Navalny’s speech in court: “The criminal regime is losing the war”

This moment is quite important to me.

As said before, I have been sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security penal colony.

I think any members of the court know our judicial statistics very well:

a person in our country is sentenced, on average, to seven years in prison for murder.

I, on the other hand, got nine years in maximum security.

This suggests that I must have committed some truly horrible crimes.

It seems all the more strange that there are no victims in our trial today.

Even in the court of first instance, the victims were very reluctant to show up.

It seems to me, and not only to me but to anyone who followed the trial,

that these victims, four out of more than 300,000 people who for years

have donated money to the Anti-Corruption Foundation or my election campaigns,

are just the people the Investigative Committee has managed to find.

Two of them had simply transferred donations for provocative purposes

and immediately filed a statement that the money had been stolen from them.

And the other two, the so-called victims, are businessmen

who filed their statements after criminal cases were opened against them.

We could observe throughout the trial how they tried in every way

to minimize their participation in it, and instantly lost interest

in what was going on after they appeared in court once.

During the trial we had an absolutely cinematic experience, when the prosecution witnesses

were telling that they had been pressured by the investigators.

Not only that, but it turned out later that there was a recording

of investigators putting pressure on witnesses.

Moreover, they would call them to their rooms to rehearse their testimony. Literally.

During the trial we learned that one of the heads of the presidential administration

was calling the judge literally every day during every break,

they were having phone conversations with each other.

And little things like the hard fact that the probation period in the Kirovles case has expired…

It has expired, look at the calendar, it really has!

Nevertheless, it seems insignificant against the background of

(at least for me, hopefully for this court as well) the crucial symbolic factor of the trial venue.

You see, when I received the paper, which said

that an open hearing was scheduled in the penal colony in the city of Pokrov…

This paper said it all: an open hearing on the territory of a penal colony.

And during the proceedings, naturally, this fact angered me and all of us,

all those people who came to the trial and couldn't get to this "open hearing".

They asked the judge why this was happening.

She said then that it was all because of the coronavirus.

That said, she didn't reflect anything at all in the verdict.

I mean, why did the Lefortovo Court of Moscow have a session

on the territory of a penal colony is some other federal subject?

Well, because they wanted it so. Because they don't give a damn about all of us

and do whatever they want. That, in essence, was the answer of the Lefortovo Court.

From my point of view, now, today, on October 18, 2022, we can already see very well

the whole essence and the main reason for what has happened.

From my point of view… This is not a political statement, distinguished court,

but a fact to which I want to draw attention.

I ask the court to take that into account in its sentencing.

After all, your task is to consider everything thoroughly.

So let us thoroughly consider this.

Then we will see that this crime against justice, this obviously trumped-up case,

was just a small, virtually microscopic crime compared to the big crime

that was being prepared and carried out literally in those very days.

After all, the first day of my trial literally coincided with the beginning of the war,

the enormous crime that had been committed by the current government

and specifically by President Putin against our entire country.

In preparation for that crime, they began in advance to make small crimes,

namely, to imprison those who they knew would stand against it,

or to worsen their prison conditions.

That is, when I was in a medium-security penal colony, it didn't seem to be enough for them.

They needed to put me in a high-security colony

and keep me in a punishment cell all the time.

First me, then Yashin, then Kara-Murza, and so on and so forth.

Dozens and hundreds of these people are now in prison

because the authorities know that they will not keep quiet,

and will point out the obviousness of this crime to the public.

And it really is a crime. And the arrogance and impudence

of the events at my trial, at the trials of other people, other political prisoners

who were imprisoned in similar cases, shows that the authorities themselves

are committing crimes by waging their criminal, aggressive war.

Not only did they understand its scale,

but they were afraid of the consequences that would ensue.

They knew exactly what they were getting themselves into,

they knew for themselves that they were the rogue scoundrels who had ruined everything,

and that this would come out pretty soon.

I told you on the first day of my speech in the colony that your regime…

I was addressing the court, after all, it's your regime there…

It started this war, this war is criminal, and it's going to lose.

And that's exactly what we're seeing right now. They're already losing.

You see, for many, many years now, in fact, I have been collecting donations

in order to run my organization, explaining to everyone, distinguished court,

and showing on concrete examples that this government consists of disgusting thieves,

scoundrels and hypocrites, who have ruined everything.

I told ten years ago, even more, even before we started making videos, that Shoigu is a thief,

a bribetaker of colossal scale with a gigantic summer house,

that he will ruin and steal everything.

I talked about Zolotov, head of the National Guard, stealing money even on potatoes,

I talked about the corruption of Putin, Medvedev and all the others.

And it was clear that these people, having ruined everything in twenty-two years,

are starting a war just to distract attention from the collapse of the country,

and that when they engage in this war, they will start losing it.

You see... Yes, your Honor?

I don't have much left to say, but I think this is as substantive as it gets.

You see, the most important procedural matters have been covered by the attorneys,

but I'm telling you the substance.

The essence is that... I was brought here from the punishment cell,

where I've been confined for the last two months.

I'm telling you the substance of the matter.

I am sitting in a punishment cell, and before that I was unjustly sentenced to nine years.

Many other people were sentenced at the same time. Because...

Again, this is not a political statement, this is also a procedural matter.

I'm almost done. Please be patient.

Don't just be patient, though, please, but try to consider the whole sequence.

Try to realize the extent of the crime committed against you, among others.

Against everyone in our country. Against every single person.

What have we been dragged into? We have people in charge thinking:

"We'll start a war of aggression and try to snatch a piece of territory

from the neighboring state, but if we lose it, we'll arrange a nuclear armageddon

and simply destroy everything around us, for our right to steal and do whatever we want."

They know there are people who will oppose this,

and they're trying to wipe those people out. They won't succeed.

Yes, they can certainly create some pretty unpleasant situations.

They can keep people in various detention centers,

they can do a lot more inside this prison system,

they can make it so that it would be impossible to obtain justice in court.

But in any case, the fact that the king is naked

has become so obvious now that it's just not possible to hide.

When we were doing our investigations,

when we were raising money for these investigations,

we were showing that this regime is pointless, futile, useless and criminal.

We tried with all our might to gather some kind of popular will,

which included influencing elections, to stop this regime

and prevent it from pushing our country further and further toward catastrophe.

This is the one thing I regret: we weren't effective enough. We still failed to prevent

the disaster towards which we are no longer sliding but already spiraling now.

The only question will be, how hard will Russia hit that bottom

and whether it will fall apart, whether it will shatter to pieces or not.

I hope that will not happen. But our government is doing everything

to literally present us with a choice: either the wealth and happiness

of specifically Putin, Medvedev and a few dozen or hundreds more families,

or the existence of the entire country.

So, your Honor, your decision today is small and insignificant,

and it's in one small and insignificant case.

But when you deliberate, when you pass judgment, you will be aware that I'm right.

You see what's going on every day. You know I'm right.

You know full well that this is going to end very, very badly.

You can see that disaster is unfolding.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been pulled, yanked out of their families

and sent into the trenches for some reason in a peaceful, beautiful time.

They're going to die there trying to kill others.

How am I not speaking on the merits, Your Honor?

The court of cassation, the court of appeal, the first instance, are all citizens of Russia.

My God, you're judges! You sit here for me.

You're the people in robes, sitting under the flag and the coat of arms. Do you understand?

So I'm asking you as people sitting under the flag and the coat of arms

to do something to help our country, to save it from these lunatics

who are destroying everything around them, and not figuratively, as they used to.

They've already killed tens of thousands of people,

and they're going to kill hundreds of thousands more.

They're threatening to kill millions.

So I ask, I demand that all the factors in this case be taken into account:

the day it began, this whole chain of events that followed,

which involved the arrests and imprisonment of other people.

And I plead that I am an innocent man, and I believe that I and people like me

are not doing well enough, but are still doing their best

to prevent what is happening now, to prevent this catastrophe.

And we will continue to do so.

So I call on all citizens of Russia, my supporters and supporters of whomsoever,

just for the sake of the future of our country, to fight this regime,

to fight this war and to fight this disgusting mobilization.

Thank you very much. I demand to be acquitted.