Alexei Navalny’s interview with Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) on May 29, 2015

This is Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty), and on the air is the program

Face to the Event. Today, this is a joint

broadcast by Radio Svoboda and Voice of America.

The program is hosted by Mikhail Sokolov, and together

with me it will also be hosted by Danila Perovich, uh,

my colleague, a special correspondent

for Voice of America in Moscow. Today, you will ask your

questions live on the air

to Alexei Navalny, well-known, I would

say the best-known today and

the most popular opposition politician,

the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and

the leader

of the unregistered Progress Party.

Incidentally, it is not merely unregistered,

but recently the Justice Ministry stripped

it even of that status. He is fighting for the right

for it to become a party. In short, yet another

legal absurdity, another obstacle

for Alexei Navalny in his political

activity, in his human rights

work, and in his anti-

corruption efforts. That is exactly what I wanted

to mention: Alexei Navalny is also,

besides being a leader fighting for

party registration, also the head

of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and in general we

know him above all

for those things more

than anything else, because quite a long

time ago now, probably about five years

ago, Alexei Navalny gave his first major video interviews

specifically about fighting

corruption, both from the headquarters

of his foundation and in

the Radio Svoboda studio, so this is

in a sense a bit of a return to

familiar ground, but with

what I hope is a welcome addition:

the Russian service of Voice of America, which

may

lend this

conversation a broader international angle.

There is Lyosha (diminutive of Alexei), he has arrived, thank

goodness. I apologize for the slight

delay. Moscow is a difficult city, especially a city

where you did not become mayor. Well, let us

talk right away about current events. Yes, by car and on

the metro, yes, I was running. So, about current events:

the Democratic Coalition, which you do not exactly

quite

lead, is these days opening its

campaign headquarters for the September elections.

The Novosibirsk mayor's office has approved a rally there.

As I understand it, you are going there on June 7.

How do you explain to your supporters

why they should go into these legislative

assemblies and city councils under conditions when

the election campaign is, let us say, not

quite really an election? Yes, there is fraud,

it is unfree, unequal, and so on. First,

and this is very important for our Democratic

Coalition, we use precisely this in

our explanations: it has no leader and

cannot have a leader precisely because

the most important principle of the Democratic

Coalition is competitive procedures.

That is, whoever wins the primaries

becomes the leader, whether regional,

federal, whatever you like. We are not trying

to deceive anyone; we are not saying

that electoral struggle right now is

the most important thing, and we are not trying

to convince anyone that if someone

gets into a legislative assembly in Novosibirsk, in

Kaluga, or in

Kostroma, or in Magadan, exactly,

that will change the entire politics of the country.

But we believed, and still believe, and I have never

backed away from this, that elections are

an important avenue. In 2016

there will be elections to the

Federal Duma; that will be an important

political moment, and it will be a chance for

the opposition to gain political

representation, which it has not had

for the last 13 years at the federal level.

In order to prepare for that, in order

to work through precisely these

primary procedures, in order

to impose them, including on the entire opposition

and on ourselves, we are conducting, if you like, a kind of

test in three regions. We are doing something

completely new. No one has ever

done this before. It is very difficult; very few people agreed

to it,

but so far everyone has agreed that

we really will try to create

an honest, competitive, understandable procedure

under which the candidate lists will be determined

in a new way. All right, but you have already

played with the authorities, or against the authorities, in

the Moscow mayoral election, yes, and after

that it turned out

that, well, at least the opposition said

so,

while on the other side the pro-government candidates

said—more precisely, there was only one of them—

essentially: well, you see, we did allow it,

and yes, we even competed. Do you not think that

under the conditions Misha

mentioned, you are playing ping-pong with the authorities

from a position that is doomed to lose?

Well, Danil, I am not some naive

little boy. I understood all of this perfectly well,

I understood about the marked cards,

I understood about the falsifications; we had seen

this for many years. Nevertheless, looking back

now at 2013, when I

ran, I would still make

exactly the same decision, because that

election campaign was extremely important

in order to show, once again, simply

to ourselves, that people

of liberal-democratic views,

of democratic views, do not

have to remain in the 5 percent ghetto, because

this is, well, the history of Russia, probably, I do not know, since

since 1996, people who

talk about elections, about the need to

fight corruption, about honesty there,

transparency—whoever talks about ideas always

ends up hovering somewhere around the five-percent

threshold. For them, success or failure is

5%. And the Kremlin was pushing that idea very actively

at the time. They were saying, well,

there are some internet heroes out there,

some obscure opposition figures—their ceiling is

five, well maybe 9.9%. In Moscow, we went in

and I officially got 27%, in reality 30%. And

if not for the falsification carried out by the authorities,

there would have been a second round. I am sure that I

would have won it. That is—well, there is one

small detail. Our mutual acquaintance,

the very important journalist Lena Milashina, recently

quite recently

cited a very interesting text that

was sent by a very interesting person. What matters

is not how you played—what matters is not your

it is not how you played, but the score on the

scoreboard. But you understand, this is not

ping-pong or football, and all these analogies

are not entirely appropriate; the metaphors are misplaced

because politics is

a process. During the election campaign, we had

one political reality in

which it was taken as an axiom that democrats in

Russia are people on the edge of

the five-percent threshold. When

the election campaign ended, we

already had a different axiom: that democrats in

Russia, without access to the media, without money, without

favorable conditions and under pressure, can run

a major election campaign and

receive a third of the vote in the largest

city in Russia, where 10% of the country's population lives.

Alexei, tell me: in your project,

there was talk of uniting

the democratic forces. But now we see

the two Gudkovs, Vladimir

Ryzhkov off to the side somewhere, yes, on the basis of

Nechaev's Civic Initiative—it is unclear

whether they are with you or against you. And is

Mikhail Khodorkovsky involved in your

democratic coalition project?

I'll start with the second part. Mikhail

Khodorkovsky is involved, and from the very

beginning he declared

his support. From the outset, we

understood that we could not unite everyone.

What matters is uniting those who are, first of all, ready—right now—

to stop any arguments about

which party vehicle to use, and who are ready to say immediately that in

2016 we are running on the PARNAS platform.

That was not an easy decision. At that point,

the Progress Party had not yet been liquidated.

For example, Vladimir Milov and

Democratic Choice—that is a

registered party—and for them this

decision also came very hard. Nevertheless,

we decided to put an end to this

discussion because it is harmful, and to run

on the basis of RPR-PARNAS. That is the first point. The second

thing that was important—fundamentally important—for

me was those very primaries, so that the lists

would be formed only on a competitive

basis; so that it would not be Navalny, Kasyanov,

or Khodorkovsky drawing up the lists, but rather

the candidates themselves coming forward and proving to people

that they are worthy, and the people forming the lists.

As I already said, not everyone agrees with our

approach, with our concept, so not everyone

joined. But excuse me, I—I

have great respect for the colleagues you mentioned, but I

am not interested in political engineering; I want

to do politics. The formation of

lists, when thousands of people take part in it,

tens of thousands of people—for me, that is what politics

is, and that is interesting. But simply

sitting down, dividing things up, drawing district lines, and

deciding, well, Alexei, since you cannot

run, then Kolya will take first

place, and Petya will take third place—

that does not interest me. That is how they have always done it,

and that is how they end up getting 4%. Absolutely, yes.

But nevertheless, all sorts of critics here

say that, well, this is still a kind of

ping-pong among your own circle, because we

know that you have a popular, well-known

agenda. Much of it, a large part of it,

is based on criticism of the existing

order, and it is

topical, widely discussed, and we know about

the street protests. And at the same time, as it were,

next to you are many politicians about whom

people say, oh, them again. And you too can be accused

of, in a sense, playing an honest

game—meaning, whichever of you is more popular will in the end

ultimately

take this prize for himself, so to speak.

That is an excellent question, because one of the

problems we have encountered is that

even people with democratic convictions

do not actually believe in democracy.

They really do think that any

primaries are just a kind of game in which

Navalny and some other people want

to legitimize a result that is predictable in advance.

That is absolutely not the case. If we

look at the candidates who

are registering—you can go online

and see who has put themselves forward in

Kaluga, Novosibirsk, and Kostroma. I personally know

maybe two people. That is all.

These are all completely new people. Here is one who

organizes demonstrations—you know, I have

seen him there twice.

The only person I know well personally

is Zayakin from Dissernet; he has put himself forward in

Kaluga. All the others are

wonderful entrepreneurs, academics,

or simply local activists

and politicians. I do not know them. And that is

what is truly wonderful about our primaries:

I do not care who becomes a deputy. I

want the strongest people to become deputies, and

so that the strongest candidates would head the list on this issue

we’re changing things here, though actually we’re hardly changing anything, Mish

by the way, because he is talking about something very

important. He says that

experience is gradually being accumulated

without television, without, essentially,

through door-to-door work, experience is being gained

in political campaigning, but you understand

that you are operating in

completely new conditions over the past

year. We understand. That is exactly what I want to ask you about

over the past year in Russia

there has been, in my personal view, perhaps

a fundamental change, a view that may be shared by others

in society. Somehow it happened that into

this ideological split, which

at one time went unnoticed—perhaps

perhaps SPSR, perhaps something else—a whole

society has fallen into it, and now it is “Crimea is ours” (a Russian nationalist slogan after the annexation of Crimea), now it is

a mood that is, generally speaking, effectively normalizing

attitudes toward war. There were Levada Center polls

on this. Once again, how do you feel about the fact

that Crimea has been declared part of Russia

and in this case, is it necessary to persuade

Russians to return to complying with

international agreements? After all, the question

is how we are going to act in this

new political reality, or—and Crimea. Let’s

take it one at a time. So, as for

the new political reality,

we are certainly aware of it, we understand

that those issues, that agenda

which just two years ago turned out to be

marginal—and in fact did not exist even

among nationalists; no one was discussing

Crimea, and nationalists with an imperial agenda

were marginal even within nationalist

circles. Now all of this has blossomed, Putin has

taken the lead, and once again we hear some

meaningless, utterly stupid tales about

how we are supposedly reviving some kind of empire

and conquering Europe, and in that sense it is

even more ridiculous now to hear about

how we are going to conquer the whole world when I

am sitting here writing documents about how in

the Kostroma region, half the people do not have

hot running water

or centralized water supply; in some places there are no proper toilets

That is precisely why, despite the fact that

there really are disagreements on certain issues,

all of this has come back, and

people living without water supply

are dreaming about somehow conquering America. Nevertheless,

an important thing that we

certainly note and know is that all these

issues are not delegated downward. Putin managed

to impose the agenda that we are living in

a besieged fortress: love me and no one else

—but this does not filter down. That is exactly

why mayoral elections are now being canceled en masse,

city mayoral elections have been rolled back,

gubernatorial elections as well, and so on. Because

no matter how much they may talk

about Crimea and boast of 86% support, at the grassroots level United Russia

still can only win a majority

through falsification. And the successes—I

will even leave aside the Moscow campaign,

Yekaterinburg or Novosibirsk, where

the opposition won—even if it was the Communists, still

it was the opposition. Take Baltiysk, for example, where

United Russia got nothing. All right,

so do you still believe that

you hope the refrigerator will defeat

the television? It is not about the refrigerator. I

believe that the basic ideas still

—democratic elections and so on—

are supported by people despite this

split in society. As for Crimea,

my position here is absolutely clear:

the seizure of Crimea was a violation

of international agreements, a harmful

violation of international agreements,

because the Budapest Memorandum,

nuclear non-proliferation, and those

fundamental agreements in which

Russia participated at the time—they were

more important; there was also, of course, the major treaty

between Russia and Ukraine. The point is that

strategically, what was done with

Crimea—and not even to mention Ukraine—

will cause great harm to Russia, and it has even

dealt a colossal blow to that very

“Russian world” that Putin supposedly protects,

because in effect we have gained

nothing except a huge country of forty million people

whose population now simply

hates us. But the problem—the Crimea problem—

is a problem that cannot be solved

quickly.

It cannot be dealt with like a sandwich.

Exactly right, it cannot simply

be returned immediately. There is this—well, your

partner Kasyanov says, of course,

that annexed Crimea should be returned to Ukraine, and

then we will sort things out there. But I think

Mikhail Mikhailovich said that this is

in fact more complicated; someone oversimplified

his words. I asked him about it, by the way. And

so the Crimea problem should be resolved

first and foremost by holding a referendum

which did not take place there; what happened there I

do not consider a referendum. But at the present

moment there are 3 million Russian citizens there. They

have passports, and you cannot simply

snap your fingers and say it is a simple trick.

All right, suppose you hold, you hold there

a referendum in which the majority expresses

itself in the same way as in what you called

illegitimate—I will tell you the same thing that

I say to some of my partners in

the democratic movement: you do not believe in

democracy. But I know that, well, there are 3

million people there, and I cannot simply

—let us say not me, but you, some ideal

president of Russia who wants to do

what is best and wants to resolve

the Crimea problem in the best possible way—the first and

in fact the only thing that can really be done is this

to start doing this directly: to hold a fair

referendum with a long

preparation period, in which both Ukraine, I don't

know, the Crimean Tatars, and all

interested parties would, over an extended

period of time, be able to campaign, and then we

hold a referendum. Based on the results of that

referendum, a decision could be made. I do not

understand. With Japan, things are much better than

they are now with Ukraine. After the war, a

hell of a lot of years have passed, there is the declaration

of 1956, two islands and peace,

and still they cannot do anything

and there is not even any referendum. And you

say that such a conflict could be

resolved by a referendum, exactly. That is why I

said from the start that the problem of Crimea is

a long-term problem, and Crimea will be a territory

like Northern Cyprus for decades. Well,

the Arab-Israeli conflict—for how many

years? The Japanese islands—for how many years? This

will poison life for decades

for all Crimeans, for us, for Ukrainians.

This will be the

main issue on the agenda of international

relations for many years, and it is unsolvable, first

and foremost because there are now

3 million Russian residents living there. You want a referendum—

under whose control? International

control, Ukrainian, Russian, some kind of joint

arrangement? That already depends on whether there is political

will. Under the current regime, this is of course

impossible. What we are discussing is fantasy

unless people come to power in Russia

who genuinely want to

resolve this amicably and democratically.

There should be a referendum which, well,

naturally, is under Russia's jurisdiction

under Russian law. But it

must be an absolutely fair referendum

whose rules are recognized by everyone—Ukraine,

the international community, and so on. And

then those 3 million people will show

which direction to move in. We have

probably only one—no, actually two

good international examples. They are

the Saar region, which, as you

remember, came under French control, but

nevertheless people voted and it

returned to Germany completely without bloodshed.

And more recently we had Scotland—the same

thing, well, similar questions were put

on

the agenda, and they prepared for the

referendum for a long time. Fine, in short, I

am not trying to draw direct

analogies. I am simply saying: should

any future Russian government, before

implementing the scheme you

mentioned, publicly declare that it

condemns the violation of international

agreements that unquestionably occurred?

It was a violation of international

agreements, absolutely, in every respect. Of course it

must say so, yes. And if I

am ever part of that government, I

will not change my position. What I have said

now will always stay with me: it

was the wrong action, it was

a violation. But it happened, and now we need

to think about what to do next. There is no simple

solution. You cannot simply

sign a piece of paper and just somehow

return something somewhere. Alexei, tell us this:

Russia not only annexed Crimea, but also

got involved in the war in Donbas. About 6,000

people have been killed, more than 10,000

wounded, and 1 million refugees. What now

should be done about this war? This is already

an event of an entirely different order. This is

the real thing—this is no longer just some kind of

political mistake. It is a crime, and

a crime against the Russian Federation, against

the Russian people, a crime

of an international nature. And what needs

to be done? This war must be stopped. It is necessary

to stop sponsoring this regime. It is necessary

to stop—what regime? In Donbas, well, in

Donbas, in Luhansk—these strange

field commanders who, as we can see,

are already beginning to eliminate one

another. What happened with the so-called

Batman long ago—well, Mozgovoy (Aleksei Mozgovoy, a separatist commander), Mozgovoy, and

so on—happened quite recently.

So we can see that

without Russia's sponsorship there—financial

and organizational support, and sheltering these

people—all of this collapses fairly quickly.

Probably, in order to stop all of this,

some painful

things will have to be done. Well, apparently

it will be necessary to grant immunity and allow

those people to enter Russian territory

whom the Ukrainian authorities will never

forgive. But I believe that what Russia

must do is immediately withdraw all

troops and stop all operations,

stop all sponsorship. In fact, they should

ritually, as Lavrov and

Putin do, declare that all of this is part of Ukraine.

All of this must stop as soon

as possible. It is all dragging us into some kind of

abyss, and it brings happiness to

no one. And what should be done, specifically,

in the situation where two Russian

servicemen have been captured, and Russia is now

publicly disowning them? In fact, this is yet

another example of the abyss into which

all this is leading us, because, well, this is

already a situation that is not merely

politically difficult for the Russian

leadership—it is immoral from the point of view

of the entire nation. These really are our

soldiers, obviously servicemen who were sent

for a special operation, and now they are simply

being publicly betrayed. It is clear that they

were engaged in illegal activi-

ties. But even spies of some kind...

Intelligence operatives engage in illegal

activity, but they are nevertheless recognized,

brought back, and these people need to be exchanged. I

believe they should be exchanged,

for example, for Savchenko. Well, there is this

problem. Probably the last question on

this

topic: on the one hand, you say that they

should be, but on the other hand, you yourself

say that this is a crime. They

are, they are part of this

crime committed on the territory

of another country.

That is correct. Responsibility for this

crime lies first and foremost with those

people who give criminal

orders. This is yet another

example of how they are trying to classify

not just living people anymore, but even

certain graves, which is doubly offensive.

Well, you understand, a man's son has died, and he

cannot even say how his son

died. That person was a serviceman; he

was following orders. This is an absolutely

immoral situation; it is unacceptable. It once again

shows that this needs to stop. Who

needs this? No one needs it.

Alexei Navalny in the Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty) studio

answers questions from Voice of America

from Danila Golts and Mikhail Sokolov of Radio

Svoboda. Well, the topic remains the same:

sanctions.

About

You have spoken in favor of personal sanctions. Your

colleague Mikhail Kasyanov is asking to bar

entry to the United States and Europe for a group of Russian

Kremlin propagandists. Should

a Russian politician turn to

other countries in order to punish

figures of an authoritarian regime? I remember

the Federal Penitentiary Service

when I was under house arrest

demanded that I be put in actual

detention because of my op-ed in *The New York Times*

when, appealing to foreign

public opinion, I said that, well,

with regard to specific crooks who

are robbing the Russian people, sanctions should be imposed. And

I believe that is a normal activity,

and it is carried out entirely in the interests

of the citizens of the Russian Federation. These

people are no allies of ours. None of

these Solovyovs, Kiselyovs, and other

propagandists, nor the Russian Putin-linked

oligarchs who are among the

sponsors of the war, are close to me in

the slightest. It is in the interests of the Russian people

to impose sanctions against them; it is in the interests

of Western states to make sure that

they stop laundering money,

corruption money, on their territory, and

this is the right lever of pressure on this

regime. Because these people wage war

in order to be able to continue

enriching themselves and staying in power.

A short question: are the sanctions already in place

working, especially the sectoral ones?

Well, of course they are. As I understand it,

right now the main focus, after all, is not just

of Russia's foreign policy, but of all

Russian policy, on getting sanctions lifted.

Sectoral sanctions have hit very hard

the economy; of course they have also hit

Russian citizens. That is precisely why I,

as a Russian citizen, still

support sanctions against

individuals. I am against

broad economic, sectoral sanctions, but they

have worked, unquestionably. What do you think:

why was Boris Nemtsov killed? For this kind of

position? For a combination of reasons, Boris

Nemtsov was killed because he was an

independent politician, because he said

what he thought needed to be said, because

he spoke boldly about Chechnya,

about Kadyrov, about Chechens fighting in

Ukraine, about Putin, about sanctions, and so

on. He was one of the symbols

that united many people. Besides that,

he was a politician, not just some—many

people see me as some upstart who

came out of nowhere. But he, after all,

was a man who had been deputy prime minister; at one point, as you

well remember, for some time he

was seen as a possible successor; he almost

became president of Russia, he was a governor,

and so on. Therefore, I think that, given

all of that, such a target was chosen

precisely to terrify—not just

society, but the elites as well. Of course, it is very

hard for us. In fact, I think that even now

it is still difficult to speak about Boris Yefimovich

in the past tense, and I remember very well

how you spoke about him when only a very short

time had passed.

One of the main feelings is that

Nemtsov feels so alive,

free, yes, with this

open-collared ease against the thickening atmosphere around you,

and what would have to

happen, well, for you to leave

the country? Both I and my family have been being pushed toward

that for quite a long time. If you remember,

when I was doing my fellowship at Yale University,

the first public

statements began—essentially, that they were against Navalny,

that they were conducting some investigations. They were

made right before my return,

obviously with the aim that I would simply

get scared and not come back. I

well, I do not play that kind of game with myself—

as in, what would have to happen for

that? They imprisoned my brother for

nothing. So what else would have to happen

for me to leave? I do not consider such a

possibility at all. I simply do not—

you know, I do not think about it. Such a

possibility is not something I consider.

My family supports me — this is my

conscious choice, what I do. I believe

that I am doing the right thing. I am

supported by a great many people. And

especially after Nemtsov (Boris Nemtsov, Russian opposition politician), to leave and abandon

all of this — that would be a betrayal. The question

of personal safety has somehow been dealt with.

How can it be dealt with? Well, Boris

refused security. Well, that turned out

badly. If you guard me, my

dear... I came by the metro, probably

already... what can I say, it’s simply

meaningless — this kind of race, an arms race

in this sense. Whatever resources

I may have, even if I had

10 samurai walking with me, and each had not two but

three guns, it would still be far too little compared

with the resources of the state.

So yes, I do take certain security measures,

like any person would, but I

understand that this is no panacea. Alexei,

tell me: Chechnya under Kadyrov — well,

in Nemtsov’s murder everyone sees a

Chechen connection. What is this? Is this the future

of Russia — a totalitarian regime,

a theocratic one? A year ago, well, I would have

completely disagreed with you and even

laughed at such an assumption.

Now we are seeing things that, well,

simply do not fit in the mind at all.

This kind of fundamentalism — not even

just religious, but somehow simply

wild.

And something pagan about it, yet at the same time

these fundamentalists seriously

are conducting discussions with us about

polygamy and things like that. This is a kind of

postmodern fundamentalism, where on the one hand

you have these Night Wolves (a pro-Kremlin Russian biker group) in

some kind of leather pants and strange

outfits, and on the other hand Islamic

fanatics. And unfortunately, we see that this

is becoming the political mainstream, and

laws are being passed in the same kind of

fanatical spirit.

And this has nothing at all to do with

religion — it is paganism, paganism in its pure

form, unfortunately. And I am very upset

that representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) are also taking part

in this

mad, specifically pagan kind of game

and imposing these sorts of values on us.

All right, we can talk about this as

something even amusing if we shift

the discussion to the pagan nature of all this. But besides

that, as far as we know from various

sources, there are between 20,000 and 80,000 very well

armed men who periodically — and

just now, literally, I was watching

Grozny television — show off their

special training. They sweep forests, they

are armed like genuinely very serious

high-level

special forces

units, and so on. So my

question is: would it be correct to say

— as several people in the

Russian opposition have already said — that in fact

this is Vladimir Putin’s combat reserve

for some contingency, though it is unclear what kind? I do not

think that is directly the case. I think

rather that his

men are there not as a combat reserve but for

carrying out certain functions

that even our special services are not prepared to

perform. For example, direct

contract killings and so on. So this is

less a reserve than a destabilizing

factor. It is Kadyrov’s trump card, his

lever for blackmailing Putin,

because Kadyrov has built a very simple system:

he receives billions, he

has created a sharia army, genuinely

an excellently trained fighting force.

And his dialogue lately — the public dialogue

he is conducting both with Putin and with

all of us — boils down to this:

fine, stop. Stop giving us money.

Well then, what do you think

these 40,000 men with assault rifles will do? Ask

yourself that question, and then you will start

giving us money again.

And I think that Putin, in a certain

sense, has become hostage to his own game,

to this whole arrangement. And what can he do, even if

this contradicts the message of the recent

film organized by Open Russia

because there it is said that they are

practically family, that this is in fact

a relationship of mutual dependence, and

at first they were killing certain Chechens,

their enemies, in Moscow. There were scandals, as

you remember — near the White House (the Russian government building) they killed

one of Kadyrov’s enemies there. The authorities

swallowed it. Now they have organized the murder

of a very prominent politician. Do you think

Kadyrov knows who killed Nemtsov? I very much

hope that Putin and other state leaders

did not take part in organizing

these plans, and that this was still

Kadyrov acting on his own initiative. But the direct

link between Geremeyev, Delimkhanov,

Kadyrov, and the specific murder — there is

a very short chain there. We are familiar with

the case materials; the press writes about them.

It is a very short and very

obvious chain. And the fact that our

special services,

for all their vaunted reputation, are not even capable of questioning

people — Geremeyev in particular — and that they

leave through the international airport

in Grozny, where border guards

subordinate to the FSB are stationed, and freely

fly off to the United Arab Emirates or

somewhere else — well, this shows that

the situation is simply very grim. Therefore,

yes, they do carry out certain assignments, but in

exchange for colossal financial resources.

if there are no resources, they will stop carrying them out.

Have you seen Mikhail's proposal

by Mikhail Khodorkovsky on normalizing the situation in

Chechnya? Well then, when you win... I

read his article in *Vedomosti*—excellent.

I watched that film, of course. I

think this is the right approach. Chechnya—

Chechnya as part of Russia—Chechnya needs

the same thing that Russia as a whole needs,

only more of it, and fairer

institutions, and faster ones—still more transparency, still

more choice. Of course, it has its own

specifics—*teips* (Chechen clan-based kinship groups), and so on. But it is precisely

the introduction of some democratic

normal mechanisms of transparency that

is very important. In Chechnya,

dozens, hundreds of people are enriching themselves, but

the majority of the population is still

destitute; people go out and gather wild garlic

just to survive, and in that

sense, the colossal sums of money

that flow there do not reach those people.

And the introduction of democratic mechanisms

that Khodorkovsky is talking about

would be right, good—but here

there is one detail that operates in

Chechnya and, as it turns out, has worked in

Russia as well, at least judging by

the past year: the authorities—when you say

that we should oppose them with a clear

democratic procedure, one for which

the people supposedly long—we

[music]

and so on. They simply raise the stakes;

they start saying: you are enemies because

we want this—for example, 'Crimea is ours,'

and you accuse us—and instantly, right there,

they bring down the house with applause, of course,

amplified by state propaganda,

of course, under the daily influence on

people through television. But it nevertheless

creates this kind of mood in

society. So how do you turn that around? Well, that's exactly

how it is. I agree with you. More than that, I—yes, I

would put it even more clearly: they started the war

so that there would be a different

political agenda, so that they would not have to

answer questions about corruption. They

started the war. Nevertheless, there is no need

to turn anything around there—it turns around

on its own. You come to

Kostroma Oblast (a region of Russia)—all right, I will come and

answer. I meet with voters a lot;

I answer questions about Crimea, about

Ukraine, patiently—but all the same, the moment comes

fairly quickly when you

say: now let's discuss why

in Russia, so rich as it is, you don't have

hot water, why you don't have

sewerage. They sit down in front of the

television, you see—but the fact that they don't have

hot water, they remember even while sitting in front of

the television. That's very important. All right.

Alexei, your opponents often call

you a Russian nationalist. Do you personally

consider yourself

one? I believe that at the present moment

all these

ideological labels and clichés—they

do not carry much significance in Russia.

In general, all of this is... well, are our

communists left-wing? No, obviously not.

And so on and so forth. Many

many liberals are not liberals.

So the labels themselves

are insignificant. Of course, many issues

on the political agenda that are considered

traditionally nationalist, I

raise constantly. First and foremost, this

of course concerns migration issues. I

support introducing a visa regime with

the countries of Central Asia. I believe that this

is absolutely normal, and it is a European

practice that I am calling for in Russia. Well,

has your view of nationalism changed, I mean,

after Donbas, where under this kind of

banner of Russian nationalism there were

all sorts of monstrous atrocities committed? Yes,

there were all kinds of torture basements, NKVD, SMERSH

—all of that Stalinism has been revived. I very

What you are saying is absolutely right: Stalinism,

this whole imperial frenzy, is something

that harms the development of Russian

nationalism. You know very well that I

devoted many years, among other things, to

building certain bridges between

nationalists and liberal democrats,

and the political agenda of the nationalists

was—they themselves said that they were

creating a national-democratic

movement. Unfortunately,

we see that Putin has turned

the trend, and what was previously a marginal imperial

mindset among nationalists has gained the upper hand.

The national-democratic part

of the nationalists has either completely

fallen apart on its own, as is happening now with

Belov, whom, as we know, today they did not even

allow lawyers to see in court; he is being held in a psychiatric institution,

and so on. That is, we see that

those nationalists who speak out against

the war in Ukraine—and there are many of them—at the last

Russian March, there was a separate column

which, incidentally, was larger in size

than the column of those who

supported the war. And they are being pressured; they

are being subjected to repression, unfortunately.

You know what the thing is? Years ago, I

was talking about roughly the same thing with Mikhail

Borisovich Khodorkovsky, and there is this

feeling, yes, that very many

democrats, very many people who

think about how Russia should be organized, say:

there is this kind of nationalism, and there is

that kind of nationalism. The thing is that

very often people, for example in the West, they

do not distinguish at all between these two

forms of nationalism, believing that for Russian

Russian nationalism is characterized by

an imperial mindset, the idea that all of this together is

not any kind of republic at all, but repression,

the holding of a vast territory through

imperial consciousness, and through that

the realization of a Russian nationalism that

is not nationalism

of citizenship, but nationalism in the sense

of ethnicity. Wouldn’t you want to give up

the word “nationalism”

altogether? After all, it’s not about the words. I mean,

whatever people in the West may say, and people in Russia

may think that republicans are

some single, unified thing. But we know that’s not

the case, and people in the West—at least those who

are interested, those involved in politics—

they understand that these really are two

different nationalisms. This imperial

nationalism I would actually call Soviet

patriotism, or some kind of pseudo-Soviet

patriotism, or Stalinism, which lately

has taken the form of post-Stalinism, neo-Stalinism,

whatever

you want to call it. That’s exactly why I said, when

we began this topic, that I try

to avoid these kinds of

ideological clichés, which for many carry the idea that

migrants are in fact your

allies, not your opponents, because I

know the objections, I know the objections—for example,

those of a very worthy person, Svetlana

Gannushkina (a Russian human rights activist), toward your election campaign.

Please tell Svetlana Gannushkina

that in this respect my position on

migrants is far more honest and

correct than hers, and in that sense I am

much more of a defender of migrants than

she is, because I am demanding simple things. I

demand that they enter here on visas,

with work permits, and then every

migrant will have insurance, and then

if, God forbid, something crushes

his leg at a construction site, he won’t be thrown into a ditch

to die; he’ll go to a hospital. What

is it that he is trying to do?

Let’s move precisely to this

point: what it costs the state. We

know that right now your demands

are impossible to fulfill precisely because of the issue

we’re now turning to: the fight against

corruption. That’s not true at all. So,

a visa regime can be introduced; it’s a simple

measure. Sure, bribes will be taken in

embassies and consulates; right now bribes

are taken by every branch of the Federal Migration Service, and controlling an embassy

and consulate

is an order of magnitude easier than

administering anti-corruption efforts for

every police officer who is currently

collecting money from migrants. You have

a certain volume of already existing slave-like

labor. What are you going to do with these people?

How will you protect their rights? Because

they also have rights. I’m not

trying to say that migration is

bad in general. Naturally, Russia’s

population is declining; Russia needs

a certain inflow of labor, and

the authorities and businesses should provide

normal, honest quotas. At the same time, they

must increase labor productivity.

If a machine can do the work somewhere instead of

10 migrants, then let the machine do it.

And some portion of migrants

should remain; they should

work here on visas; they need to be legalized.

But this bacchanalia, where anyone

can simply up and come here—I

mean, you understand, I can’t just go to Germany

by simply getting on a plane and going. So

why can every resident of Uzbekistan

do the same with this country? Germany

was not in the same state with me,

and Uzbekistan has long not been in the same

state with me. That’s fine—I’m ready

to introduce a visa regime. I have a question

from one of our listeners on Facebook.

He wrote: liberals promise

democracy, fair elections, and all the rest, but

how exactly are they going to fight

poverty and injustice? What should be done about

education and healthcare? Well,

briefly, in bullet points: that’s an excellent question,

because the most important policy

position with which we are going into these

elections—the Democratic Coalition—is

the redistribution involved in changing the tax

system. We support, to a large extent,

leaving part of the taxes and a significant share of

powers—VAT, and part of the mineral extraction tax—

in the regions.

That way, approximately 1.7 trillion

rubles in additional funds will go to

the regions. But of course the most important thing we

need to do to fight poverty is

to redistribute national wealth more fairly,

because we can see that

Russia has sold $3 trillion worth of oil and gas

over the last

15 years, but the only ranking in which it has risen

is the ranking for the number of

billionaires in Russia. It hosted the Olympics,

and there will be football too. Well, as for football,

right now, as you know, there are major problems.

What should be done about FIFA? Putin is defending Blatter

Putin is defending Blatter, and it’s clear why.

Because unfortunately, in this respect,

I actually feel ashamed for my

country if we took part in corruption and

bought this thing—the World Cup.

Notice that the Americans started this

case because the Americans too, at

some point, bought one of the

tournaments for themselves. But the FBI now—they admit

that yes, we Americans

have corruption too, but it must be honestly

acknowledged. So it will also be necessary

to go after someone else as well.

FIFA is facing a major, major reorganization, and

the position of FIFA’s sponsors, who said

from Coca-Cola to

McDonald’s, was: we demand

changes and different ethical standards.

That will, of course, push everyone in that direction.

And here we smoothly move on to the topic

of corruption—an eternal one, yes. Well, and also

after all, that’s where we started some years ago.

So, do you still have sources in

the Russian government structures who

tell you what things are really like

behind the scenes? They aren’t needed. It’s all so

open now. This is happening so openly. I was saying roughly

the same thing back in 2011,

in 2010, in 2008—that corruption

was so open that I was getting most of it

from open sources.

Now it’s happening—well, I don’t even

know what comes after “open,” something more

open than open. No, no, there’s no word in Russian

that would capture all

this cynicism and lawlessness

surrounding corruption. It’s shameless,

utterly depraved corruption that is happening now.

No sources are needed.

Open a newspaper and just read: they’re

handing out contracts left and right. As I’ve

already said, that’s why they started the war in the first place,

because they changed the agenda. If earlier

I published an anti-corruption

investigation, it became a news event.

Everyone was upset: how could this be? Just look,

that’s right, they stole a billion here,

they stole over there too—what scoundrels. But now, against the backdrop of

thousands of people killed, against the backdrop of questions

of life and death, war, sanctions, and so on,

it seems like no one is interested in this anymore.

So they drowned you out with their own agenda?

That’s exactly what it was done for. Well, absolutely, listen—

how can one discuss it? Corruption is

important; people do discuss it and will continue

to discuss it. I will keep working on it. But against the backdrop of

the fact that they are literally tearing down

the gravestones from the graves of our soldiers so that

no one can see where they were killed,

all these things become somewhat

secondary. They believe that all “color

revolutions” begin under the slogan of fighting

corruption. So that means you’re preparing a Maidan (the Ukrainian protest movement/square),

is that it? Well, I think that

the deputy interior minister said something funny,

but in fact, color

revolutions do happen because of

corruption, because this lot sits there,

sits there stealing by the billions, and then

there comes a moment when people come out and

say, “Enough,” and revolutions happen, unfortunately.

So if Mr. Zubov were doing

what... well, if they didn’t want a color revolution, I

would, of course, want a normal transfer

of power. But a change of power in Russia

right now—a transition from this

authoritarianism to democracy—is in some

sense a revolution, because it is

a change of the political system. Well,

of course I wouldn’t want any

upheaval or people with weapons

running through the streets. I would want

a soft, normal transition. And what would you

offer Putin as part of that transition?

Putin should be offered

security—for himself, his money, his

assets, his family, and some

limited number of close associates.

I think there will now be a huge number of people on Facebook

who

will write that you’re a Putin project.

Yes, “the Kremlin’s golden lure,”

the Kremlin’s golden lure—but all the same, I

really do think that despite the fact

that, well, in some sense, my

relationship with Putin already has

a personal dimension to it—he put my

brother in prison for nothing. But I

still think—And would you go after his friends?

“Go after” them? What does that even mean? All my

so-called “harassment” consists of is that I write and speak

about them. These are events of somewhat

different orders. They’re not sitting in prison anywhere; they

feel perfectly fine and

fly around on private jets. Well, to

Europe many of them no longer travel. So you are not

a Kremlin project? Honestly, I don’t know

what this is here—touch wood or press the red button?

There are dozens of questions here, Alexei,

dozens of questions—ask him

the tough one: is he a Kremlin project or not?

A tough one, then? I’ll answer you toughly:

no. And all of my activity, it seems to me,

proves that this is not the case. But nevertheless,

I understand why

people think

in conspiratorial terms: they haven’t seen

normal, sincere politics in a very long time, so it’s hard for them

to believe that there are people who

say what they think. Well, I am such a

person, and the people who work with

me are such people too. And it seems to me

that what matters is that we are constantly

trying to build up and increase

the number of such people. So I am ready

to explain it to everyone consistently and patiently,

although, to be honest, I am very

tired of it—yes, that I am not a Kremlin project and

I do what I believe needs to be done. And now they’re

asking again: what about the systemic liberals?

How do you feel about them? Take Chubais, for example—

you went after him rather indecently

in the company of *Komsomolskaya Pravda*.

It probably would have been better not together with

*Komsomolskaya Pravda*. But in that, um, in

that line of reasoning there are two very important

mistakes, and it is a major mistake to call Chubais

a systemic liberal. He is not

any kind of liberal, and attempts within the system of

“us versus them” to assign Chubais to our side—this is

a big mistake. Chubais is a man

who four years ago declared, "What do you mean—

we in Russia don't need free elections,

because in free elections, people like

Rogozin would come to power." Now he sits

in the same government with Rogozin and feels

perfectly fine. So he hasn't been any kind of

liberal for a long time. That's the first point. Second, as for

my attitude toward Rusnano and

my recent statements about Rusnano—

some people think they

are synchronized with *Komsomolskaya Pravda* (a Russian tabloid newspaper).

But that's simply ridiculous. There was just

an obvious news hook: there was an audit

by the Accounts Chamber, and Chubais went to

United Russia, to his new—to his

new bosses, where he told them—and I

quoted this Interfax report almost

verbatim—"You know, guys, sorry, yes, in seven years

we failed to build a control system, failed

to calculate the risks, calculated everything

incorrectly, and because of that, in many ways

we failed." So I simply wrote

what I think. I think that's exactly how it is.

Guys, in seven years you created nothing.

A lot of people say that as soon as

you start talking about the fur storage

facility, Yakunin's chair immediately starts wobbling—and

from different sides at that.

No, that's a major problem with my

work. Unfortunately, I suffer from it. But when I

realize that everyone I, as you put it,

go after—

whether it's Shuvalov,

Sechin, or Yakunin—holds on to their position, then with Chubais

everything will be fine too. He will go on saying

that Russia doesn't need free elections

because supposedly some worse people would come to power, even though

those worse people came a long time ago,

and everything will be fine for him. He'll get yet

another tranche of state money for

his Rusnano, announce yet another

tablet—and there will be no tablet. And then,

the losses will be covered.

Exactly. Well then, to put it bluntly:

why weren't you imprisoned on those

fabricated cases? Me—they did imprison me at first.

They sentenced me to five years.

Then they released me the next day. I have

no other explanation except

that I talked about this a lot, and the people

who came out onto the streets of Moscow—they

pulled me out of there. Maybe there is

some secret—I don't know—arrangement

or something, but I know nothing about it. So I

don't believe at all that in politics there are

complicated schemes or some kind of

multi-move master plan.

In their ping-pong game, I take what I see with my own

eyes to be what it is. I know

that I'm not unique in this. Of course, every time

I run a campaign against someone, it

benefits someone else too. Well, there's nothing I can do about that.

An important question now, and no jokes:

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov said of the USSR,

"My country needs support and pressure."

What do you think: can the West now

achieve anything from Russia besides sanctions,

perhaps by somehow helping

democratic institutions, the opposition,

civil society—whatever form that takes? And should

it do that at all? And more broadly, the

role of the West in the current Russian

situation—I don't think

the West can help

anyone in Russia in any meaningful way, because first of all,

the institutions the West has are not

designed for that.

And I don't believe such assistance can be

effective. But what the West can do

really effectively is what it is

doing now, for example with the

FIFA case, when they start catching the crooks

whom

Russia... I've said this many times: I meet

with Western politicians, and they all ask

the same question: what should we do? I tell them

something simple: follow your own laws.

Make sure that money stolen from

us cannot be laundered in your countries. That's

what you should do.

Swiss bank accounts will be exposed,

personal details will be disclosed—yes, Russian politicians

will be forced to reveal their accounts,

to disclose their real estate holdings,

or it will be done for them by force.

That's what needs to be done: expose

the hypocrisy of all these crooks who

lecture us here about native traditions and about

how everything must conform to some

supposed roots going back to Yarilo (a Slavic pagan deity), while they themselves

make films and send their children to

Switzerland. That's what the West should do.

A deputy speaker of the State Duma can do that.

As for cooperation between

Western institutions and Russian

organizations—fine, whoever wants to do that,

let them do it. I don't see

anything shameful in it. There is nothing more

stupid than all these laws on

"foreign agents," but I don't believe

that there is really any

effect in it. Well, you recently wrote that

classifying Dmitry Zimin and his foundation as

foreign agents proves that those in power today are

enemies of Russia and occupiers.

Meanwhile, according to

Levada Center data, Putin's work as

president is currently approved by 86% of Russians. So how

can you win if your thesis that

those in power are enemies and occupiers is

supported now by, at most, at most

14%? First of all, 14% is an enormous

number of people. Fourteen percent is an unimaginable

number of people. Just think about it.

The last time liberals and democrats were

represented in parliament was in

1999, when they got 5.5% and 5%. Fourteen percent

today is a lot. That's the first point.

Second, that 86% is simply the rating of a void.

They have eliminated everyone.

In that sense, it’s amusing for me to watch

polls in which Putin has 86%, while everyone

else has two percent each—Medvedev has two, and

I have two, Prokhorov has two, everyone does—because

there is no one.

But it would be exactly the same if we

had conducted a poll, say, in nineteen

eighty-five, or in nineteen

eighty-three: Konstantin Ustinovich

Chernenko would have shown a 99% approval rating. Would that

have meant anything? It would have meant

nothing.

If tomorrow there were three TV reports about

Putin’s shady dealings at St. Petersburg City Hall

and Putin’s palace in Gelendzhik, that 86% would

shrink to not even six. All that remains is

to take control of television. How

can the opposition look for new media opportunities?

Well, at present I’m afraid

they are, of course, connected only with

the internet, and we can see that the authorities

understand this perfectly well, and that is why they are launching

an offensive against

the internet. Well, we will do everything

possible. If I knew

some miracle formula, I would have implemented it

long ago. There is no such formula. We are doing

everything we can, from handing out leaflets and holding meetings

with voters to

internet campaigning. How much are you counting

on middle-aged people in Russia—not

just on young people sitting on the internet,

not only on those who may be

impressed by your activities, but on the sensible

middle-aged group that could

perhaps become your base of support—the generation

known as the Soviet baby

boom, those born from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. It is very important;

it carries great weight.

It is precisely this generation that Putin’s media offensive is aimed at, among

other things.

All this imperial frenzy—this idea that, well,

we’re going to seize all these places now,

these stupid jokes about how we’ll ride in on

tanks and therefore don’t need visas—well,

all this nonsense is aimed there too.

But as far as I—I’m

not much of an expert in demography, but among

Russian generations, this generation

is the largest in number, and now

these are already middle-aged people. I

think that working with

them offers the greatest prospects.

Well, if we take this political technology approach rather crudely:

the people want to live poorly,

hard lives, and not for long, in the name of state greatness.

Is that incurable by your therapy? Are you Don Quixote?

Arkady says to you. I don’t think so.

Don Quixote, you see, defeated one

windmill, two windmills, three windmills. But I

ran in an election and got a third of the vote

in Russia’s largest city. As I already

said, I simply know that this is not the case. I

am ready to talk to everyone—workers,

collective farmers, and the creative

intelligentsia—and everywhere I get some

support. I do not claim that tomorrow I will have

86%, but I am not alone. I’ll now

turn to listeners’ questions, actually

we should give them their due. Here’s one, rather grimly phrased:

they write: it seems your struggle is not only

hopeless, but needed by no one except you.

I’m reading this straight through: the country is hooked on the drug

of great-power chauvinism; people are willing to be

openly robbed; they don’t care about

corruption. Is it worth punching concrete with your fist,

enduring the pain, getting tired, and looking ridiculous?

Serzh, Moscow. Once again, none of that is true.

I am not some lone voice crying in the wilderness—well, that person

may think so. Today my colleague Leonid

Volkov wrote an excellent text on this subject:

there are a great many of us. But

because there is very little

horizontal communication established

within the opposition, each person thinks,

sitting somewhere in Kaluga, that he is

the last democrat in Kaluga, while someone

sits in Kostroma and thinks he is

the last liberal in Kostroma. But such

people make up as much as 30% in any large

city—up to 30% of people

more or less share our

views. That’s the first point. And secondly, both our

polls that we conduct and, indeed, mostly official polls

show

that up to 70% of people still believe that

there should be honest elections for mayors, elections

for governors, and as for corruption, 87%

of people in my country think it is a serious problem. What

is stopping these people from leaving their kitchens,

from ceasing to be the last democrats in

their neighborhood, from seeing a kindred spirit across the block and

realizing that together they are many? There are many reasons. I am not trying

to

to avoid responsibility myself, including for

the opposition’s ineffective work.

There is fear of repression. What Putin has done over

the past few years—he has

of course sent many signals to this

part of society: if you go out

to protest, we will jail you. And we

still see random people being seized

in connection with the Bolotnaya case (the prosecutions following the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow) and imprisoned. And of course we

encounter this: people used to say,

and still say, that before they went to every

rally, but now, honestly, they are

a little afraid. They understand that most likely

nothing will happen, but they are still a little

afraid, and so

they probably no longer even say

they understand that nothing will happen. In general, there are other factors too, and we see that on this issue

as well.

There is even some amusing math

that says the probability that

you will be arrested at a rally or after

a rally is much lower than the probability

that you’ll get hit by a car while

you’re on your way to a rally. Or even just walking

down the street. So this is an absolutely

safe thing to do, especially when we’re talking

about authorized rallies. But

still, there is this general sense of anxiety.

We can see that even on the internet

lately we’ve lost all the major

platforms: Lenta.ru has been taken over, Gazeta.ru

has been taken over,

destroyed, and the TV channel

Dozhd (an independent Russian TV channel) was driven off all broadcast frequencies, and so

on. In that sense, of course, we somewhat

underestimated the authorities’ capabilities, because

in 2011 it seemed that we

had completely defeated them on the internet. But then

they simply started, in a very crude way,

taking over platforms and blocking them.

May I nitpick the historical

record a bit? Back in 2011, you

put forward the slogan “vote for any party

except the party of crooks and thieves,” and

as a result, the votes mostly went

to A Just Russia, according to experts,

which now zealously defends Putin’s

regime, even more fervently than United Russia. Do you

admit that was a mistake? Maybe you should

have said not “for any democratic party,”

but for the party you came from —

Yabloko. The Yabloko party would still have gotten

2% or 3%, or however much it got, but

it might have gotten 5%. Well, it would have, it would have

gotten into the Duma and voted

against Crimea. First of all, the Yabloko party

even under the conditions of that campaign — I don’t

remember exactly how much it got, but

in the mayoral race it got 3%, represented by Trokhi...

Our campaign, “vote for anyone against

United Russia,” the main beneficiary of that campaign,

as you correctly said, was

A Just Russia. But it could have been

Yabloko, if Yabloko hadn’t spent its time

fighting me and playing into

the Kremlin’s hands. I have great respect for

many of my former colleagues from the

Yabloko party, but they did not want to

make that happen. It’s pointless now

to invest any effort there. Unfortunately, they will never

achieve anything. And in the

Moscow City Duma election, you, so to speak, got back at them

when you effectively called for a boycott. But

what did they have to do with it? The boycott — we

announced it because all of our col...

our favorite topic, elections. No, this is, this is

wonderful — excellent questions. This is very

important, and this discussion is important now, when

there are new elections. We announced a bo... we

announced a boycott because all our

candidates were removed from the ballot, and some

candidates — for example, Konstantin

Yankauskas — were simply placed under house

arrest so that they could not take part.

That’s the first point. The “vote for anyone

against United Russia” campaign was the right one,

because the result of that campaign

was the entire protest movement, everything that we

see now. In 2011, any

rally with a thousand people was

a huge, magnificent rally, and

we had never seen anything like that. Now, any

rally with fewer than 30,000 or

50,000 people is considered a failure. All of that is

a consequence of that campaign. It turned out to be

not effective enough in the sense that

United Russia did not lose its majority.

If United Russia had lost 50%, then

right now we would not be seeing cowardly

A Just Russia members and

Communists, but bold and active people who

would be twisting United Russia’s arm. But

Putin, in that sense, also puts in

some effort. Yes, he has bribed some of them,

some of them

he has intimidated, so

we did not achieve it 100%, but I believe it

was the right strategy. As for the New Year’s pause

in 2011 between

the rallies, when everyone ran off somewhere

on vacation and so on — that probably

was a glaring mistake. We should have

put forward some kind of single candidate for

president, kept acting, kept

holding rallies. But instead everyone scattered. Well,

a lot of people say that now, looking back on

those events. But I was inside all of it,

and I don’t think so. That’s just another myth.

Many people

experience it in their own way,

through some perhaps not very well

sounding heroism that never actually existed. They say,

“If only back then, on December...

if we had gone to Revolution Square, we would have...

wow...” Limonov (Eduard Limonov, Russian writer and political activist) says — well, Limonov is talking

complete nonsense. He was not part

of those events, and so on. He later became a Putin supporter.

Exactly. But many people, even now,

including my colleagues, worry that they

went the wrong way. But that’s all nonsense.

If they had stood on Revolution Square,

it would not have changed anything. I know — I

was there, I spoke on all the stages. It would not

have changed absolutely anything. It’s just that

you see, that protest movement

that existed did, in a certain sense,

win. But that was in the old Russia — that

Russia no longer exists. The protest movement

led to the authorities becoming frightened and

announcing political reform: elections

for governors, a notification-based procedure

for party registration, and so on. It’s just that

the Russia in which the protest movement temporarily

prevailed — not fully won, but

did achieve some success — ceased

to exist in 2012, after

they started jailing everyone and Putin

completely changed.

That is actually what I wanted to ask, because

this is already, in a way, a third country.

Yes, and now let's talk seriously. You

say—this is what I mean, this is what you're

saying: that you believe in this

deep-seated need people have for certain

basic things: elected governors,

fair distribution of resources, and so

on and so forth. So you

imagine that as a result of

some kind of

I don't even know what kind of brainwashing,

a person who genuinely

enjoys this newly rediscovered, if

you like, grandeur—however dubious it may smell—of

their

country, will trade in this rather powerfully

uplifting

deception—which, incidentally, also switches him off from this

rather foul-smelling life with all its

problems—and turn him back toward those

very problems where he'd have to make a lot of

unpleasant efforts, instead of just

sticking a sticker on the rear window. Could you

repeat that?

Yes, let me ask you right away:

you've been to the U.S. many times. Have you

ever been anywhere in Texas? Do you

have any idea what the average

American is like—what people call a hillbilly or

something like that? I've never been to the United

States. I've spent a lot of time in the West, but in

the U.S., never. —You have been to the U.S.? —I have. Have you

seen—have you seen the average American, the kind

they call a redneck? And all those

hellish American

propaganda films—they're the same. A great film,

for example, *American Sniper*, which

Clint Eastwood made not long ago—a superb film. But

it's really just propaganda,

no different in that sense. It's part of any

country: people want this, they want something to

be proud of. Americans—a significant

number of Americans who live in

New York—it may be Manhattan or

somewhere out there in Connecticut,

but a significant part of the U.S. is all about:

we've put on plaid shirts, rolled up our sleeves,

pulled on our boots, and now we're going to show the whole world

a thing or two. And someone living, I don't

know, in Colorado—they're still promoting democracy.

After all, they are, they are in favor of

what they see as right. They promote

democracy. In Russia, everyone talks about

showing 'Kuzka's mother' (a Russian idiom meaning to teach someone a harsh lesson), and how our

tanks will roll all the way to somewhere.

There is a big difference in meaning there.

A big difference. I'm not trying to draw a direct

analogy. I'm saying that people

who try to command the whole

world, or who like the idea of grabbing

the whole world—they exist in every country, and

they exist in Russia too. But at the same time, I believe in

progress. I believe in social progress. I

believe that Russia is, on the whole,

a democratic country. Look,

I go out into the street, and I don't see

everyone dressed like the Night Wolves (a pro-Kremlin Russian biker group) or

like some sinister, terrifying Chechens. These are

ordinary people. I see exactly the same kind in

Berlin, in Paris, or in London—ordinary

normal people. I know that these people

share the same cultural code as I do; they have

the same attention, the same

understanding of what is good and what is

bad. Freedom is good, democracy is good,

fair elections are good. If

everyone walked around like, I repeat, those

strange bikers, then yes—but

I don't see that. I see normal people, and

once again, I

don't want to brag too much, but I think

there is no politician in Russia who

has had more real, practical meetings with

voters, because I met

tens of thousands of people during the mayoral

campaign. They were completely different kinds of people,

and most of my meetings were specifically in

the outskirts of Moscow, in all sorts of

places like Biryulyovo. You were there with those people,

weren't you? You saw that they were not planted

people. They were normal people. That's the plain, homespun

Russia for you. Go get acquainted with the Russian

provinces—if they don't lock you up again

before you can go. Here's the question: why

do they jail me if I have so little

support? That suggests the opposite, because

I can find common ground with everyone—at

Uralvagonzavod (a major Russian tank and railcar manufacturer) and in Kostroma—because

in general, in a military

garrison as well. Of course. In that

sense, I'm a completely ordinary person.

What will you say to them? Because when you

come in, and they say, 'Oh, come on,'

'to hell with you'—so you don't talk to them

about Crimea? I do talk to them about Crimea. If they

ask me, I'll talk about Crimea. So what's

the problem? —All right, they say,

'tell us without being asked.' If they ask, I'll tell them. Well,

of course I'll tell them. But people write to you that your

proposal will provoke nothing but the fury of the crowd.

Eighty-five percent of the people are against you. Well, once again,

that's simply not true—that Kadyrov's men (followers of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov) will kill

you and the people will say, 'A dog gets a dog's death.'

Sooner or later, we all die, so why

worry about it? It's the natural

course of things. Sooner or later, all of us will either—

as they said in a famous film—sooner or

later they'll finish us all off; we'll all die.

There's nothing frightening about that. But I simply

know that's not how it is. Once again, I urge

your listeners and everyone around to stop

thinking that we're some kind of 1 percent surrounded by

99 percent standing there with burning torches and

pitchforks, about to kill us. That's not true.

Most of our proposals

are supported by the public. Of course, on

the issues of Crimea and Ukraine, we are in the minority,

but that is not 100 percent of the agenda. If it seems to us

that everyone sitting in any

in the city, in Kostroma, in Novosibirsk, they

are not literally thinking about Ukraine every second.

That’s simply not true. But they put on these

St. George ribbons,

to show support for Putin? No, that’s not it. They put on

St. George ribbons because they were

told to wear St. George ribbons.

Everyone who wants to remember the Second World War,

the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet term for the Eastern Front of World War II), and

to honor those who fought—so they wore them not

for any other reason. A small number of them

may have worn them because they wanted

to express solidarity with Putin, but no, this is

simply solidarity with their grandfather or

great-grandmother, that’s all. By the way, speaking of

Putin after all—who is Vladimir Putin

to you? Many compare him to

authoritarian leaders of the 20th century. I’ll

start gently: Salazar, Franco, Mussolini.

And some, after

Ukraine—well, you know. I’m not a political scientist or

a historian; I’m not really into those kinds of comparisons.

For me, Putin—I may see him in a more

basic way, without

drawing analogies. He is a cunning man,

undoubtedly talented, who

usurped power in a huge country.

He came to power by chance: Yeltsin appointed him

as someone who seemed to have no ambitions. Nevertheless,

well, who knows—before that he had

headed the country’s security services, and before that

he had done other things too. And now, simply

by reading memoirs, we can see

that Yeltsin made, for him and for his

family, what seemed like the right personnel choice.

Unfortunately, it was catastrophic for Russia. But

Putin was not the most influential

political figure when he was

appointed. Nevertheless, he became such a figure,

usurped power, seized it, and

has held onto it for many years. That

of course means that you cannot

treat him lightly,

or think that he is some kind of complete

fool or just a crook. He is

certainly corrupt; he is a man

who is greedy, who breaks the law

every day. He is absolutely cynical, but he is

also, unquestionably, an extraordinary person in

And what is he afraid of, in your view? He

is afraid that he will end

his days not as the emperor

of the Russian Federation. He is afraid that

if he loses power in Russia, he will be

persecuted. And I think, it seems to me, that

of course he is not afraid of me or

of certain individuals; rather, he is afraid that

if he leaves power, those people

around him, the ones who jailed

Serdyukov, grabbing him while he was still in his slippers,

might do something to him. Or perhaps he

remembers

Libya, by the way. In your opinion, how much has Libya

already shaped him? In your view, how far is Putin

prepared to go in his confrontation with the West—

a confrontation that is already obvious, already involving

references to nuclear weapons and so on?

Is he ready to go all the way? Because there are

those who believe that the Russian leadership, that he personally,

does in fact have

a

sense—well, an instinct

for self-preservation that still functions. And there are

others who say that, well,

‘death is beautiful in its own measure,’ and that this was underestimated,

while he simply went straight ahead, head-on, and keeps going.

Well, it seems to me that those who think he

has some kind of

because we have seen that our ideas about

the limits of what was permissible before Putin did not even

come close to matching how far he

could actually go. Who, two years

ago, could have imagined a real

war with Ukraine?

It’s the apartment bombings; it’s, as they say,

‘it’s not all so clear-cut,’ ‘it’s unknown who'

blew up the buildings, who started the war in Ukraine.

What is known for certain is that Putin and his

inner circle did it, and he did it in order to

preserve his monopoly on power,

including in order to retain

the exclusive right to enrich himself

and his people. It’s even simpler than that: is there a red

line? There is no red line. No. I—I

very much hope that he simply, I don’t

know, before dying, will not press the

nuclear button and decide to take

the rest of humanity with him to the grave.

But beyond that, I do not see

any obstacles, constraints, or

actions he would not take in order

to preserve his position

as the head of Russia, who holds all power

in the country. That is now his only

goal, as I understand it. He is obsessed

with this one idea alone: to die peacefully

in bed while remaining the emperor

of Russia—something like Joseph Stalin.

For the sake of that idea, for example, could he go

so far as to back down on the question of

Donbas? Some sources are now

leaking that within the elite, even in

Putin’s inner circle, there is a strong desire

to stop this.

I don’t think so. They have a strong

desire to get sanctions lifted, certainly,

yes. But the destabilization of Ukraine and

turning Ukraine into what is called

a failed state—this is

a fundamentally important objective. That is,

to allow success in Ukraine, where

a genuine anti-criminal revolution took place—

preventing that success is his most important

task.

In principle, of course. That is why I think here

they—well, lately, fortunately, it seems that

aggressive military actions,

combat operations in eastern Ukraine

If that stops, it will be a slight step backward.

A little forward. But of course, Ukraine will

destabilize everything so that

Ukraine would not be able to focus on

reforms and would discuss only Crimea, the war, and

that is how the political agenda in Ukraine

was built entirely around the war.

Yes, but what about the idea of a Maidan, in your view?

A Maidan in Russia, yes, a popular one like that,

a mass uprising of the kind Boris Nemtsov spoke about,

when, as in

some year like 1990, there will be

half a million people in the streets. Has it been discredited?

By Maidan? Why do we call it Maidan

instead of calling it Manezhnaya Square

of 1989, or Bolotnaya? Well, not

Bolotnaya—they beat and jail people there, so in

Russia we have seen mass, non-

violent

protest. When Ukraine was still part of

the Soviet Union and there were

no demonstrations at all in Russia, into the streets

of Moscow came 800,000 people who

forced the repeal of Article 6 of the Constitution (the clause on the Communist Party’s leading role). That

was the most successful protest action. Well,

maybe not of all time, but at

least in Russian history. And where are those

800,000 people now? Those 800,000

people—the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh, a major Ukrainian pro-independence movement)—did

that.

Less excitement—let’s study history.

Ukraine’s history, let’s study the history of Ukraine.

Agreed, maybe I

am oversimplifying, and drawing analogies and examples from

Ukraine too directly, perhaps. Under what

conditions, then, could a non-violent

mass protest, which does not seem to be

discredited,

lead to practical action? I am try-

I am trying to bring that moment closer.

You should have a specialist for that—well, no. Still,

all right. Will you be creating

the conditions for the emergence of a mass

non-violent protest? That is what I

do; it is part of my job, because

such events, similar events,

happen, well, as a result of—how should I put it—I

have already said that I believe politics is

endless chaos, the result of certain

random events—a black swan arrives,

and people go out into the streets; a taxi driver sets himself

on fire, and the Arab Spring begins. Something

similar, I think, sooner or later

will happen in Russia. Our task,

my practical task, is to bring that

moment closer and try to ensure that

the transfer of power does, after all, take place

more or less smoothly, and that we do not see

revolutionary sailors in the streets of Moscow.

I have several questions from

listeners; once again, we should

address them. Tens of thousands of deputies and other

petty officials—for all their corruption, murders,

abuse, and so on. Ukraine’s experience

shows that the process goes very

difficultly. Yes, of course there are such judges. Yes, and

I would perhaps say something unpleasant:

the judges who are judging badly now

are ready to judge honestly; it is just that

the rules of the game must

change. When—if a judge, say,

a judge of the Basmanny Court (a Moscow court often associated with politically motivated cases) who puts you

behind bars—then he will be able to parti-

cipate, because a judge

of the Basmanny Court can be held criminally

liable. These people are criminals. At the same

time, right now all judges are dependent. You are

right. What do we call lustration if

this person committed a criminal

offense under current

law—and they did commit such offenses? This is

not lustration at all; it is simply

justice. So no lustration is needed here.

Lustration is when we

discriminate against Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty) journalists; we do not

know, reward them or do something to them—

that is some kind of class-based action.

When a person is prosecuted,

a judge who handed down prison sentences,

investigators who fabricated criminal

cases—the Bolotnaya case, judges who jailed people,

who violated procedural norms—they can

be imprisoned under current law. That is what

should happen. I do not keep such lists,

but your news outlet does have such lists.

You see, the main thing is not to

forget all this. Returning to the same question,

are there, in what one might call the core of the judicial

system, or perhaps, I do not know, on the periphery

of the judicial system—in the judicial system, are there

people at all in the legal community,

lawyers, the academic community—are there

people who can judge according to the law and

who will judge according to the law if they understand that

the authorities want them to judge according to the law? Jury

trials—please. All these crooks,

the Rotenbergs and Yakunins—I am not demanding that

revolutionary tribunals shoot them.

Jury trials. If, with the help of

some clever lawyers or

the mobilization of public opinion,

Rotenberg wins against an honest government

in a jury trial, then we will throw up our hands

and disappoint the finest prosecutors. Tell me, what

should be done with the political police that

has now been created in Russia? It is not

just the FSB; there is also the special

Center E unit in the Interior Ministry, yes, and

the Investigative Committee is, broadly speaking, also part

of this system. How do you think it should be

dealt with? Well, Center E is simply unnecessary.

It should be disbanded. In principle, they are not

needed. These guys will go off to fight

somewhere in Donba— No, they will not go anywhere

to fight in Donbas. Come on, what are you talking about?

What happens to police officers who—

They need to be laid off. By law, they are entitled

to be paid two months’ salary, after which they

They’ll find jobs, go to work—I don’t know.

Some will work at a car repair shop, some...

Some will become lawyers, as always happens.

That’s what happens to people. But the system in general...

the FSB itself, for example,

Yes. In what

form?

They themselves...

started receiving the right

political signals, because when in the state apparatus...

the order came to falsify elections—well, that was it.

That’s when it all happened—when people

inside the system received from the authorities

illegal orders. They understood: that’s it, we now...

Now—do you believe in Zyuganov’s victory in

1996? I do believe in Zyuganov’s victory

in 1996, and I very deeply regret that I

was one of those people who demanded

the shooting of the Supreme Soviet (Russia’s parliament at the time). There were

fans of Chubais and Yeltsin and so on. I, I...

maybe I look at everything that happened

more philosophically. I think that...

You understand that if Zyuganov had won,

you wouldn’t be sitting here. Right, right—that’s exactly where we’ve

gotten to the heart of it. I believe that if back then

Zyuganov had won, the same thing would have happened as

happened in all the Eastern European

countries. Zyuganov would have won, and he would have been

a weak president facing a strong opposition.

The media would have attacked him, and then he would have

lost at the next stage—the same thing

that happened throughout Eastern Europe, and

the pendulum would have started swinging. But everything was broken,

the Supreme Soviet was shelled, there were

all those judges from Soviet times still sitting there,

FSB officers,

KGB people, journalists, and so on—they understood

that the rules of the game were in fact exactly the same,

that nothing had changed since eighty-

three. Back then we should have

lost. In 1996, we

should have lost, because before

1996, things had been done

that were in many ways wrong. The system would have...

Zyuganov would have done the same thing as

Putin.

With the Constitution, he would have wrapped everything up in exactly

the same way, you understand.

That’s all. You want me to tell you

the banal phrase that history does not know

the subjunctive mood. But I lived through that time too,

you understand.

Everyone lived through it. I remember the media

that attacked him constantly, people

who ideologically hated Zyuganov, and so on.

If he had come to power then, he would have been

a president—a president facing a very

strong opposition. He would have been a weak

president, and...

he would have been a weak president facing a strong

opposition—until Putin appeared and

the Chechen war, Yeltsin...

to falsify—now with me, with the entire

opposition movement, with all of us,

this is, among other things, the price we are paying, so to

speak.

put it metaphysically, we demanded that they shoot

the Supreme Soviet. Still, it seems to me that

the most important thing, Alexei, is institutions, not

individual personalities. But many of your supporters

personally place their hopes on...

on institutions...

in general. And people write to me asking,

what are we supposed to do about Navalny’s fans? They don’t

treat him critically. There are those

what do you call them—‘Witnesses of Navalny,’ really

like some kind of sect. But maybe that’s your enemies

writing that? Of course not—those aren’t my enemies writing it.

Those are people who are mistaken. I

am in dialogue with them. It’s simply connected with the fact

that in our politics...

not even Western, but specifically American-style—that is,

if we have an election, then everyone stands there

with signs. If it weren’t Navalny but

Ivanov, everyone would be standing with

signs saying ‘Ivanov.’ When everyone stands with

signs for Kerry, Obama, or McCain in

America, no one is afraid that Obama is

some terrible person who will seize

power. For Russian politics, this is

something unfamiliar, so many people think

these are some kind of authoritarian tendencies.

Once again, I am the kind of

person who is, I think, the main supporter and

the main popularizer of the idea

that the opposition should be led by those people

who win in intra-

opposition competition through honest, open

and universal voting. If you win, good; if you don’t,

you try again in the next cycle.

If you won, but then in the next cycle

you lose, then you leave. That’s how it should

work. Politics, deals, agreements,

coalitions—those are all part of it. Someone

runs for office—it’s all just like in the TV series

*House of Cards*: someone runs in order

to secure the support

of certain people and win the primary. I

have to go around on foot to various politicians,

make arrangements with all of them. That is what

makes the whole structure more complicated, but it also

makes it more stable in the end.

And do you agree with Leonid Gozman,

who wrote that, in the end, the fate

of the regime, the fate of Russia, will be decided not

in elections, but with the help of elections? Yes, that’s

a rather strange... By the way, did you

read that article in *Vedomosti*? I did read

that article. That comparison with Lenin was such

apologetics that I was even uncomfortable

posting it anywhere on social media.

Leonid Yakovlevich Gozman has this kind of

cunning political theory, which I, of course, am not

going to try to comment on right now. However,

the thesis that power will change not as a

result of elections—I myself, in Russia, I myself

have repeatedly said that power will not change

as a result of elections; the electoral...

The struggle is not the main and

only thing. But it is one of the most important

elements. That is precisely why I myself

took part in elections and am now helping

others take part in elections. Tell me,

are you ready to run in the presidential election in

20... what year, if by some miracle you

manage to get rid of these

criminal convictions that are blocking your path

to

to running against all the politicians from

the current government for all the leading

positions? Of course, I am absolutely ready

to take part in elections. I do not believe

that I am the only person on whom

the whole world depends. I am ready

to compete with other opposition

politicians in order to determine who

right now, at this moment, should run,

and if I become the person who

wins that competition, then of course I will run.

So you are ready to run in the presidential

election, absolutely, in 2024

or 2018? I am ready to run in the

presidential election that takes place.

As you rightly said yourself, right now

I am barred from running in it. Khodorkovsky

is barred from running in it. Our task

is to secure the opportunity to participate in elections,

to secure fair elections, and then I would

take part in them. Thank you, Alexei.

Alexei Navalny answered questions today

from Voice of America, Danila Perovich, and Radio

Svoboda (Radio Liberty), Mikhail Sokolov. Thank you very much.

Our video broadcast has come to an end.

All the best, goodbye, and read the Radio

Svoboda website. And of course, the websites

that Alexei Navalny runs as well. All the best.

Thank you.