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Hi, this is Alexei Navalny from the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
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And now I’m going to tell you
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how Vladimir Putin handed over
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almost $2 billion to his son-in-law, and
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why we at the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) sued him over it.
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The whole point is that Russian
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law contains a concept called
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a conflict of interest. And how does that
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work? If you are a public official and through your
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actions you do something that makes
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your family, your relatives, or your friends
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richer, you are required to declare it.
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For example, if you are the Minister of Agriculture
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and you allocate a subsidy to a company
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owned by your relative,
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you are required to disclose it. You submit
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a document to the government saying:
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I have a conflict of interest. After that,
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the government decides whether it is corruption
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or not, whether such a subsidy can be issued
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or cannot be issued. But in any case,
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you are legally required to declare it.
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And if you do not declare
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a conflict of interest, then we have
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a 100% violation and 100% corruption,
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because you are concealing that fact. Now
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let’s move on to Vladimir Putin. As is well known,
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he has a daughter named Katerina
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Tikhonova. And this Katerina Tikhonova
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has a husband named Kirill Shamalov, which means
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Kirill Shamalov is Vladimir
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Putin’s son-in-law. And this very Kirill Shamalov
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owns a large stake in Russia’s biggest
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chemical company,
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Sibur. It is a giant petrochemical
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monster left over from Soviet times,
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an enormous enterprise. How
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Shamalov became its co-owner
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is a separate question, but right now
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what matters to us is the legal fact:
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Kirill Shamalov, Putin’s son-in-law, owns
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a significant share of Sibur. And here is
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the remarkable part: one year
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after Putin’s son-in-law became
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a co-owner of Sibur, that very
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Sibur received an investment from the state
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of nearly $2 billion,
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and not in the form of a loan
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from a state bank or in any other
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familiar format, but directly, straight from the so-called
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National Welfare
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Fund—that is, from the place where
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we keep our treasured petrodollars,
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which are supposed to serve
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future generations,
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to secure our pensions when
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the country eventually runs out of
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money. In other words, straight out of this
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national wealth, they take almost $2
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billion and hand it to Putin’s son-in-law. And now, my
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dear friends, please guess who
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signed the order
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transferring the money to Sibur. The answer: Putin himself,
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Vladimir Vladimirovich. So what we have here is
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simply, well, an ideal
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picture of a conflict of interest.
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The president of the country personally signs
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a document under which enormous benefits
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and colossal sums of money go to a company
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owned by his son-in-law. So what should President Putin do
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in this situation?
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President Putin should simply act
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according to the law. Under the law, he is required to declare
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his conflict of interest to his
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immediate superior. His
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immediate superior, under the
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Constitution, is the people of the Russian
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Federation—that is, us. He must address us
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in any form: an order, a public
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statement, even during his annual call-in show—however he likes.
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He is required to declare it. He should
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say: Dear people, I have just
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allocated $2 billion to a company, and that company
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belongs to my son-in-law. You surely won’t think
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there is some corruption here? Here are
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all the documents for this deal; everything is clean
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and transparent. You do not suspect me of
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anything improper. But what happens in
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practice? Putin stays silent, his son-in-law stays silent,
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Sibur stays silent, the press stays silent. There are no
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details of this deal. Well, what does
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that look like? If everyone is silent and
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some strange deal is taking place, it looks very much
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like corruption. And if the situation
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looks like corruption, then apparently it is time
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for the Anti-Corruption Foundation
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to step in. That is, we sent
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an entirely official appeal to
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Vladimir Putin himself, to the prosecutor’s office, and
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filed a lawsuit against Vladimir Putin with a very
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simple demand: we demand that he be compelled
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to publicly declare the conflict of
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interest, because that is what the law requires.
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This is a completely classic situation in which
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he is violating that law. I am sure
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that in this situation no one can
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say that we are nitpicking at Vladimir
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Putin or somehow being unfair to
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him, because we are not demanding anything from
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him that cannot be demanded under
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the law. And regardless of how you
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personally feel about him—whether you love him, whether you
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fear him, whether you adore him, whether you
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hate him—you probably also think it is right
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for the president of the country
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to declare a conflict of interest in cases
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where he is required to do so. If
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you agree, help us
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spread this video. Subscribe
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to our channel and like this video too.
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