Putin has declared war on us, ministers decide nothing, Russia is on the wrong side of history

Regiment commander, good evening, good evening.

This is Navalny 2018, as usual every

Thursday in 2018, we were supposed to be with you today

Kira and Ruslan, but Kira and Ruslan

were detained, which we’ll tell you more about

a little later, so today with you are

Svetlana and Nikolai.

Nikolai, friends, but as for Kira, according to his

words, she was not detained for no reason, and this is a

large-scale

operation to round up coordinators in

the regions, to pick up the most active people

in the campaign. This is continuing.

Today we will also have more detentions, and the same

the most surprising thing is that all these

detentions began, essentially, many

days after the May 5 rally. Right away

several people were detained and

almost immediately released. Nikolai and I

talked before the broadcast and decided

that this is directly connected

to what? To the inauguration of our newly

inaugurated president. So our first

topic on today’s broadcast is called: Putin

has declared war on us—a war on the opposition and

a war on all Navalny supporters, including

supporters of our protest

action “He Is Not Our Tsar.” Apparently, it was precisely this

action that so deeply rattled Putin,

his bureaucrats, and the governors in the regions. They

were so frightened that people suddenly

started organizing, and some people

ignored the fact that their rally had not been officially approved

and went out into city centers

for unauthorized protests, showing

that they can gather, organize, and

lead large numbers of people in a way

that officials cannot control.

Yes, and despite the lawlessness and

total abuse on the part of the police,

the OMON riot police, and those who

are supposed to protect citizens but in fact

were attacking them and never once protected them, despite

all that, people were not afraid and came out. But

now we are paying the price for it, so

on our cups today you can see

some interesting inscriptions. Mine says

1.5 million—that’s the amount of money

the approximate amount, as far as we know so far,

that we need

to raise for fines, and today we will

also be collecting donations, so

send them to us—all the links are in

the description. And on Nikolai’s cup it says, on mine

it says 5,000 days, but that is the total

number of days, also

approximate,

for all of our coordinators and staff

at the campaign headquarters. But you have to understand

for example, I have a court hearing tomorrow, and tomorrow there is also a hearing for

Ivan Zhdanov, who was detained today,

and I am sure this number will keep growing

just like these figures, so

we still don’t know how much it will increase.

So for now, let’s stick to 1.5

million. If we raise more,

or less, that will depend on you

and on your level of activity. As usual, we

will thank everyone who

donates the largest amounts. Three people will

receive this interesting

calendar—an original calendar by

Oleg Navalny, Alexei Navalny’s brother.

Alexei says Oleg Navalny’s work is very

stylishly done, guys. So yes, as always,

a chance for those who donate to us

the largest amounts of money. Let’s move

directly to the detentions. This is not the first time. It

started with Sergei Boyko, our

supporter, and quite unexpectedly—well, unexpectedly

in a sense. Sergei held an excellent rally in

Novosibirsk, and that Siberian rally had been

officially approved, and Sergei spoke at it, so

that’s the “unexpected” part. And in Moscow he was

then detained. We already have this

running joke: a white GAZelle van with the Second

Operational Regiment—exactly the kind of

special van that comes by and

neatly scoops people up.

It’s like a corporate service; we’d like to opt out of it,

we keep leaving negative reviews,

but in the end they still haul people away.

That’s what it seems like, but they keep sending it.

Sergei, on Monday, May 21, was in fact

detained too; they drove him around and around there

and gave him 30 days of administrative arrest.

He was detained and kept there.

Next was Ruslan, Ruslan

Shaveddinov, and the situation with Ruslan

was absolutely unbelievable. Ruslan was supposed

to come to the morning broadcast, but he

never made it. For two hours there was no

sign of him at all, and we had no idea what

was happening. And of course, when a person

leaves home, goes off the grid,

and never arrives at work—what is that? That

is called an abduction. After

Ruslan was taken to the police station,

he was given a chance to make a phone call.

Naturally, we immediately began to suspect

that he was not just anywhere, but specifically at the police station.

We got in touch with him, and I, together with a colleague—

a cameraman colleague—went to

that police station

to film a report on what was happening there.

But the most interesting thing is that even before

we got there, Kira, Kira

Yarmysh, Alexei Navalny’s press secretary,

had already arrived there as an authorized

representative, with the proper power of attorney arranged.

She was representing his interests as a defender,

but as soon as she

crossed the threshold of that Tverskoye police station,

Kira was immediately detained as well. And so

when we arrived with the film crew,

there were operatives standing there, there was an officer

from the department,

some guy named Zhenya who did not introduce himself, but

He said, no, no, no, absolutely not to me.

Don't mention what I'm doing right now, there is

them, we won't mention anyone, Zhenya, so

and then this one says, what happened? I

said, well, what do you mean what happened? Our colleagues

were abducted, do you understand, abducted in broad

daylight, we know nothing, we want

to make sure they're all right.

He says to me, did they put a bag over their heads?

I said, no, they didn't. Well then, what are you

worried about, why are you panicking? So you

understand their logic: no bag over the head,

they weren't beaten,

well then, it's practically like they went off to

a resort, which means practically everything is fine.

Nothing terrible happened. The fact that you

will be without work, without communication, without

the support of loved ones, and locked up for no reason

for 30 days, that's nonsense. But these are the kinds of

methods they are now using to condition

probably everyone. In other words, well, nothing

terrible, of course, of course. It's this lowering

of the boundaries of perception that the authorities are now

creating, what the security forces are doing now,

this lowering of the threshold for perceiving

this lawlessness. And, well, it's true, just

a few years ago,

ten days under arrest was, well, serious.

It was considered a serious event altogether, even

overnight detention is unpleasant from the very start, for a long time

it's not pleasant when they grab you and take you somewhere,

especially without explaining why, as happened

including with our colleague Elena

Molotovskaya last week, when they

just came up and said, that's it, miss, we're

going. Identify yourselves. No, we won't

identify ourselves. Here's our car, get in,

climb in. The same thing happened with

Ruslan Shaveddinov, and what's more, it's even more

strange because she came as a defender, and

simply to help, and what was the result?

Ruslan got 30 days, and Lyubov Sobol got 25

days of arrest. And then tomorrow—today there was also

another detention, today, today there was

just an absolutely masterpiece-level detention, they detained

so cinematic, I'd say. There is even

video, well.

Let me start from the beginning. Ivan Zhdanov, the head

of the legal department of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

(FBK, an organization founded by Alexei Navalny),

Ivan Zhdanov is currently doing a great deal of

work on behalf of those detained and on

party matters and, in general, for the Anti-Corruption

Foundation. As he was leaving the Anti-Corruption

Foundation, not far from it, that's where they

detained him. He had simply gone out for a walk.

They detained him, shoved him into

a car, quickly drove him off, took him to the station on

Tverskaya. He's now being held there overnight in

the police station.

And tomorrow morning he will have a hearing in the district court.

Let's take a look at him and at what

he has to tell us, what kind of video greeting

there is. It's all part of something big and serious, and I would like

Defender, defender.

You understand, yes? Let's walk. Where are you taking him?

Where are you transporting him to?

But

here is the video of his detention, and

let's also watch another video, one of those

messages from Ivan, when he was already

at the Tverskoy District police station, and he

sent us his regards and explained

how it all happened. Let's

watch this video. Hello everyone, I wanted

to buy a shawarma with cheese and mushrooms, but I

didn't get the chance. Today police officers

detained me, and now I am at the

Tverskoye police station, and most likely

they'll keep me here overnight today. Tomorrow

I'll be in court. Hello everyone. He isn't losing heart,

he's keeping his spirits up, and today this ordinary sort of

thing—though, Ivan, don't say there's nothing unusual

about it—but it's necessary to remind people what

judges are now formally giving jail time for.

You won't believe it, but for a tweet. And if

you missed it all, the reason for the detention

of all our supporters, including Kira and her

Ruslan, and Sergei Boyko,

formally, was not organizing an event.

It was publishing a tweet calling on people to come

to a rally. What's more, in the case of Kira and

Ruslan, the publication came long before

the rally was declared unauthorized, so

in essence, as someone aptly wrote, it was for having

a time machine—as if

they somehow knew the rally would not be

approved and therefore called on everyone

to join this already, in advance,

unauthorized protest. Once

it's enough to publish a post on your Twitter

saying: come and express

your opposition to the current authorities, do not

agree with what they are doing, do not

accept their arbitrariness—and that's it.

As a result, they grab you, they

seize you in broad daylight, they don't even let you

eat—in Ivan Zhdanov's case, yes, they didn't even let him

buy that poor shawarma—and there you go,

they arrest you for 30 days. How this

will affect things later, we don't know, but one way or

another, there is absolutely nothing pleasant about it.

Nothing at all—not even a little.

Absolutely nothing. And if many people say,

well, guys, okay, at least they weren't sent to prison,

no, that's not how this should be viewed.

It absolutely should not be minimized; it is still

very serious, it is still very

unpleasant, and

what I liked in this regard was what

Leonid Volkov wrote on his Facebook:

that there is no need to downplay the significance

of this event, because indeed

you are allowed to use the shower rather

rarely.

You also get only one visit during all

that time, and in general, essentially,

you drop out of life altogether, in the spring, in warm weather.

for 30 days — for what, exactly?

for a post on Twitter. And I would also like

to add this: we devote far too little time and

attention to the judges who hand down these

sentences. I mean, of course, of course, we

as Alexei said, judges are basically just

mere "telephone receivers," that is,

they are simply carrying out someone else's will. There is, of course,

absolutely no illusion whatsoever that

it is the judges themselves who are making the decision. But

that is precisely why they should be known by name.

That is, these are, accordingly, the ones from Tomsk

and Brovko — these people, and we should

show them once again, right.

Orekhovo-Zatonskaya, Orekhovo-Zatonskaya.

who — I think that was her maiden

name, yes — the one who

handed down 30 days of arrest.

But in fact, the courts in Russia are supposedly

independent, meaning this is supposedly their own

decision: they have the right either to overturn it or

to punish — that is what a judge is there for.

But

that independence is fairly conditional

and exists only on paper.

And joining us now is Leonid Volkov.

We're speaking with him on Skype today, and now

we're planning to talk with him and discuss

all the recent arrests. We — well, we've

talked a lot about the detentions in

Moscow.

But he will tell us the broader picture overall:

how everything is organized, what the situation

is across the country with our

campaign office coordinators and our

supporters, how things stand. If we have

Leonid — Leonid, good evening.

Hi. You're aware of all

these troubles of ours, of course. What do you think —

is this a deliberate strategy, or just the authorities' stupidity?

Or what exactly is going on? First of all,

let's not treat this as

a misfortune.

What doesn't kill us makes us

stronger.

This is a stress test. And how are we going to

work when they lock everyone up tomorrow?

Nikolai, that's nervous laughter.

Nikolai is laughing nervously because

in reality, the entire leadership of all the headquarters —

almost half of all regional

coordinators and a large share of the

public-facing and managerial staff —

are under arrest in Moscow. Will we be able to work or

not? I believe we will, and we will show you

that we can work no worse because of it. And this

will be an important lesson for us and for them.

It's the only way to show them that

locking everyone up like this is

useless — to prove it through our work itself,

to prove that nothing changes and

to work even better. Secondly,

well, I mean, of course they don't think of it that way, but

again, they judge everything by themselves.

Since their system is built

entirely on manual control —

let's lock him up for 30 days —

that was done largely just to make sure he

wouldn't be around. They put the man on a bunk bed,

a two-tier bunk, and he got the lower bunk because he

is ill and simply can't climb to the top one. But

all of this, so to speak, is done out of deference to the boss at the top.

But for them, everything really will break down.

They're used to calling upstairs about every

issue — judges know whom to call,

investigators know whom to call,

ministers and governors — everything there is simple.

The whole thing will go to hell. But they also

project this, in a sense,

onto you as well. Why do they think

that everything on our side will also fall apart?

But that's not how it works. Plus, they are

trying to extract some kind of

benefits for themselves. They are very afraid of any

rallies on the eve of the FIFA World Cup

probably because they understand

that after the lawlessness of May 5, they

can't just detain people like that in front of foreign

fans and journalists — they can't

do it openly, because some kind of

incident might occur. So they are trying

to act in advance.

And of course, regarding the party: on May 19 we

were supposed to hold the founding congress accordingly.

As of tomorrow — sorry, please,

Nikolai, for bringing this up again, but I have to

say that as of tomorrow our quorum

will be assembled.

Tomorrow he has a court hearing, you have hearings, and out of

the seven members of the party's central council,

four will end up behind bars

at the same time, not counting its founders and

organizers — Alexei Navalny is already

there.

And Boiko as well. In short,

roughly half of them. Of course, this

is incredibly infuriating — you can't say it isn't.

This is clearly being done deliberately to

disrupt the party, or deliberately to

sabotage it. They have simply grown brazen from

impunity, because the courts now are

a very different thing even compared

with what they were just a year ago

or even a year and a half ago. What

they are now writing in rulings

would have been unimaginable a year ago. But at the same time

they also get a great additional

bonus for themselves, when someone like Kiriyenko

goes and coordinates it with Putin and

says: there is this idea —

let's just lock everyone up automatically

before the spotlight arrives.

We'll trade them party registration for silence during

the World Cup, so they won't make noise, and also

what else — how much more money can we squeeze out of them,

how much from those who are fined,

and so on. Well, all right then — let's act.

That's how it works here, you know — just like that.

This is what’s happening — all of this.

These additional bonuses come as part of it,

according to the usual formula, yes — and as things are unfolding, that really does seem to be the case:

they simply do this, precisely because

they can, and probably because they can no longer

offer anything else — that’s the main thing, they can’t

set anything against it,

against the entire structure that is now operating in

the country, the whole network of headquarters. Nothing

except this police lawlessness, well,

yes, and for them it then became a major

surprise — May 5, and now they look at this

with suspicion somehow. Well, almost no one

was there.

There were police dogs and all that, but overall

they didn’t really stop us from holding it, and overall

the fact that in dozens of cities there were

huge rallies with many thousands of people,

unauthorized protests — for them,

that was an absolute shock, a complete surprise. They

had somehow convinced themselves that, basically, after March 18

the issue was over, everything had calmed down, run out of steam.

They thought they’d shut down the volunteers and the old network,

close it all down, and so on — that was their version of events.

But it turned out that everything was still there, still working,

and working even better. In many

cities, the May 5 rallies were

larger than the ones on March 20 and even those on June 12

last year. That became for them

a real shock.

It scared them badly, and that’s why

they always respond with such a harsh

reaction. This reaction is unprecedentedly

harsh. Taken together, the Bolotnaya case (the criminal prosecutions after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests)

of May 6, 2012, was more frightening than May 5, 2018,

because back then there were criminal cases, but now, in

essence, they’re turning it into a network of criminal cases — or rather, handing them out to us

retail, one by one.

That’s one point, because these 5,000 days

that have already been handed down, so to speak, on paper so far,

and there will be more — arrests of up to 15 days — yes, that is

soon going to be comparable in total

to the sentences in the Bolotnaya case, approximately.

That’s exactly what it is.

Leonid, well, I don’t know — I’m sure our

headquarters will handle this calmly. I mean,

I’ve been talking to different regions,

all week, and I can see people have this fighting

spirit. Somewhere in Krasnoyarsk, for example, people

came out, and because of that it has become

an extra boost — they’ll work even better there. The momentum is on your

side, supporters are saying they’re joining in,

and everything will be all right for us.

And our projects will keep working. You’re right:

people aren’t stupid, and they see everything.

And in small towns, all of this

information spreads everywhere,

including places where nothing like this had happened before.

In places where there hadn’t previously been any

lawlessness, where this kind of

“Kubanization” (a reference to especially heavy-handed regional repression) has now happened too, and where justice and

the authorities’ attitude, and so on,

are perceived as a kind of shock — and people

know about it.

They do not remain calm about it. Though here,

we do need to be careful with the word “calm,” of course,

because on the one hand, I’m

proud that no one gave up, no one

quit, and that in order to

keep working steadily, every headquarters

has not forgotten that there is a key project

that each office has to carry out — they do something,

they keep that project going. Even if

the coordinator is in jail, or the deputy is sitting there too,

or the lawyer is tied up, the volunteers themselves

left one-on-one with the project

still carry it forward, and they do it very

well. And this composure with which we

continue working should not, at the same time,

extend to everything — we cannot treat

all of this calmly. Zero

tolerance for lawlessness: for the witnesses who are ready to sign anything,

who are ready to sign whatever is put in front of them,

for those who always say there are no grounds not to trust

a police officer, for the police officers themselves,

who lie in their reports, for the officers of the centers

who fabricate all these

cases — there can be no

tolerance. No matter how many such

cases there are, we must not sleep through this,

calmly, as if this were simply

how things are supposed to be, as if this were the only way things can be.

It is terribly dangerous to let the situation get to the point

where everyone gets used to it all and it becomes

routine, ordinary. That’s why today

today we recorded a video with Lyubov Sobol,

a big group worked on it,

collecting all the facts to remind people:

this cannot be treated calmly. What is happening is

a large-scale

political repression

by authoritarian, fascistic usurpers

who have seized our country and are not

going to give it back. And no normal person

can reconcile themselves to that.

As was written long ago in the headline

of Alexei Navalny’s article, no one has

the right to neutrality, and now that phrase

is more true than ever. Unfortunately, no matter how much you may want

to hide

in your little hole and say, “This doesn’t concern me,”

you have to choose: either you are with those

who imprison people,

or you are with those being imprisoned. There simply is no

third side here, sorry, however

unpleasant that may be to hear. Yes, that old line no longer

works — the one about “when they came”

not for me but for my neighbors.” They’ve already

come for everyone. That’s it.

Thank you very much. We’re just about to

show a short part of that video now,

with Lyubov Sobol, and it will include

mentions of all the coordinators. Thank you.

We’ll stay in touch. Best of luck

tomorrow — though of course it sounds funny to say that,

especially coming from me, since it just so happened that I sat it out here.

I mean, on the one hand, I feel

morally at ease, because my...

No one has managed to beat that record to this day.

I served a total of up to 105 days behind bars.

And even with these new sentences,

which are now being handed out to everyone—30 days at a time,

there are still three people on the other side ahead of me, so

it turns out I really am the only one

still at liberty from the list of 86. It was simply a list that all

the media published: detain them there. If it had been

Leski, or Zhdanov, or Sheredin—none of them

were even written about; they just talked about the country.

People were detained according to that list. I was on that list.

Women.

Local police officers went to people's registered addresses and

called, asking where they were.

I said I had gone away on business, on a work trip.

I understand that if I were at home, I'd be facing another 30 days.

I want to wish them a speedy return.

On the other hand, on the other hand,

I thought about what was really happening,

and in fact we will defeat them. Their condition

is one of hysteria, and

hysterical regimes do not survive for long.

Unfortunately, it's an unpleasant state, because

then it's like a mad bull,

a wounded one rampaging—it can

smash a lot of dishes around it

and cause a great deal of trouble. But

at the same time, there is no path to recovery.

We understand that, in any case, the raging beast

must eventually stumble and fall over something

very unexpectedly, collapse, and break

all its legs—and we'll make a tasty steak out of it.

That sounded rough.

A shawarma would sound better—I bought one for you today.

On that note, let's say goodbye

to Leonid Volkov. Thank you very much, and until

next time. You were detained—you did great.

Thank you, Leonid.

And now perhaps let's sum up

the campaign and move on smoothly. Yes, I suppose

I'll do exactly that now.

A slideshow from the video—Lyuba Sobol has

released a wonderful video today.

I think we have it in the description, so

watch the video through to the end of this stream.

There was a really wonderful montage

of all the coordinators—with fines, with ducks,

and Vanya is in it. I'm not there yet, but if

it's implied—maybe, maybe.

No one is immune. Let's watch, let's watch

the video.

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And those are the results of May 5—the outcome of May 5.

The outcome of the party registration effort, though for now

these are only preliminary results; we don't know

what will happen next. In this connection, we

want to remind you that today we are raising

money during this broadcast—this amount here—as

the minimum we plan to collect. Of course, not

in a single broadcast—that's 1.5 million rubles

(about US$24,000 at the time), so send us donations and

support the opposition, support

resistance to this

essentially fascist government,

a usurping government that allows itself

to treat

our supporters in this way, absolutely

illegally detaining them and throwing them in jail

for 30 days, 25 days, even 10

days—that is still a very long time.

We just spoke about this with

Leonid Volkov. Send whatever you can—the links

for further support are in the description to

this video. And this is very important, because

besides jail time, the authorities think they can

intimidate people with fines, and for some people

those fines really are

more than they can afford.

We're talking about 10,000 to 20,000 rubles

(roughly US$160–320 at the time)—you can't always keep that in reserve.

It's not like: I'm going to a rally, and I already have

that money in my pocket. If we want the authorities

to understand that this won't work, then we need

to make this mechanism non-threatening,

so people must keep going to rallies.

Absolutely. And we need to understand that

if this machine suddenly turns against

you, then we will be able to provide support

and that we will be able to compensate for it. What's more,

the three people who send us the largest

amounts today—we will give all three of them

these lovely little calendars as a gift,

designed by Oleg Rebrov—a wonderful calendar.

We'll give them to those who send

the most money, despite the fact that

they're for 2018—they're exclusive.

It's original artwork, so there's plenty

to look at, and you can always enjoy

having such a calendar on your desk,

for example, at work. Now let's turn to Oleg

and talk about the fact that he, too, has

an update, so to speak.

In his prison life: on May 22,

he was placed in SHIZO (a Russian punitive isolation cell), and the reason for this

placement was, of course, completely

beyond common sense: he

was eating without a jacket in the dining area.

Thus,

he had supposedly gravely violated prison

regulations. You understand—the man simply

didn't put on a jacket. In our

so-called democratic state governed by law,

while he was eating. But we've said many times

that the FSIN system (Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service)

is, in essence, one that will

maim people; it is in no way at all

designed for rehabilitation. And

in the case of Oleg Navalny, this

is shown with maximum clarity.

Oleg is a person who is very

calm, very thoughtful. Many

of you, I'm sure, read his posts on

Facebook, where he talks about his experience

and about how his war there is going with

The head of this colony is waging a kind of "war"

in quotation marks over whether it should be possible to bring in

colored pencils. And just think: Oleg

is a creative person, he draws, after all.

But they forbid even that. They

bolt the furniture to the corners, they take away

his pencil, and they give him no way to express himself

freely, even though this is, in essence,

supposed to be a correctional system, right? That is,

in theory, after going through this

court-imposed term, a person should become better. But there are no

opportunities for that at all. And that is considering that

Oleg has very little time left; he is already supposed to

be released literally on June 30.

The year and a half is practically over already,

there is less than a month and a half left

before he is due to be released, and as a final blow

these scoundrels put him in the punishment cell ("ShIZO," a Russian prison isolation ward).

Never mind, as they say, it will all come back to them.

To wrap up the whole subject of our

arrests and detainees, this same week

the prosecutor's office, well, the prosecutor's office

requested

a change in the preventive measure for Konstantin

Saltykov. Kostya Saltykov is one of our

activists from the Moscow штаб (campaign headquarters).

He was

detained at the January rally; it is claimed that

he hit an OMON officer's fist with his face while the officer

was detaining him. And all of this is just mad, this

madness where once again some

police officer is supposedly injured in the line of duty.

It always somehow turns out that someone has to be injured, and yet

no police officers were actually injured, and now

the prosecutor's office has requested for Kostya

Saltykov to be placed under house arrest. Right now he is

being held in a SIZO (pre-trial detention center), and no—the judge said

let him stay in the SIZO.

And the conditions there are awful for him, packed in with

other people, with no investigative

actions taking place. It is absolutely clear that this is

simply abuse

and intimidation. Kostya is holding up bravely,

sending his regards to everyone through his lawyers, but

these vile

civilian judges, of course, will answer for this.

We already showed this at the start of the broadcast,

and you should remember them too—you know, if possible,

never end up before them. But

in our country, unfortunately, no one is

immune from that.

Also today, on our campaign website,

2018.navalny.com, there is a published

final report on the entire nearly

year-and-a-half-long campaign. We really

did a great job, and I especially want to

emphasize that, because the work was truly

massive.

What we accomplished over these year and a half

is something very few people have managed

to do at all, and certainly not in our country.

We have often spoken already about

the people and the headquarters, because probably

the brightest and most important thing that was

created was 81 headquarters—81 headquarters,

many of which are still operating to this day, and

no one else has anything like that. Practically the entire

country was covered—you can see the map now, right?

And there were also people's headquarters, meaning when people themselves

opened them. And we have many volunteers;

many volunteers are still with

us. They support the campaign, they are ready

to develop political activity

and civic engagement in their regions,

which of course makes us very happy.

We also have more than 700,000 signatories

over these year and a half.

And we raised 372 million rubles (about several million U.S. dollars at the time)—an enormous

sum. It is all wonderful. We have often

spoken about it, partly here on the program, in

the headquarters, and in all sorts of other formats.

Now it has all been brought together in one place, and you

can look through it. And if someone

asks you, "So what were the results

of Alexei Navalny's campaign?" then feel free to

send them this link, and all questions will disappear

immediately. It shows the real

results of the work, presented very simply and

concisely on a single page of our

website, 2018.navalny.com.

And all this work was built for one purpose:

to change the political system in

the country, so that Russia would have

a new kind of politician, so that ordinary people

would become engaged with political issues and

start participating more actively, and

maybe some

mayors or regional heads would suddenly start thinking

that they really ought to conduct themselves properly,

that they need to be accountable to

the voters,

that they need to speak normally with the people who

come to see them.

But for some reason, no. Though who was decent?

We have had some—there is Alexei Navalny,

and Yevgeny Roizman, who is precisely the hero of our

next segment. The mayor who—well,

the mayor of Yekaterinburg, if you didn't know,

the mayor of Yekaterinburg who really is

a real mayor,

a true people's choice, and moreover a resident

of the city—not someone who came from somewhere else,

installed by somebody, but a genuine resident

of the city, who knows his city, who

wants to make it better, and who did make

it better, in fact, for several years.

But today we received the news that

Yevgeny Roizman has resigned.

Why? Because they are not allowing free

mayoral elections. So, we got

this news—not today, of course,

but we are telling you about it today.

It was this week's

news.

Roizman stepped down from the post of mayor himself in order

not to sign a law under which

the residents of Yekaterinburg are now going to be stripped of

their right to elect

They want to install their own kind of mayor here.

Their own little man. There is a comment by Smoliy in

general—let's listen.

Hello everyone, this is Yevgeny Roizman speaking firsthand.

Firsthand.

Let me explain: a regional law was passed,

a regional law abolishing direct mayoral elections in

Yekaterinburg. This law is humiliating

for the city's residents and runs counter

to Yekaterinburg's interests. But after

this law was passed, it became necessary

to amend the city charter.

I warned everyone right away: never in my life

would I put my signature under these amendments.

The city charter states: direct mayoral elections.

Never in my life will I change those

words with my own hand. They started forcing

the situation and submitted the amendments

to the charter for consideration at a city council meeting, and I

had only one way left not

to take part in it:

to resign. That's it—from this moment on,

I have resigned.

I am no longer the head of Yekaterinburg.

Yevgeny Roizman is a real mayor.

It seems to me this is how it should be judged:

at the head of every city there simply ought to be

We hope that Yevgeny will find

a worthy role for himself. But more than that, we

hope that at least somewhere

this system of free

mayoral elections can still be preserved. It remains literally in

just a few cities in our country, but we are

losing it. So to speak, but I wanted

to say what seems to me the most important

point in this whole story: Yevgeny

Roizman showed that you can simply choose not

to go along with those

slick people around the president and

all those governors who

came up with this law under which mayors will now be

selected—appointed, that is.

And globally, this is not even about the law itself—it's

just that some incompetent person

came up with a harmful, destructive

set of rules.

It's the same with rallies: some

boss gives instructions to his staff

to detain an innocent person, gives the

order, then a judge convicts them, and so it goes

through every level of this whole scheme.

It spreads everywhere, and at every level people nod

and say, 'Well, what can we do?

We're small people, we're only following orders.'

Yevgeny Roizman showed you that it is possible

simply not to carry out an order—and the sky did not

fall, and the earth did not split open.

Yevgeny can calmly look his

voters in the eye. He speaks with residents, with

his fellow citizens, and in their presence

he can calmly record videos. I am

sure he will have no problem whatsoever

finding a new job.

Thank you, Yevgeny. And now, from such

good officials and good mayors, we

move on to crooks and thieves.

Slowly now—literally about a week ago,

it was practically Friday already,

a new government was formed.

Well, new—relatively new, that is.

Some new faces did appear there, but for the most

part the same old ones remained,

who, to put it mildly, have already become tiresome, and

who still decide nothing and

remain pawns in this enormous

system. It all looks very much like some kind of

orchestra from a fable (an allusion to Krylov's 'Quartet,' where changing seats changes nothing)—there was

a little reshuffle, but

as you can see, there are not many results.

Because they still, well, don't really know how.

So, let's take a look at these people

who will be leading our

government. There are a lot of them—

deputy prime ministers and federal ministers.

But what matters to us, who

we would like to single out among

these stars of our political

stage, of course, is

Vitaly Mutko. Vitaly Mutko is simply

quite a character. Everyone laughed at

him—everyone, even his own associates—

when he was appointed, when Medvedev

put him forward. What will he be responsible for now?

Construction, and

regional development.

He'll 'develop development' so much it'll make your head spin.

Just imagine: the man who was responsible

for building the Zenit Arena stadium will now be

in charge of this too, and now everywhere, in

every city across the vast expanses of

Russia, I suppose there will be seagulls like the ones

that pecked at the stadium roof and walls (a reference to the St. Petersburg stadium scandal), and even

the foundations will be poured badly.

And then again, the doping scandal—

it was simply a disgrace before the whole world, a disgrace

that brought us, well, problems with

the Olympics, and not only problems with

the Olympics in general,

but at the very least problems with our image.

It's strange—what is this, guys? How can it be

that all the athletes are on doping, and yet you

deny it and say that everything is

fine?

And yet this man is given

such a cushy post: here you go, regional

development—go develop it. But it seems to me

—I don't know, maybe this is exactly how it will be—

that the program money they promised

to send to the regions fits very neatly

with both construction and

regional development, and now

old Mutko will sit there and distribute the program funds,

deciding where

his own people should build their own

Mutko-style houses instead of what is actually needed.

Moving on, we have many more names,

we won't have time to talk about all of them, so very briefly,

very quickly, about probably the most...

High-profile appointments: Yevgeny Genchev.

Yevgenievich will now be put in charge of

the Ministry of Emergency Situations. What

do we know about him, about this man?

On the right—there he is, comrades, in a tie and

jacket. He’s had an astonishing career rise,

the kind you could envy beyond belief. He was

Putin’s bodyguard for almost 10 years,

from 2006 to 2015, and now he’s a minister. But before

that, he was also sent

to run Kaliningrad Region. They took

a man and just sent him there—it sounds easy, but

you have to understand

they took a bodyguard and installed him as

governor. We’ve already had several of those

security-men appointments.

Sure, why not? Doesn’t matter whether he can handle it or not,

whether he likes it or not. Not just “doesn’t like it” —

he simply doesn’t like it, it’s not his thing, and

he didn’t ask for it.

And yet he came out ahead: he was some kind of

governor, and now he’s become a minister — and

a very important one. After all, this appointment is the first

real sign that the reins of power are being handed over and, apparently,

someone is moving into the shadows. In other words, this

appointment weakens that whole system of

checks around him, if suddenly we’re talking about

some kind of clan war. There are two possibilities here.

Either there’s a paranoid Putin who decided

just in case that you need to place

your own man, your own bodyguard,

so that if anything happens, the bodyguard will protect him.

If there’s suddenly a fire in Putin’s house,

then naturally everyone gets sent there immediately. And if

all of Russia is burning — well, who cares?

What of it, honestly? After all, we have more than

that — according to statistics, every day in fires

30 people die, sometimes more. But that’s apparently not where

attention goes. Even as of today,

right now,

part of Russia is engulfed in flames, and another part of Russia

just a few days ago was buried in smoke so thick

that it was simply impossible to go outside,

people couldn’t even leave their homes — they were literally

trapped inside. And the Ministry of Emergency Situations

slept through all of it.

The ministry isn’t reacting. Right now there’s footage

of people trying to put it out with buckets,

with forests and fires blazing everywhere. This is completely

unacceptable. And now, at this very moment, they’re taking

a bodyguard and placing that bodyguard in the

post of head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. They’re saying,

“Here you go, buddy — this is your domain now, deal with it.”

Another comrade we have to

mention is Dmitry Patrushev. He will now

head the Ministry

of Agriculture. What’s so

remarkable about this comrade, about

Dmitry Patrushev, besides the fact that he

is probably notable mainly because

he’s a Patrushev — a surname that speaks for itself and

is hard to forget. The former director

of the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service)

was Nikolai — Nikolai Patrushev.

His father was, in fact, the former

FSB director, and I think he cares very

deeply about his child and says,

as everyone does here, that we are getting rid of

crony corruption — don’t forget, that’s

the daily program of our country, after all.

That’s why we appoint our sons,

bodyguards, and various other friends. At this rate,

Putin and company will soon get to the dogs

and horses and start appointing them to posts

too. At this point, anything seems possible. It’s just that

Patrushev — Dmitry, again — before this

was involved in running

Rosselkhozbank (the Russian Agricultural Bank).

According to its charter, Rosselkhozbank

was supposed to provide money for the development of

agriculture.

Rosselkhozbank went bust; now it is

basically fully supported by the state, and

money keeps being pumped into it. Just recently another

five billion was poured into it — onward we go

for agriculture.

Much safer that way. Of course, he couldn’t handle the bank, but

surely he’ll handle a ministry then,

right? The logic is simple: why

not? And that’s exactly what I wanted to say about

this.

Agriculture may seem

to everyone like, well, just agriculture, but

according to various data and various estimates,

agriculture is one of the most

lucrative areas, and a very important one,

especially in terms of finances and rent-seeking as well,

particularly during this period of so-called

counter-sanctions, when now

more and more madness with these counter-

sanctions is being introduced in our country, and the influence on

our agricultural sector will be absolutely

colossal. So if he couldn’t

make enough money

running a bank, he’ll make it as

a minister — why not? Who else do we have?

Rogozin, our esteemed comrade,

will now apparently be added to Roscosmos (Russia’s state space corporation). That’s

today’s news, and it probably shocked

everyone who hasn’t been following these

developments, because after driving all the enemies

out of Roscosmos, I kept hoping until the very end

that maybe someone else would go there instead.

Please, Yurik, if you can hear us, answer our prayers.

I saw a joke today that, well,

apparently,

it’s obvious that aliens from Nibiru

have taken over the command center of the world — enough already.

The point is absolutely not that

he himself has never flown anywhere — it’s that no one at all

will get through now.

No one will be able to break through this

man. Soon we’ll be taught that the sky

is solid and the stars are nailed to it, thanks to

Rogozin. And I think that our new

ministry, which is now called not

the Ministry of Education and Science, but

the Ministry of Enlightenment.

Well, give it a little more time and there’ll be a Ministry as well.

A Ministry of Truth, and then we’ll really be living the life, right?

Then you’ll definitely be thriving—there’ll be plenty to...

...cover. Vasilyeva—who knows, it’s all a mess...

I wanted to bring some fire to this, dear...

So, our dear Vladimir...

Rostislavovich.

Yes, please tell us about him—there he is, right there.

He seems like such an intelligent, cultured person.

On the face of it, he has remained in his post, and that is, on the...

one hand, of course, something that can’t help but...

be pleasing—but it’s only pleasing...

from the standpoint of absurdity, because from every other...

angle it is wildly upsetting. Anyone...

at all.

All intelligent people, everyone even somewhat...

connected with culture...

prayed, hoped, and believed until the very...

end that for this position...

they would find someone more worthy, not...

the person they did find—with so much plagiarism in...

his dissertation, who wants to rewrite—or...

is already rewriting—history, and who...

essentially isn’t doing anything worthwhile.

I’ll just... right now...

A person from Dissernet—they came to me many times...

they came to see me many times.

Our friend Andrei Zaitsev—I was talking about...

Medinsky’s dissertation, and he says there...

there’s nothing especially pleasant about it; I mean, it even seems...

he may have written it himself—a person like that...

sat down and wrote nonsense. He said you could have...

just sat...

a monkey at the keyboard and it would have typed his words, and...

something would have come out. A person like that just...

wrote something that has absolutely nothing...

to do with scholarship and said that...

it was a dissertation, and then started defending it.

And everyone says: a dissertation, a dissertation...

and all these academic councils say: yes, it’s a dissertation, but...

what you said about history is exactly right: he...

started remaking it. That is, his...

dissertation is precisely about the history of Russia, and...

that’s exactly where it goes further.

Medinsky’s hands are now reaching toward history...

textbooks, which he can surely...

lobby for, and now we’ll be studying...

my history, not some other history.

My history—it’s alternative, but...

one way or another, let’s take a look at it.

Because he has already tried to do this.

And why does this personally...

upset me too? Because, as before...

money from the state budget...

was allocated to fairly bad films.

Good cinema was not supported.

If next year, as promised, is going to be...

the Year of Theater, then it’s trouble, real disappointment.

It really is, because thanks to...

such a culture minister, we will unfortunately have...

only the most mediocre, though...

“friendly,” so to speak, theatrical...

productions, while good theaters, such as...

Kirill Serebrennikov’s theater...

will, unfortunately, possibly suffer.

And beyond theaters, this whole situation is deplorable.

If we go back to his dissertation...

he behaves so boldly, in general.

As for boldness, it’s more like...

well, “intelligent” in the Russian sense (cultured, educated)...

such a person would not go looking for a fight like this...

and pick quarrels with everyone. But this is how...

a report was recently released saying that for...

reinterpreting history, for...

having the “wrong” view from the standpoint of...

the conservatives or those who control...

the general line on historical...

events, you can get a fine or a prison term—and this...

is already happening. We have a video from...

Agora (a Russian human rights group); let’s watch it right now, and there...

everything is explained in detail.

[music]

[music]

[music]

you

[music]

[music]

[music]

[music]

[applause]

For our dear radio listeners, let me...

explain that what you just heard was...

music. And I’ll explain: it was a video that...

we made ourselves...

based on data from an Agora investigation.

And now I’ll read out those figures.

So, over the recent period, 41 books were...

banned.

There were 17 criminal cases, and in 16 of them...

there was a guilty verdict.

There were also 6,622 administrative...

offense cases, mostly under Article 20.3, that is...

public display...

of Nazi symbols, including, among other things...

historical photographs, of course...

plus tattoos on the body, for example...

of some leader, and also clips from films...

that is, clips not even from historical...

films, but in any case they too were...

prohibited. The number of cases has risen sharply.

If in 2012 there were only...

238, now it is already about 2,063 cases...

in the past year.

So these repressions are being unleashed by...

foolish ministers who write some kind of...

mad dissertations, and then...

ordinary people are left to deal with all of it...

for reposting an image on VKontakte, by the way.

That has happened, including to one of our...

supporters.

The case ended well, but no one...

is immune from this, and we have to...

fight it.

Now, when we talk about history...

and politics, it’s probably very important...

to mention that lately, not without...

the involvement of our штабs (regional campaign offices), not without the involvement...

of the coordinators of our regional offices, various...

These processes have been taking on an increasingly

pronounced political character. Take the issue

of landfills, which both of us have spoken about a lot.

That is, these landfill sites are something we practically

always mention in the news, because

there is always news: rallies, protests,

the movement is not dying down, whether in Volokolamsk

or in other parts of the Moscow region. But in

this case, we want to talk about

Yaroslavl.

The wave of Moscow's garbage has reached

Yaroslavl, and we have to give credit to everyone in

Yaroslavl, to our Yaroslavl штаб (campaign office),

which

didn't back down there. Their rally was not approved, and they

held it without authorization. It turned out to be

very vivid, powerful, and sincere. And, importantly,

they said: we are not going to tolerate all

this. Especially after everyone learned

that the company that will operate these

landfills once again belongs to the son

of the Prosecutor General

— Chaika's son. And as has already been said, where there's garbage,

there are the Chaikas. Let's watch

a short video from Yaroslavl.

[music]

So why is it that we are forced, let's say,

to gather here today and understand

that Moscow's trash has already started pouring in here?

If one liter can be poured in, then two more can easily follow.

I would like to say, regarding the essence of

this event: he is absolutely right — this

issue needs to be politicized. It needs

a political response. All of this

was organized by the political party United Russia.

Well done, guys — it really was a very striking

rally and a powerful action, and thank you even for

such a successful video. And it's important to remember

that expressing your civic

position comes first, because no one

has the right to force you, as in Volokolamsk,

to breathe polluted air

from landfills. No one has the right to dump

garbage on you — especially from another region — if

someone at the top decided so, if

someone higher up was paid for it. Therefore,

if this problem affects your cities,

you should also come out and

organize yourselves. Get in touch with our

campaign offices — we are always ready to provide

support and any kind of help, because this is

truly a political process. It is

not only social and civic

activity, but also a fairly strong

political force. That's right. And here

people are even writing to us about political influence.

Vladimir from Kazan writes to us: "Push the party

forward, please." Today we have already

spoken a little about the fact that

over the weekend, the founding congress

of the party took place. This is indeed an important,

a very important legal stage. Now in all

regions there will be

regional meetings of the local branches.

And I really like the name — it

truly warms the soul: Russia of the Future. It's the most

successful name possible. So

there will be more politics in the regions, politics will

be more visible, more vivid. And now let's

watch a clip about how the

founding assembly took place in

Moscow. Thank you to those who gathered here —

people who understand that right now you are with

the country, not with palaces and whatever else.

Yes, we have proved that we are far stronger, that

we are the only real force that

can gather rallies, and despite

pressure, arrests, and threats, the party exists.

It exists in reality, and they simply

have no choice but to register it. Who is in favor of opening

the congress?

[music]

We are creating a real party that already has

real supporters, that has

regional branches, which have already for more than

a year been advancing the agenda.

It's wonderful news that you are not giving up

your attempts to register your party.

You really do have that right.

You truly do, and common

sense

dictates the need to register

this party and give it the opportunity

to participate in elections and pursue the

goals it has set for itself.

[music]

[music]

These happy faces — this is Russia

of the Future. Yes, and in the regions there will be even

more of them, and they will be even better. But

let me remind you again about donations: we

are raising money for fines. Friends, you

still have just a little

time left to get

the calendar, so that you can become

the owner of this wonderful

calendar. In the end, those who donate the largest amount

to us will receive it.

We are not raising money just because, as usual;

we are raising money for fines, and for everyone who

was arrested and who

was accordingly issued these fines for

the May 5 protest. The amount shown here on my

cup — 1.5 million rubles (about $16,500) — is

still far from the final amount; it

may change.

But for now it has already been set, so

friends, we have to support one

another, and over the next several broadcasts we will

be collecting money that will go into

a kind of fund for paying off fines.

And as for the party — it may seem

like such different things:

a rally in Yaroslavl and the creation of a party, or

the registration of a party. But this is

very important: any problem, any

problem in a region must be

resolved. Every problem has a solution.

It’s not easy, either technically or politically.

What they’re trying to do right now is being crushed.

Including what they’re trying to do in Volokolamsk, yes.

Listen, guys, without political will,

unfortunately, we have to admit it, we won’t be able to do it.

We won’t be able to push through, really, almost

any more or less important decisions.

That’s why the party

needs a party structure, and it already

exists — these headquarters, these party

structures. Now we just need to go into

elections and win where it matters, in these regions.

Where it matters, yes, absolutely, it will happen.

And even if they try to create some kind of

obstacles in order to ultimately

prevent registration — still, we are not going to

stop. Russia of the Future has been created,

and it will live on. And we have a winner —

in fact, we have four of them.

First place goes to Nadoelo ("Fed Up").

I’ll read them out and show the leaders of Nadoelo.

It’s always your... Next up is

Chelyabinsk, then Angry Siberia,

and beyond that as well.

Well, probably the numbers are about the same.

All these people — we will get in touch with all of you.

We’ll contact you all. Even plus one, plus one — that’s

excellent. And this was

Navalny 2018. Every

Thursday, watch 2018 — this is where people speak

the truth. Subscribe to the channel,

share this video, give it a like,

support

all political prisoners, go to

rallies, make politics happen in your region,

and we will succeed. We will win because

you and I are here for the Beautiful

Russia of the Future.

All right, everyone, bye. Take care.

[music]