They forgave — we paid

Two people are walking down the street, approaching

everyone—literally everyone—they meet, and

demand 2,600 rubles, forcing people to hand it over.

From everyone around them, just from absolutely everyone.

Be so kind as to hand over 3,600 rubles.

They see a pensioner and take it from him.

They see a small child and also

walk up and say, “Come on, give us 3,600,” and

if not, they take the child’s jacket, toy,

or stroller—in other words, from everyone around them

they take 3,600 rubles. And the strangest thing

about it is that this money

they immediately tear up or burn. You know, like this:

lighting a cigarette with a 5,000-ruble banknote

and everyone looks at them and doesn’t even

understand.

Because these aren’t just hooligans or robbers,

but some kind of sick perverts.

I burn my half.

Dangerous lunatics. And you may think Navalny is describing

some unreal situation,

that people like that don’t exist, that we’ve never

met a pair like that. But we have, my friends.

My friends,

of course we have. Those two people are

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Igor

Ivanovich Sechin. These two figures, standing

at the head of our, let’s be honest, rather

not-very-rich country,

allocated aid to a country called

Venezuela in the amount of 8.8 billion

U.S. dollars, which comes to 528

billion rubles, or 3,600 rubles

for every citizen of our

country, including frail elderly people and

newborn babies.

Why did they do this? Because, frankly,

there are plenty of places in Russia to spend

that mountain of money. They could at least have

just handed everyone 3,600 rubles directly—that would

have been nice too. But no, they are great

geopoliticians, and they are saving the regime of Nicolás

Maduro, which is falling apart. They so badly want

to be friends with Venezuela that they named

a street in Moscow after Hugo Chávez.

[music]

A street is one thing, fine. But the money—we all

understand perfectly well that this money is

formally a loan, but it is absolutely certain

that it will never come back to us. Six billion

dollars were allocated just the other day

by our state company—ours and yours—

Rosneft, by Igor Sechin’s decision. Another 2.8

billion had been allocated earlier by decision

of Putin, and even now this money can

safely be written off, because Venezuela

has said it cannot repay it. The loan has already

been restructured, and even our own

Audit Chamber has stated that just

in 2017 alone, the loss from a single

loan will amount to 54

billion rubles—that is, for example, the budget

of the city of Ulan-Ude

for nine years. For nine years. And this latest

$6 billion oil loan can just as certainly

be written off as well. In the opinion

of experts, Venezuela will never be able

to repay it in full, because there

there is effectively a war going on there. Inflation this

year is expected to reach 720

percent, and next year more than 2,000

percent. There are food shortages,

queues stretching for kilometers, and water and

electricity outages across the country. There are

demonstrations and protests, and these protests

are being dispersed by the police. Particularly

distinguished police officers

are rewarded with—guess what—toilet

paper.

Great. A fantastic place to throw

our 8 billion into, right? But we have

already learned from bitter experience that we

shouldn’t be giving them anything. We in Russia

constantly take from ourselves, from our own citizens,

and try to prop up unstable

state regimes abroad. And in the process

the money always disappears, and those countries

do not retain any pro-Russian

political orientation. In other words, it is

simply money thrown to the wind.

Here are some examples of the most recent major

debt write-offs: in 2005, Syria was forgiven a debt

of $10 billion; in 2007,

Afghanistan was forgiven $11 billion;

in 2008, Libya was forgiven

$4.5 billion;

that same year, Iraq was forgiven $12 billion;

in 2014, Cuba was forgiven $32

billion; in 2012,

North Korea was forgiven $11.865 billion;

Uzbekistan was forgiven $865 million in 2016;

and in this year, 2017, $240

million has already been forgiven for Kyrgyzstan.

And it was not Sechin who paid for this

extravaganza of unheard-of generosity—Sechin, who takes his wife on a yacht worth

9 billion rubles—nor Putin with

his billions in offshore accounts

registered in friends’ names. It was us, you and me.

Do you remember the average salary in

our country? According to Rosstat, it is 36,700

rubles a month. And in one of those

months, it really could have

been 3,600 rubles higher.

And that is only because of Venezuela. In fact,

overall the total adds up to something much, much

more substantial. Why am I telling you all this?

Because it is a simple choice, my friends:

either support Putin, who for many

years has consistently handed out our money

to strange regimes abroad and then

forgives their debts, or support

me. One point of my program is clearly

that I will not give

money to anyone and will not forgive debts

to foreign countries—at least not

for as long as we still have problems

inside our own country that need this money.

But why Venezuela when here at home we have...

in the country's largest cities, all in ruins

road, when we have twenty million

poor people in the country. Once we solve all the problems

and become the richest state on

planet Earth.

Well, then we'll think about it. If you agree with

my approach, then the best way to show

the Kremlin how much you dislike support for

Venezuela

is to share this video with your friends

and acquaintances, and add your signature in support of

nominating my movement's candidate for president.

Your signature will mean this:

Dear Russian authorities,

I am not going to give my money to

Venezuelans, with all my deep

respect. Subscribe to our channel

— this is where the truth is told.