We see the example

of Khodorkovsky, who was, uh, the

largest oligarch, made a lot of

money, and there are, of course, questions

about how honestly he earned it, and

he ended up in prison and served 10 years. Now you

are now cooperating, well, with

Kasyanov you are simply in a coalition. With

Khodorkovsky, I do not know to what extent. [laughter]

Open Russia supports our

coalition.

If a person looks at this

from the outside, they might say: "So it is all, all

the same after all—there are the same people there,

well, the same people in United Russia and the same people in

the United Democratic Coalition,

it turns out they just lost access to the trough

and now want to get back to it.

So where is the criterion by which you

determine that these people are ones you can

deal with, while those are not?

Suppose tomorrow a person comes, I do not

know, from VEB, VTB, and so on, and says:

"I have changed my mind, I understand everything now, everything under Putin is

bad, you are right. So let us

form a coalition with you." What would you say?

It is actually very simple.

A person is defined by their deeds and actions. So

they say certain things. Then we look

at what these people do. If they say and

do the right things, well,

then I regard these people as

allies. Take Khodorkovsky, for example.

He could have been a typical

Putin-era oligarch. He would not

have gone to prison at all. He would have spent

his money not on educational

projects or, now, on various

projects run by Open Russia,

but on buying yachts or mansions in London or

football clubs. But he does not do that.

Kasyanov, unquestionably, could easily

have fit into Putin's system. He

would have remained somebody important, headed some

state bank or something else. He would have been

what Russians call "sitting pretty,"

he could have done that, but he did not.

People do right, good

things. Not everyone is some kind of

scoundrel. And even in this system, in

this bad system, for many people there is, well, some

ultimate limit to how bad they are willing to go.

Take Kudrin, for example, who

was one of the fathers of that ugly system.

the tax policy, which I also oppose,

am speaking out against now. And Kudrin made it so

that money was effectively sucked out of all the regions.

But they believed, by the way, sorry for interrupting, that

people steal more in the regions

than in the center. They take everything to the center

and then absolutely everything gets stolen there. That’s what they

believed. So. In any case, we can see

that these calculations of theirs led to a situation where

all the money goes to the federal center,

and the regions lose any incentive, and so on.

But we can see that Kudrin nevertheless

left the government, and that he, well, although he

does so very carefully, very delicately, without

wanting to argue with them, he condemns

political repression, he condemns

the lack of judicial reform, he condemns

the political system in general, he

criticizes the government. And there are many people like that.

Of course, there are far more people

whom this regime draws in with

opportunities to enrich themselves. Well,

few people can resist that. I

judge by actions. Kasyanov was part of

Putin’s government—the best,

incidentally, of Putin’s governments

from the first through the fourth year. But now he

has left it behind. For many years now, he has been

an opposition politician. I follow his

activities. Everything he does

looks more or less

right to me. With RPR-PARNAS, we have

some ideological differences, but

they are undoubtedly an independent

political party with which we can

be in a close coalition, and, well, and so

on, and so forth. If people come

even from that side, and we see that their

words and their actions are honest and

sincere, then of course they are all

allies for us.

To wrap up, say a few words to our

viewers. What do you think they

can, well, do today?

It is very important for me, during this

trip of mine, to get across the idea that this really is

the case. It really is

true. The opposition list will be

formed honestly and openly. You—the

people who register and

vote for one person or another—

will be the people who

create this list. And the face of the opposition

will be determined by the opinion of Novosibirsk residents. And

then, I am sure, the election will be more

interesting for you to vote in. You will feel more

motivation to go to the polls

if you know that when you come to

the polling station, you will find there

a party that truly

represents your interests, and people

whom you yourselves put on that

ballot. Come to the primaries,

take part in them, support your

candidates, come to the election,

vote for the united list

of the opposition based on RPR-PARNAS. [music]

Yeah.