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Well, yes,
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hello, everyone.
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You were probably watching for a while.
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I was just standing here.
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Good evening, everyone.
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In Moscow, it's Thursday, 8:32 p.m.
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I'm 32 minutes late going on air.
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But I did go live nonetheless, though you can't exactly say I'm in the Navalny LIVE studio
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— I'm just in the hallway of the office. Alexei Navalny, or the man various Kremlin media outlets said wanted to ruin
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summer for Muscovites, as various Kremlin media called me.
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I wanted to say this was my most dramatic live appearance, but
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probably not, because once I went on air
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— if you remember — with my face smeared with brilliant green antiseptic and even wearing an eye patch.
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And now, the only exotic thing I can show you is a first-rate ice axe,
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which I picked up while the police officers weren't watching it.
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The thing is this.
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The thing is,
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that right now the FBK office and the Navalny LIVE office are being searched,
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They're conducting searches.
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Basically, it's a raid.
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And right now we're standing near the office,
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with three police officers, special unit guys.
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It's not really clear who exactly they belong to,
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but overall it's all very civil — this absurd office life.
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Some people are going to the bathroom,
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and right next to them everyone's being guarded.
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In the Navalny LIVE office right now
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there's just a huge mob of people
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and, apparently, they're seizing all the equipment.
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It's completely obvious that everything
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that's happening is connected to — and this is the funny part...
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in the background
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you can see this funny little scene of everyday routine life.
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NAVALNY LIVE and the Anti-Corruption Foundation, where at the same time
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there's this whole masked-police show going on.
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And people are carrying drywall.
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It's completely obvious that what's happening
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is connected to Smart Voting, which is supposed to happen.
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I hope — I'm sure — it will happen this coming Sunday during the elections,
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when people can come out and vote against United Russia.
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United Russia is afraid of this, which is why they blocked it
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and tried to block it.
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They delayed my show by half an hour.
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They really wanted to get hold of certain servers, hoping that if they seized
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those servers, our Smart Voting system wouldn't work.
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I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep this broadcast going just from my phone,
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but in any case, I urge all of you
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to come to the polls on Sunday and vote, because
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we simply must not let them beat us like this.
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Right now,
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here are employees from neighboring offices.
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Hi girls, how are you?
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Thank you very much.
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Take part in Smart Voting.
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So how did I end up in this hallway in the first place?
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It's a pretty funny story.
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The FBK office is here, and the Navalny LIVE office is 50 meters away.
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I was already on my way to the show, and as I passed the elevator, I saw
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a huge number of masked people just pouring out,
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with these ridiculous ice axes, and of course my first thought was,
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Damn, are we really going to have to
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raise money again for computers, equipment, and everything else?
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Actually,
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it was pretty funny how, for some reason, the police and investigators...
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They all just pretended nothing was happening and simply didn't notice me.
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Nobody paid any attention to me.
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They immediately ran to the Navalny LIVE office and after a while cut through the door,
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detained people, and started paralyzing the work online.
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They put up these very funny — really funny — strips, there's this technique with adhesive tape,
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like sticking on tape.
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So they can film you from the inside.
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Basically, they seized everything just so I couldn't do this broadcast.
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And at the Anti-Corruption Foundation
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only our lawyers are left here now — our battle-hardened people.
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They say there are no civilians in the office.
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Like, great, come here, we'll open the office,
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we don't even want you sawing anything open — there'll be more of that somewhere else.
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We're at the point where
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we don't even bother fixing it, because they break it open once a week.
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Huh? We can try to go over there.
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Besides, our internet connection is routed internationally.
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If it tries to switch, it'll probably cut out.
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Then unfortunately, I can't... the door right now.
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NAVALNY LIVE — where everything is much more lively and interesting.
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But they're not letting me in there either, that's that.
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And who are you supposed to be now?
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And what does this have to do with the process at all?
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You, immediately.
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And, in fact, they're not even hiding that everything has to be banned:
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photos, equipment, video equipment, data storage devices.
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All of that.
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When you say to the police officers — not the investigator in charge of
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these actions, but to an ordinary cop, half of whom I already know —
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you're doing this even though a week ago you already seized all the computers,
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they just shrug and laugh, like, well, stupid orders from the bosses.
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You and I both just want to go home.
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But what is this really about?
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What I wanted to start my show with, if I had been starting it in the studio,
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is probably even more relevant now.
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I just want to remind you once again
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that you — the people watching this show —
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are an absolutely enormous force when it comes to the elections
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that will take place in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and everywhere else.
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To knock out United Russia, we only need half a million people.
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That is, the viewers of this program, if
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all the numbers work out,
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if each of you brings just one
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or two more people to the polls, United Russia will lose all
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its seats in Moscow — or at the very least, lose a significant number of them.
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That doesn't mean the Putin regime will collapse tomorrow, but it does mean
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that in Moscow, at least,
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they will lose their political base — and they must lose it.
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Today we saw some absolutely monstrous continuation — rather, monstrous consequences —
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of these prison terms, when Konstantin was given
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four years in prison for four pickets he took part in.
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And all the pickets he took part in
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were part of his own case, his personal Setevizor case.
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And the march in defense of Gorbunov, which I attended, and for which
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you arrested me there — it was an absolutely
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human-rights march, and he was just walking along somewhere with little signs.
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You can watch it on the TV Rain website.
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There's video footage of a man
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coming out of the metro, carrying a folded sign and glasses, and the police grab him.
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And for three or four episodes like that, he was given four years in prison today.
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This is a real crime, plain and simple.
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And that's exactly how we should treat it.
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You know, these are murderers.
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A murderer killed someone and ran away.
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And we still can't find him, but sooner or later we will
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find him and put him behind bars for this murder.
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And this is how we should treat all those people who jail the innocent.
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Yes, they imprisoned people, they committed a crime, but sooner or later
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we will catch them. Sooner or later they will face their punishment.
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We must act consistently, right now.
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There is an opportunity in the political arena
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to do different things: go out to rallies, spread information widely.
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Right now there is also the electoral track, and that electoral track is relevant
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in the context of the elections.
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We must inflict on them
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some damage, take away a certain number of their seats.
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Let's make sure we do that.
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Kirill is giving me alarmed looks right now and saying that her
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phone battery is dying.
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So I apologize—what is this?
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I've got a short clip; I'll try.
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If any of the equipment survives at all.
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Maybe NAVALNY Live will be able to go on with its normal livestream tomorrow.
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So it's been moved from Thursday to Friday.
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But in any case, I'm very glad that I
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at least by these makeshift means
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managed to do some kind of broadcast and it didn't get cut off.
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And huge thanks to everyone who watched and waited.
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I think, actually, this is going to drag on for quite a while.
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But you know what a search is, right?
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They'll come here now and start confiscating all this stuff,
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while the lawyers argue with everyone.
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But with NAVALNY Live, they know—they're planning to seize absolutely everything.
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So yes, they'll leave this office only, I don't know, maybe in three hours.
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So all of this will take a very long time, and everyone will be very on edge.
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This is, of course, completely illegal.
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And of course, sorry, we will be asking for your support again
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and raising money to buy some new equipment.
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They can confiscate it, and we'll still keep going on the air.
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But just to wrap up, I'll repeat once again,
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that on Sunday you can do something
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that they cannot prevent: come and vote
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against the United Russia candidate, take part in the voting so that
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together we all vote against United Russia.
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And then
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we will get revenge for many things.
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This will be only our first step.
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Thank you very much to everyone who was here, who watched.
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See you either next Thursday or
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this coming Friday. And.