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Hi, this is Navalny. On Thursday evening
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I will be debating Igor Ivanovich
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Strelkov, who challenged me on behalf of,
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as he put it, nationalists and patriots.
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I am addressing Alexei Anatolyevich
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Navalny, challenging him to a public
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debate on a whole range of issues that
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deeply
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concern Russians, and more broadly, Russian
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patriots and nationalists.
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I accepted this challenge because, first,
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I am a supporter of open
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political discussion and debate and am not
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afraid of them, and second, in this debate I
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will prove that my—our—position is
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truly
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patriotic, unlike that of Igor
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Ivanovich, who gives press conferences beneath
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a portrait of Putin, the godfather of
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Russian corruption. Igor Strelkov
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outlined three debate topics: how to defeat
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corruption; first, how exactly
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he intends to fight corruption once he comes to
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power; how relations with
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the West will be structured, how he plans to build
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relations with the West; and what should be done about
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Donbas—what Navalny will do
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after becoming
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president, with Donbas and with Crimea.
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Since I have time
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to prepare, it would be fair if
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I also publicly ask three
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questions on these same topics before the debate, and I hope Igor
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Ivanovich will be able to answer them. Question
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number one, on corruption: you, Igor Ivanovich,
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seem to condemn it; you call Russia’s elites
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corrupt and comprador
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absolutely comprador and predatory.
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It is obvious that these people—Putin and all
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the rest—have no other
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goal except power and personal
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enrichment. So why was it that, quite recently, you
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declared your unconditional support for Putin
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and called him the guarantor of the freedom and
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independence of the country? However ethically
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I may view many, many
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of the president’s domestic policy decisions, in
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the conditions of a war unleashed against us,
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I consider it necessary to give him my unconditional
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support as the only
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legitimate commander-in-chief, the chief
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guarantor of the country’s freedom and independence.
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Well, if it’s unconditional support and he’s the guarantor, then
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that means you support the Rotenbergs as well,
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and Timchenko, and Usmanov, and Serdyukov, and
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Vasilyeva. They’re all part of the same system, aren’t they—or not?
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Do you support them or not? Please explain. I’m
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confused. Question number two, about the West:
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why do you repeat after Putin this nonsense
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that the West is our main enemy?
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Well, Putin is understandable—he has driven
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the economy into a dead end, it isn’t working, and he solves his
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domestic political problems in this
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way. But you, of all people, should understand that
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far greater real threats to
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Russia are the rise of Islamist
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extremism, uncontrolled migration from
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Central Asia and the South Caucasus, not from Europe;
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the emergence of nuclear weapons in the hands of dictatorial
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regimes; totalitarian regimes in our own
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North Caucasus. Was it
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the West that drove half a million
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people from their homes in Chechnya? No, of course not.
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You probably don’t want to talk about that. But
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why repeat the Kremlin’s old
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Soviet-style propaganda? Tell us
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why. And now question number three, about Donbas: I
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cannot help asking you about the downed Boeing (Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17).
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On board,
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298 innocent people were killed. You were there. You surely
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know who shot it down. Why is it that you, such a
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plain-spoken truth-teller,
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who emphasizes that he is an officer with a code of
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honor,
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have stayed silent for three years, listening to lying
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propaganda about a Ukrainian
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fighter jet, an Israeli
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missile, a CIA bomb, and bodies that were supposedly not fresh?
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Tell the truth right now, at these
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debates: who shot down
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the Boeing? Thank you very much. The debate will take place on
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Thursday, July 20, at 20:00, and will be
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broadcast on the Navalny channel.
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Watch and subscribe.