In this video investigation from August 2018, Alexei Navalny speaks directly to rank-and-file National Guard troops to show how brazenly they are being robbed by their own leadership. He exposes a corruption scheme under which, by decision of Dmitry Medvedev, a Crimean meat-processing plant became the agency’s exclusive food supplier, purchasing cabbage and onions at prices several times higher than in stores. The investigation was released just before the mass protests against the pension reform and triggered such hysteria among the generals that National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov later recorded his famously absurd video address, challenging Alexei to a “duel.”
Text version
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Hi, this is Navalny. Look at who is being
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dragged into a police van by Rosgvardiya (Russia’s National Guard) officers, and
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who is here? And who are these people? Enemies?
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Opposition activists? A fifth column?
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No. These fine men are dragging by the
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arms and legs their own defenders and friends.
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This video is for you, my dear
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Rosgvardiya officers, police officers,
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servicemen, and everyone else in
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uniform, so that you understand that we,
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I, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, our party,
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and those who go to rallies are in fact
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standing up for your interests and
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protecting you from the authorities and your
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thieving bosses, who are literally
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taking food out of your mouths and
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pulling away your share,
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just to make money off it. So, in
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Russia, there are more than 340,000
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Rosgvardiya personnel. It is a
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special structure created to protect
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those in power. Putin created it and put
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his personal bodyguard, Viktor
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Zolotov, in charge of the organization so that he and
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Medvedev would not be driven out by the people. The organization
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has to be fed properly. And not just
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given uniforms, weapons, transport, and housing, but
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literally fed. After all, these are
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thousands of young men, and they want to eat.
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So our state, using taxpayers’ money,
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taxpayers’ money,
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buys them food: cabbage, carrots,
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potatoes, meat—ordinary products
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from which breakfasts, lunches, and
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dinners are then prepared in canteens.
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All of this is procured centrally.
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No improvisation—there are GOST state standards everywhere,
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and the quality is clearly specified,
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along with the size and weight of every potato.
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Feeding everyone decently and uniformly is
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obviously not easy. Rosgvardiya units
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exist in every region, and ours is a
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huge country with enormous distances.
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You have to keep track of quality, deadlines,
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contractors, and so on. Just a year ago,
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food was being purchased from different suppliers
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depending on the region.
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But then the bosses realized:
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this is a huge chunk—billions of
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rubles every year. Billions. Why not make
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money off it? I am holding in my hands
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a government resolution dated December 2,
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2017, by which Dmitry Anatolyevich
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Medvedev, a great friend of our foundation,
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set everything up according to the principle of a kind of
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hodgepodge arrangement.
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They take all sorts of things there,
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mix them together, and granted the company
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Druzhba Narodov Meat Processing Plant
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the exclusive right to supply food
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to Rosgvardiya, without any tenders or
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competition. And Rosgvardiya buys
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food only from this company in Crimea,
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the Druzhba Narodov agricultural holding, which
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used to belong to the Ukrainian oligarch
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Yuriy Kosiuk,
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but later ceased to belong to him. But I’ll say more
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about that later. For now, I’ll simply
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compare
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the procurement prices for absolutely identical
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products for identical units before
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and after
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Medvedev’s order. For that, we have
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last year’s contract and this year’s one.
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White cabbage: last year it was
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bought for 14 rubles 96 kopecks per kilogram,
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and now exactly the same
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cabbage for the very same Rosgvardiya
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troops is being bought for 46 rubles 78
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kopecks—three times more expensive.
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Onions last year were 16 rubles
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per kilogram.
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And this year—boom—the onion suddenly got
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twice as expensive, up to 37 rubles per kilogram.
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Reconstituted apple juice—quite
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recently it was bought for 40 rubles per liter, and
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after Medvedev’s decree, 87 rubles—
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more than twice as much. And for potatoes, carrots,
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butter, and so on, it’s exactly the same
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situation. And we are not talking here
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about pennies. The total value of these contracts is 2
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billion 100 million rubles.
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You understand that if all the products became
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two to three times more expensive, then on carrots and cabbage
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alone, no less than a billion rubles was stolen.
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And not only was it stolen—they also started feeding you worse.
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Now let’s look at meat. They have to buy meat
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for these big, strong guys, and in November
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2017
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it was bought for nearly 311
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rubles per kilogram. But three months later,
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Rosgvardiya is buying meat that is worse in
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quality, with a shorter shelf life, but at
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40 percent more—436
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rubles. But why not? Give them any old
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stuff—
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they’ll eat it all. At this rate, just on
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meat alone, you could build yourself a country house.
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If, my dear Rosgvardiya troops,
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I still haven’t convinced you that
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billions are being stolen from your food budget,
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then especially for you—since you
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carry me in your arms—
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I invite you to come with me to the store
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the Pyaterochka store.
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Today is August 22, and we’re going to the Pyaterochka nearest the
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Anti-Corruption Foundation office,
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the Pyaterochka store.
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Cabbage is where the biggest
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difference is, because here it costs
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—look—14 rubles 89 kopecks, while they
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buy it for 46. Next, potatoes.
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Bagged potatoes—these are already packaged—17.99. Onions
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26.99.
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And Rosgvardiya buys them for 37.
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Loose carrots: 29 rubles 09
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kopecks, while they buy these carrots for
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50 rubles per kilogram.
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Fruit juice in stores costs
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76 rubles per liter, but they buy it for 87.
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Now we need to look at butter, one
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the National Guard buys it, calculated per
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kilogram, at
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470 rubles. Here there is exactly the same
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butter, made to the same GOST standards (Soviet/Russian state quality standards), and calculated
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per kilogram, it costs three hundred
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eighty-one rubles — that is, almost
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100 rubles cheaper.
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So you see, the National Guard buys wholesale
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through billion-ruble contracts, yet the products are more expensive
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than they cost in retail stores in
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Moscow, the most expensive city in the country. And here
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of course you have a question: Alexei,
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tell us, who gets these
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stolen billions?
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Well, my dear friends, why are you asking
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me? Go ask the FSB (Russia’s security service),
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ask the Investigative Committee,
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ask your Zolotov, ask his friends
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Putin and Medvedev, whom you protect from
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the people.
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All I can tell you is what I see
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in the documents.
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This meat-processing plant, where everything is purchased at
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unimaginable prices,
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was seized from a Ukrainian oligarch at the beginning of
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2017. He says so directly in an interview:
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yes, it was a takeover. The oligarch’s press secretary
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says that this was done
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by structures close to the leadership
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of the Russian Federation. Yes, indeed,
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control was transferred
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to, let’s say, certain structures
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close to the leadership of the Russian
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Federation. And it really does look
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very strange: they took it from the oligarch, and immediately
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after that, by Medvedev’s personal order,
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it was given contracts worth several billion rubles.
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Rosselkhozbank, the state agricultural bank, opened
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some unimaginable credit lines, and
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everyone around seems to be trying to make sure that
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this Crimean plant has everything going
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so well. Well, then at the very least it ought to end up
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in state
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ownership. But for some reason, the owner
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of this enterprise, through a chain of companies,
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turns out to be a former officer of the Internal
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Troops.
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Boris Zaurbekovich Khantimirov — here he is,
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mentioned as the head of the Central
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Archive of the Internal Troops of the Ministry
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of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
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But what is now the National Guard — that is,
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in the past Khantimirov was a direct
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subordinate of Viktor Zolotov,
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the head of the National Guard.
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If you run this man through the databases,
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you see that he never had any major
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property. But over all these recent
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years, Boris Zaurbekovich Khantimirov
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worked as CEO
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in the structures of St. Petersburg businessman Boris
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Vaninsky. We know Vaninsky’s companies from
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the investigation *He Is Not Dimon to You* (Navalny’s anti-corruption film about Medvedev); there he
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was swapping various
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companies and land plots on Rublyovka (an elite area near Moscow), where in the
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end
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Medvedev’s former classmates built this.
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One more thing I should add about Vaninsky:
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I haven’t said this phrase in a while — he is also
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a graduate of the law faculty of St. Petersburg
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University. In any case, we are absolutely
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certain that the former director of the archive
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of the Internal Troops, Khantimirov,
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could not suddenly become the real
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owner of a huge agricultural holding. He is there
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to conceal those who
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are making billions.
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So, dear National Guardsmen, here are
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three options for you: either billions are being stolen from your meat and
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cabbage in the interests of
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Medvedev, or in the interests of Putin, or in the
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interests of Zolotov, your boss. Given the scale of the organization,
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I strongly
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doubt that this could be happening at any level
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below that. One thing I know for sure: it is not the people
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you are robbing who are robbing you.
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It’s not the people you beat with batons and drag into
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police vans. It’s not the people who go to protests.
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They
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are making money from the fact that you eat worse
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meat for more money. And when you
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detain protesters, you yourselves are making it possible
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for your superiors to go on stealing
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money even from your food. Think about that
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the next time you go to the cafeteria.
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Very soon, my dear fighters,
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the National Guard will drag you out again to interfere with
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a protest against raising the retirement
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age.
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We are holding them on September 9 in nearly 100
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cities across the country.
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You will be brought there again at 6 a.m. and
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made to stand in formation, and they will
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tell you that here there will gather
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extremists who want to destroy
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Russia, and therefore you must disperse them.
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But the people who come there will be those who are against theft —
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specifically, on September 9, against
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robbing pensioners. But they are always also against
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robbing you. So do not
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carry out criminal orders. Remember
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that if anyone here needs to be
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arrested, it is those who have usurped
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power and have been
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sitting in the Kremlin for 15 years. Subscribe to
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our channel.
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They tell the truth here. If among your
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acquaintances there are National Guard officers,
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or employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or the FSB, or any military personnel,
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send them this video.
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I assure you, food is procured for all of them according to
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roughly the same scheme. After the meeting in
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the Kremlin, a ceremonial
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ceremony took place: Vladimir Putin presented the commander of
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the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, with the banner...
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the reorganized Internal Troops
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a relic that symbolizes
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the historical continuity of generations of defenders
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of the Fatherland