Alexei Navalny’s interview on Hard Day's Night on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel). Part 1

This is the program *Hard Day’s Night* on air

on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel). Good evening. My name is

Tikhon Dzyadko, and today I am pleased

to welcome our guest. He is

a politician and, until recently, a candidate for

Mayor of Moscow, Alexei Navalny. Alexei,

good evening. Good evening. I am glad

to welcome my colleagues, who

will be asking our guest questions

along with me: TV Rain host

Maria Makeeva. Good evening.

Hello. And my colleagues from other

publications, from other media

outlets: Svetlana Babaeva, editor-in-chief

of Gazeta.ru. Good

evening. Good evening. Tatyana Lysova,

editor-in-chief of the newspaper *Vedomosti*.

Good evening. And Galina Timchenko, editor-in-chief

of Lenta.ru. Good evening. Good evening.

Hello, Alexei. We have all been

watching closely how

the election campaign in Moscow unfolded, how

the election itself was conducted, how the

voting took place. The election has been held,

the inauguration has taken place. You did not recognize the results

of this election and filed

a claim in court. We all more or less know

how court appeals

over election fraud usually end. Will you

ever recognize this election or

not? Its results?

We want a fair judicial

review. We want

the election results to reflect

the will of Muscovites. And if the authorities

stole 2 or 3 percent of the vote, then of course we will not

recognize them. We have filed 952 lawsuits. I,

as a practicing lawyer, as someone

who spends a lot of time in court,

understand perfectly well how all this may

be handled. But this time,

first, we are going to approach it much more

seriously than parties usually do when

challenging election results. That is

the first point. And second.

Well, sooner or later, somewhere,

there has to be a fair

judicial review. If that does not

happen and we do not get the stolen

votes back, then of course we will not recognize

the election results. But do you really, really

allow for the possibility that you would accept

a court ruling that declares this

election fair? Listen, a lot of different

things have happened lately, including to me,

some of them surprising. Why

couldn’t one more surprising

thing happen? And the courts could, at some polling stations,

over obvious violations—these

already notorious

home-voting registers—

they are simply falsified from top to bottom, they

were compiled by social workers. We know this,

we have proof of all of it. Therefore

the courts should invalidate the voting at

several polling stations. That would lead

to Sobyanin getting his lawful

49.5%, and there would be a runoff. In any

case, the voters—my voters, our

voters—are demanding this. The headquarters

of our volunteers, those hundreds of people

who are working, are demanding it.

So we will pursue this in

court. Alexei, let us suppose that

similar situations have happened before, as we

remember, including after federal elections, yes,

and there was a great deal of outrage. Yet the

elected Duma took its seats and began

working. So, hypothetically, your

next steps—what will you do if

your claim is rejected? What then? Will you

call on

your supporters to march on City Hall, on the Kremlin?

Or do you accept things as they are and

start thinking about how to run,

say, for the Moscow City Duma? What will you do? We

will act, first of all, according to

the circumstances. Second, everything you

mentioned, we are already doing—except that

we have not yet marched on the Kremlin. In any

case, look, this is an important part

of the political process. Hundreds of thousands of

people voted. We owe it to those

hundreds of thousands of people, and to the millions of everyone

else, to show and prove that

their votes were stolen. United Russia stole them,

Sobyanin stole them. This is

important for us in terms of the next

elections. We have already begun preparing

for the Moscow City Duma. And challenging these

illegal actions is an important part

of that preparation. And we simply need once again

to explain it to people. We have just published

a newspaper with a print run of one million copies, in which, among

other things, we explain how the votes were

stolen. This newspaper—we did not publish it

simply to

boost our own egos or do some petty harm

to Sobyanin. We are working with

voters and showing that,

first, we, as responsible people,

responsible politicians, are defending their

votes. By the way, these court

proceedings, even taking into account that many

volunteers are working on them, will cost

a fairly large amount of money. But we are doing it.

This is how we are consistently

following through. We said that we were going into

the election with a specific platform, with specific

bills. Those bills we

will introduce. We said that we would

appeal this to the very end. In principle, we

will have to litigate 951 times. That is

quite difficult, and it will involve

dozens of lawyers. But we will

do it. We will demonstrate to everyone that

we are not just the main political force

right now in Moscow and, apparently, in the country as a whole, but

we are the main organizational force,

politically. We can do these important

things, and we will keep doing them. Masha,

about what people are expecting.

both from you and from the voting results.

Why do you think so many people may have

voted for you? Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a few

days before the election, through his

lawyers, as often happens, sent out a

statement, an article, urging people to

vote for you. You probably

read it, and he explained it, in particular, by saying

that of course you would not become mayor, but

perhaps if a lot of votes were cast

for Alexei Navalny, then he would not

go to prison. And I know people who

ultimately voted for you for that reason

alone. What is your own sense of it now?

Does the fact that such a large number of

people voted for you somehow

tip the scales? On that score, I have

absolutely no feeling at all. You know,

there are people you can somehow sense,

even if you have never seen them once.

Putin is definitely not

someone whose

actions I can understand or predict

in any way. There is, uh, simply our

knowledge of how he acted before.

But what is going on in his head?

Why did he first say I should be jailed,

and then say I should be released? And what will he

say now? I have no idea. I do not even

try to predict it, and it does not

interest me. I have said many times

that the things I cannot

control, I prefer to

ignore. This is, first and foremost,

one of those things. Because if you sit

there thinking about whether they will jail you

or not, you will simply go mad,

instead of dealing with the

important things that I, as a

politician, am supposed to be working on. So

you do not think about this at all, then?

Well, how much can one think about it? I have

already thought about it a great deal. I have discussed

it with the foundation's staff. We have

a plan and a procedure in case I am

isolated. They have opened

a million criminal cases against me, and they will probably open

more. I understand that this government

has wanted, one way or another, to isolate me for

quite a long time already. We

discussed this months and years ago with

my relatives, with my wife, my mother,

and my father. Criminal cases have also been opened

against them, as well as against my

brother. If we keep

sitting around thinking, "Oh God, they will jail us,

they will repress us here, or carry out a twenty-

fifth search," well, that is no way for a person

to live. A person gets used to everything. I have simply gotten used

to the fact that, uh, criminal cases have been opened

against me, that I may be jailed, and

everyone keeps asking me whether I am afraid

that I will be jailed. No, I am not afrai— Well,

colleague, what kind of plan is there in case of your

isolation? Organizationally, I mean.

Look, I am the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

I am the person who

determines the foundation's strategic

development. I oversee some of the most important

investigations. I do not want

a situation where, if I am

isolated, everything stops tomorrow. That

is why it exists. I understand what

it is, what will happen, how it will

work: a particular person takes over

one or another area of work, but I

simply do not want to name those

people now, the people who

would be in charge instead of me, so as not to

make things easier for those who might

want to paralyze the work of our

foundation. But we have a Plan B, we have

a Plan C. And for me, as someone

who deeply values what he has

built over the past few years, of course it

would be the biggest and most terrible failure

if something so, really,

trivial and commonplace by today's

standards happened. If they jailed me and everything

stopped and collapsed. The only

one doing investigations in the country is

the newspaper Vedomosti. No one else. That

would be a shame. So you do have

successors, not just one successor but

many of them, politically as well. When

we say "Navalny," and "Navalny" is written everywhere

on the signs, I can say with complete

sincerity, without any hypocrisy, that

this is, really, well, collective

work. Today I published

an investigation into Yakunin. My own,

for example, personal role in this

investigation was very modest. I

practically did nothing there. It is people

who do everything. The staff of the Anti-Corruption

Foundation do most of the

work, while I just sit here and think about how

to go on. I think we will return both to Yakunin and

to the court cases. For now, let us

stay on the subject of the election.

Please, Galina. Ah, Alexei, you know,

I have

when I was watching the rally on Bolotnaya (Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, a major site of protest demonstrations), I

was in the newsroom, watching it,

naturally, online, since

I was running the newsroom. And then

some of my staff came running up to me afterward

and said, "Galya, what was

that?" I said, "You know, you can

say that a fairly major

politician has just been born." Yes, that politician was born then.

And now he is sitting in front of me, and he

is saying: "Instead of, and instead my

the party, I will lead the party." He says:

"My foundation." So, in other words, it had not yet been born,

it was still only just taking

its very first steps in the Anti-Corruption Foundation

(an anti-corruption NGO). But you said that you

would run, that you would have the People's

Alliance party. I wanted to ask you: what

will its ideology be? And what would you

say to me, for example? Here I am, the leader of the

People's Alliance party, I... I get the impression

that if there are several questions in one

question... No, it's one question. Well, I

mean... Wait, you asked me about

what actually exists. The question was

what Plan B is if I am

isolated. We do have a Plan B regarding

certain political

projects. The People's Alliance party, as you

know very well, is not being registered. They

have refused to register it. Recently we

had another court hearing; we appealed that

decision, and we were denied again. We can see

that the authorities do not want to. They are simply afraid

of the People's Alliance, and they are afraid

to register parties that they

cannot, one way or another,

control. That is why the People's Alliance now

exists in the form of, well, people,

including those standing in the square,

in the form of supporters of various kinds. But

the main thing that makes a party a party

is a piece of paper from the Ministry of Justice.

That piece of paper from the Ministry of Justice is missing right now. If

there were an election tomorrow, the People's Alliance

would not be able to take part. And once again, as in

this election, I would have to go to

another party and say: "Guys, can I

use your paperwork in order

to run in the election?" And which party

would you go with then? Would it be the RPR-PARNAS party

or the Civic Platform party? Right now

it is obvious that, of course, it would be the RPR-

PARNAS party, because among the existing

parties it is the most independent. And in this

mayoral election they supported me, although

for them too it was quite a

stressful and crisis-like situation. I

came to them and said: "Right, let's

get everything out, put it on the table for me, hold

your political councils and congresses now, and nominate

me for mayor." For them, too, this was a

long political process. There are

people there who do not like me, there are people

who do not like one or another of my

political positions. Nevertheless, they

somehow swallowed their pride

and nominated me, even though they had their own

candidates as well. If an election were called tomorrow,

then most likely, of course,

we would work with the

RPR-PARNAS party. Alexei Anatolyevich, you

said they are afraid to register it. But

forgive me, they were not afraid to let you onto

one of the key— to allow you onto

one of the key

elections of the political cycle, yet the party

they are afraid to register. There you have it. Nevertheless,

we can see that the party is not being

registered. Look at the list of parties.

There are, what, probably 60 or

70 of them. And you will see that among these parties,

well, these are simply some kind of

completely nonexistent fakes, and there is

a well-known figure here in Russia,

Andrei Bogdanov. He registers them

20 at a time. Parties are registered on the same

day at the same legal address

by the same people. All these parties

are registered. One of the very few

real, existing parties with real

regional branches, the People's Alliance, is not

registered for a very obvious

reason. If there were Moscow City Duma elections tomorrow,

the People's Alliance would

seek to hold

primaries and put together a list that

would win that election and deprive United

Russia of its majority in the Moscow City Duma.

Of course they do not need a party like that. Why

would they want it? They need projects

that can be manipulated in one way or

another. I think that now, after these

elections, the Moscow mayoral election, when

we nevertheless managed to achieve a

result that no one expected, and

above all the Kremlin did not expect,

they will be even less inclined

to register the People's Alliance. Let's move

on, please. Well, will you try

or have you already decided in advance? No, we will try,

of course. We are trying to maintain

a consistent position. If we

said that we would register the

People's Alliance, we have already held a congress twice.

The first time they found fault with

our congress, so we held a new one. The second

time they found fault with the congress again; we already

appealed the first refusal in court,

and we will appeal the second one as well. We will once again

hold a congress, a gathering of all

regional branches, which, by the way,

is very expensive. This

is not just a congress: you have to invite the Ministry of Justice,

bring in people from the regions.

and hold the regional meetings all over again. In other words,

the law is structured in such a way that creating a party,

while observing all the formalities,

is practically impossible. But we are going ahead and

complying with all these formalities. And we were

told—incidentally, in the official

refusal—that the reason for the refusal was that two people

had changed their place of residence. But it is obvious

that over the course of six months during registration,

some people will of course change

their place of residence, and they found some

minor. On that basis

the People's Alliance was not registered. Yes,

I'm listening. It feels as though you

you’re explaining to all of us in advance why you

won’t be registered, and why you... Let me tell you

a story. Look, he’s already

been denied registration. If

they do register us—if they do register us—

that’s wonderful. If, yes, if they register us,

I’ll say: excellent, now we—let’s say—we are now

systemic politicians. Though I already am

a systemic politician. This whole thing is some kind of

nonsense—systemic, non-systemic. A person

either becomes a politician or does not,

depending on whether they want to or not. There are

a great many so-called systemic people here who

call themselves systemic politicians, but

they are not politicians at all

because there is not a shred

of independence in what they do. Any

person—I don’t know—who walked out of their house and

made a few independent,

normal, honest political

moves—you’re a politician. Any person

who stood there on Bolotnaya (Bolotnaya Square, a major Moscow protest site) and at the

rally you were talking about—for me, that person is

ten times more of a politician than all

those idiots now sitting in the

State Duma and who are incapable of a single

independent action or

independent decision. If

we’re registered, great—we will

use our party as an

additional political instrument

for our work. Are we right to understand

that your goal is to,

uh, within those very same legitimate

procedures, uh, run for the Moscow City Duma, or are you

still—what legitimate procedures are we talking about,

tell me. Within the framework of a party. Within the

party. That’s the kind of signal coming from the Kremlin,

right? Tell me, people who simply

go out into the street and, for example,

come out and say, "We support the rights,

we defend animal rights, and for that purpose

we’re holding a picket." Is that a legitimate

procedure or an illegitimate one? It is

a legitimate and normal form of political

activity. But it’s not only—not even primarily—rights

of animals that you’re concerned with,

so presumably that would not be enough

for you. So, the goal of my

work is not simply to win

some percentage points or to register

a party. That is absolutely not an end in itself. I

want to change life in this country. I want

to make life in this country better. I want,

forgive the banality, for there to be

less corruption in this country. I want that

very badly. If, to achieve that, I need to

register a party and then

have that party win elections—and if I

see that this is an effective political

course of action—I will do it. Please,

uh, Alexei, please tell us,

returning to the party,

uh, look at the Moscow City Duma: for all that

I admit that you ran

an absolutely amazing campaign, in the

Moscow City Duma elections—well, in the mayoral election

32.2% of Muscovites turned out. Do you

understand that elections to the Moscow City Duma are

not just boring? People simply do not

understand why they need the Moscow City Duma at all.

So why engage in that sort of thing?

The Moscow City Duma is the body that

reflects the political representation

of Muscovites. Right now the Moscow City Duma, as it stands,

effectively does not exist, because at present

it is 95% United Russia. Nevertheless,

the Moscow City Duma is a critically important body. It

determines the development of the city of Moscow; it

shapes Moscow’s budget. All those

bills that we are demanding

Sobyanin adopt, we will pass through the

Moscow City Duma. The laws that will change

the life of the city—I will pass them. If, if I could

control whether people go to the polls

for the Moscow... It doesn’t matter how many turn out,

the Moscow City Duma will still be formed, and there will

be 45 people sitting there. Excuse me, it just

creates the impression... I remember how, in this very

studio, on the program with Dmitry Dibrov, you

said that you wanted to be President

of the Russian Federation. Then

a few months passed, and you said, "I want

to be mayor of Moscow." Now a few more

months have passed, and you say, "I’m going to run

for the Moscow City

Duma." Lower and lower each time. Tikhon, you’re

taking this out of context. When I was

asked about the presidency, I said

that I would fight for any office

that would allow me to change the country and

life in it. These elections, once again, are

not an end in themselves; they are a political process.

They are an opportunity to apply effective

political pressure. But these

elections came about completely by chance. I

think that when some guys were sitting in

a room with cigars, plotting how

they were going to stage a Moscow mayoral

election, it never once crossed their

minds that I would end up

taking part in it, and that it would all end

with a result like this. They had a completely different

picture in mind. Nevertheless, we used these elections

to build up

political pressure. It seems to me

we did so quite effectively. So we will

use whatever instruments

can be used. As I said when

answering that question, I said that I

would take part in every election

that it makes sense to take part in. Alexei,

forgive me, please, but at that same

rally you said that a genuine

opposition had been born. Yes, I think I

am not misquoting you. You are not. But

look, in my memory the Russian

opposition has been born several times.

Unite. You have a good memory. Oh, I

have simply been around for a long

time. So, no one has ever managed to unite

even once in their life. At that same

rally, you said: "I am ready to accept them,

meaning those who lost."

into our opposition. That is, I am ready

to bring them under the force that I brought

out onto the square today. Am I right? I am ready

to accept anyone—well, not literally anyone,

but all of these people in whatever form. If

Dikterev says some

sensible things, at least,

Dikterev, to me, is not United Russia.

The political task is to reduce

the political representation of United

Russia. That is the technical task,

that is precisely what it consists of. Right now

the State Duma is working like a mad printer,

because United Russia has a majority

there. If it did not, there would be none of these

academicians now running around in panic

in front of the State Duma building at an

unauthorized protest, if

United Russia did not control

the majority in the State Duma. So, of course,

I will work with everyone, but I do believe

that these elections really showed

that a new opposition

movement has been born. What gives you confidence that

you will be able to unite it? So far, no one

has ever managed to unite the Russian

opposition at all. Just look

at what is happening. This sudden surge of, so to speak, affection

for you happened rather quickly,

didn't it? And we have seen this happen before.

There can be no certainty about anything. Yes.

The only question is that one has to

try. Just because we have seen this

negative experience and we know plenty of sad

stories, what is that supposed to tell me?

Alexei, you know, the editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru

knows plenty of sad stories and knows perfectly well

that no one has succeeded. So shall we

all just go home, go to sleep, and do nothing

at all? I live here, I am not going

anywhere. I have one country, one

life. In this life, and in our

country, I want to do what I can

do. Whether I succeed or not,

I will do everything possible. What does it mean

to unite the opposition? Let us

discuss that. We are all adults here.

We understand perfectly well that a significant

part of what is called the opposition

exists precisely in order not to unite with

anyone. There are entire

projects that have been kept going for many

years because in every election they

serve as spoilers one way or another. These

elections in Moscow showed that yes, there were

parties that were constantly causing trouble there,

and someone was running around with an angle grinder,

someone was shouting that I was stealing

their program, but none of that had any significant

political effect whatsoever.

That is, well, they are, of course,

spoilers, but they shave off only about

3 percent. Which you were short of. I was not

short by those 3 percent for

example, if Yabloko had gotten zero,

and I had an extra 3 percent, there still would not

have been a second round. What mattered to me

was for them to get not 3 percent but 13,

so that the pie would simply be divided more

evenly. That is all. My complaint about

this systemic opposition is not that they

take votes away from me, but that

on the contrary, they get so few votes because they

do nothing. Look, we ran a

fairly effective election

campaign, more or less spontaneously raising

some money here and there. And, all in all,

we did very little of what

we had planned. But all the other parties,

which receive hundreds of millions of rubles

from the state budget, sit there with their machines, with

deputies, with huge infrastructure,

did absolutely nothing. That is

the complaint. I have heard so much

that I hardly know where to begin. Ah, well,

all right, about the academicians who, as you

somewhat dismissively

put it, are running through the streets.

Dismissively, yes. You could say

I was urging them as well

not to run, but to stroll

through the streets. You seemed even to express

an intention to join in on Crimea, as far as

I understood it. Today I did not express any such intention.

I was asked to publish this

information. When I was formulating my

position on the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), it is important,

it was very important for us during this

election campaign, because there is

New Moscow, Troitsk—who

asked you to spread this

information? For example, the editor-in-chief

of the newspaper *Troitsky Variant*, which is

the main publication of this kind—small, but

quite authoritative in that community. There are

people we are in contact with, there are people

from the Russian Academy of Sciences, among others, with whom we

worked during these elections. We had

a special meeting. Who support you

or with whom you simply have

contacts? I would say—I assume

judging by the voting results, and I

assume that many of them

voted for me, because they

live fairly compactly in one area. I can see that

I got many votes there. We

met with this community, we

discussed things, we argued about some issues.

When I formulated my position

on the Russian Academy of Sciences, which I published there in the form of an

article, I held many meetings with these

people. And now I am helping them.

as best I can. First and foremost,

in terms of information. Alexei, tell me,

you published information about the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS)

yesterday, if I'm not mistaken? No, yesterday I

just published information saying that

that, that, that there would be a rally, yes.

But originally, you published the information about RAS

because someone asked you to,

in particular the editor-in-chief of the newspaper

*Troitsky Variant*. Today, for example,

you published information about Yakunin. Was that

also at someone's request?

Everyone around me asked me to do that — passengers of

Russian Railways (RZD) keep asking me nonstop: "Please publish

information, Alexei, about

Yakunin." Because we don't understand

why the tickets are so expensive. Jokes aside,

how often do people actually come to you with

requests to publish something? Well,

not directly, no. We have a special

mailbox — I write about it often — where

you can send me any compromising

If you have any information about

corruption at the TV Rain channel (an independent Russian TV channel),

please send it. I'll publish that too.

You can sign it anonymously.

"Gadfly" or "Well-Wisher." I'll sign it

just with some squiggle. It won't be clear what kind of

what kind of who. Exactly. As far as

possible, we'll verify it, this

information. If it can be verified and we

see that it's accurate, we'll

publish it. And if it can, so to speak,

be formalized — if on the basis of this

information one can file a report of

a crime, sue in court, and so on — I

publish it if it's interesting. If

it's very interesting, really striking, but

it's impossible to verify. Say you send me,

for example, the number of Vladimir Putin's Swiss

bank account. That can't be verified,

so publishing it

would be pointless. Ah, Alexei, excuse me,

please, may I...

Uh, well, for almost two years now I've been hearing from various

commentators, including former

editors of the newspaper *Vedomosti*,

the only investigative

newspaper in Russia. Yes. People saying, saying

that you very often

by publishing your investigations, show up

professional journalists. That this is

exactly the kind of journalism

everyone is now trying to aspire to. So,

do people who work professionally in

investigative journalism have to

take you as a model? Recently, for example,

Mr. Levkovich followed your example,

publishing information about a birthday party. Yes,

and it turned out to be the wrong one, at the wrong place, at the wrong

time. And Alexei Navalny went ahead and

repeated it. Well, first of all, it turned out that

they really had published this

investigation. Some facts there were not

verified; they mixed up two birthday

celebrations. Then, as it turned out,

there really was an extravagantly lavish

birthday party. I published this

information — I simply reprinted it. But when

it turned out that it wasn't correct, I made

an update. Well, that's a normal situation

that happens sometimes in this line of work. I didn't

publish my own

unverified investigation. I took it

from a fairly respected publication.

That's fine. But all the subsequent

information concerning

the real estate of this wonderful

minister, Manturov, was all correct. So

in other words, you behaved entirely in

accordance with the media law.

You published the retraction in the very same

place. Yes. Yes. And it was the first time in

the history of my blog that I explicitly

put an update at the top saying that this had

indeed been incorrect. Well, such things

do happen. Please, go ahead.

But for some reason you are very actively

exposing Yakunin. I saw in your

office a gigantic chart. I understand

that it's a huge company. In a huge

company you can always dig something up.

But I want to ask you,

when we spoke for

an interview and discussed which, uh, which

social groups,

which types of business might

support you, you said very clearly that everything

connected with the state, with

state contracts, monopolies —

that is not your

support base. And it's clear why, uh, and

it's clear why you concentrated your

exposé efforts precisely on them, because

through them you expose, uh,

state policy. Yes. But tell me,

please, when we were preparing for

this, uh, this program, a question came up:

"Suppose you became

president, and you had in your hands

those same

monopolies. Would you break them up,

split them apart, change the system of

management

or what?" Or would you wait until

someone from below started exposing

the corrupt directors of your own

monopolies? Of course not. I, pardon me, in

the newspaper *Vedomosti* published several

years ago a column on all the ways

to turn Gazprom into a decent company.

All these state-owned companies, and in general

large companies, large

holdings in Russia, need

corporate governance reform; they

need basic transparency in

their basic corporate procedures.

Naturally, there must be a policy under which

that prevents the transformation

of companies into some kind of monsters,

that buy up everything. Take Rosneft, for example — it is

really just something incomprehensible,

that simply buys up everything in sight.

Why? Chubais carried out the energy-sector reform,

everyone praised it highly, and then

for some reason Sechin went and bought all that

energy infrastructure back. Half of it went to

Rosneft, half to Gazprom. Gazprom

has also turned into some kind of incomprehensible

monster that buys up everything in sight. They

already control 70% of the economy. That is

absolutely unacceptable. The strategy should

be different. So, as for this — say,

if I became president tomorrow, where

should we start? There is no need to destroy anything.

We need to introduce proper procedures,

appoint independent directors,

follow the corporate governance rules

that exist in

Britain and the United States. These are the things we need

to do, and they will fairly quickly make

companies more transparent and less

corrupt. The state, as the owner of

these companies, should

respond to corruption and act

as the injured party. For example, what do I

run into? I am constantly filing complaints about

Gazprom, Rosneft, and all the others.

I say about VTB: "Here, 100 million have been stolen,

here is all the evidence." And the investigators tell me,

"Ah, sorry,

there is no injured party. VTB does not recognize itself as

the injured party. The Ministry of State Property does not recognize itself as

the injured party. Rosneftegaz,

a shareholder in Rosneft or Gazprom, does not recognize itself as

the injured party." There is no

injured party, sorry. So the state

must act as that injured party and

defend its rights for the benefit of,

ultimately, the citizens. All right, let us

take a short pause here. We will now

break for a short commercial on the air of

TV Rain (Dozhd TV), then come back,

and continue the Hard Day's Night program with Alexei

Navalny. M.