“The Navalnys — an Interview After the Poisoning” — an interview with Yuri Dud

I promise you suffering, Yuriy!

25.000000

— You came with bodyguards. — Wait, what?

Yuriy Dud walks in and starts crying!

Like in the movie Alien. He'd arch his back.

You had any moonshine in Kaftanchikovo?

When I see Krovostok, I'll give them a piece of my mind!

— Not true! — Welcome, Aleksey!

(title card music)

Aleksey, how do you feel?

Much better than on August 20!

Your arms and legs work okay? They said your hand was...

Hands still shake. If I venture to drink some water, you'll see a little show.

But I get better every day.

I work with a physiatrist.

We had our first juggling lesson today.

So very soon you should expect to see me juggling, riding a unicycle,

and pulling rabbits out of hats.

I have to do a lot of left or right exercises

to remind my brain which side's which,

'cause Novichok damages your nervous system and there's a recovery period.

But it's gonna be okay and I should be fine.

You walked up the stairs without help?

I wasn't carried or anything, no.

— I mean like holding your hand. — No.

This stage where I needed someone to hold my hand to walk is well in the past.

There was an unpleasant period

when I just started to get out of bed

where they'd pull up a chair to the sink,

I'd sit down in this chair

and take three minutes to wash up.

Then I'd stumble back to the bed,

lie down and stare into the ceiling in terror, thinking, "Oh God, how long will this last?!"

Then I started to eat and began to recover pretty fast.

The doctors are actually surprised by the rate of my recovery.

I'm like a guinea pig right now,

because not a lot of people have survived lethal chemical weapons.

They're documenting my recovery to better help people like me in the future.

— You're their human test subject. — Sort of. — Mm-hmm.

Tell us what happened.

I'm ready to shut up for as long as it takes and listen.

[*Reference to a famous quote by Vladimir Putin] [where he promised to "wipe out terrorists in bathrooms"] [(if that's where the government finds them)] [during a press conference.] [United Russia is the ruling party in Russia.] We're in Moscow. We want to, excuse my language, wipe out United Russia*.

We know that we will wipe them out with Smart Voting.

Which we ended up successfully doing.

We destroyed them in Tomsk. We did really well in Novosibirsk.

[In Novosibirsk, candidates to the city council supported] [by Smart Voting got 13 seats out of 50; in Tomsk,] [19 out of 27 seats (across single-member districts)] We did an investigation and went to shoot footage in Novosibirsk and Tomsk about local crooks.

[In Novosibirsk, candidates to the city council supported] [by Smart Voting got 13 seats out of 50; in Tomsk,] [19 out of 27 seats (across single-member districts)] We knew that a lot of locals would watch the video

We knew that a lot of locals would watch the video

and answer the call to participate in the Smart Voting to hurt United Russia,

that some good people would become deputies and some bad ones would get the boot.

It took us a while to prepare.

We spent a good chunk of time shooting several locations in Novosibirsk.

Then we went to Tomsk.

We got delayed by the police on our way.

It was obvious we were being watched, but nobody bothered us.

We shot at several locations in Tomsk as well.

Nothing special. We'd shoot, go back to the hotel for the night, get up and shoot some more.

Then it was time to go back to Moscow. My show comes out on Thursdays.

[Titles from left to right, top to bottom:] [1. Degtiarev in Habarovsk. Dissolution of ACF.] [Mystery of Shaposhnikov's declaration] [2. Simonyan's biggest con is not pathetic?] [Andrey Malahov is pissed] [3. Wagner Group and Lukashenko] [Shnur in Habarovsk. Persecution of Spartak's fans] [4. Big episode about Belarus. Tihanovskaya. Strikes] Then it was time to go back to Moscow. My show comes out on Thursdays.

[Titles from left to right, top to bottom:] [1. Degtiarev in Habarovsk. Dissolution of ACF.] [Mystery of Shaposhnikov's declaration] [2. Simonyan's biggest con is not pathetic?] [Andrey Malahov is pissed] [3. Wagner Group and Lukashenko] [Shnur in Habarovsk. Persecution of Spartak's fans] [4. Big episode about Belarus. Tihanovskaya. Strikes] It was Thursday, wasn't it? I got up early.

I was in a great mood. I'd gone for a swim in Tom river the day before.

— In Kaftanchikovo. — In Kaftanchikovo!

[Kaftanchikovo is a village in Tomsk Oblast.] [Population: ~1500. 15 km outside of Tomsk.] By the way, everyone knows this village now.

[Kaftanchikovo is a village in Tomsk Oblast.] [Population: ~1500. 15 km outside of Tomsk.] I didn't know it was called Kaftanchikovo at the time.

[Kaftanchikovo is a village in Tomsk Oblast.] [Population: ~1500. 15 km outside of Tomsk.] Super dark riverbank, dark water.

It's one of my hobbies: wherever I go, I...

When I went to Arhangelsk to our employee Shaveddinov's court hearing,

I said, "Let's go dunk in the White Sea!"

When we came to Tomsk, I said, "Take me somewhere for a swim."

I got in the water to sort of check the "dipped here too" box.

...in Kaftanchikovo, as it later turned out.

Got back to the hotel. Went to bed.

Woke up feeling good. Took a shower. Got dressed. Went to the airport.

Everything was great at the airport. I felt fine.

Bought some candies.

I mean I went back trying to recall the exact moment I first felt it.

I remembered that I felt perfectly fine at the airport

because my only concern was, "I should bring some candies from Siberia for the kids."

I got on the plane.

I was rubbing my hands anticipating the 3.5 hours of peace and quiet.

I opened my laptop and put on Rick and Morty.

It's my liftoff routine. I started watching Rick and Morty.

It's also why I know the exact minute I felt sick.

Because I opened my laptop after...

Shouldn't it be tucked away during liftoff?

That's a great point. It was a regular flight and I was waiting to hear,"Put it away."

But this time, they just glanced at it and said nothing.

I was watching... (Dud clicks tongue in disapproval)

— Well, I'm telling you everything, 'cause it's important. — Okay.

I was sitting there watching Rick and Morty.

Despite having seen every episode 100 times, I get completely engrossed and have a great time.

I was like: "I'll watch this. Then read a little. Peace and quiet. Awesome."

At around the 20 minute mark,

I was oddly no longer invested in Rick and Morty.

I felt drenched in cold sweat.

It's a weird feeling.

Several people asked me, "How does dying from Novichok feel?"

It's hard to explain because

it's unlike anything you ever experience in your daily life.

Like, there are things that you've never experienced, thankfully,

like a heart attack or having your leg hacked off with a chainsaw,

but you can sort of imagine what having your leg hacked off with a chainsaw is LIKE.

Here, you're covered in cold sweat and you feel that

you're so, so unwell.

I felt sick.

Most people have been so sick at least once that they thought, "This is how I die."

This sensation of "this is how I die" kept coming in waves again and again.

My press secretary Kira was sitting next to me.

[Kira Yarmish, Aleksey Navalniy's press secretary] My press secretary Kira was sitting next to me.

[Kira Yarmish, Aleksey Navalniy's press secretary] I thought she might think I'd lost it, but I closed my laptop and said:

[Kira Yarmish, Aleksey Navalniy's press secretary] "Kira, can you talk to me?" I wanted to focus on her voice, 'cause my mind was all blurry.

"Kira, can you talk to me?" I wanted to focus on her voice, 'cause my mind was all blurry.

You do this when you suspect a stroke, right?

— This didn't even enter my mind at the time! — Oh. Uh-huh.

I was sitting there thinking, "What is going on?"

It wasn't the heart or the stomach. You couldn't...

Normally, when you feel unwell, you can sort of scan yourself:

"I've a heartache. My stomach or my leg hurts. Or I have a headache."

Or: "I caught a cold."

Here, you couldn't figure out.

I said, "Talk to me."

She looked at me surprised, said, "Okay," and started talking.

She was opening her mouth and saying words, but I couldn't quite focus on them.

A flight attendant was pushing a cart. I thought, "Let me grab a drink."

Then I thought: "No. I'll go to the bathroom and wash up. That should help."

I went to the bathroom in my socks. Washed up a couple of times.

Sat down for a minute.

I thought I'd sit a little longer, then realized: "I'm not walking out of here if I do."

And then... You know, trying to make sense of it later,

this may sound weird,

but the closest analogy I found were the dementors from Harry Potter.

Rowling's description is: a dementor's kiss doesn't hurt, it just sucks life out of you.

It didn't hurt at all.

But the main overwhelming feeling is, "I am about to die."

It's pretty hard to...

You don't experience this in normal life, thankfully.

Chemical weapons are banned for a good reason.

They're truly terrifying things, all these Novichoks, organophosphates, and the like.

I came out and saw a bunch of unhappy faces.

I thought: "Maybe I've been in there for, like, 10 minutes?"

I realized that I should probably ask for help,

because I didn't think I could walk back to my seat.

To my own surprise, I turned to this flight attendant and said: "I was poisoned. I'm about to die."

And I lay down in front of him.

This sounds really... This is crazy.

And the flight attendant looked at me with a little smirk, like, "What a... nutjob."

Maybe he thought I got food poisoning from tomato juice or macaroni.

I think he was about to tell me that they couldn't have poisoned me on the plane,

but I wasn't listening, I'd lain down on the floor, determined to die there and then.

Because this feeling that it's...

Your entire body is telling you: "Aleksey. It's time to say goodbye."

"You've done something to me that's 100% incompatible with life."

I lay down. They were asking something.

— You lay in their kitchen behind the bathroom? — Yeah. I lay right in front of them.

They were asking me something like: "Sir, what's wrong? Is it your heart? Sir..?"

Last thing that I remember was the commotion and the words: "Sir, stay with us! Stay with us!"

Then it all faded. These...

— I saw those videos with harrowing titles like "Navalniy screams in pain on the plane." — Yeah.

(airplane cabin noise, loud prolonged moan)

(prolonged disoriented moan)

I was evidently shouting, maybe from hallucinations or something.

But I can't remember it. And it didn't hurt at all.

But it's worse than pain.

This feeling that you're...

done, or the other word, which I can't say here, in all caps.

These huge letters roll over you.

You realize: that's it. It's over.

So in a way, I even...

Can't say I was surprised when I became aware again in the hospital,

but on the plane, I was certain that was it.

For better or for worse, my family's faces didn't flash before my eyes.

Neither did my entire life. It was nothing like that.

[AD TO BREAK THE TENSION]

Some spooky numbers coming up.

One of the saddest things about modern Russia is her emigration statistic.

According to the UN, 10.5 million Russians lived abroad in 2019.

We're in the top 4 behind India, Mexico and China.

Right below us are Syria, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Additionally, over half of young people between 18 and 24 say they want to leave Russia.

The exact figure is 53%, according to last year's survey by Levada Center.

It's the worst it's gotten in the last 10 years.

But there's another solution for those of you who wish to be a part of the bigger world.

You can stay at home and work for a foreign company.

To be able to get a job like that, you want good English.

It's a vital skill for our crew too.

It enables us to select our subjects and work outside of Russia freely.

That's why we keep our English in shape with Skyeng.

(in English) Good afternoon, Yuriy, and welcome back to Skyeng. My name is Olga.

(Dud reads in English) When I was a teenager, I used to hand out

leaflets to earn a bit of cash.

What is "leaflets?"

— Ah! It's like flyer, yeah? — Yeah.

It's interesting whether zoomers knows the word "flyer."

[Dud is an idiot: he should've] [said KNOW, not KNOWS] It's interesting whether zoomers knows the word "flyer."

[Dud is an idiot: he should've] [said KNOW, not KNOWS] Some of them do.

Some of them do.

— (Dud) Really? Oh, okay. — Yep. Some of them.

I think it's a word from (in a gruff voice) '90s.

Thank you! It was nice to meet you and bye-bye!

— It was nice to meet you too. Bye-bye! — Bye-bye, have a nice evening.

(Dud) If you wish to improve your English too, Skyeng is currently running a special offer:

the bigger the package, the more free lessons.

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If you get 16, then your bonus is 3 extra.

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This same promo code also works with the recently introduced Premium plan as well.

This plan already has a separate class for IT professionals

and automatically includes Skyeng's talk clubs.

If you're a parent who got alarmed by the 2-week fall break this year instead of the usual one,

you're in luck because Skyeng also has English and math classes for kids and teenagers

at Skysmart.

They currently offer special discounts as well.

If you pay for 4 English lessons and 4 math lessons,

you get a total of 12 Skysmart lessons.

Learn more by following the link below.

Click the link, sign up for a class and don't leave Russia.

(knocks on chest)

[BACK TO BERLIN]

Yulia, how are you?

Good. Much better than 4 weeks ago.

What was it like 4 weeks ago?

(breathes out heavily)

Scary. If you meant to ask if I was scared, I was, certainly.

But it was more so the...

I can't describe this feeling with a single word.

But I constantly felt: "Don't relax. Don't take it easy."

(Dud) Huh.

Where were you and what were you doing when you got the message?

Kira called. I was at home.

It so happened that Aleksey's flight was arriving at 8 AM,

and I offered to meet him at the airport myself.

— So you were getting ready. — Yeah. That's why I got up so early.

Normally, I turn off my phone when I go to bed,

but this time I picked it up immediately at 6:40.

I was lucky to be up and answered the phone immediately.

Kira said: "Yulia, don't worry."

"Aleksey has poisoning. We landed in Omsk."

(Dud) Sort of like: "Tell mom everything's fine. I'm in jail."

Something like that, yeah.

She was brief. We were all...

She was in shock. She had to tell me the key points quickly.

I said, "Alright," and... I mean I said, "Okay," and hung up.

Then I thought for a bit.

I don't know if I shook my head or not, but I definitely shook it internally,

called her back and said: "Wait, what?"

"I need to go to Omsk, don't I?"

She said: "Well, they're saying he may get better tomorrow."

"Maybe you don't need to come. We'll catch a flight ourselves."

I said, "No, I'm coming." I looked at the flights.

Another lucky break besides getting up early:

there was a flight in two hours.

I grabbed a bag.

Packed... stuff.

I'd never packed like that before.

Like in the movies: threw a bunch of things in the bag and closed it.

When I opened it the next day, it turned out

that I'd packed a dress, some skirts, (laughs) a bunch of other weird things.

Things in the bag were a surprise to me,

because I'd thrown a lump of whatever in there and zipped the bag.

I bought the ticket from the taxi.

When I got in the taxi, I said to the driver:

"My flight is in two hours. I have to make it."

He looked surprised.

He said, "Why didn't the folks you're flying to give you heads up?" (laughs)

I said: "Well, what can you do? I just found out I had to go."

He drove really well and got me there fast.

I didn't insist on speeding or anything.

We were just lucky, we didn't run into a lot of traffic.

When I got to the airport, I realized,

because my mind was busy with other thoughts,

that the flight was in 2.5 hours.

I miscalculated: I had 3 hours, not 2.

We got there in about 30 minutes.

I had to wait around at the airport for 2.5 hours.

This wait was probably...

The wait and the flight itself

were probably the hardest to bear, second only to the moment I saw Aleksey.

At the airport...

Kira first called me

and said they had to emergency land the plane.

Which is telling. You don't land willy-nilly some place other than your destination.

But her next message was:

"Aleksey is in a coma, on life support."

I got this message at the airport. Now it was clear the situation was critical.

I went to a cafe,

sat down and

started crying.

I wasn't weeping. I just couldn't hold it in.

I messaged a friend. She said, "You have sunglasses with you?"

I said: "What? Why? Sunglasses at the airport?"

She said, "Find a pair."

By some coincidence, I actually had my sunglasses in my purse.

I put them on at the airport

and ordered

50 grams of whiskey at 8 AM.

I didn't exactly relax, I just...

Maybe I just let go of my emotions and it opened the floodgates.

You said you survived thanks to the pilots who landed the plane

and the emergency team who gave you an antidote shot.

They operated according to protocol.

The beauty of the situation is that they operated perfectly according to protocol.

The pilots were told that a passenger was about to kick the bucket,

they landed the plane ASAP.

The paramedics were told the guy's out,

they confirmed it and injected atropine.

Emergency team showed up and said, "He looks like an overdosed junkie."

"He clearly has poisoning. Here's atropine. Take him to the detox clinic."

They did everything the protocol required perfectly.

But you know how Russia is.

When everything goes according to protocol, what it is is a series of lucky coincidences.

Sadly.

The worst part was probably boarding the plane,

flight to Omsk takes about 4 hours,

and realizing that you're cut off from all information for 4 hours.

That was genuinely agonizing.

[*Anti-Corruption Foundation.] I was flying with Vania Zhdanov, the head of ACF*.

He made it there in time for this flight too.

Can't say I'm a blabbermouth.

But as I later learned, when asked about the flight after we landed,

he said: "It was fine. Yulia talked for 4 hours without breaks."

I told him about our kids, the one, the other,

about our family and we're up to as a family.

I probably told him every secret.

We haven't asked him yet about what I told him in those 4 hours.

But I'm guessing he heard a lot.

I was just scared of being left alone with my thoughts

even for a second,

so I had to talk to someone.

Landing was also scary.

— Because I knew I... — The messages? — Yes.

The content of those messages.

I said to Vania:

"Is it okay if you read and I look at your reactions?"

He was obviously nervous too.

He picked up the phone, scrolled through and put it back down.

I noticed the uneasy look on his face when he was scrolling.

And...

I even said to him then:

"Vania, if it's really bad, tell me now."

I wanted to pull myself together on the plane to leave it composed.

But he wouldn't tell me and my guess was that

he was afraid to tell me on the plane

and instead wanted to talk in the airport,

because he'd be able to get me a doctor in cases I needed one.

I thought he wouldn't say because he wanted to get me somewhere

where I could get medical assistance.

I kept saying: "Tell me the truth. Tell me the truth."

What is coma like?

What does it feel like? Like nothing?

No, you don't feel anything in a coma.

What's sleep like?

We remember things at night as we doze off in bed,

then the alarm suddenly wakes us up.

If we didn't wake up, we don't remember anything in between.

Was it like that? When you came to in a hospital bed at Charité, the last thing you remembered

was being on the S7 flight?

No. That's movie coma.

You're unconscious, then you slowly open your eyes

and see your smiling family, and someone with a bouquet goes:

"Welcome back, Aleksey!"

You kiss them and reach out with your weak arms — it's nothing like that.

At least in my case.

There's a special pilot report that they fill out in case of emergency,

and mine said that I was in the deepest, level 3 coma on the coma scale.

There's a Glasgow Coma Scale.

15 is when you're normal. 3 is you're totally unresponsive.

I scored 3 on this scale.

You're completely out. It's not like dreaming either.

I was in a coma for 18 days. 18 days of heavy drugs.

Then they got me off the drugs.

So I've experienced half-death,

then coma, and then some drug...

The hallucinations and this whole drug trip were by far the worst part.

It was totally like Pelevin's books or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I saw the deep end of it. It was worse than in the books too.

It was really bad. I can't imagine actually paying money for it.

I went through several stages of...

I can't even tell for certain right now which things happened and which didn't.

For example, for a fair while, I lived in a reality

where my wife and Leonid Volkov came to visit and said:

[Leonid Volkov, head of Navalniy's] [network of teams outside Moscow] "Aleksey, you were in a terrible accident in Berlin!"

[Leonid Volkov, head of Navalniy's] [federal office network] "We brought a professor from Japan." He was standing next to them.

"We brought a professor from Japan." He was standing next to them.

"He'll give you new legs and a new back."

And for some reason, he looked like the octopus dude from the first Spider-Man series.

Wait, so you were seeing all these things?

I didn't just see them. They were as real as you are.

That was my reality for several days.

Obviously, that conversation never happened.

I probably saw it when I was either still sleeping

or sitting up with an open mouth, not recognizing anyone.

It's possible that I had super interesting conversations with them in my head.

— About the Japanese doctor and the car crash? — Yes.

That was the most pleasant... not even hallucination. It was semi-reality.

I knew that I was in a hospital, unwell and back from a coma,

but also the car crash and that a Japanese professor would give me new legs.

Nights, I'd alternate between dreaming and hallucinating.

Then this car crash reality slowly faded away.

I went through several stages.

Then I started to understand on the level of senses that Yulia was coming to visit.

She'd adjust my pillow. It was very important to me.

I identified her and always anticipated her.

This was another step.

Then something else changed and I started to recognize people.

Leonid Volkov told me about this hilarious episode.

It had been a week that I...

— A week of you conscious again? — A week awake, let's call it.

— And you had these hallucinations in this time? — Yes.

They'd sit me up, and I'd sit there and stare at one spot.

They kept trying to talk to me.

Obviously, everyone was afraid that I'd stay like that forever.

They'd say, "Aleksey... Novichok..."

He said that at some point I looked up and said without using the nicest language,

"What the frick is going on here?"

And looked backed down. "That's when I knew," he said, "that you'd be okay."

But it took a while.

Like, for a time, I knew what was happening, I recognized and talked to people,

but I was possessed by the idea that I'd fully recovered and "get me out of here."

Today I know that it was yet another hallucination.

The scariest hallucination was the band Krovostok.

And I even knew they were a hallucination!

I'd fall asleep...

When I see Krovostok, I'll give them a piece of my mind!

Serioga [cameraman] is a fan.

I'd get teleported into a cell.

And they would tell you to list the house rules,

which were some lines from a song by Krovostok.

And it lasted indefinitely.

You recite them once, twice,

but they ask you 10,000 times.

And until you answer, you're not allowed to sleep.

That was the worst.

In my case, all this drug tripping and hallucinations

weren't about pink elephants or talking bunnies, or anything nice.

It was real torture. Drugs are bad.

Again, I can't imagine someone paying for it and enjoying it.

It was really, really bad.

Yulia told me another funny one.

I was obsessed with running away.

One of the first things I remember is trying to get out of this bed.

All covered in tubes and wires, you know?

So I ripped the tubes out and gushed blood all over the place.

Nurses had to rush in and put me back down.

But they didn't tie me up.

They later told me that they'd discussed tying me up and decided against it.

I could already talk to her [wife].

The doctor came in, we talked, he left,

then I turned to Yulia and said: "Go take his gun. We'll bust out."

You know? And that was when I could talk!

I knew she was my wife. I could say words.

It's like a ladder that you climb.

First you reach the point where you can...

Like, my speech pace is back to normal.

I can write again.

I can read again.

I still have difficulty doing certain things, but I'm recovering fast.

Typing?

Much harder.

But I re-learned it. I started using the computer two days ago.

My typing looks funny.

Zahar started to train me in CS:GO.

[Zahar is Aleksey Navalniy's son] Zahar started to train me in CS:GO.

[Zahar is Aleksey Navalniy's son] It's a fun means of recovery.

— Helps fine motor skills. — It really does! Reaction too.

Really helps your reaction.

So it's a ladder that you climb.

If you're lucky to be in the hands of good doctors,

you'll climb all the way to full recovery.

If you're unlucky, you'll be stuck sitting in a chair with an open mouth

with people unable to tell if you can understand any signals or not.

(title card music)

What was the hardest in the hospital?

Seeing him.

Seeing him and realizing that it's probably even worse

than I

thought.

Seeing the doctors' fear,

afraid to tell you something,

clearly hiding something, not telling you the whole truth.

But the most devastating thing was seeing Aleksey

in a coma.

He had convulsions too.

It was like in the movie Alien.

He'd arch his back.

— In the hospital? — Yes.

It was... I don't know what caused it.

Some kind of muscle spasm.

It was terrifying.

But I knew I couldn't relax

because I was still his closest person in this situation.

I'm his wife. If I fall apart, everyone will too, like dominoes.

So I did my best to keep my composure.

It was also terrifying when I came out of the room and one of the doctors...

Not one of the hospital's officials,

not the head physician or his deputies, who mostly talked to me,

'cause they were told to talk to me as I understand it,

just a regular doctor.

He said in the hallway: "What a tragedy. Be strong."

When you say something like that, it's like offering condolences.

So it was terrifying.

And I spent every waking second in that hospital thinking:

"I gotta get him out. I gotta get him out. I gotta get him out."

"Keep it together and get him out!"

Get him out because they won't give him the care he needs?

Because they won't... tell the truth.

Because you could tell when I met the head physician that...

They took me to him.

There were the head physician, his deputy

and this young lady, well, this woman

who was the Deputy Minister of Health of Omsk Oblast.

Then another Deputy Minister of Health arrived.

I felt this strong authoritative pressure.

I told them: "I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk to you."

"I want to discuss this with the doctors."

It was weird that so many officials got involved for some reason.

How did the poison get on you?

Nobody knows.

First off, do we know if it was liquid?

Nobody knows.

It's super secret stuff.

Having access to this poison, this substance, Novichok, itself is...

It's a chemical warfare weapon. It's banned.

You can't store any amount of it anywhere.

These days, no one...

One of the problems for Putin is that it's not so much

about whether he's the one behind this or not,

but that it's a proven fact that someone in Russia obtained Novichok and used it,

[According to Russian officials, Russia ceased production] [of all chemical weapons in the 1990s and has disposed] [of all CW stockpiles by September 2017] but that it's a proven fact that someone in Russia obtained Novichok and used it,

[According to Russian officials, Russia ceased production] [of all chemical weapons in the 1990s and has disposed] [of all CW stockpiles by September 2017] which itself is a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

[According to Russian officials, Russia ceased production] [of all chemical weapons in the 1990s and has disposed] [of all CW stockpiles by September 2017] It can be a spray.

It can be a liquid.

It can be in contact form.

Our current understanding is that

I left my room poisoned after touching the water bottle,

meaning that I was poisoned at the hotel.

Then 3 or 4 hours passed, which is a long time.

I.e., had I drunk, eaten or inhaled it,

I would've bought the farm in 30 to 60 minutes.

Instead it took a while.

Meaning you only touched it?

I either touched it or...

I could've been taking a shirt off a hanger, touched the hanger — and voilà.

It could've been on my clothes. It could've been anywhere.

That's why it's called a chemical WEAPON.

Organophosphates in general are not so bad.

[Organophosphates are phosphoric acid-containing] [compounds that are also used as chemical weapons] Dichlorvos, right? It's one of them.

[Organophosphates are phosphoric acid-containing] [compounds that are also used as chemical weapons] Only, to get dichlorvos poisoning, you need to drink a bottle of it.

[Organophosphates are phosphoric acid-containing] [compounds that are also used as chemical weapons] And they'll still save you.

And they'll still save you.

The point of chemical weapons

is that they consist of several components that are each harmless on their own.

Also, you only need a tiny amount to kill someone.

But most importantly, it dissolves in the body completely.

That's why they kept me in Omsk for so long.

They wanted all traces of Novichok to disappear.

But they miscalculated it.

They kept you there to wait out the breakdown process...

is your theory?

My theory... It's not even a theory.

It's my wife's and everyone else's account of what happened in Omsk.

I'm really grateful to them for straight up fighting for me.

Evidently, their first hope was that I'd just die there.

They hoped that I'd either die or turn into a vegetable,

or at the very least all traces would be gone.

Their plan was to keep me there as long as possible.

Doctors that shipped me out of there later told me

that the longer you stay in a coma in that state the heavier the consequences.

If I'd stayed in Omsk for several more hours, I would've probably never given another interview.

At best, I would've sat up and they'd push me around in a wheelchair.

Why did you want a German hospital specifically?

No one wanted a German hospital. They just knew they had to get me out of Omsk.

For one, Omsk healthcare is known for its inadequacy even by Russian standards.

But most importantly, everyone realized I was poisoned

and that I was on death's door

and needed urgent poisoning treatment,

and these guys come out and go, "He had too much moonshine."

You gonna leave me with these doctors?

So you don't believe in the Hippocratic Oath?

No.

What do you mean by "don't believe?"

Here's my understanding. I may be naive.

But I've seen situations where...

I've never been in a foreign hospital,

but Russia, despite her messed up healthcare system,

still has many talented doctors.

— By some miracle, some of them work in free clinics. — Yes.

They too treat, save lives and do their job well.

I thought that when a doctor faces a choice

to either honor the Hippocratic Oath or follow the orders of some suit,

they'll either think about or automatically choose the Oath.

Am I too naive?

No, you're not.

There were a lot of amazing people even in this Omsk hospital among the low-level staff.

But their head physician is not a doctor, he's a member of United Russia.

What, he's gonna tell his doctors to either not treat you or treat you incorrectly?

He came out and said that the official diagnosis was "metabolic disorder."

A guy drops down on a plane and falls into a coma —

they go: "We did 60 tests. There's no sign of poisoning."

Besides, doctors would come up and say: "Get him out of here."

You know why they poisoned me outside of Moscow?

They knew that, for one, there's a lot of great doctors in Moscow,

and two, they're supervised.

Maybe not as effectively as their colleagues in Berlin,

but Moscow doctors would've likely kept me alive.

Whereas if I'd stayed in Omsk,

I would've died and ended up in an Omsk morgue.

You think they would've tested me for anything?

The Omsk morgue would've reported: the man is dead.

"What a suspicious death," everyone would've said.

Yuriy Dud would've probably released a documentary 6 months later titled "The Man We Lost."

People would bring signs to rallies...

I love our reputation! (both laugh)

Hopefully, you would've at least made something like that!

People would've carried my pictures at rallies.

Many would've said, "We don't believe in his sudden death at 44."

Vladimir Solovyov would've come out and said, "It's all that Kaftanchikovo moonshine!"

Just any kind of super lie.

"They say he was an addict." And stuff like that.

No one would've done any testing.

You wouldn't have found it either, which is another thing about chemical weapons:

they dissolve in the body really fast.

Did you have any moonshine in Kaftanchikovo?

No, I haven't had moonshine in Kaftanchikovo.

— Not a single shot? — No.

I took a dip in the river and went back.

One of the reasons they wanted to get me out of there

were the absurd lies people started throwing around immediately.

This imaginary moonshine and other stuff.

I had people with me. Some of our men stayed in Tomsk.

Others flew with me and saw things as they unraveled.

Imagine seeing things as they're going down

and then hearing ridiculous lies about what happened.

They knew they had to get me out of there

and that the officials wanted to keep me there for as long as possible.

They called a bunch of doctors, and they all said to fly me out of there

and that there's no such thing as a nontransportable patient.

Because a medical airplane is like a premium flying hospital

that easily beats an Omsk hospital.

But these guys would come out and lie: "He's nontransportable."

What can you do?

That's why I'm so grateful to my wife and everyone who basically fought for me.

They didn't have any real power.

They couldn't storm the hospital and steal me, could they?

But they started a ruckus and somehow made the authorities release me.

What do you think allowed you to get him out of there to bring him to Germany?

I remember this moment very clearly.

I thought it was really cinematic.

This was the second day. A lot of attention from everywhere.

It was clear that they're probably not gonna let him go.

I went to meet some German doctors

after they didn't let me talk to them at the hospital.

We found out which hotel they were staying at.

We called them and I went to meet them.

We talked in their hotel.

They told me he was perfectly transportable

and that they were ready to fly him out,

and they would give me the required paperwork,

but they needed an hour or so to fill it out.

I came out of the hotel.

I had a river on one side and some wooden flooring that I sat on.

On the other side, was a wedding.

People were having fun, singing.

[*Russian wedding tradition to shout "gorko" ("bitter")] [in reference to the taste of vodka, which the newlyweds] [are supposed to relieve by kissing.] — Shouting "gorko?"* — They weren't, but they were all fancy and dressed up.

At that moment, I had this overwhelming feeling

of weirdness and surrealism of what was going on.

I guess I thought at that moment that I wouldn't...

I didn't think I wouldn't be able to get him out.

I thought, "I'm probably not getting him out today."

It took a lot of effort from a lot of people.

I guess my pressure helped.

Pressure in the press and online too.

This uproar that we wish to fly him out but they won't let us.

There was international pressure too.

I believe Merkel and Macron made statements on the matter,

but I didn't follow those news too closely.

I wrote a letter to Putin demanding that they release him.

I think all these efforts coalesced and they eventually realized

that they're better off releasing him than turning it into this...

well, "live show" is a nasty name, but this live show of his death.

As terrible as it may sound,

these events made me more comfortable with the words "death" and "dying."

[*Diminutive of Aleksey.] Previously, whenever Liosha* or the kids said something like that at home,

I'd always tell them off for it, because I hated these words.

I find it easier to say them these days,

because I knew that he was probably going to die in Omsk.

— Your team later collected evidence from your hotel room. — Yes.

[Tomsk, Xander Hotel] [Aleksey Navalniy's room] [One hour after the news about poisoning] [20 August 2020] (muffled voices)

(two dings)

(two dings)

They realized they needed to get inside your room

at least 3 hours after you checked out.

— (Dud) With the road to the airport... — No, sooner, much sooner.

No, you got to the airport...

Checked out from where?

The hotel. After you left it.

Why hadn't the staff cleaned the room yet?

Because it was early morning. I left the hotel at six.

They received the news that we'd landed in Omsk because Navalniy had been poisoned

very early in the morning too, at breakfast.

— The room hadn't been cleaned yet. — Around nine local time? — Yes.

Again, you have to remember the context of our everyday life:

the first question they ask me in every interview is, "How are you still alive?"

We discuss the scenario where I get assassinated all the time at the ACF.

We mostly do it jokingly, but still.

They simply did what they were prepared for way in advance.

They told them, "Navalniy was poisoned."

They said, "Let's check out his room to see what he ate and drank."

They went to the room. The staff wouldn't let them in.

They set up a watch to stop anyone from entering.

Eventually they convinced the manager,

got inside and picked up these bottles and whatever else.

Thinking back, no one would've believed this was gonna happen.

Had someone come up to me prior or even that day and said, "Novichok, chemical weapons,"

I would've laughed in their face.

But in hindsight, they should've taken samples of wallpaper

and swabbed everything in the room to collect more evidence.

They entered the room, checked out the minibar, saw the open bottles and took them.

They weren't collecting evidence per se.

They just picked up the most obvious things.

One of the collectors was Maria Pevchih. Who is she?

Head of the investigations department. Has been for years. Many journalists know her.

Why didn't anyone except for those "many journalists" know about her prior?

No, it's not true that no one knew about her.

All investigative journalists in Russia know her.

She's been with the ACF for years.

She just decided a while ago that she wanted to stay out of the public eye.

Which is why so many people know Georgiy Alburov from investigations.

He has a Twitter, a lot of people know him.

Pevchih was never a secret employee.

All investigative journalists have known her for years.

Some article said Pevchih and you stayed in the same hotel room.

— Is that true? — Obviously, no.

Moreover, we have a special protocol:

no one ever enters my room.

For example, she was responsible for a shoot and had one of my shirts.

I needed to get it from her.

She messaged me, we met in the hallway, and she gave me the shirt.

The protocol says: females never

enter my hotel room or anything like that,

because we all know that they could record it and then go:

"A woman enters his room. Three hours later, the now disheveled figure sneaks out."

So it's obviously made up and completely unrealistic.

Otherwise, they would've already released videos

of women or even men entering my room.

But no one ever did.

One thing I found odd about the transportation of evidence.

When asked where the evidence was transported,

she said it was "strategically stowed in different bags."

Some was in carry-ons, the rest, in luggage.

But...

Remember when the Skripals were poisoned...

— There was a woman called Dawn Sturgess and her friend. — Yes, she died.

They touched this perfume bottle, I think.

Her friend was in critical condition, and Dawn herself died.

He gave her the bottle, she thought it was perfume, sprayed it on herself and died.

How do you carry on board something that could kill everyone on the plane?

Again, rewind. At the time, no one knew about Novichok or that it was evidence.

They examined the room and took the bottles because the initial assumption was...

They got a message: "Navalniy was poisoned."

They went to my room to find whatever I ate or drank. Maybe there was cyanide in my water, right?

Even knowing how insane our authorities are,

the idea that they'd use chemical weapons within Russia

was still pretty extreme.

At the time, no one thought of it as evidence.

When the team and my wife brought my clothes and these bottles here,

their idea was: help the doctors figure out what they're treating.

The guy passed out. What are we treating?

But they knew it was poisoning, didn't they?

What kind of poisoning?

The basic metabolic panel returned nothing.

That's the whole point of chemical weapons.

To know what you're treating, you wanna first figure out the poison.

That's why they didn't hand those bottles over to local security agencies or something.

They handed everything over to the people at the hospital.

They never treated it as "evidence."

Our investigation dept guys, including Pevchih,

had no doubt in their minds that I'd been poisoned,

most likely, at the hotel,

and there would be a cover-up operation

to make everything look as inconspicuous as possible.

So just in case, they stowed these items around

and tried to fly them out in a way to avoid confiscation.

But no one gave it much thought at the time.

It was more of a formality.

Seriously. It seemed highly improbable that someone had come into the room

and poured poisonous powder in one of the bottles.

But they took them just in case.

You read the report that Maria Pevchih's father is connected to a chem lab?

I have. I've read a lot of theories. They're all laughable.

This theory is as dumb as the one with Kaftanchikovo moonshine.

— But is he connected? — As I understand, no.

It's all made up.

He has a connection to some kind of business, but it has nothing to do with chemistry.

You don't suspect anything?

No, I don't suspect anything. I mean...

After I'd come back and regained my cognitive abilities,

when they first mentioned Novichok,

being of sound mind by then, I said: "Are you high? It can't be Novichok."

They told me that three labs

in three different countries

had said it was Novichok, a chemical weapon.

Took me a while, but I processed and accepted it.

A regular chemist doesn't have access to this type of weapon.

Putin said something silly to Macron, if the media is to be believed,

[French newspaper Le Monde published details] [of the conversation between Putin and Macron] Putin said something silly to Macron, if the media is to be believed,

[French newspaper Le Monde published details] [of the conversation between Putin and Macron] that I'd cooked some Novichok and poisoned myself.

[French newspaper Le Monde published details] [of the conversation between Putin and Macron] You believe he could've said that?

The fact that the French press covered this with a fair bit of detail

and that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs then said they were investigating the leak,

I doubt it was a leak though, is proof this was no accident.

— They leaked it? — Yeah, they'd leaked it themselves and launched an investigation.

Looks that way.

I think they were just outraged by the audacity of Putin's lies.

You sort of expect a certain level of respect from a fellow president.

I guess they expected him to say something like:

"We had an in-house issue."

"We'll take care of it."

"We can't share all the details, but we'll handle it, please don't worry."

Instead he goes: "Navalniy's faking it. He probably poisoned himself."

Anyone would get annoyed.

A lie of such order is annoying.

[Navalniy's daughter Darya is 19.] Dasha* is pretty much a grownup.

Zahar is about to hit his teens.

Do you ever have difficult conversations about his dad's work?

Funny story.

It's probably not very flattering for Zahar, but it speaks volumes about our life.

Dasha learned about the poisoning. Yulia rushed to the airport.

Dasha told me she went to Zahar's room.

Zahar was playing GTA5, GTA Online.

She says, "Dad got poisoned." He goes, "Mm-hmm," and keeps playing.

She says, "He got poisoned. He's in a coma."

He goes, "Yeah, coma is bad."

And keeps playing GTA Online.

Not true! He said, "Oh wow!"

Without even pausing the game!

You have to understand that they watch my interviews too.

In every interview, they hear questions like: "Are you afraid of assassination? How are you still alive?"

This stupid background of "killed, not killed, will get killed or not,"

it's permeated everything so thoroughly that...

There were some terrible moments, but I missed all of them.

The best part about this whole story for me,

if there IS a best part,

is hearing the anxious jokes that they told each other during these events.

Like when they brought me in this box to the airplane,

what did they say?

— "You're finally flying... — ...on a private jet, Aleksey."

You've investigated so many private jet owners!

You're finally flying by one yourself, though in a box that says "Biohazard."

Or you said: "Shuvalov flies his corgis on a jet. I'm flying my husband in a box."

Stuff like that. (laughs)

Aleksey was in a box then?

— Like an oxygen pod? — Sort of a box.

Something like an oxygen pod, yes.

A special box for patients.

Since I was poisoned, I also needed to be isolated.

So it was a box with a sign that said "Biohazard" and this symbol.

I'm sorry for prying, but did you sit next to this pod?

Or was it isolated from the cabin?

No, the pod itself is isolated.

You don't need to keep your distance from it.

It wasn't next to me like you are. A little further.

To put it bluntly, it's like a coffin.

— You sit on a couch next to this... — That's exactly why I said "sorry."

— Yeah. I chose not to use this word. — It's fine! I lived. Relax.

I can say whatever.

(title card music)

Federal TV stations suggested the idea that it could've been someone on your team.

Why do you exclude this possibility?

I don't exclude it.

[*Federal Security Service.] In theory, you could've been recruited by the FSB*.

You got me to do this interview.

There's Novichok in this bottle. If I die now, it's on you.

So in theory, you can't exclude the possibility

that the bad guys had recruited someone by holding their family hostage and said:

"Here's a band aid. You need to stick it to Navalniy's shirt for 10 seconds."

"Then take it off wearing gloves, and you're free to go."

Is this possible in theory? It is.

— Is it possible in practice? No, I exclude it. — Why?

Because I've worked with these people for many years.

Besides, we know how political assassinations in Russia work.

Those stories on federal channels

are typical examples of turning the spotlight away from the heart of the problem.

[*Boris Nemtsov was a liberal politician.] [Anna Politkovskaya was a journalist.] Nemtsov shot himself, you know? Politkovskaya* was poisoned by her family.

No, I know what they're doing.

But what about you? You have security measures, right?

There's a lot of people at the ACF.

— How often do you suspect that someone on the team could be..? — Never.

Moreover, one key feature of this method that they used

is that only well trained professionals can utilize Novichok or similar weapons.

You can't grab just anyone and go: "Here's the bottle with the stuff. Go."

They'll probably poison and kill themselves instantly.

Which is why assassins that use chemical weapons are trained professionals.

Which serves as indirect proof that the attempt was sanctioned by the Kremlin.

It couldn't have simply been an out-of-control oligarch or corrupt official

because of this combination:

Novichok

plus people with access and skills to handle it,

[*Foreign Intelligence Service.] which is like 5 people in the SVR* and 5 people in the FSB.

Your opinion: who's behind it?

My opinion is that it was done by either FSB or SVR agents,

obviously, on Putin's orders.

Because I... Okay!

Let's break it down.

— Can you buy Novichok at a supermarket? — No.

Can you cook it at a chem lab? No.

It's a binary chemical weapon. You can't just make it.

Some shadowy genius couldn't have made some?

No, you need a pretty complex chem lab for that.

Besides, you need the skills to use it.

Consider all the components.

First, Novichok itself.

Second, the events in Omsk,

where the Minister of Healthcare put together a group...

Why do the Minister of Healthcare or the head physician care?

You really think they wanted me to stay and die in their hospital?

Of course, they didn't.

They put together a group that flies over from Moscow to confirm that I'm nontransportable.

This whole chain of...

Then you have Putin's outrageous private, personal lie

that I faked it and poisoned myself!

The combination of these facts paints the picture.

We don't have footage of Putin kicking and screaming:

"Kill him! He offends my United Russia and talks about my money!"

We don't have that footage, but two people could've...

Director of the FSB Bortnikov and director of SVR Narishkin

can write a letter that goes: "Take requisite measures and make Love Potion #9."

But the only person that can order them to use Love Potion #9 on a Russian citizen

is, of course, non other than Putin himself.

— Aleksey, even with the impact... — Megalomania?

Took the word out of my mouth!

Even with the huge impact of your and ACF's investigations,

don't you think you sound a little megalomaniacal?

No, I don't.

What did you do specifically to Putin

to make him lose his cool

and order such a clumsy attempt on your life?

First off, not clumsy. Continuing from earlier.

It wasn't clumsy. It was pretty clever.

They calculated exactly that I'd be on a plane, unable to get medical help for hours.

They calculated it pretty well.

A few random elements intervened though.

Besides, if they had shot or dropped a brick on my head,

or hit me with a car, or used some other widely accessible murder weapon,

there could've been many options.

ACF investigated a lot of people.

We've upset, offended, insulted and exposed a lot of people.

I think a lot of people want me dead

and a ton of officials use my portrait on their walls as a dartboard.

This weapon of choice is a clear indicator.

An FSB lieutenant general or some random offended guy

can't just call someone, get some Novichok,

hire a team of assassins that know how to use it

and set something like this in motion.

Where are the videos from my hotel?

Why is there no investigation?

Why did the doctors in Omsk act so weird and wouldn't release me?

— (Dud) But look... — Let me finish, I'm sorry. They used a lot of different resources to do this.

So there's no megalomania.

I just know that there's no other pathway within our system.

Why not?

Assume this was done without Putin's involvement.

— For example... — Tell me your version.

— Do you believe in the Kremlin Towers — No.

[The Kremlin Towers is a theory used in analysis] [of Russian internal politics. Each tower symbolizes] [a particular influential group or clan] — Do you believe in the Kremlin Towers? — No.

[The Kremlin Towers is a theory used in analysis] [of Russian internal politics. Each tower symbolizes] [a particular influential group or clan] — The Kremlin Towers? — No. It's not real.

[The Kremlin Towers is a theory used in analysis] [of Russian internal politics. Each tower symbolizes] [a particular influential group or clan] I mean there are different people in the Kremlin

that fight for resources and try to steal the most.

— But there are no towers. — But there are clans, right?

There are people who are friends with one another and not others.

Right. There are several decision- making centers and stuff.

Assume one of them wants to...

You either got to them or maybe they associate you with another clan

that you don't bother as much or, presumably, get inside data from,

and they want to hurt this clan by removing you.

None of this involves Putin:

he's somewhere up here,

these clans duke it out down here.

Without informing the boss, as they call him,

they run this operation.

And they botch it.

Once the news gets out,

their boss tries to play it down.

Everything about your theory is fine except for the murder weapon.

It's impossible to obtain...

— You can hire an assassin to shoot me. — What do you mean "impossible?"

Come on! The law says...

Are you saying that there's no person that could use Novichok without the president knowing?

I'm saying that you can't do it without the director of either FSB or SVR knowing.

Russian law says you can't carry firearms on you.

You know how many people possess firearms and..?

Because you know where to buy and how to use it. You can't buy Novichok.

That's the thing.

You don't believe that there's a dozen ninjas out there

that know how to use it and aren't state agents?

It's not about believing or assuming.

It's about knowing how the world works.

We have one confirmed case of assassination using an older version of Novichok in Russia.

[In 1995, the head of Rosbiznesbank Ivan Kivelidi was] [poisoned in his office. The assassins put the poison] [on the diaphragm of his work phone] We have one confirmed case of assassination using an older version of Novichok in Russia.

[In 1995, the head of Rosbiznesbank Ivan Kivelidi was] [poisoned in his office. The assassins put the poison] [on the diaphragm of his work phone] One of its creators sold an ampule of it to the assassins for €4,000 if I remember correctly.

One of its creators sold an ampule of it to the assassins for €4,000 if I remember correctly.

You can't just...

This happened many years ago.

There's no black market for it.

Besides, it's now been proven that it's some new modification.

It's not a normal poison.

It's not something you can just buy.

That's why it turned into an international scandal.

Everyone understands, chemists and experts understand too

that it's not something a regular person, even with power, can obtain.

Only a small number of people have access to the substance

and the agents that can use it.

Say, someone tells the FSB or the SVR, "Kill this one."

They'll go: "Sure thing. But we need the official order."

"We'll cook the Love Potion #9 and we'll kill him,

"but we need appropriate paperwork from you."

What paperwork? It's like the receipt...

[In 2018, four Russian agents were arrested and] [deported from the Netherlands. One of them had] [a cab receipt for a ride to the airport from one] [of the GRU (military intelligence) compounds.] I get that modern intelligence carries around receipts for cab rides to the airport*.

Okay, yeah.

[*Two Russians presumed to be responsible] [for the 2018 Skripal and Amesbury poisonings.] But not everyone works like Boshirov and Petrov*.

Of course, this is all in the theoretical domain.

But there's indirect evidence

that I analyze and use to come to rational conclusions.

You asked what I believed.

You actually believe that Putin straight-up gave the order?

I see no other explanation.

When you ask why, I have an answer to that.

For the last two years, our system has been under unprecedented amounts of pressure.

You know about the police raids. Everyone on the team has frozen bank accounts.

They interrogate everyone.

The pressure keeps growing.

I have to pay $1 million to Prigozhin, Putin's Cook.

[*Lyubov Sobol is a lawyer with the ACF.] [Moskovskiy Shkolnik food plant won an 88-million-ruble] [lawsuit against ACF and Navalniy claiming damages] [to business reputation and lost profits. MS filed] [the lawsuit after ACF's investigation of poisonings with] [poor quality food in schools. Yevgeniy Prigozhin bought] [the debt from MS and can now claim it for himself] Sobol* has to pay $1 million.

[Moskovskiy Shkolnik food plant won an 88-million-ruble] [lawsuit against ACF and Navalniy claiming damages] [to business reputation and lost profits. MS filed] [the lawsuit after ACF's investigation of poisonings with] [poor quality food in schools. Yevgeniy Prigozhin bought] [the debt from MS and can now claim it for himself] The ACF has to pay tens of millions of rubles.

[Moskovskiy Shkolnik food plant won an 88-million-ruble] [lawsuit against ACF and Navalniy claiming damages] [to business reputation and lost profits. MS filed] [the lawsuit after ACF's investigation of poisonings with] [poor quality food in schools. Yevgeniy Prigozhin bought] [the debt from MS and can now claim it for himself] We had to switch organizations.

[Moskovskiy Shkolnik food plant won an 88-million-ruble] [lawsuit against ACF and Navalniy claiming damages] [to business reputation and lost profits. MS filed] [the lawsuit after ACF's investigation of poisonings with] [poor quality food in schools. Yevgeniy Prigozhin bought] [the debt from MS and can now claim it for himself] Despite all this, we didn't just survive — we got stronger.

We smacked United Russia pretty heavily at the recent vote.

Coming into the Duma election, they knew they were in big trouble.

So I think...

Again, this is just my theory. You can call it megalomania if you wish.

In a sense, we became the victims of our own success.

We survived their onslaught.

Moreover, we turned every bit of their pressure into new victories.

They come in and take everything —

we go, "Guys, help us replace our stuff,"

and end up getting even more donations.

They don't register us for elections —

we use the Smart Voting and other political parties to beat down United Russia.

Look at Tomsk. We took their majority from them.

Don't underestimate it.

Additional context:

[In 2020, governor of Habarovsk Sergey Furgal was] [arrested on charges of involvement in assassination] [of several businessmen in 2004 and 2005 and replaced] [with an acting governor from United Russia.] [Frequent and massive rallies in Habarovsk] [in support of Furgal have been compared] [to anti-Lukashenko rallies in Belarus.] Habarovsk*,

Belarus and everything.

Putin is personally concerned about his power and his money.

You don't doubt that, do you?

The matter of United Russia's survival and the matter of its majority in councils

is directly tied to Putin's personal power and money.

So obviously it bothers him.

Have you considered Prigozhin?

I've considered everyone.

But again, the weapon of choice narrows it down substantially.

Do you remember the moment he woke up?

(sighs)

On the day of our arrival,

I told the German doctors:

"When you decide to bring him back from the coma..."

We've all seen it in the movies, right?

The person's in the hospital bed,

they open their eyes, and the family rushes to hug him,

and they recognize everyone or almost everyone.

And the whole movie is about this scene.

I told them:

"Please, let me know. I wanna be there."

They said, "Yeah, yeah, okay."

When it started,

I realized it was very different in real life.

They lower the dosage of the drug that keeps him comatose

and he starts to half-open his eyes.

He opens his eyes, then closes them again.

He looks but he probably can't understand anything.

This goes on for several days.

He didn't suddenly wake up and say, "Good morning!" or smile to us.

There was no single moment.

I remember one moment from when he didn't talk yet.

He had this thing called a tracheostoma, I believe.

This tube in his neck.

He couldn't talk because of it.

There's a plug that they turn on at some point.

Then you can talk.

But it wasn't there at first.

I don't think he could talk for the first couple of days anyway.

I showed him the conversation

that Lukashenko had intercepted.

— The conversation between... — Mike and Nick!

Yes! Poland and Germany.

And all of a sudden he started laughing.

— That's when I realized he was... — More alive than dead? — ...gonna be fine, yes.

The scariest thing is that the Kremlin,

even if you don't believe that it was Putin,

some high-ranking officials are now using this stuff.

And let me tell you, using these sorts of weapons is true madness,

because you can't detect them.

By sheer luck, several super labs took some of my blood for testing

and they found Novichok inside me, on my arm and somewhere else.

They found it in my body. The bottle is not THE evidence.

They found it in my body.

If you're in Moscow.

Imagine a scenario.

We have a presenter with a YouTube channel.

A really big one.

And everyone's sick of him,

because he invites over Belarusian oppositionists

as well as local ones.

Everyone hates him in general because he has a bigger audience than a federal channel.

Really unpleasant person... for the Kremlin.

One day, this TV presenter leaves his house, gets in his car...

— YouTube presenter. — YouTube presenter. — It's important.

— Okay, sure. I don't mean anyone in particular. — Okay.

He opens his car,

starts driving somewhere and soon starts to feel unwell.

Then he gets worse and worse.

He drives off the road and that's it.

They take him to a hospital or a morgue.

And no lab that has great, honest doctors

but doesn't have a mass spectrometer,

[Mass spectrometry is a technique of analysis and] [identification of substances that shows the concentration] [of different components in them ] but doesn't have a mass spectrometer,

[Mass spectrometry is a technique of analysis and] [identification of substances that shows the concentration] [of different components in them ] because only 18 labs in the whole world have one,

[Mass spectrometry is a technique of analysis and] [identification of substances that shows the concentration] [of different components in them ] will find anything.

And everyone will say, "He was so young!"

"What an odd death!"

Vladimir Solovyov will come out and say: "Have you seen his hair?"

"He was obviously a junkie."

Someone else will say: "And his friends? Rappers! You know those types!"

"Clear as day, they'd get together to shoot up and snort stuff!"

There's another theory: he went for a swim in Kaftanchikovo.

"They say he and his cameraman stayed in the same hotel room."

"Maybe someone on his team poisoned him? Or not."

"Maybe his wife did it? Or not."

And this discussion goes on,

but no one will ever find it.

Just a suspicious death.

That's the scariest part.

Again, megalomania or not,

but everything indicates that Putin is obsessed with the idea of mysterious poisonings.

He loves to think that he commands a Nazgûl-type army

of these secret ninja- and assassin-like dudes

that terrify everyone.

Say, you're brave and you're not afraid of prison.

Or you're not afraid of being shot, killed or getting your leg cut off with a chainsaw.

But opening your car door and dying after that,

that stuff's almost mystical.

They're loving it down there in the Kremlin

that they terrify people with the idea

that someone could pat you on the back — and nice knowing ya.

They really love it.

They see it as a method of influence.

And it works too!

Even here in Germany!

I was told that some perfectly reasonable people, not prone to overreacting

have said: "These Russians and Putin, man. Let's stay the hell away from them!"

"They're insane."

Using Novichok on a plane against a Russian citizen!

What if it went wrong?

Say they put it on my shirt.

I spill some juice on it and ask the person next to me to hold it while I change.

And they die!

You know why they haven't used chemical weapons since WW1?

Even before the ban.

Because it's dangerous even to the people using it.

It's not very effective.

That's why they don't use it.

It's guaranteed to cause a painful death,

but it's not very effective as a warfare tool.

But as a means of spreading fear and terror among the masses,

it's just perfect.

Think how many people in Russia said after this incident:

"They poisoned Navalniy so openly. Maybe I better just shut up."

Particularly outside of Moscow.

Being an oppositionist outside of Moscow is scary.

Saying bold things, running a big YouTube channel.

Some won't care, others will think:

"There's some crazy stuff going on out there and no one's gonna find anything."

That's their goal!

Maybe it wasn't even about killing me.

Maybe they wanted to scare people into submission.

As far as I can tell, they more or less succeeded.

— Concerning Aleksey's look after the coma. — Mm-hmm?

Film critic turned film director Volobuyev said it best in his tweet:

"After his coma, Navalniy looks better than I ever have."

"Why do some get everything and others, everything else?"

Do you agree with Volobuyev?

They can switch if he envies him so much. (laughs)

First off, yeah, we could switch. Second, Volobuyev hasn't seen my physiotherapy.

You know how they show 90-year-old grannies in parks wearing those things?

I sit on an exercise ball trying to hold my balance with one foot.

I may have lost weight,

but if you ask me to pick something up, you're in for a little show.

So Volobuyev definitely shouldn't envy me.

But you were trying to lose weight, weren't you?

You got into jogging and stuff.

Funny thing about jogging.

They told me that one of the happy coincidences that kept me alive

was that I was in good shape physically

You know that I jogged, right?

For the last two years, I tried to jog thrice a week.

I hate jogging.

I thought I'd warm up to it.

I jogged and I hated every step I took.

Now I'm thinking this was some kind of karmic compensation for my suffering.

(Dud) Did it actually help?

— Don't forget: in addition to jogging, there was swimming. — Well, jogging, swimming.

No, they said it definitely helped that I was in good shape.

After 40, everyone is prone to gain weight.

I just try not to.

So rather than losing weight, it's about not gaining extra.

When did Angela Merkel come to visit you?

This was during my last week in the hospital.

In a regular hospital room, post-ER.

She was in your room?

Yeah. The door opened. My doctor came in and said:

"You have a guest."

— You didn't know prior? — No, I didn't.

— Oh come on! — No, seriously.

[*Federal Protective Service.] FSO* didn't inspect the room?

No, nothing like that. No K9 checks. Seriously.

Before we started this interview...

— First, you came here with guards. — Yes.

Second, 90 minutes before we started recording, local FSO or whatever inspected the place.

— Berlin Police. — Berlin Police searched the place and stuff.

They found my stash of socks and...

— Wanted to arrest you for it? — It was a possibility.

They even took pictures of our passports.

Do they guard Angela Merkel worse than you?

Well, there was security outside my room.

They probably figured that people in the room, i.e. my wife and I and our child,

didn't pose a threat to Angela Merkel.

Things are different here.

Politicians don't drive around with beacons.

Angela Merkel lives in a regular building.

There's police posted outside it.

They don't block off roads for them.

Things are totally different here.

Funny story about security.

When I started to understand things again...

Before I started to understand things,

I noticed there was a little room behind a glass window next to the ER

and there was a guy in this room who didn't look like a doctor!

But there was always someone.

It seemed odd, but not my first priority.

I had all kinds of hallucinations.

I was coming out of a coma. Some guy? Whatever. He was a part of my fantasy world.

When I started to understand things again, I got a visit from a group of very nice folks.

They said: "Hi. We're the leadership of Berlin Police."

"Are you aware that someone tried to kill you with a very dangerous weapon?"

I said, "I'm surprised, but I am aware of it."

"Do you think they could repeat their attempt on you here in Berlin?"

I said, "I doubt it, but I can't be certain."

They said: "Well, since you're not certain..."

"Some very odd and unusual things happen around you."

"We don't want you to get hit by a car or killed with a falling brick in Germany."

"Our taxpayers will get upset if something bad happens to you,

"particularly if..."

They were really diplomatic. What they actually meant was:

you Russian crazies run around poisoning each other with chemical weapons,

well, we don't want any chemical weapons in Germany.

Point is, it's not me they're protecting, but the people around me,

because of, well, what happened.

They prefer to have some people follow me than to risk things going wrong.

What did Angela Merkel say? Why did she visit you?

It was a private conversation. We didn't discuss anything sensational.

When she came in, my first thought was...

We're in a hospital. What do patients wear, right?

I thought, "Man, good thing I'm wearing SOMETHING!"

She said, like...

We talked. Again, it was a private conversation.

Without delving into any details, nothing of importance came up.

It wasn't a political conversation.

I was surprised by how detailed her understanding of current events in Russia was.

Normally, you meet a foreign politician and go:

"Let me tell you what's REALLY going on in Russia."

Because they live in an ivory tower.

She knew current Russian events better than anyone, down to every detail.

About Habarovsk, about Belarus...

Down to every detail, with full context, knows how things work, and in Russian too!

Merkel walked in and started to talk in Russian, and it honestly caught me...

[*"Hello" in Russian.] How well though? Did she just say "zdrastute?"*

We switched to English, but I felt that she could've talked in Russian the whole way through.

— Woah! — Yeah.

Like, talking to this person, you realize why they're one of the European leaders.

She's a really smart and forward-thinking woman.

But it was just a private conversation.

We didn't discuss anything momentous.

Were you flattered by her visit?

It was a pleasant surprise, certainly.

— Did it bother you? — No.

...that propaganda could now go:

"Navalniy's master visits him in the hospital."

I mean, so what? Putin meets with Angela Merkel, doesn't he?

— Okay, he's the president. — They're equals. They're both heads of state.

Our Minister of Foreign Affairs meets with her, doesn't he?

Even mid-level officials meet with her at summits.

I don't mean it like I'm the second politician in the country,

but I'm probably one of the key figures of Russian political opposition.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with me meeting with a foreign leader

to discuss Russian or international affairs.

I can discuss them as well as Putin can.

I don't see a problem with that.

(title card music)

Question about Dasha Navalnaya.

Did she tell you she wanted to go to college in the US or was it your idea?

[In 2019, Dasha Navalnaya was] [accepted at Stanford University] I believe in the beginning, Aleksey would always say,

"Any school is good."

But then I dragged him into this community of parents from Moscow

who always look for better schools.

Since then, we've always been trying to find something better.

Some even move closer to those schools, I heard.

— We didn't get that far into it. — No, we didn't. Thank God.

But that's the kind of parents we became.

We're obsessed with good education.

We always think that kids don't go to enough clubs.

Our poor children!

We wanted a better education for our child.

We knew she had good English. We knew she was preparing.

It was really tough.

But we weren't, like, choosing between going to college overseas or in Russia.

We wanted her to get her degree at a respected school.

I swayed between the two extremes:

from "who cares what school you go to,"

because I grew up in a closed little town that only had one school

and I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of choosing a school

all the way to being somewhat obsessed with education.

So it's not like we told her to pick an American or German, or Russian college.

We said, "Here are the top universities."

"We as a family would like you to get into one of the ones at the top."

— "The higher on the list you get..." — So it was that level of technicality? — Yes.

"We want you to get a good education."

"Let's get you prepped in the next two years —  get you some tutors and classes."

"The higher you can get on this list, the better."

She applied to several universities

and ended up getting into one of the best.

If this university was located in Hong Kong, Torzhok or Tomsk,

she would be studying in Tomsk today.

But, oh well, unfortunately, Russia is pretty low on this list.

— You only pay for her dorm? — Yes. Dorm and food.

— Which is about $2,000 a month? — $22,000 a year, I think.

— Something like that. — $22,000 or $24,000 a year. — No, a little less. $20,000 to $22,000.

Why is tuition itself free?

Because then your family income is...

You send them all your bank statements.

If your family's annual income is less than $160,000 a year, I believe,

then Stanford pays for your tuition.

This applies to everyone.

— But only if you ace your entry exams? — If you get in.

You can apply from home?

Well, you do the tests.

They don't have entry exams. You complete tests.

You write an essay and complete tests.

They're not tests. You write an essay and complete...

Well, for reference,

it's something like TOEFL or SAT.

[TOEFL and SAT are English aptitude] [tests used by international colleges] It's a universal test across all subjects.

They're all international universities, right?

They have lots of foreign students.

Topday, it wouldn't be entirely correct to call Stanford or Harvard, or Yale strictly American universities.

They're international universities.

Same with some of the better Chinese universities.

No longer Chinese, they're international universities with lots of foreign students.

If you get into them, they win from having you as their student,

because you're smart, you came over, that's great.

So if you get in and you prove that your family can't afford to pay $70,000 a year,

they go, "Okay":

sponsors, endowment and university alumni

will cover the fees, you just pay for the dorm.

— How much did the medivac from Omsk to Berlin cost? — I believe €75,000.

Boris Zimin paid for it, for which I am really grateful.

How much did your treatment at Charité cost?

[Boris Zimin, son of Dmitriy Zimin, founder of VimpelCom] [(one of Russia's biggest mobile service providers)] [and one of the founders of Dynasty Foundation] How much did your treatment at Charité cost?

[Boris Zimin, son of Dmitriy Zimin, founder of VimpelCom] [(one of Russia's biggest mobile service providers)] [and one of the founders of Dynasty Foundation] They haven't given us the final bill yet,

[Boris Zimin, son of Dmitriy Zimin, founder of VimpelCom] [(one of Russia's biggest mobile service providers)] [and one of the founders of Dynasty Foundation] because I still work with a physiotherapist,

[Boris Zimin, son of Dmitriy Zimin, founder of VimpelCom] [(one of Russia's biggest mobile service providers)] [and one of the founders of Dynasty Foundation] but based on the figures that we've seen so far,

but based on the figures that we've seen so far,

it's gonna be around €60,000 to €70,000.

How does this work in practice?

They hand you the final bill after or is there a special account?

We got bills along the way. It's actually super transparent.

'Cause for example a local deputy came out and said:

"Excuse me, why are German taxpayers footing a Russian patient's medical bills again?"

Their taxpayers are not footing my bills.

It's certainly a huge sum for me.

I don't have the €70,000 to pay for my treatment,

but there's a number of people whom we told the following:

"Thank you so much, but you can't stay anonymous."

For example, Zimin paid for the flight.

I can openly say that the €75,000 for the medivac came from Boris Zimin.

And he can confirm it.

Similarly, everyone who chips in to pay for the treatment will reveal their names.

You recently revealed your yearly income for 2019.

Your yearly income was... The number will appear up here.

— The bulk of this amount came from legal work for Boris Zimin. — Yes.

What kind of legal work?

Most of it is organization...

[*European Court of Human Rights.] Organization of coordinated work with ECHR* for a number of people.

But again, for the purpose of full disclosure.

Zimin knows perfectly well that I have bills to pay.

He also knows that politics is my main job and focus of efforts.

He signs a binding contract with me,

I do certain work agreed upon in the contract,

but it's not a super strict client-provider relationship.

So it's more of a sponsorship?

It's not "more of a sponsorship,"

but he certainly doesn't desperately need my services.

Especially since he buys them for third parties, not himself.

But his main motive is the desire to help us.

It's the obvious truth. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like it's not.

But these services, however minor, are you the one providing them?

— Do you shuffle docs on your computer? Or does the ACF staff do it? — I do it too, of course.

I regularly go to Strasbourg.

Is it a good thing for a politician...

Yes, it is.

...when you have someone who basically publicly sponsors you?

Your personal and family expenses

are covered by someone who lives abroad

and is a fairly obvious opponent of the current regime.

First, he's a Russian citizen. That's key to me. Second, it IS a good thing.

You know about this, right?

Everyone does.

Meaning, everyone who wants to know knows

where Navalniy and his family get their money from.

[*Director of the National Guard of Russia and] [a member of the Security Council of Russia.] Can you say the same about Putin? Or Zolotov*?

You don't even know for certain what Putin's daughters' names are or what they do.

It's never been said officially.

THAT'S unacceptable.

Here you have a specific person who's a Russian citizen.

Everyone knows how much they pay me.

I get the money legally. I pay my taxes. I pay my bills with it.

And the money I get corresponds exactly with my lifestyle.

The numbers match.

That's how it should work. I'm transparent for everyone.

Whereas when your income is 2 million rubles,

but you own a 300-million house and an 8-million car,

that's an issue.

Are you somehow indebted to Boris Zimin for it?

I'm really grateful for his help.

He hired the plane, paid €70,000, a huge sum, but he didn't have to.

If he didn't, then even storming the hospital in Omsk wouldn't have done jack.

I don't have to do anything for him, like special investigations or something.

We have a crystal clear understanding on this.

He knows nothing about our current projects.

I love chatting with him.

He visited me in the hospital too.

He's a very smart and interesting person,

but it's not the type of relationship where he knows more about ACF's work than you do.

He, just like you, sometimes checks YouTube and sees we've posted a new investigation.

What if one day he asks you about something?

Oh, I don't know.

For example: "Aleksey, please, don't say a word about the Habarovsk rallies."

"Not a word."

If I believed that something like this could happen, I would've never taken a penny from him.

— But if something like this does happen... — Something happens to him. He's not himself.

He knows perfectly well that I will say, "Sorry, but no."

They blocked his card with his laptop fund, but he didn't come up to you and go:

[Learned today that I'm a member of the criminal group] [called Navalniy's Supporters. Accounts of all family] [members, including children, have been blocked,] [and money, frozen. Lawyer went to court today.] [The ruling said: blocked the accounts of members] [of the criminal group of A. Navalniy's supporters that] [includes Yulia Navalnaya, Darya Navalnaya, etc.] [This is an outrage! How come they made A. Navalniy] [the leader of the criminal group? What if I'm the gang] [boss and A. Navalniy is just a supporter of mine?] They blocked his card with his laptop fund, but he didn't come up to you and go:

[Learned today that I'm a member of the criminal group] [called Navalniy's Supporters. Accounts of all family] [members, including children, have been blocked,] [and money, frozen. Lawyer went to court today.] [The ruling said: blocked the accounts of members] [of the criminal group of A. Navalniy's supporters that] [includes Yulia Navalnaya, Darya Navalnaya, etc.] [This is an outrage! How come they made A. Navalniy] [the leader of the criminal group? What if I'm the gang] [boss and A. Navalniy is just a supporter of mine?] "Dad!"

[The apartment and accounts of Navalniy's family were] [blocked by the court's decision following the lawsuit] [by Moskovskiy Shkolnik. Even Zahar's account that] [he used to save up money for a laptop was frozen ] No, he did come up to us and, knowing the whole situation,

[The apartment and accounts of Navalniy's family were] [blocked by the court's decision following the lawsuit] [by Moskovskiy Shkolnik. Even Zahar's account that] [he used to save up money for a laptop was frozen ] that everyone's accounts have been blocked,

[The apartment and accounts of Navalniy's family were] [blocked by the court's decision following the lawsuit] [by Moskovskiy Shkolnik. Even Zahar's account that] [he used to save up money for a laptop was frozen ] he said: "Okay, let's see how much cash I have. I'm resetting the fund."

he said: "Okay, let's see how much cash I have. I'm resetting the fund."

"No more cards though! Only cash!"

What does your everyday life look like

when your bank account says "minus 70 million" or whatever?

I currently have -$5 million in my account.

Why?

Because they froze all of MY accounts too.

I had several accounts. On each, they put this plug of...

-99 million, was it?

-75 million or something.

It's about $1 million.

Because I had several accounts, they set all of them to -$1 million.

Last time I requested a statement, it said...

Minus seventy, minus seventy..?

Minus $5 million. They converted it to USD.

Concerning Stanford.

(Yulia) Yes, this statement was for Stanford.

Every year, we need to prove that our annual income is less than X.

We got our statements

and we also sent a cover letter,

because we were sending paperwork to the university

that said we had minus several million dollars each.

They might've thought we were lying to them or just joking.

So we sent a cover letter explaining how that's even possible.

Does it get you down?

No.

(all laugh)

I'm sorry, how can it not get you down?

I don't know. I love Aleksey's work.

No, no, I get that.

That's chemistry. I mean being millions in the negative.

Yes, but this chemistry is tied to understanding the price of it all.

These things happen.

You can't do anything about it.

We can't do anything about it now, can we?

Even if Aleksey does what you suggested earlier and says: "Well, my term's up."

"I no longer do politics. Can you please roll it all back?"

They're not gonna do it, are they?

So it shouldn't get you down.

They WANT it to get us down.

Besides, it's all relative.

Negative 75 million is unpleasant.

Even before this whole coma situation,

we didn't know about it, but the brilliant green incident,

the constant surveillance on her and Dasha,

like, you know that the money situation is upsetting,

'cause not having a bank account in the modern world is tough,

but it's still nothing compared to other things.

During the 2011 protests,

I even had cars follow me to school.

No, they didn't follow me in the morning. Was probably too early for them.

They followed me on my way back from school.

It really annoyed me. I thought:

"Jesus Christ, they're coming this way anyway! They could've picked up Dasha themselves!"

I mean... It's all relative.

Soon after our 2017 interview, they threw brilliant green in your face.

— Your eye was in really bad shape. — Mm-hmm.

You didn't have a foreign passport,

but you had to go abroad to treat the eye, so they issued one.

I could only get the right type of surgery abroad. They didn't do those in Russia.

— They issued a passport for you. — Yes.

Why do you think they did it?

Because for years, they had been denying me one illegally.

I even have an ECHR ruling.

Yes. They suddenly changed their mind. Why do you think?

Because they'd organized the attack, realized they overdid it and saw the uproar.

I wrote a letter to then Commissioner for Human Rights Fedotov.

I said: "Issue the passport. I need it to go treat my eye."

Something worked.

I don't know how it works!

Putin or whatever felt ashamed for a second.

Or maybe they thought, "Oops, went too far, didn't we?"

"Now this one-eyed pirate's gonna attract compassion like a magnet."

Maybe humanity woke up in them.

Maybe it was calculated, because they deemed me looking like a victim too threatening.

I don't know how exactly the gears turned,

but they did, and they finally complied with the ruling.

Besides, keep in mind,

I had a ruling that said they had to give me a passport.

If they don't, I don't get the surgery and lose the eye.

That's also pretty...

— Even to people who... — "Also" what?

According to your version, these people can straight-up,

not as part of their clan wars,

but just straight-up poison someone

with spooky chemical stuff.

See, you sound like someone who believes

that Putin, the Kremlin and everyone else are spherical cows.

Obviously, they're not.

Or that Putin thinks about geopolitical matters without knowing of "Navalniy or whatever."

Obviously, not. At this very moment, he's looking for a solution to the Habarovsk protests.

He's concerned with the State Duma problem and beating our Smart Voting.

Same thing here.

They know perfectly well that a bad political move will have bad consequences for them.

Denying me the foreign passport and having me lose an eye would've given me more supporters,

because even the people who didn't really like me

would've certainly disliked someone losing an eye after a brilliant green attack

or getting poisoned.

This is how it works.

They don't want more people motivated by compassion,

simple human or political compassion, to become supporters.

They'd hate that.

Because the day after the poisoning, people at Habarovsk rallies also shouted:

[*Diminutive of Aleksey.] "Come on, Lioha*!"

That's when they realized: "Oh crap! We're giving him..."

They didn't feel bad that I was twitching and convulsing in that Omsk hospital.

Not even for a second.

They were thinking: "Okay, if he lives,

"or dies and gets replaced,

"he'll become a symbol,

"and United Russia's ratings will drop even further

"and their stupid Smart Voting will work even better."

That was their reasoning. And it's smart reasoning.

They don't want us to evoke more sympathy.

Because any person, even one thoroughly brainwashed by propaganda,

can still tell the difference between good and evil.

They've been in the hospital. They know how things work.

No one really likes the idea

of people suddenly dropping down and dying two hours later.

Even people who hate me and fully support Putin,

they realize: "What the hell? It's him today. Someone else tomorrow. The day after, they'll..."

Imagine it spirals out of control.

If you're right and there's some sort of Tower War, then it's much worse!

If many different people have access to chemical weapons

and teams that know how to kill with them,

it's really, really bad.

— Have you two ever had the discussion that maybe you should stop what you're doing? — No.

— Never? — No.

Even in the heat of the moment, during yet another search

or because of Zahar's frozen account with his laptop savings?

(Dud) Mm-hmm!

I don't think I can give you a more detailed answer,

because everyone always expects me to say

or somehow insinuate that yeah, I wish he did.

No, I fully support Aleksey's work.

I'm being completely sincere.

It's not just a nice expression.

Quitting halfway is kinda lame.

What's the secret source of your patience?

I don't know.

You criticized me for being radical. I wish you'd heard Yulia talk about politics!

— You would've realized I'm very moderate! — Hey, now. It's not true.

Even three years ago, Aleksey said you were more radical than him on some matters.

Which matters exactly am I more radical on than you?

Well, towards certain people and certain...

It's hard for me to, not even rebuke, not get Yulia's position,

because I chose this path and I'm following it.

You'll probably discuss this in a bit without me,

but hearing stories about Omsk,

the very idea of having to run around this hospital

to get your husband released and get him out of there,

meeting those United Russians,

it WOULD radicalize you.

Because when you face a police officer, well, they're just a cog of the system.

But when you're not a politician

and you encounter the very darkness opposing your family,

it probably radicalizes you emotionally.

That's my understanding.

(title card music)

How would you describe your stance on the constitutional amendments vote?

— (Navalniy) I don't recognize it. — I never got it.

It's very simple. I don't recognize it.

It was obviously fabricated beforehand.

I simply don't recognize it.

I knew they were gonna pass it.

A lot of people don't recognize it.

You can vote against or not vote at all.

I personally didn't.

Some of the ACF members across the country voted against.

But overall, I believe the amendments need to be rolled back.

So your stance, as far as I can tell,

as I understood it from your debate with Katz and stuff,

was: "Vote against if you wanna vote."

"If you don't, don't go, because it's a sham."

"DON'T vote in favor."

— Was it that? — Yes. Absolutely.

Why did you pick this line?

Do you feel that maybe this was the rare moment

where even Putin's supporters were floored by the Kremlin's nerve?

That they came up with this reset.

Do you feel like this was a moment where you could've caused a record protest vote

by telling everyone to go and vote against?

Not just your hardcore supporters,

but also those who were either undecided or didn't support anyone,

but thought this was too much?

— No, it didn't feel like that. — Go on.

I don't exist in a vacuum.

We have a team. We have a lot of people.

During campaigns, I'm the person going from city to city and talking to crowds.

But there are hundreds and thousands of people behind me,

who also work in-between elections and take part in decision-making.

We gauged the situation and concluded

that Putin intentionally didn't hold a referendum because he would've lost it.

Had it been a referendum, I would've been running around stirring everyone to go.

What's the difference?

The difference is that they voided the turnout.

They voided the election procedure.

They ran it as a vote.

They passed the new constitution before the vote even happened.

They did everything to curb the very possibility of such a public outburst.

Wait, I don't get it.

I saw the ballots. They said "in favor" and "against."

Or "yes" and "no," I can't remember.

Did you read the text above "yes" and "no?"

Did it have the word "referendum?"

No. "Vote."

"All-Russian Vote."

What difference does it make if you tell everyone to go and tick the "no" box?

Yeah, and as you tick your "no" box, some gentleman over there ticks 23 "yeses."

You have to understand this.

Not all means of political competition are equally effective.

Take elections. The atrocious, lamentable elections in Russia.

We actively participate in them.

No politician encourages people to vote more than I do.

But this All-Russian Vote specifically

was so rigged even by Russian election standards

that you couldn't do the whole

"let's all go and vote against, and people will see the outcome and come together."

Which, in my opinion, they confirmed the next day.

— Let's go a little westward again, to Belarus. — Alright.

Their protest vote happened.

They had their "against" candidate.

— Hold on! — Okay?

They're exactly the same.

They too had a farce of an election.

[*Central Election Commission.] It was a farce because the head of the CEC* is Lukashenko's buddy.

They had different candidates,

but the general idea was still "in favor/against":

in favor of Lukashenko or against him, i.e. in favor of Tihanovskaya.

They generated a huge turnout and voted for Tihanovskaya,

got beaten up and told that no, Lukashenko had won,

which resulted in a new country-wide political MO.

How was the Belarusian presidential election different from the constitutional amendments vote?

It was different in every single way.

Even the procedure.

They had a candidate. They had this consolidation.

— Their candidates were in jail. — They had early voting too, I recall.

— No monitors. — Yes, they had early voting. 30% voted early.

Your understanding is distorted by the fact

that it all resulted in the incredible Belarusian miracle of three women.

It's a unique situation.

It's never happened before.

For 26 years, Lukashenko ran his sham and even did referendums.

This never happened before.

Now that the Belarusian miracle has happened, we're trying to extrapolate it on Russian events.

— But it happened... — You can't do it here.

I didn't mean the Belarusian miracle. I meant their example.

They tried.

They tried. What do we do?

They won't register you yet again, you immediately go: "Don't vote!"

No. No!

[*Politician. Mayor of Yekaterinburg] [from 2013 to 2018.] Yevgeniy Royzman* whom I give props for many things,

regularly tweets stuff like: "This is a farce!"

Or, "Piss off!" to those who encourage to...

— (Navalniy) He uses other words. — He does use other words. I'm not gonna quote exactly.

[Some of Royzman's responses] [to news media and the CEC:] ["Oh, go fuck yourselves"] ["You're scum."] ["Turnout — Fuckout"] ["Go fuck yourselves, you brownnoses"] ["They fucked the people, their masters fucked them.] [Thieves owned thieves. Fuck them all."] ["You're vile liars."] I love Yevgeniy Royzman's quotes. (snaps fingers several times)

— (Navalniy) Stop. — They won't register you, you go: "Don't vote! It's a farce!"

As the last president of Ukraine said, "Stop."

First off, we don't say that.

They won't let us run. They won't register our party.

We came up with Smart Voting as a way of participating when they won't let us.

We participate all the time.

However, out of all elections, on this particular constitutional vote,

my main idea was to not recognize it and call for rollback.

We didn't recognize it. So what?

Well, then you can also say:

"Okay. Tihanovskaya ran. So what?"

The people saw that they'd been robbed.

People who never cared about politics now see it clear as day.

Maybe I'm being glamorizing it.

I'm Yuriy Dud, you're Aleksey Navalniy. Now I'm gonna say "so what?"

To everything you just said, my response is: "So what?"

They saw it. So what? They mobilized. So what?

— They changed their way of... — So what?

— They completely changed the way they treat politics. — So what?

It means that even if they can't overthrow the dictator now,

they'll treat their country's politics differently in the future.

— I think that's the whole point of your Smart Voting. — Of course, it is!

You're training people to vote. You're teaching them the simple relation:

potholes near your house won't get patched if politicians don't get involved;

you choose the politicians.

— (Navalniy) A hundred percent. — Basic cause-and-effect relationship.

You're hammering it in with your Smart Vote, which we'll come back to later, 'cause it's driving me nuts.

— You've mentioned it so many times! — 'Cause nothing's more important.

Anyway... (chuckles)

See? You're laughing because you don't understand it. I'll explain.

Anyway.

Cause and effect.

Belarusians realized this.

— It's a completely different way of life! — Of course.

You had the chance to at least try and do the same, but you preferred to stay back.

After this, some might think, "Duh, Navalniy's an agent of the Kremlin."

Because at a crucial moment you "drew the threat away."

Others might think, "Aleksey, you sure your team picks the right strategies?"

You're totally right.

People who sit there and say, "So what?" are the vilest people in the world.

Those who perpetuate this narrative.

Forget Belarus. Take Habarovsk.

Technically, these people haven't achieved anything, yet.

Eighty days — 80 days! — of rallies! This is unprecedented!

No Furgal, no nothing. Degtiariov's still there.

But the Far East and the Habarovsk Kray will never be the same.

It's an amazing case. It's truly fantastic.

Different things.

It wasn't directly caused by the constitutional vote.

It's just that who could've predicted that an arrested governor could lead to this?

I don't claim that all my decisions are correct.

Moreover, my game plan is typically based on my moral stance, if you will.

I look at these amendments and I don't recognize them as a citizen and a lawyer.

Maybe there were slicker tactics and strategies out there.

Looking at history,

in terms of political strategy, we could've also said, "Hey, let's do what Chile did!"

"They held a referendum in Chile. People went and overthrew Pinochet."

A million tiny difference with both Chile and Belarus.

This was the strategy we chose at the time.

Maybe we were wrong

and had I encouraged people to vote against, it would've inspired something.

But I don't think so.

Argh! Did you at any point say, "I was wrong?"

I've made a million mistakes.

I make 30 mistakes a day like any other human being.

I don't have a problem admitting my mistakes.

But every decision we make, we think through very thoroughly.

So trust me, there are no tangible facts that would indicate

that an active "against" campaign before the amendment vote would've done any good.

What were three most recent mistakes?

— Staying with Yabloko for so long. — Okay.

[Navalniy was a member of (political party)] [Yabloko from 2000 to 2007] But it wasn't my last mistake.

[Navalniy was a member of (political party)] [Yabloko from 2000 to 2007] Um... (chuckles)

Going to Tomsk.

It wasn't a mistake, of course. It was absolutely the right decision.

I think we would've destroyed United Russia in Tomsk even without the poisoning.

It was absolutely the right thing to do.

I make tons of technical mistakes in my management of the Foundation that I...

Two more.

We picked wrong on 15% of candidates for our Smart Voting, here it is yet again,

which is still better than last time.

We were right on 75% of candidates this time. Last election, we were right on 69%.

Mistakes were made.

We made mistakes with individual candidates.

But if you want here about some critical, defining mistake,

I think we've produced a system

that prevented obvious mistakes.

But again, subjunctive mood.

No one knows what it would've led to.

Maybe had I used some sharp phrase,

things would've gone differently in 2012.

In 2012, I think, we made a lot of mistakes.

No one could've foreseen it back then by the way.

In 2012, everyone was full of optimism

and said we didn't need to push the government,

because it would fall apart itself and Putin would leave in 2 months.

It was absolutely the wrong approach.

Same thing, we don't know... You mentioned Belarus several times.

Maybe Tihanovskaya or someone else could've done something differently.

But it's useless to talk about it now.

Her current actions seem to be impeccable.

What would you have done differently in 2012?

In 2012, we should've continued after the first rally.

Sure, the authorities didn't flinch. I'm not even talking about Bolotnaya.

Storm the Kremlin?

"Storm the Kremlin" is a figurative phrase.

Go free everyone.

Go to the detention center and make them release everyone,

and keep the rally going.

Not just spook them once

and expect that they got so spooked that they can't pull it together and regroup.

Keep pushing instead.

It could've worked in 2012. But what's the point of talking about it?

There's no point in reliving 2012 time and time again

and lamenting, "Oh, we should've gone to the Revolution Square, not Bolotnaya!"

It's all completely useless now.

— I never suggested it. I was talking about the amendments. — No, I just...

As for the amendments.

I am positive that their decision- making looked like this:

they sat down and said: "Once we announce the constitutional amendments,

"they'll obviously campaign to vote against."

"So we need to do a number of things in advance

"to void both the old constitution and the campaign against the amendments."

"So it won't be a referendum."

"The vote will have completely different rules."

"Additionally, the new constitution will be passed in all federal subjects beforehand."

They were prepared, so an against campaign would've done nothing.

Can you tell a little about yourself?

— Your parents often come up in discussions. — Mm-hmm.

Who are they?

I'm from Moscow.

Born and raised in Moscow.

I graduated from Plehanov Academy with a diploma in international relations.

My mom...

was a regular staff member at the Ministry of Clothing Industry.

My dad worked at a research institute.

But my parents divorced when I was in fifth grade, I think.

My dad died when I was 18.

They say your dad worked for the KGB.

Yeah, it's a weird one. Only GRU, not KGB.

Of course, I read it. It's a weird rumor.

They always say "according to Kseniya Sobchak."

I think you'd better ask her.

I can't say I'm a big fan of Kseniya,

but I don't think she could've come up with this story.

Meaning?

'Cause it's made up.

The details mentioned in this article, which I assume you also read,

that my dad was a GRU director, or a general rather,

it's super made up.

Who did you work as?

After graduating, I worked at a bank.

Soon after, I met and started dating Aleksey.

We got married, I quit my job and we had Dasha.

Then I ran a small business for a couple of years.

Then it became clear that Aleksey was doing politics, politics, politics,

so I quit my job and focused on the family.

What kind of business was it?

I helped Aleksey's parents sell wicker furniture.

You're on the same page politically?

Yes.

What's your beef?

What do you dislike?

— ...dislike in our country? — In modern Russia, yes.

I don't like the corruption.

I don't like the officials' oppressive powers.

I don't like...

I encountered it in the Omsk hospital.

I was faced with the fact that the head physician was, of course, a member of United Russia.

I encountered everything on my list.

He was afraid to blurt out something he shouldn't.

His hands were shaking. He himself was shaking because...

He's not worried about his patients.

He doesn't give a damn about them.

He's worried about what his bosses might tell him.

The fact that people from the oblast government come to the hospital and tell doctors what to do,

it's terrifying.

Because the doctors are more afraid of this government

than that something might happen to their patients.

It's certainly a major problem

with our current government.

Instead of urging people to go vote against the amendments...

— ...you focused on Smart Voting. — Yes.

Can you briefly explain why you still consider it a smart strategy?

Because United Russia is the foundation of our current government.

Putin rules Russia because he has a political infrastructure,

through which he controls every city and every federal subject.

It's called United Russia.

— That's why you need to... — Break it's monopoly. — Yes.

Suppose at every election across the country,

[*Liberal Democratic and Communist] [parties, respectively.] United Russia's candidates lose all offices to LDPR or KPRF*.

Are you sure they will make decisions not sanctioned by the Russian President?

Let's turn, east is this way I believe, and look to the city of Habarovsk

where they elected an LDPR governor

as well as an LDPR majority to the governments of both the city and the Habarovsk Kray.

It's certainly a corrupt, Kremlin-controlled party,

but the system is rigged in such a way that in the absence of monopoly,

they at least start to argue and fight among themselves,

and you get political life.

Struggle between... the Kremlin Towers that don't exist,

but struggle between different forces produces political life,

making peoples' lives a little better, and the government's, a little worse.

So whenever other powers win and dilute United Russia's monopoly, it's a positive outcome.

[*Council.] Moscow City Duma*.

We helped a lot of communists get in. All our candidates were banned.

But most of these communists are great people,

they do good things.

They don't have the majority,

but the current Duma is much, much better than the previous one,

because we've eroded United Russia's monopoly.

— Does it affect Sergey Sobianin's decisions and the Duma's..? — Of course, it does!

They used to own all 45 seats.

He knew that all 45 would always nod along mindlessly.

These days, Sobianin HATES reporting to the deputies,

because 20% of deputies jump up and start giving it to him like he's never had before.

But does it, in any way, interrupt the processes

that writer Gluhovskiy called "happiness enforcement?"

Of course, it does. Of course, it does!

[*During the onset of the pandemic in spring of 2020,] [Moscow City Duma spent hundreds of millions of rubles] [on repairs and re-tiling of several streets. Inspection of] [some of the streets showed that they weren't even close] [to emergency condition. Sobianin and his street tiling] [projects have been a hot-button issue since 2011.] — As I said, the authorities... — Building sites change? They cancel re-tiling?*

The authorities at least have to react to new sources of pressure.

(Dud) The benefit is the pressure. Got it.

If no one nags them about the tiling, they'll steal 99% of the budget, not 40%.

Okay. Smart Voting.

Here are some of the people that Smart Voting urged to support.

Anatoliy Lisitsin.

Ex-governor of Yaroslavl Oblast,

faithful member of United Russia until recently.

There are also some reports about his business schemes in Yaroslavl Oblast.

I don't know if it's true, but if it is, it's just crazy.

Smart Voting urged people to vote for him.

[In Yaroslavl Oblast by-election] [to the State Duma] Smart Voting urged people to vote for him.

[In Yaroslavl Oblast by-election] [to the State Duma] He was competing against a United Russian, some hockey player.

— Andrey Kovalenko. — Yes. — Another "great" person.

It was either Lisitsin or a pro-government candidate.

I don't know about his reasoning, but he decided to fight United Russia.

We helped him, I hope,

and he destroyed this hockey player, I believe?

He lost. The hockey player got the seat.

— Did he? — Yes.

Damn, I missed a lot in this month.

I don't care what Lisitsin is like.

The people that they allow to run these days

aren't really great people, unfortunately.

Because they usually don't let ours run.

The goal is to destroy United Russia's monopoly.

Couldn't it be rigged?

Couldn't he have left United Russia to get on the Smart Voting radar,

win the election, well, he didn't, but assuming he did,

and continue with the..?

This happened in Novosibirsk.

The communists and United Russia struck a deal in Novosibirsk.

Which put us in a tough spot.

We did good work in Novosibirsk,

but it was really tough, because we went up against rigged competition.

Of course, they can rig it!

Lots of things can happen, but that's just par for the course.

Another person that Smart Voting supported.

My God, did Lisitsin seriously lose?

[Lisitsin won at polling places,] [Kovalenko won the online voting.] [In total, Kovalenko got the seat.] I think he lost 34 to 40.

[Lisitsin won at polling places,] [Kovalenko won the online voting.] [In total, Kovalenko got the seat.] — It was the by-election to the Duma, right? — Yes, the Duma by-election.

I guess it was another hallucination. I thought Lisitsin had won.

Novosibirsk.

— Rostislav Antonov. — Yeah?

Some of his achievements.

Supported the annexation of Crimea and the Donbass campaign.

Voted in favor of the amendments.

Antonov's organization...

He sued me! You think I don't know these things?

— I'm telling the audience. — Sure, go ahead.

[*Arseniy Pavlov (1983-2016).] [Born in Uhta, now Russia, killed in Donetsk.] Antonov's organization petitioned to rename a street in Uhta after Motorola*,

[*Donetsk People's Republic.] one of the leaders of DNR*.

[*Impromptu memorial on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky] [Bridge in Moscow where politician Boris Nemtsov] [was assassinated in 2015.] Called people that brought flowers to Nemtsov Bridge* "worms."

How does this work?

It works like this: there are no super nice folks on election ballots these days.

Again, going back to Moscow City Duma.

[*Members of ACF.] Have you seen Sobol, Yashin, Zhdanov or anyone else on those ballots?

They won't let decent people with a chance to win run.

They won't allow no nonsense.

Especially post Belarus and Tihanovskaya.

You have to always keep in mind that, unfortunately,

whether we like it or not...

By the way, people that won in Tomsk and Novosibirsk

had "Navalniy's Team" next to their names in the ballots.

Boyko, head of our team, 44%.

In Tomsk, Fadeyeva got over 40%, destroyed the United Russian.

Fateyev in Tomsk, also from Navalniy's Team,

smashed their utilities mobster with over 50% of votes.

Just annihilated him.

So we support a small number of great people. They will become deputies.

But you have to keep in mind that we will suffer

and hurt, and wring our hands,

but in the near future, and particularly in the Duma election, it's gonna hurt.

I promise you suffering, Yuriy!

If you decide to vote in the Duma election...

— ...which you will, because it's your principled stance: you always vote. — Yes.

You live in north-east Moscow, right? Or is it north-west?

— South-east. — Doesn't matter.

Wherever you'll be voting, Putin's strategy goes like this:

Yuriy Dud comes in and cries!

He soaks the whole ballot with his tears,

because it's so bad.

That's their strategy.

Instead of soaking ballots with tears, we want to try and figure out:

which of these bad people has a chance to beat the worst one?

As revolting as some of the bios that you could expose here get,

the worst line in any scumbag's bio would be "member of United Russia."

Our goal is to erode their monopoly.

I understand Leonid Volkov doesn't live in Russia?

[Leonid Volkov, head of Navalniy's] [network of teams outside Moscow] Leonid Volkov doesn't live in Russia.

— He left after the criminal case? — The case against him, yes.

For how long?

Several months.

He's not under pending arrest or anything.

We just figured it was inevitable.

He's an important person on our team.

We preferred to not give them the pleasure.

In a detention center or under house arrest, or something like that,

he'd be less useful than being free.

How do you discuss these things with ACF members?

They tyrannize you, but you stay, when someone else leaves.

Are you always okay with it?

Of course. It's everyone's personal choice.

I can't expect people to...

Even though ACF has gathered some seriously messed up people.

They know what's in store when they join.

Which is why despite the unprecedented pressure in the recent years,

barely anyone's left and only a few left the country,

in Moscow and outside it.

But when you're facing criminal charges...

Keep in mind: the man has a family, parents, children.

Of course, it's everyone's personal choice, and I never insist on anything.

I do my best to let the person mull it over themselves

and make it clear that there's no pressure on my part.

I can't tell him, "I'd really prefer if you stayed!"

'Cause after they lock him up,

his wife will come to me in tears and say:

"It's your fault he's in jail."

I brought up Volkov because a wonderful comment he'd posted

introduced me to another Smart Voting-backed candidate.

You urged people to vote for a candidate named Gubenko,

an adamant Stalin fan and Putin supporter.

When asked about the reasoning behind it, Volkov said:

"We can't recommend no one."

"Gubenko was suggested to us by Yelena Rusakova who'd been denied registration in the district."

"Her explanation is amusing (yet sound)."

"Gubenko is 79."

"There's a high chance for a snap election, which she hopes to win!"

In plain terms...

Sad, but she was right.

In plain terms this means: he's old,

we hope he dies soon,

and we'll have a snap election.

We didn't say that.

— (Dud) Leonid Volkov said it. — Rusakova said it. It doesn't matter!

Well, Volkov passed it on. Gubenko died this summer.

— I know. — Yeah.

That's just so rude!

It most certainly wasn't the main reason.

We would've most likely supported Gubenko either way,

because when I said that you and people like you, Yuriy,

would soak their ballots with tears this Duma election,

I wasn't exaggerating.

In all the best districts...

Gubenko ran in the Gagarin District.

It's the most valuable district in Moscow to win.

So obviously they only registered candidates that you couldn't vote for without suffering.

And this will continue.

Our goal was very simple:

defiantly beat the United Russia candidate.

And we did defiantly beat him by electing a fairly stinky,

God rest his soul and all that, Gubenko.

But it doesn't matter at all.

In one of the districts, as you know, we elected a double.

We had a candidate named Solovyov. They refused him registration.

But they sent a double with the last name Solovyov.

We ended up electing HIM.

In terms of rhetoric, he was worse than any Gubenko.

But who cares? Key thing, the United Russian lost.

I meant the phrasing.

When Volkov says something like that...

No, I think it was taken out of context.

It's a YouTube comment. I have a screenshot.

A Facebook comment, rather. I have a screenshot.

It's not something the Leonid I know would say.

Did you read the love confession post before it went public

[*Dud got lost in the sauce. He obviously] [meant to ask whether Yulia saw the post] [before or after its publication.] or did he show it to you before posting it to social media*?

It's more like I...

I don't think I quite got the gravity of the post.

Of course I read everyone's comments.

It's more like I was glad that you liked it so much,

because thinking that Aleksey is a tough and reserved man,

you loved this "outburst."

I know that he isn't, so...

I mean I...

I can't say that it got me so hard that I could barely breathe, I'm sorry.

Briefly on journalists.

Can you explain why you react so sharply to everything concerning Tatyana Lisova?

[Navalniy's tweet:] [So ashamed for Tatyana Lisova. The awesome] [ex-editor-in-chief of Vedomosti has now become] [a lying scumbag. What a shame :(] Can you explain why you react so sharply to everything concerning Tatyana Lisova?

[Navalniy's tweet:] [So ashamed for Tatyana Lisova. The awesome] [ex-editor-in-chief of Vedomosti has now become] [a lying scumbag. What a shame :(] Did you at all regret your Facebook confrontation with Ivan Golunov?

Did you at all regret your Facebook confrontation with Ivan Golunov?

No.

Moreover, it's a principled stance.

Lisova was a brilliant journalist.

[Tatyana Lisova was editor-in-chief of Vedomosti] [newspaper from 2002 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2017] She backslid and became a bad one.

[Tatyana Lisova was editor-in-chief of Vedomosti] [newspaper from 2002 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2017] Whenever good journalists became bad ones, I was determined

Whenever good journalists became bad ones, I was determined

to destroy them publicly,

because you have to do it.

These people have to be pressured as well.

They're bad journalists.

I'm not saying that Lisova is a bad journalist. She's not.

She just betrayed journalism at some point.

She's with Meduza today and maybe does good things there.

She betrayed it when she joined TASS?

[(buzzer) Lisova worked for Interfax, not TASS] When she joined TASS. When TASS published articles about a "gas pop" in a residential building,

When she joined TASS. When TASS published articles about a "gas pop" in a residential building,

she didn't quit, she pretended like nothing was happening.

She was the head of the politics department.

TASS was lying.

She stayed with the media that lied day after day.

I won't forgive the journalists that I like.

No one. Be it Lisova or...

Who are some of the crème de la crème journalists that I'm friends with?

If they join TASS tomorrow, they'll get it 100 times worse!

Moreover, the journalists that I like today,

if they join Russia Today and Simonian,

the harshness of my rhetoric against them

will be greater if they're great journalists today.

What about your vocabulary?

[Little liar] [Lying person] [Russian journalists can't hold a candle to ACF's] [investigators, and Ivan Golunov, couldn't in 100 years] Little liar; investigative journalists can't hold a candle to ACF's team.

Little liar; investigative journalists can't hold a candle to ACF's team.

You sure throwing around such language and insults is the best..?

They're not insults. It's honest to goodness truth:

journalists don't hold a candle to ACF's investigators.

But you see yourself as the future president of Russia.

Is this really the level of minutia you wanna get involved with,

even now, not being the president?

It just seems such a triviality to start a fisticuffs over.

But you do it anyway.

Freedom of media and journalism is definitely NOT a triviality.

Absolutely. It's a crucial issue. But particularly here?

I use individual examples to discuss the whole system.

Certainly, one of my downsides... I'm not even arguing!

You asked about my mistakes and whether leaders of the opposition backslid.

I know this about myself. One of my flaws is that I'm prone to...

using certain epithets

that I should use less often or stay away from.

I definitely get personal.

It's a part of my political strategy, if you will.

Because I got into politics

to criticize specific people, among other things.

I got into politics. I fight corruption,

not as a phenomenon, but as individual corrupt officials, crooks that I hate.

I always call them by their names.

It's my principled stance.

It obviously means a lot of emotional and personal language.

Maybe it's a flaw overall. I admit it.

But it's a part of who I am.

Your words that caused an outrage:

"They don't know Pushkin in Uzbekistan."

— Same flaw? — I said...

It was a slip of the tongue.

— Not Uzbekistan. In Kazahstan. — In Uzbekistan.

If you go a little further abroad,

[TV channel Dozhd, 2017] If you go a little further abroad,

[TV channel Dozhd, 2017] to Uzbekistan or the CIS countries,

you won't find this unity.

Well, obviously no one knows who Pushkin was in Uzbekistan.

Do we want unity within Russia?

It was a classic slip of the tongue. I said nonsense. Certainly.

Just a classic situation.

Said something dumb.

— So it was nonsense? — Of course, it was.

— So they know about Pushkin in Uzbekistan? — Of course, they do.

Uzbekistan is a huge country. Tens of millions of people.

A lot of them know who Pushkin was.

Some don't, but some Russians don't either.

(title card music)

We filmed our first interview 3 years ago,

in spring of 2017.

In short, how did Russia change since then?

Funny thing. Preparing for this interview, I watched the last one, read some questions.

It went:

"2017: They threw brilliant green at you. 2020: They threw Novichok at you."

There were a lot of funny comments.

The best comment was this one. (snaps fingers)

In 2017, the interview starts with the words:

"Aleksey, a week ago, you came out of the detention center."

In 2020, the interview starts with:

"Aleksey, three weeks ago, you came out of a coma."

...came out of a coma, yeah.

How did Russia change?

Russia got poorer.

Russia, sadly, regressed.

Let's look at some of the projects that they tried to realize.

Sukhoi Superjet. Does it fly? No, it doesn't.

It does. But it has issues.

It barely flies.

Don't say that. It does fly.

It flies with issues,

but all foreign countries turned it down.

— No one buys it except for Aeroflot because they're forced to. — Yeah.

Vostochny Cosmodrome they built, embezzling unconscionable sums of money.

They got a different launch pad. It's all really bad.

None of Putin's projects were successful.

Russia regressed in everything.

By the way, on the matter of "finishing the job:"

the system can't regress in everything but evolve in killing.

Apparently, it's also regressed in its ability to kill.

But that part's fortunate.

So since our last interview,

Russia regressed substantially.

They passed the pension reform since then.

How did you change as a politician in these 3.5 years?

I probably certainly become more ruthless.

"Life made us this way," you know?

These days, our organization operates under constant pressure.

Morning news: they broke down our Arhangelsk coordinator's door.

It's now a part of our lives.

I'd just got out of a detention center last time.

I've spent a lot more time under arrest since.

All of our people have spent a lot of time under arrest since,

men, women, everyone.

Number of criminal charges went up immeasurably.

They now use ways to pressure us we couldn't imagine back then.

We responded to increased pressure quite effectively, in my opinion,

by getting stronger and becoming better survivors.

It couldn't have not resulted in us becoming more desperate and a bit more aggressive.

There are pros and cons to this, on a personal level too.

I got an impression from one of your speeches,

which I'd like to transform into a question.

The assembly regarding police brutality, the Moscow City Duma election,

and the Moscow case of September of 2019,

Yeah.

— You had a speech at the end. — Yes.

I didn't come to the stage. I stayed in the thick of it among the thousands of attendees.

My impression.

First off, on my way from the subway, I saw a bunch of guys from law enforcement.

I don't know who they were, internal troops, police or whatever.

A ton of them.

Young guys. Many of them recognized me.

They seemed really happy to see me and some other people.

Then Navalniy comes out, the headliner of the gig.

Your speech, which was very aggressive,

immediately turned to "people in black hats" as you called them:

"There they are with their black hats!"

"Smiling at us and gloating."

Your entire speech was filled with aggression and hostility towards

people that provide security at events and work in law enforcement.

People at the assembly were ecstatic.

At some point, the crowd shouted, "Coppers disgrace Russia."

All that stuff.

I had a thought at the time.

Aleksey, wouldn't it have been better to come out and,

instead of saying things your followers expected to hear,

address the people on the other side?

Because this was the fall of the Moscow case.

It was the moment where their savagery and brutality, and that punch in the woman's stomach

made everyone, including a lot of loyalists, go, "What the frigg?!"

Everyone knew that those events were insanity.

Shouldn't you have tried to broaden your audience with that speech

and maybe talk to THEM,

instead of using the obvious rhetoric about crooks and thieves,

talking to those who already follow you?

That's when I thought: "What if one of Aleksey Navalniy's flaws is that,

"despite the great relationship he's built with his supporters,

"he can't break out of this circle

"to reach those who are apprehensive of or dislikes you

"and explain to them using calm, non-hostile language:

"'Guys, there's a greater chance to build something awesome with me,

"'rather than with people that you back today for sentimental or monetary reasons.'"

Your reasoning is perfectly sound in theory, well, in practice too.

We dedicate a lot of time to this.

It's a politicians job to broaden their audience.

That's why we worked hard with Ombudsman of the Police, who got arrested.

[Ombudsman of the Police is a VK community run] [by Vladimir Vorontsov, an ex-law enforcement] [officer who used to aid police personnel] [in their legal battles with superiors] That's why we worked hard with Ombudsman of the Police, who got arrested.

[Ombudsman of the Police is a VK community run] [by Vladimir Vorontsov, an ex-law enforcement] [officer who used to aid police personnel] [in their legal battles with superiors] We helped the Police Union.

[Ombudsman of the Police is a VK community run] [by Vladimir Vorontsov, an ex-law enforcement] [officer who used to aid police personnel] [in their legal battles with superiors] I spend a lot of time working with this part of the state system.

I spend a lot of time working with this part of the state system.

Trust me, a lot of these people sympathize with me and our organization.

They do it openly too.

They'll put the handcuffs on me and go: "You're actually a great guy!"

"I watch all of your videos!"

"Please, get in the van."

But during assemblies,

I say the things that I believe and that I want to say.

That particular meet was two days after yet another police raid.

They broke our doors.

They grabbed people by their arms and legs and dragged them away.

They're my colleagues, members of my team.

They froze people's child benefits and pensions.

Someone's grandma died because they broke in and took her iPad, the only valuable thing she had.

If these supporters, who'd been brutalized by men in black hats just two days ago,

saw me take the mic and go:

"You know, let's just all forget it!"

or something other than what I actually said,

first, I would've lost them,

and second, I couldn't have said anything else.

Because at the time, during the Moscow case,

when they grabbed and arrested innocent people,

when they launched a large-scale operation against our team and lots of other people,

I couldn't have found it in me

and would've thought I was a worthless politician,

if I came out and, instead of saying the things I believed

and thought were important to say to people at the assembly,

came up with a more clever plan.

"I need a different speech to broaden my influence."

Of course, I could've probably said something better.

You can beat any speech with a better one.

You could call this approach primitive.

I wear my heart on my sleeve.

I say what I feel at rallies.

Maybe it's a flaw.

But also a merit.

Does it scare you that this could end up shutting the door into big politics for you?

I'm more scared of one day

succumbing to thoughts like: "I have to become a big politician!"

"I have to become a big politician!"

"All my actions have to further this idea:

"'Get an extra percent or percent-and-a-half.'"

This moment when political necessity would trump

my sincerity and faith in my cause.

But luckily! We poll people, don't we?

We see that our audience grows.

Our candidates in Tomsk annihilated United Russia

particularly because of our aggressiveness.

We did an investigation that showed: "These crooks and thieves have robbed the people of Tomsk."

People of Tomsk went, "Holy moly!" and gave our candidate 50% of the votes.

It works. Polls show that our organization's ratings, and mine, are rising.

— Isn't politics about being crafty? — Not for me.

Russian politics in general isn't about craftiness.

(title card music)

What are your plans?

Recover, no one knows if fully, then I'm coming back.

How long are you going to stay in Germany?

I don't know. The doctors say...

I ask them, "When will my hands stop shaking and I go back to normal?"

To which they say: "You know, Aleksey, there's not a lot of applicable experience."

"We'll watch you and then we'll know how long it takes."

It may take three weeks or two months, but...

So it could be two weeks or a year?

Well, I'm almost sure it won't be a year.

I dunno. Not a year, probably. I mean definitely no.

But two months sound plausible.

What could make you not come back to Russia?

That's not an option.

Have you put a timer on how long you would stay in politics?

If you put a timer on it, then you're a bad politician and shouldn't be in politics.

— Is what I tell myself. — What about an inner one?

'Cause you still gotta feel like you're running in circles.

I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way at all.

Not even remotely!

Remember, we had this dumb little play,

where you praised the Belarusians

and I was the United Russian repeating, "So what?"

People that say "so what?" are the people who think that I'm running in circles.

That's not the case at all.

Our audience and number of supporters are growing.

We have 40 regional offices. We didn't just survive!

We have 40 offices that dominate political opposition in the country,

which, I'm pretty sure, was the reason

they resorted to extreme measures.

We're growing. Our percentages are going up.

We successfully win elections that they don't even let us run in.

More and more people watch us. We conduct great investigations.

This is not me singing an ode to myself.

There are still mistakes and problems.

But I'd say we're climbing with a lot of difficulty rather than running in circles.

And most importantly, again,

I feel

in my heart that I'm right.

I'm surrounded by people who believe in what they're doing.

And it's an amazing thing

to do something you love

and to be supported by others as you go.

I'm not afraid to come back to Russia.

We're absolutely coming back to Russia.

However, when he was still in the hospital,

they hadn't discharged him yet, but he was himself already,

I told him at some point:

"I know that you want to head back as soon as possible,

"but I want you to fully recover before going back,

"'cause I don't know what's gonna happen in Russia,

"and if you're not fully recovered,

"we may not save you a second time."

I think he heard me.

I honestly never even considered it.

How can someone who is so obsessed and fights for an amazing cause,

quite literally works to make the world a better place,

literally works to make the country better..?

Maybe it sounds a little too rosy,

but that's what it is.

I've never said and never will say anything to make him...

to try and convince him to stop his work.

I like his work. I support his work. I want him to continue this work.

I'll be very disappointed if he one day says:

"Seriously running out of health points here. I'm out. (laughs)"

Do your girl friends ever say,

"Yulia, how do you do it?"

— Of course they do. — How do you reply?

When they say, "How do you do it?"

"I just do."

(title card music)

Flash quiz! How old will you be in 2036?

My cognitive abilities have recovered,

but not enough to make this trivial.

No matter how old I am,

if you're asking whether I will run for office,

I will fight for political leadership in 2036.

But how old I'm gonna be? Let's calculate.

It was just an age question.

I'm 44 now... I'll be 60.

How old were you in 1999?

What are these devilish questions?

I still struggle with questions like that.

In 1999, 20 years ago, I was 24.

And lastly, wherein is strength?

Strength is definitely in truth.

Sorry for the banality. It's in truth and confidence.

(title card music)

Contest! What's our prize for today?

I'd love to give away the proverbial bottle,

but unfortunately, it's going lab to lab all over the world.

First, we'll give away a different bottle.

Last time , I gave away a bottle of Kagor (wine) from Medvedev's vineyard...

from Medvedev's Russian vineyard.

We're taking it up a notch. This time, it's a bottle of wine from Medvedev's vineyard in Tuscany.

You've kept one since then?

[*Dud is utterly confused here.] Or do you continue..? You're probably clients now!*

Dmitriy Medvedev hasn't gotten poorer.

Italy hasn't run out of grapes.

So they still make wine.

Okay, wine?

Wine and...

As I said, today I started to learn to juggle tennis balls with my physiotherapist.

I'll sign one of these tennis balls, and it'll be our second prize.

Wonderful!

As always, the contest is very simple.

While you were in a coma, you were nominated for a Nobel Prize.

— You were suggested... — I think it was a joke.

You and Putin were suggested as...

Then it was DEFINITELY a joke.

What was your reaction when you saw "Navalniy" and "Nobel Prize" in the same sentence?

Well, as I said, I went through a lengthy drug trip.

So when I read it, I thought:

"Hmm, the Japanese professor should be here soon. Krovostok will stand over there,

"and some other folks that I met in the last few days right here."

Anyway, you need to reply to the pinned post under this video with your suggestion

of a worthy Nobel Peace Prize candidate from your country.

Someone more deserving of it than Putin or Navalniy in your opinion.

Leave the person's name and briefly explain why.

The most interesting suggestion,

be it funny, as in a joke, or just cool and unexpected,

will win these prizes.

— Thank you so much! — Thank you.

(end card music)