Alexei Navalny’s speech at the European Parliament
Alexei’s speech at the European Parliament in November 2020, recorded during his rehabilitation in Germany after being poisoned with Novichok (a Soviet-developed nerve agent). In his address, he calls on European politicians to adopt a fundamentally new strategy: warmly welcome the Russian people while harshly punishing the Putin officials who have usurped power. Alexei aptly notes that sanctions against ordinary security officials are useless, and proposes targeting the regime’s real wallets instead — oligarchs like Usmanov and Abramovich, whose yachts continue to sit undisturbed in European ports. This speech effectively laid the groundwork for the ACF’s future sanctions lists and for international demands not to recognize the falsified 2021 State Duma elections.
Text version
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so well uh i'd like to start with
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mr alexey navalny please mr navalny
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floor is yours good morning everyone
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thank you very much mr chairman and uh
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thank you very much for having me here
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it's an
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honor for me to be part of this uh
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important conversation about new
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strategy
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of communication with russia and i want
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to start of course with the words of
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appreciation and just thank you thank
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you
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to say thank you very much to members of
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european parliament for
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their support they give to me and my
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family
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during this some events
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recently happened with me and it was
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it was very important not just for me
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but for all russian people because
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as absolutely correctly said uh
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chairman mr chairman i'm definitely not
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the first one and unfortunately i will
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not be the last one
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who poisoned or killed or treated in
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this way
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and it is extremely important for
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russian people to know that
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uh um europe europe and whole and
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european parliament
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uh will not keep silent or on such an
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events
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as far as i understand now in the
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european parliament it's it's a big
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and very important discussion about new
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strategy how
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uh discussing the ways with the
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communication with russia
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and uh and i think it is
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time to develop a new strategy not not
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just correct
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the old one but really develop a new one
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because we knew
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um kind of new type of russian
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government
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a new type of russian state actually an
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absolutely new one compare
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what we have even uh two years ago
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and i would say that basic of a new
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approach should be
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a very clear dividing two
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things russian people who
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must be welcomed and treated very warmly
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from a european union from my
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perspective
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and russian state who
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which is must be treated like a bunch of
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criminals
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who are temporarily took over the power
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and
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maybe it sounds radical but
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well especially from my personal point
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of view
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i think it's a very fine
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defining of what they are they are bunch
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of criminals temporarily
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to cover the power in our country and
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let me be specific about
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things i think should be applied for
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from european union
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the issue of sanctions discussing all
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the time
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and issue of forthcoming election
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discussion all the time so i'm focusing
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on these two things
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and yes it's true uh i would say that
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forthcoming election in the state douma
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is absolutely crucial event
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and the key moment of it not even
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fabrication and falsification we're
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definitely
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waiting for it it's kind of inevitable
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part of all
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russian election uh but now which is
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more important it's
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the right to participate now on the
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panel with us sitting two
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uh two to my friends vladimir miller of
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eliashin
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who was not not just kicked out from the
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recent uh election of the moscow mayor
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moscow city duma they were imprisoned
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for their attempt to participate
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so i would say and i ask
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european parliament and every european
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politician
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to treat russian forthcoming election
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election in the very simple way
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if everyone allowed to participate
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we can discuss it further but if some
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people
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not allowed to participate the results
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of such election
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will never be recognized i from my
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perspective
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this is the point number one for
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any discussion with any russian
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officials on all levels
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uh the second thing i want to focus
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is the issue of sanctions because it's
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discussion
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all the time and so far i would say that
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the main
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approach of the european parliament of
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european country is to
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sanction um
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people who are technically do some
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some bad things for example on my issue
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or some people who are literally
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responsible for poisoning or made some
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orders they are
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uh their sanctions so uh but uh
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i would say that there is no sense to
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sanction
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colonels or generals or some people who
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are definitely not travel
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a lot all over the world and definitely
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don't have a lot of estate or bank
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accounts in europe
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the main question
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we should ask ourselves why these people
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poisoning killing and fabricating
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election and the answer is very very
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simple
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money so i uh european union
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should target the money and russian
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oligarchs not
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just old oligarchs but also new ones
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like
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this circle of uh mr
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putin they must be real targets of
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uh of sanction and let me say it's very
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straight until the most expensive yacht
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of mr usmanov standing
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in barcelona or in monaca
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no one in russia or in in in kremlin
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even
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they not treat european sanctions
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seriously
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they just think that they are playing
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european union because
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they are afraid of uh apply a real
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sanction
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against real money so that
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have to be a focus and believe me that
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type of sanction
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would be absolutely welcome among
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99 percent of population so this
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sanction
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they have to be very popular inside of
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russia and they will be just
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target russian oligarchs just tell mr
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usmanov mr abramovic mr ruttenberg and
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cetera et cetera guys you are acting
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against russian people
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you are gay acting against uh your
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europe you
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are all of the time advocating that
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europe is something
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something very bad so please take your
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yachts
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and uh get them somewhere to the nice
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harbors of belarusia republic something
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like this and this one
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is uh this approach will be very
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effective
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and very welcome again from the russian
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people um
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last thing i want to mention very uh
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very
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shortly it's the issue of european court
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of human rights
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this is another very fine and very easy
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way to
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to help russian people actually because
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now at this moment we have a
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you know big huge pack of decisions of
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european court who are
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absolutely ignoring from russian state
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and there is no question of the you know
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freezing assets or kind of political
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decisions
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this is very simple if for example
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particular officials or particular
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judges they are not following decision
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of european court
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which is formally uh also recognized by
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russia
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it's a nice way just uh to have a
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reasons why not to uh give them
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opportunity to go to europe travel all
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over the world etc etc this is a
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very very easy and very effective
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approach to uh to this issue and
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i i can see that my my time is over and
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i will be happy
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to answer more questions thank you very
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much for your attention