Alexei Navalny’s interview on TV Rain after the poisoning

I welcome everyone watching the TV channel

Dozhd (TV Rain). My name is Tikhon Dzyadko, and I

welcome our guest.

This is politician Alexei Navalny. Alexei,

welcome. Hi, Tikhon, hello everyone.

TV viewers, YouTube viewers—I’m glad

to see you on our broadcast, glad to see you

alive and well, and I think a huge number

of our viewers do too. We are

live on YouTube, and there is a chat open for

sponsors of our YouTube channel—send in

your questions, and if they’re interesting,

we’ll definitely pass them on. Alexei, we don’t

have much time. Over the past few days, you’ve already given

several detailed interviews about what

happened to you starting on August 20,

so let’s talk about what has happened in

the last few days and what comes next. So,

the news last night: the newspaper *Le Monde*

writes that the European Union will impose sanctions against

nine Russians in connection with your poisoning.

These are representatives of the

presidential administration, the security services, and also the institute where,

it is believed, Novichok was developed.

Do you think these measures

are sufficient? Do you support them now?

What interests me first is what is happening inside

Russia, and only secondarily am I interested in

Europe’s reaction.

I understand these countries, whose actions

are, of course, connected not with me

but with the fact that chemical weapons were used.

And I realize that this is not really about

me—simply, nobody likes chemical

weapons.

I would like there to be an investigation on the territory of Russia, in

my country—some kind of investigation at least,

or at least the semblance

of an investigation, because what is happening

now seems to me to be just one more

signal that no one can

count on any kind of

justice in our country. As for

sanctions and blacklists, I

still believe—this has been my

consistent position—that all

developed countries, if they in some way

want to help both Russia and

Russian citizens, and themselves, then they

must put up a barrier against dirty

money from Russia—the money that is stolen

from Russian citizens. In fact,

it’s not nine people or some individuals

who develop Novichok or use it

that matter, but rather these people directly—

the killers, those who gave them the order—must be

criminally prosecuted. It is necessary

to throw out of Europe people like Usmanov,

Abramovich, Shuvalov,

Peskov, all these propagandists,

Solovyov, and all the other people who

are engaged in enriching themselves here at the

expense of keeping our country, Russia,

in poverty and decline. They

grow rich from this.

They invest that money in Europe. These are the

people who need to be fought. I don’t know what

measures European countries will take,

but I would like them, after all,

to focus specifically on

punishing not just some executors

but the actual villains who drag

stolen money there, to Paris and

Berlin. But over these last few days, have you

perhaps been consulted by any

European officials about who should

be punished, or did you take part

in drawing up the list of people who will fall

under sanctions? In fact, there’s no need

to draw up such a list. You can take any

of our investigations, and most of those

investigations are precisely about how

certain people claim that they are

patriots,

while looting colossal sums of money and

taking them abroad in order to buy themselves

elite real estate somewhere in London.

So my list is my YouTube channel and

my blog: you go there, take the names from it,

and put them straight onto the list. In fact,

I’m not in contact here with such

official figures. The only people I’m

in contact with are doctors. But I don’t

think Europe or European

officials need my help. I’ll just

repeat: it is very important to understand that they

are imposing sanctions not because it’s me, and my

opinion about sanctions or the list

is not of much interest to them. What interests them is

the fact that chemical weapons were used and

that these conventions were violated.

That is precisely why the formal

investigation and formal statement were made

not by European countries, but at this

stage by the Organisation for the Prohibition of

Chemical Weapons—that is, the international

organization that Russia actively

helped create. So whether it was Navalny, Ivanov,

Petrov, Vasichkin, or Didkot—God forbid—

the measures would have been exactly the same. They are not

connected with me personally; they are connected with the fact

that on the territory of Russia

it has emerged that there is an active program for the

development of chemical weapons and

the use of these chemical weapons for

the elimination of political opponents. Earlier,

when you were in the hospital, according to

media reports, Russian consular staff

requested access to you. Did you end up

meeting with them or not? If not—

It’s a very funny situation. At some

fairly late stage, I began—I understand that

they had requested access to me

when I was probably still

in a completely unconscious state, or

perhaps I was already speaking, after I had been pulled

out of the coma, but I had only a weak understanding of what

was happening. But once I began

to realize that everyone around me is indifferent anyway, and that it's like this

it's a bizarre discussion, as if I were made of stone

essentially, we're demanding access to

Navalny

The international rules on consular

access state that consular

access and consular assistance are intended for those

people who need consular

assistance. It is written there very clearly.

If people are in prison and they need

help,

well, for example, in prison or in a hospital,

if a person needs help, they have the right

to request a meeting with a consul. I do not

need consular assistance. What I

need is one simple thing: for there to be in

Russia a proper criminal

investigation into the attempt to murder me, with

a case opened under the correct criminal statute. If

there is no such criminal case, and at all

levels it is being officially denied that there was

an attempted murder,

fine, if that is the position, then I would like

to have my clothes returned to me — the clothes I was wearing when

I ended up in that hospital, essentially.

Most likely, I think there are every

reason to believe that it was on

the clothes that this toxic

substance was applied. I would like

them to give me my own

medical records from the Omsk hospital, and I

would very much like to review

the video recordings that were seized from the

hotel by officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service), and

which are now who knows where.

If there is no criminal case, then where are those

video recordings? Could I please

see who entered my room?

What interests me much more is not that,

but what Russia's Foreign Ministry does — it is simply

a distraction. For some reason they are writing to

Germany and demanding something there

from Germany. What does Germany have to do with it?

My clothes are in Russia for

forensic examination, there is a huge amount of my blood from the

Omsk hospital for absolutely any

tests, there are my medical records,

there is everything needed for a proper investigation.

But we do not see one. Instead, for some reason, we

see some kind of spat between Russia and

Germany, which has only a rather tenuous connection to all of this.

What do you think?

Will this investigation ultimately take any

form or not? That's an excellent question, but

to be honest, I assumed they

would stage some semblance

of an investigation that would end

in nothing. But so far there is not even the appearance

of an investigation, and that, by the way,

personally convinced me

once again — it is further confirmation that

of course, behind this case there stands

a direct order from Putin, because

otherwise we would have seen something

resembling an investigation, like in the case of the

murder of Nemtsov (Boris Nemtsov, Russian opposition politician), where the organizer

of the murder was not detained, the person who ordered the murder

was not named — we all more or less understand who

was behind it — but they did detain the actual

perpetrators, the people who pulled the trigger.

But yes, it was a bad investigation. We

did not catch, expose, or bring to justice

the main villain; he was not arrested and did not face punishment.

The main culprit.

Still, there was at least some kind of investigation in

that case. In this case, there is absolute and total

ignoring of the matter. At the same time,

and as I understand it, if

the French press is to be believed,

President Putin, in conversations with leaders

of other countries, does not really deny

that chemical weapons were used,

but at the same time says that I made it myself.

At other levels, all

officials are completely, as the saying goes,

playing dumb and

already denying the results of all the laboratories

around the world, and denying chemistry altogether.

When you read that article in *Le Monde*, which

recounted Putin's conversation

with Macron, and Putin's words that

Navalny is just an online troublemaker and that

the traces of Novichok supposedly lead to

Latvia, and that in fact it cannot be ruled out that

Navalny swallowed it himself — what did

you think? Well, I thought I was right

when I suggested that

this was Putin's order, because the way

he is covering all this up, and the way he is making

a laughingstock of himself — well, essentially,

I have no doubt that the French

side, as they say, leaked all this

to the press because it was outraged

by the sheer scale of Putin's lies.

That Navalny made Novichok himself, as he

said; that Navalny

often fakes illness in general, apparently that is what was meant,

and most likely poisoned himself

with Novichok. In other words, the degree

of lying is such that it is obvious he is lying not

for anyone else, but for himself. He

is trying to justify himself, and this is not

some low-level incident, like

when, you know, one might imagine

some deranged general

going rogue and giving an order

to a group of mysterious hitmen

to eliminate someone. This was his

instruction; what failed was the execution of his

instruction. He is simply trying now

to shield himself, including

through such utterly monstrous lies. A

man is caught holding a smoking gun,

and he says: it wasn't me, this was

an attempted suicide.

You have one of the best investigative

organizations in Russia — or rather, one of the best, okay,

that is your assessment — one of the best.

the best, so if there isn't one

an official investigation in the Russian

Federation, will the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) and your colleagues

conduct some kind of independent

investigation into the attempted murder of

Alexei Navalny

Well, as you can imagine, I'm a little

curious, of course, about who did it, and I would

like to figure it out.

But honestly, of course we have a better

investigative group in Russia, and I

can say without false modesty

that it's probably one of the best in the world. But our

capabilities are, of course, limited, because

as for the hotel surveillance footage—what are we supposed to do,

storm the FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service) and take their

video recordings? They came in and

seized absolutely everything. Solving the case is very

easy: for that you need detailed

phone records, and for that you need

just the video footage, and everything would become very

clear. But neither of those things, after all,

is among the evidence that

we can obtain

legally

or by any other feasible means.

Most FBK investigations

are conducted using open— the overwhelming

majority, 99 percent, entirely on the basis of

open information. We work with

open sources, we simply analyze them

very well. But here you just need to get

the surveillance data on me. I was being

followed, and as I understand it, at the time

when I was in a coma, a rather

strange, detailed report came out with details of

my movements—where I was expected, what

plane I was on. Exactly, that kind of report

apparently came from the part of the FSB

that was responsible simply for monitoring

me. I was under constant

and continuous surveillance. The whole hotel was covered

with video cameras. All of that was seized, and

those are the main clues, the most important

pieces of evidence. So of course

this situation matters to us, and we are trying

to figure out what happened. But let's not

be naive—there won't be any

sensation where tomorrow we

show you photographs of the people who

committed this crime and show you

who ordered it, because, well, this is the authorities.

Obviously, these are representatives of the authorities,

representatives of the security services, and right now the entire

state machine is engaged in hiding them

and destroying this evidence, carrying it off somewhere.

So in fact there is neither

video footage, nor clothing—there is nothing.

This is, to some extent, an

emotional question: how many times in recent

years have you been asked in interviews whether

you were afraid that you would be killed? Were you

asked that often—five times? No, I

was asked once. That was back in

2012, a long time ago.

Obviously, now they won't ask you that anymore.

But this is an emotional question: you were

almost killed. What do you feel toward

the people who, in your view, are behind

this, and will you take revenge? Well, I

seem to still be alive, so

there's probably no escaping sharp

journalistic questions about why I am still

alive after all. There's probably no

getting away from that.

Oddly enough, I don't feel any kind of

hardening. Looking death in the face is

a useful experience, but

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I'm not—well, on an emotional level,

of course I feel a lot toward

the people who

did this, and I catch myself thinking that

I would really, with great

pleasure, like to crush them

with my own hands. I absolutely do thirst

for justice, both for myself and for everyone

around me, because it is absolutely impossible

to consider normal a country where such a

brazen attempted murder is not

investigated. Because let's

be honest: I'm a fairly well-known

guy, and I'm being interviewed by the TV channel

Dozhd (an independent Russian TV channel).

So what can

any activist in the regions, people who

work on environmental protection or

something similar, or any person who

stands up to a local oligarch or

a local governor, expect then?

Or human rights activists

in the North Caucasus—they cannot expect

anything at all if even

such a high-profile crime, which

was committed against a more or less

well-known person like me—

if I cannot obtain justice,

or at least the opening of a criminal case, then

not a single citizen of Russia can

count on anything at all. That is why I

thirst for and demand justice. But as for

personally strangling someone in revenge—no.

Will these emotions, in some way, make you

change your strategy at FBK?

Obviously, the stakes have now

gone up. You have FBK investigations,

you have Smart Voting, and there are also

rallies and everything else—but you were

doing all that before August 20 as well. Now, after

the situation has obviously changed,

how will you change your work?

The stakes have risen in the sense that we are seeing

this transformation of the regime. We understood even

before that these were

scoundrels obsessed with power and

money, and we could see that they would stop

at nothing. Now we understand that

political killings and intimidation

through political assassinations in such a

dangerous way, but still, chemical

weapons are chemical weapons.

They are part of their toolkit. It is not clear

how widely they will be used.

I hope they will not. In that sense, the stakes

have risen, but still

the basic strategy remains the same: we

must appeal to people, we must

demand access to participate in elections, we

will organize rallies, and this, this

what happened is, of course, important, but it is not

probably for many people, and for me

first and foremost.

But overall, our approach and our

activities—I do not think they

will change radically. But here

I should make a qualification: after all, right now

I have missed the last month, and now I

am abroad. Any person

who is abroad—I catch myself here

constantly thinking this thought—

does, honestly, lose touch a little

with what is happening. So, being in

Berlin, to plan a strategy, you know,

you know, for fighting the Russian regime, I

do not want to, and I do not want to engage in that kind of

wonderful émigré activism.

My priority now is recovery

and rehabilitation, after which I will return and

together with my colleagues from the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) and from

our network of штабs (regional campaign offices), I

based on the realities and the new political

situation—whether early

elections are announced or not, whatever

happens—we will, of course, build

and adjust our strategy. We have always

tried to make our flexibility our

strength. The Kremlin changes, and we

change too. Exactly how we will change

is hard to say, because I still need

to come back and fully get up to speed.

Just a couple more questions.

Given the new

Given the new situation, have you thought about

whether your approach will change

to the issue of your personal safety and the safety of your

family?

Are you considering, for example,

the possibility that your family

will remain abroad? Well, that is a question for

the family members themselves, including my wife.

No, that is not something

being considered. Yulia, like me,

supports my work, and we

will certainly return. As for

security, well, I do not know, maybe

TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel) will guard me.

It is impossible to compete with the state when it comes to

security. But I am a person

from real life; I understand that even

if I surround myself with 30 bodyguards, those

bodyguards will tomorrow be detained for participating in

an unauthorized march while they

are walking around me, after which I will be

thrown into a detention center and they will pour

over my head

seven bottles of Novichok (a Soviet-developed nerve agent). And I try to behave

adequately and reasonably, as much as

possible, but I realize that in

this sphere, competing with the entire

state machine is simply impossible.

So, well, if you like, I have this kind of

perhaps slightly fatalistic

mindset; I had it before, and now it probably

is even stronger. I simply do what

I believe is right to do. I appeal

to people for support. I try to conduct myself

as cautiously as possible, but that should not

interfere

with my main work. Two clarifications.

Following up on your interviews, in particular

the interview with Dud (Yury Dud, Russian journalist): the chief toxicologist of the Omsk

region, commenting on the interview there,

said that atropine was administered to you not in the ambulance

but in the hospital. The same was stated

by EMT Artem Chernyavsky, who was

in the ambulance and took you from the

plane in Omsk. Can you clarify this?

It is contradictory. At that moment—sorry, I

missed that moment, so I have no idea.

But as for the chief toxico-

logist of the Omsk region,

again, I have not seen him myself, but

absolutely everyone who was there, they all

say he is an absolutely complete

scoundrel. And all I have seen are

comments from decent doctors who

completely refute everything he says. Well,

that is, this man is brazenly

lying. He is a scoundrel and disgraces the medical profession.

He is one of those people who did everything

to ensure that I either died there or

was left with as much damage as possible, so that

I would turn into some kind of vegetable there.

He disgraces the medical profession, but let

other doctors argue with him.

Can I confirm or refute anything?

No, I cannot, because I

simply did not see any of it.

One more clarification.

In your interview with Dud, you say that there are

several people who paid for

your treatment and that they would be named.

When will that happen? Well, yes, I think

Leonid Volkov will explain everything about that.

I am tremendously grateful to him because he

deals with all the unpleasant things, and

in a great many matters he is very helpful.

That is, right now I am giving interviews and I can

walk for a long time and so on, but still

for now it is still quite difficult for me

to concentrate on certain things. I am

very grateful to those people—to Volkov first

and foremost—who took upon themselves

all these organizational functions.

That helps me enormously. And both my and his

principled position is that we

We still maintain that in the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) and

the network of headquarters is the most transparent

organization when it comes to money, and I

try to be the most transparent politician.

So when this money is

transferred—when Leonid has collected it

and sends it over—a list will be published

of names, and I even think broken down

by amount—how much

each person gave for my treatment

and for my being here. Well, right now I

am living in what I’m not sure whether to call

a hotel or apartments, something like that,

and then I’ll go on to rehab,

or rent somewhere else to continue staying,

and work on recovery,

including with a physiotherapist. Those are also

significant expenses that I

could not have afforded on my own.

That too is being paid for by these

wonderful people who are willing to help,

and all of this will be disclosed and published.

If I demand transparency from other

politicians, then I have to be transparent myself.

Two final questions. Have you already

thought about—two final questions—

I missed TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel)—

have you thought about what your

return will look like? There are so many

different assumptions here, starting with the idea that it

will turn into some kind of

rally, and ending with—well, undoubtedly, if

someone is standing there waiting for me with a bouquet of flowers,

depending on the crowd chanting, I don’t need that.

So that’s something to discuss.

Still, people here are seriously making a lot

of different guesses and would be happy to meet you.

There are lots of different assumptions here,

starting with the idea that it will turn into a rally

and ending with the idea that you won’t be allowed into

Russia. How can they not let someone into Russia?

I’m a Russian citizen. I have a Russian

passport, and they cannot bar me from entry. But I can see

the authorities’ efforts to make sure they don’t

let me in, and that mainly consists of

their trying to intimidate me

with criminal cases. But that is, in general,

a previous stage of my life, when

announcements of criminal cases against me

still stirred some emotions in me, and—

I’m glad I wasn’t afraid then, and now I’m

certainly not afraid. As for

my return, seriously, I’m not going to

—first of all, I’m definitely not thinking about it

as some kind of staged scenario. What am I supposed to do,

come in through Vladivostok

and then travel by train, arranging

fraternal greetings with people on every platform?

I would like to avoid any unnecessary

pathos. Yes, these were fairly

dramatic events in my life, but I’m

just a Russian politician who is currently

here getting treatment.

I’ll recover, everything will be fine with me,

I’ll return to Russia on a regular flight,

in economy class, get into a taxi

or a car, go home, and in the morning

I’ll go to work. That’s all.

A lot has really happened during this time.

One of the most terrible things was

the story—this horrific story—

of Irina Slavina’s self-immolation

in Nizhny Novgorod. Have you read about

it, and what is your comment? Well, of course, this is a

completely monstrous story.

I think—I can’t say for certain—

our headquarters interacted with Slavina, and

I think she came to some

press conferences when I visited

Nizhny Novgorod, so I think I may even have

known her personally, at least

visually—from photographs, I remember this

monstrous story in every respect, and I

immediately wrote that this was driving someone to

suicide, because this was

a deliberate, systematic

destruction of a person. She was a journalist; she

had done nothing wrong, and they kept

fining her endlessly. By the way, we helped

raise money for one of those fines.

She was deprived of her means of livelihood and

effectively deprived of her profession.

You have to understand the level of despair of a person

for whom a computer is

where everything is, and a phone is

the only way to earn money, and then from every side

you’re hit with fines, you have two children,

and these scoundrels break into your home,

these bastards who have never done anything

good in their lives, and they take everything from you,

they take your children’s phones away—your children,

teenage girls, saying, “Mom, how can this

be? I have my whole life in there too,”

all of it—and what are you supposed to say to those children?

“I’ll buy you a new phone”? But you

can’t buy one, because you have no money,

and on top of that you owe endless fines.

In other words, they did everything

systematically in order to drive

a person to despair, to that state.

So this is not just a monstrous

tragedy; it is a monstrous crime.

For this crime,

specific people must be held accountable.

That is how I see it. Thank you, Alexei.

Navalny. At this moment, 43,000 people

were watching this interview on YouTube.

A big hello to everyone. Alexei Navalny is live on

TV Rain. We’re glad to see you, glad that you are

alive and well, and we hope to meet again.

Thank you. Well then,

thank you to everyone who was with us.

My name is Tikhon Dzyadko. Stay with

Dozhd (TV Rain).

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