05/05. Nuclear War. Tuleyev, Yashin, and Gudkov

[music]

well, well

Hello everyone. It's 8:18 p.m. in Moscow, which means that in

the studio, it's me, Alexei Navalny, and various

federal and regional media outlets

and online publications have deliberately

used insulting and disinforming language about

the activities of Aman Tuleyev with this

cool, trendy, and grand title:

that's what the Legislative Assembly

of Kemerovo Region called me in response to our

recent video about Aman Tuleyev. We'll talk a bit more about that.

But first I want to start, of course,

with the 05.05 rally. On May 5, all of us,

friends, need to be at the new

nationwide protest. And when I

— you may have seen the video we released today —

say that this rally

is necessary so that we can stand up for

our right to remain citizens of Russia,

there's no pathos or

grand idea in that anymore. You know, I sat there

trying to come up with some

goal for the rally that would really

inspire everyone — "let's remain citizens

of Russia." But no, this is the reality

of today, because in fact

we can see that Putin's new six-year term

will mostly be spent under the idea that

"I am the magnificent Putin, I am

the tsar here,

you are nobody here, I don't listen to you, I do

whatever I want because I run

this wonderful country as if it were my own

property." That is exactly what they

are moving toward, and all the events of recent days

show that they have no intention

of backing away from it. And we need to remind these

guys that, sorry, but no —

even according to your official

figures, your own

made-up,

fake numbers scribbled on paper,

let's say 56 million people voted for you,

but 53 million people

did not vote for you. Some of them

didn't vote because they were

too lazy and stayed on the couch, but there are also

tens of millions of people who do not

agree with Putin.

They have different views on the country's

development. These people are completely, totally

ignored. It's not even that they are not

taken into account; it's not even that they are

some minority with their own parties, and therefore

unable to vote their way into a majority.

No — they are simply totally

ignored. You and I are totally

ignored, with nothing being done

even in some ritualistic way

to meet us halfway or even pretend

that we exist at all.

Take corruption, for example — my favorite subject.

A year ago, the investigation

*He Is Not Dimon to You* came out. What has happened since then?

Since that moment,

who has suffered? Only us. We carried equipment out of this room,

I was arrested several times,

many of you were detained and arrested

multiple times,

paid fines, and so on. But what about

Medvedev? Was he punished in any way?

Were those foundations dissolved? Did he at least

hide his corrupt empire a little,

cover it up a bit?

Did they conceal it, disguise it,

feel even a little ashamed,

change anything? No. All of it continues

to operate in exactly the same way.

Despite the fact that even opinion polls,

conducted not by us but by major

polling organizations, show that

people — millions of people, in fact —

are demanding answers. They keep

demanding those answers. Have we received them?

No, because Putin thinks, and Medvedev thinks,

and the entire government thinks, that we

do not exist — that we simply do not exist at all. And now,

after the so-called elections, we see

news about how the state

authorities live.

And honestly, this just sounds, excuse me, completely

insane. Just over the past week,

for example, a bill has already passed its second reading

that would force us

to

remove from social networks, under threat of huge

fines, any "unverified false information."

We know what kind of information the state

considers "unverified" and "false" — the kind

it doesn't like. They will declare

any information they dislike to be unverified and false.

Then Roskomnadzor (Russia's state media and internet regulator) will come to you and say

that someone wrote something on VKontakte

about their city mayor, saying that he

does a poor job maintaining the roads. That's

unverified and false information.

Look, according to the mayor's own statement,

he says that this is incorrect

false information, that he takes good care

of the roads. Delete it, or you'll get a fine

of 1 million rubles (about €11,000 / $12,000). It may sound absurd, but

in fact we see some

character named Sergei Boyarsky — who

even is this person? — coming out

and telling us, just now,

that yes, yes, yes, this law must be

passed. Let's listen to Sergei Boyarsky

for four seconds. "Following the results of

the expanded...

...which we conducted with the involvement of experts...

...and representatives...

...these bills are intended to ensure

the purity of information on social networks.

I would like to note that despite the large

number of critical remarks, everyone

undoubtedly understands the importance and

necessity of it."

the very fact itself

of online content flows; the implementation techniques and

the practical application of legislative

acts will, of course, need to be refined

we also received from industry representatives

a proposal to personalize

the responsibility of a specific user

some people preserving spoons lamps

need to be put in place

we will definitely work this through with you

proposal at a later stage

you know, when I see deputies

from United Russia (the ruling political party) telling me

about the purity

of the information flow, I just want

to exclaim, following the father

of this United Russia deputy

a United Russia deputy

the brazen one, there he is, sitting on our necks simply

because he is the son of Mikhail Boyarsky

our beloved actor, despite his being fiercely

pro-United Russia and terribly pro-Putin, but still

a wonderful Soviet actor

whom we all love, and together with him we

love to sing the song 'Pora, pora, poraduemsya' ('It’s time, it’s time, let’s rejoice'), but

why the hell is his worthless little son

this insignificant little son who somehow

came from who-knows-where, and for what

merits sits in the parliament—why should he

come here and fight for

the purity of the information flow, and on top of that

the insolent bastard says that despite

critical remarks, no one

doubts that social networks in general

need to be regulated

no one doubts that your

state television needs to be

regulated, because you lie in

every single word you say. Just take

the latest absolutely astonishing REN TV report

yes, when they went to the hospital—give me 15

seconds, 11 seconds—let’s watch this first

how a slippery floor sign was passed off as a horrifying

warning saying you must not enter because this

area is contaminated, and that behind this very door

is Sergei Skripal; this is the microbiology

department, the door is securely closed

there’s a 'Do Not Enter' sign here, you see, and

these people want to fine us on

social media. All of this is permeated

with such absolute lies and hypocrisy

the entire federal—well, all the federal

channels, all state messaging

just go, for God’s sake, to the website

of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

they lie in every word, and amid this

lying they come up with laws for us

laws under which your posts on

VKontakte and Facebook, your tweets, will

be demanded that you delete them under threat of fines

you’ll be facing huge fines, and you will

delete them, because in the various

versions of this bill there are some

million-ruble fines; they’ll tell you to delete

information saying that the governor is bad

or pay a fine of 1 million rubles

(about US$16,000 at the time)—what choice will you have? You’ll delete it. That’s exactly why we need

to go to rallies, because they simply

don’t care at all what everyone thinks of them

all Russian people, generally speaking

this bill is not needed by absolutely anyone

just tell an ordinary

normal person, even one who voted for

Putin, that such-and-such

bill is being passed under which there will be

million-ruble fines for, damn it, some

unverified information on social media, and

they’ll just twirl a finger at their temple and say you’re crazy

and have nothing better to do. But they

are passing all this and will keep passing it until

people take to the streets, until

until we show ourselves, until we

come out and say: hey, actually

there are several million of us here too

people—take our interests into account as well

until that happens

this madness will only keep growing, and

the speed at which it is growing is enormous

what is happening now with the messenger

Telegram—who needs this? Do you need it?

Do any Russian citizens need it?

Does Durov need it? Does business need it?

No one needs it at all, and yet suddenly

Roskomnadzor and the FSB declared that it is specifically

Telegram—although there is WhatsApp, there is Viber

there are other messengers that also

have so-called secret chats, and yet

it was precisely this Telegram that they decided

to shut down. They made an impossible

demand, after which they ran to court, and

today there were such astonishing events, from the standpoint of

any lawyer—astonishing actions, when

it was announced that tomorrow there will already be a court

hearing to which they did not even invite

Telegram’s representatives. It may

go ahead without their participation because this is

this kind of interaction between Roskomnadzor

and the court—even, even without Telegram’s participation. That

Roskomnadzor got worked up all by itself

and said there are huge violations here, we

are going to court to block the messenger

Telegram—and Telegram, Durov’s messenger

or anyone from it, we’re not even inviting them there

Pavel Durov did absolutely the right thing

by not even trying now to enter

the proceedings. He said that

he is not allowing his lawyers to be at

this hearing. But we understand what

will happen: they really will block

this messenger

why? What the hell for? Who is it bothering?

Terrorists correspond there? And what, in WhatsApp

terrorists can’t correspond?

Or by email? Or in Viber? Or in

any other messenger that is not at all

regulated in any way and is not widely

used

in Russia at all, as is well known, there were

There have been documented cases of terrorists

communicating via Sony consoles,

PlayStation — talking to each other there by voice,

using voice chat and networks. So what, should Sony

shut down PlayStation? No — it’s just that

three specific idiot officials

felt like blocking Telegram. They

don’t care what we think; they block things, and

this is what they’re doing to our internet. So

that’s why

on May 5, we need to take to the streets.

Precisely for this reason: we demand that they return to us

the right to be full citizens — the right, excuse

the tautology, the right to be full-fledged, but that’s

what it means — citizens, too, so that we have

some kind of representation, so that our

voice is heard,

so that our entirely constructive

demands — from fighting corruption

to leaving our internet

alone, from national — from

simply national income to the development of

space — happy Cosmonautics Day, by the way (a Russian holiday marking Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight),

so that all of this is heard. Otherwise,

what we really get is

an endless drone about Russian Post (Russia’s state postal service), which

flies, crashes into a wall, and beyond that

there is nothing in Russia — just PR stories

about all of it, and absolutely no

real development. So, guys, on May 5, submit

an application in your city. If there is no

campaign office there, work together with our

headquarters. If you live in such a city — I

did a live stream on Instagram today,

and people asked me: “I live in a small

town, with a small population — what

should I do?” Well, you don’t have to do much, but

submit an application and go out alone, just

to feel like a real

normal person who has

a conscience. Submit an application and go out alone,

stand there with a sign — it’s great.

Later you’ll tell yourself,

and your grandchildren, that on May 5, when many people

were afraid, I went out and stood there with a sign, and

I remained an honest person who

came out and refused to become a serf,

a peasant who simply

nods endlessly and bows at the master’s

feet. I made my civic voice heard, I

demanded of these authorities:

what exactly do you dislike most?

The fight against corruption, or the fight against

poverty, or equality, or the idea that

oligarchs should be taxed the same as ordinary people

while ordinary people pay less? I did that, and that’s why

it really is very important. So, as I

said at the beginning about *He Is Not Dimon to You* (Navalny’s anti-corruption film about Dmitry Medvedev), and I was talking

about that video — it’s just very important

to understand how this works in South Korea.

At the same time that the investigation was released — *He

Is Not Dimon to You* —

there were rallies, and they continued, and people

forced the authorities to investigate, and

the president of South Korea was sentenced to 24 years for

bribes that were incomparably smaller

than Medvedev’s. In Russia, he remains

Medvedev, a friend of the government, and

will quite likely remain prime minister,

and we will all go on putting up with

this weirdo who spouts his own deep

nonsense, takes endless photos with

iPhones, and then declares that

perhaps we will impose sanctions on

American goods. But it’s impossible to silently

put up with these people now — their behavior

is so unbearable and outrageous that

it’s simply impossible to stay home. So

on May 5, come out. And I’ll immediately

answer those who ask:

Is it authorized or unauthorized?

Listen carefully: there can be no such thing as

an unauthorized rally for us,

because we still have plenty of time

even before applications are submitted. Right now, you still

can’t submit an application because it’s too

early. We will submit an application, and by law, by the

Constitution, we must be granted permission.

They may illegally refuse, but we will still

act in accordance with what is written in the

Constitution.

It’s there in black and white. So such a thing as

an “unauthorized rally” in principle

cannot happen. We hope that won’t

happen — that it won’t become an illegally banned

rally. But in any case, we will submit

applications and come out where we want to march.

During those same days, from the 1st to the 9th, there will be trade union marches,

then parade rehearsals, then

the parade, then the Immortal Regiment march (a mass procession commemorating relatives who fought in World War II); the streets will

constantly be full of people, and

various events will constantly be taking place, and we

know for certain that somewhere in all this

there can surely be found a little place for us,

because we are just as much full-fledged

citizens. If trade unions

or United Russia (the ruling political party) are allowed out and we are not, that only

means even more that we need to come out.

Will there be nuclear war?

I’ve been asked that a million times, and we can see that

quite remarkably, all

Russian television has started

savoring

this whole theme — that the world stands on the

brink of war, the world stands on the brink of war. And

at moments like this, I again remember how, when I

was a little schoolboy, all

that time — around 1983 and 1984 — I was constantly

made to think, or at least I kept thinking,

what a blessing it was that I was

a little Soviet boy and not

being forced to work in a factory, as they supposedly

made children do in America. Only, of course,

those bastards could at any moment drop

an atomic bomb on us — and of course nobody

wanted that.

The main thing is that there be peace, the main thing is that there

be no war — and now they’re more or less

They start up some similar kind of thing

and talk about it on television, partly for their benefit

of course, you have to take it in stride—it helps

President Trump, who staged

some astonishing things on Twitter

using it as his main kind of information

weapon, and the sequence of tweets was

absolutely remarkable. At first there was

even the Russian ambassador in Lebanon; he

said that if the Americans strike

Syria

then those missiles—the American missiles—

will be shot down

and even the launch sites of the missiles will be

destroyed. Everyone got terribly worked up over

those words, which, strictly speaking,

are the kind of bellicose rhetoric

many of our diplomats use. And then Trump

put out his first tweet that morning

in which he wrote that Russia is promising

to shoot down any missiles. Get ready—they

are coming, and they’ll be some new

cool, smart ones that nobody will be able to

stop, so don’t you dare

support that animal Assad. After that,

President Trump wrote his next tweet

which was much more conciliatory, where he called for

an end, of course, to

the arms race, and everyone exhaled

Very recently—today, in fact—he wrote a third

tweet saying that, actually, I never

promised any immediate strike on

Syria?

Maybe there will be a strike, or maybe

there won’t, but in general, watch out

we’re very tough and all that. So it seems to me

that nothing especially terrible will

come of this, though it is quite likely that

the Americans will carry out some—it’s quite likely they will carry out some

kind of strike on Syria, but it

will not lead to any kind of game-

changing catastrophic consequences

or to a truly serious

escalation into, or threat of escalation into,

a hot phase of confrontation between

Russia and the United States, because first of all

after all

their military power is simply not comparable now

nor are the economies of our countries comparable

and of course, what nuclear

war? By the way, sometimes making such

predictions is quite easy. I say:

there will be no nuclear war

and if there is a nuclear war, you won’t

be able to verify it, and there will be no one left

to release a video saying that

Navalny was wrong, nuclear war

did happen after all. Or maybe some people

with two heads and three arms will

be putting out such videos, but we

won’t find them all that interesting anymore. It seems to me that

what is happening now is, broadly speaking,

beneficial to both Trump and Putin: it’s just this kind of

bellicose rhetoric, and each of them

uses it to distract attention from important

domestic political problems and from criticism

from the opposition, and both of them really

like it

They relish it with pleasure. Again,

Russian television once again showed

something out of my Soviet childhood (the USSR period), and

some pictures about what you need

to take with you to a bomb shelter, and that

probably makes an impression on

a certain number of citizens of the Russian

Federation. Elderly women are sitting there

clutching their hearts, wondering whether they bought

enough salt and matches, and where the

bomb shelter is

It would be better if those grandmothers didn’t know that

a significant number—hopefully not

the majority—of bomb shelters have in fact been

leased out and are being used for purposes other than

their intended one

Well, thank God, so many of them were built that

there are too many, and they have to be rented

out. So I think this whole

situation will simply lead to

hearing even more in the news about

international politics, and, and, and more

there will be no such significant consequences

for us in terms of what is happening. But still, the main

question remains

everything that is happening from the point of view of

our troops

our soldiers and our money in Syria. Why

are we there? If originally we

went there to fight ISIS, then it seemed we

left

and now it’s not even clear whether we are there

or not. Some Wagner mercenaries are there

dying, but we do not acknowledge them

Today, by the way, the new nominee

still only a nominee for the post of

U.S. State Department spokesperson said that when there was

a clash between Wagner mercenaries and

Americans, hundreds of Russians were killed. Earlier

the Americans had confirmed such a

figure—hundreds. Whether that can be believed now or not

is hard to say

for now. But in any case

some of our people are dying there, and to our great

sorrow, it is a tragedy for their

families. We do not understand what is happening there

because, well, really, how many times do you think

we have withdrawn troops from

Syria?

The first time was on March 13, 2016, when Putin

ordered troops withdrawn from Syria. The troops were withdrawn

the troops were gone. After that, Putin

thought it over and on December 29, 2016

for the second time declared that Russia

was withdrawing troops from Syria. But everyone sort of

shrugged and said

they already withdrew them, because ISIS was defeated

but once again on television they started

saying that we were withdrawing troops from Syria

well, sort of withdrew them, things calmed down after that

A year passed, and we started withdrawing troops again.

Troops from Syria, because on December 11, 2017,

Putin ordered the withdrawal of troops from Syria.

What exactly is he withdrawing, when there are no troops

left? How does that work? The thing is,

he likes it — Putin likes

ordering troops to be withdrawn from somewhere, and

even when there are no troops left, he apparently just

likes feeling like some kind of super-

demiurge, saying: I order the withdrawal

of troops. It's strange, it's incomprehensible, and

people are already laughing at it — and not just

those who can fact-check

information on the internet, but also those who

watch television, because, well, this is

supposed to be some kind of significant

event. There will be a special broadcast about it.

How can you do this three times in a row?

All right, withdrawing troops from Syria — but after all, we

also

defeated ISIS repeatedly. The first time

we declared victory over ISIS was on November 3, 2017.

Back then it was said that ISIS had been defeated,

crushed, that Russia had won the final battle

and achieved a decisive victory over ISIS.

The troops were withdrawn, everything was over — and then

the troops were there again.

Then more time passed, and on December 7, 2017,

we won a second triumphant

victory over ISIS. We withdrew troops three times,

defeated ISIS twice, and yet in

Syria we still have some kind of interests, and

still, there are some

soldiers left in Syria. Who is paying them? On what legal basis

are they there? Why are they there? Are they fighting ISIS,

or what? At the very beginning

we were told they were going there to kill

mercenaries from Dagestan and

Chechnya before those Dagestanis and

Chechens came back, that we had to

kill them there. It was strange logic, but

people believed it. But in any case, overall, it's

not very clear. Shouldn't they

report how many Dagestanis

and Chechens they killed, or whether they defeated

ISIS? Basically, nobody understands. We

know only one thing: this operation costs

many, many, many billions of

rubles.

As far as we can tell now, it seems that

this is simply support for old man Assad,

who heads Syria, which in fact

is actually ruled by that very

kind of junta that seized power.

The Russian authorities, Russian

propagandists — they love pointing their fingers everywhere

and saying there's a junta in Ukraine. Well,

"junta" isn't just an insult — Assad is exactly that,

the very definition of a junta. His father came to power in a

military coup, and now his son sits there,

with a Syrian minority imposing

its will on the majority. This is the most

genuine junta imaginable, and it's unclear why

we suddenly started supporting

the leaders of this junta.

Why? Why are our soldiers dying for this?

Why are we spending

huge amounts of money on this? Why are we

lying so helplessly, when we've already three times

withdrawn the troops?

And why, exactly, do we now need

when the economic situation is so difficult,

to pick a fight with the Americans

over these missiles and everything else?

Separately, by the way, it's very interesting

to talk about the Americans and the leadership

of the United States. As you remember, when Trump won,

not that long ago there was absolutely wild

enthusiasm. Margarita Simonyan

the head of RT (Russia Today), wrote that

she was ready to drive around Moscow with an American flag

on her car in order to

express her gratitude to

the American people. They drank champagne.

It was very funny — entire events were

organized by United Russia, where deputies

celebrated and said it was a great,

great victory. As I was preparing for this

program, I watched several such

YouTube videos and got enormous

pleasure simply comparing their faces

back then, when they were celebrating Trump's

victory, with their faces now, when Trump imposed

sanctions and says, essentially,

watch out, Russia, we will send

missiles. But the best video I found

is one minute and 43 seconds long — I

guarantee you'll enjoy it.

It's a TV show where

grown adults sit in a studio and analyze

the handshake between Trump and Putin, explaining

the greatness of Russia and Putin through that

handshake. One minute and 43 seconds.

Let's enjoy it. After all, he came up

you see, he came right up close — and the Americans

have long studied this, as have physiognomists and

specialists in neuro-linguistic

programming, and all gestures are very

important, because they are either prepared

in advance, or, when a person gets

drawn into some conversation,

many of them come from the subconscious. This is extremely

important, because behind them comes a whole

set of variations that an

opponent or partner may encounter

after some time. I think that

Vladimir Putin also studied everything that

used to be basic knowledge for us.

And in the first meeting, when Trump

extended his right hand, raising it

with the palm open — and look at this gesture too,

notice that it also

suggests he is ready for an open

dialogue. This is extremely important because

I think this was not a prepared gesture.

We've seen different gestures from Trump —

hugs and pats on the back — but this

reaching out, I believe, is genuine.

literally under a microscope, every single thing in nature

every movement, even though we don't actually know any of it

yes, that's it, that's what we're taking and focusing on

from the pictures, the play of light, the way they look into each other's eyes

because it's energy, it's

an informational transmission to each other of their

intentions, their readiness for this

dialogue, and look at the expression in

our president's eyes

it's quite stern and direct, and I think

he prepared for this meeting

like, I'm going to have a difficult conversation here

but this is

just some kind of joy to watch, you

look at the expression on our

president's face: direct. And the palm, the hand—

did you notice? His palm is on top

as if giving, offering—that means they're ready for

cooperation

and now look at how it's turned on this

side, and on that side too—it means a lot

this is neuro-linguistic

programming, and grown adults are sitting there

this guy speaking here, you wouldn't

believe it, he's the deputy chairman

of the committee on science, education, and

culture, by the way, and a major

landowner. We looked at his asset declaration

52 land plots, a stable

two houses, and lots and lots of other buildings, and

they sit there with this three-second video clip and

they play it in slow motion, and the hands

reach out, and there they are in the studio

reveling in it: just look, there it is, Putin

outplayed everyone, look at how he offers his hand and

how firmly and openly he looks at Trump

but now that a year has passed, these

videos ought to be shown to them—a year has passed since

your Trump; maybe he shouldn't have

held out his hand like that

but like this instead, or I don't know, like this to him

so that what happened wouldn't have happened

because that very same thing did happen, and that same

President Trump, the one they

practically prayed to, saying thank God

the evil woman is gone and it's good that

the new, kind Trump came in, ended up imposing such

sanctions and restrictions that Obama never even

came close to introducing. As in *Taras Bulba* (a classic Gogol novel),

you want to say: so what now?

My son, did your Trump help you? No,

he didn't help them, because this

endless clown show, where over any

nonsense—a handshake or the color of a tie

they build an entire pyramid of lies, the purpose

of which is to prove that things here are somehow

not as bad as they really are, but

wonderful

with any kind of nonsense. Here, for example, we now have

Russia's representative to the UN, this kind of

Nebenzya figure, a man who is simply rude, and this

is presented as a great achievement, as Russia's greatness

well, in

the Soviet Union there was also

a specific style of diplomacy, and

the Soviet foreign minister

Gromyko was called 'Mr. Nyet' ('Mr. No')

he would just say no, but this has already

crossed over into a kind of backyard-thug boorishness

that never used to exist, and now it's being sold to us

as some great achievement, just like

back then they showed us

'wow, look at that handshake, they're deciding things,

they're doing something important.' Well, and now

Oleg Deripaska

I hope he watches this broadcast; I think

he would be especially pleased to watch this

particular clip

showing how Russian media, Russian

propagandists

savored that very Trump who

deprived

Deripaska of several billion dollars already

and hit all Russian companies pretty hard

There are a lot of questions coming in

about whether this is good or bad, and well,

all these people—various Deripaskas, Vekselbergs

and the like—they are still, supposedly,

Russian citizens, so how are we supposed

to feel about it when

Russian citizens are being targeted? It's always bad when our

people are hit; it doesn't matter whether they're bad—if they're Russian

citizens, they're Russian citizens, and we

should stand up for them. And on this

subject I want to say: well, of course they may seem like

Russian citizens, but in reality

that same Deripaska is, note, a citizen

of Cyprus, and Vekselberg as well

has very little tying him

to Russia, practically nothing, in my view

I think he's also a citizen of a foreign state

though I can't say that with 100 percent certainty right now

I believe that actions of this kind, these kinds

of sanctions, and in general any actions

aimed at forcing our oligarchs

to share their wealth with the rest

of the people, should of course be handled

by the Russian state. But when

even the Americans do something against

our oligarchs, that's good for all of us

because the oligarchs are not our friends; they are

essentially just

international magnates

who simply plunder things here

taken from the land. And take that same

Deripaska—what has he created? Nothing, zero. It's

a giant aluminum plant in

Krasnoyarsk, and for that plant in Krasnoyarsk

the people living in Krasnoyarsk

are paying with their lungs and with their

cancer diagnoses. This is

an appalling environmental situation. In

my video about Tuleyev, I said that

Kemerovo Region is in third place for

air pollution, and Krasnoyarsk is in first place

and this is what he's making money on

Deripaska, because the Krasnoyarsk

aluminum plant brings in so much

profits, among other things

but because it is dirty production

they don’t want any treatment or purification

facilities there—they cost money, and they want to

extract more profit, and that profit

they do extract, and they want that profit for the sake of

their Cypriot, Swiss, and other such

banks, and so on. If, as a result of some

circumstances, American authorities

tax authorities—or Swiss, Zimbabwean,

Luxembourgish, whatever you like—go after

our oligarchs, that only benefits us

because oligarchs are not our friends

at all. If sanctions were imposed

against people who had genuinely

created something—well, I don’t know, Yandex or

the Magnit retail chain

which were built from scratch, or

something else like that—that would be a different matter, yes

Those are our businesspeople, the kind for whom

one might actually go to bat, excuse me,

the kind worth defending. But these people—what are they?

Deripaska—an aluminum plant,

power-sector assets bought up that had already

been built back in the Soviet Union

and that he acquired through shady dealings with Chubais

(Anatoly Chubais, a key architect of Russia’s privatization). He got them and became a billionaire. So what—

a billionaire—why should this person matter to us?

Why should we value him?

Not at all. If they’re being punished, let them be punished.

Let them be punished, and I don’t feel the slightest bit sorry for them. I

believe no one should feel

sorry for them. Their property will be frozen

on U.S. territory, and in the Beautiful Russia of the Future

we will transfer that property into the fund of the

Russian Federation

It seems to me the only people who, well,

actually feel any urge to stand up for these

oligarchs are the very leaders of the

Russian Federation. Volodin, the head of the

State Duma, first and foremost,

was the first to run out and start shouting that we need to support

them. You see, Deripaska is apparently the most

unfortunate man alive. He had, what was it,

I don’t remember, $15 billion or $10 billion,

and now the poor thing has become—how terrible—

a pauper again; tomorrow he’ll have nothing to eat,

won’t he?

The Americans have taken his last shirt—so let’s

immediately support everyone who has fallen under

sanctions. Then Medvedev said that

special measures must be developed

to support these very people

who have been hit by sanctions. But when there are

problems involving Russian citizens

who get into trouble abroad, or

simply with the millions here who have ended up below

the poverty line, or with small business—well,

look, right now the ruble exchange rate is falling again

the ruble

for a huge number of businesspeople, especially small

business owners, this is a massive problem. Do they, uh,

hold a government meeting with a list of

special measures on how to support

these businesspeople? No, they do not.

They run to save Deripaska, they run to save

Vekselberg. They have already announced that there will be

special offshore zones created for

oligarchs. This is absolutely astonishing, because

what does the creation of special

offshore zones mean? It means we will allow

them to pay less tax

Say your salary is 35,000 rubles (about $380). On that salary

you will pay 13 percent income tax,

and your employer will also be made to pay another 45

percent or so in unified social tax

contributions, and you will pay for all of that

one way or another

They will make sure it gets paid: the tax authorities will come to your employer,

shut down the business if necessary

and as for you, it doesn’t matter what kind of desperate

situation you are in—I don’t know, maybe

all your money was stolen, maybe you lost your job—but

if you don’t pay your utility bills

a bailiff will come after you. But for these people

they create special conditions so that they

can pay less tax

What does that mean in practice? It means that if

Deripaska, through his Krasnoyarsk aluminum business,

or Vekselberg, through his energy

assets, pays less tax, then less

money will come into the budget, and that money will be taken

from our education system, from our

healthcare, from our army, from people’s wages

and so on and so forth. In other words,

once again, we will pay so that

Vekselberg, Deripaska, and the rest of them

on the list can remain just as rich

Is that really the state’s priority? No, it seems to me

it is not. And that is one more reason why

people need to come out to the rallies

on May 5. By the way, on the subject of

oligarchs, my favorite spokesman hasn’t yet

shown any embarrassment, I see—yes, they’re going ahead with it

despite the fact that I hadn’t even announced

a fundraiser today; people are writing, asking where to send money

Good for them. Peskov stated that

there are no oligarchs in Russia. I was very

amused by the fact that, overall,

the state sociological service

which, by the way,

quite remarkably, conducted a survey and

found that 94 percent of our

fellow citizens, of course, know that

there are oligarchs in Russia. And again, yes,

this is why I say that the authorities

completely ignore everyone—those 94 percent, and in

fact, we can assume

that 99.9 percent

of people would say: of course we know that

there are oligarchs in Russia—otherwise, what are

Abramovich and Usmanov supposed to be?

And Deripaska too—everyone, everyone

knows it: Putin supporters, anti-Putin people, everyone knows. But

then Peskov, a state official,

not just a press secretary but the deputy head of the

presidential administration, says that in

Russia there are no oligarchs. What are we supposed to say to that?

What are mothers supposed to say to that? You're lying.

We used to say, "You, with your mustache and that face of yours..."

many times over, but here you're just lying outright.

Sir, over something so obvious, the main thing is—

the main question is why. Well, tell me: is there oligarchy in Russia?

Oligarchy is bad, of course, but we just subtract

the oligarchs from the picture—

and call them major businessmen instead. But that was

a transitional period. No, what we need is to gather

all the absurdity together and say: there are no oligarchs in Russia?

So on 5/05, come out. Because it's impossible

to tolerate this. If you have questions—I see a lot

of questions on Twitter—write them with the hashtag

#Navalny2018, and I'll answer them. Simurg cut—

People ask: won't these sanctions against oligarchs only

raise taxes and make us pay? No matter how you slice it,

it'll be bad—bad for all of us.

But that's not how it's meant to work by default.

First it's bad for the oligarchs, and then

the government starts rescuing them and

ends up making things worse for all of us. Well then,

the task is different: our task is to change

the government.

The task is to put pressure on officials

in such a way that they say, well,

Deripaska (Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska),

you wanted to play games with the Americans,

you were hiring Manafort and the rest for

some kind of dealings involving American

elections. You wanted to be

a cool international businessman, well,

now you've been caught, you've been nailed, so

sorry—you have to pay for it out of

your own fortune, not out of your future

taxes. But no—they want to take it from

tax revenue. So we need to fight

the government. Ivan George Lynn asks:

Alexei, what independent sources

should we read and watch?

At a time like this, that's an excellent question, Ivan.

Well, apart from the Navalny 2018 program, I don't

know—I currently read Meduza. Of the

daily media outlets, it's one that really is

independent and consistently provides that kind of information.

There's Meduza, The New Times—I got sidetracked, I don't

know what else. Well, of course, Mediazona

too—though as a daily outlet it has more of a

focus, naturally, on law enforcement

and the courts. Although lately,

all the news seems to fall into that category. But among

the truly objective and fully

independent media outlets, I can't even

remember more right now: Meduza, Mediazona, The New Times—

that's it. I've probably forgotten someone, and they'll

be terribly offended with me, but in fact, when it comes to reading,

that's about it.

And this also points to why, in my

video, I said that one of the main

demands for 5/05

should be: we demand the abolition of

censorship. We demand that information be made available; we demand

access be provided—

access to the media for all politicians, because

mass media simply does not exist in

Russia. Igor Sidorov asks:

What do you think about the new law

on conscripts? Well, I think it's a bad

law. Let me remind you: the law that was passed means that

now the draft office no longer has to serve you

with a summons—you have to go to the draft office yourself and

pick it up. This was done

so that they can immediately accuse you of

draft evasion. Previously, the way it worked was that

nobody wants to—

the overwhelming majority do not want to serve

in the army, because no one wants to be building

someone's dacha (country house), and in general no one understands

why the draft in the army still hasn't been

abolished, why it still hasn't been turned into

a professional volunteer army. Even Putin

said several years ago that

Russia should be moving toward

a contract-based army, and not long ago he repeated

that again. But instead they

are still imposing conscription.

For most people, it's a lost year of life,

plain and simple.

Lost time, and then for one year—who knows—

you might get beaten there, or face some kind of

dedovshchina (violent hazing of younger conscripts). It varies

from person to person, but still, no one

wants to send their child somewhere where

there may be hazing, or there may not—

it's a fifty-fifty chance. People don't want

to go there after university.

Conscription has turned into a tax on

the poor, because it is mostly poor people who

serve,

while the rich buy their way out. I think this is

an extremely harmful law. It will simply

lead to more bribes being taken

at draft offices, because now, by default,

if you didn't show up, that's it—you're a draft dodger.

You're labeled a draft dodger, and you already have a whole bunch of

restrictions on you. So come here,

please, and bring the draft officer

a little money

so that we can get you out of the army.

That's exactly how it already works. Look:

from Moscow and St. Petersburg, from wealthy

cities, far fewer people go

to serve than from the provinces. "Bespontovy Pirozhok" asks:

How do you come up with names like that?

Alexei, two questions: where do officials

declare their property, and can you

find property records on Google? Will there be more

trips to different cities?

First: some officials who

are required to file declarations—well, a fairly large number of them—

do publish those declarations

publicly

on their agencies' websites, most often.

You can go to the section—now almost everywhere there is

such a section—

called "Anti-Corruption," and there you'll find information

under some long, cumbersome heading like "Information on

property and non-property rights"

and so on, blah blah blah—so you can look there.

You can check it out — there’s a more convenient website like that.

Deklarant.

At the URC, most of those people are not...

Rather, a significant portion of those people

who are required to file declarations.

Most likely, the person you’re looking for, you

will find on the Deklarator website. Will there be

trips to different cities? There will be trips to

different cities, of course. Every politician should

go to the cities.

Daniil Chzheny, how can one get a job at

FBK? I recently saw a posting — please tell me

more about it, please. We are looking for

programmers right now; there’s a section on the website.

As for how things are generally organized at

FBK, FBK exists on your

donations, so however much money we

receive from you in donations,

that’s how many people we can hire. And new vacancies

open either when

people leave for some reason, or

when, in a lucky moment, you send us

more money and we can hire even more

additional people. It’s very simple. We have

a very transparent procedure, which we

are proud of: people send in their résumés, and they

are reviewed by the department that hires people.

And in that sense,

we developed it so that there would be no

conflicts of interest. We have separate

people who handle hiring. Everything is done

on a competitive basis; they review résumés.

You apply, and then you’ll either be hired or not

hired.

As for Aman Tuleyev, I can’t

not discuss him, especially since he

honored me with such a wonderful name.

Let me remind you: on the website of the Legislative Assembly of Kemerovo Region,

an entire press release was published

saying that various federal and

regional media outlets and online publications

are deliberately insulting and

misinforming people

about Aman Tuleyev’s activities. In this way,

they were obviously reacting to

our video about Aman Tuleyev’s astonishing state dacha (government-owned country residence)

and

it really is a truly

impressive thing, and I sincerely do not

understand why Aman Tuleyev should still

retain that state dacha.

Let’s take just a few seconds

to look at it again, just as a reminder,

because it’s not just that the dacha is

huge — relatively speaking, it’s not even that large.

It’s just that everything is arranged so that it’s all spread across

several houses, and the plot of land there

is absolutely enormous. Amazing. Just a few

seconds: he has three houses with a total area of

more than 1,000 square meters (about 10,764 sq ft) visible in full.

Several more houses are visible along the

edges of the frame. This is really a unique

feature of Tuleyev’s residence: instead of

one large multi-story dacha, he

built many

single-story ones. In total, we counted

12 residential buildings on the property. It’s like

his own private village. A road runs through the entire

residence, and its

length is almost 1 kilometer (0.6 miles). We

looked at it closely, and it is probably

the best road in all of Kemerovo Region. I

really believe that what

happened with Tuleyev is a direct

public and cynical insult to all

of us. He resigned — he was forced

to resign under public pressure — and

then they brought him back.

Well, not literally to the same chair, but simply to

the neighboring one.

And now he is the chairman

of the Legislative Assembly. In the previous

program, I said that he might

become that,

but I still didn’t fully believe it, because

even United Russia’s Sergey Neverov

the head of United Russia’s executive committee,

said that he believed this was

wrong and that people would not understand it. That is,

even a member of United Russia, who generally

of course doesn’t care about people — by the way,

Neverov is from a mining region —

even he says: how can this be? You can’t do this.

Many people had just died there, and Tuleyev

insulted the relatives of those who died, and

he sat there for 28 years and ruined everything. If

you have been in that region, if you live in

Kemerovo Region, you can see that the region

is truly in a deplorable state.

The region is in bad shape, especially the city of Kemerovo.

Novokuznetsk, in that sense, does not

look quite so abandoned, but

in central Kemerovo there are these

crooked, monstrous shacks — it’s

awful, even though the region ought to be rich.

The environmental situation is terrible, and here you are:

you had almost left under pressure, and then you

came back, became speaker, and on top of that,

somehow you kept that state dacha for yourself

for no clear legal reason.

But a state dacha is, after all,

a residence built by the state, in which

the governor lives temporarily. You stopped

being governor, so why the hell should you

still keep this enormous dacha in a huge

forest? That should not happen. And when

someone shows this dacha, what does Tuleyev do?

In response, they issued

a statement on the regional council’s website

saying that certain media outlets are spreading

such videos, and therefore Tuleyev

is appealing to the prosecutor’s office so that

the prosecutor’s office will examine, as they put it, the legality

and then punish those people who

are spreading this kind of information. In other words,

it’s the prosecutor’s office against us. We understand how

everything works in Kemerovo Region:

the prosecutor’s office will come and say, well...

the state dacha is all legal, and

then they’ll go running to make claims

against those who spread

porn online—this is absolutely

truthful information. You see, if

you, dear crooks from United Russia, have so

twisted the law that someone can be

a governor and then instantly become

a deputy and become speaker

of the legislative assembly, then of course it is

legal. But is it decent?

Is it humane to act like that,

to insult people like that? Absolutely not, absolutely

not. It all looks especially disgusting

against the backdrop of how

the investigation is being conducted now. And in

the previous program I said they would punish

the scapegoats. The whole country is saying for sure

they’ll go after the scapegoats. That is literally

what is happening, because now they have already

opened a criminal case against

the commander of a fire brigade unit—that is, the

very firefighter who was shown on

television immediately after

the tragedy, explaining there how they

what they did, by the way.

Originally, in the Kemerovo plan,

they didn’t want to make him a hero at all. If you

go right now to the website

of the regional EMERCOM (Russia’s emergency services), there is still

a post about how this Sergey

Genin heroically saved people there, how

what a great guy and a hero he is. And now

they’ve opened a criminal case against him, and

they searched his home. So it is entirely

possible that he did a poor job of putting out

the fire; it is entirely possible that he acted

improperly. But why search his home?

What do you want to find there, in his home?

What for?

What do you want to seize—a

fire helmet, or a secret plan signed by me

on how to put out a fire badly,

or something else? No, this is just that

disgusting state

machine of ours that is now looking for

scapegoats while protecting officials like Tuleyev

and no searches were carried out at the homes of

the EMERCOM leadership, which dismantled

the fire service. No searches were

carried out there. But this man directly—

the one who was running around there with a pike pole, covered in soot,

trying to save someone there, more

conscientiously—no less conscientiously—but

this guy with a pike pole, in canvas gear

and a helmet, running around somewhere, risking

his life—you search his home

and make him the fall guy. That is

simply disgusting, what is happening in

the Kemerovo region.

I believe the whole country should follow this

and we should all keep telling each other

about it, and we must constantly

remember Tuleyev, who at this very

moment is sitting inside his 15

hectares of forest (about 37 acres),

a significant part of which was additionally

dug out illegally, and continues

to enjoy life despite the fact that

he should be the first to face searches,

investigation, and then trial. And by the way,

and by the way, the main thing is:

a huge thank you to everyone who donated in

the program before last to the

[music]

fundraiser. We’ll show you now

the receipts: we transferred the collected 500,000

rubles to two families whose children died in the fire

These families are from the settlement of

Treshchotki, and, well, you understand that

people who do not even live in Kemerovo

but somewhere out in the region have even greater

there

financial problems, although of course

those financial problems are

nothing against the backdrop of this monstrous family

tragedy. These people’s lives are broken

forever. But perhaps at least some

everyday practical matters will now be easier to resolve

with all of our help.

So thank you very much to everyone who

took part in this fundraiser.

Now, the Moscow mayoral election. I’ve seen

quite a lot of questions—the question

hanging over me now is: what about your

poll on the channel, when will you

give us the results? I really did conduct

a poll on

the big, main YouTube channel

to understand what people think about

what is happening, how they feel about different

politicians. And one of the interesting things for

us was that we compared the ratings

of various politicians, and in that way we

could simply understand which politicians are

more popular and less popular, at least

among those supporters who use

YouTube.

A total of 140,000 people completed the questionnaire

to the end. It is the largest survey in the entire

history of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and there

we also, in particular, measured the ratings

of Gudkov and Yashin, who are now

arguing over who should be

the single opposition candidate for mayor of Moscow. I can

say that Yashin’s rating

is more than one and a half times higher than

Gudkov’s rating.

And all this is to say that right now we have

this endless conversation: Dmitry Gudkov a year

ago said that he wants to run for

mayor, and Ilya Yashin recently said that

he wants to run for mayor, and each accuses the other

of being a spoiler, of breaking

agreements, of being a bad person,

and mostly they even accuse me,

because they think there is this kind of

evil mastermind Navalny behind it all, for some reason.

put Yashin forward in order to

hurt Gudkov. I’m just

stating the results. Here we see a post

by Dmitry Gudkov saying that

it was all Navalny’s idea, that

everything was fine until Navalny showed up

and put Yashin forward. But according to our poll

among supporters—we haven’t done a major

sociological survey yet, we’ll just do one, but

for now there are no results. Among supporters,

Yashin is significantly more popular with them

than Dmitry, and you definitely can’t

say that he is his spoiler candidate. But I want to

say something else: how, in general, do you

think we should, in this kind of situation,

how are we supposed to choose? Not between

let it be not Yashin and Gudkov, but A.V.

Vasichkin

And Petechkin. Vasichkin and Petechkin both want

to be mayor, and both Vasichkin and Petechkin say

that they represent the opposition, and

one has more supporters than the other,

the other has fewer, and those

people who say, “For heaven’s sake, they should

just unite,” are the dumbest people. When

you see comments under posts like

“Oh my God, you’re arguing—when will you

stop fighting among yourselves and

make peace,”

and put forward a single candidate—those are

the dumbest people. Don’t repeat

that nonsense after them, because it will never

happen. It fundamentally cannot

happen. Vasichkin wants to run and has

the right to, and Petechkin wants to run and has

the right to as well. Both have supporters.

How exactly are Vasichkin and Petechkin

supposed to come to an agreement? It’s

impossible. More than that, even if Vasi-

chkin and Petechkin somehow did agree, then

the Kremlin would look at that and put forward

some oink-oink Shishkin, and oink-oink

Shishkin would come in and act as a spoiler

with pigtails or commuter trains or whatever. It’s impossible

for politicians to come to an agreement among themselves because

there is one office, and the winner takes all. In

single-member elections, there will never be

any lasting agreement between politicians.

We have to come to an agreement among ourselves.

Right now I’m speaking not only as a politician

but as a voter. I think—and you

are interested in a simple, the simplest

thing: I want us to have a strong

candidate, the strongest one we

can put forward, and for that person to give Sobyanin

a real fight, to show that in Moscow

Sobyanin cannot win in the first round

or might even lose altogether, so that he exposes

the problems and tells voters how

badly Sobyanin is running the city

so that more people learn the truth. I

don’t care what this candidate’s last name is.

I want us to put forward

the strongest one. How are we

supposed to choose him? We should

agree among ourselves that it will be through

primaries. How else, guys? If we

want to influence this, then we have to

say to Vasichkin, Petechkin, Gudkov, Yashin:

come on, guys, present your programs,

hold debates among yourselves, mobilize

your supporters, bring those supporters

to the polling place, online or offline,

and whoever gets more votes is the one more

ready for competition in a real election

against Sobyanin or anyone else.

There is no other way to resolve this.

It’s impossible; no agreements will

hold. But when it comes to actual action, I can tell you

in advance: whenever there are elections, whether

to the Moscow City Duma or the State Duma, there are

a few prime districts in the center

of major cities, and everyone will rush there, and

any agreements will be broken.

Take the last State Duma elections, for example, in

Moscow’s central district, probably the best district

in the country. It seemed they had reached an agreement among themselves—

Yabloko (a Russian liberal party) and PARNAS (a Russian opposition party) nominated Professor

Zubov.

They had agreed, and then Open

Russia, Khodorkovsky’s movement, came running in and nominated some

candidate they found God knows where, and put forward

Baronova, who acted as a spoiler for Gudkov

and took a little under 10 percent from him.

It’s impossible to make deals, because there’s

Khodorkovsky, Baronova, and anyone else who says,

“We want to run too, and we have supporters,”

and “we have to nominate someone.” So this is a question

not for politicians but for us. We need to tell everyone:

run, all of you, we don’t care, everyone run,

just go to the

primaries, and whoever wins the primaries

is the one we vote for. And whoever refuses,

gets scared, doesn’t show up, or cheats—for them

we will not vote. Honestly, I

don’t see any other format. And

the situation is constantly changing. If

you had asked me a year ago whom I

supported in the Moscow mayoral election,

I would have said Gudkov. I saw that he was working on it, he had

some kind of his own, more or less

coherent plan, and I didn’t

like his cooperation with Yabloko; I

said so at the time. But at least there was

some kind of concept there: together with

Yabloko, he was doing everything together with Yabloko,

he was working with municipal deputies,

municipal debates liked him—and let’s

listen to what he said quite recently

at the Yabloko congress, after

registration, when he was already

a candidate and the election campaign was

already in full swing, nearing its end.

Give me a few seconds.

Dmitry Gudkov: We have the Yabloko party,

which for many years

has remained true to its principles. Today I

want to speak about something else, about the fact that

by joining forces with Yabloko, by uniting

Grigory Yavlinsky, back during the election campaign,

for the State Duma, we gradually

learned together how to win again. I believe

that the municipal campaign in Moscow

was only our first step. It is a very

important story — a success story, a story

of effective unity that produced

results. Those results inspired not

only Muscovites, but also many residents

of many regions of our country.

Right, wonderful words, and everything

somehow sounded good because of Grigory... and then

then, three days before the election, we see

Dmitry, who says: I made

an offer to Ksenia Sobchak, and Ksenia Sobchak

agreed — we are going to the election.

Yabloko hates Gudkov with every fiber

of its soul, and, well, it is honestly hard even to say

how exactly one could blame Yabloko for that.

A significant number of voters

are simply looking at this in astonishment, and, well,

my confidence that we need

to support him is no longer as strong, and not even

because of the fact that he

betrayed Yabloko, yes, but because Sobchak

gave him a huge negative rating. He lost

Yabloko’s support, and it will be very hard for him

now to consolidate our votes

in order to challenge Sobyanin. But nevertheless,

he did what he did. It is entirely

possible that they still have

a sufficient number of supporters, but

now Yashin has also come out, and not

only Yashin — some people are also saying

that they also want to try now, because

well, somehow they are not sure that

Dmitry is the best candidate. And Dmitry Gudkov

says, writes, that Navalny is such a bad

person, that he arranged all of this, and that we should

hold primaries among municipal

deputies. As a municipal depu— well then,

whatever they decide, that is what it will be. But I, I usually

even though I am a municipal deputy — how can

I vote in them? Please, I

also want to decide who should

go to the election, and I think you want the same thing

as you sit in front of the screen and say:

well, my opinion too — please

take it into account. After all, the election

campaign will begin, and, excuse me, you will come and say:

Become a volunteer.

Donate a few thousand rubles,

do this, do that, hand out leaflets — I

will do all of that, but please take into account

my opinion in the primaries. I promise that whoever

wins these primaries and receives

support, I will honestly campaign for

that candidate. So give me primaries,

give me the opportunity to express my

opinion on this. It is a very, very

simple arrangement; there is nothing

terrible about it.

I believe that both Yashin and Gudkov should

step forward, compete, and we will all decide. If a

person does not want to take part in the primaries, well,

then it means he does not need the support of a large

number of people; it means he is not ready

to take part in debates. They say there

that we are not ready for online

primaries because, supposedly,

everything will be rigged.

And for offline primaries we are not ready because

there, you know,

Sobyanin will bus in state employees. But for the election

won’t Sobyanin bus in state employees? He will bus them into

any place whatsoever. But if

you are not ready in the primaries

to somehow compete with state employees, then in

a regular direct election you

have no chance at all.

We need proper procedures in order

to understand whether this politician is brave,

whether this politician is honest, whether he is ready for

a real contest, whether he is ready to lose. I am calling

right now, live on air, on Dmitry and Ilya

to agree as soon as possible on holding

direct primaries.

With some kind of conditions that one supports the other

for mayor, or vice mayor, or whatever you like,

but that is the only thing that should

be agreed upon — there should be an agreement

like — excuse me, please, I really

need a vacation, and I very much hope

that I will go on one very soon.

The only agreement that

is possible and necessary is this: never agree

that one should withdraw in favor of the other without

direct competition. Let them take part in

the primaries. We demand them, we want them, we

will support whoever wins. And victory there

can be earned through hard work — anyone can win.

A new person, unknown to anyone, can

come forward and beat both Gudkov

and Yashin, and that would be normal. It would mean

we should support that person. And by the way,

even Moscow

deputies — I see that many of the heads

of municipal assemblies there do not really

like this idea of internal correctness;

they also want

normal, open primaries, because

this matters. We will all become stronger precisely

because of that. I have drifted a little off

topic again on air, but I cannot help mentioning the warmth of

Slutsky.

Because deputy Slutsky is the very same one

who groped female journalists — excuse the

expression — in the State Duma, grabbing them by

various body parts and inviting them to become his

mistresses. We checked his property, and

we discovered that he has a large

piece of undeclared land. This was

very easy to find — just by looking through the

registry. And the day before yesterday, and yesterday, excuse me,

there was a meeting of the ethics commission that

is supposed to examine such things. There was our

favorite, Natalia Poklonskaya.

And basically, we all understood that apparently

apparently there was a possibility that

deputy Poklonskaya was, well, not very

smart, but we underestimated just how much

I mean, it's not just that she's not very smart, the point is that

she's an eternally lying hypocrite. But first, let's

watch a few seconds of what, in fact,

was uncovered there illegally

what Slutsky failed to declare

and then we'll hear what exactly

Ms. Poklonskaya did, and then we

move to Rublyovka (an elite residential area outside Moscow). Let's

take a look at the deputy's 800-square-meter house

He's owned it since 1999, so I won't even

raise the question of where the money came from; prices

were different back then, so let's

assume he had the money. But the issue

here is not the cost, but the size of the plot

Slutsky declares a plot of 1,200

square meters, but if we carefully

examine the boundaries of the actual plot,

we'll see that they differ greatly

from what's on paper, which leads to

the thought that Slutsky grabbed for himself even more

land illegally. But no—Slutsky did not

seize the land illegally. In 2008, he

leased a neighboring forest

plot

another hectare. So, we sent

all these materials to the State Duma, and Poklonskaya

as head of the commission looked at them and said

something astonishing: we cannot assess Slutsky

and the materials that were sent to us

could not have been taken from open

sources. So Poklonskaya, a former

prosecutor—how she ever worked as a prosecutor

it's like, you know, how could she have worked in

that field? How can a person who, well,

excuse me, understands absolutely nothing

at all—this is Poklonskaya—say that these materials

cannot be from an open source?

So, fine, I'll send an inquiry

and let them check it.

Yes, and we provided her with an extract

from Rosreestr (Russia's state property registry), publicly available—any of you

can look at this extract. You

go to Rosreestr, an open source, and

you see there that Slutsky leases much more land

than he declared, and

you compare his public declaration

on the State Duma website with the public registry,

the official Russian state

Rosreestr, and you say that this

doesn't match, which means he did not

declare it

But Poklonskaya says something about closed

sources, that we need to check very carefully

This person, receiving 450,000 rubles a month

is very, very unintelligent—you could even say

extremely stupid. I genuinely do not understand

Well, it's clear that for them she's some kind of

important PR asset for the current regime,

some kind of tough, unbreakable person,

"nyash-myash" (a cutesy nickname associated with Poklonskaya), she's this cute

girl with a thin little voice

and it's fun to show her on television. But

if she understands absolutely nothing,

it's obvious she wants to protect Slutsky

but when you're defending someone with some kind of

crooked but at least

not completely idiotic method—and she can't even do that

that is deeply upsetting. On April 14,

the governor of the Moscow Region

will have his birthday, and in a large

number of towns around Moscow

people want to congratulate him and are holding

rallies there. Please show the graphic

If you live in the Moscow Region,

be sure to take part in one of these

rallies. These are all rallies against

illegal landfills. You can see that the entire

Moscow Region

has been turned into a dump. If you're in

Volokolamsk, Dmitrov, Balashikha,

Klin, Krasnoarmeysk, Sergiyev Posad

or Serpukhov

or in Shatura, be sure to come and

congratulate this king of the garbage mafia

with your presence at the rally

This is very important, because we can see that

real repression is now falling, in particular,

on the organizers of the rally

in Volokolamsk

Artyom Lyubimov is under arrest right now

some criminal cases are already being opened against them

It's absolutely outrageous

Here is Artyom Lyubimov wearing glasses

you can see him in the photo right now. He

had an appeal hearing

Let me explain how this works—I myself have many times

been through this. You get arrested, and then

in the middle of your sentence, your appeal is heard

and they may

release you. In my case, once they reduced

my term from 30 days to 25 days

and sometimes people are released. But here it was done

in such a way that you can see how the mafia

works: his appeal hearing took place

and the Moscow City Court said that the witnesses

had not appeared, so they postponed it and scheduled

the next appeal for a date after

his term ends—that is, it is now

theoretically impossible for him

to secure release. These

rights guaranteed by law—it's clear

that they are illusory, but even those he

has been completely deprived of. And the best description

of this whole system was given by

investigators from the Main Directorate

of the Interior Ministry for the Chelyabinsk Region

Mr. Gumerov, whose conversation

was recorded on a hidden camera. So let's

watch it at the end of the program

They promised the investigator not only

This is what our entire justice system

really is—a system built on extortion

and corruption, although right now no one can

do anything when people like you are treated this way

wizards, darlings, little crumbs of all kinds

as a result, by morning, with their faces, the day, his students

that to catch people, in fact, the very

the main ones, accumulated, employees, for no reason

in general, all of them—deputies and all politicians

to force, with oneself, two large sums of money on

this—Germans, for this, something trivial

all of ours about you, all our justice

this corrupt system, the main crooks

these are deputies and politicians sitting in

their offices

you are absolutely right, our dear friend

policeman Gumerov, I applaud you on behalf of

the entire population of the Russian

Federation

that is precisely why we can do this to them

Gumerov, we will write it—well, probably without those

words that we replaced with asterisks

we will write his words on the slogans of this

rally, so 5 0 5, please

be sure to come out for the following

programs, and if all goes well, in the

there will be no next program, because I

hope to go on a short vacation for

the next day; very soon I will return to you

rested, and I hope no longer

not locking up—5 0 5, get ready for the

rally. Bye, everyone—yes, in a week

[music]