Navalny on the shootout in central Moscow, Putin is talking nonsense, Sobyanin got scared of questions

[music]

Good evening, everyone. It is 8:00 p.m. in Moscow.

That means we are live on air

with the program *Russia of the Future*, and I am its host,

Alexei Navalny—or, as the Kremlin media called me this week,

“the man who could swear an oath to the Mausoleum”,

the man who could swear allegiance to

the Mausoleum (Lenin’s Mausoleum). And so we have what is

a scheduled broadcast, but at the same time an emergency one,

because over the last hour,

there have been unfolding

absolutely horrific events on the streets

of Moscow, and the internet has been flooded for the past hour with videos,

and Twitter posts coming in

every second. It is something I

last saw in 1994, when

police were storming the White House (the Russian parliament building), police

and the army were there, there was gunfire, and the last time

I saw people with assault rifles

running down the street was in ninety-

four—the very same “cursed ’90s.”

And right now, this is happening again, and what

is happening is quite clearly a terrorist attack,

because this is a rather sophisticated,

prepared operation, obviously

timed to coincide with Putin’s live Q&A today,

during which Putin stated several times,

very solemnly, that the FSB had done an excellent job

and that many crimes

of a terrorist nature had been

prevented. And tomorrow, as we know,

is Chekist Day (a Russian holiday honoring state security service personnel), the day

of the FSB employee, and right now there is

a ceremonial concert dedicated to this

Chekist Day.

And right during the ceremonial

appearance by Putin at this Chekist Day event,

unknown individuals, apparently—so far

it is known there were three of them—

attacked the FSB building, or perhaps attacked

the FSB reception office. It is already known that there are

casualties.

It is not entirely clear who

they are—whether they are security service personnel or

terrorists. It seems that by now

it is over, they have been shot, but there is no precise

information. But without question,

all of this looks horrifying, and it is

a serious reason to talk about

how effective this all is, considering that we spend

33 percent of the Russian Federation’s budget

on security, if things like this

are happening amid extraordinary

measures that are being taken every day.

We are told that everything must be restricted,

that Telegram must be restricted, that on December 23

there are scheduled drills on

blocking the internet. All of this is supposedly done

to fight terrorism, and at the same time

we see people with assault rifles

engaging in shootouts right by the

FSB building. Let us try to reconstruct

the events and how they unfolded

over the past hour. At around 7:00 p.m.,

people simply started posting on Twitter and

uploading videos:

“Hey, we hear gunfire, and we see

some police officers

running through the streets of Moscow.” This was probably

the first report

that appeared an hour ago: some girl from a

cafe filming and commenting on the running

police officers. Let’s take a look.

[laughter]

[music]

Commenting... we are finally here...

historical... badly...

Across from us there is a branch office...

from which, from time to time, there come running

police officers—you can see them outside. That was

literally the first report

that came in today. It looked rather strange,

unclear, and it did not seem like this was

actually real gunfire in the center

by the FSB building.

But nevertheless, as more information came in,

it began to be confirmed. While you were watching that

video, a report came in saying

that the FSB had recognized all this as a terrorist attack—that is,

it effectively confirmed my words

that this was not some random attack; it was

a terrorist attack, and I repeat, it was obviously carefully

planned and timed not just

to Chekist Day and Putin’s live Q&A,

but specifically, down to the timing,

to Putin’s appearance at the ceremonial,

ceremonial concert for Chekist Day.

So, after this

video appeared, reports began to emerge

in large numbers that people were hearing

gunfire. The outlet Mediazona, which

is probably doing the best live coverage right now

of what is happening—credit to them—their

correspondent happened to be in central Moscow

and they began broadcasting the very first video

reports that the city was beginning

to fill with people in uniform,

special forces personnel. Let’s watch 30 seconds.

The first reports that central Moscow

was filled with people in camouflage.

[music]

or

And just a few minutes later, the first

videos began to appear of the actual

shootout itself—really

people running through the streets of Moscow, and

police officers shouting in terrified voices,

“Get down! Run away!” Let’s take a look

at the first video from which we

learned that literally an hour ago, in the center

of Moscow, there was a shootout involving

automatic weapons.

And apparently the very first video in which

one of the attackers was caught on camera

was published, I think, by the outlet Baza,

and some time later there appeared

another video, of a much more tragic

nature, where we can see that apparently

This video is being interpreted as showing two

FSB officers running somewhere.

They are moving from one position to another, and

one of them is hit, and well, if this is

indeed the person seen in

the video who falls—an FSB officer or

a police officer, a security guard, whoever it may be—

we hope he survived,

because he was wearing body armor, after all, but

this is what it looks like. Let's watch.

Ah, that was not the right video, sorry, we just

have such a constant

flow of information right now. That was a video of how

people were simply running in the area of the Lubyanka metro station

(Lubyanka).

And police officers are saying, "Run, run,

faster, get down." The video showing how one of

what appears to be the FSB officers falls after

being hit by the attacker—let's

take a look. There, hit, hit, hit—one.

And just now, news has come in from the FSB

confirming that one of the

FSB officers was killed after the shooting at

Lubyanka. It is not very clear whether this is the person

we just saw in the video, or

someone from the FSB reception office, because

there were reports that it all began in the

FSB reception office.

Those who know Moscow's geography know

that there is, essentially, the building of the

famous FSB headquarters on Lubyanka.

And beside it is, formally speaking, the street

Kuznetsky Most, and if you walk along

Kuznetsky Most, you see a sign there saying

"FSB Reception Office." That is probably

the only place where a person can enter from

the street and formally get into an FSB building,

because you cannot just walk in otherwise, and

it was apparently said that the attack was on the

FSB reception office, and

it is still unclear whether someone in the

FSB reception office was killed, or whether one of the

special forces officers was killed.

Now let's watch the video that

also, by the way, confirms

that this was a demonstrative terrorist attack, which

was obviously carried out by people on a suicide mission. Clearly,

not for nothing, in the center of Moscow,

if three people try to storm the FSB building, they will

all be killed. And here is the video in which we now

see simply indiscriminate

gunfire at the facade of the FSB building. Well,

it confirms the demonstrative

nature of this terrorist act.

Let's watch.

Well, you can see dust simply

flying off the facade, meaning that someone is simply

firing an automatic weapon at the facade

of the building. There is no practical

sense in that at all, but it is some kind of

ritual act, a gesture of desperation.

I will repeat, for those who

are joining our live broadcast right now—

people are watching us live at this moment.

Tell me, 25,000 people are watching

us live—yes, I will repeat what I

said at the very beginning for those who have just

joined: it is obvious that this is a

demonstrative

terrorist act timed

to Putin's Direct Line (annual televised Q&A), timed

35,000 people are already watching us,

timed to Putin's Direct Line (annual televised Q&A),

to Chekist Day (Russian security services day), and to Putin's speech for

this day for the Chekists, and perhaps we will try

to show you later the video of how, well,

literally, Putin is giving a speech before

these assembled satraps,

the FSB officers, telling them how

everything is going well here in terms of the fight against

terrorism, only that it is still necessary

to tighten things up a bit on extremism, and

it is clear that by extremism they mean

the following:

the internet, Telegram, protesters, and so on.

The video is almost ready there, let's

let's watch how the broadcast is interrupted

right in the middle of his words.

Let's watch this speech by Putin

at the concert dedicated to Chekist Day,

at exactly the very moment when in

Moscow an attack is underway on FSB buildings.

Greeting the guests of the security agencies'

ceremonial evening, the president noted

the precise and coordinated work of the special services.

Thanks to their, in my view, professionalism and

courage, this year it was possible

to prevent more than 50 crimes

of a terrorist nature, and behind

each such prevented

crime, as the head of state emphasized,

stand human lives that were saved.

Lives. It is necessary to act more actively

against extremism. How

destructive this threat can be for the state and

society, we can see

from the example of a number of foreign countries, and

our own sad and very recent

historical experience must not be forgotten, and

we must firmly and uncompromisingly suppress

provocations and calls for violence...

When was the last time you saw a live broadcast

interrupted like that? This was taken from Twitter

by Ilya Shepelin. Interfax has just

reported to us, citing the FSB, that

there was one attacker.

Although initially we were told there were three

attackers. So, for now, according to the FSB's data,

which, as we know, unfortunately

has become rather difficult to trust lately,

we have one—at least one—

fatality, also an FSB officer, and at

least one attacker,

about whom nothing is known yet, but

more information will be coming in.

Why did I begin by saying that these

sad, tragic events that

have taken place are in fact horrifying...

In a city of over a million people, right in the city center, there is

gunfire from assault rifles. This is a reason for us to

once again discuss whether we are spending

30 percent of our budget on all this

"security" properly, and whether we should believe

these words that we have just

been told and shown. Putin says

at the concert about the FSB, because, well,

obviously, it is all lies — complete lies.

Just notice how constantly

they resort to cheap manipulation

when it comes to

the real number not only of terrorist attacks

but even of various

man-made incidents. Have you

noticed that now

any gas explosion is called a "gas pop"?

Just right now, go to Yandex

open a second window in your browser and

type in "gas explosion" — you will see that all

state TV channels, all

pro-Kremlin media, call it

a "pop."

A "gas pop." After a gas "pop" in Glazov

two people died, three people died

from a "pop," half a building was destroyed, and

so on. On the one hand, we see

this theater of security, and when

colossal sums are spent on metal detectors

in the metro, on fighting Telegram,

on maintaining the enormous FSB apparatus, the Center for Combating Extremism,

and so on, while on the other hand absolutely

nothing is being done in terms of real

combat against real extremists. But

events from real life are constantly

being

camouflaged. By the way, Rek Esayan

write to me on Twitter with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture

with your questions, and I will

read them out. Rek Esayan asks: don't

you think all this was staged in order to

boost the FSB's ratings?

and, before that, the chekist's (Soviet-style security officer's) rating?

Putin's too? No, I am sure that is not the case,

because

well, this cannot be interpreted as anything other than

an obvious, total failure, yes.

Of course, now we will see and hear two

things that all these

Kremlin propagandists will be pushing. The first thing they

will say is: well, in America they also

have shootings — look how many there are

in America, they also have people with

assault rifles. The second thing they will say

is that any criticism of the FSB, the police, the anti-extremism centers, and

so on is "PR on blood." So that means everyone who

right now, at this moment,

is asking why the hell we are spending

such enormous amounts of money on these

simply meaningless and hollow structures

— they are all supposedly "doing PR on blood."

Of course, through manipulation

and trickery,

FSB officers, Putin, and everyone else did not

want to raise their ratings; they were hardly

going to do it this way. But

because this is the kind of thing that those who

did it — whether it was one person or

several — obviously planned

as exactly this kind of spit in the face of the current

authorities. We do not understand with what motives, but

this is exactly how it would have looked

because, judging by the way

it was filmed — Mediazona's correspondent

reported that the attacker was simply

dressed like a special forces officer, that is, he was wearing a helmet

and a bulletproof vest. And how

he got into central Moscow with an automatic

weapon, in a helmet and body armor, we

will probably find out. But it is absolutely certain that

somehow they missed him, they

let him through. And again, against the backdrop of all

this,

the entire city center is covered with surveillance cameras, and we are

told — to scare us so that we do not

go to rallies — that every face

is recorded, that you will be identified. And the last thing

they were telling us was that even if you put

a balaclava over your head,

even if your eyes are not visible, you

will be identified by your gait, by some

characteristic movement, then caught and

punished if you engage in

such terrible extremism as going to

rallies and demanding rallies. This regime

has descended into absolute absurdity from the point

of view of

protecting itself and promoting the idea that

in Russia everything is absolutely calm and

there are no problems at all. On my own program today,

today's broadcast on Echo (Echo of Moscow, a Russian radio station),

in its original script, was

devoted precisely to this kind of

absurdity, which now, against the backdrop of what

is happening, looks even more

absurd. This week, after all, we

saw how on the Rossiya channel — that is, on

Rossiya 1 —

they literally cut words out of a song.

I mean, it seemed to us that this was still

the kind of thing, well, like something

out of the book *1984* or funny videos about

North Korea, but in fact this

is really happening in Moscow. You have probably seen

or heard the song by the band Bi-2. Let's

listen to this 15-second excerpt in

their original performance.

[inaudible/garbled audio]

42,000 people are watching us live.

So, you have just heard the lyrics, and if

"the avenue is a little brighter, and the lower... protest"

"young men in pullovers, tra-la-la-la..."

I mean, what here could possibly

be cut out? In fact, it does not say here

"Putin is a thief," it does not say "the FSB are crooks,"

or "idlers." There is nothing here about

Navalny, not about Rotenberg, not about countships (?)

not about corruption — and yet, still, something in it

these few lines

there is something in these lines that frightened

the federal authorities, and they ordered that

a piece of this song, which

on federal television

ended up sounding like this. Let’s

take a look

[music]

it was

so if they really did just mute

the sound, cut everything out at the word “protests,” then

that means that saying the word in a song, in

a work of art, the word

“protests,” is some kind of forbidden thing. Can you

imagine? There must have been

a whole procedure. Someone must have said, so, do we really

have the word “protests” in a song? We need to

find out what can be done about it. Then they

called

and then someone called the Kremlin and

said, you know, we’ve put on

a song and it contains the word “protests”

— is that definitely allowed? And they were told no, like,

do something. Then all of this

went back down the chain to the people carrying it out

who said, are you insane?

I can’t just go and cut

words out of a song without muting them, but

that’s impossible, we’ll look weird and

everyone will notice, and everyone will

talk about it. But then they got another call

back down the chain — they called the boss

at Rossiya 1 (a Russian state TV channel), who called

the Kremlin

or the FSB (Russia’s security service), or whoever it was there, and they said, you know,

for the security of the country, for

preventing terrorist attacks, for fighting

extremism, and so that

stability can be even more stable, you

will please do exactly that

— just cut the sound

at the word “protests.” That’s what needs to be done. Son, you’re

not doing this for yourself, you’re doing it for

your country. And they really did cut it

all out

and how are we supposed to look at all this now

in light of the subsequent

information that is just now coming in?

For those of you watching us now — more than 40,000

people are already watching this live — I

will just repeat that in Moscow

there has been an absolutely obvious terrorist

attack, a prepared terrorist attack

timed to Chekist Day (a Russian security services holiday), which took place

during a concert for Chekist Day. Right now

we are watching video footage of some

people shooting at police officers and FSB officers

killing them right there in the street. Let’s

look again at that horrifying video where one

of the security officers appears to have been shot

we hope he is still alive after all

thanks to his special

protective gear

they hit him, they hit him

FSB of Russia is still

reporting that one

FSB officer was killed; no other

deaths have been reported. However, earlier there was a report

from the Health Ministry saying that two

were wounded; we do not know whether they were seriously or

lightly injured FSB officers. So,

a moment ago the Health Ministry reported the following

please bring that news item back up for me

the Health Ministry reported that in the shooting on

Lubyanka, two FSB officers

sustained extremely severe injuries

TASS reports this. The rest of today and

tonight, and the next day, and

probably for some time after that, will be

devoted

simply to endless discussion of what

happened, and everyone will naturally

push their own line. The FSB will say

that this was their great success, that they

prevented something. We would like to believe that, but

it is absolutely impossible to believe them. I

just want to recall — unfortunately, I

simply can’t show you

various videos — but just remember

how quite recently we had those

absolutely astonishing, in their

sheer brazen dishonesty, alleged

FSB operations to detain, in particular,

those who organized the terrorist attacks in

St. Petersburg, when you showed us

some miserable Uzbek man sitting at a

bus stop, and people ran up to him shouting

“Get down! FSB!”

and then pulled pistols and a grenade out of the Uzbek man’s

pocket, and then Uzbekistan’s Interior Ministry reported

that actually, this person had been

detained in a hospital over there and

handed over to the FSB — that is, they took him at the

border, brought him over, sat him down, and then

deliberately pulled him out and staged him for us

in that setting in order to lie to us that this was not

simply someone who had been handed over to them, but rather that it was

a successful FSB operation. It is absolutely

impossible to believe a single word

these people say. Unfortunately, of course, we would very much

like to believe our own

security services, but it is impossible to believe them. And

do you remember that incident — whether it was a terrorist attack or

something involving nitrate — in Novokuznetsk?

when there was an explosion in an apartment building, and by then

even various pro-Kremlin media outlets,

in particular the outlet Baza, which appears

to be rather pro-Kremlin, were doing

a whole investigation showing that this was

a terrorist attack. There were

shootouts, there were some burned

cars, and bullet-riddled

surfaces

but we were told that none of that happened, that it was

just a gas explosion, a gas blast, you know

one in which many people died, but no

terrorist attack. Why? Because that too

shows that as long as all these our

The FSB (Federal Security Service), the Center, and the National Guard—everyone else

pretend to be fighting for security and

at the same time steal money through procurement there

potatoes, cards—

and carrots, as we explained in

the case with the National Guard, they missed

real terrorist attacks and real terrorists

And the Health Ministry is now reporting that as a result of

the shooting on Lubyanka, five people have been injured

already. Security forces continue to be deployed to central Moscow

Well, this is

the kind of reaction our authorities have: something

happened, so, basically, they

will keep pulling everyone in until evening

tomorrow they’ll shut everything down, and the day after tomorrow

they’ll announce that there should be

ten times more metal detectors in the metro, excuse me

they’ll install these idiotic metal detectors in the metro. Look,

yesterday at six in the evening I

was going down into the Avtozavodskaya metro station

our nearest metro station, and

once again—and all of you who

use the metro every single day during rush hour see this—

when crowds are pushing through these detectors, which

are switched off

because they simply can’t function

when everything there is literally packed

with people, because you can’t fully open

the vestibule; instead they set up these

special metal barriers

so that people go through the detectors, but people

come in such huge numbers that they just go around

these detectors. The detectors don’t work, but they’re there

they were bought, an enormous

amount of money was spent on them, and it’s a pointless

thing. That’s what’s called security theater

What’s happening now in front of

every airport in Russia—probably

the only country in the world, even in

Israel they don’t have this, in the U.S. they don’t have this

nowhere do they have this, where just to enter

an airport

you arrive at the airport and straight from

the street you have to stand in some idiotic

line with metal detectors again, put your

suitcases through, and then when boarding the plane

you stand in these detectors again. What for?

It’s unclear. I mean, it’s

needed in order to steal a lot of money

through the purchase of these X-ray machines

metal detectors, and so on and so forth. On the one hand,

and on the other hand, to report on

certain anti-terrorism measures

because the peculiarity of all these

security officials is that every day they tell us,

we uncovered this many

terrorist attacks. And Putin just now—let’s

watch once again

Putin’s speech, which

was amazingly interrupted on

the Rossiya 1 TV channel broadcast

because at exactly the moment when he

was boasting about successes, a shooting broke out in

central Moscow. Let’s show it again

of the security agencies. I welcome the guests

of this ceremonial evening. The president noted

the clear and coordinated work of the special services

thanks to their professionalism and courage

this year it was possible to prevent more than

50 crimes of a terrorist

nature, and behind each such

prevented crime, as

the head of state emphasized, stand

human lives that were saved. No, even more actively

we must counter

extremism. How destructive for

the state and society this

threat can be, we see from the example of a number of

foreign countries, and from our own sad

very recent experience

They must not forget the lessons of history, and it is necessary

to firmly and uncompromisingly suppress

provocations and calls for violence. First there’s the lie

about some kind of extremism

obviously, what is meant more clearly is

political extremism, a major threat that does not actually exist in

Russia

and then, when they collided with real life, with

the shooting on Lubyanka, they simply cut off

their broadcast. It is now being reported that at

Lubyanka the metro exit toward

Detsky Mir (a famous children’s department store) and Biblio-Globus (a major bookstore) has been closed off, and the FSB

is denying reports of three

attackers. In fact, they are

insisting there was one attacker on the FSB building

Can that be believed? Look,

here’s a simple fact: Putin today, live on air,

told us that 50

terrorism-related crimes had been solved

Before that,

Bortnikov, Patrushev, all these FSB people

also told us that

terrorism-related crimes had been solved

The question is: where are the trials?

If you solved the crime, where are they? Well,

show us then. There should be a trial

You caught terrorists—show us where those

trials are, where there are terrorists, where we were

told what terrible attacks they

were preparing, where we were told who

financed all of this, where they

got their weapons, how they transported explosives. I mean,

this is important: if the FSB

prevented something, then let the FSB come and

boast about it and show us, here, this

I don’t know, some Magomed so-and-so and Ivan

Petrov

they are terrorists, they were caught, and here they

received life sentences, and whatever else

But none of that exists. More than that,

every time some

real terrorist attack happens, we are told:

the terrorists were eliminated. Strangely enough,

all terrorists are always eliminated. Not once have we

actually seen a single

major, significant trial at which

they would show us a terrorist

a captured terrorist, the masterminds

the organizer was really some kind of... well, this...

there was no cell, none of that existed

in the latest case, the trial actually...

about these people who actually

either did, or allegedly did, carry out the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg

metro

but this is just ordinary filth

There’s a huge article by *The Insider*—read it—and

they really just grabbed some, well,

apparently, simply random Uzbeks and

Tajiks who were somehow connected to

those who committed the actual terrorist attack

and simply imprisoned them without any

evidence, because they needed to report back:

a terrorist attack happened, and we

locked some people up. But even those who

just read the case materials can see

that they simply took and put these

random guys behind bars. The organizer there

was shot—or maybe not shot—no one

understands what is going on. If Russia is

fighting terrorism, then we want

to see terrorist

cells being uncovered

we are constantly told that the masterminds behind terrorist attacks

are abroad—well then tell us, where are they? Is it

Saudi Arabia?

The Emirates? The U.S.? Israel? Well,

tell us who all these

foreign sponsors and foreign handlers are

who are the very people

who are doing all this? None of it is

known—unknown, unknown. For years, we’ve supposedly had

Putin’s main achievement being

the successful fight against terrorism. And yet

when we look at the chart of

terrorist attacks committed in Russia, we see that

it is rising. And there are no, well, no proceedings

no, excuse me, show trials

public ones, or at least closed ones, but in such a way

that we could see that yes, indeed,

terrorists are being caught, imprisoned, tried, and

these ISIS cells and the rest are being dismantled

none of that exists, not even close

instead, it’s just some strange

random bearded men who

get jailed there, killed there—who knows what happens to them

it is entirely possible that they are guilty

then hold a proper trial so that we

can be absolutely sure that these

bearded men are, first, guilty, and

second, that our FSB is successfully catching

the people actually guilty of something. But that

doesn’t happen. I can say this simply from my own experience

because when I was in a special detention center

in the yard at

when I was once serving an administrative

arrest, this guy with a beard came up to me

and said, “Alexei, I was told that

you’re a lawyer. I don’t know anything, but

help me. I don’t understand. They’ll probably

kill me. I’ve already been kept here for several consecutive

terms in a row

supposedly for hooliganism. I get out,

FSB officers stop me right away

take me back to court, and jail me again for 10 days

for obscene language, because they demand

that I sign a paper saying that I

was filmed on hidden camera

where I’m supposedly giving someone money for

a trip to Turkey. And I’m afraid that

after that they’ll put me away for 15 years altogether

even though I’m just an ordinary taxi driver.” By the way, I told him then:

“Shave off your beard, because

every FSB officer hates you for it.” I

have told this story before, and back then I gave him

the contacts of

journalists from *Mediazona* and *Novaya Gazeta*

after that I never saw him again. He shaved off

his beard, and I never saw him again

in the detention center. I hope he’s

all right. But this is simply how our

special services work: they just

grab some guys who, well,

look, how should I put it—if you were to describe

a verbal sketch

of someone who blew something up in Moscow, well,

just based on your general

idea of who commits terrorism,

you would describe an Eastern-looking man with

a beard. So they just grab those Eastern-looking men

with beards. Whether they are real

terrorists with beards or not—that’s another matter

they simply missed everyone, let it all slip through, just as

we saw in Novokuznetsk

a terrorist attack happens, and they lie that there was no

terrorist attack, even though thousands of people

are watching it live. I just want to

give one more example of how

colossal efforts are supposedly being applied

for the safety of our country, but all

these efforts are just an endless dance

of idiocy. And this week, for example,

I was struck because there was

a real little uprising over the very thing

the Kremlin had supposedly been fighting—

extremism. And how did they fight

extremism? Ksenia Larina,

a well-known TV critic, published

a bewildered and outraged Facebook post

saying that an episode shown on TNT

you can read about it—you won’t be able to

just go to Facebook and search Larina, the series

called *Epidemic*, and it

is not really connected to the political

situation at all. There’s no Putin there, there are

zombies there, some kind of post-apocalyptic

events, and within the framework of

those events there is one episode

where, well, there is some terrible future

feral people are running around and fighting

with the National Guard (Rosgvardiya)

that is, law enforcement forces

are trying to disperse people who have either

panicked or turned into zombies

or whatever just happened to them, well

it’s a standard plot, for God’s sake, for a

science-fiction film. And they cut it out.

They really cut it out because, well, even...

in that post-apocalyptic dust-and-bones...

call me that complicated word in the future...

you can't fight with the National Guard (Rosgvardiya, Russia’s internal security force), even if...

you all turn into zombies, we’ll...

lock you up if you so much as reach for...

something — even anything of that sort...

Just imagine, there was a whole procedure: there was a person sitting there...

a person in the Presidential Administration...

watching the series, amusing himself, and then said...

“zombies or whoever it is there are fighting with...”

“DIY... we’d better cut that out.” They called...

somewhere, then everyone called back, called again...

TNT was told to cut it.

They probably got indignant there and said...

“Are you crazy? We can’t just cut out a piece...”

of a TV series — especially since it’s a series about zombies, not...

about Putin, about zombies.” But they cut it anyway...

She couldn’t take it anymore and staged a small rebellion.

A producer from TNT who...

well, a female producer with an interesting...

name — Kristina Snickers — and even...

even Kristina Snickers couldn’t take it anymore, and so...

This is what Kristina Snickers looks like; you’d hardly...

guess from these Instagram photos that she would...

start protesting.

But she did start protesting — she actually wrote...

a post. She works as a producer at TNT. She...

wrote a post on Instagram — you won’t...

make it to it now because there’ll be asterisks...

Snickers’s rebellion was suppressed pretty quickly, and...

she wrote — here you can see the first part...

of this post, and the second part of this post...

has already been deleted. Let me read it out, okay?

Show it to us in full.

When you turn on the television, know that...

there is an invisible sign hanging in front of you:

Censorship.

You don’t see it, but it’s there. And now I’ve posted...

a video of a scene from episode 5 of *To the Lake* (*Epidemiya*, a Russian TV series), which...

you may never see again. It was...

censored. This post may possibly be...

deleted — apparently through my own fault — and people...

work in entertainment television.

The tone of the post is literally such that...

“If you’re reading this post, maybe I no longer...

have a job” — I mean, like, “maybe this...

post will be deleted,” and she did delete the post.

Obviously, they came down on her. But I just...

want to say that this also takes effort...

and also requires administrative coordination...

for TNT...

a commercial channel that...

makes money by showing...

TV series...

to remove a piece of a series, you have to...

get someone involved. It can’t just be...

a matter of, you know, the head...

of a police department calling and saying, “You’ve got...

someone fighting with the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) there — cut that out.”

Someone from the Presidential Administration has to call...

and for someone from the Presidential Administration to call...

there has to be...

some kind of chain — that is, some people...

have to say and form the opinion that...

“You know, we think it’s important for...”

the country’s security...”

to cut a piece out of a zombie series.” And they...

cut it out. And that really happened.

Putin — I’m showing you this for the third time now...

Can I — right now we have 51...

thousand people watching live — for the third...

time I’ll show you Putin’s speech...

which was dramatically cut off, because it’s...

simply a symbol of what is happening with us now...

what was interrupted...

at the exact moment of this terrorist attack that...

was taking place, because next he was...

about to talk about the fight against...

extremism.

There I’ll explain how, in our country...

the fight against extremism works. And Putin...

addressing the security agencies, welcoming the guests...

at the ceremonial evening, the president noted...

the clear and coordinated work of the special services.

Thanks to their professionalism and courage...

this year it was possible to prevent more than...

50 terrorist-related crimes...

and behind each such...

prevented crime, as...

the head of state emphasized, stand...

saved human lives. Much more actively, we need to...

counter...

extremism. How destructive this threat can be for...

the state and society...

we can see from the example of a number of...

foreign countries — and our own sad...

very recent historical experience — we must not...

forget. And we must firmly...

and uncompromisingly suppress provocations...

and calls for violence.

That’s how important it is to fight extremism. While...

you were watching this, an update came in on the...

news. So, initially there were...

reports that there had been some kind of...

explosion, or a second explosion, two explosions — but...

apparently that turned out to be...

false. No explosion occurred, and...

possibly the bomb squad’s work was mistaken for an explosion...

as they are currently working near the FSB building...

because they are checking this shooter’s backpack...

and most often bomb disposal...

involves, roughly speaking, just shooting at...

the object being neutralized...

or simply detonating it there. And now Life News...

reported at 20:30, 19 minutes ago, that...

another shot was heard. I’m now waiting...

for confirmation of all this, but judging by...

everything, that “shot” was simply...

the work of the bomb squad...

being carried out there, by the FSB building. Obviously...

all the items he brought with him...

well, as you’d expect from a calculating person...

who staged the attack and timed it...

to coincide with Putin’s speech, with the moment...

of his praise for the FSB — but he could also...

of course have understood just as well...

that he would be killed, and he вполне could have...

to rig his body, his backpack, and

a weapon—anything at all. So, as I was saying,

I just showed you a video of Putin

telling us how important it is to fight

extremism. You see, I mean, he is literally

obsessed with this topic, excuse the expression.

He keeps hammering on about it, and all those

idiots are sitting there

listening to him say: right, it is very

important for us to fight extremism. And all of them

watch this, and in every police department there is

a little center where idlers sit

whose job is supposedly to fight extremism.

And they watch it, their bosses

watch it too, and then at the briefing they

tell each other: right then, we need quotas,

we need cases under anti-

extremism laws, otherwise Moscow—well,

first our regional headquarters, then

the provincial headquarters, and then Moscow—

will say: have you people lost your minds over there in

Vladikavkaz?

Where is your fight against extremism? If you are

fighting extremism, then you should

be identifying extremists and punishing them.

And if you are not doing that, then it means

you are doing a bad job. And that is how

this happens, and we have seen it once again.

It is just that my program

was originally, I repeat, a program

about absurdity.

And I picked this case because it is

super-absurd. If I asked you right now—

55,000 people are watching us

live—

if I asked you: name for me

please, what is the main relatively modern

film of this kind, the main

anti-fascist film, a film about the horrors and

crimes of fascism—most of you

would say *Schindler's List*, because among

the more recent films, that is the main one,

the one that won—*Schindler's List* won

a huge number of awards,

Oscars, everyone knows that. You can see here that

it won 7 Oscars in 1994.

It is the main

anti-fascist film of our era. So then,

the Center for Combating Extremism in the city of Vladikavkaz had

some idlers sitting there monitoring VKontakte (a Russian social network). That is what

all these so-called extremism fighters do—

they monitor VKontakte. On VKontakte,

they found that a person—a student

from the local law faculty, I cannot see

his surname here, unfortunately—

had a post from 2013. That means the guy was

13 years old at the time, and he had posted

a screenshot from the film *Schindler's List*.

There was a swastika in the screenshot. They declared him

an extremist, took him to court, and in court

he was fined and officially recognized as

an extremist. He was officially added

to the list of extremists, and you can see it there.

It was hard to believe, but we

can simply look at

the ruling,

the court ruling stating that

the person was declared an extremist and

fined. What is the list

of extremists? It means that you cannot

open a bank account, and you will endlessly

remain under official monitoring.

Being labeled an extremist in the North Caucasus

means that these bloated, oversized Centers

for Combating Extremism have

idlers and fabricators of criminal cases sitting there.

They will also constantly keep tabs on you,

checking up on you, because all of this is in

the extremists list, where they ask: so,

department,

operative officer, what kind of work are you carrying out

as preventive measures regarding those you have identified as

extremists? And they have to say:

we came by, I do not know, chewed him out,

told him to behave himself, or searched

him on the street or turned over his apartment—for

what? For a screenshot from the main anti-fascist

film of the last twenty years. That is how

the police we pay for operate.

And now an update on what is happening at

Lubyanka: bomb disposal experts are still working there.

There is some latest video of what

is happening—19 seconds long. Let us watch it.

Have you seen this?

A video recording of bomb disposal experts working

near the building. But it is obvious that

at least all of the attackers, however many

there were—the FSB says there was one—

have already been shot. This is already the stage of the operation

where they are simply making sure

everything is in order. We will see

a lot of different reactions. I repeat what

I said at the very beginning: you will see that

starting tomorrow, perhaps even

this evening or tomorrow morning,

clips from my program will be cut out,

and there will be headlines saying: Navalny is exploiting

bloodshed for publicity.

No matter how many blatant

failures by the Russian special services occur, their reaction

is always the same: as soon as you start

criticizing them for inaction,

their main line is: you dare not exploit this

for political gain on blood. But at some point

the moment has to come when we must

discuss all this idiocy. Thirty-three percent

of the country's budget goes into this bottomless

pit. The FSB, and then 350,000 in the National Guard

(Rosgvardiya, Russia's National Guard)—350,000 people. That is an army.

Not every country even has an army

of that size.

I saw statistics somewhere that

if the National Guard alone

were an army by itself, it would rank in the top

15 largest

armies in the world. And we maintain the National Guard alone at

that size. What is all this for?

The FSB, the Investigative Committee—each of them

are asking for additional powers

additional perks for the prosecutor's office

It has been blown up to gigantic proportions; we have the largest

number of police officers per capita in the world

of the population.

No country in the world has

such a number of police officers per capita

of the population. And what do we get in return? Well,

all right, terrorist attacks do happen here,

fortunately, ones as blatant as this

recently was in Moscow

fortunately do not happen very often. But in terms of

the number of murders per capita, we are

really on the level of the most underdeveloped

African countries. So what exactly are we paying for then?

There finally needs to be a serious

conversation. But even about simple things: if

they installed these video cameras, how much

did they cost?

Who do they actually capture?

Do they even work? Remember, several years

ago there was a massive scandal when

the police first reported that they had

covered all of Moscow with super-mega

cameras that would super-mega expose

criminals, and had already caught lots of people.

Then it turned out that

a significant portion of those cameras were dummies.

That is, some of the cameras there were simply

mock-ups—not cameras at all—and some

were cameras of such low quality

that they couldn't properly record anyone; they couldn't

distinguish a person from

a car. But we were told that all this

was all being done for the sake of

the country's security. We probably have

video ready where we see how—well, not ready yet,

more video will be ready shortly—video of how

one of the attackers is killed. But we also have

other footage as well. So, the Moscow news agency

canceled a report saying that

in a news item which, citing

the FSB, said there were three attackers and one

Then, 20 minutes after the FSB

reported three attackers, it reported

one attacker. So, this week we saw

a fairly high-profile event take place, actually,

an event in which there was, indeed,

the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) and this entire security

apparatus in all its glory. They ran there

literally instantly, and we saw

what the authorities actually

use this very Rosgvardiya for. In Moscow,

they decided to simply shut down a hospital,

a gynecological hospital, and drive everyone out,

fire all the doctors. I was sitting there—it was, I think,

Wednesday—and I get a message on

Telegram from a representative of the

Doctors' Alliance trade union, saying

on video: we've come here with a

union inspection.

Because doctors were being fired, and against

us they called in Rosgvardiya. It was like—

I thought maybe I was imagining it, half-asleep, early in the morning.

Then they sent the video: really, Rosgvardiya officers

with assault rifles are standing there guarding these

Sobyanin-linked crooks who are simply

firing doctors. Let's watch this video.

[music]

[music]

58,000 people are watching us live,

and here's a fun fact:

a Rosgvardiya officer's phone rings,

and the ringtone goes something like:

"Our division is a mess, everyone's lying around here

drunk," and so on. So that's also just

a characteristic sign of how these

Rosgvardiya troops themselves assess what's happening in the

country. But what's especially shameful is that they were called in

at all,

because some poor women—women in

white coats at this hospital—came and

were told: we're firing you because your

building is needed by someone else. And it turned out that

that is exactly what happened: this building

was meant to be handed over to a well-known

charity closely connected to Putin

run by Anna Federmesser (a prominent Russian charity figure),

she is a member of the All-Russia People's Front, and she already wrote a post

on Facebook, quite brazenly, saying that

yes, we took over this building because

we need it for our medical

purposes. In other words, they didn't want to

turn it into a commercial hotel; they

wanted to make it a medical facility. But

still, these are the Voinovs and the rest of the

Putin nomenklatura (the ruling elite), so they can

just come in and tell all the doctors:

you're fired, and throw them all out. And if they

make a fuss and call the union,

Rosgvardiya comes there—arrives

instantly—and everything works efficiently there because

this isn't some gunman with an assault rifle; it's

just some women who are

afraid of you, and all they can say is,

well, you should be ashamed, as they

said in the video—you have

mothers and children too. That's how

the whole system works. Rosgvardiya is needed, and this whole

security machine, and all this

endless Putinist talk about

extremism, is needed simply in order

to intimidate people

if they ever dare say: excuse me, but

it's not true that you're paying us

very high salaries, and don't fire

us. That's what Rosgvardiya is for. And

then there was also

what's really interesting is that now it's not even me anymore,

and not Navalny's union either. By the way,

if you work in the public sector and want to

check your salary, go to the website

of Navalny's union. But now even our

Speaker of the State Duma

gets up at the podium and says,

what can you do—there simply are no salaries

in line with the May decrees (Putin's policy directives), simply none,

and he is arguing with the leadership about it.

the department by the health minister

Skvortsova, and Skvortsova stated that

the average salary of doctors is 79,000 rubles (about $1,250) and

Volodin, let's take a look, he is entering into

a polemic with him, but really just wants to say

who are you arguing with? United Russia is arguing

with itself, obviously. Let's look at Volodin

who suddenly started posturing as an opposition figure, saying

the figure is 79

people read this and look at what the discussion is about

it's nowhere near that — not even close, not 10, no, no, 60

colleagues,

I want to tell you: our country has

a federal structure, and each region

has its own average wage across the economy

and doctors' salaries are then calculated from that

at double that level, in accordance with the decree, but

there are specifics, because the fund being discussed

includes

the salary of the chief physician

the deputy chief physicians, accountants, and

so on, and after that whatever remains goes to

ordinary doctors

so once again I want to say: guys, who are you

arguing with at all? Who are you even

talking to?

One is the chairman of the State Duma

who approved the budget — Putin's budget

Putin wrote the budget, and they approved it

United Russia members appointed the governor, they

appointed the minister, they lie about

the implementation of the May decrees, they lie about

salaries, and then one of them says a whole lot of

"Why are you lying here?" He approved the budget himself, he himself

leads this party, he himself made it so

that they have to lie about high salaries, but

since the pressure is mounting, he comes out and

speaks and acts outraged, but when

ordinary people are outraged, they show up

and say, well then, we're ready — let's, for

those who have just joined us, 58,000 people

are watching live; we will show two

main videos available at the moment

of what is happening

what happened in Moscow, but the first footage

which, well, in such quantity we had previously

seen only since the times of

2014, and only from the U.S., when people

run through the streets in terror and the sounds of

a shootout using

automatic weapons can be heard

Yes, you saw the video recording of what

was happening right there, directly during

the shootout

Right now they are showing us and telling us

that, apparently, it is all completely over

journalists and eyewitnesses are already beginning to

leave the scene, and we have

new video

apparently this is the moment when

the attacker was shot dead

and at that moment he was simply firing

randomly at the building and

taking cover behind one of the building's columns

opposite. Let's take a look — they took him down while

I don't like it, but they dropped the bastard; he apparently had

various awards listed on some website

yes, well,

it is quite obvious that this is video footage

of this attacker being shot dead

the terrorist who carried out

who clearly carried out a planned

terrorist attack timed to Chekist Day (a Russian observance honoring state security services)

timed to Putin's live call-in show, where he

was very briskly reporting that things with

terrorists were going very well, and timed to

Putin's speech at the ceremonial

concert for Chekist Day, where he also

talked about how wonderfully we

solve terrorist attacks and how everything is

fine here. Let's watch once more

probably the most horrifying video of today

where apparently this attacker

shot one of the FSB officers

who was running from one position to another

poly poly poly 1, so in this way, according to

the official information as of today

one person carried out the attack, while at least

one FSB officer was shot dead, and two

FSB officers, according to the Health Ministry and

the FSB itself, are in extremely

serious condition

It is not entirely clear whether both of them were

in extremely serious condition and one

of them died, making that the fatality, or whether

there is one dead and two more in extremely serious

condition

but of course we all hope that the number of victims and

injured will be as low as possible

As new information comes in, I will

keep telling you. The main champion of

security measures here, the main

person who boasts about his super-mega security

measures and surveillance cameras, is

of course Sergei Sobyanin, a man who

spares no money on two things

first and foremost on his endless

PR, and he spends money on the mass

media in order to

tell everyone how much better Moscow has become under

Sergei Semyonovich, and on the other hand they

really are like maniacs

they have covered all of Moscow with cameras

Previously the city that held the record

the record-holder, sorry, was London; there

there was a huge, complex system of surveillance cameras

now they have simply blanketed all of Moscow

and I repeat, we are being told that not only

can they now single out every person

wherever you go, some operator can

look and see: there goes Petrov in blue

because that information is immediately

linked to some kind of

passport data, that is, they

can identify a person instantly. More than that,

according to Sobyanin and the security services,

the system is designed in such a way

that it will find you even if you put on

a blindfold over your eyes, if you put on a cap

where only your eyes are visible, or even

a hood, and not a single inch of your

not a single centimeter of your body is

visible, they would still recognize you by

your gait or in some other way. I mean,

these enormous security measures are

being taken

but nevertheless, some people with

assault rifles still somehow—with assault rifles, as we

can see even in this video, apparently

he was wearing body armor. Well, maybe because of

the warm clothing you can’t really tell, but

there were even initial reports

from special forces officers that were relayed by

Mediazona (an independent Russian news outlet), saying

that the attacker was dressed in a

special forces uniform. So if

a person is walking around in a helmet, body armor, and with an

assault rifle, then probably he ought to

draw some attention, and presumably

you’d want that wonderful super-

smart camera system of Sobyanin (Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin)

to somehow light up with a red

warning light if it identified not someone

who went out to a rally, but someone who is walking around

with an assault rifle. Because those are the people you need to catch,

not the ones standing with a placard

that says, “We demand that our

candidates be allowed onto the ballot,” but the one carrying

some object that the camera

identifies as an assault rifle. If it can

distinguish and identify us by our gait,

then presumably a weapon of that size

could also be recognized by that same

camera. Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin—there was also

something else connected to him, what seems to me a rather

symbolic event that took place

this week: he gave his report to

the deputies. That is, the mayor of Moscow is supposed

to report annually to the deputies, and

there we got full confirmation of

why everything is arranged this way, why they

didn’t allow a single person onto the ballot, and

why they not only didn’t allow a single

person through, but also

arrested all the independent candidates and

are still arresting them to this day

FBK director Ivan Zhdanov

was released from a special detention center just the day before yesterday

He was jailed for 10 days for taking part in

the Moscow protest rallies. Well,

in fact, he was arrested for

daring to say that he, too, wanted

to be a deputy. True, after getting out,

of the detention center, Zhdanov immediately

said that he wants to go even further and

run for the State Duma. Let’s quickly take a look.

FBK director Ivan Zhdanov: Hello everyone,

I’ve just returned after 10

days under arrest—another 10 days over those

summer protests, when we demanded our

right to participate in the elections

to the Moscow City Duma. During these ten

days, I spent a lot of time being taken to courts, and one of the

escorts said it would be good

to make Moscow a restricted city

so that everyone entering and leaving the city would do so with

passes. You know, I’m absolutely sure that in officials’ dreams

this idea is very much alive. I

believe that all of Russia should be

an open and free country

I believe there should be no political

cases like the Moscow Case (a criminal case against protest participants) and many

others

During these ten days, I made the decision that

in 2021 I will definitely

run for the State Duma

of the Russian Federation

60

people are watching us live. We are

at the same time discussing the incoming

news from central Moscow, where there has been

a shooting just now, and

obviously a terrorist attack—the FSB (Federal Security Service) has already

recognized what is happening as a terrorist

attack. It is fairly obvious that the person who

apparently knew in advance that he would be

on a suicide mission carried out this symbolic

attack on Chekist Day (the professional holiday of Russian security services) and on the day

of Putin’s speech. So, returning to

Sobyanin and to why his report

to the deputies, which looked

—my God—humiliating for a giant

city like Moscow, truly

humiliating—why they did it all this way:

because the man is simply unfit for

public politics at all. He’s simply

a coward, terrified that

there might be someone there who asks him an

unsanctioned question. On the eve of his appearance,

on the eve of Sobyanin’s arrival, before

he was supposed to answer questions

from the deputies, special amendments were made to

the rules of procedure. You’d think, right, that this is how it works:

you’re a deputy, and several tens or hundreds of

thousands of people voted for you,

you represent a huge

district of Moscow where 250,000 people live

and then the mayor comes—rarely, maybe once

a year—but you ask him questions and he answers. No:

they introduced special amendments

under which deputies simply cannot ask

questions individually—only factions can, and each

faction—that is, United Russia,

the Communists, Yabloko, and A Just

Russia—gets three questions from the factions, submitted in advance

in writing. But if you think

you can sit down and come up with

some tricky or pointed question and

at least ask it in writing ahead of time,

not a chance—you’re very much mistaken

because, for example, the Yabloko party

and deputy Besedin

decided to ask a fairly obvious

question of Sobyanin: why he lied about

supposed mass riots

that were allegedly taking place in Moscow. There you have it.

You can see Sobyanin's post and Besedina's post.

In it, she writes: I decided to ask a question on behalf of

our faction, this question, and Besedina was

not allowed to.

United Russia made a decision that

you know, this question

was not relevant. So there they were, the deputies,

a whole faction, several people, saying:

we want to ask a question. No, you can't ask

the question. Actual deputies were forbidden

from asking this question. But fortunately,

Besedina did well — she simply

at the very end of the speech

stood up and started shouting from her seat

this question. Let's watch this

moment.

[music]

[music]

Sergei,

This summer, we went on television

and said that mass riots had taken place in Moscow.

Riots.

Case closed.

People are still under arrest.

Do you feel any responsibility

toward these people?

[music]

Now let's look at Sobyanin's answer. I would

just like to draw your

attention to the fact that the microphones were never turned on.

Here, the deputy was literally forced to shout from

her seat — they wouldn't turn on her microphone. In front of her,

some United Russia

crook named Kirill Shchitov, a deputy we also did an investigation on,

also about

him,

and his wealth of unclear origin.

That disgusting lackey walks up to her

and says, well, everything's fine there, while blocking her

from Sobyanin, you see. And as you often

see, Meduza has already published Sobyanin's answer —

but this question is simply not visible there.

At the end, he finishes with his last

phrase, says thank you, and just runs off.

Sobyanin's answer to this question: I understand

that the rules — disrespect toward your

colleagues, perhaps — can such... here we...

Please, I'm just asking.

Yes, yes, stay seated, it was easier to hear that way.

Shchitov.

[music]

Of course I do. But let's figure out

why they ended up there.

The fact that people were hurt, that such a

conflict happened,

that people are serving sentences today — first and foremost,

that is on those provocateurs who

sent them there, who at a completely legal

rally called on them to go with

some kind of glee — they were allowed to, they came

to a legal rally, and now let's go

storm city hall.

Come on, there is no such country, no

such city in the world where it would be

permitted to block streets and sidewalks,

to block government

institutions. If such a country existed, I guarantee

you that such a country would simply

fall apart. There would be nothing there but anarchy

and disorder. So your

question should first of all be directed

of course at those who urged young people and

others to go under police batons. This is

a disgraceful story, I agree.

After that, to say thank you and literally

almost run away — why did he run away, and why

wasn't Besedina's microphone turned on? Why?

There wasn't even the slightest dialogue.

Why? Because they would simply have been told: excuse me,

Sergei Semyonovich (Sobyanin's patronymic), you're lying, because in

every wealthy country, in every

prosperous city, we regularly see

huge anti-government

demonstrations with road blockages, because

in any democratic country there is

a government and there is an opposition.

It is supported by a sufficient number of

people, and that is what democracy is about:

a balance of interests that ultimately leads

to normal

government and prosperity. There are some,

there are others, and everyone is allowed to speak.

It's not like they don't let you hold a rally,

and then, even if you get elected, they still don't

allow you to say a single word.

We're being told right now that, well, here we are with you

on this underground, semi-legal

YouTube, and let me remind you that on December 23 in

Russia there will be some very damn important, very

important drills on restricting the internet.

They'll supposedly be determining whether they can

shut down the internet, whether they can shut down

certain websites. They will also spend

tens, possibly hundreds of millions

of rubles on this, because it's just so important for

the country's security. So while we are here with

you on YouTube discussing the terrorist attack,

the assault, the consequences, who is guilty and who

is innocent, what the security services should do,

what the FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service) should do — on Channel One, for an hour and a half,

they've been discussing the nuclear world on a show called

*Let Them Talk*, and at the beginning

of the *Vremya* news program, Kirill Kleymenov

announced four topics, and all of them were connected to

Putin's press conference. And it's still not clear

whether there will be any segment at all about the shooting

in Moscow. I mean, maybe it will be

at the end, maybe it won't be there at all.

But this perfectly shows how

everything is arranged. Do you think they just

stay silent? For them, every gas explosion is just a 'pop'.

For them, an obvious terrorist attack in Novokuznetsk

when a building collapsed — dozens of

people died — that wasn't a terrorist attack at all either,

just a gas 'pop.' Nothing ever happens for them. They have

an excellent,

magnificent fight against terrorism, and

the moment we start looking, we see that

People in body armor are running around Moscow.

They're firing assault rifles, and over there everything is supposedly

just perfectly fine, and Sobyanin wants

to live in such a wonderful world, so he doesn't let

a single deputy in. All of them—

these people, Sobyanin and Putin alike—

are simply unfit for any kind of public

politics. The slightest competition, the slightest thing, and

they lose. Exactly, absolutely. Already

after Sobyanin sat through

12—Tarasov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) said live on air

that

this is a sham, this is not

politics at all. Let's watch. It looked disgraceful

when some colleagues

decided to shield

the mayor with their own bodies.

Why was this done? Simply to shut people up

and not let them speak about those

urgent, painful problems that we

have all faced during the elections and after

the elections. And how did they answer questions?

They answered anything except

the substance of the issue.

Runaway urban development, transportation

problems, healthcare, education—

the most pressing problems—we carefully

avoid them. At most, we're told that, well,

people need to be patient, unpopular measures

have to be taken. Then those issues need to be discussed with people,

the questions and problems that exist. But instead

our authorities have hidden again. I believe that

a person cannot consider himself a real

politician if he hides from

a direct, frank conversation. Thank you.

Professor Khan said, well, really,

United Russia members are shielding Sobyanin with their bodies.

From whom? From someone asking a question—

a deputy elected by Muscovites, a deputy

whose microphone United Russia had already

cut off, while some woman there is trying

to ask a question, and a United Russia member comes running up—

this tsarist mug stands in front of her and hides

her from view, supposedly protecting Sobyanin from her.

That's how this government works. Several times

on air I mentioned the terrorist attack in

Novokuznetsk—I'm mistaken, of course, a bit—

in Kuznetsk,

but in Magnitogorsk there was an obvious,

absolutely obvious terrorist attack. A lot was written about it,

even by Kremlin-aligned media, and there, as you

remember, there was a whole story about how

a Gazelle van had been shot up, and before that

weapons had been found—clear signs

of a shootout. Quite a significant

number of security service representatives

said informally that this was a terrorist attack, while they were telling us

it was a gas explosion.

Now look: if they labeled the terrorist attack in

Magnitogorsk as a gas explosion, that

means either they are not investigating it

or they will simply limit themselves to, well,

the terrorists shot someone in that

van and that's it. But what are the consequences

of covering up a terrorist attack? There is one main

consequence: there will be another

terrorist attack, because no lessons were learned.

Any security service can make a mistake, but

the biggest failure, in fact, of the

American intelligence services was the September 11

attacks. It was a colossal failure. That is,

they spent unimaginable amounts of money on

security, wiretapping, everything else,

and nevertheless they missed that attack. But

some conclusions were drawn from it.

The intelligence services were criticized; the whole nation

picked it apart in detail—films, books, well,

a bunch of conspiracy theorists saying

there were no explosions at all—

everything was analyzed second by second.

But we're simply told, you know,

there was no Magnitogorsk attack, which means

they failed to prevent it.

They lied that it never happened, which means

they'll do it again. And besides, that

means not a single word from the FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service) can be trusted,

and not a single word from

Vladimir Putin can be trusted either, because

even formally, today's

press conference was a circus sideshow, just

awful. In the last few years, generally speaking,

it's always been a circus, but this time

the embodiment of it all was one plain hellish

Bulgarian lunatic. You're laughing on purpose,

but if you didn't watch that live broadcast,

there really was some completely crazy

guy with a Bulgarian flag in one hand and a

huge icon in the other, who first walked around everywhere

and then, right in the middle of the broadcast,

just started shouting various things,

praising Putin, and Putin just, without

the slightest embarrassment, said, 'Thank you, thank you, let's

hear from the crazy Bulgarian first.'

Thank you.

Thank you.

In all the major

Thank you very much, thank you.

Thank you. Now Magadan.

Good afternoon... Well, that's how it

looked. It really was

just such a colossal

humiliating event for everyone, but first

and foremost, of course, for that whole

dubious horde calling themselves

journalists, though only a few of them there were actually journalists.

There were only a few real journalists there, and by the way,

the main question came from the Russian service of the

BBC.

That was real journalism. But overall it was just

really a bunch of idiots who

brought gifts—

jars of jam, little posters,

messages of support for Putin—and every

question

began with, 'Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich,'

'Here in our... Vladimir, I'd like to begin by

saying thank you very much, but here

in Omsk, to be honest, it's impossible to live here, we...'

We’re all dying here, our wages are tiny, and...

the salaries are tiny, and everything is monstrously bad, thank you very much.

Vladimir Vladimirovich, how is it that people

have to beg for tickets to the parade? I mean,

it’s truly a hellish trash circus, humiliating

beyond words. But we don’t care about those

journalists — that is, the people who

are now working as journalists for the authorities.

They deserve this kind of humiliation, and

much worse humiliation too. But should we

really start watching this? It’s a huge

country, and we can simply see how

this is a monstrous disgrace on a grand scale.

Valeria asks me whether this terrorist attack

will become a pretext to tighten the screws on us,

to intensify censorship — like the law on

insulting the authorities — making things even worse. Valeria,

well, what do you think yourself? Of course yes. For

20 years now, for 20 years, we’ve

watched this happen every single time.

Whenever there is a terrorist attack

connected with a failure of the security services, what

happens? We ‘bomb Voronezh’ (a Russian expression meaning to punish our own people instead of solving the real problem), and

new laws are passed under which our lives will become

much worse. This does not in any way

help fight terrorists, not at all,

not for a single second. But

there will be some new procurements, and through them

huge amounts of money will be stolen. There will be

another fight against the internet. Remember when there was

the terrorist attack in Arkhangelsk and the Arkhangelsk

region, when a man with a grenade

blew it up in the FSB reception area?

What did that lead to? In the Pskov region,

a journalist is being tried for writing that

this happened, in fact, because

the FSB is busy with nonsense. It

simply enrages people, and she is being tried for

‘justifying terrorism.’ And against

several other people, criminal cases have

been opened for ‘justifying’

terrorism, new extremist laws in advance,

new restrictions on the internet — all of this

will happen, it will. Remember Zimnyaya Vishnya (the Winter Cherry mall fire in Kemerovo).

That wasn’t even a terrorist attack, it was

simply a horrific, nightmarish man-made

disaster. And what conclusion was drawn from it? Did we

change anything in terms of fire

safety? Did we disband the pointless EMERCOM (Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations)

or do anything else? Certainly not.

We don’t necessarily need to abolish EMERCOM entirely, but we do need

to acknowledge its extremely low effectiveness

and finally discuss the fact that EMERCOM is not

some kind of super-mega wonderful

agency. It is an agency that is very

ineffective, very corrupt, and in

reality works very badly.

No, none of that happened. They simply started

again: they found some clown,

a Ukrainian prankster who at that time

was calling around like an idiot, talking about

some nonexistent, exaggerated

death tolls, and then the state’s anger

was directed at this clown. And who ended up

being blamed? The internet. There’s a lot of

fake news on the internet, so they passed new laws to combat

that fake news — just stupidly.

A law under which anything can be blocked,

blocked and blocked. So now we are being

told that a source

from RBC (a Russian media outlet), in the security services, says that four

out of the five people wounded at Lubyanka

work in the security services. Apparently this

is evidence that, after all,

the main part

of the shootout took place possibly inside

the reception area. Or perhaps he was simply

firing back at special forces officers, and that is why

they were wounded. But I repeat,

the latest information from the FSB is

that one FSB officer was killed and two

people — it’s unclear who exactly —

and two people, or rather two people, received

extremely severe injuries. One of

them

but at least, as for those seriously

affected: one dead, at least one

and possibly two seriously injured. But

now the source is again saying that

there were wounded people. The information that

a radio station correspondent says

he spent 40 minutes trying to get through to

the Moscow Interior Ministry office and got this answer

from the duty police officer: ‘I have no

information.’

None at all. And on this matter, you understand, since 7 p.m.

all social media has been flooded with videos

showing what looks like a shootout.

Now just imagine: you open

let’s show it again for those who

have just joined us — more than 60,000 people

are watching. Here is the very first video that

appeared suggesting that in Moscow

something was wrong. It’s simply

a girl sitting in some café and basically

giggling as she says that somewhere nearby

there is shooting, and armed

police officers are running along Kuznetsky Most. Let’s

watch this video again.

She comments: ‘Right now we are on

Kuznetsky Most. Opposite us there is

a bank branch from which

police officers periodically come running out.’ You

can see from the outside that even if you don’t live in

Moscow, if you have at least a rough idea of

the geography, and you hear ‘shooting in the area of

Lubyanka, in the area of Kuznetsky Most,’

two buildings immediately come to mind. Building

number one: the FSB. Building number two:

Detsky Mir (a famous children’s store). And at that moment, suppose

your wife with the children, or your relative,

or someone else has gone to buy gifts for

New Year at Detsky Mir. You hear

reports of shooting and you become very

anxious. You start calling

the police to find out what is happening. One

of the functions of the police

is to inform the public — or at least one of

the functions of MTS, and tells us that

for 40 minutes, a correspondent from the pro-Kremlin

which, by the way, effectively belongs

to the Kremlin, Govorit Moskva, called, and in the end

the city duty officer told him that they

had no information about it. Why the hell

are we spending so much money on this then? We

have video 6000—how can it

show, live on air, the shot-up cars at the

crime scene? Let's watch 15

seconds of lies.

But that is the exit from there, and most likely, judging by

everything, this is hardly the car that

the terrorist used. Most likely, this is

a vehicle that may have been

used simply as a barrier, as

cover either for the attackers or for the

special forces, but we can see that, overall,

just an uninvolved person, a random

passerby, could easily have been hit by a

stray bullet. And the latest information

tells us that in the Detsky Mir building (a famous children's department store)

near the observation deck,

and the order to close the exit from Detsky

Mir came at around 7:00 p.m., and

the latest information is that

the attacker was killed at about 7:15 p.m.

Let's return to Putin and his press

conference—his huge

press conference, where he said

how wonderfully we are fighting terrorism

and where he was also very complimentary

about the Russian special services. That is exactly

why he is now in such an extremely

difficult situation now, when

on the eve of

Chekist Day (the Russian security services' professional holiday), this so obviously

brazen and planned attack on the

FSB happened so demonstratively, almost ritualistically.

One person, if it really was just one

attacker,

simply with an assault rifle, could have killed many

passersby and could have killed police officers.

But, that is, he probably could not have

carried out some super-mega, truly

major terrorist attack. Rather, he simply

went in like a suicide attacker to express something.

And we will probably soon find out—if we are

allowed to learn the truth—we will find out who he

was and what his motives were. Maybe

he left some kind of note or something else.

What nationality he was, what kind of

motive there may have been. But today's press conference

actually showed how

well, why this was in fact such a

grand failure. Because Putin

really—this press conference was once again

devoted to two things: Ukraine and

an endless discussion of the Second World

War, the Great Patriotic War (the Russian term for the Soviet-German front of WWII). That is,

you can see how completely uninterested he is in

doctors or whatever other

problems there may be. But as soon as it comes to

Ukraine,

his eyes light up—he knows which branch of the

gas pipeline goes where, remembers all the figures

by heart.

He gives these absolutely enormous lectures

about whether it was right or wrong

for the Soviet Union to act the way it did

in the situation of signing the

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and then goes on about

Czechoslovakia,

and where the Polish government was at

that moment. That is what he likes—oh Lord,

talking about Ukraine.

He knows the situation in Ukraine in every

detail. There was an absolutely astonishing moment when

Putin suddenly began worrying that

too much timber is being logged in Ukraine,

and soon in the Carpathians

there will be no forest left. Let's

listen—Putin is worried about the Carpathians.

The Westerners demand that round timber

must definitely be exported.

They want permission to ship it to Europe, but then

the Carpathian slopes will be left bare—

there will be naked rock there if the timber

is hauled away. So he worries about the Carpathians, and can talk in such

detail about them. Then he went on to condemn

the land laws that were passed in Ukraine.

We basically have the same thing here, but that is not

the point. But for Ukrainians, land—land

is something sacred, apparently. It was all said with such importance.

The phrase was used: 'Donbas doesn't talk nonsense' (a local slang expression implying people from Donbas mean business).

And then there was discussion of what kind of

people they are there,

what breed of people live in Donbas, and

what breed of people live in Irkutsk Region,

where, excuse me, the situation with this timber

logging is, to put it mildly,

far worse than in the Carpathians. But to Putin,

what is happening in Irkutsk Region

simply does not matter at all.

You understand? But about the Carpathians, of course, he has to

say something. Let's just watch the video

from our headquarters team, which captured the scale

of the logging and the export of this very

round timber to China in Irkutsk Region. In general, there

we simply have a catastrophe, both in Siberia

and in the Far East, with logging—mass

deforestation. I mean, forests can be logged,

it is a renewable resource, but

when it is cut down so indiscriminately, good

forest does not grow back in that place. And what

is happening in Russia is obviously this kind of

barbaric, criminal logging. But the Carpathians

concern him, while this does not concern him at all.

[applause]

[music]

[music]

Because here too, there is nothing but bare ground.

From satellite images, it is visible from

space that this is clear-cut logging across the taiga.

This region is of no concern at all.

Who is going to pay attention to it? But in the

Carpathians—good Lord—we must think about the

Carpathians, this endless discussion of them.

of Ukraine, and of course, just endless

lying, and, well, of that sort somehow

I mean, the man was really already on

a hot pan, so to speak. By the way, a journalist from

Crimea turned out to be one of the few

who asked, and basically

the right question, though it even seemed to me

a bit loaded. She asked him about those

very same text-message fundraisers for sick

children that we covered quite actively

in our latest, quite

popular investigation into

the astonishing romantic union of a state

banker

Kostin and state TV host Asker-zade, and she

asked him: "Please tell us, Vladimir

Vladimirovich, how much longer are we going to keep collecting

money by text message for children's treatment, or

is it really impossible to simply take and

just treat them at the state's expense? We

really do have enough money."

And in response, Putin launched into just

a gigantic rant about demographics

of absolutely enormous proportions.

I just want to play this for you, because

you need to see how a person

dodges a question. But I'll just

play a shortened bit, because it's simply

unbearable to watch the whole long rant, and the rant is there so that

everyone gets tired of it. A traditional trick:

he gets asked a sharp question and then

starts talking about something else

for a very, very, very long time, until maybe everyone

has forgotten what the question was, after which he

comes back to it

but doesn't actually answer anything, and that's it. He answered:

Let's watch. It concerns sick children.

I belong to that part of Russia

that, in the mornings, along with everyone else, sends text messages

to raise money for treatment

for sick children, because it's impossible

to watch those TV reports

they tear your soul and heart apart; it's impossible

to live and breathe after that. Please tell me,

is it possible to make it so that

Russian children are treated or

rehabilitated free of charge, without any

conditions at all? Thank you. You know,

first of all, in our country—first of all, we have

free healthcare, just like

education. There are, there are segments

where

this work is handled by private medicine,

but overall, that's why we speak about

the need for substantial changes in

primary healthcare. Overall,

people should receive medical care

free of charge. This applies to everyone, including

children—children first and foremost. In the overwhelming

majority of cases, that is exactly what happens.

By the way, as I've already said, there has been significant

progress.

You focus on negativity, but this is, this is one

way of solving it, just as

very serious demographic problems are tied into your question.

Better to skip ahead.

And then look at what he came up with, I'm telling you.

We have two major factors in

demographics—that's what I want to say. But we have

11... among citizens... 43...

a miscalculation, and in 1999, when

there was almost war, this puts before us

a challenge: every 20 years, the generation born in those

years, smaller in number,

enters adulthood,

childbearing age, productive age. So we

have fewer people—Russians, after all, both

men and women—but women cannot

give birth on their own.

So therefore only... and we have

the number of men exceeds the number of women...

...has decreased by four and a half

million people. That's an absolute fact.

And we simply need to make sure

that the situation improves through

third births. As for

charitable activity and what

is done on our leading TV channels

through appeals calling for help for

specific children—well, this is, after all,

these appeals and the programs on

this subject.

They cannot be banned. Even if help to one

or two children

is also important—after all, if we save

even the life of one person, that's already

wonderful. The Lord will, so to speak, take note of you

when you stand before Him, and that will already be

a good thing. But, but in the bigger picture they

of course... overall, what is needed is

to improve the work of medicine for children and

bring it to a higher level.

That's true. So what did he answer? What did he

answer? They asked you, man, about those

text-message fundraisers—600,000 rubles, 1 million

rubles, 1.5 million rubles

ridiculous sums. Couldn't you take from those

trillions we allocate for God knows

what, just pinch off a tiny fraction

and finally put an end to this shameful situation in which

a little child is missing 600,000

rubles in order to live? Does our

country have enough budget money

to give all these unfortunate

little kids and all their unfortunate

parents the money and provide

proper operations? We could even send them abroad

for treatment—do we have the money? Yes, we do.

And instead: a little bit about demographics, the demographic

pit, that's all. I mean, no, we can't...

Putin answers: yes, we cannot ban

such programs. But allocate 600,000 rubles

from the budget? That is the question he does not want

to answer, and he simply

just endlessly dodges questions, or rather

there is endless lying. The situation with, of course,

Golunov (Ivan Golunov, the Russian investigative journalist) was just some kind of

spectacle. You remember the case—every journalist

Ivan and Golunov, who had drugs planted on him

Drugs were planted. Fortunately,

thanks to the public outrage over the situation,

it became clear, it was established, that the drugs had been planted

by police officers.

It also emerged that those involved in this included

high-ranking FSB officers (Russia’s Federal Security Service), and we

did an investigation into one of

them. These FSB officers are enormously

wealthy, and it is completely unclear where

their money came from. By the way, the two

main figures in the case, whom

everyone blamed, and whom we also blame for

planting

drugs on Golunov, are the head of the FSB in

Moscow and his closest aide, Medoev.

We investigated them, and

they have an unimaginable amount of money. They are

obviously corrupt, and right under their

nose, on their own turf, shootings are taking place.

Is there a direct connection here? A direct

connection

obviously exists. And these people—Medoev was identified

within the FSB—but he was not dismissed from the FSB; he was removed

from the central administrative

apparatus and transferred as an attached

officer, I think, to Gazprom, you understand.

That was the punishment: instead of being caught

as a corrupt FSB operative

who plants drugs on people,

you get transferred to Gazprom. That is the kind of

punishment he received. And so, in fact,

Golunov spent several months

filing complaints saying that if drugs were planted on me

by police officers, couldn’t

a criminal case be opened against those police officers?

He was told no, it could not. Those police officers

were going to court demanding reinstatement to

their jobs, and everyone knew there were no

criminal cases against them. But Putin

speaks at a press conference and says

that there are criminal cases. Let’s listen.

It was done on the spot, but you did not

comment on it.

During the Direct Line (Putin’s annual televised call-in show), you called this case, this

situation with Golunov, lawlessness. We said

that those responsible had to be found. Since then,

those responsible have not been found.

The case materials have been classified, and

the investigation is being conducted against

unidentified persons. A decision was made

to classify it. This decision was made because

during the investigation

issues arise related to

the organization of operational-search

activities, and that

information is considered restricted.

But that does not mean the proceedings are not

supposed to proceed properly. I want to

inform you that

five people have been suspended from duty,

from the relevant Interior Ministry services,

they have all been dismissed from the bodies of the

Ministry of Internal Affairs, and criminal cases have been opened

against all of them.

The investigation is being conducted

by the Investigative Committee.

Naturally, everyone was outraged, because

well, fine, let’s not even

talk about the FSB guys who

organized this hit, all of it at the

request of the funeral mafia.

But as for the police officers—they had only just

been going around demanding reinstatement, and

there were no criminal cases. And Golunov himself

immediately wrote on his Telegram channel

—let’s take a look—that in fact

he had no information whatsoever that

there was any criminal case. More than that,

he keeps writing to the Investigative Committee,

and they tell him there are absolutely no

grounds for opening criminal cases.

What is this? We simply immediately

called Mediazona’s editor-in-chief,

Sergei Smirnov, who follows this and other cases

extremely closely,

and, well,

surely Smirnov would know if there were

any information at all that

a criminal case had been opened against the police officers.

What does he tell us? Let’s watch.

Sergei Smirnov.

Hi everyone, this is Sergei Smirnov. So, Putin

has just announced that these

police officers, it turns out, have criminal

cases against them. In fact, absolutely

nothing at all was known about this, and judging by

their behavior, they were perfectly calmly

looking for jobs, they were going to court

demanding that their dismissal be overturned. Of course,

if there had been cases, they themselves would have known.

So I think this is some kind of

completely new information. It seems to me

there are no cases, but now we’ll see

whether they appear as a result of the press conference.

So, basically, that was it: people went on

saying there were no criminal cases, and immediately after

came the news that, it turns out, criminal

cases do exist—they were opened, supposedly, yesterday.

They waited 190 days, and the criminal cases

were allegedly opened yesterday. Very amusing. On

this subject, the former editor-in-chief of Meduza

or Meduza director Krasilshchik wrote

that this is such an amazing

time paradox: it required minus

one day, because Putin announced the opening of

criminal cases today,

but they were opened yesterday. This really is the kind of

paradox possible only in Russia.

It is just endless lying. There were no

criminal cases, but someone there

said they would open criminal cases. And the FSB

guys who organized all of this—well,

how could they possibly open criminal

cases against the very people they told

to go and plant the drugs? They were let off the hook,

and then Putin blurted it out at the

press conference, and criminal cases were opened.

So, that's how all of this is structured.

By the way, this has just come in:

a Reuters report citing sources.

According to it, the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) knew about the planned

attack, but did not know where it would take place.

Reuters reports this, citing sources

close to the FSB, and the perpetrators likely

planned the attack so that it would

coincide with Putin’s speech

dedicated to Security Services Workers’ Day

(a professional holiday for Russian security service personnel).

If that’s true, then why didn’t they prevent it?

But can we believe it? My own

feeling is that this is

a complete lie, just a complete lie.

I mean, if it isn’t a lie,

then it’s incompetence. That is, if

they knew about it, that means this was not

a lone attacker; it was some kind of group

of assailants, and some source within that

group of attackers must have passed something on.

What, did someone call and say, “There will be, there will be

terror attacks,” and then hang up? Unlikely. If

they knew anything, they knew something about the

nature of it or some other details. But now that

this person has been killed, that’s it—they can lie about

absolutely anything. And now MJ asks me:

“Hello, Alexei, what do you think—

what could be the reason for the shooting at the FSB?”

Thank you. Well, listen, it could be anything.

It could simply be some madman who

snapped. But if some madman snapped,

then the assault rifle, the preparation, a plan like that—

that still seems unlikely.

It could be some kind of religious

extremist. It could be anyone.

Look,

Kadyrov (Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya) has a whole army of people who are either

terrorists or police officers—

it’s all completely mixed together, I mean some kind of

“bearded division” there that stages

mass prayers and kills

Chechens all the time who

are guilty of nothing. You can find a million

stories about this. If you have

Chechen acquaintances, just ask them.

It’s like a government experiment.

“Do you know of cases where they simply

grab some guys and hold them until

their beards grow out, and then

kill them, pass them off as terrorists, and that’s it?”

Everyone will say: yes, I know people like that. Everyone knows that this

happens here, not only in Chechnya

and the North Caucasus—everyone knows about it.

So it could be—maybe some kind of

I don’t know—Islamist extremist, it could

be some disillusioned person from

there—yes, it could be anyone. But will we learn

any truth? Unlikely.

It’s just that our empirical experience tells us

that the FSB lies constantly. But if they

lied about the entire terrorist attack in Magnitogorsk

where dozens of people died, if they

are now forcing all media outlets in Russia

to call gas explosions “pops” or “bangs”

so it doesn’t look so awful in headlines,

I mean, the level of lying is simply such

that they can lie about absolutely anything. And now,

as we wrap up our program, which has already

run far too long—really, it’s enough to make you cry—

given its emergency nature, because of

the urgent nature of the news, I’ve already

gone way over time—Sailor Popeye asks:

“Alexei, please comment

on the situation regarding the question

put to Putin about his daughters.”

What happened there at the

press conference with that question—on the

one hand, it is an example that there are still

still

normal journalists in Russia, and Farida Rustamova,

who asked that question,

really did a great job.

She is a very good person and a very good

journalist, because she did not ask

some vague question. You know, at Putin’s

press conferences, unlike Sobyanin’s (Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor),

by the way, they have this thing where

they prepare supposedly sharp questions, and they

are usually asked in the way that, say, Katya

Vinokurova asks them: in such a way

that within that one question there are

137 other questions, and it stretches on for

several minutes, and it is very convenient for Putin

to pick some part of that question and

not answer everything else. But here

the question was asked completely clearly and directly, and the answer

was simply—

well, not just evasive in the usual way, but

actually frightening, because the man

simply disowned his daughters. Everyone

knows about Putin’s daughters.

Everyone knows that they are involved

at least the younger one, to a greater

extent, and the elder one to a lesser extent—in some

very strange, very large-scale

business that is financed by all the

state corporations.

But Putin consistently does not

confirm that they are his daughters, even though

everyone obviously knows it. And this time

he even referred to them simply as “these women,”

and in effect—listen, you know, if

you asked me, “Alexei, did your daughter

go to Stanford? What do you say to that?”

I would say that my daughter, Dasha Navalnaya,

studied at a Moscow school,

applied to several universities there,

got into one of the best universities,

is studying there now, and I am very

proud of that, because it seems I proved myself

to be a good parent.

I want her to get an education, and in the Beautiful

Russia of the Future

we will, in general, be sending thousands of our students

abroad.

That is an answer about your daughter. But when you

asked me about this—whether it is true that your

My daughter went to Stanford, and I talked about it, and...

Yes, you asked me about some woman.

who once went there.

The transportation system in Russia in general

works fairly well, though of course it still needs to be, uh...

improved and better connected. Of course, right now we're

being seriously hindered by what's happening in Ukraine,

what is happening there, what has happened.

An anti-corruption coup took place, but in general we

will continue improving the transportation

system. That's not what you asked about.

Are you an idiot or what? What are you even saying? But that is exactly

what happened at Putin's

press conference. Let's watch it. It's two minutes

44 seconds long,

but every second of it is worth watching because

it perfectly shows us

that we will never hear

a single word of truth from these people, because they

lie even in situations where there seems to be absolutely

no need at all

to lie, because by doing so you are effectively

disowning your own children.

Putin, four years ago,

when my colleagues asked you about

your relationship to your younger daughter, Yekaterina

Tikhonova, you said, quote, that your children

are not involved in business or politics and generally

do not meddle in anything. But since then, the situation

has changed, at the very least. The company Innopraktika,

whose director is

Katerina Tikhonova and whose founder

is a state-funded budgetary

institution, MSU (Moscow State University), earned last year

earned

half a billion rubles. The company Nomenko, in which

your elder daughter

Maria Vorontsova has a stake, is using money from the company

SOGAZ to build one of the largest clinics

now in the Leningrad Region. In this, these

two women are being helped in business by your

old friends and by officials and state companies. We

can see, we can see that these women

have started appearing very often on

television; everyone already knows their names

and what they look like. It's an open secret.

So my question is: please tell us,

when will you acknowledge that they are your children?

Will they never become public figures, open

to society, like the children of other world

leaders? You just spoke about

issues related to business,

you mentioned

one woman, then a second one, but you didn't

tell the whole story, apparently. Well then, zero loans...

their personal stake there... the volume... this is

business; otherwise you simply can never understand it.

Or the facts have not been sufficiently established here.

Look into it in more detail and you'll understand what is going on there.

Where someone went... so, on that note our...

...this helps. Innopraktika is a simple practice,

and this initiative has long been supported by the rector

of the university, as far as is known.

, since... a typo... advice...

It is connected with an absolutely

lawful and proper desire on our part

to combine the capabilities

of our science and education with the real

needs

of manufacturers, and in this way the domestic

economy often ends up buying from

abroad, whether from Britain or elsewhere.

This brings us back to the very issue of linking them together.

We simply can generate this ourselves, which means

our enterprises have to...

...essentially the opposite, and...

that's the whole point of it.

The creation, conversely, as applied to

the main thing... Write this down. Is it over? — No.

For some reason, it's about training people

to create innovations that did not previously exist.

known.

For us, it's... some kind of miracle of something.

So, like that... there's a button down below.

Education... ours... press it right there.

Frankly, I don't understand, but as for its success...

For them to achieve it, we need to then

...close it off; the indicator goes off...

As for medicine there, in my opinion they have

as of today, everything amounts to 1

500... getting through this night is interesting.

The direction in Zermatt... from above... applicable...

Technology is developing rapidly; keep in mind that we

have... I love... among testing... This is my

favorite. Everything connected with

reducing mortality from external and

internal factors, everything connected with

the development of medicine, is one of the

priorities of the Russian Federation. I think

this work should only be

welcomed. It's a magnificent

answer—simply an amazing answer. When all you need to do is just

Someday, I don't know, there will be compiled

an encyclopedia of lies and hypocrisy,

and this should occupy a truly worthy

place in it. They ask you: your daughter,

Katerina Tikhonova—everyone knows she is your

daughter, and this is obviously confirmed by the fact

that she suddenly became a superstar scientist; all sorts of

super-oligarchs

and state figures joined the board of trustees;

she was allocated billions, tens

of billions, to build something or other there.

When will you finally admit that she is your daughter?

And in response he starts talking about Innopraktika,

about how we buy things in Great Britain.

They should be buying in Great Britain, yes?

What kind of answer is that? But this is the country, it

uses budget money.

Maybe for Putin, but for any

actually normal person, this is

not the most comfortable situation, when everyone

starts discussing your—I didn't know—

relatives, your children. But they are not

to blame. I mean, after all, now everyone is discussing my

daughter.

She wasn't involved in this kind of politics, she

didn't take part in any elections, well...

That’s just how her circumstances and her fate turned out.

Her father is a politician, and so in

any case, you carry that burden

of public politics: people watch you, they look at

what you do and where you get your

money from. And in this situation, a person whose

father has been the country’s president for 20 years gets married

to a dollar billionaire—or rather, she

marries Kirill Shamalov, who

later becomes

a dollar billionaire. So

that means his daughter, one of the president’s daughters,

under family law, also

becomes a dollar billionaire. She is running

some kind of super-mega-grandiose project.

Is she your daughter or not? What exactly is going on there?

Yes, you know, we should

develop too, in the United Kingdom as well,

we buy various things. No, you don’t need

to buy into that—it’s simply lies, endless

just endless lies. If he lies to you

about this, do you think we will ever find out

the real truth about the

terrorist attacks that happened? The latest report

from the Baza news channel says that in major

cities across Russia

special security measures were introduced in the buildings of local FSB (Federal Security Service) and MVD (Interior Ministry) offices.

Special security measures were in place.

Entry to the buildings was allowed only with a password. Here

there was a question during the broadcast: what

will the consequences be? Well, these are the kinds of

consequences of that sort that there will be.

Do you understand? That is, of course,

starting tomorrow, there will be a new round

of discussion about the need to fight more against

extremists. And “extremists”

are those who sit on the internet, those who

publish news, those who on social media

spread something, those who go out to

rallies, those who demand their participation in

elections—they are the extremists. It’s not the people who actually carried this out that

they’ll start fighting again. And on top of that, they’ve introduced

passwords for entering buildings. I very much hope

that the password will be: “Here is one woman and

here is another woman,” as Putin told us, or

something like that. By the way, there were

a lot of questions about why we are not announcing

the results of our contest, which we announced

about tracking the movements of Kostin’s yacht and the yacht

and plane of Kostin and Asker-zade. It’s not because

we forgot or decided to withhold the prizes, but because

there are certain technical

details there—problems that I

won’t talk about because

right now there is this kind of

competition going on, in a certain sense: this whole

band of crooks is hiding their

planes and yachts from us, specifically the ones already

identified, and we are trying to find them. But sooner

or later, of course, we will find them, and I

am sure that

I will talk about it on our program.

Thank you very much to everyone who watched our

broadcast. Let me remind you once again that in central

Moscow, a terrorist attack took place today. Once again,

I want to express my condolences to the families

of those who were killed and those who were injured.

These are terrible things, and I very much hope that

sooner or later the people of Russia will learn

the truth about what happened today in

central Moscow, and about all the other terrorist attacks

that have taken place recently in

Russia. Thank you very much, everyone. Good luck, and see you

this Thursday.

Wait, hold on—my last,

the next one—

this isn’t my pre-New Year broadcast after all, so

I’ll be wishing you a Happy New Year

on the next program. Sorry about that.

That’s how it goes—with this wandering schedule of broadcasts, I

got confused.

See you this Thursday.

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