Down with the tsar; Pashinyan and Armenia; drive out the liberal scum.

[music]

Hello, everyone. Please excuse the

minor technical glitch. Putin

tried to chew through our cables, but we

drove him off. It's 8:20 p.m. in Moscow.

In the studio is Alexei Navalny, or

the leader of the global conspiracy, as I was called

in Armenia's parliament. The leader

of the global conspiracy—that's what it's called,

"Start the Like and Boss program." The leader

of the global conspiracy—though my minute

of fame, and Saakashvili's too, didn't last long. There, the leaders

of the global conspiracy were said to be me and

Saakashvili, but that didn't last long, because

Nikol Pashinyan, the leader of Armenia's opposition,

exposed us and said: "No,

they are not the leaders of the Global

Conspiracy." Nikol, you handled that

completely wrong. How do you know? Maybe

I am the leader of the global conspiracy?

No need to make such hasty statements—are

Navalny and Saakashvili really not the leaders

of the Global Conspiracy? Maybe

we are, just a little. Check first,

and only then make such

sharp statements.

When I left the rally in defense of

the internet—well, the rally had ended, and I

left and went to have lunch with my wife, and

in a café I met a young woman. She

said, "Hi, I support you,

can we take a photo?" And I said:

"Sure, absolutely. See you on the fifth

at the rally." And she said to me, "Well,

I really want to go, but I'm afraid.

What if they grab me there and then

expel me from university?"

No one is going to grab you, and no one is going to expel you

from anywhere. And in general, there is no such thing

as an unauthorized rally.

On the fifth, across the country, in 97 cities

in Russia, including Moscow and

St. Petersburg, there will be fully

lawful, authorized,

legal rallies. It's just that in some

cities they have been illegally banned by various

crooks. And don't be afraid—you absolutely

should take part in all

these events. No one is going to expel you

from anywhere. Over all this time, I think

we've had maybe two cases where people

were expelled or are being threatened with expulsion. Right now

one person is being expelled, and we're

providing legal support. But broadly speaking,

any university that

tries to expel you for taking part in

a rally or some public event

simply doesn't deserve to have you

studying there. Finish online courses instead. That would

be better, in fact. All over

the world, one sign of a university's quality is that

its students take part in

political life. Smart students

always take part in rallies, always

take part in actions of all sorts

of political orientation—right-wing, left-wing, whatever

you like. But a person's desire to participate

in political life through public

events is one of the most important indicators

that this is an intelligent person, that

this is a citizen in the fullest sense.

It means they have something to say, and that they actually

think about things. So on the fifth,

please, everyone come. And these little

clips, these snippets from my broadcasts, are later

always shown in court, and they say—

trying to prove that Navalny committed

some terrible offenses. So, specially

for the future judge who

will be watching all this, I want to say very clearly:

Mr. or Ms. Judge,

I am absolutely calling on all

citizens of Russia to take part on the fifth

in the rallies. I personally will do everything

possible to take part in these

rallies. And I will go to the rally in Moscow,

which will be held at Pushkin Square. And

the area of our protest is Pushkin Square

and Tverskaya Street from Pushkin Square

to Manezhnaya Square. We understand that the authorities

may sometimes close off a particular place.

For example, if Pushkin Square is closed

or difficult to access, you don't need

to get into confrontations with anyone, and you don't need

to storm any police

barriers. Just stay anywhere

on Tverskaya Street from Pushkin Square to

Manezhnaya Square. In St. Petersburg,

I am, of course, calling on everyone to take part

in the action that will take place on Palace

Square. I myself would gladly take part

on Palace Square—with surroundings like those,

holding a rally there is

simply wonderful. And in all

the other cities of Russia, wherever

the authorities—that gang of crooks and thieves—have

illegally banned it, I call on people everywhere

to participate, because this is the most

important thing a person can do right now

to defend their country. That's that.

Well, I do a lot of things. We conduct

investigations, we have various

projects, and I try to take part in

elections, I support other

candidates, but I know for certain

that right now, as a politician, as

a person, as—I don't know—a husband, a son, and

a father, it is impossible for me to do anything more

important in politics than

simply physically showing up, specifically in

Moscow, at Pushkin Square, on

Tverskaya. There is no more important, more

meaningful political act than

this. Everything else is secondary.

Well, we'll also be talking today about

Armenia, but we can see, for example, from

the example of Armenia, and we have seen from the example of all

the other countries where there were some

positive changes, if there were any,

are brought about only by people who take to the streets.

I’m not even talking now about so-called

Orange Revolutions or Velvet

Revolutions or whatever else. Just take

the United States 60 or 50 years

ago and look at what the situation was like there with

civil rights in different areas.

There were court cases, there were all kinds of

movements, but in the end it was precisely

mass protest rallies that played

the key role. Strikes too—strikes were

just as important or perhaps even a more

important factor in the protest movement,

an important means of putting pressure on the authorities. But at

the present moment, of course, it’s the rally.

So if you’re sitting there thinking, what can

I personally do in order to

try to move our country in the

right direction, in order to

push off from the bottom—Olga Matei, by the

way, is getting this little thing of ours,

uh,

our hoodie, because she

won the contest for the tweet calling on people

to come to the rally—uh, calling on people to come to the protest

on the fifth. Right now you can see her

tweet: “The bottom is getting closer; it’s time to push off

and rise to the surface.” Exactly. If you, uh,

want to do something so that

our country can push off from the bottom and start

rising, come to this protest on the fifth

in your city—97 cities in all. In the

description of this video you’ll find

a link and, uh, you’ll find your city. Well, if

it so happens that your city isn’t on

that list, well, that’s unfortunate, really.

And

support it in some media-related way at least.

But in all more or less major

cities, one way or another, something is happening.

In some places it’s a big rally, and in others

it’s a small picket, but what matters less is

how many people there are. What matters is that you

show up and make your contribution. There is nothing more important

than that. There was a really great protest in support of

a free internet.

It took place on the 30th in Moscow. And

it really was an amazing protest.

Just in terms of the atmosphere, it was very

big, and in terms of turnout too. Well, there have been

larger protests, strictly speaking, in terms of

numbers, but in terms of atmosphere this was

something absolutely incredible, especially

because it was organized by completely

new people. It was the Libertarian

Party of Russia, and the speakers were completely

new as well. Uh, you simply couldn’t

see or hear any of those

politicians,

not just from the 1990s, or from

the early 2000s—there was none of that

political establishment. I’m not

necessarily saying that this is very

good. Different rallies should

in-

vite different people. But here

the Libertarian Party

made a principled decision

not to invite any

longtime political figures, let’s

put it mildly, representatives of the establishment.

And the result was a wonderful, genuinely

great rally in terms of atmosphere. I want

to say that despite the fact that

this was a rally in defense of the internet, and

naturally, the main, uh, theme of this

rally was Telegram and the attempt

to block Telegram, the most frequently chanted

slogans were: “Down with the tsar, he is not

our tsar.” “Down with autocracy.” That is,

it seems to me that this extraordinary

atmosphere at the rally was due in part

to the fact that people felt themselves to be, uh,

a single whole, and they were not deceiving

each other. There were no speakers there, uh,

there were no commentators who

would say something like, well, this very

tired old line that everyone is sick of, but which is still somehow

popular: “Let’s just

defend Telegram here, uh, but let’s not

criticize Putin. We’ve gathered here

to solve our little

internet issue, but we don’t want to get into

politics.” At this rally, people

were thinking and speaking absolutely correctly.

They were saying that right now the slogans—this was in

Mikhail Pozharsky’s Telegram channel—I read

this great thought: “The slogan ‘freedom for

the internet’ and the slogan ‘down with the tsar’ are one

and the same.” And all the speakers—and there were

a huge number of representatives of the

industry there—were talking about exactly that.

We want to defend the internet, but to do that we need

to drive out the tsar; we need to bring together people

who oppose this monarchy.

Just today, Communications Minister

Nikiforov said that they are already considering blocking Viber too

if Viber does not hand over

some keys to the FSB (Russia’s security service). And, uh, let’s not

deceive ourselves. We understand that,

of course, Telegram is currently fairly

effectively resisting Roskomnadzor (Russia’s communications regulator),

but I think that step by step they will, well, not

destroy it, but make life very difficult

for Telegram, especially without a VPN.

So everyone, install VPNs. It will become harder and harder for Telegram

to resist.

At the same time, they’ll nibble away at

Viber a bit. Then they’ll start

going after other social networks. And

overall, pressure on the internet—if

we’re speaking specifically about the internet—will

keep increasing, simply because that is

the logic of this government: because where do you criticize

this government? On the internet. Where do you watch

this program? On the internet. Where can you

write, “Putin is an idiot”? On the internet,

where you can write something more

substantial, for example, that Putin’s family and

his son-in-law are corrupt. They are stealing

our money online. The newspaper

*Komsomolskaya Pravda* won’t publish that,

and on television, on Channel One,

they won’t say a word about it. The internet

is viewed by this government and by Putin

as something absolutely harmful. Sure, there are

some useful things there, like

Yandex Maps or Yandex Traffic, or

some kind of, well, some

funny pictures. You can send each other

cat photos

and GIFs, but overall this

internet—if it didn’t exist, officials tell

themselves—it would be much, much

better. So let’s somehow

crack down on it. Like in China, or even more so,

because, basically, for them

it’s a source of problems. For us, though,

the internet is technology, it’s

an improvement in quality of life—those are different

things—but for them, objectively, put

yourself in their shoes: it’s nothing but problems.

That’s why they will fight the internet,

and they will fight everything else

too. I talked about this in the

last video. I’ll just add a couple

more words. Just look, I mean, simply

look objectively at all the initiatives

that have been announced in this very first

month of Putin’s new term in power.

The retirement age—we want to raise it,

let’s start the discussion. Introduce a sales

tax, introduce this tax, introduce that

tax, and restrict medicine imports—well,

some kind of, well, oak bark and

potassium permanganate will treat us. That’s what

they’re talking about in the very first month.

So in a year, half of these

initiatives will be adopted, and in two years

they’ll actually force you to treat yourselves

with oak bark. This isn’t a joke, this isn’t

an exaggeration. That is exactly how the authorities think.

So the only way to resist them is,

well, by going out into the streets. And

a lot of people say, “So what did this rally

in defense of the internet actually

change? Did you save your Telegram?”

all sorts of ironic dudes write on

Twitter.

Did we save it? No, of course we didn’t manage

to make Roskomnadzor (Russia’s state media and internet regulator)

capitulate,

but it very clearly showed that the entire

active part of society is against all

of this. Just notice even how,

well, government representatives joke about it.

Natalya Timakova, press secretary

to President Medvedev, my favorite, wrote on

Facebook to a United Russia deputy

when they were discussing

some internet-related issue.

So, Kostenko writes: “I’m not receiving

messages.” She replies: “Install a VPN,

it works almost all the time.”

The press secretary of the prime minister,

who oversees Roskomnadzor,

which is blocking

Telegram. By the way, what an amazing

exchange. I remember this

Kostenko quite well. She used to be

a correspondent for *Vedomosti*. Back when I was still

a member of the Yabloko party, we

used to chat on the phone regularly. She was

a nice woman, smart,

knowledgeable, a reporter with all the right

views. And there you have it—she sold out,

got herself a position in United Russia, and now

she sits there drawing a salary of 450,000 rubles.

Okay, I can see that some tweet has appeared

on the screen. Shouldn’t I be there, or am I

seeing something wrong?

Please tell me, write to me,

send your tweets and tell me,

please—studio, can people actually see me

on the screen right now or not? Sorry,

for this technical

uh, technical problem.

Can you see me, is everything okay?

Ah, everything’s visible, everything’s fine. S-sorry,

please, my screen here just went

dark. Well, that was a funny moment in our

broadcast. Anyway, one

former *Vedomosti* correspondent, another

former *Kommersant* correspondent. Both of them,

uh, are now corrupt, hypocritical people

sitting in government and messaging each other, knowing

that we can read it. They’re discussing how

they’re still hanging out on Telegram anyway, and will

keep using a VPN. Today

Roskomnadzor also kind of tried

to troll us. It said that if you’re for

fast internet, let’s do this

campaign: throw paper balls into

windows. In other words, parodying the action

Pavel Durov came up with involving launching

paper airplanes. And why are they doing this? Well,

behind these little jokes of theirs, behind

this trolling, there is fear,

an awareness of their weakness, an understanding that

all of society is against them, that any

decent person is against them. And rallies

are the most important thing for that. Well,

remember 2012. Back in

2012, all that riffraff was already

one step away from

switching sides. And that same

Timakova became famous for her

interview in which she said that, well,

of course, if we had known that so many

people would later come out into the streets, then probably

Dmitry Medvedev would have been bolder and would not

have handed over his post to Putin so easily as part of their little job swap

(the Medvedev-Putin power switch). And that’s why it’s important for

the elites, for the media, for people who don’t

follow politics but then suddenly—bang—see

a huge crowd out into the streets. Most importantly,

it is important for us ourselves to take part in such

events, it is important to take part in

rallies. And it is very important

not to believe the endless

lies from the authorities about terrorism and everything

else. I wanted to show you, well,

there were a lot of great

speeches there, and after the rally there was a

small scandal, because one of the

most striking speakers, one of the key

organizers of this protest, Mikhail Svetov,

gave a speech. We were wrapping up the

rally at the end—I spoke, and then he spoke—and he

really lit up the crowd with a fiery

speech. And somehow it turned out that even

good media outlets, which generally are not

known for improper

or biased coverage,

somehow censored—or rather, not

censored, but ignored—his

speech. There was even a small

media scandal over it. But I cannot

show Svetov's entire speech

in full. Let me at least show you 33

seconds, to restore

fairness. Mikhail Svetov at the

rally. And for now, we keep hearing here

slogans saying that we will not forget

and will not forgive, but so far all we are

actually doing is forgetting and forgiving. And I

urge you to remember the names of the people

who turned our country into the, into the

prison of nations that it is

today, into that unfree state. These

people have names. It is not only

Yarovaya, it is not only members of Roskomnadzor (Russia’s federal communications regulator), it is

the entire cabinet of Putin's government and

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin personally.

So, you see, this is a rally in defense of

Telegram, a rally in defense of—uh—a rally

in defense of the internet. But what kind of speech was it?

The man was saying everything exactly right, and

people welcomed him. Probably

more than anyone else, and applauded the loudest. Although, in

broader public circles,

Svetov is not some super-famous

political activist. Nevertheless,

even in the format of a rally, which

usually implies more slogans,

yes, and less substantive discussion,

people assessed this very correctly and positively

and understand the direct link

between internet blocking and the total

absolute lies of all the other branches

of power, above all Putin and his

favorite security services.

And in this sense, a truly excellent

recent demonstration of just how brazenly

the security services—specifically the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service)—lie to us, and

how brazenly they distort the whole situation

with Telegram, was presented, among others, by

Novaya Gazeta, which published a great

piece—please read it.

Actually, not even just an article—they did a

study. It was long overdue to do this

study, because we regularly

see this. You turn on the TV, and they show

some people in uniform. They say:

"We prevented a terrorist attack." Hmm, like

an attack in the metro, or 10 attacks in the metro

or whatever else the terrorists wanted to do. And

it sounds like a significant thing.

They prevented an attack. The terrorists wanted

to blow up the metro. So we expect that

there will be an investigation, and then a trial. And we

expect that at the trial—you know, like in America,

where there are these trials with a whole lot of

reporters—and we will be told the details

about how these terrible terrorists

tried to blow up the metro, but there were

agents planted among them, and those agents recorded

something, and they were exposed, and there will be

screenshots and evidence showing that

the terrorists were using Telegram for all of this

—as the FSB tells us,

that terrorists are everywhere, ISIS (the Islamic State), our

terrorists are in contact with ISIS through

Telegram, coordinating everything. And you listen

all day long to stories about how they

prevented something, exposed something, caught an ISIS cell

here, caught an ISIS cell there. And

the journalists at Novaya Gazeta did a very

simple thing. They took the official

press releases of the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National

Anti-Terrorism Committee, and the Security Council

and counted their

statements about prevented terrorist attacks. Then

they simply compared that with the concrete

legal outcomes, which

cannot be hidden, because if, well,

a terrorist attack was prevented, then there should be a criminal case and

ultimately a trial. And it turned out—well, look:

the FSB, yes, made 3,500

statements saying that they had prevented

terrorist attacks. But convictions—uh, put that

back on the screen, please—there were 13 convictions,

and only 14 cases in total. Or

look at the Security Council: it made

236 statements saying that they had prevented

some kind of terrorist attacks. And you cannot find

anyone at all. And remember that

great story when the FSB, with

great fanfare, showed on every channel

some 50 members of Right Sector (a Ukrainian nationalist political movement),

detained somewhere

on the border with Crimea, allegedly trying

to crawl through and cut the main

arteries of the Crimean Bridge and carry out

terrorist attacks and, uh, turn our

peaceful life into hell. And there was this grand

sabotage group—they showed some footage

in some reeds or something.

Some indistinct people were supposedly running around.

And it was all so gripping that you think:

"Good grief, 50 people, just like

something out of a video game." And where did all that

go, and how did it all end? Back then, they

I think they supposedly deported the guy back to

Ukraine because their documents had not been

properly processed. So,

you know, first they told us

that these people were literally on their way

to kill all of us, and then they said, "Well,

all right, I mean, somehow we

deported them, we sent them back to

Ukraine." It's absolute, total

lies. These people—Putin and his whole

gang—literally make up

these terrorist attacks. They literally invent

nonexistent

terrorist cells. Are there

terrorist cells? Well, of course there are.

If we're talking about ISIS, then yes, of course,

terrorist attacks do happen,

terrible tragedies do happen,

fortunately not that often, but these

data from *Novaya Gazeta* show that in

most cases they really do just make them up.

They make them up to get

bigger budgets for themselves. They make them up

to earn promotions and rank. And

they make them up to achieve

their political goals. Right now they need

to block Telegram because

political activists use it,

our entire political network

uses Telegram. They need either to block it

or read their messages.

So they make up some nonsense.

ISIS terrorists are supposedly sending each other

messages: "Well then, show us these

terrorists. Show them to us, take the case

to court, present the evidence, and

then we'll see what kind of terrorists are

using what kind of Telegram." But none of

that exists.

It's complete fabrication, utter nonsense. And, uh,

this is just one more example that

you can't trust them one iota, and that we need

to resist all of this, because

the lies are becoming more and more

absurd. If the FSB has 3,500

statements, and on this side 3,500

statements, but on the other side only 13

convictions and 14 arrests, you can't

hide that.

A lot of people in Russia know this,

and yet they still lie. That's how

blatant it is. Just imagine how they

will lie a year from now. Imagine how

they will lie two years from now. And

imagine what political methods

they will resort to, relying on these

lies.

We often joke like this, right? Nineteen

thirty-seven, ha-ha-ha. Putin's era

isn't 1937. But what was

1937? It was when they grabbed

random people, beat them, and then announced

that they were Japanese spies or Polish

spies. They picked up some worker somewhere. He

worked there

as some kind of railway track inspector.

You beat him, and he writes: "I am a Japanese spy. I was ordered by

the Emperor of Japan, uh, that is,

to monitor train traffic and

send messages, which I wrote

in hieroglyphs, somewhere.

There were hundreds of thousands of confessions just like that. So how

is this, in essence—apart from the scale—

how is this really different

from what's happening now, when they

pick up Kyrgyz or Uzbek people?

In exactly the same way, they declare them to be

terrorists who were communicating

through Telegram, announce that something was

prevented, and then those Uzbeks and

Kyrgyz people—and whoever else—simply disappear

to who knows where, and there are no trials. How

is that different? Essentially, it isn't. If

they really want to fight ISIS and

terrorism, then introduce a visa regime with

Uzbekistan and indeed with all the countries of

Central Asia. Introduce visas.

Let's start with that, so people can't

move back and forth in huge numbers

so freely. But they don't do that. So

take note—Armenia.

When we talk about Armenia,

the next thing that needs to be said is:

we're rooting for you, we hope that

everything works out for you, because what

is happening in Armenia is, of course,

an example, uh,

of astonishing national unity, which

has proved that free people can

bring about change, that there are far more

free people. After all, two months ago Armenia

was a place where the approval rating of

Sargsyan was higher than Putin's.

A completely crushed, repressed society.

It seemed that nothing even remotely like this

could happen there. And yet

it did happen. And yet these

people are winning right now. And despite

the fact that the road is very difficult, we all

hope they will prevail and that this

will be a wonderful example for Russia, and

that it will, uh, lead to us having

a good, prosperous, free,

normally developing neighbor. Because

if everything goes well in Armenia, then

that will be good for us too. I just

wanted to remind you once again of the chronology

of events, which tells us precisely

how important persistence is, how important

the strong joint work of a leader is,

an opposition leader, an extraordinary

person—Nikol Pashinyan—and the people

who support him, who set aside

whatever, uh, disagreements there were,

which always exist in any opposition movement, and

simply united in order to

push this nomenklatura (entrenched ruling elite) aside. Just look

at what was happening there.

There were several days of protests, and they

were dispersed, people were arrested, and so on. Nevertheless,

gradually more and more people joined them. Armenia has, well, a population of 3

million people in total. That’s like three

administrative districts of Moscow. And yet,

hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets

to join them. Gradually, after some time,

the police, the military,

and various other parties joined in as well. And

they did join. But then

the matter reached parliament, and parliament

was supposed to, uh, reapprove the candidacy of the

prime minister. Now imagine this:

the same thing happened here, exactly the same thing.

A million people come out into the streets,

and everyone says: "So what, Putin deceived

us, he stayed on for another term, and

therefore we demand a change of power, which is

provided for by the Constitution." And, uh,

the prime minister has to be approved

by the State Duma. And United

Russia is sitting in the Duma. And in Armenia, the same thing

happened. Even though people in

huge numbers—the whole country—came out into the

streets and said, "Come on, make the change."

The local equivalent of United Russia, the Republican

Party, said: "Mm, probably not,

we’re not going to approve him." And they refused

to approve the obvious leader of this

protest movement. Clearly, by now

the de facto leader of the nation, Nikol Pashinyan,

they refused to approve him as

prime minister. And he fell short by

six or eight votes. We won’t, and that’s

that. Why won’t we?

A video tells us that very clearly.

After they refused

to approve him, Pashinyan—quite rightly—

called for protest actions,

called for acts of civil

disobedience. They blocked all

the roads, including the road to the

airport. Roads in Yerevan were closed.

And I saw a wonderful video.

Let’s take a look at it, please.

A car. Here we see a Range Rover,

I think, in front. Behind it is driving a

G-Wagen.

This is

one of the leaders of the Republican Party,

that is, the local equivalent of United Russia. This is how

he gets around the traffic jams.

And now let’s look at a photo

of the man who behaves like this,

who moves around the streets of

Yerevan in this way. You see,

gold epaulettes, medals, a proud and

self-assured look of a man who thinks he owns life,

who thinks, what’s the problem? The roads are

blocked? I’ll get into my, I’ll get into my

Range Rover and drive down the stairs. And behind

me, my security detail will follow in a G-Wagen.

And everything is fine for me, because this

very Migran Poghosyan, a major general of justice,

is even a little familiar to us too,

because when the so-called

Panama

Papers were published—that is, documents about offshore companies

belonging to government

officials in various countries—this

same Poghosyan was found to have three

Panamanian offshore companies. So

just think about it:

there sits this party,

like our own United Russia. Let’s

talk directly about our United Russia in the same

situation. And he thinks: "Aha,

right now my salary is 450,000 rubles a month

(about $5,000), plus

my wife works at a state corporation, where

through her, through payments to her, they are effectively

paying me another 3 million rubles a month in bribes" (about $33,000).

So that’s what I get every month. But if

the prime minister changes, or these people

from the street get their way, I’ll be getting

zero. I’ll be getting zero, because,

well, I’m not used to doing business.

I’m not much of an official, either. If they

throw me out of this chair, I’ll have

nothing. Of course I won’t end up begging,

because I’ve already stolen quite a lot,

but I don’t want to lose my income.

That is exactly what all the members of the

party were thinking. That’s why they

said to Pashinyan: "So, you there,

together with Navalny and Saakashvili,

you don’t have a plan for resolving the

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,"

they told him, and did not approve him. And who

does have one? We all understand perfectly well that

the Nagorno-Karabakh problem cannot be resolved

just like that. No one has a realistic plan

for settling the Nagorno-Karabakh

conflict, neither in Azerbaijan nor in

Armenia. I mean a realistic one,

one that could be implemented tomorrow. No one

has such a plan. This is a territorial conflict

for decades to come. But nevertheless

they repeat exactly the same things

our United Russia people say: "The global

deep state, we are surrounded by enemies." It’s just that

Putin talks about America, while in Armenia

everyone talks about Azerbaijan. And we are

surrounded by enemies, so you don’t change horses

midstream.

And all these people running around the streets cannot run the country.

They have no positive program.

We’re not approving you. And here

is the key thing the Armenian opposition

needed—and it

demonstrated it: persistence.

That’s what I talked about in the previous program.

Again, who saved the situation? Was it people

who wrote op-eds,

super-political analysts with

mega-advice,

or, I don’t know, some kind of

constructive programs that had been written, or something else?

No,

just an ordinary person who walked out of

their home in the morning. You can see it: young

people came out and stood in the road. That is what

changed the situation. And now already

the Republican Party, after these

mass protests—the Republican

Party of Armenia, after these mass

protests and mass acts of civil

disobedience, when the entire city was

blocked, said: "All right, we

will vote for anyone nominated

by, I think, one-third of parliament, and Pashinyan has

enough votes." In other words,

people made it happen—an ordinary person who

didn't think, well, if I go out there, what if

they drive me away, what if I get fired, what if

they drench me with a water cannon. They

did use water cannons in Yerevan during the first

phase of these protests. And

back then, when people were only just beginning

to come out, they were told that it was

hopeless, that nothing would come of it. Well,

what's the point if I go and everyone else stays home?

And why should I bother—what do these rallies

ever change? After all, in Armenia's history over

the past few years they haven't changed anything, and

there have been no success stories. Even so,

people didn't think that way. They simply

thought: I have to go. They went

and achieved at least this:

power in Armenia is now going to change.

Of course, there will be a very, very

difficult period ahead. The reason I began

this segment by saying we're keeping our

fingers crossed for Armenia is because we really want it to work out.

We really want it to succeed. It will be even

harder there than in Ukra—than in

Ukraine.

Armenia is one of the poorest

states of the former Soviet Union. It is

horrendously corrupt. In fact,

Ukraine is still more corrupt

than Russia, despite the fact that Russia is

a black hole of corruption. Armenia is even more

corrupt than Ukraine. And oligarchs

control an even larger share of

the economy there than they do in Ukraine or

Russia. So what

the Armenian opposition, Pashinyan himself,

and Armenian society will face in the next

few months is precisely

all these oligarchic

schemes, all this shady maneuvering—twist it, turn it,

all to deceive. It's what we see in Ukraine,

what, objectively speaking, unfortunately,

very seriously hinders

Ukraine from moving in the right

direction, because yes, the people

won,

but the newspapers belong to oligarchs,

and journalists everywhere are still

completely bought off.

To strike deals with oligarchs—Putin knows how

to do that brilliantly with

any oligarch, Armenian or Ukrainian.

The Kremlin, through Gazprom, through

energy companies, through whoever

you like, will make deals without any problem and

settle any issue, always. And in that

sense, of course, oligarchic control

over the economy, and the fact that the main

political forces received money for years

from these oligarchs, is a massive

problem.

That is why in Ukraine—well, I

can't say that nothing is working.

It's just much less successful,

much worse than all of us

had hoped. And that is why, uh,

there is such a major threat in Armenia right now.

Some $100 million,

which for a Russian oligarch or for the Kremlin

is just pocket change, nothing at all. But with

that money you can buy up all the media in

that country, you can buy up half the

politicians in that country, and that is exactly what

they will do. And right now, in fact,

again, there is nothing that could

better protect this new

emerging democracy in Armenia

than ordinary people who come

out into the streets and stand there. That is the most important thing. And we

all very much hope that on the territory of

the former Soviet Union,

apart from the Baltic states, there will be one more

example of people rising up and bringing to

power an honest politician. Nikol Pashinyan

looks like exactly that kind of person. And

they will replace judges, carry out de-oligarchization,

what a word—de-oligarchization

of the economy. Uh,

they'll get rid of all these wonderful people in

gold-braided epaulettes, or at least

replace part of the nomenklatura (the Soviet-style ruling bureaucracy)

and elite, and establish a normal

democratic

system in which leaders

are held accountable, lose support, and are replaced,

different blocs are formed, different

coalitions. In parliament, some win,

others lose, and then

the reverse happens. Those swings appear:

first the left wins, then the right.

First more nationalists, then

more liberals. That is democracy.

That's how it works in prosperous countries.

I would very much like all of that

to work out in Armenia. While this is happening in

Armenia, in Russia they are hounding the liberal

[ __ ]

And what struck me was simply the sheer frankness

of what is happening

right now at the level of the Moscow city government.

You know that Moscow is now

heading into a mayoral election. And of course this

rabble—there is no other word for it—

that engages in political

support,

and the related programs tied to these

elections, and the frankness with which

they are being prepared

to resist them. Ilya Yashin

published a video—at first it was just

a story; he wrote about it on

Facebook, and now he has even posted a video

about it. Uh, a coach from one of the

martial arts clubs, his

name is Alexei Levkin, and he said that

someone approached him—and as I understand it,

his club

operates on some kind of public funding

or is a state-funded organization

or depends on some kind of

sports schools, but in any case all

sports clubs in Moscow

depend on the Moscow city government,

naturally. So an official came to him

from Moskomsport (the Moscow Sports Department) and said: "Come on, uh,

you train karate guys here, or whoever

it is, and we’ll give you money. You’ll

set aside some boys for us, and let them

walk the streets and chase off the liberal

scum." In other words, beat up Yashin’s campaigners,

to put it bluntly. Let’s

take a look. Here are 49 seconds of Alexei Levkin,

talking about what

a Moskomsport official offered him.

Please.

A man called, an employee of Moskomsport, and

offered me the following. Could I

put together a team of guys so that,

as he put it, they could chase around the liberal

[__] during the elections when they would be

handing out campaign materials? Campaign materials for, for

Ilya Yashin. They offered money: 20,000

for you, and the total budget for all this would be 150,000.

Well, I told them to get lost, of course,

to organize some kids to beat up other kids.

Even if I weren’t a supporter of

Yashin but a supporter of Sobyanin, it still

wouldn’t make any sense—hiring some kids

to beat up other kids, that’s

just insane. After that, it started—

threats and all sorts of things. They called,

threatened me, sent all kinds of garbage to my phone,

wrote to me on Facebook.

Alexei, I want to thank you. I

think you did a very good

and courageous thing, and it truly

deserves respect.

Do you understand what’s happening? I mean,

they’re not even embarrassed. I mean,

this is called bandits and banditry.

An official shows up, and we can see it,

where all these Serbs come from, and all the rest of it.

I traveled around the regions, and

there are always rallies somewhere, and there’s

a little group of thugs in

tracksuits standing there. Uh-huh, and who hired them? Who

pays them? Obviously, the authorities pay them,

the same authorities that hire them. And for what?

So that they commit

crimes. That’s how our

state works now: an official

who is paid with your tax money goes somewhere

and openly tries to persuade someone

to commit a crime, beat up some

campaigners or attack someone or

do something else just to

intimidate people. Beat one person up, and 100

others get scared. So, in principle,

well, it does work in a certain

sense. There you have it.

I mean,

this didn’t even lead to any kind of

scandal. In theory, when Yashin released this,

when he first published it,

Sobyanin should have come out and said:

"This is a lie, and I’m suing you, Yashin,"

or "Moskomsport is suing you, Yashin,"

because this is outrageous—you’re

accusing us of a particularly

serious crime, an organized

group of people, and so on and so forth." But that didn’t

happen. Nor did he come out and say:

"This was just, you know, an incident,

we had one crazy person working for us, but

we fired him immediately, and this won’t

happen again." They’re silent. Well, because

that’s exactly what it is: an organized criminal

group—the Moscow mayor’s office, these

direct operatives from

Moskomsport, and some people they’ll

ultimately hire with that money. They are simply

real gangsters. How else

can they be resisted? What

needs to be done? Write petitions against them?

Can they be embarrassed, frightened,

persuaded, somehow influenced

only by huge numbers of people

taking to the streets. As long as there are only

two or three people out there, these ideas will keep

coming into their heads.

Come on, let’s beat up the liberal [__]

Let me answer your tweets and your

questions that you’ve been sending me.

Please put the tweets up for me, and I’ll

respond to them.

All right, Kana, Kana. Alexei, what do you

think of other forms of peaceful

resistance in addition to rallies, from

paper airplanes to strikes? I think

any form of resistance is good. I

don’t have any ironic attitude

toward paper airplanes, white ribbons, or any

of those things. All of it is absolutely right. It’s just that

the main thing that needs to be done is

to come to mass events.

Strikes are the next form, but they

already require different kinds of

preparation. And,

well, it’s hard even to remember when

Russia last had a political

strike; there was an attempt in the early 1990s

to organize a political strike

and specifically truck drivers,

when the Platon system was introduced, you see.

And it almost worked. But then the Kremlin

managed, quite skillfully, well, once again,

to deceive and buy off these

leaders among the truckers, or

appoint some self-styled leaders who

gradually, more or less, convinced

the rest of their community that there was no need

to politicize things, that we didn’t need

to call any strikes, let’s

just take it step by step and everything will work itself out. Well,

of course, it didn’t work itself out. The

Platon system is still there, and the fees under the Platon system

will keep rising, and people will still

have to pay. So at this stage, strikes

on a mass scale look like a fairly

complex political action,

something Russia hasn’t seen recently.

But rallies are, of course, very important.

I have a positive attitude toward all forms of protest.

What I dislike is when

people sit around convincing themselves that everything

is impossible, that Russia will always be

some kind of horrible nightmare. Again,

look at Armenia. If anywhere seemed like

nothing could possibly be changed,

it was there. That country really is all the time

on the brink of war. And there really is

Turkey, which Armenians consider

a hostile state, and vice versa,

and, accordingly, Azerbaijan, with which

relations are extremely tense. And of course, politicians

used this

to say, “What democracy?

We could have a war tomorrow.” And even there, it

happens. So in Russia too, of course,

it will all happen. So, Inferni Overkill.

They’re the scum, we’re not afraid of anything. That

is the right attitude. Of course, it’s natural

to be afraid. But really, even if

we want to put it in completely cynical terms and

mathematically assess the odds

of getting into trouble at

a rally, they are extremely low. The risk of

leaving your house and getting hit by

a car is much greater than the risk of

being detained at a rally,

arrested at a rally, or being

beaten there. Dmitry Shchepyatkov asks:

“Alexei, how do you see your path to

the presidency? Which scenario seems

most realistic to you, given

what is happening right now? Well,

I see my path to the presidency as follows:

I win an election. That is

the optimal, normal, and probably

the only possible way to become

president. I am competing for the top leadership position

in the country. I claim that I can

do more than other politicians. I

certainly claim that my

program is better than that of other politicians.

I claim that I will be able to,

reach agreements with other politicians and

create the right coalition that

will do the right things. In order

to become president, you have to win

an election. That is what is happening. We keep

talking about Armenia right now because

that is what is unfolding there at this very moment. So,

of course, the election of

Pashinyan as prime minister is a set of

extraordinary events taking place

in the form of, well, essentially,

a revolution—yes, a very peaceful one, but

still a revolution. Funny enough, by the way,

let me digress for a second: everything there is happening

completely peacefully, fortunately. And

today there was this incident: taking advantage of the fact

that everything was blocked off and there was

a lack of control, there was an attempt to rob

a bank. Some people with weapons

ran into the bank, opened fire, and

it turned out—who do you think those people were

who took advantage of the revolution

to rob a bank?

Police officers.

Police officers

turned out to be the very people who

decided to do exactly what propagandists are constantly

telling us will happen tomorrow:

there’ll be a revolution and people will run around robbing banks,

shooting into the air, and so on.

So anyway, Pashinyan has now been elected in the course of,

or will be elected, I hope, in the course of

extraordinary events, but after that it

must be a legal process. New

elections, a victory for his party or for his

coalition in the parliamentary elections,

the formation of a new parliamentary

majority, possibly constitutional

changes, if they want to

return to a presidential republic or

keep the parliamentary republic.

But in any case, it is elections, and that is the only way

power should be attained. The other

issue is that in order to secure elections,

you have to take to the streets.

Do you support the idea of indefinite

protest actions in Russia? Valery Vakhmin

asks me: “Of course, I

support them.” And in recent years there was

one attempt to hold an indefinite

protest action in Russia. As you may remember, it was

exactly six years ago. In May

2012, all of that Occupy Abai (a protest camp in Moscow named after the Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbayev) and everything

else was, essentially,

an indefinite action. But who was

one of its main organizers? Well,

at the very least, I was—well, I didn’t

take part in it directly, because all that

time I was locked up in a special detention center, but

I was the one who initiated it. Another matter is

that some amazing, wonderful people

picked it up and carried it forward. But

it was an attempt to hold an indefinite

protest action. Of course, that is the right

thing. Indefinite protests

win. In Armenia, an indefinite protest won.

protest. Let’s move on to the next

question. Why didn’t you agree to

Sakharov Avenue? Nastya

Afanasyeva asks me.

Nastya Afanasyeva, and everyone else: you cannot

trust a single word the Moscow mayor’s office says.

No one offered us Sakharov Avenue at all.

And I personally saw that scrap of paper

that was sent to us from the Moscow mayor’s office.

It was basically a blank sheet, and on it

there was just a single paragraph of text. “Offering you

blah blah blah blah blah, Sakharov Avenue.” And we

understand that this is worth nothing. Then

the next time they sent us

some kind of note that, uh, had

neither a date nor a signature, also saying

that they were offering us a rally at

Komsomolskaya, that is, at the Square of Three

Stations, not even—well,

not inside the Garden Ring.

In the previous program, I talked about this in quite a lot of detail

and told you exactly how it was, right?

And I honestly laid out our entire negotiating position.

If there is a site inside the Garden Ring

on Sakharov Avenue, we will agree to

it. But, you see, to hold a rally

against autocracy, to hold a rally

against, uh, the fact that we are treated as

second-class people, and then hold

it at the Square of Three Stations—no, I

consider that impossible. Besides, I

guarantee you, as has happened many times,

if we had agreed to the Square of Three Stations,

they would have told us: “Oh, and who exactly

approved anything for you? No one approved

or authorized anything. It was just a piece of paper

without a signature.” So no. In Marino

and Shchukino, we

got formal approval from you every single time before

each rally. Guys, don’t let

yourselves be fooled, don’t be suckers either,

sorry for the expression. It’s the same

pattern of behavior every time. The same thing.

We file our request, and they suggest we go to

Maryino. Then they start endless

spin and leaks claiming that we proposed it ourselves there.

That we agreed to it ourselves, that we’re provocateurs, and

so on. And I can tell you

our strategy right now. Every time it is

the same. We request Tverskaya Street,

we demand Tverskaya Street. We

believe we have the right to march along

Tverskaya Street, especially since it is always used by

others. The Communists, the trade unions,

and United Russia all march there. If we are not second-class

people, then we have the right to march there too. But

we say that, of course, if you have

some actual arguments,

then give us another street in

the center. Explain why. We will still

be unhappy about it, and we will

consider it a violation of our rights. But

we will agree with you on another street in

the center. This happens every time.

Every time they wash your brains with talk about

some other locations, all this long

fuss meant to disorient you and make it so

that you, like Nastya, write me these

questions. So, Viktor Lugaev: at the rally

we need to hold a referendum. In all

cities it would be symbolic. Well, that’s already

more complicated, because especially in places

where rallies are illegally banned,

a referendum—as in a formal

procedure, with papers, signatures,

signature sheets, registration

forms—of course, is very

hard to carry out. Andrei Shpagin: “Putin will send in

the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) with batons. What should we do with them?”

Andrei, Andrei Shpagin. Andrei,

you don’t need to do anything. They bring them in

every time, this National Guard. So what? Just

come out. Your task is not to fight

the National Guard.

Your task is to come out in such numbers that you, that we,

outnumber the National Guard. To come out so that

Putin, his specific

National Guard troops, and everyone else can see

that there is a person like Andrei Shpagin in Russia,

who is not afraid, who comes out and

who will not let his country be dragged

further down to the bottom. That is the goal. That is

the most important thing. To go there in

a wonderful, upbeat mood,

even if the weather is bad. Unfortunately,

I saw the forecast for May 5,

and they’re predicting almost a downpour.

Okay, our country matters more to us than

wet clothes, so we need to come out even in a downpour.

Still, I hope the weather will be warm.

Uh, we need to come out and we need to

stay there. A rally—especially when

it’s banned—is always a kind of

strange event. Well, I am quite often

detained right at the beginning. Everyone else

stands there not really understanding what

to do. And at that point you just need to

relax and understand that you have already

done the most important thing. You came out and

became an honest and brave person. I remember

the rallies I took part in, back when

Russia was still a completely different

country. 2001, 2002,

and 2003—the rallies in support of NTV (the independent TV channel). It was great. I

remember them. It was the right thing,

the right thing for me to do then. I never

thought I would be involved in politics

all the time. I had just joined the Yabloko party

(a liberal political party), I had a car, and people

would say to me, “Could you maybe bring

some flags?” And I’d say, “Sure, I’ll bring

the flags.” I drove those flags there, handed them out

to people, just stood there. And, well, even then it was

all rather strange and

unclear. Some strange people

were speaking from the stage: “And we even have a stage

"there would be none." But I felt then, and I still

feel now, and I am proud that

back then I was doing the right thing. You see,

some people didn’t go out then, and, well, because of them

all this happened. And Putin swallowed up all

the mass media. That became

the first step toward his authoritarian

dictatorship, because of those who didn’t go to

the rallies back then. But I did go. And I am not

to blame for what is happening now.

And as a citizen, as a human being, I did

everything right back then, from the standpoint of

my civic convictions. And I am

proud of that, and I always will be. I’ll tell my children

about it, and I’ll tell my grandchildren, and

as you can see, I can

say with pride that I acted

properly back then. That’s it. And everyone should

act that way. And you, Andrei, should act that way too

so that you can simply say to yourself,

or to your grandmother, or your grandchild, or anyone at all,

"I did the right thing."

Konstantin Kornoukh. Alexei, what has to

happen for at least

a million people to take to the streets? Konstantin, you and I

have to go out first, and then

everyone else will look at us and come running. Well,

just like, again, sorry for repeating this

for the millionth time, in Armenia, and as it was in

Russia before—just as it was in Russia in the late

1980s.

The distance between

twenty dissidents, whom everyone said were

just local lunatics,

some men standing there in tattered

coats and fur hats, holding

little signs—and a rally of 800,000

people was actually very small.

There is simply a tipping

point when a lot of people come out. And then

the authorities immediately get scared and give in,

because they understand that the people are against

them. In Russia, tens of millions of people are

against Putin. We just need to persuade them,

we need to work with them. Otherwise,

if we do not do that, we will have

people burning corpses in a state of temporary insanity.

And that will lead nowhere. If

it seems to you that I’m talking

some kind of nonsense about burning corpses in

a state of temporary insanity, then no. Here is something else

that also shocked me: the Investigative

Committee, Bastrykin—you remember that Mr.

Bastrykin? Gold epaulettes, white

dress uniform, the whole package. An apartment in the Czech Republic, a residence

permit in the Czech Republic. So,

the Investigative Committee in the Republic of

Bashkortostan closed a criminal case

against a police officer. This police officer,

in 2017—that is, quite recently—

ran over and killed a woman with his car. He killed a mother

of two children.

He hit her, then took the body and, together with

his friend, he

dragged the body away and tried to burn the body

and his car.

He was caught, but now the case has been closed,

because the Investigative Committee conducted

an inquiry and found that this

police officer, you see, hit the woman

without committing any traffic accident.

He simply hit her because he could not

prevent the accident. And when he later

burned the car and that body—the body of the woman he had killed—

or tried to burn it as well, he was doing it

in a state of temporary insanity. Now, for those who are not

lawyers, let me say that this means a state

of extreme emotional agitation. In other words, when

you get into such an agitated state, yes,

someone attacked you or did something to you,

and in that state, without understanding

what you’re doing, you lash out at someone, beat them

or kill them or do something else—uh,

without controlling yourself. And that

does happen; experts examine it and determine

that people really do fall into

such a state. But here they concluded

that dragging away the body, setting the body on fire, setting

the car on fire—all of that was done in a state of temporary insanity. Do you believe

that?

I don’t. And now think about how

the children of this woman who was run over and

killed feel about this. Her relatives, her

husband, all the other people in

Russia and in Buryatia who know about this

situation. They know that there was

a police officer who hit her—I don’t know

the details, whether he was sober or drunk—

tried to cover up the crime, and he was

not even acquitted in court

through an amnesty or something like that, or because of

some medals, or

some other arrangement—if they wanted to let him

off the hook, they could at least have done it in some softer

way. No, they dropped the case. That is

a spit in all our faces. It is impossible, impossible

to tolerate this. As I said while speaking at the rally,

every day you read some

news story and think, "How can this

be happening? This is impossible to tolerate." I

am also going to the rally on the fifth.

I do not want things like this to happen in

my country. And absolutely, I do not

want what was described in that post

to happen in my country.

And now I’m going to show you a Facebook post

by a woman who described the story

of a man named Ruslan. As I understand it,

you should be able to see it now. He

is serving his sentence in Penal Colony

No. 7 in Omsk Region. And Ruslan himself

describes the intake procedure at this

colony. So, I apologize for reading out

such details, but I’m reading them

for those of you who may not be able to see it very well.

So, first they make you

with some specific spoon, well, so that

apparently, somehow, how should I put it

what they call making someone eat buckwheat as a form of humiliation. He

refused to eat it. After that, they push you

onto a special mattress with

a pillow soaked in urine on it. Then he

refused to lie on that mattress. They

pulled down his pants and started pouring

buckwheat porridge onto him in order to

inflict the maximum humiliation. Then they

started shoving a mop handle into

his anus. And then after that

they kept beating him. One of them, one of those

guards, fascists, I don’t even know what to

call them, those monsters, started urinating on

his wounds, saying it was necessary for

disinfection. This is what I want to say.

Can you imagine,

this is being done

by people in uniform. This is being done by officers,

by people who receive

their salaries from us, people who receive

preferential pensions from us, some kind of

awards, seniority benefits, official

apartments, who stand up

to Gazmanov’s song (a patriotic Russian pop singer), “Officers, officers,”

“your heart is under fire,” and then drink to

their so-called officers’ honor. And

obviously, this lawyer defending

this Ruslan says that

he is a completely real person who

is ready to testify, despite the fact

that apparently he has absolutely no

desire to come forward and tell people about

these monstrous things that

happened to him. Nevertheless, he

is prepared to do it in order to

stop what is happening.

This is real. And we understand that in

this IK-7 penal colony, well, there is a head of

regime operations, a head of security,

some colonel or lieutenant colonel.

And there he is, sitting in his dress uniform, a civil servant, with

some other major or

captain, and saying: “All right then,

let’s work out a plan like this. We’ll have

a mattress and a pillow soaked in urine, and

people will be brought to us. First we’ll

make them eat from some kind of, uh, spoon

that’s been ‘defiled’ (prison slang), excuse the

language, some buckwheat, and then,

if they refuse, then you, uh,

Comrade Captain, will shove them onto

this urine-soaked mattress. And you,

Comrades Senior Lieutenant and Major,

will yank down his pants, after which you,

Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, will take a mop and

shove it into his anus.”

That’s what they actually sit there and

plan. And they are state employees, and they, uh,

they are the state, they are the authorities. And,

you understand, they do things like this. They

are fascist scum, but at the same

time they believe they are above us.

And this state thinks that, well,

that they are above us. And they are supposed to receive

protection from us and from this very

Ruslan, who is being subjected to such

abuse. It doesn’t matter what he may have

done—maybe he committed

a crime, maybe he didn’t.

We know that the rate of acquittals

is 0.2%. So in any

prison, at least 10–15% of the people there

are simply innocent, locked up by chance. They

are subjected to exactly the same

humiliation. If you, uh, are not

involved, by the way, in political

activity, your chances of encountering

something like this are even higher than those of some

political activist, who at least will still

be watched. And this is

the state. And this too was

published, and I started watching, and thought,

my God, surely there must be some kind of response—

some inspection, the human rights ombudsman,

the prosecutor’s office—but nothing

happens. Nothing happens. I do not

want this to be part of the state.

I know that in all normal countries

the prison system, the penitentiary

system manages

without torturing prisoners and without humiliating

prisoners. On the contrary, I see that in those

countries where recidivism is lower and rehabilitation is higher,

that is precisely because

there is no torture and no degrading treatment.

So really, what should we

expect from people who in prison

witnessed this and were subjected to such

treatment? Are we supposed to expect that they

will come out of there as normal

people? No. Therefore, uh,

well,

this is why we have to come out, because this is

a legally existing part of the state,

which we are confronted with, which exists

and which cannot be tolerated. It is impossible

to tolerate this. Down with the tsar (a reference to authoritarian rule) and all these

bastards whom the tsar appoints to

various posts. On the fifth, wherever you

live, come to the rally, see you

there.

[music]