Alexei Navalny’s interview on the Hard Day's Night program on TV Rain

I welcome the audience of the TV Rain channel.

My name is Tikhon Dzyadko. On air is

the program Hard Day's Night. Every

Tuesday, interesting guests come here to our studio.

I am glad to welcome here

just such a person.

He is blogger, lawyer, and politician Alexei

Navalny. Good evening.

>> Good evening.

>> Joining me in asking Alexei

Navalny questions today will be my

colleagues. They are the editor of the investigations desk at

the newspaper Vedomosti, Irina

Reznik. Good evening.

>> Good evening.

>> TV Rain's senior chief producer

Renat Davletgildeev. Welcome.

>> Good evening. Deputy

>> editor-in-chief of TV Rain

Maria Makeeva. Good evening.

>> Hello. And political

commentator for TV Rain, Yulia

Taratuta. And Yu- Yulia, welcome.

>> Hello.

>> Listen, Alexei, today on your

Twitter you wrote that tomorrow at

Pushkinskaya Square, half the square will be handing out

all sorts of interesting

things, namely tents. What for?

>> I retweeted a message from one of

the activists of RosAgit. RosAgit is

a network that, in fact, no one

organized. It organized itself

before the State Duma campaign to

distribute materials about United

Russia, yes, the party of crooks and thieves.

RosAgit's great achievement was, in many ways,

introducing this very meme: United

Russia, the party of crooks and thieves. People in

different cities are joining together,

distributing materials, badges, everything,

anything at all. They,

>> these people, some of them, decided to hand out

tents. It seems to me this is precisely the kind of

sign that the protest will escalate.

Are they planning to stage a Maidan (a mass protest encampment like Kyiv's Euromaidan), or what?

?

>> They are planning to stage a Maidan, they

support a Maidan, and by doing so they

are demonstrating to everyone that yes, we want

a Maidan. You saw that famous

poster that everyone

kept reposting. We came on

the fourth, we came on the twenty-fourth.

And what next? This is their answer,

these people's answer. Next comes escalation,

you can call it a Maidan,

a Tahrir (a reference to Cairo's Tahrir Square protests), whatever you like. In fact,

>> Do you support that strategy?

>> I support a strategy of escalation, if

you like. Yes. For a very simple reason. And

what other strategy should there be? Have our

demands been met? Hardly.

>> And what is escalation? What exactly do you mean

by the word escalation?

>> By the word escalation, I mean the idea

of protest intensifying. There were peaceful

protests, peaceful protests in

which hundreds of thousands of people across

the country took part. We saw demonstrations of

100,000 people. And the protesters

put forward very clear and very reasonable

demands. Not one of those demands

was met. Even the most

ridiculous one, the dismissal of that

good-for-nothing crook Churov. Even that

demand, a purely ritual one, was not

met. So it is obvious. The situation

specifically—what does it amount to?

>> I spoke about this at the rally. There is

nothing secret here, nothing sensational

has happened. One fine day, people

must come out into the streets and not leave until

their demands are

met.

>> And the tents are for that.

>> The tents are part of that, yes.

>> So you said there were peaceful protests, and

now there will be non-peaceful ones. They will be peaceful

protests. When people sit in a tent,

what is unpeaceful about that? Everyone sits

calmly in a tent, drinks tea—a peaceful

protest. There is nothing, nothing new here

to invent. Over the course of

its entire history, humanity has invented,

established, used, and accumulated experience

in certain specific forms of

resisting a tyrant.

Going out into the streets and staying in those

streets for some period of time—this

is a form of peaceful protest.

>> And where do you want to stay? I don't want to stay anywhere yet.

And that's why I said

that it is very important to understand that this is

a spontaneous thing. Just some group

of people who don't care about all the

organizing committees, the existing Facebook

groups, or any leaders like me or

some other people—they simply said:

"Okay, we bought the tents ourselves with our own

money, we will hand out the tents to our

activists, we will go out into the streets and

stay on those streets." This shows

that if people themselves are starting to do this,

then sooner or later it will happen.

It will simply happen. Let's understand that it

will happen.

>> Yulia, please. I understand that

in your view, escalation means that

previously the rallies were exclusively

authorized. Well, we were dealing with

like that, and now today, I read

on your Facebook, that out of all the possible

scenarios for March 5, you are choosing

an unauthorized rally and are calling on

people to come out for it.

>> Escalation means that it is not that we are

choosing the most radical option

from among several possibilities; we have no

other options. We acknowledge that

completely honestly and openly, and we say:

"Yes, that is exactly how it will be." If Moscow City Hall

brazenly declares that

all the squares in Moscow are occupied and that

we should please go to Bolotnaya Square (a central square in Moscow associated with protests),

my answer to that is: thank you, goodbye.

We no longer need any of your

permissions, because, incidentally,

by law we do not need any

permissions. If before there was a long,

tedious process of saying, let's go and

ask some, I don't know,

some Olennik or some Gorbunkov

or someone else, now I believe that we

should not be asking for anything at all. Our

demands are absolutely lawful and

entirely appropriate, and they are supported

by a huge number of people, by

at least a majority of Muscovites

for sure. Why should we go around

begging something from a person who

it is entirely unclear on what basis

is sitting in that office? Still, you have a negative view

of the current authorities and

believe they are not what you would

want them to be?

>> There is no authority. No,

>> no, no. What I meant was that in this way

you are acknowledging that it may

resort to aggression, and that you are prepared,

obviously, to bring people out against

an aggressive regime, under police batons. There is

no authority. After the December 4 elections,

at least representative power

became completely illegitimate. There is

simply a group of people who, by force of

circumstance, for historical reasons,

have usurped this very power, yes.

And they have no moral right whatsoever

to make any kind of

demands of us. Alexei, to put it more simply, you are talking

about legitimacy and moral right,

while Yulia is talking about those who give

specific orders to a specific Second Regiment

(likely a police or internal troops unit). That is exactly what I am getting at.

So then, if some representatives

of this clan of crooks and thieves give

an order to some Second Regiment

to do something, well, then when

that Second Regiment comes out into the street, it

will see, I don't know, 20,000

people standing in front of it.

>> I do not think this will lead to any

violence. Most likely, it will lead to

a situation where that Second Regiment will be standing there,

and opposite it there will be

people. And we will see an absolutely classic

situation which, as I already said,

has existed for thousands of years: when a pharaoh

once gave the order and his Second Regiment

also came out, met the people, and it all

ended with something happening to the pharaoh.

That is, well, what do you think you can achieve now?

Even if the people are not

dispersed with batons, they will sit there

for a week, two or three weeks, and then

they will go home; they will not be shown on television,

and the country will never know about it.

>> That is not so. You see,

the only

>> a single rally, the one that

took place on December 10, led to the fact that

both Putin and Medvedev proposed to the country

a political reform that was completely

unprecedented compared with everything

they had done in the previous ten years.

Today, at first reading, they approved a

bill every provision of which both

Putin and Medvedev had previously rejected. Medvedev

said that for another 100 years we would

be appointing governors. And now

they have introduced a measure under which governors will once again

be elected. So major changes have already

been achieved. Yes, political

reform is mostly a fake and

an illusion, what they are offering us. And

therefore we must increase our

pressure in order to—what is it you think

we will achieve? We are seeking one very

simple thing.

Political reform, new elections to the

State Duma within a year,

and a presidential election within two years. And

that is all. It is very simple. We are not demanding

that we be given something extraordinary, I don't know,

money for everyone in the square. Elections. Simply

elections. Listen, you fully

understand that the current system

has no intention of stepping down, at least at the present

moment, and accordingly

a calf is starting to butt heads with an oak tree (a Russian expression meaning a hopeless unequal struggle),

the people are standing in the square, the Second Regiment

is standing there, and neither side leaves. What happens next?

>> Next,

the situation cannot remain static; it

will develop one way or another. I already

said that people came out

on the tenth. By your logic, well,

They came out, well, and were looked at from

a little window in the Kremlin, and they said: "Yes, people

are standing there; in the morning they spread butter on bread, and right away they start thinking

like the people." And all of it ended in nothing.

But it didn’t end in nothing. We

can see that the protests that have already

taken place have led to tremendous

changes both in public consciousness and in

politics. Why is that not enough? You

say the changes are tremendous.

So maybe somehow this

>> They are tremendous compared with what

came before, but compared with what

we need, what all citizens of

Russia need, they are not tremendous at all. As I

already said, we want elections. We want them

not for some abstract reason, but

because the December 4 elections were

falsified. This is acknowledged

by absolutely everyone. We do not recognize them and

we want nothing more than new elections.

>> Sergei Parkhomenko was just on our news

literally a moment ago, and he said he

was very, very pessimistic

about how events would develop

on the night of the fourth to the fifth, and so

on. He even used the word war.

Do you somehow think that, so to speak,

the second regiment will just stand nearby? Very

optimistic. And I am absolutely sure that

there will be no war, because this

war is not needed by anyone, and this government

of crooks and thieves will not be defended by anyone with

weapons in their hands. That’s all—they are simply

trying to scare us, wear us down, and so

on. Everything the authorities can

use to counter us,

they are already using. These are methods of

endless manipulation, deception, and so

on. And this political reform

that is now being proposed is, in

essence, one element of that. Everyone

is being told: "Well, leave the streets,

go play the merry game of party

building, create 25 different

parties and start

competing with each other sometime around 2015

or so. Or let’s say we’re giving you

the opportunity to register with 100,000

signatures, but starting in 2016. Get ready for another

25 years for all of that." But in this way

they will not

be countering us. There will be no war.

Who would be fighting whom?

State employees? Russian Post workers bused into

Luzhniki (a major Moscow stadium), fighting with Bolotnaya Square?

The combat brigades of pro-Kremlin

youth movements, who fought with

those guys who were heading to

Revolution Square?

>> What combat brigades? Did you see these

combat brigades? There were eight people there.

There were eight football hooligans there,

provocateurs, no. Well, let’s be, let’s be

fair. So far, since the moment of

the success of the democratic process, since

the first rallies, the authorities have not once

used force. That is, we are talking about

authorized, about authorized

actions. People came out as if for a celebration.

So far, yes, there has been a kind of, albeit

carefully calculated, but favorable treatment of

the demonstrators. But what if the authorities use

force,

>> if the OMON riot police encircle them?

>> Didn’t that happen on December 5? That’s a

strange question. What do you mean, what if they do?

It has already happened. On the fifth, I was jailed

for 15 days; force was used. On the sixth

everyone was beaten, right? And they arrested

>> Whom? Well, roughly speaking, it’s one thing

to beat up a dozen people, another thing to bring in

tanks. Oh, tanks. Come on, let’s not

make up nonsense. What

tanks? What are we even talking about? This is where we need to

tone it down. My use of the word

escalation probably scared you. I said escalation. You

immediately started thinking about tanks, tank—

>> You cannot give us guarantees.

You can get guarantees at the savings bank (Sberkassa, a Soviet/Russian savings bank). Who is supposed to give you

guarantees? There are people who

come out with their own demands.

Who is supposed to give you any guarantees?

There are people who are outraged, insulted,

and humiliated. They take to the streets with

just demands. Some

crook in city hall says: "I do not

allow you to come, and here you are

telling me: 'Give us guarantees.' Why are you

demanding guarantees at all in this situation?

You say confidently that the authorities will not

use force. You cannot give that

guarantee. You are not the representatives of Russia,

are you?

>> I cannot guarantee that a meteorite

won’t fall here. Yes. Nevertheless, we can see

how events have developed. And I see

the mood of the protesters. It is absolutely

peaceful. And just because 10 people decided

to hand out tents tomorrow, we immediately

say: "Well, the authorities will probably use

tanks." Great. So we’ve gone from placards

to tents, and immediately the response in our minds

is tanks. What?

>> You mentioned tanks, and they did not give them the square,

just as was being recalled a couple of days ago,

Excuse me, Igor Ivanovich Sechin,

Deputy Prime Minister.

>> Igor Ivanovich Sechin can remember whatever

he likes. What I mostly remember

when I hear about Igor

Ivanovich Sechin, the company Rosneft, and

the company Gunvor, which enriches Igor

Ivanovich Sechin. So, to protect

his Swiss bank accounts, Igor

Ivanovich Sechin would be ready to use

tanks, helicopters, and in general anything

at all. But I’m not at all sure

that the people sitting in those tanks and

helicopters are ready to defend the Swiss

bank accounts of Vladimir Igor Sechin. That’s

really the point. Well, понятно.

>> Alexei, imagine that. In fact, people are saying

that you’re practically Sechin’s agent, right? So

let’s recall whom you were going after in your

blogs — mostly Sechin’s top competitors,

that is. As for Rosneft and Gunvor, that

was the case. Let’s ask

Rosneft what its relationship is with

Gunvor. By the way, Gunvor is not Sechin,

let’s put it that way — it’s Timchenko. That’s a completely

different matter: Timchenko and Rosneft. Rosneft,

which trades through Gunvor on Gunvor’s

terms. But you didn’t go after Rosneft

the way you went after Sechin’s other

enemies — Deripaska during Rusal’s IPO, right?

Rusal, Kostin when you were tangling with VTB,

well, there are plenty of examples.

Transneft, when Sechin was dealing with

Tokarev — you admitted that there

you took money from Belkovsky. Belkovsky is a

person,

>> I took money from Belkovsky. Excuse me,

you’re lumping everything together. When

Belkovsky partially financed

the movement Narod, that had nothing to do with Sechin,

please note, it has absolutely no

connection to him.

>> You decided to write a couple of unpleasant articles

about Deripaska.

>> Who told you that?

>> That follows from your correspondence. I

>> You should verify how authentic

that correspondence is. So, of course,

I took no money whatsoever for any

correspondence. That’s the first point.

Second, Ira Uzhvyta, as an employee of

the newspaper Vedomosti and its

investigations desk, you remember very well how

all these cases developed, including those

against Gazprom. The first time people started

saying that the terrible

Igor Sechin was behind me was when

>> Gazprom is also Sechin’s enemy, by the way.

>> Exactly. When I started this whole

case against Gazprom and everyone said, "Well,

so it means the criminal case against Gazprom

was commissioned by Sechin through Navalny." But based on

the shocking investigation by the newspaper

Vedomosti, whose objectivity we do not

doubt, I think you found

the origins and all the sources

from which I first got the initial

documents on Gazprom and how this

investigation developed overall. So here

the situation is this: with regard to Rosneft, I mostly

deal with arbitration

proceedings — requests for documents

and so on, and so forth.

>> I haven’t read anything that devastating about Rosneft

in your blogs. For example,

yes.

>> Apparently, you haven’t read my

blog carefully — half of it is devoted to

requests for documentation.

It’s one thing to request documents; it’s another

to write about how VTB managers

make money there by shady

means. There’s a big difference, after all.

>> All right. But, my friends, this is exactly what I’m not

— an agent. That’s precisely what I’m getting at.

So, right now, here in this studio and in

this chair, I can’t present you with any

other proof except: believe

me, fellow journalists, I am not Sechin’s

agent — I am nobody’s agent — and it seems to me

that my activity, which

you observe quite closely,

as I see it, proves perfectly well

that I am no agent at all. And

>> Since we’re talking about agents,

people are also now saying that Alfa

is one of your sponsors. Well,

at least, people are saying that,

>> Who is saying that?

>> Well, we can discuss that later.

>> That part — that’s the public part

of the information. We’re talking about one of the former

top managers of Alfa, a former

top manager at Alfa, Vladimir Ashurkov, my

good friend, whom I

met a couple of years ago, who

simply appeared one day by writing me a letter

saying, let me help you. He helped

me, helped and helped, until it got to the point that

>> as an Alfa manager,

>> it ended with him having to part ways with Alfa

because of it. You fired him

just a month ago, and before that he had been helping you

for two years?

>> He helped me with expertise. He

indeed now, when we have created

a foundation that will finance my

activities, will become one of the

public donors of this foundation. And he

came forward—a much bigger donor, who said

he is in no way a co-owner of Alfa, he

is not an oligarch; this person, as far as I

understand, was fairly highly paid

but he was only a manager, and, uh,

he invests a certain amount every year,

which is not some gigantic,

shocking sum. Another one came forward. It is the son

of the founder of VimpelCom. Also indirectly

connected to Alfa as well. Somehow it all leads there. Maybe

you could name someone else who wasn't

connected to them. Well,

Khodorkovsky.

>> Since your newspaper ruined my entire

fundraising campaign and so on, I am not

prepared to name everyone else right now, but

I assure you,

>> What do you mean? But if—if you assume

that they are public figures?

>> Well, they are people, after all. And I am not ready to say

right now, okay? I had a whole

campaign—20 brave people who

were supposed to proudly declare: "We are funding

Navalny and we are not afraid." But then there appeared

an investigation by the newspaper Vedomosti, which

published all of this ahead of time.

The FSB came to Kselnikov's bank. To

Lebedev, the FSB came as well. And Shurkov began to be

pushed out of Alfa, and so on.

>> Yes, he had already been killed before that.

>> So, in any case, we will find those 20

brave people—they exist, and they will all

declare themselves publicly. Ah, well, for now there are

not exactly 20 of them yet. And they definitely

will be there. And how many are there now?

>> 12.

>> The 12 friends of Navalny.

>> It doesn't matter. The 12 friends of Navalny.

It doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that there will be

people who will fund the foundation completely publicly and

transparently. That's all, and I

will become—I hope to become the most, if

you like, my ambition is to

become the most transparent, well, I don't know,

opposition figure in the country, one for whom

it is absolutely clear

where the money comes from and what it

is spent on. All accounts will be open, and everyone

will see where the money goes. You are all

interested in the question of money, so it will be

fully disclosed.

>> Then explain why you take money.

Here is my last question about money,

at least: why do you take money

from former Yukos lawyer Pavel Ivlev?

>> Well, "take money"—I work, I am

a lawyer, and he hired me as a lawyer

for his case. He pays me, and you even

know how much he pays me. I have

a legal services agreement, and so on.

Yes

>> well,

>> well, explain to me why. You yourself,

basically, were trashing Khodorkovsky when

you met with investors.

Listen, I was not trashing any

Khodorkovsky. My opinion of Khodorkovsky

and of Yukos has not changed at all compared

with any comments

I made before. I have always said that

yes, in Khodorkovsky's first case there were

violations, and like any oligarch, he

committed tax crimes. He is in prison

not for that, even in the first case. The second

Yukos case is an absolute mockery and

abuse of justice. And

overall it is all simply completely pulled

out of thin air. I am Pavel

Ivlev's lawyer; he in turn was

a lawyer and a defendant in the second case,

which is entirely fabricated. And Ivlev was

merely a lawyer who was

persecuted here and who was

forced to flee abroad. I was at

his home; he lived like an ordinary lawyer,

someone who lives quite modestly,

and was forced to flee to New Jersey. I

am defending Ivlev. Not only do I

earn money, I also do not in the slightest

bend my conscience. And as for why Ivlev

might need Navalny, when he has

an excellent lawyer on the second

case, Rivkin, yes, who is familiar with

all the details.

>> Have you even seen the case file?

>> I have seen it; I have even read it.

>> There. Well, then you see—well, for anyone,

to read it, how many months would have to

go by? You simply would not have time left for your pickets.

You simply would not have any time left.

>> That is the problem. That is exactly why I have

very few clients, yes, such as

Ivlev. And

>> Are there others like Ivlev? Uh, people like

Ivlev, criminal defendants specifically like

Ivlev—no, there are none, but of course there are others.

>> You have so many of them. Everyone knows only one.

It gives the impression that

you have only one client. That you do not have just one

client—but I do not have just one client. And all of them,

well, all my clients, they are

registered. The money is not even transferred

to me directly. The money is transferred to

the bar association. They withhold taxes, and

then transfer the money back to me. So

all of this is actually completely

transparent, but it is governed by

attorney-client privilege. So even if I

I would have liked Ivlev to agree to open up.

after your calls, so I

confirmed that yes, Ivlev is my

client. Otherwise, without permission, I can't even

say anything. I'd get punished for that.

>> Well, there are 10 at least.

>> But 10 of what, exactly? Clients.

>> You have to measure it not in clients, but in

money. You understand? It's like

if I asked you how many programs

you host. Twenty. So if you host 20

programs, you're a good TV presenter, and if

you host one, then you're a bad

TV presenter. That's not the point. Yes.

>> Well, does Yuvlev hire you as a political consultant?

How so, Ira, I beg your pardon. Yes,

>> Right now, on this program that I host,

we're going to take a short break. We're going to

commercials, after which we'll return to the studio.

A reminder: our guest today is

Alexei Navalny.

The program Hard Day is back on the air. knows.

A reminder: our guest today is

Alexei Navalny. Please,

Mashmakiev. I just have a huge list here

of questions from viewers, who sent them

through every means of communication, social media,

even by email. So I'd like to read out two of them.

Were your publications on the eve of the scandal in

Hong Kong commissioned, or was that simply the

most relevant event at that

moment? That's one of the questions. But

I'd rather focus on something else. I

have here a fairly long statement of sorts

— an emotional one — but it

reflects how people see you. The broader

public, in my view. 'I don't see

any logical explanation for why he is

still alive and well,' the author writes.

How does he himself explain this surprising

circumstance? After all, he makes life harder

for quite a large number of very

influential and wealthy people. For example,

my dad is absolutely convinced that Navalny

is an FSB man (member of Russia's Federal Security Service) or works for them and

is carrying out certain scripts.

>> Well, Reznik already explained it. I'm a CIA agent. Who

could touch me? An agent.

>> How do you yourself explain the fact

that you are still alive and well?

asks a young woman named Yulia.

>> Well, you understand, how can I explain these

circumstances?

>> I think that, honestly, this doesn't

worry me very much, and I, uh, don't see how

what I do is actually much

more dangerous than the work of any

regional journalist, let alone

a journalist working in the Caucasus

or any person who, in the city of

Lipetsk, is fighting the local mayor because

the mayor is stealing from housing and utilities. Those are far more

dangerous things than what I

do.

>> You call for a change of power? How?

>> I call for a change of power? Well, there are people

who call for a change of power — I don't

know — more effectively than I do, less

effectively than I do; yes, there are

quite a lot of them. And why should that

be someone's failure to do their job? Maybe

because

>> Maybe you just have protection

— just admit it,

>> Maybe I do have protection. And in fact, the most

common version is

that my protection is the newspaper Vedomosti,

which is constantly writing something about me.

You understand? There are a huge number

of conspiracy theories here

that simply cancel each other out

when it comes to these supposed protectors. So once again,

my friends, I can't prove anything to you

about things like this with anything except

my own words — why I'm alive, I cannot prove to you.

So once again, I'm simply telling you:

believe me, dear friends. So,

there is no protection, no sponsor

behind me, no person standing

at my back. And I'm alive because, well,

because I'm alive.

>> All right, if we're not talking about life and death, but

just about some ordinary things. Well,

we remember — and again I'll go back to the

era before the democratic changes.

People were being dragged out

of their apartments before our eyes, or on their way out of them

— they were simply grabbed on the way to the metro. And

you yourself mentioned the Caucasus,

journalists in the Caucasus die. Yes, there have been

a great many different

tragic cases. But with you, the story was not about

life or death at all,

but simply that you were not touched. In

principle, you weren't even detained for 15 days.

First of all. And when they did finally

try to bring a criminal case against you, it

fell apart. That raised questions among people.

Why was the criminal case handled so carefully,

so delicately?

By the way, here you are —

an absolutely fabricated criminal case.

It didn't fall apart; nothing is

happening there. Two weeks ago I was again

questioned. It's not that we want you

to be jailed; it's just a question.

>> Well, yes, it does start to seem that you

are very disappointed that nothing

happened to me. Uh, well, look, again,

I don’t want to exaggerate any of the

terrible dangers that I face.

A criminal case has been fabricated against me.

I’m being followed, and even my wife is being followed,

all the time, by some rather ridiculous

surveillance team, and it harasses my family,

because they watch her—how she

takes the children to school and what she buys

at the store.

>> By the way, do you have security with you? Yes.

>> Well, lately I’ve been trying not to

be alone as much. I’ve had to give up

driving myself,

because, well, at this point,

someone could jump under my car, and then

they’d say, "There you go, Navalny ran over a woman

or something like that." I try to behave

more cautiously. It’s quite a... I’m

forced to change my lifestyle in

a way that makes it, well, less

comfortable. I mean, I’m actually

a completely ordinary person.

Are you afraid for your own life?

>> I’m not afraid, but I do try to take

precautions. The kind of precautions

that, well, an ordinary person would take.

I’m absolutely

ordinary. I live in Maryino (a residential district of Moscow) in my

apartment, just as I always have. My children

went to school in Maryino, and they still

go to school in Maryino. It’s just that now I

try to make sure that no one comes

to the children at school, that...

>> Well, who could come to them? The FSB (Federal Security Service) to the children

at school? No,

>> to the teachers, to the principal.

>> With a demand like what? Expel Navalny’s children?

Navalny’s children.

Nothing like that has happened. I hope

it won’t.

>> There are things—look, there are things—

that are impossible to control, at

least for me. I can’t know

whether my phones are tapped, how many

cameras are installed where, or who might be

plotting something, and so on. So I

try not to think about those things too much.

I distance myself from them, because if

I spent all my time thinking that I

might be killed, then instead of doing

something useful, I’d go insane.

>> Yulia,

>> well, at the very least you know that your

mail is being monitored. We know that now too, right?

And I have a question too: you

mentioned caution. There’s an

impression that during

the State Duma campaign you were very

forceful. You’re saying now that

you’re the author of the slogan about the party

of crooks and thieves. And yet, in the

opinion of most experts,

it won the current Duma elections. Yes,

people voted for another—for any party

except United Russia. We observers have the impression

that during

the presidential campaign you are behaving

much more calmly and cautiously. Is that

just an impression, or are you actually... To be honest,

I simply don’t know why you

say that. What exactly should I be doing more

aggressively? I don’t know—using more

swear words, or banging my head against

the wall? I understand very clearly what needs

to be done—what, at least,

my personal strategy is. For me, everything

is very clear: what needs to be done—first,

second, third. And that’s what I’m doing. And

it seems to me that this is not substantially different

from what I

was doing during the Duma campaign.

Well, you spoke on Sakharov Avenue,

but at Bolotnaya, I mean

the most recent Bolotnaya rally, you didn’t. Why?

>> Well, because the organizing committee decided

that new people should speak. If I

had wanted to speak and had really pushed for it

like some of my colleagues,

of course I would have spoken.

>> And why didn’t you want to? Why didn’t you push

for it?

>> Well, because I believe there shouldn’t

be a situation where the same

opposition figures appear endlessly. Everyone

is unhappy that it’s always the same

five people coming out. So I said, "Guys,

instead of having just one person come out, let’s

>> let’s rotate these people. And I’m ready myself

to give up speaking too, if we’re going to

have some kind of rotation. That’s perfectly

normal. I don’t want everything to, uh, end up

hinging on one single person.

>> You don’t want to be the leader. Sorry, you don’t

want to be the leader of the protest

movement. You—you don’t want that. Am I understanding

you correctly?

>> You can’t appoint anyone as the leader

of a protest movement. If you’ve noticed,

a defining feature of this

protest movement is that

no one is organizing it. It comes about

on its own. And it would be a big mistake

to think that there is some organizing committee

that is arranging everything. It’s the people.

who happened to find themselves on the crest.

>> You can't appoint yourself. I don't want to. Those are different

things. Do you want it or not?

>> Yes or no? Want to be what? I am, in fact,

part of the movement.

>> Naturally, I want power in order

to change it. Otherwise, everything is lost.

All of it is lost.

>> What kind of power do you want?

That place in the political power structure

that I will be able to occupy through

fair elections. Yes, when we achieve

free and fair presidential elections,

I will take part in them. There will be

candidates. I am sure that from everywhere there will come

some remarkable people who

will also want to be president. And there will be

competition, and I will compete

with them. Whatever place I take.

>> That's clear with them too. So you as well,

meaning, you want

>> Want what? Well, I already said, I'm not going

to play coy. You see, the thing here

is that for some reason you think that I have

some hidden motive, but I'm telling you

everything absolutely plainly.

There will be elections, we will secure elections,

and of course I will take part in them. Tell me,

do you have the sense that the people who

come out to protest rallies, to some

significant extent, are coming out for

you? For example, after the rally in

St. Petersburg on the 25th, when

the crowd after your speech

was chanting, "Navalny, Navalny," did you have

the feeling that these people are

your potential voters?

>> I'm not inclined to exaggerate my own

personal popularity. Well, it would be

stupid to deny that, evidently,

quite a large number of people

support me. Maybe not even

me personally, but rather some

of the work I do,

it's not that they love me, it's that they hate

corruption. And when they shout

"Navalny, Navalny," what they're really shouting is:

"Down with the party of crooks and thieves."

>> What a modest man you are, Alexei.

Tell me, after the rally on Sakharov Avenue (Prospekt Akademika Sakharova in Moscow),

did representatives of the authorities, the Kremlin,

or anyone else try in any way to get in touch

with you? Did they take note of your popularity?

>> Never in my life. Once I saw

Voloshin in person once here. It was

at Red October (a former Moscow factory complex turned cultural venue). And I have never in my life

wait, everyone captured it.

It was some kind of roundtable; there were

about 10 people there, discussing nationalism.

>> I have never in my life seen any

Surkov, nor anyone from the Kremlin, neither

big nor small. Sechin—I saw Sechin

at a shareholders' meeting. Yes, Sechin

I have seen, yes. And

Kudrin—yes, I really did see Kudrin

at the rally. In fact, that's all.

>> So there was no conversation at all.

No "Let's cooperate, Alexei," nothing like that.

I still very much count on the fact

that for most reasonable people—and although the Kremlin

is full of crooks, they are

in their own way rational people.

The work I have been doing for many

years speaks clearly enough to the fact

that I have nothing to cooperate with them on, and

no reason to. This is absolutely not about cooperation, but about

dialogue.

>> What kind of dialogue? What does dialogue

mean? That they reach out to you and

say, "Alexei, let's..."? These negotiations are happening,

these negotiations are taking place in a

wonderful public format. We

stated the demands of Bolotnaya Square (the Moscow protest movement),

these and these. Here is the resolution; these are the things

we demand. In response, they said:

"Okay, here's your political reform."

We say: "No, that kind of political reform

won't do. We will take to the streets again

again." And that—that is dialogue. And

there is no need to think that dialogue means

that Putin and I have to sit down somewhere and

start sketching things out on pieces of paper. No,

>> So for you, the negotiator is Putin

exclusively? Well, with whom else, and about

what, could negotiations be held? With Volodin,

with whoever. This government has one

main backbone holding it together. That is

specifically Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

There is no need to negotiate with anyone else,

with any other people. It is

completely meaningless. Really, with whom, about what

would one talk? Who are all these people? Of course, in terms

of political mechanics, Putin

can grant a mandate to, I don't know, whoever.

To Volodin, to his grandmother, to anyone at all, and

say publicly: "This person is vested with the authority

to conduct negotiations." Then

the opposition, in the broad sense of the word,

must also come up with some mechanism

that will identify a legitimate

person and say, all together: "And we

authorize this person."

>> I see.

>> And when Kudrin was standing there with you on

the stage, what were you talking about, first of all,

exactly? Maybe he was the one who...

suggest meeting and come to an agreement about

something? He didn’t. Well, we did talk about something.

I said, "How

wonderful it is to see you here. It’s a pity

you didn’t come to the VTB meeting." Well,

he sort of smiled and went, "Ha-ha, hee-hee." Well,

that’s that. What mainly interests me is

the VTB story. He was the chairman

of the board of directors, the supervisory

board. So much happened precisely in those years,

when the things happened that

I’m now investigating in these criminal

cases, and which take up

an enormous amount of my time.

>> So he didn’t suggest meeting with Putin.

He didn’t suggest it.

>> He didn’t. He didn’t have that kind of

authority, and to give him full credit,

he said right away that

no one had authorized him to conduct any

negotiations with anyone on Putin’s behalf. So,

as I understand it, besides me there were

a million opposition figures who talked with him about

this or that. And all of it

ended in nothing.

>> Well then, tell us, are you going to create

why have you still not

>> Let’s be clear, my friends. What

is a party? A party is some kind of

piece of paper from the Ministry of Justice, saying “party” and

bearing a stamp. You’ll be president. For

that you need a party, dialogue, a program.

The people who support me, and

who don’t just support me but

support me by taking part in my practical

projects, from RosPil to

RosYama or RosAgit, where they hand out

tents. That is, in fact, a party,

because a party is a community

of like-minded people. And what I need to develop,

and what I will be working on, is developing

that community of like-minded people. And in that

sense, right now, at this specific

moment in time, I absolutely don’t care

about the Ministry of Justice. And I’m not going to spend my time

running around to offices and

handing them papers and saying, "Here,

I have a party, please register it for me

please." What for?

>> Look, if you don’t have

a registered party, you can’t

take part in elections at various

levels.

>> Let me remind you that over the last 5 years

there were eight attempts to register parties.

All of them were denied. Now

>> right now, under the laws that

come into force in 2013. And

even under this law, which supposedly says

500 people is enough, any party can still be

removed from the ballot, and so on. Right now, this is

essentially a trap for party-building.

Everyone is being encouraged

to start creating their own party. That means

there’ll be a Kudrin party, a Prokhorov party,

a PARNAS party, a Navalny party,

two nationalist parties,

three left-wing parties, four Green parties

and a gay and lesbian party. And they sit in

the Kremlin, clapping their hands, delighted that

the plan worked. So lots of parties are

a bad thing. I just can’t understand what

people were fighting for. For

>> Lots of parties are neither good nor bad.

What’s good is when people can unite into

parties and are guaranteed the right to take part in

fair elections. Forgive me for such a

banal formulation. But the ability

to create a million parties does not

guarantee us

fair elections. Fair elections mean,

first and foremost, that there will be

a ban on removing these

parties from registration. Right now, for example, in

Moscow there are municipal

elections taking place alongside the presidential election.

Do you know how many candidates were removed from

the ballot? Not allowed to run? 600 people. 600

people were simply thrown out of

that municipal race. The same

thing will happen to these parties that

get registered in huge

numbers. Once again, I fully

support the demands of Bolotnaya and Sakharov (the major Moscow protest rallies),

and so on. There is a very clear

resolution, very straightforward, with five

points. For some reason everyone thought it was

just a declaration, but it is a document

for practical action: presidential

elections, parliamentary elections,

political reform. That’s it.

>> Okay. Fine. But if we’re not talking about

creating a party in the formal sense right now,

do you have, for this party

in either the formal or informal

sense, a concrete political

program? Let’s say that’s all settled. Fair elections

have taken place. An honestly elected

President Navalny, let’s suppose, and

Navalny’s party already has

a majority in the Duma, for example. What

next? One, two, three. How should

Russia develop? In what direction?

For everything good and against everything bad, or

what?

>> For everything good and against everything bad.

So, I very often get—let me

answer right away journalists' favorite question:

So, you've defeated corruption, and

then what? What are you going to do next?

What is your economic program? Well,

I've said quite clearly: "The fight against

corruption is my economic

program. I am absolutely convinced that

the main political and economic,

if you like, slogan right now is:

"Don't lie and don't steal." And I am absolutely

convinced that the fight against corruption is

the only genuinely possible

structural reform that can be

implemented right now, because it does not require

money, it does not require any

major effort other than political

will. And it really is the

key that will allow us to carry out

all the other reforms, because we won't

be able, under the current conditions,

to carry out, say, either pension

reform, or healthcare reform, or

police reform, or absolutely anything else. That's it.

And in the specific situation we are in now,

if tomorrow Putin were removed from

the Kremlin, abducted by aliens, and

they put me there, the only thing, really,

that could be done effectively starting

tomorrow, and that would affect

the life of the country immediately, is

to genuinely fight corruption. How

can this be done? Well,

>> Is it the Georgian path—fire all

traffic police officers? But Georgia is still

a small country, right? Saakashvili

to some extent defeated bribery among

traffic police officers.

>> We have quite a large

number of examples, both in small

countries and in large ones. And there are

very recent examples from countries close to us

like Georgia, and from countries very far from us

like Singapore, Hong Kong, and so

on. And all

experience shows that to fight

corruption, what is needed is the political will

of the top leadership. You need those 50 honest

people who generate a sufficiently strong

political signal and who compel

everyone else to live by

certain moral and ethical rules

and laws. And they can effectively

make it happen. People are adaptable, and those

crooked officials, if they are

really forced to comply, if there is

the inevitability of punishment, begin

to change.

>> And in the current top leadership, do you see not 50,

but at least a few honest people?

You say the people at the top are crooks and

thieves. Is there anyone in the current leadership

of the country who inspires respect or

whom you would approve of for your children to look up to?

>> No, because no one else could have

ended up there. It is a system

of negative selection. If you are not

part of all this, if

you have not joined the mafia clan and

they haven't made you, I don't know,

put a bullet in a hostage's head, then you will not

—in a hostage's head—then you will never

be part of the system. Other people do not

get in there. Look, in fact,

the more vile a given character is,

just take this Kremlin youth

politics—even the most monstrous

thugs, the ones who were busy

putting out fires, as they say, on

Twitter and on the internet, get

promoted. Everyone thinks: this person

is finished, he had some kind of failure, he terribly

disgraced himself—and then we immediately see a promotion.

This system is precisely what elevates scum.

>> And what do you do with them afterward, if, if

power changes and you come to power—what do you do

with them if they are all that bad?

Those who adapt,

adapt. Those who do not

adapt, jail them. If you don't know how,

we'll teach you. If you don't want to, we'll make you. Of course,

the fight against corruption requires that. But here

we very often hear this thesis, from both

Medvedev and Putin, one of their favorite

lines: We will not allow a campaign-style crackdown.

But in fact, the fight against corruption requires exactly

that kind of campaign-style drive. Because fighting

corruption is not about some abstract systemic

measures or endlessly introducing

new punishments, fines for officials, and

so on; it is also a struggle against

specific corrupt officials. It

means identifying those people who

did something wrong and sending them to

the dock. Those are the things that need

to be done.

>> Show trials? Absolutely right.

Show trials. We will never achieve anything

without show trials.

Right now, Reiman, our former

wonderful communications minister—criminal proceedings

have been opened against him in Germany. He

was, in that well-known case,

witness number six. He is known as

an absolutely blatant corrupt official. What is needed

a show trial. He should be sitting

in a cage in the dock. In a cage

an iron cage, a metal cage, he should be sitting there, and

they should show him and say: "Here

is the man whom we will punish to the fullest extent

of the law. And all these Timchenkos

and all the Rotenbergs, and all the rest of them—these

my favorite friends—the system will begin

to change

>> and the system will begin to change, because

this is what is called, on the contrary, not yet

this is a kind of fundamental part

of legal science, yes: what matters is not

severity of punishment, which is what Medvedev is proposing to us,

let's introduce million-fold fines,

but the inevitability of punishment. When

everyone knows that people from VTB (a major Russian state bank),

who stole money on those, my favorite,

drilling rigs, will be sent to prison,

and there they are, there they are—criminal proceedings have been

opened, there they are sitting, uh, on

the defendants' bench, and there they are in

prison. And only that will make everyone else

at VTB Bank, probably,

a little afraid of the inevitability

of punishment and steal a little less.

Why do you think members of United Russia,

and numerous officials,

including regional ones, are completely unaffected

by trips to

America and training there? Under the

Open World program, a huge number of

United Russia members have gone there—dozens, maybe

even hundreds of people. Why does nothing

change? You studied in America yourself, didn't you?

It probably had a positive effect on you

>> Why? That's exactly why I said that for

political change, you need those very

50 people at the top. We will never change anything

from below. So he went on the

Open World program and, let's suppose,

he saw how everything works in the municipal government

of some city in New Jersey, and thought:

"This is so great." If only...

>> Then he comes back to Moscow, and the deputy

governor says to him: "My friend, we're

buying a CT scanner now, so

one million for you and three for me." And all of that,

everything he learned in that city in New

Jersey, falls apart, because

every person, from a traffic cop

to a governor or

deputy prime minister, knows that his

boss is really occupied with nothing

except protecting his own powers and

endlessly... As for those fifty honest people,

do they actually exist in nature, or are you

just assuming they do? I have some—I

have a team that handles

our work quite effectively.

We fund it ourselves. People—

20,000 people, even more by now—

send us money. We report back to

these people. We operate according to

value for money, by

return on investment; we operate

a million times more efficiently than any

state body in the country. I have

a certain number of such people. I

will find those 50. And the people who

will help me and work with me, in terms of

their moral and ethical qualities,

will definitely be 100 times better. And if

they turn out to be worse, then this is where

the well-known principle of Kuan Yew (Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding leader), who was

the governor of Singapore. When asked once again

Lee Kuan Yew

the question, "How did you manage

to defeat corruption?" he said: "I

put all my friends in jail." Yes. Well,

that means the person who is elected

—there is no other way. Either you

introduce the principles of meritocracy, and if

someone turns out to be worse, then he needs to be

fired or jailed, because otherwise it

won't work.

>> And on that note, as all 12 friends of

Alexei Navalny

>> shuddered, we're going to a short

commercial break, after which we'll return to the studio for

the program Hard Day's Night.

Day's

Hard Day's Night is back on the air.

A reminder: today we have Alexei

Navalny here in the studio. Tell me,

Alexei, are you still ready to come out

for a rally under the slogan "Stop Feeding

the Caucasus"?

>> Of course. All the slogans I have

ever proclaimed, I still

support now. And I still think, just as I did,

I don't know, three months ago, when four—

when I went out to that rally, that yes,

we must put an end to the system

of financing the Caucasus that leads

to us feeding these

brazen, bloated elites living high on the hog, while the local

population, in utter poverty, looks at these

elites and understands that it needs to go

into the forest with an assault rifle and fight

these elites. In other words, we are financing

a civil war in the Caucasus.

>> It seems to me that this idea needs to be communicated

more clearly somehow, because nobody

understands it. Everyone thinks that you—I

do communicate it. Well, then if

>> they think you're abstractly against Chechens

in general.

>> What I just said,

quite clearly, I think, I’ve already

repeated a million times, but this is the kind of thing

where, once I’ve started talking about it,

that means I’m responsible for explaining it

more clearly. Well, that’s my

responsibility. So I’m going to

keep spelling it out until it becomes

absolutely clear to everyone.

>> Why “Stop Feeding the Caucasus”? Why not,

for example, “Stop Feeding the thieving”

region, and

>> the thieving elite of the Caucasus republics. Well,

you see, judging by the momentum, first of all,

the slogan is: “Stop Feeding the Caucasus.” I didn’t

come up with this campaign. I didn’t invent it,

no. But I think it is necessary

to support it. Does the slogan bother you or not?

The slogan? Excuse me,

>> This slogan doesn’t bother me, because

I can explain what I mean

by this slogan. And in fact, after

I took part in the rally,

yes, under this slogan, I received

an enormous number of messages

from people in the Caucasus saying,

everything you’re saying is absolutely right, this is

absolutely correct. And this issue really does need

to be raised and pursued

further, because, as I already said, we are

simply financing a civil war by

enriching these

bandits, who drive along broken

roads in Porsches, right? While

everyone else drives around in awful

old Zhiguli 2106s and works in

agriculture, grows wild garlic, and lives

on 5,000 rubles a month (about $50-60/month). We are simply

indeed creating entire classes and

social strata of people for whom going into the guerrilla

or insurgent war is the only

possible way to go on living. And

does Navalny’s position imply the separation of

the Caucasus, and what would happen to it?

>> The Caucasus—well, let’s not talk about the Caucasus in general.

Take Chechnya, for example: is it now

part of the Russian Federation or

not? And a Navalny Russia, if we’re going

to put it that grandly, would

rather imply bringing the Caucasus back

into the Russian Federation in the sense

that on the territory of the Caucasus there must be

the same laws in force as on

the territory of the rest of the Russian

Federation.

>> How will we achieve that? We will achieve it

by the only methods possible,

by imposing that same rule of law,

because all that negative

selection and lawlessness that exists

in Russia exists in the Caucasus

tenfold.

>> “Imposing the rule of law” is the same thing

United Russia says. How would you

actually achieve it in practice?

>> United Russia is not engaged in any

imposition of the rule of law. Take me, for example:

as part of the RosPil project, we monitor, among other things,

how procurement is carried out in

the Chechen Republic. In other words,

the lawlessness there is of a kind

that, for all its problems, you would never see

anything even remotely like in Arkhangelsk Region

ever at all. They simply

send money there, and it gets spent

however they want. They don’t even fulfill

the formal reporting and documentation

requirements. So

>> Right, so what do you actually do? Stop

sending money, or what?

>> What needs to be done is to establish law and order. That’s

what is supposed to be done in a situation where

people fail to submit reports.

If someone didn’t submit one, then

remove them from office, hold them

accountable, and so on. In other words,

all those rule-of-law programs that

need to be applied across Russia,

including the Georgian experience, for example,

with regard to the police, need to be implemented

in the Caucasus first of all—

I don’t know—ten times over. And for that

I would not begrudge the money. What I do begrudge

is giving money, for example, so that

Ramzan Kadyrov can build his

palaces. I begrudge sending money to

Dagestan or Ingushetia when I see

that it simply disappears. But if we

are going to reform the judicial or

law-enforcement system in Dagestan or

Ingushetia, I would not begrudge money for that,

because I understand that these are

investments that will pay off. For example,

I would not begrudge it if we started

cultivating a new elite for the Caucasus, taking

people one by one and sending them abroad

to study, just to pull them out

of an environment where they are completely

stuck in place,

>> Like United Russia members under the Open World program.

Alexei, it may not work out. Don’t you

think that the leadership of, for example,

the Chechen Republic is a kind of

compromise that makes it possible to preserve,

for example, peace?

I don’t, because once again

Let us imagine a hypothetical situation,

that tomorrow, God forbid, something

happened to Ramzan Kadyrov, and then

Chechnya would collapse like a ton of bricks, and in Chechnya there would instantly

begin a civil war of some

completely unprecedented

kind, because there is a Sharia-based

army under Kadyrov, a Sharia-based army under

some other families there, there is an enormous

amount of money there, the

infrastructure has been rebuilt there, and we have simply

armed, with our own money, some

bearded men who

Unlike ordinary soldiers, they

pray several times a day there, and they

obey absolutely no one.

There are also some kind of special battalions.

>> Well, what is so bad about them praying?

>> Well, in the army, prayer is not supposed to be,

at least not as part of drill or military service.

Excuse me, this does not happen in

Arkhangelsk Oblast, and it would not happen anywhere else

either. So with our own money we have

created a Sharia-based army that

lives by principles that are

completely unacceptable in the regular army

of Russia, and that declares that

the laws of Sharia stand above the laws

of the Russian Federation, and that

answers to God knows whom,

not to anyone in the rest of Russia. Well,

those are different things. No one is against

their having priests, mullahs, or

whoever else. But it cannot be the case that

as part of their military training they

pray several times a day.

A Sharia army,

>> because in our country the church is separated from

the state. And I mean, if

a person wants to pray, by all means,

let him pray. But it should not

be part of some kind of

indoctrination or training. And in their case, precisely,

I repeat, they are creating a Sharia-based army,

which will never be part of

the Russian army. These people, equipped with

security service IDs, are simply

some kind of obscure bandits from the woods.

They carry out contract killings and

hide behind those IDs.

>> Look, you know, it seems to me

that during the war of 2008,

which President Dmitry

Medvedev is very proud of, the most combat-ready unit

of the Russian army that took

part in the fighting in South Ossetia

was the Vostok Battalion.

>> Well, those are also myths that have been created. Fine,

let us create a squad of

cutthroats and give it the task:

"Go there and kill someone or

seize something." Perhaps, possibly,

they will act quite

effectively. The only question is: is that

part of the Russian army or

not? That battalion of some

Sulim, I do not remember his surname,

is it part of the Russian army or does it

answer to whom? To the Commander-in-Chief

of the Russian Federation or to that same

Yamadaev? Well then, it answers to Yamadaev.

And the moment something happens there, these

people will instantly say: "Goodbye,

Russian Federation." And they will

feel just fine, because they have

their infrastructure restored.

Enormous sums of money have been pumped in there, and we

have no Russians left there; they were all pushed out of Chechnya,

and we do not have the slightest

ability to influence the situation.

>> And what should state policy be, then?

What should it ultimately be? In Chechnya, there should be this:

law and order, and across the entire country

there can be no other state policy

except law and order. We

must not do otherwise. It is clear that Chechnya has

its national particularities, a complex

system, teips (Chechen clan structures), and so on, but nevertheless

there is no need to pretend or invent anything

special. The laws must operate everywhere

equally. And of course, we must

take into account the clan-based structure there,

the tribal social order, and so on, but

we must not give them the opportunity

to say: "All right, you live according to

a feudal and tribal system." But

that is exactly what we have told them now. They

must live by negotiations. I can imagine,

you arrive in Chechnya and say:

"Hello, in our country the church is separated

from the state." That will not work.

Here one has to speak in some language,

so to speak, that they understand,

>> You know, naturally, when people are told:

"We are no longer giving you money

for nothing." But with accountability, of course, that

will not be popular, because right now the situation is this:

"Ship us oranges by the barrel

(a Russian idiom meaning 'send huge quantities'), let billions of dollars

keep coming in, and all we give you in return

is 99% of the vote for the United Russia party." I

will perhaps just clarify what Masha meant.

At present, in practice, in the Chechen

Republic there is a very powerful Islamic

an Islamic movement, which shows itself in

everything, yes. In the fact that alcohol is not sold there,

that girls who do not wear

headscarves are shot at with paintball guns, and

so on and so forth. How do you

envision getting out of this situation

without pain? Is it even possible,

>> so, this Islamic,

as you put it, this Islamic

movement, yes, it did not arise among

the people; it is being imposed by Kadyrov as

an instrument of control. In other words, his own

ideology, since he cannot

simply promote, in its pure form, the ideology

that we are tough guys with assault rifles,

so everyone should pay us money. He

wrapped all of this in the packaging of Islam. And

now they all go around praying endlessly and

so on. In other words, there is nothing new in

this; in many countries this kind of nationalism

has that smell to it, definitely has that smell,

>> It smells of nationalism. What

>> And your slogans and all these

statements?

>> I do not know what nationalism

you think it smells of. There is nothing in my slogans

that is

inconsistent with the laws of the Russian

Federation. And all I demand

from Kadyrov and everyone else is that

they simply comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.

That is all. Tell me, do you still

hold

the view you expressed in your famous

2007 video, that migrants were somehow

compared to cockroaches,

that they are potential terrorists and that

citizens should arm themselves?

>> Come on, what are you making up? You watched the video,

so no one there compared anyone to anyone,

we will show it. Let us show

what the equipment says.

>> We have the ability to play the video.

>> Hello. Today we are going to talk about

fighting insects. None of us is

immune from the possibility that a cockroach may

crawl into our home.

Ugh, or that a fly may buzz into the room.

We all know that flies are best dealt with by

a flyswatter, and cockroaches by

a slipper. But what do you do if the cockroach

turns out to be too big, and the fly moderately

aggressive?

Well, Maria, I hope you have enough

courage to admit that, after all, no one

there compared anyone to anything, and that you were

wrong about my video. There is nothing

even remotely like that in it. In that video I

really do speak in support of

the legalization of civilian firearms.

You have put it that way. I have enough courage

to say that I stand by my view. I,

of course, have seen the video. About what? Well,

excellent. Fine. Then it means we

watch the same video and see different things.

>> Well now, you know, some kind of

impression is created. It seems to me

that this impression is created in a completely

appropriate way. People who watch this

video understand that I, as a

person, support the idea that

short-barreled firearms should be made available

and accessible to citizens. That is the point

of that video.

>> Is it not?

>> Why? Now perhaps I have begun

to understand what Masha's doubt is about.

Why is it specifically a person,

shouting something like 'Allahu Akbar'

or something of that sort, who

is presented as the threat? If you noticed,

that video was made in a

kind of, I do not know, perhaps it was not

the highest-grade

humor, but such as it was, the video was done in

an ironic manner. There

>> We had a whole series of them, as far as I

>> A whole series. And there an absolutely

stereotypical image was used

of a terrorist running and shouting something

incoherent, all wrapped up in

black. Yes, if we say to any

person, 'Imagine a terrorist,'

that is the kind of image that comes to mind; it is a stereotype

of the public consciousness, and that is exactly how

he will imagine one. And the idea built into

it was that people need to be given weapons so that

they have the ability to defend themselves against

various attacks, including

such attacks. That is all.

>> Yulia,

>> terrorist attacks. One moment. Do you

still hold to this view,

yes, that people should all be given weapons?

Well, look, 'give everyone weapons'.

At present, Russian citizens already have

hundreds of thousands of units of small arms

in their possession. And nothing terrible has

happened because of it. I still believe that

citizens' access to

short-barreled firearms, specifically

pistols, revolvers, and all

similar weapons, should be made easier. Nothing terrible, for example, is

happening in the Baltics, where people and our

former fellow citizens can go to a store

and buy themselves a pistol after obtaining

a permit through some procedure. In

Moldova, firearms are permitted. And as for the United States, we do not even

need to mention it, right? I still think so

I think so, of course.

>> Alexei, today you repeatedly

mentioned friends who there might

be jailed or not jailed—12 of them, or

13,

>> Yes, no one, no one will be jailed. So then, uh,

you say that you are not

a nationalist, that you are against bad government in

certain republics and in favor of good

people.

>> You said Alexei is not

a nationalist.

>> Alexei, are you a nationalist?

>> Well, I can quite openly say: "Yes, I am

a nationalist, and I can explain what I mean, I

am not afraid, I am not afraid of saying anything like

that, because I can

spell all of this out. I am talking about

the fact that real problems exist.

These problems are recognized by everyone, and they

do exist and strongly affect our

lives." The problem of illegal migration.

What place does Russia rank in the world

for illegal migration? Second after

the United States. And yet the border is

open. The problem of drug trafficking, which

comes along with these illegal migrants,

the problem of Russians as the largest

divided people in Europe, and so on.

These are all real problems. You had here

for example, the liberal politician

Prokhorova. Prokhorov. At every gathering now he

says: "I support visa-based entry

for the countries of Central Asia."

Whether Prokhorov is a nationalist or not is

not important. He believes this is

a challenge, a real problem. After

the United States,

>> in second place. After the United States.

>> Well, in the United States they freely give guns to citizens,

life there is generally good.

Maybe then it is not so terrible. Why should we

be afraid of it?

>> Wonderful. But in the United States, let me draw

your attention to this, there is a visa regime. When you

go, for example, to the United States, dear Masha, you

give your fingerprints and have

your retina scanned. And even citizens of

Mexico, in order to get into the United States, must get a

visa.

>> We were talking about illegal migration.

>> Exactly. Here, all of

Central Asia just up and comes here.

They come here and

stay to work without obtaining any

permits; no visa is required. And I believe

that these processes need to be regulated. And in

that sense, I am more of a defender of

migrants than you are—ten times more.

Because you want everything to remain

as it is. Migrants who

enter here as completely rightless

slaves, work on construction sites, and die from

illness because they do not have

health insurance. And I say:

"What does that have to do with anything? Why are you mixing things up? What

guns? We are talking either about illegal

migration or about guns." It was in

one video clip. One moment. Listen,

please show that clip again, especially for

Maria, four more times, because

she still was not able to grasp

its meaning the first time. The clip

was about guns. If we are talking about

migration, I believe we need to introduce

visa-based entry as the primary measure, the most

important measure for combating illegal

migrants. We have Ramadanovsky, uh, from

the

>> Federal Migration Service.

>> Exactly. When asked how many

illegal migrants we have, they say:

"Well, 5 to 10 million." That is, a margin of 5 million either way

just wandering around the country, and no one has

counted them. That is not a normal situation.

That is why I say: "Let us introduce

visa entry; let them come here, let them

buy insurance, and also enjoy

the rights that all of us

enjoy." I do not want, for example, in my

district, Tajiks with children living in

a basement, and I do not want them to live in

a basement. I want them, once they come here,

to have normal rights, but also to have the same

obligations. Just as

>> people have a strange understanding of what nationalism is.

It turns out that fighting to ensure that

Tajiks who come here have

normal

an incorrect understanding. You know, simply

Vladimir T. also openly calls himself a

nationalist, well, he has admitted as much. And

when he later explained, answering the question

of why he is a nationalist, spelling it out,

he said roughly the same things Vladimir Putin has said

practically the same as you, and in general

it is very similar. You think alike both in terms of

migration policy and in terms of

views on nationalism. At the level of

rhetoric, if you sat down, I do not know,

10 people, they would all say

roughly the same things. Vladimir

Putin, uh, also says many

very correct things on the subject of migration, but

what is wonderful now, again, about

the internet is that nothing can be hidden

any longer. Everything that has been said remains.

There is a wonderful compilation of how in

For 12 years, Vladimir Putin has endlessly

been saying all the right things,

but nothing ever happens. And it goes on

and on. Every year he says we need

to do something about illegal immigration,

but absolutely nothing gets done. And what

is done only leads

to rank-and-file police officers

getting richer by extorting money from these unfortunate

migrants. That’s all. That’s

the big difference. Listen, if

we’re talking about nationalism and

nationalists, you’ve been in fairly close contact

with people like Mr.

Krylov, Dyomushkin, and Belov, but during

the rally on Sakharov Avenue (Prospekt Akademika Sakharova), in which

you took part,

Mr. Belov was leading a group of guys

in the front row who were trying to break through

the police cordon and seize the stage. Doesn’t that

trouble you going forward?

First of all, I think you’re

exaggerating. Belov, of course, definitely did not

— more precisely, he did not

lead any guys there who were

>> In any ideological milieu,

there are huge numbers of various

provocateurs. There are plenty of them among liberals too.

Among nationalists, for

historical reasons, there are many more of them.

That’s why there are aggressive

groups there that are simply

on the payroll of the Presidential Administration,

the FSB (Federal Security Service), and the police. Alexander

Belov is on someone’s payroll too. That’s

>> Alexander Belov has absolutely nothing to do with them.

He wasn’t leading anything. And if

you noticed, he spoke at

the rally on February 4.

>> The fourth. I’m talking about the twenty-

fourth, where he was, he was at the

forefront of those breaking

>> through the cordon. He was standing next to— I didn’t see

him at the forefront. On the fourth he

spoke. The organizing committee gave him

the opportunity to speak. He spoke

and spoke very well, because on the twenty-

fourth some of his other

colleagues from the nationalist movement were speaking.

I think Tor and Krylov spoke.

>> And Krylov. And at that moment he— at that moment he

went off quite normally to

break through the cordon.

>> He didn’t break through any cordon. I don’t

know what you’re talking about. I didn’t see it,

I was standing on the stage, I don’t know where you

were. I was standing on the stage, and I didn’t see

anyone break through. And certainly not Belov;

if he had been doing that, I would have said to him:

“Belov, why are you breaking through the cordon here?”

He wasn’t breaking through anything. I saw it and

was watching,

>> So then that was my mistake, that unlike

Maria Makeeva, I didn’t upload the video.

I’ll have to show it to you after

the broadcast. Okay.

>> Tell me, excuse me. Do you consider

Belov and his associates

to be your direct allies?

You’re not planning to create any party,

at least not for now, right, but

do you consider them your allies?

>> I share some of the political

demands they put forward. I

think that 90% of the country’s population and

a huge number of democratic and

liberal politicians also share

all these views. We have never had, and I

don’t think we will have in the foreseeable

future, any discussion about some kind of

organizational format for creating a joint

organization or anything like that. However,

what is important about Belov and all the

others is the evolution of this very

Russian nationalism, which just five years

ago was absolutely marginal. And those

so-called Sieg Heil types were

not just mainstream — they

made up 99% of the nationalist

community. But what’s happening now is

completely different. Now there are huge numbers

of people there who, in terms of their

views — the mainstream of Russian nationalism

now consists of people who look no

more aggressive than European

nationalists or European

conservatives. Of course, this can’t

be done in a second. You can’t just

snap your fingers and eliminate all the lunatics

running around shouting, “Beat the kikes,

save Russia.” They still exist. But

they have now become marginal figures in this

environment.

>> Do you see it as your task to restore to the word

“nationalism” some kind of original

meaning? I see it as my task

to do everything possible to support this

evolution, so that people who call

for violence or for various stupid things

become marginalized and disappear. And so that

normal people who come out with

normal slogans and normal

ideas can develop and

progress. And by the way, why do you

say that organizationally you

won’t unite with them in some way, if

just a few years ago, as it was

the Narod movement, you did unite with

DPNI (the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, now banned) and with the Slavic

Union.

>> You need to go back and look at some

videos or links online, because

honestly, I don't know.

>> No, I mean, you had, how was it,

on one platform there was the Narod movement,

whose leaders included me,

my colleague from St. Petersburg, Sergei Gulyaev, and

Zakhar Prilepin. That was the Narod Movement,

that we created, which in

organizational terms did not succeed, but

it established an important ideological

trend. Namely, a kind of

European pro-nationalism, that is,

people who speak out,

on this nationalist

agenda, while at the same time fully

sharing European democratic

values. What I mean is that later you also had

a certain—this was important—we held

a conference called

"New Political Nationalism." This

conference had a special declaration

in which there were clearly

set out the most important principles, namely

the condemnation of xenophobia, the condemnation of

violence, and so on, commitment

to democratic values, to a European

path of development, and so on. So this

was a crucial thing in order to

separate out from the nationalist field that

somewhat healthy part of it.

>> Mm-hmm.

Yulia,

>> Alexei, but you

even now speak a little more softly

than I remember you, but do you

understand that for some of your current

supporters, so-called liberals,

just your participation in the Russian March (an annual nationalist rally),

for some, is your only

flaw; for others it's simply, well,

simply unacceptable. At the decisive

moment of the battle, when your ambitions

are close to being fulfilled, whom will you

betray? The nationalists, or will you betray

the liberals?

>> I don't know, Yul, what exactly you remember,

about when I spoke more harshly, but it

seems to me I was saying the same thing

all along. So,

>> I say what I believe and proclaim

the ideas I share, and I set

goals that I genuinely want

to achieve. I absolutely don't care about

some liberals or far-

rightists. I constantly have

some group of crazy liberals

shouting, "Navalny is a fascist." And

a group of crazy right-wingers

shouting that Navalny is an unreformed liberal.

I don't care about these people. And I

don't care who writes

some article or column about me. I will

keep saying what I,

what I believe in, and proclaiming the ideas

that I believe in. If all this is called

sitting on two chairs, then so be it.

>> That's not called sitting on two

chairs. So what's the problem here? I

I, for every question you

ask me—I don't know, how do you feel about

abortion, or how do you feel about guns?

I have an answer to that question. And that

answer does not change. And I'm not going to,

depending on the political climate, tell someone

something like, you know, some liberal

commentator condemned you, so now say

something to the effect that you now think

there should be no visa regime with

the countries of Central Asia. I don't care

about some liberal commentator. Not at all. I

have my own system of views. I

am sure that my system of views

is supported by a large number of people.

>> You say that you have an answer

to any question, but do you have

political

>> No, not to any question, if

>> political mentors, coaches,

perhaps some people you

consult? Well, I have a large number

of people I

consult, and again I try, in order

not to—well, starting with

not letting myself catch some kind of

star syndrome because of my

short-term popularity, and also in order

simply to understand what

is happening—there are many

people, ranging from Yevgenia

Albats and Guriyev among the liberals

to some of the same

nationalists like Solovey, with whom I

regularly consult and talk about

various topics in order simply

to understand their views on what is happening.

The very last question is from Maria Makeeva,

and a very short answer, please.

>> On air you said the following: "I

want to feel like a decent person."

I'm quoting it carefully so as not to

misstate it. That is perhaps truly

a kind of moral motto for our time.

And first I wanted to ask you what

what a decent person means in the understanding of

Alexei Navalny, but I changed my mind and

so I’ll ask instead. So, do you have an ideal?

Can you name some figure

who is absolutely

ideal?

>> I don’t have an ideal, and I follow

the principle: "Do not make an idol of anyone." I

believe that the only possible

way to make a decision at

a particular moment in time is simply

to check in with your inner sense of things.

Well, if you like, that’s a very

primitive, perhaps, uh, projection

of Kantianism, I suppose. Yes, it’s like

the categorical imperative inside you.

You simply have to check in with

yourself and make that decision. I have no

ideal at all. There are a great many

people I respect, but

I don’t want to set up any ideals

for myself. It’s harmful, and I wouldn’t

advise anyone to do it.

>> Unfortunately, our time has come to an end.

I thank our guest. Alexei

Navalny, politician, lawyer, and blogger, was with

us on air. I also thank my

colleagues: Irina Reznik, Rinadovlet

Geldeev, Maria Makeeva, and Yulia Taratuta.

I’m Tikhon Dzyadko, and the program Hard Day’s Night

airs every Tuesday on TV Rain (Dozhd).

Don’t go away — in just

half a minute, a short postscript from

our guest.

Postscript.

>> This is Alexei Navalny. I was on the program

Hard Day’s Night. It’s election week,

the final week before the election. You

know what to do. Come to the polls

and vote for any candidate against

the candidate of the party of crooks and thieves,

Vladimir Putin. Become

election observers, and stand up for your rights.

days It