Program "Chronic Today: The Pre-Election Obstacle Course" from December 11, 2023

Hello! Alexei Solomin here in the studio. And today our guest is Alexei Navalny, politician and presidential candidate not registered by the Central Election Commission.

Good evening!

Does announcing this action, or a voters’ strike, mean that you are ending your attempts to get registered?

We are proceeding from the assumption that the Kremlin has made its final decision. Of course, we will take every legal step. We will appeal in court. We also, of course, do not rule out the possibility that the Kremlin, as part of some cunning, Jesuitical strategy of its own, could register me two weeks before the election and say: “All right then, go ahead and run your campaign.” We are prepared for that too, but that is still something exotic. It’s on the political periphery. Judging by how the election commission behaved, by how uncompromisingly they said all these completely illegal and absurd things, we understand that the Kremlin has decided to make this campaign entirely non-competitive. It is afraid of me because it is afraid that I would have the support of the majority of voters, and that is why we have declared a strike and will now make all these strike-related actions our first priority.

So there will be a court appeal in parallel. But there will not be an attempt to put forward, say, some alternative candidate on your behalf?

We are engaged in real politics and real elections. Real elections mean that a candidate runs… I ran an honest campaign for a year. I believe I received broad support. I repeat: I believe I can rely on the majority of voters, because I traveled all over the country. I really believe we could have won this election, and we are not interested in playing games with substitute candidates or technological tricks.

Why not?

Because it is pointless. Well, because this is politics, this is elections. Elections should have a real candidate. Why do I consider all the other candidates fake, even without getting into the details of their programs or beliefs? Because they did not fight for voters’ support. That is the only way to win. In general, it only makes sense to run in an election if you are going to fight for votes. I fought for those votes, and I am still fighting for them. And I can see that, by and large, I am doing it alone. The others are mostly doing nothing. Replacing candidates or doing something else like that is not politics. It is an attempt to outsmart the Kremlin on a field where it controls absolutely everything — and that makes no sense whatsoever.

Throughout your political career, you have tried to outsmart the Kremlin and chosen different strategies to do so: sometimes backing another candidate, sometimes calling for a full boycott. Now you are focusing on a boycott. Meanwhile, some experts — Andrei Movchan, for example, I was preparing — ask you: why not put forward your wife? Everyone would understand that those would be votes for Alexei Navalny. It would be neither deception nor a secret to anyone.

First of all, if you want to read real experts, then you should read actual experts. Read what Grigory Golosov writes. Real, genuine political scientists who can speak as political scientists. In politics, as we know, everyone is an expert, so anyone can offer some useful advice. But here is the thing: you are completely wrong when you say that throughout my political activity I have been trying to outsmart the Kremlin by using different strategies. We use different strategies because the Kremlin develops mechanisms to counter our strategies. In 2011, I urged everyone to vote for any party against United Russia. For the next six years, the Kremlin primarily built a defense mechanism against that strategy. They have now arranged things so that you simply cannot vote for another candidate against Putin — in any case, you will be voting for Putin. Because they have put forward completely fake candidates who do nothing. So everything I have done is not trickery; it is, if you like, grounded in a moral position. We do what a decent person is supposed to do. But we change strategy based on what the Kremlin has come up with. As for nominating Yulia or someone else, that too is, you know… political technology. We nominate Yulia — they don’t register her. I nominate Dasha Navalnaya — they won’t register her either. I nominate 10-year-old Zakhar Navalny — they will open criminal cases against him too and bar him. Then I nominate Alexei Solomin from Echo of Moscow, and then even Alexei Venediktov, who comes next — they won’t register them either. It is a pointless race.

And what makes you think they would not register Yulia Navalnaya, who has no criminal conviction? Fair or unfair, justified or unjustified — that is beside the point. She does not have that extra blemish.

We call it a voters’ strike, not a boycott.

Tens of millions of people in our country have no criminal conviction, thank God, and I hope they never will. But either you run a real election campaign, or you engage in nonsense. Going through candidates, changing things situationally — that is nonsense. I insist that this government can be defeated in elections honestly, by running a normal campaign. I saw it with my own eyes. When you are not fooling around, but come to any city and, as one should in an election campaign, first post a video: “Guys, come to the meeting.” People come to the meeting, you talk to them, you persuade them. You gain support. And that is voters’ support. You earn it, and with it you can win. But all these kinds of constructions… well, they exist on Facebook, in some people’s heads. They have nothing to do with reality. My headquarters and I, and I am sure all those tens of thousands of volunteers who support this campaign, joined it because it was honest politics without any cheating or manipulation. I am not going to leave that line of honest politics for some schemes and shady setups.

May I ask: did you and Yulia discuss even the possibility of this, did you have conversations about it between yourselves?

Different people write about it, so Yulia and I read about it in the news. There is no escaping it. We love Echo of Moscow, we read it, we laugh, and we think: what a great radio station, what nonsense they say on air!

And your wife also thinks this option is nonsense?

Naturally, my wife thinks it is nonsense, because she is not only my wife, she is also a citizen of Russia and a person who also supports this election campaign — a normal, honest election campaign, for which replacing candidates and strange maneuvers are simply unacceptable.

But for many people this looks like a kind of egocentrism. In reality, not a struggle for an honest way to win an election, but the exclusion of any option other than your own candidacy.

That is not true, of course. I am sure that for a sharp question, that is normal, that is fine. But my answer to your sharp question is that this is an invented construct. Many people think a presidential election is about choosing a specific person who says, “I want to be president, support me.” Well, that is exactly what I said more than a year ago, and with that idea I traveled around the country, published a program, fought for votes. That is what a presidential campaign is. It is about one person around whom many unite, and one person represents the interests of those many.

Will there be an appeal to the Constitutional Court over the conviction that is preventing you from running?

Of course. The law is entirely on our side. And I was very disappointed that the Central Election Commission simply lied to everyone, saying that the Constitutional Court had already considered this issue. It had not. The Constitutional Court considered this article on barring convicted persons in relation to State Duma elections, which are governed by a completely different law. Presidential elections are governed by a special law. We will, of course, appeal to the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, everywhere — but let’s not deceive ourselves: we understand that it will end in nothing. We will do it simply to show ourselves and everyone else once again that we are conducting an honest campaign. If we understand that we are right, we will go to court even if defeat is guaranteed in advance.

And on what timeline will that happen? Before or after the election?

Of course before the election, naturally.

You have scheduled a major protest action for the 28th called the “Voters’ Strike.” Am I right in understanding that this is not a one-off action, but an entire process — a voters’ strike?

We love Echo, we laugh and think: what a great radio station, what silly things they say!

The voters’ strike is an entire process; that is precisely why we call it a voters’ strike and not a boycott. We intend to make this voters’ strike a more important and significant political process than the election itself. These are not elections. They are a reappointment, where, essentially, no one is doing anything. You saw it: Putin did not even show up for his own nomination. The other candidates are also somewhere out there; no one even knows where. We will use the huge nationwide network structure we have created to persuade Russian citizens not to go to the polls, to boycott them actively, to make sure as few people as possible go, and to monitor every polling station to see how many people actually came, so as not to let the authorities falsify turnout. That is exactly what they are planning to do, because, from what we can see, turnout is their only concern. They understand that victory is already in their pocket — “victory” in quotation marks. Turnout is the only thing they care about.

We are going to take a short break now. Alexei Navalny is in the Echo of Moscow studio. This is the program Special Opinion. I’m your host today, Alexei Solomin. Don’t go away, we’ll be back in two minutes. ADVERTISEMENT

Alexei Solomin back in the studio. We continue the program. Our guest is politician Alexei Navalny. And we had begun talking about the voters’ strike, explaining how it differs from the protest action planned for the 28th. But what is its practical goal? People will come out into the streets. Epiphany frosts (the severe cold spell around the Orthodox Epiphany holiday). Thousands of people. And then what?..

Mobilizing people, showing what they consider important. And what is the point of any protest action? Really, what is the point of elections and participating in elections? Either you want to win, or you want to gather people around you and show the authorities something. Parliamentary parties, or any parties that take part in elections, do not necessarily get one hundred percent of the vote or a majority. But they want to show that such-and-such a part of society stands behind them. That is exactly what we want too, both within the strike in general and within the January 28 action. Today we published a list of groups — I urge all readers to go either to the blog or the video blog, find their city, and sign up for the group. The goal is exactly this: to demonstrate to the authorities that we do, in fact, exist. And that there are a substantial number of Russian citizens here who are not represented in this election, and they are very dissatisfied and upset about it. Because de facto the Kremlin has, of course, excluded several tens of millions of people from the political system, including, of course, residents of large cities, because they were simply told: “You do not have the right to nominate your own candidate, and in general we are not interested in you.” And overall, as I said in today’s video, this is not about me; it is about the authorities’ principled position that they will exclude from the political process everyone engaged in real political struggle and relying on grassroots political movements. That is the most important thing. It means that, in principle, they never want to let us in. And there will only be these puppet parties, puppet politicians, and we will spend our whole lives sitting around and worrying: “My God, why do our parties, which do nothing, get 2 percent? We suffer, blame ourselves, blame the Russian people?..” And it becomes an endless vicious circle. It is actually quite easy to get out of it. You just have to run real election campaigns. That is exactly the kind of movement they are very afraid of.

I fought for those votes, and I am still fighting for them.

And why did you decide that the Kremlin does not know how many supporters you have? There are FSO polls, unofficial polls of some kind. And the fact that President Putin does not say your name certainly does not mean he knows nothing about you.

On the contrary, that is exactly what I am saying: they know everything very well. And I do not believe in any FSO polls. That is complete nonsense. But they can see how we are running the campaign. They understand that our structure is real and exists in every major Russian city. They see that the volunteers are real, that the campaign is absolutely real. When a person comes to some city and all students and state employees are told, “On pain of dismissal, do not come to his meeting Blunt,” and still a substantial number of people come — in any case more than they themselves can gather — of course they know about it, and it frightens them very much. And they realize that when the formal election campaign begins and people are offered: “Here, look, five names — choose one,” they understand that with the help of our network we could persuade the majority of Russian citizens to choose my name. That is why they did not let me in. They know everything, I assure you. In fact, they watch us more closely than anyone else, because everyone else is just some kind of political phantoms that they themselves created.

Should the January 28 action end?

The January 28 action should begin. I hope it will be massive. And I believe it should not be the only one. Well, we will see. This is a major political process that we are organizing…

…Or are you interested in a prolonged street protest, an open-ended one, so to speak? You remember we had different examples of that: “Occupy Abai” (a protest camp in Moscow in 2012), a kind of permanent civil disobedience action.

At the moment, the plan for January 28 in all the largest cities of Russia — 83 cities are already covered — is marches and rallies. At the moment, we are not talking about any open-ended actions, but I think we will hold more than one action before this election. We will act according to circumstances. It is impossible, by my wish or command or by this wonderful interview on Echo of Moscow, simply to say: let the protest be indefinite. People themselves will not leave if they feel they should not leave the street.

Are you setting that as a goal?

At the moment, that is not the goal. At the moment, it is important to show the scale of these actions precisely during this difficult period of Epiphany frosts, as you rightly pointed out.

What turnout percentage — as I understand it, your work is now based on lowering turnout in this election — what percentage would be satisfactory for you?

We are not setting any specific target. It is not about the numbers. There is no turnout threshold in our system, and there is no such thing as us bringing it down…

They joined this campaign because it was honest politics without cheating.

Bringing it down how?

It is important that it be below 50 percent. But essentially, we will be fighting turnout falsification. We understand perfectly well… and what matters is how effectively we fight that falsification of turnout. But the legitimacy of power is not measured by a number, as in: they got 70, so they are legitimate; they got 49, so they are illegitimate. It is a feeling, people’s confidence. We want to show people how ridiculous, absurd, and fabricated this election will be. And that will have major long-term consequences. We are looking at the bigger picture. This is our country. We are not planning to leave, right?

I’m not, at least not yet.

Excellent! Nor am I — not yet. So that means you and I will stay and we will fight. And what happens within our voters’ strike is an important element of the current struggle and a precondition for the future.

Well, you will fight — you are the fighter.

And you will fight too.

I’m not a very good fighter, but that is not important.

We will persuade you to fight, and you will become a wonderful, excellent fighter.

Alexei, why do you think high turnout is really so important to the Kremlin?

It is not just what I think — it is a fact. Look: everything they are doing now is a struggle for turnout. Patriarch Kirill today called on people to go vote. I published documents from the Moscow region, but we know similar ones have been sent out across the country — saying that special groups, team leaders, brigades will be created to go around 100 percent of voters and make sure they are brought to polling stations: magnets, little gifts, designated people assigned to apartment entrances, and so on. Peskov said yesterday that our calls for a strike should be examined by law enforcement. We can see from the facts that they are literally trembling over turnout.

Turnout in presidential elections in which Vladimir Putin has taken part has always been roughly above 60 and below 70 percent. It has always been fairly high. Why, on what basis, did you come to believe that this time it would be different? Where did that feeling come from?

I got that feeling after the Central Election Commission session where they told me — and through me, hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, I can say that boldly — “Sorry, your face does not fit for participation in our election.” That is what all the people who said beforehand that they would not let us into the election were saying. And Putin himself, who said back in 2013 that if Navalny posed a danger, he would not be allowed into the election. And now they are not allowing me in.

If we understand that we are right, we will go to court even if defeat is guaranteed in advance. All of this convinces me that the system is absolutely unjust. And I am not the only one who sees that injustice. Everyone sees it. Of course people simply will not go to such an election. It will all turn into a complete farce and absurdity. Besides, one has to understand: yes, Vladimir Putin has taken part in elections several times, but now he is taking part for the fifth time! He has been in power for 17 years and wants another 6… People grow up, new voters appear, some people become tired… In general, the degradation of the authorities, their inability to do anything properly — that has a very strong effect. Four years of falling real incomes is the main factor. Every person, any person in the country, knows that their income has fallen for four years in a row, and it is obvious that the authorities bear responsibility for that.

Ksenia Sobchak offered for you to become her authorized representative. And many people, in my view fairly, reproach you for ignoring that offer, because you would have received a very good platform on federal TV to express any of your views.

The idea that I would get some kind of platform on federal channels cannot provoke anything but a smile, and the whole idea of authorized representatives and so on can provoke nothing but a smile as well. I do, of course, follow what the other candidates are doing — Sobchak, Grudinin, Titov, Yavlinsky — all of them, naturally, in their own logic, are trying somehow to attract the electorate that would vote for me, to attract my voters. But I do not think they will succeed, for one simple reason. Regardless of what they are doing now, if they had started an election campaign a year ago and run it honestly and really fought for voters’ support, then it could be discussed. Now this is not politics. They are not politicians. They are some strange people who — in Sobchak’s case two months ago, in Grudinin’s case a week ago — did not even know themselves that they were running, then suddenly popped up in the last three months and started doing something. That is not an election campaign. These people, in principle, cannot get many votes. More than that, they openly say: “We are participating not in order to win.” None of that interests me. I would like to focus on a real political process, not on things that are announced just to be discussed on Facebook.

We are going to pause here and continue right after the news and advertising. Alexei Navalny is in the Echo of Moscow studio. Alexei Solomin is hosting today’s broadcast. Don’t go away. NEWS

The program Special Opinion continues. Hello! My name is Alexei Solomin. For those who have just joined us, let me say that our guest in the studio is politician Alexei Navalny. And we had started a very interesting conversation about Ksenia Sobchak.

Not interesting at all. Let’s discuss Ksenia Sobchak a little more and then move on to some more real political questions.

One can really sense some very negative feeling toward her in your emotions right now.

No, no, absolutely no negative feeling toward her. I do have a negative attitude toward all candidates who call themselves candidates but do not run an election campaign. Absolutely, I can say that they all irritate me. Because — as I have said many times — I spent a year traveling around the country, I spent a year speaking, I traveled all over Russia. And my irritation built up because I looked at all the other candidates… that is, I did not see any candidates at all. Then they seemed to announce that they were running, and still they did nothing.

We will fight turnout falsification. And I understood that there was always a risk that I would not be allowed into the election. And I wanted some candidates to emerge who would fight for voters’ support so that there could be some alternative other than a boycott and a voters’ strike. Of course that would have been preferable. Participating in elections is always better than not participating in elections. But I just see a bunch of people who declare that they are candidates but do not take a single step to fight for votes. And of course those candidates irritate me. I am not even going to hide it.

You rightly said that Ksenia Sobchak stated she was not going to win this election. Everything she is doing now reminds the country that you exist. She asked your question at Vladimir Putin’s press conference. She mentioned your brother’s name on Vladimir Solovyov’s program. Does that really not deserve gratitude?

It is very nice, of course, only it probably would have been more appropriate to do the same over the last four years, or at least over the last year. But an election campaign does not exist in order to remind the country of my name. An election campaign exists in order to fight for votes. So Ksenia Sobchak should not keep talking endlessly about Navalny; she should go to the city of Novosibirsk, organize a rally there, and speak to the residents of Novosibirsk. Then fly out that evening and the next day speak in Perm or in her native St. Petersburg.

But why?..

Because that is what an election campaign is.

That I understand. Absolutely right. But why are you worried about the other candidates? The other candidates are helping you run your election campaign.

Alexei, you’ve hit the nail on the head. As I told you… “Why are you worried about the other candidates?” I want to answer that I’m not worried about them at all and would actually prefer not to discuss them right now. But if you ask, of course I’ll answer. Still, they are not real candidates. They may be pleasant people or unpleasant people, but they are not real candidates. So what is there to discuss?

Your goal is not to trample your opposition rivals, after all. Your goal is to replace Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin in his post. Well, if you do not like discussing Ksenia Sobchak right now… If any candidate comes along who says your name and is not embarrassed by it, and if, having come to power, having won the election, including with your support, they talk about dissolving the State Duma…

Let me stop you right there. When you say “wins the election,” you should pause — and just burst out laughing! Because the first thing they say is that they are not going to win the election. And second, they are not even trying to fight for voters’ support. So your whole construction has already fallen apart, because they are doing nothing.

We will persuade you to fight, and you will become a wonderful, excellent fighter. But of course, listen, if there were any candidate at all — perhaps not very pleasant to me, or not close to me programmatically — who alongside me was really fighting and traveling, maybe criticizing me, debating me, but in fact fighting for voters’ support, then I would say right now: “You know, guys, they did not let me into the election, but of course for the sake of the common cause I want to support this candidate, because this is a real candidate against Putin. And even if my program differs from his by 30 percent… by 20 percent or even by 0 percent, let’s vote for him, because he is against Putin.” If you can give me the name of such a candidate, let me endorse him right now on Echo of Moscow. But I am afraid you cannot name one. You see, you are smiling. But this no joke. The next election will be in 6 years! Citizens of Russia have to wait 6 years for the next presidential election. That is a catastrophe.

It seems to me that most people have already come to terms with that…

But I have not.

As soon as Vladimir Putin announced his candidacy, everyone immediately started talking about 2024.

I have not come to terms with it, and I am gathering around me all those who have not come to terms with it either.

Isn’t that a naive position?

No, not at all. How could it be a naive position, when we are dealing here with things that are not naive at all? I have one life. I will spend it in Russia. I want to influence this election here and now. Everyone else understands perfectly well that another 6 years of Putin means a continuation of the last four years — that is, the impoverishment of the country, the country falling behind. It will grow more slowly than the global economy as a whole. We will fall behind, and behind, and behind… Our rockets will keep crashing, and nothing here will develop. It is monstrous…

Not at all romantic. Why? As far as I have followed you — and I follow you closely — you have one scenario in which Putin gets immunity if he ensures a peaceful transfer of power. Is that right, is that still your position?

Yes.

People ask you a fair question, including your own supporters: why on earth should Putin get immunity if he is the author of this system and the person directly responsible for it?

The decision to grant Putin immunity is a painful and unpleasant one, and it is unpleasant to me too, just as it is to everyone else. Probably more unpleasant to me than to anyone else, because I have many personal reasons, including not to like Putin. My brother is in prison right now, even though there is a European Court of Human Rights ruling saying the case was fabricated — and he is still being held under strict conditions. But we must act in the interests of the country as a whole, including by making such unpleasant decisions. And if there is a guarantee of a peaceful transition for all 145 million people, then immunity can be granted to Putin — but only to Putin himself, without any Medvedevs or anyone else.

Tell me the signs of a “Kremlin stooge.” But I would also like to return to your remark when you said this was a romantic point of view. It is a practical point of view. When I say that we are fighting for our country and for our future, that is of course a grand phrase, but it is certainly not some kind of romanticism. It is absolutely political practice. There can be no more practical position right now than exactly this attitude. That is what is at stake. And therefore our activity during the voters’ strike, during the January 28 action, and afterward — all of it is a struggle for our country, for our future. Before we know it… How old are you?

30.

30. So only at 36 will you be able to vote next time.

I’ll be able to run for president next time too, like Ksenia Sobchak.

Excellent! I hope you do it not like Ksenia Sobchak, but that you start running your election campaign a year in advance.

Thank you.

And you will compare very favorably with her as a candidate. So this is not a romantic position at all; it is simply the only possible political practice.

A practical position.

Yes.

But you can continue fighting to take part in other elections. There will be a Moscow mayoral election in September. There will be a Moscow mayoral election in September. You had an excellent result — almost 30 percent, very good for Moscow. Aren’t you planning to try again yourself?..

From the standpoint of the current authorities, I do not have the right to stand for election until… In the papers they wrote, it says something like 2030, I think… I’ve gotten confused myself. A long, long time… You’ll be older than I am, and I still won’t be allowed to run. So in principle they have shut me — and all the people I represent — out of politics, or at least they are trying to. They won’t let me run in elections. And they refused to register my political party, the Progress Party, four times; we tried four times, and every time we were denied.

And you stopped those attempts. You are not going to keep doing it?

We will. We are doing it constantly. It is an endless, permanent process — trying to obtain political representation one way or another, including through a party.

Since you yourself will not be taking part in the Moscow mayoral election, which candidate would you support? For example: Dmitry Gudkov, Sergei Sobyanin, Ilya Yashin, Sergei Mitrokhin…

A. Navalny: I have many personal reasons, including not to like Putin.

I can feel the spirit of Alexei Alexeyevich Venediktov hovering over this table, floating there, smiling and rubbing his hands together, saying: “What a tricky question!”

Alexei, no. This is a different office.

I can say to you, to Alexei Alexeyevich, and to everyone who is so concerned about the Moscow mayoral election: good for you, you are right to be concerned. It is the election for the mayor of the country’s largest city, the most populous federal subject. But I am not thinking about it at all, and I do not think this is the time for us to be thinking about it. What would I like candidates to do? The same thing — start doing real, practical work now. Because otherwise we will see the same thing again: a month before the election, some people pop up and say, “Oh, support us” — or don’t support us — “take some kind of position on us.” I’ll come here to your studio again, and you’ll question me again, and it’ll be Ksenia Sobchak again or Katya Gordon or whoever — and you’ll ask me about them with a sly smile, and I'll have to answer. Of course I will answer, but right now, from December 2017, I am appealing to all possible candidates with one message: “Guys, do some work.” But I am not thinking about the Moscow mayoral election now, because other issues are on the agenda.

But do you want there to be a single opposition candidate or not?

Of course I would like there to be a single opposition candidate who could defeat Sobyanin, who has thoroughly worn everyone out and who is one of the most corrupt regional heads in the country, something that has been the subject of both our investigations and many others. The evidence is simply overwhelming: the Moscow authorities are thoroughly corrupted and are not coping with their own responsibilities. So yes, of course I would like there to be a single candidate who would win, who would get more votes than I once did, and who would win in the first round or the second round. Any normal person would want that.

To settle this question. I have always personally been curious: do you consider Dmitry Gudkov a “Kremlin stooge”?

No, of course I do not consider Dmitry Gudkov a “Kremlin stooge.” I have known him for many years. So tell me, let’s figure this out: what exactly is a “Kremlin stooge”? Tell me the signs of a “Kremlin stooge.”

A person who works with City Hall, including against you.

Someone who works with City Hall against me? Works with the Kremlin against me? Well, I have known Dmitry Gudkov for many years. I think he certainly interacts with various people, including officials. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you are not acting against the opposition. I hope that is not the case.

And when your supporters attack Dmitry Gudkov and call him nothing but a “Kremlin stooge,” do you support that?

I support freedom of speech. Different people can call me different things. Many people, as you know, call me a Kremlin project too. And right here in this studio I have answered the question thirty times: “What do you say to those who call you a Kremlin project?” I urge everyone to judge by actions and by specific statements. If a person acts correctly, if a person acts in the common interest, then good for them. If they act against the common interest, then they are not good — or they have reached the stage you call a “Kremlin stooge.”

What matters more to you: your personal political career or democratic change in Russia?

What matters to me is my life in my country. I would like to live in a normal democratic country. And I am making my personal contribution. But when the time comes that I can no longer win primaries or no longer receive people’s support, I will have no problem stepping back to the second, third, fourth… twenty-fifth row, and I will be perfectly happy not to do politics at all if there are other politicians doing it.

I apologize. Breaking news: there has been an explosion in a supermarket in St. Petersburg. At least 9 people have been injured. Source: Interfax news agency. This is a news flash. I think we will hear more in the news.

Terrible news. I hope there are no fatalities, and perhaps the number of injured will turn out to be lower. Yes, that is very frightening.

Alexei Navalny was with us in the Echo of Moscow studio. My name is Alexei Solomin. All the best, thank you!

Bye!