Vote: the biggest fraud. Is Simonyan not pathetic? Andrei Malakhov is losing it

[music]

Good evening, everyone. In Moscow, it is exactly

20:00, 8 p.m. That means

that *Russia of the Future* is live on air,

and I’m its host, Alexei

Navalny.

Or, this week, the man whom

Armenian television is showing, and because

of that fact, Armenian television has apparently

caused Vladimir

Solovyov to explode into tiny pieces. I’ll gladly show you

47 seconds of how Armenia ceased to be

a friendly country for Vladimir Solovyov,

because they showed me. Here it is:

We love Armenia so much, such a friendly

country to us, and look whom they are showing

in friendly Armenia, with commentary

about the voting. In Armenia, they are showing on

Armenian Public Television, as part of

their reports on the voting

on the constitutional amendments, the Nazi

Navalny, who called Armenians “khachs” (a Russian ethnic slur for people from the Caucasus),

who hates Armenians, hates

Armenia, despises it—and you, Armenian

Public Television, put this

man on the air and broadcast him yourselves.

Well, that’s really something. Unbelievable.

So that’s how our Italian Waldemar

shamed all of Armenia. I think

everyone at Armenian Public Television

must of course be very ashamed. I don’t know, dear

Vladimir Rudolfovich,

where you got all these things

you made up that I supposedly said about Armenians, but

really, when we’re talking about Nazis—

seriously, you made an entire film

glorifying Mussolini, and now you’re going to accuse me

of being a Nazi? And let me remind you that

with the hashtag **#RussiaOfTheFuture**

you can ask me questions, write

questions on Twitter, and send your suggestions,

opinions, and so on. I’ll read them out

and try to answer them. You can also

become a subscriber to our channel,

a sponsor, a friend—there’s a link, and through

that link you can send ducks, and everyone else

whose names are scrolling across the screen—and today this

has a specific purpose.

Usually we collect funds simply for

supporting Navalny Live, but this time

it’s for something important, which, by the way,

shows us that

elections—real elections—and the entire

political process

are not just some thing that

you know, happened once, like there was

that vote on “zeroing out” presidential terms,

we discuss it now and then forget it because

it won’t happen again. No—when there is

a real political struggle, when there are

elections like the ones we took part in

a year ago, they catch up with us, they keep catching up with us.

We forced the Kremlin,

a year ago, to pay a price for

everything they did. And with the help of

Smart Voting, we got some

people into the Moscow City Duma.

We made them pay a price for the fact that

they barred independent candidates. And now

they are making us pay money.

Yesterday—or even today, I think—there came into force

the court rulings: Sobol and Alburov owe

1.5 million rubles to the road authorities,

all the independent candidates owe the prosecutor’s office

1.2 million rubles. Next, Sobol

and Alburov will also owe the prosecutor’s office

another million. Alburov and Sobol also owe

the Moscow Metro 600,000 rubles.

And besides that, everyone except

Georgy Alburov—including me—we owe

the Armenia restaurant 240,000 rubles. Which brings us

back to the subject of Armenian television. And so

therefore,

there’s really no way this can work other

than as a mutual aid fund, you understand.

This was our common campaign. The Kremlin,

Putin, Sobyanin—whoever—they all decided

on the following scheme: if these guys want to protest,

we’ll make them pay—one ruble, a hundred rubles,

if everyone chips in together, it’s not hard.

Without your help, we can’t handle it, so

please follow this link,

send a duck, and the money from

that duck will gradually go either to the Armenia restaurant

or to the Moscow Metro.

But in any case, there is no doubt that sooner

or later, in the European Court of Human Rights, we

are appealing there, and despite this

constitutional reset, we will still be able to

challenge it. I don’t doubt that for a single

second. Besides, of course, in the beautiful

Russia of the future, all these people will repay us

a hundredfold for all the tricks

they pulled. As I most often try

to do at the beginning of the program, while

people are still gathering—you are now 49,000

people watching live, and I hope

more will join—I want to talk about

topics that are important and super important, but

which were, of course, simply swallowed up by the huge

voting story. Right now nobody is discussing anything

except the vote, and

for some time they won’t be. But nevertheless,

over the past week, since

last Thursday, there have been, it seems to me,

some

rather extraordinary events

that really show who the masters

of Russia are. It’s clear enough that it’s people like Putin,

Rotenberg, and so on, but it becomes

so absolutely crystal clear

in certain specific situations,

especially outside Moscow. At Norilsk

Nickel, a gigantic industrial complex, the largest

enterprise in Russia, one of the largest

enterprises in the world, which was grabbed up

by two oligarchs, Potanin and Prokhorov, and now

Prokhorov is now simply—sorry,

Potanin, because they simply took it away for nothing.

For free, at the loans-for-shares auction.

Well, what they did—Prokhorov, excuse me, not...

Prokhorov, Potanin—Prokhorov too, for that matter...

I do not feel sorry for him at all; he also bears...

responsibility for the ruin of Norilsk Nickel.

For the fact that they carried out there...

absolutely no environmental...

measures, built no treatment facilities at all.

Well then, you and I have often...

discussed how they caused a real...

environmental catastrophe, the largest in...

the Arctic. Potanin has not paid a single kopeck for it yet.

Not a kopeck. We can see that there, you just...

nothing is happening there. And then, this...

This week, *Novaya Gazeta* simply started...

people got interested, went there, and filmed what...

it turns out that Norilsk Nickel...

simply takes these spent chemical wastes...

they just make a huge pipe and...

dump it into the river. At 1 minute 19 seconds, this is how...

this is how it happens.

The disposal of liquid toxic waste at...

Norilsk Nickel.

And from other tailings storage sites they take...

water in which they find up to 1 ton of metal.

Nickel, cobalt...

surfactants—through this...

orange pumping station...

they pump it through.

And then it goes—now we will see.

[applause]

I... in the sands... clear... press with me...

Photographer Yuri Kot... former...

employees... his...

In the fall, Ryabinin and Greenpeace activists...

We are moving up along the pipe...

This is the edge of the tailings pond, the pipe is...

further on, and it spills over through...

And that is it. And further on, I can simply...

show you this video for a long time: it is just a pipe...

it simply dumps everything into the river, into the local...

lake. And you simply have to understand...

that Norilsk Nickel is...

an enterprise that, in net profit...

brings its shareholders—mainly Potanin—

more than a billion dollars. In other words, these people...

are simply swimming in money.

All because they grabbed an old—well, at the time...

not actually that old—

Soviet plant and are simply squeezing...

everything they can out of it. This plant has enough...

money; they just need to raise...

their costs a little in order to build some...

proper facilities, but...

Potanin simply minimizes his...

expenses and maximizes profit by...

simply taking this toxic...

waste and just pouring it out everywhere. And this...

has been going on for years and years and years. This...

is not even the whole story. The most...

outrageous part of the story happened...

later. *Novaya Gazeta* and Greenpeace activists filmed all of this.

Sergei Mitrokhin then went there.

A deputy of the Moscow City Duma, I know him...

very well; I worked with him for many years.

These days Sergei Mitrokhin is not always very...

critical of the authorities, but at least...

on environmental issues he has always...

been a real fighter—Mitrokhin.

Together with environmentalists, they went and took...

samples there.

That is, roughly speaking, stones and soil around...

around this enterprise, around Norilsk...

Nickel—they basically just went into the forest...

dug up some soil in the forest...

and took a water sample, then brought it...

to Moscow in order to hand it over to...

laboratories and determine the degree of contamination.

What happened at the airport? At the airport...

literally...

they were stopped not by some private security at...

Norilsk Nickel, but by government employees...

who work in this whole...

aviation security system. They, excuse me, were simply...

searched, forced to take out all their belongings, and...

forbidden...

forbidden from taking anything away. Simply put, they were told:

"You know, you cannot take anything out of...

here without the combine's permission." That is...

the combine—meaning Potanin. And really...

the owners control the airport there.

There was also a long recording, and there was...

the phrase...

"report to Norilsk Nickel," even though...

the airport security staff...

they are government employees; they do not...

cannot even be reporting to...

some private individual.

Nevertheless, Potanin owns basically...

everything there. You cannot fly out...

of Norilsk if Potanin does not want...

you to. You cannot take these...

samples out. And again, this was not some ordinary person...

it was a fairly well-known person, a deputy, but...

even so, let us look at this...

recording from the airport. Honestly...

speaking, it is just infuriating.

[music]

Right now it is inconsistent...

All samples are transported only if there is...

documentation. Show the documents under which...

Show the documents. On what...

grounds? Why are you not... why are you...

demanding this without any grounds, and...

Do not forget: from the territory of Norilsk...

nothing is taken out without permission...

Permission from whom, exactly? Tell me.

Permission from the combine.

Do you understand? With the combine's permission. And yes...

not the FSB, not the prosecutor's office, not the Center, no...

So I get off the plane, and then...

[ __ ] and the customs officers—obviously the FSB told them...

they needed to check what she had...

in her bag. That too is lawlessness, of course.

Absolutely. My family there—I remember...

a child was traveling, and they even took apart a Nintendo to...

see what was inside, but...

At the very least, these are some kind of people,

this lawless state is made up of people

who have been given authority, and they

use that authority in order to

protect a corrupt regime. But these are

at least formally state

employees, vested with the right to search

someone. Here, it’s just some kind of

petty thug sitting there at Norilsk Nickel, and

he calls Potanin and says, “Potanin, what

are we going to do? They’ve taken samples here,

they’ll take them to Moscow and tell everyone

that for years we’ve simply been

polluting everything.” And Potanin says,

“What are you, children? Have them stopped at the airport,

tell them that without permission

from our people nothing can be taken out, everything

will be confiscated, and they might even be put on a plane

— they should be grateful you let them leave.”

This is being done by nothing more than some

oligarchic crook, together in this

arrangement with some completely civilian

people from the industrial plant.

That’s who the masters of the land are. This whole Putin

vertical of power

is exactly about this: the fact that

there is no order at all, there is only

a colossal mess.

And again, as I said on the previous

program, of course at Norilsk Nickel there are

FSB officers assigned there,

there is formally a department of internal

affairs and various other agencies, but they simply

are all effectively on Norilsk Nickel’s payroll,

they all get their money from there.

So in the end, an entire

chunk of the state is serving

specifically and only Potanin; another chunk

of the state serves specifically and only

Lisin; a third serves only

Usmanov; a fourth serves Rotenberg. That’s

how it turns out, you see: this

so-called Putin vertical, this “order”

he supposedly established, and so on—there is no

order at all. Potanin can do whatever he wants

to any resident of Norilsk

Nickel—or to you.

If you come there, to Norilsk,

how is this any different from the damned ’90s? When I

was involved in various court cases

with major companies and sued them

over corruption, simply buying

a small block of shares

and using our rights as shareholders, there was

a well-known case: the company

Surgutneftegaz, which in much the same way

ruled over the city of Surgut in its time,

used to do things like this.

Well, when some inspection or visit was

coming, if there were people they didn’t like, they

would simply not let the plane land in Surgut. Everyone

would be told, “Fly on from here to wherever

you want—we’ve got bad weather.”

Because they had been informed that such people were flying in,

and they didn’t like those people.

Or the other way around: if they didn’t

want you to leave, you wouldn’t leave,

because they’d say the weather was bad and there would be

no departure. But that was

something abstract to me—I never personally

experienced it. I always heard it as

stories about the terrible, cursed ’90s. But now

the exact same thing, absolutely the same thing, in an even

worse form, is happening again—only now

on camera, a woman says: “Yes, you can’t take anything out

without

the plant’s permission.” This whole story

with Norilsk Nickel is something we all

need to watch very closely, because

it has clearly already become not only

an environmental issue but a political one as well.

This is political. There is a super-rich

man, one of the richest people in

Russia, one of the richest people

in the world, who put in zero

entrepreneurial effort, or really

zero talent or anything of the sort, to

become this super-rich man.

He simply stole

a huge industrial complex during the loans-for-shares

auction, and now he is poisoning everything around it.

Once again, he doesn’t want to pay anything.

He wants to extract, every year,

$1.5 billion in profit

by trading nickel from our land, essentially,

and he doesn’t want to pay a

single kopeck when he pollutes the entire

Arctic around it. So of course we

understand perfectly well that, in principle, perhaps

I’m wrong when I say Potanin hasn’t paid

a single kopeck—he has paid Rosprirodnadzor,

that very environmental watchdog, which has already delivered

a cartload of money to the Presidential Administration,

two cartloads of money—I don’t know—to Alina Kabaeva,

bought five airplanes, and so on and so on

and so forth. But he doesn’t want to pay anything

into the budget, and in any case all these

gifts, bribes, and so on will be far

less than a real fine and real

compensation for the damage—and most importantly,

the actual construction of treatment

facilities. This is what it is very, very important

to keep an eye on and to press these oligarchs over, because

this is our Arctic.

The Arctic is ours. So, VR asks:

“Alexei, how can one become an observer at the autumn

elections?” We’ll announce a call soon. I’m thinking about

it—I just don’t want to simply say, “Guys,

sign up in some spreadsheet.” We need

an organized system, because we

need to register thousands of people as

observers. I’ll make the effort and

we’ll propose some kind of orderly system.

So yes, there are a lot of questions about the elections.

And Inferno Overkill, our regular

listener,

asks whether Ardy, Lava, and Frenkel will bring

anyone to account for this.

lawlessness

That’s an excellent question, and a really very important

topic.

I saw how it literally shook the entire

information space, but it was also

in a certain sense overshadowed by all

the events that followed, because, you

know, lawlessness is answered with more lawlessness.

What happened to Frenkel faded a little into the

background of what happened next. Even so, this is

still a fundamentally important matter, and once

again I want to address all journalists:

this situation must not be let slide.

David Frenkel, a journalist with the outlet Mediazona,

came to a polling station

because he had the authority

as a media representative to observe.

This was in the city of St. Petersburg,

in St. Petersburg.

We know how elections are rigged, and we

know how these elections were rigged, and they

really did not want

Frenkel there as an observer. And so what happened?

There was some shoving and pushing around, and then

they simply broke the man’s arm. And there were many,

a huge number of people who

were filming all around; there are many videos

in which you can practically, quite literally,

see and hear his arm crunching. But

I’ll show you a version that’s not quite so harrowing;

still, it’s rather unpleasant

to watch.

Let’s call this “take the children away from the screens.”

It’s pretty unpleasant, but it needs to be seen, and

most importantly, you need to see

the senselessness, stupidity, and harmfulness of all

these people. A person wants

to be an observer; he has every

right to do so. And what does he get in

return for exercising that right? They simply

break his arm in front of everyone. Let’s watch.

They’re trying to remove him right now.

I mean, the degree of it is simply unimaginable—

you are a journalist with

every right to be here.

These scoundrels in uniform simply break his arm,

they throw him to the ground and just break his arm. Well,

after that, a real

bacchanalia began. Because everything was caught on camera, and

things were starting to smell bad. And first of all,

to begin with,

an anonymous high-ranking source—

the emphasis was on “high-ranking”—

a source in the administration

of St. Petersburg stated that, of course,

Frenkel had broken his own arm.

Literally: he came there, and then

started either running around or doing something else,

and somehow broke his own arm. Then

there were reports that he had broken

his arm in advance before coming there. I mean,

you understand, this is that kind of

“State Department stooge” logic: they’ll go in for any provocation,

make any sacrifice, just to

set up Ella Pamfilova (head of Russia’s Central Election Commission). So the man

supposedly just, well, at Mediazona, asked

editor-in-chief Smirnov—Sergei Smirnov—

to say, “Let’s break my arm, I’ll go set them up,”

and then he went off to frame Ella Pamfilova in that

way. They wrote this in complete seriousness.

Then, since there was a sea of video footage and,

fortunately, things were looking very bad for them, everyone

was outraged, there were hundreds of thousands of views—so what

did they start doing? Instead of

even trying, I don’t know,

to do something about that police officer, they

fabricated a fake exchange of messages in which Frenkel

with some people was supposedly

discussing how

this whole thing was a provocation, that

“come on, break my arm on camera,”

“you’ll see, there’ll be tons of hype,”

“we’ll shoot loads of videos.”

It was all very obvious, just an obvious

brazen fake,

which in fact also strongly

contradicted the video recordings. Because, well,

maybe only complete idiots could

have believed it if Frenkel had been

shoving with some people here,

civilians or people in plain clothes. But here

you can plainly see that police officers

throw him down, he screams, and his arm is broken.

This fake exchange of messages

was published by that so-called newspaper,

Komsomolskaya Pravda.

It has a circulation in the millions. And after that,

when people caught them out and started rubbing their noses in it—

“Guys, what are you even doing?”—then

the editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda

said, “Well yes, we don’t know, maybe it’s fake,”

“or maybe it’s real.” You see how it works:

these people publish a fake

message exchange, and then they say

that it might be fake, that they can’t figure out

whether it’s fake or not. Well,

in the end, they didn’t

remove anything, apparently.

Now

Peskov said that this incident

must be investigated—an incident is an incident—

but for now their explanation is this:

the fish rots from the head.

The head of St. Petersburg, one of my favorite

officials, Beglov, said something like:

“Well, people got a little nervous there, we all

get tired of everything, it happens.”

No, it does not “just happen.” Fatigue

does not make someone break another person’s arm. Alexander

Beglov, 0:41.

“Of course it’s sad that he was injured.”

“As far as you know, I…”

“...and I will wait for the results.”

the results.

I would like to note that it is clear that

many people learned about

everyone has their own character, each person

has their own limits.

Sometimes there’s such a thing as excessive niceness.

an obsession with excessive enthusiasm and

and now we all—well, yes, of course it happens, but

Guys, come on—let’s be honest, and you

haven’t heard this before: that you were tired

or simply went and broke someone’s arm.

Well, sure, let every police officer

— explain it by saying, “We’re human, we’re tired, you know.”

You know, had a fight with his wife, sees someone walking by,

and decides to break his arm—just because, apparently.

Damn it, and it’s always someone giving you a pat on the shoulder

Let me put it plainly: we all know ordinary

human nature, and it’s just that

the sheer brazenness of all this—I understand that I

keep repeating this phrase on the show more than any other,

that the brazenness of all this is incredibly

infuriating—it really is.

A guy is standing there, a journalist, and he has

every right to be there—and you break his arm and tell

him, “We were tired.” This is some kind of warped reality—but whose

reality is it: Frenkel’s, the police’s, or

the election commission’s, which

was falsifying this whole thing? Compare it, by the way,

to that video, which was, I should say,

great—or rather terrible, but in its terribleness

there was at least a certain clarity, even a kind of grim brilliance.

From Kemerovo, where, as we know,

they apparently cooked up something like 90 percent turnout yesterday

and 95 percent in favor of Putin’s “renewal.”

Just compare that with the situation involving Frenkel,

who was demanding that we be allowed

to observe, and meanwhile in Kemerovo Region

there were two local bloggers

who saw that a man

had parked improperly, apparently on

a lawn, and they started filming him, well,

just filming him on a phone.

The man turned out to be a former police officer, and he

really, really didn’t like that.

And you know how these situations usually

tend to unfold.

The former police officer doesn’t like being filmed,

he yells, “Stop filming,”

pushes the camera away, or maybe grabs

the phone and smashes it, or something like that.

But this is Kemerovo.

This is Kemerovo, where anyone

connected to the authorities is expected to

throw that weight around and do whatever they want.

And against these two young men

they opened a criminal hooliganism case

because, supposedly, they were arguing

and

Let’s take a look at how their

detention happened—how the police broke in

to carry out a search. And just pay attention, once again:

they were filming on a phone. Nobody—

a police officer who had parked

improperly—and this is how

they entered their apartment

to conduct a search in connection with this

terrible crime: filming police officers.

26 seconds.

There’s no better comparison—they stormed it like they did at Zimnyaya Vishnya (the Winter Cherry mall in Kemerovo, site of the 2018 fire),

breaking in with their ladders and

supposedly rescuing people.

They smash the window, shout “Freeze!”, and I just—well,

I mean, what is the point of this assault at all?

Honestly, people, even if you’ve opened a case

for hooliganism against people who

were filming on a phone—because apparently it matters that

you were filming one of ours, even if he’s a former one—then sure, we’ll

go ahead, you understand, and conduct

a search—but the kind of search they’ll remember

forever: smashing your window with the help of

some special assault ladder.

And that’s what they do. But when it comes to

Frenkel at night—“we were tired.” That’s a completely

different matter, a different matter. Stas asks me:

“What do you think about the New People party?”

Just another spoiler party. Guys, of course

it’s just another spoiler—some kind of

crooks, really, it’s hard to put it any other way, just like

this whole Kremlin-run system where

amazing new parties suddenly appear

and get approved instantly.

Let me remind you that we tried to register our party under

several different names, some of which

they even stole from us, and we tried to register it

nine times. Every single time they told us,

“You don’t have enough people,” or “There’s an error.”

And then some party appears out of nowhere and it

gets registered immediately. Of course, these are all

completely Kremlin-controlled

parties, created so that they can

take part in State Duma elections

or, like right now, in various

regional parliament elections, because it’s

very important for the Kremlin that small parties

make it into legislative assemblies somewhere,

in any region, and then

they can move up to the federal level without having to collect signatures.

the federal level.

And then they can say, “What do you mean, there’s no

stagnation in the political system?”

“You don’t like that it’s the same thing over and over

again?”

“But we’ve got new faces, new

parties.” In fact, the party is literally

called that, guys—New People. So why

wouldn’t you vote for New People? But

it’s actually very easy

to tell the difference: just look and see

whether they say anything at all—any

criticism of the president. If they criticize

the president or United Russia, let’s say, with

specific facts—if there’s any real

criticism there—then you’ll see. And of course you’ll see that

there is no real criticism at all. It’s an

absolutely controlled

controlled party.

Zhirnosova Grim asks: “Any news about Artyom and

Tekhnik? There’s still no news. Artyom, who

worked, among other things, on Navalny LIVE, our

—I told you that he was basically

kidnapped and taken away.

We’ve been dealing with this automatically since the beginning—actually,

he has all the documents.

He is exempt from military conscription.

They wanted him off this program so badly

that they simply abducted him and

took him away. He is now in Vladimir

at some kind of military training camp.

And we are currently in the middle of court proceedings; in

court, we are establishing these medical

documents. But right now the Defense Ministry, together

with Shoigu, really is using the army

as a kind of camp where

it is actually even harder to sue or

to try to obtain any

documents or meet with this

person than when he is sitting

in prison. They simply hide people away; as with Shavenkov,

they took him to Novaya Zemlya (a remote Russian Arctic archipelago), and now

they are trying to do the same thing with

Artyom. But of course we will fight for

him. But the situation, the situation is not, not

very good. Egor Makhin asks me:

is it worth running in the elections

for the City Duma? Egor, that depends on who you

are running against, whether you can win, whether you will

actually fight. But overall, the answer is yes, of course it is worth it.

The more people take part in elections, the

greater the political diversity, the

more people you draw into all of this, into

this whole movement. But you just should not

run in a way where, you know,

you just go for it casually, or simply

write, “Of course, Alexei, you know, I

watch your show, and now I’m

running for the City Duma, so support me

through Smart Voting.” That is not how

Smart Voting works. First and foremost, we need it

in order to defeat

United Russia, and we will support

candidates—we will try to support

candidates who have a chance of winning,

even if, ideologically, those candidates

are not especially close to me personally. And unfortunately,

idiots do not watch my

Thursday livestream, but they still have a better

chance of breaking through if they put up a fight against

United Russia. So if you, Egor, have

some kind of team, if you understand what

to do, and if you go into your district

and wipe the United Russia candidate off the map,

or make a real attempt, then of course

you should run—for the City Duma and for the Legislative Assembly.

You absolutely should. You just need

to be determined. It is a good,

interesting experience, a great thing. Quite possibly

you may even get elected, and if they

do elect you, then at the very least it will be

interesting to look back on.

Are U L asks me: “Alexei, will there be

a campaign against deputies with dual

citizenship and residence permits?”

Well, what do you think yourselves? Has it all already been forgotten?

Swept under the rug? Of course there will be no such campaign.

What, are they going to fight themselves?

Just look at the huge number of

reports about how business-jet owners

from Russia keep flying abroad all the time, while

regular flights are supposedly banned, and

that raises the question: how is it that various

people close to United Russia

—United Russia members—are getting abroad

at all? Because right now I would not be let into a single

European country, because

they would take my passport, say, “Alexei, goodbye,”

“it says Russian

Federation there. We do not let people like that in. You are all

contagious over there.”

But if someone shows up and, as it were,

they say, “Well, he tucked away his United Russia

party card and found his

residence permit or passport,” then he gets let into

lovely Spain and Italy and so on.

Take Vladimir Solovyov, for example: together with his

family, he can easily go to

Italy because he has a residence

permit. So of course there will be absolutely no

campaign about that.

Someone asks about Plan B, and whether there will be

week-long voting. We will talk about all

of that now, but before that I wanted to

entertain you. My

dear friend Margarita Simonyan

—a wonderful woman—has, as you

know, sued me, Sobol, and the

entire Anti-Corruption Foundation,

or so we have heard. Because, well, they

filed the lawsuit, and the court kicked it back, saying

it was written incompetently. And then, later,

they apparently said it had been accepted, but we have nothing,

we do not know anything, we are just

left confused and worried about what exactly

little Margarita has sued over, what she

wants to prove.

It is a lawsuit over honor, dignity, and business

reputation. She is demanding 500,000

rubles from me and from Sobol each—so what exactly

did I say or write that means

I am supposed to pay Margarita

half a million rubles?

And

[music]

how exactly is she going to prove

that what I said was false? Please show me

screenshot number one. Let us take a look at it.

Look at it—not that one, not this one, no, give me the right one—but

show me my post, what I said. What do

you think in this image

outraged Margarita Simonyan so much that she

filed a lawsuit?

Find the phrase here that insulted her

so badly that she

is suing and demanding 500,000 rubles. Not

“propagandist Margarita Simonyan,” not

“stop misleading people,” and not

“colossal budget.” The phrase was:

“We all know that RT is pathetic.” This is

not a joke—they are completely serious.

Now show the excerpt they attached;

it literally says in the lawsuit that “we all

know that RT is pathetic”—“pathetic.”

According to the explanatory dictionary, "wretchedness" is a miserable outward

appearance or inner content

of something, and that, of course, does not

correspond to reality. Our

channel Russia Today (RT)

and, personally, Margarita Simonyan

are in no way whatsoever

an act of courage. Next, the following phrase, which

Margarita Simonyan really did not like,

was this:

"Simonyan deceives everyone, including her

boss." Please show a clip

from this lawsuit.

There, you see: "Today I’ll tell you how

Margarita Simonyan deceives everyone,

including her boss, President

Vladimir Putin..." And then—well, never mind.

You know, I’ve called Margarita

Simonyan many different things, and even now I

certainly consider her wretched, a thief,

absolutely pointless, talentless,

a woman who sits there parasitizing

the state budget, who on her monstrous,

disgusting program, a kind of "Laugh Panorama" (a reference to a tacky Russian TV comedy format),

together with her husband earns 6

million rubles a week (about 60,000 USD at a rough historical rate), and who

steals from the Interior Ministry budget through a fictitious

PR contract. But with Simonyan, the issue is different.

The phrase where I say that she deceives

her boss—that is what is very important to her.

She wants to litigate precisely over that, to say: dear

dear boss, look, they’re saying that I

deceived you, but I am not deceiving you.

So much so that I am even ready

to go to court over it.

Because of this, tomorrow I am publishing

this lawsuit. It is actually very funny, and

there’s a lot in it.

What interests me is simply the mechanism of their

rebuttal. Yes, so: Margarita Simonyan

says, offended and insulted, that I and

the RT channel are "wretched." Apparently she’ll bring me

some certificate from HR saying that I’m not

that she is not wretched, and we will have to

refute it and say, well, sorry, but yes,

she is wretched. And the judge will sit there deciding:

so, interesting, is this wretchedness or not

wretchedness? But separately, it’s very amusing

that the lawsuit was filed not on behalf of Simonyan,

but on behalf of TV-Novosti, the legal entity

that owns everything. At the same time,

in my latest video, which

Lyubov Sobol released, TV-Novosti is not

mentioned there at all. It’s just that Margarita Simonyan

apparently doesn’t want to sue personally, and

so a third legal entity files

in her defense and tries to prove that none of this is

wretchedness, that she did not deceive her

boss, and so on. Let’s watch 40

seconds of that very video by Lyubov Sobol

for which, as we know, our courts will of course

sooner or later squeeze out of Sobol

500,000 rubles (about 5,000 USD at a rough historical rate). We studied

RT’s YouTube channels in different regions and

found out what they really are. It is

monstrous artificial boosting, including through

porn sites and Indian bots in

the comments. These are fantastical budgets

that are going into someone’s pocket, and now I will

show you this clearly. There are many

signs by which you can identify

artificial boosting: comparing social

engagement on videos, view

views,

audience geography. For example, any

schoolkid will tell you that if you have in front of you a

video with more than 1 million

views,

like this RT video in Spanish, but

it has only 93 comments, then the matter

is most likely not clean.

So there you have it. You can watch this video

and enjoy it on the channel

Navalny Live. In the future, of course, you will

also enjoy the absolutely wonderful

trial where we will discuss the courage of

Margarita Simonyan and whether or not she is wretched. I

already had a trial where one of the United Russia party members

—some of you may remember—was trying to prove that he

was not a drug addict. I simply wrote a tweet:

"United Russia member Lisovenko is a drug addict," and retweeted

his absurd statement. And then he

brought

a certificate to court saying that he was not

a drug addict, that Navalny had slandered him. So now

Margarita Simonyan, with a certificate stating that she

is not wretched,

is something we will be watching in one of

the courts. So, Timur asks about

Shnurov and his new post—what do you say?

Did he sell out because of debts, or what?

He seemed like a decent guy. Well, I saw

that Shnurov had reportedly become the head of the TV channel

RTVI.

And it seemed like a joke to me, but

the RTVI channel is located right across

the road from our office, and I could literally see that

Shnurov was filming there, by that wall

that I walk past every day, and

he was going into the RTVI office, so

well then, he sold out. To whom and why is not entirely clear to me.

Honestly, why he would want to be the general

producer of this channel—I don’t know. Lately he’s been doing

public and political things. Recently he

got involved with that party, the Party of Growth

(forgive me, Lord), the one associated with Titov—and that really is

some kind of utter wretchedness. They were saying something

about doing something so that in St. Petersburg

they could drag them into the Legislative

Assembly or into the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament).

Sergey Shnurov has been doing strange things.

Well, maybe it’s some kind of midlife

crisis. Maybe he got tired of singing and wants

to settle down somehow—we don’t know. Let’s

wait and see. They say he used to be a normal

guy—well, he still is a normal guy,

though unfortunately sometimes he gets involved in

some kind of paid hype. But overall, it’s normal enough.

Let's not judge Sergei before we judge Sergei.

Shnurov by his actions—what if he suddenly takes the RTVI TV channel

to unprecedented heights, and right there

everything will be great. So, voting is not...

A smart question about Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (a region in western Siberia): how did you calculate

it? Alexei asks me. Viktor Medved:

how did you know it would be 72 percent? It wasn't hard to

figure out. Well, let's actually

discuss, in fact, the main

news story, which many people see as

historic—or fateful. I don't see it as fateful at all,

not in the least, but nevertheless

it really is very important.

What happened was this very reset

of Putin's terms, and today he already came out with

a kind of congratulatory address to all Russians. There

was a very funny headline this morning,

rather ominous, saying that Putin had promised

to thank Russia for its support, and

of course on Twitter a lot of people

were joking

that it was like, run for your lives, whoever can,

they're going to bomb us after all.

Well, Putin released this address, and he

said there separately, basically, that

he understands those who voted

against. Let's take 41 seconds

of Putin's gratitude to Russia: "I want

to address words of thanks

to the citizens of Russia. I want to say thank you

very much for your support and trust.

I have repeatedly spoken about the need

to adopt amendments to the country's fundamental law,

to the Constitution. Here we have both

the improvement of the political system, and

the enshrinement of social guarantees, and

the strengthening of sovereignty, and

territorial integrity, and finally

our spiritual, historical, and moral

values that bind generations together.

There were many, many different values in it.

In the end, I just won't torture you with this

long recording. He says that he understands

those who voted against, and says nothing

about resetting his own term limits.

And this kind of address itself is

very telling. Of course, Putin understands

what happened. And as for how I

predicted it would be 72 percent—first of all, I

didn't guess right, because I just did

a very, very simple exercise. All

the newspapers wrote several months ago

that the Presidential Administration's plan

was simple:

turnout above 50 percent—closer to 60—and

for more than 70 percent to vote yes.

So I made a very rough estimate.

I simply thought that in the presidential

election they had fabricated 76 percent for him,

and now, after the increase in

the retirement age, after the coronavirus,

after the absence of any real assistance—they surely wouldn't dare.

And here I was exactly the naive

Chukchi youth (a Russian expression meaning a naive person): I thought they

would be embarrassed to fabricate that much.

So I thought it would be something in between

the basic target they had been given and the 76

percent from back then—that was the peak.

And so, yes, I said 72.

If I was wrong, probably 71 rather than that. But I

of course underestimated Ella Aleksandrovna

Pamfilova and all these wonderful

people in general. They have now fabricated, what,

almost 78 percent? That is,

of course, an absolute maximum—

Putin's highest result of all time. And in that

sense, its lack of authenticity

follows directly from that alone.

It's just that obvious.

So it seems to me that this

triumphal victory for Putin, in the

medium term, will not bring

him anything good. But first of all,

I'd still like to say a few words about the context

surrounding this

vote, because we can see that in

Russia people have basically, en masse,

stopped caring—there's no other word for it—about

the coronavirus. Literally no one

is paying attention. Meanwhile, for example, in

Kazakhstan today they reintroduced

quarantine. In European countries things are

also very difficult. In America the numbers are huge.

And in Russia, in fact, on the

day of the vote, as Leonid Volkov quite rightly

pointed out—one of the people

who follows all of this closely

and keeps track of all the numbers—on that

day, during the voting, Russia excluding

Moscow showed the highest number

of deaths. In other words, according to

the official data, on the day

of the "reset," more people in Russia died from the coronavirus

than on any other

day. And at the same time, of course, by now nobody

gives a damn about this whole coronavirus anymore. But still,

let's look at the official

statistics. Putin was talking about how

he had brilliantly defeated everyone, and

now if we look even at the official

statistics, which are understated several

times over—let's compare Russia with

Europe. Volkov also wrote today—and I

thought it was exactly the right tweet to

show you—that we have a population of 146

million people and currently 216 deaths per day,

while Europe has a population of 450 million

and they, supposedly, according to Putin,

followed our wonderful example,

and they have 93 deaths per

day. And this is the kind of thing that we

still need to remember, because in all

the regional hospitals and medical centers

things are a total mess right now.

Since I said that everyone had stopped caring—well,

people are now treating the coronavirus as if

it's just here, that's it, it's with us,

it's here, and we don't even want to discuss it anymore, we don't...

What’s interesting is that in hospitals, but in fact

this is how it is: any person who is even

somewhat influential in any city

is now getting three or four calls a day

saying, “Listen, please arrange

to get my grandmother, or mother, or some female relative into

a hospital, because they’re not admitting anyone anymore — all

the hospitals

are simply packed with people; there are huge numbers of dying patients,

an enormous number, but somehow, well...

And meanwhile we’re holding a vote, and essentially

this so-called vote was organized

basically for the sake of a nice tweet.

Today I saw one published

by a certain Telegram channel and Twitter account.

There’s the Kremlin pool — a group of

journalists who serve Putin — and

very characteristically, it said there outright:

it was completely obvious what this was

being done for: “Putin’s victories, here you go.”

This is what Putin’s victories look like

in their view:

the 2000 election — 52 percent, then

2004 — 71.12 percent,

then after the protests it dipped a little, and then

all the way up to 76,

and now almost 78. So there you have it —

that’s really what all of this

was started for.

And the main thing I want to say to everyone

— to address everyone, to hug everyone and

kiss everyone — whether you rejected it and didn’t go,

or whether you went out and voted, you could have

gone and voted “no,” because

that was your act of civic responsibility, your civic act.

I mean, simply wanting to photograph

it all, post it on Twitter, and say:

“To hell with Putin,” or

maybe you believed the story that

it was possible

to outvote them — none of that matters now.

Right now, everyone did well; everyone did something

against this whole regime, against this whole

setup. But it was designed in such a way that

you could vote, and that was

an act of your courage,

but when it came to the actual count, it

could not function.

And let’s just look back once again at what happened

five months ago. Five months ago

they said — what was Putin’s defeat in?

It lies in the fact that five months ago

they were sitting there, just like this, and we were discussing

whether Putin needed his term count reset, whether he needed

new terms because, well,

for one reason or another,

people were behaving improperly, and Vladimir

Vladimirovich (a colloquial way of referring to Vladimir Putin) wanted to write this into

the Constitution. And there was a very simple,

obvious option: let’s hold

a referendum, and Vladimir Vladimirovich would get

everything he needs. After all, we know how to run referendums,

we know how to run elections:

Chechnya — 90 percent, Tatarstan — 95

percent, and Kemerovo Region — 95

percent — we’d win any referendum by those kinds of magical numbers.

But no — he lost,

because he refused to hold

a referendum, and instead chose something resembling an election in

Russia, where every election is rigged. But

we know, we saw how the recent

2018 presidential election was falsified —

it was falsified completely.

But that level of fraud was not enough.

They understood that if they simply came out

with observers and at least some kind of

procedure, even a bad one, they’d be finished —

just finished. People would mobilize,

they’d get crushed in all the major cities,

and quite possibly in smaller cities that

had suffered from the coronavirus, they

would lose.

And so they came up with a separate scheme.

This is very important to understand,

because we can’t discuss something

in completely abstract terms when we’re discussing

something that looks like an election, with ballots,

and then call it an election and compare it to

previous elections. That’s the wrong

way to think about it.

There were, and there will be in September, some kind of

elections — very problematic, but with observers

and with rules. They decided instead that they would hold

this

without observers and without anything at all. At that moment

they lost. At that moment

we can say: that’s it, guys,

the truth is on our side, because it’s obvious

that you’ll just fabricate the result. You created a special

mechanism in which votes are not counted and

mean nothing. Today the Golos movement (Russia’s independent election-monitoring organization)

issued a statement. I had sort of promised myself

that during this broadcast I wouldn’t

say even once, “I told you so,” but

I’ll rephrase it. So, in that sense,

the Golos movement, in its

statement, essentially repeated everything

I’ve been discussing here with you:

that this was not even a vote, but

from the outset simply a PR campaign, and

the voting itself, directly,

as the observers tell us — and they are the largest

monitoring organization — had no

significance.

That’s exactly right. And so again the phrase comes to mind

“as I said before,” or “as I

mentioned here on the program”: you could go

and vote — the main thing is not to be upset afterward

that your vote was not counted. You

voted, or you didn’t vote,

but you know that this is a fake.

By design, in this whole apparatus,

there was never any function meant to show you

your vote. That function simply did not exist at all.

What we have now is unquestionably the

largest,

the most massive falsification in the history

of Russia — not just in recent history, but in Russia’s history altogether.

in the history of the new Russia—and of Russia in general—already

there is a huge amount of this kind of evidence

you can read Shpilkin’s post on

a well-known mathematician, one of the leading

experts in electoral mathematics

there are lots of figures and graphs there; if

you understand that sort of thing, you’ll get great

pleasure from it. You can also read the excellent

post by Leonid Volkov, which he wrote today

—it’s simple math there, for

people who aren’t able to make sense of

some super-complicated graphs. But the difference between them

in Volkov’s and Shpilkin’s calculations—Shpilkin’s

he says that Putin and

Pamfilova stuffed in 22 million votes

Volkov thinks it was probably closer to 27

million votes. In other words, it was simply

an enormous, colossal ballot-stuffing operation, and of course

but as for Pamfilova

Ella Aleksandrovna, at one point, was very

offended by me over this

photograph and was indignant, saying,

“Come on, Navalny, this is not some fascist

uniform at all.” By the way, that uniform in

the photo belonged to Churov, the previous head

of the Central Election Commission, and I just saw somewhere on

the internet that someone had cut out

Churov’s head and replaced it with Ella

Pamfilova’s, and I posted that picture on Twitter

when

Pamfilova first started doing

some kind of nonsense. She got offended and said, “Why

did Navalny post me in this fascist

uniform?” And in general, basically

we all thought—I’m ashamed to say

in comparison with Churov—that actually, we

all thought it couldn’t get any worse than Churov

but he really was

this old, brazen thug, while here we had

this sensitive, anxious

woman who had always moved along

the trade-union line, and she always

likes to tell stories about how she went to Chechnya, how

she was friends there with Yavlinsky (a liberal Russian politician), how she was

a great friend of—well, probably not anymore—

Novaya Gazeta (an independent Russian newspaper), and so on and so forth

She likes giving interviews and

telling people in them how she

is not at all ashamed of what she

has done over the last four years. Let’s

listen to a little clip here—I’ll stay in the corner

so I don’t get banned too. Channel One (Russia’s main state TV channel): “Over

these four years, I haven’t done anything

that I should be ashamed of

no matter what anyone says.”

You see, for her this is very important. Churov

never reasoned in terms like shame or no shame

at all. He would put on his glasses,

scratch his beard, and say,

“In accordance with clause such-and-such, therefore

United Russia gets all the votes. Right,

comrades, please state your views. We vote.

Heard, resolved, goodbye.” That’s how

it all was. But she plays the part of

the tormented intelligentsia, saying, “People

are slandering me, but I’m not ashamed.” But

paradoxically, it is precisely this very

Ella Pamfilova, great friend of all

human rights activists, former commissioner for

human rights—well, whatever the exact title was

human rights ombudsman, head of the Council

for Human Rights—but never mind, those are

fake institutions. Still, she always followed

that line, and in Putin’s

nomenklatura she fell into the category of

the compassionate auntie with big eyes

filled with tears and slightly

trembling lips, someone who

really seemed not just like another bureaucratic

face, but a human being. But she turned out to be the worst of all

a hundred times worse than Churov. It was Ella

Pamfilova

who stuffed in those either 22 or 27

million votes and totally

falsified the whole thing, simply carrying out

the biggest scam imaginable. Obviously it was done with

the Presidential Administration, obviously with

Putin’s administration. But I believe—and

Yashin said today, go to his channel

and watch his video, he released

an excellent video—that Pamfilova must go

I believe she should end up in the dock

She needs to be put on trial, and she

should become a symbol, some kind of—if you like—

point of national consensus

All of us, regardless of our

views, should agree that

Pamfilova must go

she should be under investigation, she

should be in prison, because this is

monstrous theft on a monstrous

scale. I don’t know whether we will see

anything even worse than this, but

judging by the way she has gone about it, maybe

we will. By the way, it’s interesting

that in that same interview with Pozner (a well-known Russian TV host), held

on the eve of the vote

she quite shamelessly, together with him,

discussed how these amendments had already been adopted, that is

which is also just an astonishing degree

of cynicism: they call everyone out to vote and at the same time say

“doo-doo-doo, the amendments are of course already adopted,” and

Pozner nods along: “Yes, yes, they’re adopted,”

the amendments. Let’s listen. “What this man has done

proposed—this was all so

primitive and obvious that not to know him, not to

understand him—and he didn’t need to do anything

more, really. Yes, even if, even if

these amendments, calmly, they are already

adopted

you understand? And, well, as far as I know

yes, of course, as far as is known—well, it’s already

adopted. All of this still has to

happen formally, but we’ll draw the numbers anyway. There are already

simply a huge number of

mathematical calculations, videos,

all sorts of things

a sea of material over the next two or three

In the coming weeks, there will simply be ten times more of it.

materials that unquestionably show

that this was simply one massive falsification.

Where, essentially, there is no—no

more or less coherent fragment. Actually, I

wanted to show you just one—well, even a single

video, a photograph, an absolutely remarkable one.

St. Petersburg. And in St. Petersburg, well,

take a look at this too. Most of us

—even observers—still haven’t understood

the scale of the so-called early

voting in St. Petersburg. So, how

many people do you think came

to vote on the actual voting day? In

fact, less than one-tenth of

the total number. In St. Petersburg,

60 percent turnout had already been recorded in advance. You

can check for yourself: in a giant

city of over a million people, 60 percent of people

came and voted early there. Sixty

percent—that was more than half the city.

It’s impossible to imagine, but that’s what it was, and

the signs of large-scale falsification were as follows:

First, show the precinct protocol here.

Show the protocol—yes, can we get a closer look?

Here, if you look closely, you can see

“for.”

Now, the number of ballots issued—

the number of ballots, right here, yes—how many?

It says 435. Line number five: 435.

Then the following happens. But this

protocol, which was signed by all the members

of the commission—in this case, there was at least some

decent commission member there—

they submit it to the so-called GAS

Vybory system (the State Automated Election System), and the protocol that the commission

has in hand must fully

match the electronic

protocol that is entered into the system.

And then the system passes the data along, so in

the end the votes are counted, counted, and here

this is exactly where, of course, all the

cheating begins.

Protocols start disappearing, they

start getting rewritten or otherwise tampered with

or moved from one folder to another in

ordinary elections, yes. But here, as we already

discussed, the system was fundamentally

built differently. Now let’s look at how that same

protocol appears in the GAS

Vybory system. We look and find the same little thing

under “for.” You see the same 431, only damn it,

they put a 1 in front of the number and

it became 1,400—just a moment ago it was 430

one votes in favor. They just stupidly added

a 1. They didn’t throw out

anything, they didn’t stuff ballots, they didn’t

try to take the protocol away from that guy at the precinct,

tear it up and burn it, destroy some

evidence—nothing. They didn’t even try

to do that. They just damn well added a 1, and

as a result,

431 turned into 1,431.

That’s what they did. It’s obvious that all

these people who were supposed to do it, did it.

They should be in prison. Here is the direct

evidence: one protocol versus the

figure in GAS Vybory. So once again,

well done to everyone who did at least something.

Yes, well, now in hindsight, and to me

it’s clear that many things should have been done differently.

Probably our overall strategy should have been

different. It was definitely my mistake that I let myself

get drawn into this discussion—

this meaningless nonsense about

whether to vote or boycott. But we

announced this dual strategy: not

to recognize it, while saying that you could vote

against it, or you could simply not go. And if you

look through the feed from our штабs (campaign offices),

you’ll see that a whole bunch of

regional штаб (campaign office) heads went and

voted “no,” while others didn’t go.

That part doesn’t matter. But this—this

discussion was pointless. We got too

deeply drawn into it, and in the end it turned out

that we were campaigning to ourselves.

The key thing here was to focus on those

who vote in favor

and don’t even understand what these amendments are about.

Because what matters is

the major thing that happened on

—completely wrongly—today Sobol

drew attention to this. She wrote that

you remember how they were telling us

during the preparations, when they kept bringing up

puppies and kittens,

passports for officials, and what Beglov (Governor of St. Petersburg) was doing—

on voting day he was telling everyone about very

nice amendments on animal protection.

But once all this happened, what did they start saying?

They said this was a referendum on trust in

Putin. From the official website of this

vote, they even removed

the mention that the amendments included

the resetting of Putin’s term count. Now look:

Sobyanin, all of United Russia, all of them

are saying that this was, of course, it was

a referendum on trust in Putin. Of course, all

80 percent—78 percent—came and

supported him.

Trust in Putin—that’s exactly what this was needed for,

this very tweet, yes, and this whole

narrative. Show the tweet again.

The Kremlin press pool is simply trying

to intimidate us with their supposed numbers,

with their sheer size. The main idea there

is that everyone who is against it

keeps seeing this figure—seventy-

seven point nine, or 80—and thinks, well, there are

so many of them that even if they did throw something in there,

stuff something in,

they’re still so much [ __ ]

more numerous than we are. And this is exactly how

they keep psychologically pressuring us. Why did they

need turnout so badly? Why did they

want everyone to go vote so much? They didn’t care—

they were placing ads everywhere anyway.

Everyone, come out and vote however you like.

Because right from the start they put the number at 1.

Just cast it — they don’t care what your

vote is. But then, once you’ve gone in, they

demoralize and shock you so much that

you simply came, voted, and then

you saw — you saw the exit polls for

Moscow, and people started writing to us:

55 percent — now we’ll beat them there — and

then bam, they pull out a club that says

78 percent on it and hit you over the

head with it, and you get sad and say there’s

nothing to be done. My God, I’m alone, everyone around me is

an idiot, I need to leave, I need to get out of the

country — or just retreat into some kind of

internal exile, and so on. Well,

that is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Nothing truly momentous happened.

Let’s be honest: in Russia, not yesterday, not

the day before, not two weeks ago — not a single

law has actually worked. We’ve known for

the last 15 years that Putin is president for life.

Those people who didn’t

deceive themselves have always said — perhaps bluntly, but

stating the obvious — of course Putin

usurped power in order to remain

president for life. We knew that. He

has now taken another step toward it, but no laws

were working anyway, no constitution was

being applied. They were breaking journalists’ arms, and

they continue to break journalists’ arms. This

particular step, from the point of view

of

its consequences for Putin, I’m sure, will

actually be more negative than positive. Because

first of all, all those state employees — they really were

herded into it. If in Moscow

1.5 million people

were forced to register, then all those

1.5 million people know perfectly well

that they were forced to register. And

a huge number of people didn’t even

understand what these amendments were about. By the way,

there’s a great video from our headquarters in Omsk.

They’re interviewing people at a polling

station and asking: do you even know

what

what’s in these amendments? Let’s watch

a short clip. “I’ll read the amendments

later.” “No, I’ve already made my choice, I voted, well...”

“I’ll read the amendments later.”

“No, I haven’t read that yet.” “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.”

“Then try this one. Which number is it?” “You don’t know?”

That’s how it was. So once again I’m

trying to avoid saying, “I told you so,” but

according to our polling, a huge number of people —

we saw it ourselves — some 30 to 40

percent of people had no idea that

this was about resetting the term count.

We know because here we

discuss it endlessly among ourselves. Those who

read newspapers, those who are interested

in politics, knew about it. Everyone else

was told it was about all sorts of things — about dogs, about

raising your spiritual values, about

how we won’t give away

our territories, because without these constitutional amendments

the Japanese will take the Kuril Islands and the Americans

will take Crimea from us, or something

like that will happen. Great — so people went and voted for

pension indexation. We shouldn’t underestimate

how little people understood. But now

a huge number of them, first of all,

have simply seen with their own eyes what an

monstrous fraud it was.

And again, we shouldn’t forget:

there are 90,000 election commissions in the country.

Ninety thousand election commissions — and all those

election commissions now know that

it was all a complete sham.

A total, absolute deception. Everyone knows

that none of this was real. And now, when

United Russia and Putin start telling us

that this was supposedly

a referendum of confidence, a huge

number of people — including that

gentleman there — will understand what these

amendments were really about. And again, the whole country

saw these absolutely wonderful, wonderful

polling stations. I won’t deny myself the

pleasure — in the last program

I did a top 7 of the best polling stations —

but I won’t deny myself the pleasure

of showing you my favorite one again:

the polling station that was located

in a supermarket cart. Please show it to us.

These are great videos — yes, that one.

There was a video there — no video? Then

we have a photo of the supermarket cart.

There were tree stumps used for voting, voting on a bench

by an apartment entrance, and there’s also this very heartfelt video

where women are singing on a bench near

the entrance. Let’s take a look.

[music]

These sweet, nice women who

gathered there on a lovely day and sang

a song — but they also saw that the voting

was taking place on a bench, and they saw that

voting was happening out of car trunks, and

millions, tens of millions of people

watched

a scene that was unusual for them. We had

never seen voting like this before —

these obviously strange, unprecedented forms of it —

but they saw them, and now they’re being

shown our Ella Alexandrovna (Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission),

who says that all of this is a lie,

that there were no tree stumps, no car trunks, and

that the entire vote was conducted perfectly.

She is insisting on this quite

persistently. Let’s listen — two

minutes and ten seconds. I don’t mind

giving that airtime to Ella Alexandrovna

as she now tries to prove to all

those people who saw with their own eyes

the tree stumps,

the benches, and everything else, that none of it

ever happened. Unfortunately, believe it or not...

No, but those who don’t believe it should try for themselves.

Try looking for actual facts and evidence, because apart from

reposts, mockery, and other, excuse me,

“someone said so” gossip and one blogger’s

made-up story that ten others reprinted—go look for

something concrete. Have you even tried? So far, mostly

we haven’t seen any of it. Mostly it’s either pulled

out of thin air or, let’s say, half-truths. And as for

violence, it’s outright lies. But unfortunately,

unfortunately—or fortunately, if you look at it another way—

that means we are working better than

those who are trying

to discredit voting in Russia would like.

Come on, you know,

the mission of my Central

Election Commission and my colleagues in

the regions may be subjected there

to unfair attacks, unfair

accusations. I have said more than once that

sometimes even a half-truth is worse than a lie.

A half-truth, when thrown out by someone who knows

exactly what they are doing, is something we are used to.

But when people start mocking

ordinary people—I watched all of it,

this whole performance about

voting in courtyards and near people’s homes.

And you know, I simply felt ashamed.

Ashamed not for our people—those women running around,

our people, most of them far from young,

with worn hands and aching legs.

They carry all those heavy boxes,

they go around villages to reach elderly men,

old women left on their own, those living nearby,

following their requests. And then some young

healthy punk, excuse me, well-fed

and doing just fine,

educated in this very system

that he claims to hate, you know, like

Malchish-Kibalchish (a Soviet literary boy hero) in his own mind—there he is,

crawling on all fours or crouching down behind

a bush, taking pictures: “What the hell is this, a stump?”

They sat down there.

Excuse me, but if you are

young and healthy, how can you not be ashamed?

If you’re an observer and you are genuinely

interested in what is happening, then

help those women instead of just

watching them struggle under that weight. And all of this, apparently,

becomes the basis for songs and, excuse me, dances.

I believe this is mockery,

plain and simple—mockery of people.

The people understand everything. It all turns these so-called

so-called

political… 91,000 people are watching this live,

watching live, and I hope that at least

45,000 people are crying right now

simply because

these are just actors who don’t have

an Oscar. Ella Pamfilova is really, truly—she

is upset, she is emotional, she is ashamed for those

people who mocked voting on

stumps.

After all, none of that happened, and yet

these big healthy guys keep going on and on about it.

And fine—let her speak,

because, as she rightly said,

the people understand everything, the people know

perfectly well how all of this was arranged.

Listen, Moscow’s population

suddenly increased by 7 percent in a single day. What

happened? Today, Open Media

published an article about it. How is that possible?

This is a gigantic city, the largest in

Europe.

For its population to increase by 7

percent, there would have to be

nothing less than

a mass migration of peoples. What was it—

did the Mongol-Tatars or the Huns arrive in Moscow?

No, it was Ella Pamfilova or Vladimir

Putin dumping in votes. They literally

just fabricated them out of nowhere compared

with the previous elections, which

were held quite recently. How could the

population have increased by 7 percent? That’s how—

they simply stuffed in those

votes, that’s all. And the same thing happened in Moscow:

45 percent early turnout, 45 percent.

Can you believe that half of Moscow

went and voted early, while on

the actual voting day there were almost no voters at all?

It comes out to only about 10

percent. The polling stations stood empty, but before that

everyone had supposedly already voted, and they expect

us to believe it. But everyone knows

how they got that early turnout.

Everyone saw it—relatives did too. And the people

see it and understand everything. And when the people

see this kind of abuse, which

virtually every

elderly person in the country was subjected to, when

first and foremost employees

from election commissions went through the lists

from social welfare offices and visited old people who

could barely understand anything—there is a rather disturbing

video, 1 minute 17 seconds long, where they are simply

essentially tormenting an elderly

person because they need to get

votes. Let’s watch.

[music]

This is your choice, and

[music]

put a check mark or a cross.

[music]

[music]

A gift certificate for the girl later,

she’ll explain afterward what needs to be done here. Oh,

they’ll explain it to the girl later.

Later, yes, yes.

So you understand the degree of

vileness here? It’s not even just “for the new Russia” anymore,

you don’t even need to say more than: “Are you for Russia,”

for Nazi Germany, are you for Russia or for

the people who have just taken away my pension?” I mean,

that is,

it’s abuse, and the people understand everything.

The people understand perfectly well that these

percentages for Putin are obtained in exactly this way.

would have been done, and if they could have,

done otherwise, he would have gone for a proper

referendum. He would have rigged it, he would have

campaigned there, there would have been massive

propaganda, but he would at least have tried

to win in a referendum where

there are at least a few observers. But

our Vladimir

Vladimirovich got scared, lost his nerve, and at that moment he

lost. It is very important to understand this well and

to be fully aware of it. In Mordovia (a republic in Russia),

they were making a report about how early

voting was just really great and

very honest, and so, well, you know,

Mordovia is roughly like Chechnya when it comes

to voting patterns, so in Mor-

they had become so relaxed that while they were filming all this,

their footage actually captured

a ballot-stuffing moment. They deleted it all, but

one fragment remained. Let's watch it. You have

two seconds. Also, no one had any

questions about the legitimacy of the process.

The voting process is proceeding

in an organized manner. No violations were observed.

No violations

were observed. No violations were observed.

Near the ballot box, there were constantly

observers from political

parties and public associations.

No violations were observed. Well, just imagine

a polling station, and local Mordovian television arrived there to film.

Local Mordovian television came to shoot footage,

and of course, when television is filming,

everyone dressed up.

They sit there and try to make it look like

some kind of normal process, but even during

this process they say, come on, let's do

what's needed there, film it, please,

show it, please, we'll film her

putting the ballot into the box, and

she takes a stack and stuffs it in, and they film it.

This is normal. As our friend

Yelena Malysheva says, "This is normal, this is how it works."

A huge scandal was caused

simply by a video that was published

by a Moscow...

It was very, very revealing: a Moscow

family came to vote at a Moscow

polling station and discovered that

all of them already had check marks next to their names.

In Moscow, all of them already had check marks next to their names.

And it's very interesting how

the events unfold. First, the person who

was sitting right by the voter register

got scared because

they had been caught red-handed. Here are the people, here are

the check marks next to the surnames. What

do you do? And then an older woman comes over,

and we see how instantly the system

switches and says, "Oh yeah? Prove it."

Look, let's watch it, this is really a great

moment.

[music]

Look, this is my daughter.

[music]

This is a separate criminal

case. How can you accept this? It was just

a violation right there, well yes, there it is.

That moment, did you see it?

"Prove it." Your vote was literally just

stolen from you — that is, they stole your vote, they are

criminals. They took everything from your family.

"Prove it." She took the folder for herself,

that's it, and she's holding it. What will happen to this woman

is a big question, a big question. Most

likely, nothing, because the system will

protect all such people, and the system

from the start guaranteed all these

people: do whatever you want, it doesn't matter.

This video caused a stir

precisely because of that sheer brazenness — that

"Prove it." I watched it

several times, and it really, really makes my blood

boil a little every time you watch

it. But that is how things are set up here.

There are a lot of questions here about the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (a federal district in Russia).

One person asks why in the Nenets

Autonomous Okrug, 54 percent voted against it,

while in other regions everything was different with

the results. Regular viewers of our

program know this very well: the Nenets Autonomous Okrug is

a small federal subject

with very high salaries, where

the level of falsification has traditionally been low.

I told you, probably even in

two programs in a row quite recently, that

all the residents of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug were recently enraged by

the federal center,

which announced that it would hold

a referendum and merge them

with Arkhangelsk Region, and for all local

residents

this was a really important issue, because

it means benefits, it's an oil-and-gas

region, salaries are high there, and they value

their small autonomy and their

relatively prosperous life, and there really

everyone there just went furious, at Putin and

simply went and voted against it, and also

basically refused to falsify the results.

Interestingly, this is developing in such

a way that I saw an article today saying that

some pro-Putin political analyst

named Marat Bashirov actually stated, by the way,

that now, there in the Nenets

Autonomous Okrug, those who

voted against it will have to

pay for it — that's a literal quote. So

basically: you voted against

Vladimir Vladimirovich,

now you will pay for it. It will be very

interesting to see how events develop.

But well done to the residents of the Nenets Autonomous

Okrug.

And this is simply, in pure form, a situation

that the Kremlin created for itself. They

pushed into it, people got angry, and then

no one bothered falsifying anything, and that was that.

and even this whole system, this system

of outright, total falsification didn't work

because here, well, as he shouts

he threatens, or there, there, really at

the level of the elite, probably the governor wanted

more, but everyone else kind of didn't

join in this system of total

fraud. It will be interesting to see what happens next there

what will happen, but it's interesting

it's striking that repressing people for

disagreeing with this referendum, they in

the regions

have tried and are trying in all seriousness

because on the one hand they said that

no rules or laws apply here

are in force

those were the official responses, and no

campaigning—no campaigning at all—is restricted

because it is not regulated by law

because this vote, it is not

regulated by law. But for example

in Voskresensk, a person simply hung on

their balcony a banner saying, "I am against the amendments"

well, it would seem, right: "I am against the amendments." You

would assume what happened? You probably

think someone from

building management came, called, and said

something like, "Stepanych, please deal with them"

our local mayor doesn't like it

the police came, the firefighters came

in order to take down this banner. The whole 10-

second message: a person is against the amendments

had expressed their view

Volkov didn't hang it up

the police arrived immediately

the police

the firefighters

now they're going to fuss and take it down

not allowed

[music]

the person here gathered

people are gradually coming over

[applause]

brother, rights or not, it doesn't matter anyway

why these cases of campaigning are so great—I've

been saying it constantly: campaigning, campaigning,

campaigning. They'll draw whatever results they want, and

they built a system that will produce

the results they need. All those 78, well

that means 78 percent had been planned in advance

but when someone hangs something on a balcony, then

who cares what the result will be? People walk around

people understand: so I'm not the only one after all

they forced me to vote, but someone in our

building hung something on their balcony, and someone somewhere else

spoke out, so of course

they react immediately, and so on

they rush over and take it down. By the way, those who have long

followed my work know that in 2013

when I ran for mayor of Moscow

one form of campaigning that we

used simply drove Sobyanin (then Moscow mayor)

up the wall. They deployed

an entire, I don't know, team of climbers because

we made banners that

said "For Navalny," and told

people: hang them on your balcony, and from

the rooftops they rappelled down, tore them off, climbed up on

ladders and ripped them down, because it is exactly

this kind of campaigning that drives them crazy

because their task is to intimidate us with their

nonexistent percentages so that we

sit there and think, "Oh, 78, that's scary." But if

you see it on this balcony, on that balcony

you understand there's nothing there—none of that 78

percent. Yes, it instantly

changes people. That's why: campaigning, campaigning,

campaigning. In Syktyvkar, amusingly, two

young women staged some kind of action; they

put on a performance called

"The Last Amendments." Let's take a look—it's all of

2 seconds

well, frankly, nothing especially dangerous

for the Putin regime. Let's watch

well, it's like a performance, a strange

artistic, maybe political, maybe

artistic action. They posted it online

and online it was seen by practically no one

yet an administrative case was opened against

them for distributing information

that insults the Constitution of the Russian

Federation

because this is exactly what they fear. For them

when a person goes to a polling station and

votes, they'll just rewrite it anyway

but if you do something in order to

move even one person to react

simply draw the attention of even one person

that is already treated as something dangerous

I just want to urge everyone once again—there are many

questions about what to do, how we will proceed

in September, what we will do afterward, but for now

overall, despite the fact that right now

everyone is a little tense and upset

by this result, the situation is shaping up

very well for Smart Voting, for

defeating United Russia, for defeating

Putin. What do we need? We need

people who are strongly opposed to this government—there are

20 to 30 percent of them, and they exist. This

nationwide vote has directly

added a few new percentage points for us

of people who are genuinely irritated, enraged, or at least

very dissatisfied. Plus all this COVID

plus the fact that they didn't help anyone—people

don't like what's happening, and therefore

the conditions for our work are very good

31 regions—large, huge regions

huge cities: Novosibirsk, Tomsk

Chelyabinsk, Voronezh. There is a problem, of course

yes, but right now 97,000 people

are watching live—that's a lot

you're all great, thank you for watching

Moscow, St. Petersburg

life is arranged in such a way that

residents of Moscow and

St. Petersburg who are opposition-minded think that more or less

the election in Voronezh doesn't matter

It’s like election zero.

Not in the Republic of Chad, or in some community somewhere.

No, that’s some kind of nonsense, it’s not at all...

There’s no politics there at all, none whatsoever — there are actually 31...

regions, regions like yours.

lawless places like Tambov, where there is...

By the way, our team is really great.

And there will be a real battle there the whole time.

They rig things, but it’s genuinely difficult, yes, but...

They will fight. There are regions where, with...

the help of Smart Voting, we will deprive...

United Russia of its majority, or at least...

at a minimum, throw out a lot of United Russia members.

That is exactly why the authorities already want to...

make voting last seven days. Already in...

September it will be difficult — we will need thousands...

thousands and thousands of observers, and once again one of our...

most important tools will be...

this program.

Through it, I’ll simply drive you...

crazy with my appeals: come on...

sign up as observers, come and...

vote. We will do all of this, and we...

will be able to make an impact there — not everywhere...

But can they really falsify things if...

there is an observer and if there is some kind of...

procedure? It is possible to throw United Russia out.

That’s why they are so afraid, that’s why they are so...

worried, that’s why they are trying so hard...

to intimidate us with these 78 percent...

these 78 percent. The most important thing is your...

effort. As the saying goes, without effort you can’t even catch a fish...

from a pond. Just imagine: Putin, his...

administration, all executive bodies...

of power...

in the regions — that’s thousands of people, tens of...

thousands of people who every day do something...

to strengthen Putin’s power.

Millions of person-hours.

We will achieve nothing until we ourselves...

put in millions of person-hours.

Think of any political events...

of recent times. If I ask you...

what independent thing happened in...

politics that caught your attention over...

the last 15 years or so, you would say...

there were protests in 2011...

there were protests, protests in Odesa, but...

then there were huge demonstrations. It was...

such hard work to organize those...

demonstrations. First of all, at first there was...

the campaign “for any party except United...

Russia.”

Then everyone worked like crazy to gather...

people, wrote posts, organized...

came up with new actions. Then there was...

my 2013 campaign for mayor...

of Moscow, which also, well, in many ways...

changed politics in the country. It was...

just enormous work overall...

the work of thousands of people, and there was an enormous...

a huge number of volunteers who...

for practically nothing hauled around those campaign cubes (street canvassing stands).

The rallies “He Is Not Dimon to You” (an anti-corruption protest slogan referring to Dmitry Medvedev).

But that didn’t happen by itself. It wasn’t just that we said...

I recorded a little video and said, “Let’s hold rallies.”

We organized 80 headquarters in 80 locations...

submitted applications, distributed...

videos, wrote things — in other words, we invested...

invested, invested, invested the work of my...

movement.

In 2018, I was not...

registered, but there were, I don’t know...

those nomination groups...

in a huge number of regions, and I...

held dozens of huge rallies across...

the whole country. But that work — I nearly died...

while traveling around and holding those rallies, just...

endlessly. That’s why we need to invest ourselves.

Without each person’s contribution, we...

won’t achieve anything. Of course, you want...

of course you want there to be...

some kind of dramatic event that overturns...

the elections, or Putin just runs away himself...

or they betray Putin, or something...

hits him on the head like a brick — but that’s not...

how it works. We have to do all of this, we have to...

go out into the streets. Without rallies, without...

mass actions, nothing at all...

will work. Because right now they...

are very afraid of Smart Voting, but...

what they fear most is the consequences.

Because they won’t allow our candidates into Smart...

Voting, and then we will go...

out.

The residents of Novosibirsk or Tambov will come out and...

protest.

And what are they supposed to do with them...

disperse them, shoot them? What would the...

further consequences be? That is what they...

are afraid of: when people start coming out into the...

streets.

And all the rest of the people will notice you for it.

Without these systematic...

efforts, nothing will work. Putin has been in power for 20 years...

Putin is in power.

Look how spry he is, swimming in the pool...

and, I don’t know, somewhere in Russia they’re...

probably just now sewing him a new...

cybernetic leg and all that sort of thing, and...

he’ll sit there for another 20 years.

And we’ll keep worrying. I’ll already be...

sitting here completely gray-haired...

and all that, and we’ll be making a lot of...

jokes about how it’s unclear who...

has been around longer — the authorities or...

the opposition. But without these real...

investments of effort from each of us, without...

your, say, five hours...

that you invest in this work...

nothing will work. And in September, we have...

a really excellent chance to hit back at them.

We don’t know what will happen. We...

do know there will be a sophisticated fight against...

us, against Smart Voting — a super...

sophisticated fight. In Novosibirsk, for example...

for example, an entire coalition has been put forward there...

against the current authorities, which...

is essentially a merger of United Russia

and the Communists. This coalition is led by

Sergei Boyko, the man who came

in second place in the mayoral election

in Novosibirsk—that is, the most popular

opposition politician. This coalition

will knock out United Russia. Tomorrow they won’t

register anyone. What needs to be done in this

situation? We’ll have to think: either they won’t

register the strong candidates, and they’ll register

the weak ones. It will be a very difficult road with

hard decisions, but without the investment of

everyone’s effort

nothing will work. There’s no such thing as

still saying, after all,

“I’m still me, which means I’m not sitting on the couch, because

I went and voted, but overall, whatever happens there

somewhere out there,”

“I don’t really like hanging out.” Everyone

has to sacrifice at least something.

Everyone has to go, everyone has to

go hand out leaflets. Most importantly,

everyone should write down on a piece of paper the circle

of their acquaintances and friends, and each one should be

persuaded, at least a little. Put something up in

your apartment building entrance, hang a leaflet, and so on.

It may sound very primitive, but

Putin’s approval rating, as I explained in my

last video, is the foundation. So we

need right now, from this Putin-loyal, brainwashed

mass, to knock out 10 percent—just

10 percent. Once we knock them out

from there, the whole thing will simply fall apart.

And Putin understands this very well, because

right now everything is being held together basically by

intimidation. And that intimidation works

very well. It showed itself very clearly

in the remarkable story involving

Andrei Malakhov, which I want

to use to wrap up this broadcast. It’s a pretty good

example. So, Andrei Malakhov works,

of course, for Channel One (Russia’s main state TV channel),

but he didn’t seem to have been publicly involved

in any overt political actions, and then

this unpleasant thing happened to him. Mikhail

Zygar is a well-known journalist. He

puts on these kind of audio performances

that—I haven’t taken part in them, so I find it hard

to say exactly.

They give you headphones, you walk around listening

to some audio as you walk through Moscow, and

it just so happened that at the same time, during

the voting, people dissatisfied with it began gathering on Pushkinskaya Square

and there

part of the tour was passing through. So there go

Zygar, Malakhov, and some other people—

all media figures, recognizable journalists.

Naturally, people start photographing them,

and everyone starts writing, “Andrei Malakhov came out to

Pushkinskaya Square”—well, rather, to protest,

and the man got so scared

that he immediately

recorded a video to justify himself, like,

“Good Lord, I happened to be out on the street, and they asked me there

whether Malakhov was protesting—of course not,”

“I was just passing by accidentally.” But now even that is no longer

enough—you have to record a special

video explaining that you were there

by accident, that you’re not in the opposition, and that you

just voted in favor of the

amendments. Here is Andrei Malakhov’s little 29-second disgrace:

“Friends, I’m just furious. You know, all it took was for me, for once in my life, to go to this mobile theater

once in my life, by invitation from

Katya Varnava and Sasha

Molochnikov, and as a result you get

lumped in with the people gathered on Pushkinskaya

Square. Calm down, yes, I’m outside politics.

I voted today for the constitutional amendments,

so have a good evening, everyone,

take care of yourselves and your loved ones.”

Andrei Malakhov is losing his mind over the thought that

someone might think he didn’t vote

for the amendments. It’s a perfect illustration of

what we understand: that poor Andrei

Malakhov

if he voted at all, most likely

voted against, and of how all this

is arranged, and of what a complete fiction

the whole thing rests on. There is no 78 percent.

This vote is a complete fake,

a forgery. We do not recognize it, and now we

need to come together, get to work, and crush

—forgive the word—United Russia in

September, and prepare to simply

tear it apart in the elections.

It will be hard with the State Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament), but no one

except us is going to do this. Many

thanks to everyone who watched. See you

next Thursday. Bye.

[music]