"My elimination would change nothing." An interview with Alexei Navalny about his recovery and return to Russia

Navalny is under round-the-clock police protection. We had arranged our interview in a hotel room we rented the day before. An hour beforehand, two police officers arrived, inspected the room, and checked whether the emergency staircase was accessible. Then they asked us not to meet Navalny outside and to go down to the hotel lobby. The car carrying Alexei Navalny, his press secretary Kira Yarmysh, and other security personnel pulled right up to the hotel entrance. As they got out, a police officer outside asked passersby to stop for a few seconds and let them through. In the elevator, Navalny joked with the guards. On the wall, as in other hotels in Berlin, there was a notice saying that because of the coronavirus, only two passengers could ride at a time. “No problem,” the opposition politician joked in his usual style, nodding toward us. “These two came from England — we won’t even count them as people.” Navalny declined to have the interview filmed and asked not to be photographed. “It’s not that I’m flatly refusing, I just don’t want to turn into a talking dog that survived Novichok, and now everyone stares at it,” he says. “What matters to me is saying what I think about what happened, and my political view of it. But that’s how the media works: the more you pose for photos, the more other people want it too.” “It was total lights out” BBC: Think back to the evening in Tomsk before your flight, the next morning, the airport. Did you have even the slightest suspicion? Did anything seem unusual? Any small detail? Alexei Navalny: What was remarkable about that trip was how completely calm it was. Every time I go to Novosibirsk (Navalny and his team first went to Novosibirsk, then to Tomsk — BBC), people throw eggs at me. It’s some kind of fixation for the local authorities. This time too, but they didn’t even hit me once. In Tomsk, as usual, the police stopped us on the road and took down everyone’s details. There was obviously surveillance, but not very noticeable — later they showed me that famous article in Moskovsky Komsomolets, where they published practically a minute-by-minute account of our stay. But everything was super calm, nobody paid us any attention, there was absolutely nothing suspicious. So we were flying back from Tomsk to Moscow very pleased with a successful, productive trip; everything had gone smoothly, and nothing foreshadowed... [laughs] the trouble to come. BBC: And at that small airport, where three planes from Moscow arrive almost at the same time in the morning, with a big crowd of people there — nothing suspicious there either? A.N.: Not even close. Nothing at all. Up until the moment when you’re sitting there thinking, damn, something’s wrong — everything was just perfect. That’s precisely why, in fact, nobody still understands [how it happened]. Maybe it was something to do with food, perhaps the evening before. Or maybe contact exposure. Everything I know about what kind of substance it was, I learned from the press — I have no additional information. I haven’t seen the people conducting the investigation or the forensic examinations (this refers to examinations by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, and a Berlin laboratory, which determined that Navalny had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group — BBC). The only people I discussed it with were doctors. We handed over all the items for examination to doctors in Germany. And from the press I know that it was some kind of, possibly new, modification of this organophosphorus compound from the Novichok group. In other words, an advanced Novichok. But what else it was combined with, how it works — who knows? BBC: Going back to the video from the plane, with the screaming... A.N.: “Navalny screams in pain.” BBC: At the time you said, “I’m dying.” You know, sometimes a person has a panic attack and feels like they’re suffocating. Or they have a heart attack. You say nothing hurt, and yet you said that phrase. A.N.: Because there’s nothing to compare it to. For example, you’ve read a lot about heart attacks, and you can roughly imagine what that feels like. And I don’t have claustrophobia. On the contrary, I actually like curling up in a corner where nobody bothers me, sitting there with a computer so nobody gets in my space, and just staying quiet. So enclosed spaces don’t bother me at all. But this was some kind of thing that, apparently, can’t happen to a person in ordinary life. Well, not apparently — definitely can’t happen in ordinary life, because in all of evolution nature never created anything that, what was it, “inhibits choline...”? Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press secretary: Inhibits cholinesterase. A.N.: I’ve become some kind of expert — “neurobiology for dummies.” In ordinary life, this simply cannot happen to you. It hit me all of a sudden. The first sign was that I broke out in a cold sweat. Nothing hurt, and it wasn’t like a panic attack or anxiety. First something feels off, and then really the only thought is: that’s it, the end. And there is no other thought. You try frantically to analyze yourself. But there’s nothing, nothing hurts. There’s nothing to complain about, really. But it’s clear that that’s it. And I got worse — not in the sense of maybe I’d pass out but make it to Moscow on that plane and they’d give me an injection there. It was total lights out. BBC: And this “something’s wrong” — could you locate it in any part of the body at all? In your head? A.N.: That’s just it — no. Nothing at all except cold sweat running down my forehead. Probably the only thing you can [call it] is that you lose concentration. That’s how it works. Novichok simply overloads the nervous system, and at some point you can’t focus. But you’re not like a drunk person. I come out of the [plane] bathroom, I know where right is, I know where left is, I know where the flight attendant is standing, I know where my seat is. But something is wrong, and it’s the end. [That feeling] doesn’t break down into parts. In short, chemical weapons should be banned. I’ve thought a lot about this, and first, they’re banned for a reason, and second, all this chemical crap is completely useless. You can’t protect anyone with it. Encountering it brings you a horrible death. Or a horrible near-death. “Hallucinations suck — they’re not funny at all” BBC: So you don’t remember the plane landing in Omsk? A.N.: No, I remember when I blacked out. And when Kira arrived [in Berlin], she told me that [on the plane] the pilot announced: are there any medics on board? No doctor turned up. Ilya, my assistant, went through the rows and found a female paramedic. At one point, when I stopped breathing, she shouted across the whole plane: “I don’t want to take responsibility for this!” But a minute later I started spitting up water and breathing again. The last thing I remember is someone on the plane saying to me: “Sir, don’t lose consciousness.” And after that, the next thing I remember is Charité. BBC: Between those two moments, were you aware of anything? You were in the Omsk hospital, they put you into a coma, you flew for many hours on a plane — do you have any memories from that period? A.N.: Nothing at all. I missed all the dramatic events when you were discussing Yulia [Navalnaya]’s heroic struggle, and everyone else’s, to get me evacuated. Then there were several stages of waking up — and that was the most hellish period. I gradually came to, and for quite a long time I had hallucinations: someone — doctors, Yulia, and [chief of staff Leonid] Volkov — “told” me that I’d been in an accident, that I had no legs, that a surgeon was making me new legs and a new back. Then I was “told” that I was in a hospital at the embassy. And it all felt absolutely real. More real than you do right now. Then it gradually started to change, and God knows at what point the real Yulia came in and when it was fake Yulia, when it was the real Volkov or fake Volkov. And it was layered nonsense too: I’d be lying there without legs, doctors treating me, then night would fall, and at night there were agonizing hallucinations, then I’d wake up again, and daytime would come, and once again I’d be lying there without legs. It was a tangled mess. So coma sucks. Coma looks nothing like it does in books. I was on drugs the whole time. At first they gave me three kinds of narcotics, then two, then one, then they gradually started reducing them, and after that I was still taking some pills for a long time that made me very, very calm. And I genuinely don’t remember the moment when I became self-aware again. And I find it hard to say what was real and what wasn’t. Because there was so much of it. Hallucinations suck — they’re not funny or entertaining at all. BBC: As of now, are you already... A.N.: Look, even my hands aren’t shaking. BBC: What has recovered, and what hasn’t? A.N.: I’m much, much better. Sometimes I kind of freeze up. I walk twice a day, and in the park I felt a bit unwell — someone even had to run and get me some water. I can walk quite a long time. The hardest part of a walk for me is getting into a car and getting out of a car. But I’m much better. The main problem is still sleep. I’ve forgotten how to sleep. And it’s very hard for me to sleep without sleeping pills. I never had problems like that before. There are small-movement issues, motor skills, hand tremors — it’s not very predictable. Sometimes they really shake, and sometimes if I concentrate, it’s fine. I’m constantly having tests done, constantly being checked, they give me cognitive tests, and the physical side is recovering fairly quickly. As for my head — who knows. Some things are hard to do. Mental arithmetic has become harder. I thought that if I’d spent 24 days in intensive care, then another 24 days and I’d be back to normal. Nothing of the sort. There are lots of things you simply forget how to do — like throwing a ball with your left hand. I can catch it, I can throw it too, but it’s a strange, awkward movement, more like shot put than throwing a ball. I don’t feel the slightest pain. It just doesn’t work, that’s all. And some small strange movements just don’t happen. But all that is complete nonsense. Sure, I complain about it, and I whine to everyone that I can’t sleep, for example. But damn, I remember when I couldn’t speak, even though I already understood who was around me — compared to that, everything else is nothing. Back then I could only move my lips. A nurse says to me: do you want to say something? And she, like Darth Vader in Star Wars, with a hiss switched a whole bunch of tubes, then I felt this whoosh — oxygen was coming in — and I could start speaking. Technically I could make sounds. But if someone asked me something like: are you Alexei Navalny? I nod. Do you understand that you’re in Berlin? I nod. But if they said: say something. And I’d go: “achyupyaloptaloitoltaaaabuaaaa.” But what was I supposed to say? There were no words. It was all awful. Then they told me: if you can’t say it, write it. And I needed to write, for example, “Andrei.” And I understand that I need to write “A,” but I write “M,” damn it. And I write vertically. I understand that I’m supposed to write in a line, but it writes itself vertically. And you’re furious, you just want to throw the thing somewhere, but you don’t even have the strength to throw it. Rehabilitation will still take some time. I spent quite a while at the computer, and in the park I was already sitting on the grass and people were bringing me water. The doctors are very surprised by the speed of my recovery, but they say: slow down. But I’m very happy that I can answer questions. BBC: The physical side is clear, but are there any psychological consequences? A.N.: If you make me angry right now, you know how my hands will start shaking. When I get angry, they start trembling like this... [demonstrates]. There was a period when I was like those crazy people I used to laugh at: night falls, and I feel genuinely uncomfortable. Because of all those memories of intensive care, the beeping machines. And I’d think: now I’m going to suffer again. And I don’t want to be alone. But it seems to have passed. I thought: my God, have I really become one of those typical neurotic types who suffers and torments himself and has to see a therapist? But apparently not. I wasn’t afraid of anything; I wasn’t afraid that I’d open my eyes and there’d be a man standing by my bed with burning eyes and Novichok. But I really did hate it when everyone left, and I was alone in the room, and it was night. Otherwise — who knows. Am I afraid to drink from your cup? I’m not — see, I drank from it. Hard to say, too little time has passed. I hope there won’t be any consequences connected with that. I don’t want to turn into someone who comes back from the army and spends the next five years talking about nothing but what happened to him in the army — or in prison. In fact, even in our small circle we’ve put a moratorium on me talking about my health or the poisoning, so I don’t discuss it endlessly. BBC: How did Yulia and the children help you recover? A.N.: Of course it was good that they were nearby, that they came even when I was still in intensive care [and couldn’t respond]. With the children there was a long saga — they had to get all the tests done before they were allowed in to see me. Once I was taken off the medication, we could already talk. “They’re asking for Navalny’s blood — but somehow from Angela Merkel” BBC: Is there any investigation into your poisoning under way in Germany? A.N.: No. Germany can’t do that — it has no jurisdiction. I’m a Russian citizen who was nearly killed in Omsk, in Siberia. My only dealings with officials in Germany have been the police coming and saying: “You know what, let us protect you.” I have no illusions: they’re not protecting me, they’re protecting the people around me. I understand that people here would be very unhappy if some idiot decided to use chemical weapons in Berlin. As for the rest, the doctors, trying to understand how to treat me, sent all the things we shoved at them to an army laboratory, which is what found the OPCs (organophosphorus compounds — BBC). Now it has simply been passed on to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which does not investigate attempted murder. They are interested only in whether it was Novichok. There is no investigation — neither in Russia nor in Germany. BBC: Will you consent to your medical data being handed over to Russia? A.N.: Let’s not use the word “Russia,” because I am Russia, and everyone else is Russia. Maria Zakharova, Putin, and Dr. Myasnikov are not Russia at all — they’re just a gang of occupiers. And every time they use a very simple strategy: they start putting forward a million different versions — diabetes, too much alcohol. Once I had come round, everyone kept joking with me about some place called Kaftanchikovo. I said: what Kaftanchikovo? What is Kaftanchikovo? It turns out it’s some settlement where I went swimming, and on the first day there was a version that I’d drunk too much moonshine in Kaftanchikovo. I didn’t even know such a place existed. The best defense is attack, and now for some reason they’ve started saying they need Navalny’s blood — except they’re not asking me for it, they’re somehow asking Angela Merkel. My position is very simple: there is a sea of my fresh, premium blood in Omsk — a bucket of it. My clothes are there, all the medical records are there — which, incidentally, I don’t have and can’t obtain. And to this day, as a Russian citizen with full rights, I still don’t understand either why there is no criminal case or where all those items are. So I want any conversation to begin with a criminal case being opened under the article on the attempted murder of a political figure — which is what I consider myself to be, no matter how hard anyone tries to say otherwise. And within the framework of an opened criminal case, then we can talk about something. Again — on what basis are they asking? They say there is no criminal case, no poisoning, the preliminary inquiry is over. So what is all this for? I’m not interested in this strange and obviously political process. They keep talking about the “politicization of the Navalny case,” but it is Russian officials who are politicizing the Navalny case. Why the hell do they need Germany at all? There’s Omsk, there’s Tomsk, my lawyers are there, my blood is there, there are hotel surveillance videos — where are they? I very much want to see the hotel surveillance footage. That hotel was covered in cameras. Let’s look at mobile phone data and see who came there. Solving this crime from the point of view of ordinary police work is, frankly, no great feat. On September 18 they refused to open a criminal case while I was still in intensive care. So if there’s already a refusal order regarding the hospitalization, why are they asking the German government for my blood? All I see so far is some kind of cover-up operation and a strange dialogue between Putin and, for some reason, the European Union and Angela Merkel. BBC: What about the CIA agents Dmitry Peskov talked about, the ones supposedly working closely on your image? A.N.: The only interaction I’ve had with people in black glasses and earpieces was when experts from the Swedish and French laboratories came. They have this special thing called chain of custody (the protocol for handling evidence — BBC). They came and got Yulia’s permission to take my blood and other samples. These special people watched to make sure the nurse was drawing blood from me specifically. Some were responsible for ensuring that this exact blood went to the independent French laboratory, others that it went to the Swedish one. Maybe there were others too, but I don’t remember — I was in a coma. Unless they came then and used hypnosis to suggest that I should separate Khabarovsk Region from Russia. The only people working with me are physiotherapists. One of them throws me a tennis ball, and he looks nothing like a CIA officer. “They’d be more than happy with one more political exile” BBC: Back when you were still in a coma, Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter: when this is over, you’re coming back, there are simply no other options. Has that position changed now? A.N.: One hundred percent. BBC: It wasn’t just anyone talking about CIA agents, it was the president’s press secretary; the speaker of the State Duma used direct insults against you. Omsk doctors complain about disrespect toward them and insist there was no Novichok. And there have been many other statements with the same general meaning. Doesn’t all this sound like a warning: Alexei, don’t come back — it’ll get worse, anything could happen? A.N.: That’s exactly how I understand it. They tried to kill me, they failed, but now they have an even more interesting task before them. They’ve long been trying to force me out of the country. They’d be more than happy with one more political exile. So that afterward they can say: from Vienna he’s going to teach us how to live, or from London. I understand that very well, and it’s their deliberate strategy. What’s more, I won’t be surprised if the only defendants in a criminal case over the poisoning turn out to be me or ACF employees. And there will definitely be searches at ACF. I don’t doubt it for a second. BBC: The phrase “high treason” has been used by Minchenko, a political analyst close to the Kremlin. (Yevgeny Minchenko suggested that Navalny could face prison in Russia for high treason.) A.N.: Excellent. Someone tried to kill me somewhere, I fell into a coma, I came out of it — and by doing so I committed high treason? Wonderful. Let them shift blame from the sick head to the healthy one. Of course, I need to recover fully, and then I will return. BBC: You violated a travel restriction in the slander case involving a war veteran — or rather, your body violated it by flying to Germany. How do you even formulate that correctly in legal terms? A.N.: First, while my body was in full possession of its mind and in good health, it informed the investigator that there could be no travel restriction. It was illegal. Even in the fabricated slander case, the punishment could only be a fine or community service. House arrest can’t be used there, nor can my freedom be restricted in any way. So I said I did not recognize that restriction and would not comply with it. And then it so happened that even in an unconscious state I also refused to comply with it. It’s complete nonsense, and I don’t give a damn about it, just as I don’t give a damn about that criminal case. They tried to kill me because none of their other methods worked. There were travel restrictions, administrative arrests, criminal cases. I already owe $1 million together with [Lyubov] Sobol, and with ACF — $3 million. BBC: That was actually our next question: how will you come back if your apartments and bank accounts have been frozen? **A.N.: **The apartment wasn’t. The accounts were frozen before I was poisoned. So what? It’s not the first time. BBC: Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., though we can’t say this with certainty, was poisoned. He kept traveling to Russia and was poisoned a second time. A.N.: Let me rephrase your question: don’t I think they’ll finish me off? If a month and a half ago someone had told me about Novichok, I would have, to put it mildly, not believed it — it sounds like total insanity. Now it’s obvious that Putin and his regime have undergone a transformation; this is some new stage of degradation. An Alien hatched out of a disgusting egg and started snapping its jaws. I don’t know what they may be capable of, it’s impossible to predict. Putin is becoming more and more like Lukashenko, and in Belarus people started disappearing many years ago. Different things can happen. But I don’t control that, and if I don’t, what’s the point of thinking about it? BBC: Your family has shown in recent days that it is a center of strength. Aren’t you afraid they’re now under threat too, and your associates as well? A.N.: Everyone who meets with me is under threat. You are too now! Actually, that’s the most unpleasant thought. But everyone involved in politics in Russia, everyone who speaks out against what is happening, is under threat. They speak out against journalists setting themselves on fire in front of a police building in Nizhny Novgorod. That story completely knocked me off balance. All these people are in danger one way or another, and unfortunately their families are too. But even worse would be to abandon all this, because if the people in power have already gone mad and are carrying out demonstrative killings using methods like chemical weapons, then things are really very bad. Before, [those in power] were simply financial and moral bankrupts who had long since become incapable of leading the country into the future and incapable of doing anything to make our lives better. They just enjoy terrifying everyone, traumatizing everyone. That is what a method like poisoning is used for. Such people must be removed. And each of us has to make a small contribution to that. Is it dangerous? Apparently yes, it is dangerous. But there is no other way; ignoring it is even more dangerous. BBC: All right, but have you considered the possibility that at least your family could stay abroad for a while? I can’t imagine the responsibility if something happened to them. A.N.: We’re considering moving into the BBC newsroom! I don’t know how events will develop, and I’m not taking any risks. I have my cause, and I have my country. BBC: You hate the people in power. Perhaps one day you yourself could end up in the Kremlin. Won’t you be tempted, for example, to deal with three people according to the law, but with a fourth according to informal rules if the law doesn’t work? Or say you spend 12 years, two terms, building the beautiful Russia of the future and then decide that you’re just three years short, so let’s tweak the constitution one more time — but never again. A.N.: I won’t be able to build the beautiful Russia of the future for 12 years, because all the constitutional amendments introduced recently will be repealed, and we will return to four-year presidential terms. And we will write it in such a way that once and for all, under no circumstances, will anyone be able to remain president for more than eight years. That is why the main thing a new leader of Russia must do — whether it’s me or someone else; we should demand this of anyone — is first of all to make such changes to the law that they will not allow him to fiddle with the media, jail someone, pressure the courts, or call the head of the GRU and say: remember how on August 20, 2020, you used “cocktail number 9”? Couldn’t you use it one more time, because that BBC journalist Kozenko has started getting a bit too cheeky. Let someone go and send him my regards. We need an independent judiciary, a free press, and fair elections. The law must specify that election fraud is one of the grave crimes against the state. In a system with free media, competitive politics, and independent courts — even if I go bad and break down — I will not be able to stay in power. We cannot and must not rely on the idea that if our president is a good person, he will be able to suppress the temptation to usurp power. Will I suppress my own personal temptation? Right now it seems to me that yes, I would — but all of human experience shows that no one has managed to do that. If you sit in power for 15 years, you will not be able to resist ruling longer. Therefore no one should govern the state for 15 years on the assumption that people still think he’s a great guy. Many of those now in power can be held accountable once they are former officials. Some for illicit enrichment; others must answer under the law for crimes they have already committed. Propagandists, big and small, will run their Telegram channels and even work in the media — depending on whether society embraces the idea of lustration or not. They’ll become opposition figures. “All the facts clearly point to Putin” BBC: In your interview with Der Spiegel, you named Putin personally as the one responsible for the poisoning. Suppose you come before an independent court and they say: list, point by point, Alexei, what makes you think that. A.N.: By the time I appear before a wonderful independent court, the case should already have been investigated and preventive measures taken against the participants in the crime. They can be no one other than a special group of killers capable of using this Novichok. If you gave it to someone like you and said: go kill someone — they wouldn’t kill anyone, only themselves. Even a professional chemist would kill himself. Right now I have my own analytical judgment, based on the fact that a) this is an inaccessible substance, possession of which alone violates all international norms; b) such a substance can only be in the hands of the special services, whose chiefs report directly to Putin. Everything we have learned over the past 20 years about how this country works tells us that these special services can easily kill anyone, but for a killing to happen, Putin’s direct authorization is required. Next. It is obvious that the entire Omsk cover-up operation was sanctioned at the highest level; otherwise [Mikhail] Murashko would not personally have sent a group of specialists there. Why on earth would the health minister create a commission and send it to Omsk? Why on earth would doctors refuse to release a patient for whom a plane had already arrived and write that he was “not transportable,” when modern medicine does not recognize any such thing as a “non-transportable patient”? Any specialized aircraft is better equipped than many hospitals. Certainly better than that Omsk hospital. And finally, Putin — his statements that I poisoned myself, that I cooked up Novichok myself. All these facts clearly point to him. I’m not afraid and I’m not going to say: well, I think this was done with the sanction of the country’s top leadership, we need to look into it... No one but Putin could have given the order to [FSB chief Alexander] Bortnikov, [SVR chief Sergei] Naryshkin and... who is it that heads the GRU... (that agency is headed by Igor Kostyukov — BBC). That is what should be investigated. BBC: But those same people said your poisoning was not in Russia’s interests. More generally — this is a personal impression — there was a sense that the Kremlin was actually protecting you from truly serious incidents. You were released immediately despite the real prison sentence in the Kirovles case. You were promptly issued a passport and able to fly to Spain after green antiseptic dye was thrown in your face and there was a risk you could go blind. A.N.: There is no conspiracy-theory answer to that question. From the inside, it all looks completely different from the way you describe it. For the past two years, we’ve been under unprecedented pressure. Criminal cases have been opened against everyone. They pressure us in every way they can, but we still operate effectively under these conditions. The political situation has changed dramatically: Minsk, Khabarovsk. Putin is personally involved in these stories and sees in the numbers that his ratings are falling while mine are rising. And other opposition politicians’ ratings are rising too. They see that the most popular politician in Khabarovsk Region is [former governor Sergei] Furgal. And the second most popular is me (Navalny’s team reached this conclusion after conducting its own sociological survey, the results of which were not made public; the BBC cannot verify this claim). And the most hated figures in the region are Putin and [presidential envoy to the Far East Yury] Trutnev. That changes attitudes toward everything. Let’s remember Kirovles. I’ll say it again, and this is not false modesty: they let me go because people came out into the streets. [In the presidential administration] they monitor social media, and if they see that a verdict has been handed down and ten thousand people have written on Facebook, “This is insane! We’re going to Manezhnaya Square,” they easily understand that by evening there will be a hundred-thousand-strong unauthorized protest rally. They’re cunning; they don’t want to boost my ratings, they don’t want sympathy for me. When someone at some level overdid it and threw green dye in my face, it became clear that now I’d either lose an eye or have a scarred eye, and everyone would pity me and sympathize. I’d become an example of the lawlessness they are capable of. I wouldn’t want to become popular at the cost of losing an eye, but they understand that too, and that’s why they gave me a passport. They had been illegally refusing to issue it to me anyway — it’s nonsense that suspended convicts can’t travel abroad. They can and do; it’s just that in Russia they’re denied foreign passports. There’s no actual ban. That’s why I got mine. Now, however, the fury of all these people has led to a radicalization of their positions: as in, we don’t want to kill him, but we have to do something with him. And Tomsk is a major city, Novosibirsk is the country’s third largest, and we hurt them badly there with “Smart Voting.” If you think Putin does nothing but sit around thinking about Trump — no, that’s not true. He thinks: I can’t lose in Novosibirsk and Tomsk against the backdrop of what’s happening in Khabarovsk. Otherwise, city by city, I’ll lose the State Duma elections. Or their results will have to be falsified on such a scale that it’s unclear what the consequences will be. That is what caused all this. These are just idle bench-side speculations: that they in the Kremlin are watching him, and at certain crisis moments I crawl along like an ant, and they put a blade of grass in front of me at just the right moment so I can climb over and keep going. Nothing of the kind. Within, and now even beyond, all legal instruments, they squeeze us as hard as they can. The attacks and everything else. It used to be: well, at least they’re not killing us. Now they’ve gone there too. BBC: You’ve said that personal sanctions against these people are the most effective measure the West can take. If someone gave you a sheet of paper and a pen and said: write down the names — what would you write? A.N.: Go to YouTube, type in “Alexei Navalny,” and take all the figures from our investigations, their close associates and relatives. This sanctions list should not consist of forty names; there’s no point adding someone with the description “police officer involved in violence.” Some Chepiga and the other one — Mishkin, whatever his name is... Sure, they siphoned off a billion rubles to create this Novichok, built themselves a huge brick dacha outside Moscow with that money, but most people like that don’t have Swiss bank accounts. This list should include Putin’s elite in the broadest sense of the word. The people sitting in the Kremlin, the oligarchs, all these Shuvalov, Usmanov, Abramovich, Deripaska. BBC: And what about a list of people involved in the poisoning itself? A.N.: You have to separate the two. The attempted murder of me should be dealt with strictly under the criminal code. These people need to be found and held criminally accountable — in an ideal system. At the same time, we must put pressure on the scoundrels who have seized power and who stand behind this crime. How can Europe help? By not letting them and their money in here. They need to be thrown out. BBC: Here are the scales. On one side, eight years in which, if elected, you would build the beautiful Russia of the future. On the other, mounting pressure — and they are already willing to kill. Doesn’t it feel as if that side is already heavily outweighing the other? Maybe it’s time simply to stop? A.N.: There are no scales. It’s a nice line of reasoning: here are the scales, and here is a spherical horse in a vacuum. That comparison is suitable for political science, but I’m not a political scientist; I do what I think is necessary. Who could have predicted Novichok? How do you factor that in? Some people say they have inside information — in 99% of cases they’re lying, there is no inside information. There is Putin, there is something in his head, and he gives orders. I can’t sit there guessing: what will happen if I do this, will the scales balance or not? I’d just go mad, I wouldn’t be able to work properly. I decided long ago that I don’t look for insider information, I don’t do this kind of analysis, I don’t believe in Kremlin “towers” (the idea of rival factions within the Kremlin), and I don’t believe that any political analyst has real knowledge. Over twenty years we’ve seen that all political forecasters are complete, pardon my French, bullshit. My main job is the Anti-Corruption Foundation; we do investigations. In addition to that, we try to register our party; where we can, we take part in elections; if necessary, we organize rallies. We use every method of political struggle to save our country, forgive the pathos. I don’t sit there like an alchemist: let’s sprinkle in a little courage here, a little “Smart Voting” there, and a bit of Novichok over here — and see which side weighs more. BBC: Do you already know when you’ll return to Russia? A.N.: Hard to say. I still need to undergo a series of tests on nervous system activity; the procedures are continuing. I wouldn’t venture a prediction right now. BBC: Your associates in Russia are under exactly the same pressure as you are. But while Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron talk about you, regional coordinators in Russia can hardly say the same. A.N.: That’s actually an important question. You’re a celebrity, they even pay for your plane. But when a regional activist stands up to a local oligarch or governor, he is exposed to perhaps even greater danger. That takes even more courage than what I need. We protect ourselves; we’ve created a network of headquarters. We have enough media capacity to protect a person, even if they’re not necessarily an employee of one of our offices. BBC: Still: are you sincerely underestimating the risks of returning? Or are you consciously accepting them? And who would even lead ACF if you suddenly were no longer free? A.N.: There is certainly a danger that I could be isolated. In fact, that has happened to me many times already. Right now there was no contact with me for about a month, even through lawyers! But during my absence, three investigations came out, and in one of them — the best one, about Kazan — I managed to take minimal part. ACF works, everyone knows their job. My elimination would change nothing. There would just be no one on air to say: “Hi, this is Navalny.”