Putin’s Lies, a Bribe for Slutsky (Exclusive), and Rising Gas Prices

[music]

Hello, everyone. Today is Thursday, which means

the Navalny 2018 program is airing as

usual. In the studio are Lyubov Sobol

and Ivan Zhdanov.

We, uh, I think, I hope that the next time in this

studio it will be Alexei

Navalny, because he has only

seven days left to serve of his administrative arrest

sentence. So next Thursday, I

hope he will already be here in the studio

talking to you and telling you about

the most important events of the past

week. This week there was,

I think, actually, that Alexei

will probably spend half an hour telling stories from

the special detention center (a facility for short-term administrative detention), where he is serving 30 days.

That is, of course, a very long time. And

special detention centers have fairly harsh

conditions for people serving

administrative arrest there. We very much

hope that both Alexei Navalny and

our other colleagues, and other

political prisoners who are currently

being held in places of detention,

will be released as soon as

possible. We are waiting very much, we hope, and we will

be glad to see Alexei Navalny

free.

It seems to me that after the number of books

Alexei Navalny has read

while serving administrative arrest, he

will come out a sage and will simply enlighten all of us

with his wisdom, just

radiating it over everyone.

And

it will conquer everything. But today,

obviously, the topic everyone was still

discussing was Putin’s interview and

his live call-in show. On Twitter, this topic somehow

was not as prominent as usual; it was

clear that this theme really is, well, an opera

that has already been lost for the twentieth time and does not

generate any excitement. And those

glassy, affected poses of the people

asking questions were discussed

less, but it was still somehow

noticeable. Did you watch today’s

broadcast?

Well, not really noticeable, actually.

I opened my Twitter feed today,

and everyone was once again discussing Vladimir Putin’s

Direct Line (the annual televised call-in show with the Russian president). And I was like,

here we go again, the same old tune. I just immediately

put my phone away. I thought, no, I need

to work, because this is just

unbearable by now. I’m sick of the same

questions, the same repetitive answers. And year

after year we hear the same thing on

Russian television screens about how

our economy is going to grow, how our

foreign partners are unfairly restricting us,

how Vladimir Putin is heroically defending

the interests of the citizens of our country. And honestly,

this is no longer interesting to me,

because probably the main

intrigue of the day was how many

minutes late Vladimir Putin would be

for his Direct Line—or whether he would be late at all.

Everything else simply has no

significance, because words—of course, he

knows how to crack a joke,

answer a question somehow, say something

pleasant to someone, I don’t know—but behind

these words that he says year

after year, no actions, unfortunately,

follow. It was hard to expect,

and naive to expect, that during

his Direct Line he would announce

some serious reform, that he would

make some serious statements

that he had not made before.

Naturally, it was all exactly the same,

in exactly the same phrases. I think that

if Dissernet (a Russian anti-plagiarism watchdog) analyzes it,

there will clearly be a lot of plagiarism from

his other speeches. And Vladimir Putin—

listen, weren’t you surprised by the number of these

bootlickers who appeared on the broadcast? I mean,

seriously, Gazzaev, instead of

asking a question, thanked him

ten times, and in some kind of

subservient tone he fawned over him and

in the end didn’t ask a question. There was just

a ton of that over those four hours,

really.

Well, forgive me, but that happens on every

Direct Line. There has simply never

been anything else there. And about Gazzaev, I even

saw that people counted that in his

remarks, when he was supposed to ask

some kind of question, he could have asked

many questions about Russian

football, probably, because the whole country right now—well,

all

the people who follow Russian

footballers, it seems to me, now have

a lot of questions for our national team,

the team’s management, and the country’s sports

leadership about what on earth

is going on. Why didn’t we beat

Turkey? How are we going to perform at the

World Cup?

Why are there no changes, and so on.

But what did Gazzaev do? I saw this

statistic: he said “thank you” to Vladimir

Putin five times. Three times he wished him

good health. And zero times did he ask him

any specific question. And today journalists

called me a lot and

asked me too: What question would you

ask Vladimir Putin, Lyubov?

Do you have a question?

And I answered honestly that I

have no questions for Vladimir Putin. I

have only demands: to comply with the

Constitution and to leave, to resign,

to step down from his post, because, uh, Putin

He is no tsar to us, and I have no questions for him. In fact,

it seems to me there is also this

myth that you can probably ask some

complicated, tricky question to

Vladimir Putin and that he will suddenly

understand what is happening in the country.

Vladimir Putin already

the surname Navalny—say the surname

Navalny.

Vladimir Putin already understands perfectly well

what is happening in our country. He created this

situation both in the economy and in politics

with his own hands, right? That is, he—

all the levers of governing the country lead

directly to his office. We have no

decentralization of power. Vladimir Putin

does whatever he wants in this country.

So I have no myths or

illusions—he understands everything

perfectly well himself, and no questions will throw him

off balance, because he knows perfectly well

what is going on here. So I have no

questions for Vladimir Putin. What I do

have is a demand that he obey

the Constitution and resign, leave

this post, and ensure a real turnover

of power in our country, real

political competition, and real

reforms that our homeland needs.

I completely agree. And a vivid example

of the fact that Putin understands the whole

situation perfectly well—many people say,

"Maybe Vladimir Vladimirovich

is not aware of what is happening to the country,

how many people are being persecuted, how many are being jailed

for likes, reposts, and retweets." And

today one indication is that he himself

said he had been closely following

the situation on Telegram. He knows perfectly well

that people are being jailed for likes,

reposts. And there is no need for these extra

illusions that he is somehow unaware and

doesn’t know something. He knows everything

perfectly well. And this call-in show (Putin’s annual televised Q&A)

shows that it is a cold,

cynical performance, a cold

spectacle. He has not gone mad yet, unfortunately.

Well, or fortunately—I

don’t know. If he had gone mad,

maybe it would be even worse. But we can

say after this interview that he is still

perfectly, cynically on top of everything

that is going on, and what is happening is

his handiwork. And there is no need to indulge the illusion

that he is unaware of certain situations. And

the more significant event this week, of course,

was his interview with the Austrian

channel ORF. That interview, of course,

showed his mastery of how to

wriggle out of things

and dissemble and lie. He is very good at

shifting questions to the topic that is

advantageous to him. He is very good at answering

questions about domestic policy by turning

everything into international politics. Did you

read that interview? It was simply

a landmark event that happened

on

I completely agree. And in fact,

I would advise no one to watch the call-in show

if you missed it. You really

didn’t miss anything at all.

Nothing original, nothing new.

Just utterly crude, brazen lies

pouring today from the screens into the ears

of our fellow citizens. But this interview,

which my colleague Ivan just mentioned,

the one Putin gave when he came to

Vienna to extend Gazprom’s contract

for gas supplies to Europe—this

interview is quite significant, because

I can’t even remember the last time

Vladimir Putin was asked so many

substantive uncomfortable questions, questions

about Russia’s domestic policy and

Russia’s foreign policy, about his

election campaign, about the opposition in

Russia. And these questions were really

you know, as people say on YouTube,

a battle of facts. In other words, very important and

very well-formulated questions were asked by

a foreign journalist. And I was

very interested to hear what answers

Vladimir Putin would give to them, because

on Russian television, unfortunately, no one

asks him questions like that.

He didn’t just ask questions—he

pressed them. He asks a question,

sees Putin dodging it, and then

pushes again on the same topic. He says:

"No, answer the question: were there

little green men there? Did you lie or not lie

when you talked about the little green men in

Crimea?" And he kept pressing. It was really

excellent. Really. And remember how Peskov

gave some interview? How in an

interview, I think with the BBC, he was directly

twisting and turning, and they kept pressing him. And

when a journalist is not just

obsequious,

and we all watch not only these call-in shows,

but also remember how he meets with

journalists, and there one question is like

something a journalist is lucky to snatch

for themselves, asks it, and that’s it—they

can’t develop the topic any further. Well,

often 90% of it is, of course, the usual

nonsense, but there are 10% of somewhat normal questions

in there. Putin calmly dodges them, and

the subject goes no further. But people like that

need to be pressed and shown

to be lying. And that is the clearest

indicator.

Vladimir Putin always avoids

such questions. That is why he gives so

few interviews to foreign

journalists, because his favorite

formats are press conferences and live

line. Precisely because it’s impossible there

to ask a probing question. You simply can’t

ask a follow-up to that question,

catch him in a lie, because at a

press conference, a Russian journalist

stands up, asks a question, and then Putin

answers. If he lies straight to the faces of

the viewers and that journalist, then

the journalist can’t continue anymore,

because the microphone has already been passed

to someone else. And Putin

really likes formats like that, where he can

answer and remain the king of the situation.

But in an interview, which he

very rarely gives to real journalists, he

doesn’t like them precisely because he

can be caught in those lies, he can be

pressed on that situation.

Naturally, I both read and watched this

interview. I read it first, then

I was curious what it looked like. And

if in text form I still read it with some

degree of calm, then when I

watched a smiling, laughing

Putin talking about the downed

Boeing, talking around the issue,

hypocritically dodging those questions,

disgustingly lying straight to people’s faces, I—I

was honestly furious.

He even switched into German there

and was practically shouting “Scheiße, Scheiße”

or something like that. Yes, he, he really

was really trying to look like the master

of the situation, getting ahead with various

questions, answering with questions of his own,

counterattacking, and so on. It looked

disgusting, because that

hypocrisy and lying were simply

completely out in the open. And I could clearly see even

people who, you know, people whom

probably nothing affects anymore and

who already understand perfectly well everything about

Russian reality, about our

authorities, and who are already used to this

coming from television screens and from our

authorities—even they found this interview

to be some kind of peak of hypocrisy. And

even they were not left indifferent by it.

To speak more specifically, I

would first of all advise everyone to watch and

or read this interview, because

then you will simply form a final

picture of the Russian

president. Of course, not a word of it

was true, because you could

go through it for a very long time. Literally,

every single answer to every question—I have it

printed out here—this interview could simply

be read aloud, and then probably

we wouldn’t finish the program at 21:18, but

sometime much later. They asked before the broadcast

to print it out because, well, it’s worth

dwelling on some moments. What

caught your attention? A lot of things caught mine.

But first of all, of course, the question

he was asked, one of the first ones—

it was about Prigozhin, where he is asked about

Prigozhin, Putin’s “cook,” a close

trusted associate of his, who,

of course, is now involved in Syria,

and Defense Ministry contracts, and

state tenders, and takes part in hacking

attacks

abroad, trying to influence elections and

the politics of other countries, and so on, and so

forth. And when he is asked about this

Prigozhin story, what does Putin answer?

That Prigozhin is a private individual, even if he receives

state contracts and state orders. Let’s look at what Putin

literally says right there. “Do you

really think that a person

who is in the restaurant

business even has some kind of hacking

capabilities, has some private

company, and from that position can influence

elections in the United States? What do you

think?”

Well, of course, you can answer a question with a question.

Naturally, if we say,

“Well, let’s look at this

man—he’s a restaurateur, an independent

person who has nothing to do

with the politics of the Russian state.” If

someone has just arrived from Mars

and hasn’t been in our country for the last five years,

then maybe they’ll believe

Vladimir Putin. But as someone who has

spent years investigating the illegal

activities

of Yevgeny, Yevgeny Prigozhin over the course of

the last several years, I can

say that a closer and more

trusted person to Vladimir Putin

would probably be hard to find right now. There are,

probably, very few people whom

Putin trusts that much, and he entrusts him

with anything but clean business—specifically

the dirty work. And Yevgeny Prigozhin

always carries it out. And he has received more than

200 billion rubles in state contracts over the last

several years—more than 200

billion rubles (about $3.2 billion USD at approximate historical rates). These are Defense Ministry contracts. For

the Defense Ministry, he does practically everything. He

builds—builds bases, services

military towns, supplies fuel,

supplies food, he provides

cleaning services for the Defense Ministry.

A man who is deeply embedded in

state contracts, who

is a trusted associate of the president.

Knowing the nature of people like that, I am absolutely

sure he sits there and just enjoys it,

you know, enjoying what a clever

joke they came up with—that he’s supposedly my cook,

and how convenient it is to say that. Well, well, he’s just

a cook. Even though he understands perfectly well that

it’s like in criminal gangs, you know—“the cook,”

“Yaponchik” (a famous Russian mob nickname), “Pasha Tsvetomu” (apparently another underworld-style nickname). It’s the same thing.

that's what they call him. That's how they identify themselves in these groups. And

I'm sure they're talking about the "cook" as well. And

I actually understand perfectly well that this is

a man who runs a private military

company, living off contracts from the

Ministry of Defense, a man who is, well, basically on the

payroll

of the presidential administration. And he, of course,

he is now,

yes, in direct contact with Volodin.

That was proven. It was, uh, the New

Times, I think, some newspaper or other, that directly

published phone records showing that

the frequency of calls between the PMC,

between, uh, Prigozhin and the presidential

administration, increased sharply during

the attack near Deir ez-Zor (in Syria), I'm afraid

I'll say it wrong now, but that frequency

rose dramatically. So this is

indirect evidence that

the man is directly commanding troops,

private military companies that

operate on Syrian territory, and

then says: "Ah, you know, he's just a restau-

a man in the restaurant

business. Well, how could he possibly influence

the U.S. elections?" And now these, these

people under his control are

right now artificially boosting

dislikes so that we won't

talk about this, but we are talking about it,

so like, retweet, and

share it around.

He really is Putin's cook

because he started out and entered

Vladimir Putin's inner circle precisely through

the kitchen, so to speak—the presidential

kitchen. He really did organize

banquets; he supplied catering for

the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he

was involved in those well-known episodes where he

walked up at the St. Petersburg Economic

Forum and personally brought Putin a dish and

uncovered it right there. That's described somewhere

in some publication. But the main thing is that

a man who started out by providing catering services

for the Presidential Property Management Department

and who organized birthday

parties, birthday catering,

is now in fact

a man involved in private

military companies, government contracts, and

more than that, a man who is not

any kind of official of the Russian

Federation, yet takes part in

Vladimir Putin's domestic and foreign policy

like probably no one else. And, uh,

naturally, he is not some kind of

private restaurateur, which,

of course, foreign journalists and

all Russian journalists who follow this, and

the public at large, naturally,

know. The restaurant business is a pretext and

a kind of cover for his shadow

activities.

Criminal activity—not shadowy,

criminal. This is criminal

activity: mercenarism. It's explicitly

written into the Criminal Code of the Russian

Federation, and it carries very long prison terms

under the Criminal Code.

So it's a very convenient cover,

which Vladimir

Vladimirovich, back when he was, as he likes

to say, working in the security services,

probably learned to use—these very cunning,

so to speak, maneuvers.

Let's move on, let's move on. We could probably talk about Prigozhin

for a long time. We had

several videos on the main channel,

uh, the one called Navalny. There

several videos are devoted to the activities of

Yevgeny Prigozhin, his illegal

activities, including those involving

government contracts. You can watch them

to refresh your memory. But what really,

to put it mildly, really rubbed me the wrong way

was the phrase saying that Putin

has never violated the Constitution

of the Russian Federation. Do you know what kind of

unanimous laughter and cackling broke out at the Anti-Corruption Foundation

after that phrase? Uh,

well, it seems to me that this is

well,

a phrase as cynical as it

could possibly be.

It's just that I almost feel

awkward even talking about it. I think

everyone understands perfectly well, starting with

public events and the right to

disseminate information. Again,

take the same example of Telegram—that is

a violation of the Constitution. Absolutely,

a direct violation of the Constitution. And the fact that

we effectively have no separation

of powers, that our legislative

and judicial branches have become one single

centralized authority, all of it

controlled from the presidential

administration—it's ridiculous to even discuss. You could take

literally every article

of the Constitution in order, starting from the very first ones,

starting with compliance with international

treaties, compliance with international legal

norms, and go on through every article

and say that here, everything is being violated—

absolutely everything: freedom of the press, censorship. Well,

I, I could mention

the independence of Russian courts. Good

Lord.

And also, since you mentioned freedom of

speech, there are also these wonderful lines about how

here in Russia, we supposedly have

an independent internet. Let's set aside the fact that

Putin has probably simply forgotten

all the laws he signed over

the last couple of years,

which impose incredible restrictions

on the internet. Right now, the VPN law has been passed in

its third reading, and we all remember

the Yarovaya law (a package of anti-terror legislation in Russia), and so on, and so

on. And he tells us that we have

a free internet, you know. Somewhere

Pavel Durov is probably crying.

And we have independent— no, he laughed. He

isn't crying; he's watching it all from above and

laughing about how he'll outplay everyone, because

for now, Durov is winning.

Durov's a legend. And hi, if he's

watching us right now. Ah, and independent

media. And it seems to me that you really have to

watch the video version of this

interview, because you need to look at

the face of the Austrian journalist to whom

Putin is telling all this about

Russia's independent media. It seems to me that

he just froze up at that moment and

didn't know what he could say in response or

how to answer.

Let's watch a short video

made by our colleagues at Meduza. How

to dodge questions properly—it's very

funny. Let's watch a short

clip.

Where do these close ties come from between

the Russian leadership and

political parties in the European Union that are critical of it?

You'd better ask, of course,

the head of the Russian government,

Mr. Medvedev, about that.

The so-called troll factories

belong to Yevgeny Prigozhin. He is

called Putin's chef. And he spends millions

of dollars on this troll

factory so they can produce these

posts. Why would a restaurateur need that?

Ask him. The Russian state

has no

you know him yourselves. So what? You know, I

know many people both in St. Petersburg and in

Moscow. Ask them.

You know, if you don't like my

answers, then don't ask

questions.

It's very funny, of course. How can you actually

turn this into what? Where—

how? No, what's it called?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Older people call it *The Lucky One*.

Ah, well, there were other funny moments

in that interview too, of course. Unfortunately, we

didn't include, didn't include

the answer to—ah, I think it was the last

question about Alexei Navalny. And where he was,

for the umpteenth time?

That was the last question. I've studied that interview very

carefully. I remember it

almost by heart—the last one was

a promo question about Putin's bare torso, and

Putin didn't answer that one either and also

dodged even that question. And one of the

important questions was, naturally, about

the opposition, about Alexei Navalny, and

why Vladimir Putin cannot

bring himself to say Navalny's surname out loud for

several years in a row now.

Saakashvili.

The answer is: Saakashvili. I don't know, maybe he

sees things, but as our friend

Alexei Alexeyevich Venediktov says, he has

a complete association between Alexei Navalny and

Saakashvili. Well, it's, you know, this kind of

totemic animal fear, when

if you say the enemy's name, the enemy

will devour you. That existed in many, many

tribes. You couldn't say the enemy's name. And

there was even a film about that—those, those, the ones

we do not name. There was a great

American film—haven't seen it? No,

it was a film where some kind of

wild beasts run around, around

a human settlement. And they don't say the names

of those beasts because they're afraid. And if

they say the name, then

the beasts will definitely come and eat them. The same

goes for Vladimir Putin. He simply

is afraid to say it because he thinks

that if he says Alexei

Navalny's name, well, I don't know, he'll have to

somehow—it's a form of legitimization, you know, in

Vladimir Vladimirovich's eyes. That's why he

is afraid. The journalist asks him directly, and he

compares it—very amusingly:

"Do you know how much I got in

the presidential election in Moscow?" The journalist

asks him: "But he got 27% in

the election in Moscow." And Putin replies: "And

how many people do you think voted for

me in Moscow in the last election?"

Look. Well, here the journalist, of course,

wasn't very prepared—probably more

than 27%.

But he makes an excellent point: it's just that

Navalny wasn't allowed to run

because of the laws that

were passed,

that Vladimir Vladi—Vladimir Putin passed. It's

very convenient, you know: I won't let him run, and

that way I get a higher percentage

of the vote.

The best part of the answer about Navalny

is that the journalist tells him: "You can't

say Navalny's surname—

say it." Vladimir Putin. And

Vladimir Putin spends five minutes answering that

question without saying the surname. It's

just spectacular. And then, of course, he

naturally says that Navalny

has no support, that supposedly only 1–2% of

people are ready to vote for him,

so there's no point in allowing him onto

the ballot. Well, first of all, that's a direct

contradiction of the constitution: even a person

who—well, no matter how much support

someone has, they still have the legal right

once they turn 35.

to run for president of our

country. And secondly, the talk about 1% is quite

ridiculous, because we know that in the

election they allowed Ksenia Sobchak to run, and she

received 1% of the vote. So why then

does that not apply to her? And why then does Vladimir Putin

according to his awful, unconstitutional,

illegal logic, think that

Navalny should not be allowed to run, while Ksenia

Sobchak can? Well, of course,

there were a lot of such contradictions in the interview.

And one more thing stood out to me.

We should probably start wrapping up

and move on to the next topics. But I cannot

help noting that Vladimir Putin,

of course, does not answer questions, and lately he

has recently been very fond of

publicly shifting

all this responsibility away from himself, redirecting all these

questions to someone

else. None of this is for me, none of this is

me. We have separation of powers. When he is

asked about United Russia,

the party that is, of course,

Vladimir Putin's party, which

is like an octopus that has wrapped itself around

the entire State Duma and the whole,

political system in our country,

it is a party of crooks and thieves. He says:

"Well, ask Medvedev, who

is its chairman." So that too is supposedly

not me; it's a private company, it's

the cook, it's Medvedev, it's anyone at all,

you know, I bear no responsibility. What kind of

position is that for the country's leadership? What kind of

position is that for a president, who

just tells you to go ask Masha or Vasya (generic Russian names meaning "someone else")?

And I am, you know, somehow somewhere else

entirely.

Well, of course, everyone understands perfectly well that

Dmitry Medvedev is not

an independent figure. He is not even the kind of

person who can appoint

the cabinet of ministers, because the cabinet

was obviously approved by the

president. First of all, that is how it works under

the law. And secondly, it was

obvious from the composition of the cabinet

of ministers, which clearly is no longer

in any way something you could even call

Medvedev's people, as, you know,

many Telegram channels say,

that there is some kind of Medvedev clan. There is no clan

around Medvedev. This is all Putin's doing.

The studio is telling us that all donations

now appearing on the screen—

donations of 2,018 rubles are being shown

on screen—will go toward paying fines for those detained on

May 5. We have fairly

large expenses: around 9 million rubles have been spent

on covering fines since March 26.

So these are expenses that, well,

still need to be reimbursed, because

I will never tire of repeating this: fines of

20,000 rubles, and now fines of 150,000, 250,000, and

300,000 rubles—these are impossible fines for

one person to bear, especially if this is

some poorer region. So this is

something around which we need to come together,

unite, and help people in a situation where they

go out and express their opinion

at entirely lawful rallies

that comply with the Constitution of the Russian

Federation, specifically Article 31 of the Constitution. One

for all and all for one. And here we are receiving

wonderful comments; we cannot

read them all in time, but I liked this one:

"Who Wants to Become

a Billionaire?" That was their comment on

that excellent video by Meduza, which they allowed us

to show—about Vekselberg and all his

associates.

And Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Let's

move on to the next topic. It is no less

important. Today a video came out on

the main Navalny channel, where our

colleague's work is being discussed even more than this

call-in show, and certainly is 100% far

more interesting,

much more interesting and important. It is

a video investigation by our colleague

Georgy Alburov and the investigations department

about a bribe in the form of a penthouse to deputy

Slutsky.

Let's watch the video of this penthouse,

if we have it ready. We can

play a short excerpt.

We are in western Moscow, right next to

Kutuzovsky Prospekt. There is so much greenery here

that you might think

we had ended up in a forest. But this is a specially protected

natural park, the Setun River Valley. Its

area is 700 hectares (7 square kilometers). Let's fly closer.

The huge buildings in front of us are the residential

complex Kutuzovskaya Riviera. It was

built by Sergei Polonsky. Here we

found the very penthouse that, as Polonsky himself claims,

Polonsky used to give

a bribe to Slutsky. The entire building here has

thirty floors. The penthouses occupy

the top three. They are easy to spot by their

panoramic windows. On each of these

floors there are four apartments. Slutsky took

all three stacked one above the other and

combined them into a grand three-story penthouse

with an official area of 561

square meters.

What is this?

You have just watched a short excerpt

from the video on the main channel. If you have not yet

watched the full video, we urge

you to do so right after our

broadcast. You will enjoy it.

It is only 7 minutes long and tells the story

of the bribe that businessman

Polonsky gave to deputy Slutsky. And as for

deputy Slutsky, we have already made a video about him,

where we talked about how and what

the crimes he is committing and why he

must be immediately sent into

resignation. If you can see our

cups, they say exactly the same

thing here: Slutsky must resign. In

fact, there just wasn’t enough room on the cup

to add “and into the dock,”

because the actions that

Slutsky is committing are not only

immoral, they are also a violation of

our country’s criminal law. This is not

just a story about a bribe; it is

a story about the face of an official. It is about

a kind of composite image of the official

who has now taken up residence in power here

and is shaping both our legislative framework

and, in effect, governing, making

socially important decisions. This is a story

about an official who drives in the

oncoming lane, does not pay fines, and

accumulates more than 700 fines. This is

a story about someone who harasses

journalists and thinks that this is

normal, who can laugh about it with

fellow lawmakers and simply

say: “I’ll keep doing it—give me another

little journalist.” That’s how they

message each other on Facebook, that’s how they

talk about it. This is a story about

a lawmaker who clearly does not match

his income, clearly does not match the

luxurious lifestyle in which he

lives. These are penthouses, foreign

real estate, this is

the purchase of a Maybach and a Bentley, whose

cost exceeds by several times his

official income over several years,

which he definitely could not have afforded.

We’re not, not

this is an undeclared Lexus that

he drives, and in the photograph with

it—that photo with the Lexus—

it spread all over the internet when

there was the scandal, and when

Leonid Slutsky’s harassment of

female journalists was being widely discussed, and this

no, this car was not

declared, which we also talk about in

this video. We have plenty of lawmakers like that. We

have done investigations into them. And it would be

strange to do an investigation into

some lawmaker who simply

failed to declare property. There are plenty of them. But

this is simply a composite image of the

most disgusting, most vile

official, a petty bureaucrat-lawmaker, someone who

is simply revolting even to look at

at all. This composite image of this

lawmaker is a composite image of our

government. Just look at him, take

his photographs, look. This is what

our government looks like. It does not

look like some smart

intellectual faces—you might also mention

people like German Gref or Alexei

Kudrin. They are, after all, intellectuals.

Our government is like this. And the officials

making decisions are not Kudrin and

Gref, but precisely lawmakers like this.

People like Prikhodko, like this

guy here. What you’re saying is absolutely right,

because this is not the exception; it is

the rule. And the system, as we can see, does not

give up its own, because in this system

everyone is exactly the same kind of person, sitting

everywhere alongside Slutsky, passing laws

for our country. They are completely

the same. They are just as corrupt

as he is. They are just as immoral

as he is. And that is why they do not turn him in.

They did not even issue the most basic

reprimand to Leonid Slutsky for the

criminal offenses he

is committing, for the bribes he

is taking. And again, that penthouse is

a 400 million ruble bribe (about US$6 million at the time). Why do we know

it is a bribe? Because the person who

gave that bribe officially and

publicly—not officially, but publicly—

said so himself. And that was Sergei

Polonsky, the businessman. And we obtained

an interview, a brief comment, from

a representative

of Polonsky about this situation, because

we were interested in whether there had been any

official actions on the part of our

law enforcement agencies after

Polonsky stated that he had given

a bribe to a lawmaker.

Please play it. Well, this story

was covered quite

widely when Polonsky was on trial,

and at the time he filed a statement, and he

submitted it both to the prosecutor involved in the case

and, accordingly, sent it

to law enforcement agencies. And yes, he

did make such statements.

I do not know whether he gave a bribe, because

we did not know him at that time. I

can tell you that he made such

statements at the time, filed the relevant

reports with law enforcement agencies, and

made a statement in front of TV cameras

in the courtroom. This was widely

reported. Yes, that did happen.

The statement was addressed to the Prosecutor General’s Office

of Russia. The Prosecutor General’s Office

forwarded it to the central office of the Interior Ministry.

The statement. The central office of the Interior Ministry

passed it down the chain. And the last

thing

that came to us—to the lawyers and to Polonsky, in fact—

the last trace was that this

statement had reached the police directorate for the

South-Western Administrative District

of Moscow. And from there

from there, uh, no one even came to question Polonsky

about the matter raised in the complaint.

the complaint. In other words, it got lost.

The last trace we have is

the Internal Affairs Directorate for the South-Western Administrative

District. After that, the story developed in such a way

that, essentially, with the whole sordid mess

around Polonsky, what happened happened.

So. And in that connection, we didn’t really pursue it any further.

We have received no replies from the Internal Affairs Directorate,

of the South-Western Administrative District

at all. We only know that they conducted no

inquiry, because,

well, as we see it, if an inquiry

had been conducted, the first thing

they should have done was question

Polonsky. No one questioned Polonsky.

No one interviewed him.

Well, of course, we understand that

Polonsky is also an odious and

highly dubious figure, but what he is saying

in this situation deserves

at the very least to be checked. And

the law enforcement authorities refused

to verify this information. But this is not a job for just one

lawyer. Clearly, this requires

a whole team of lawyers. I think

the legal team of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

will file a complaint tomorrow regarding

these facts: bribery,

unjust enrichment

by deputy Slutsky, because his income

clearly appears to be of illegal origin, as well as

failures to declare assets. We have already

filed complaints before, and as you could see from

the video, he was forced to declare

a forest plot of land

directly adjoining his house,

which he had simply seized. On these

grounds, and regarding the still undeclared

car as well, we are filing complaints and submitting

a complaint to the law enforcement authorities, and

we will even file a complaint against that—what’s her name—

Poklonskaya, who obviously does not know

the law. And of course, Zhora

gave her an excellent lesson today.

An excellent lesson. And under the very same

law for which she somehow even managed

to vote for amendments to

this law on the procedure for maintaining the Unified

State Register of Rights to

Real Estate. That’s it. Today Zhora

demonstrated it perfectly. Use

the internet, Natasha. It’s convenient and quite

simple. You put it correctly,

Poklonskaya—what’s her name—because actually,

it seems to me that Poklonskaya’s name

only comes to mind, uh,

for everyone only when the subject is

some news connected with the name

of Nicholas II (the last Russian tsar). Because for some reason we never see any statements from her

about corruption crimes

committed by officials and deputies.

And in the media, all that flashes by is

a headline about whom she quarreled with and what she

said about the Romanov family. It’s

Ward No. 6 (a Russian expression meaning sheer madness). That’s obvious, by the way.

The Investigative Committee. Before going on air, I managed

to speak with the team, and we received

a letter. She had filed a complaint against us

with the Investigative Committee, claiming that we

were obtaining information illegally somewhere.

The Investigative Committee even refused

to consider her complaint and forwarded

it somewhere else. So

that’s how even the Investigative Committee treats her.

That’s their attitude toward her.

And I wanted to say very briefly,

because this story probably doesn’t deserve any more

time, about the parliamentarism forum.

I’m sure none of our

listeners—not Vanya, not anyone else among our

audience—has probably even heard of it.

But if you read the transcripts

of the State Duma sessions,

you can see that a parliamentarism forum was held recently

and that Russian parliamentarians took part in it, along with parliamentarians

from other countries.

They all gathered there. And you think to yourself:

what exactly were they discussing there?

I think it would have been better if they had just recited tongue twisters about

parliamentarians discussing

parliamentarism in parliament.

Unfortunately, they were discussing

not tongue twisters—because that would have been

better. There, with particular cynicism and with

those grave, self-important expressions on their faces,

they discussed freedom of speech and the fight against

fake news. And do you know who was there?

There was a deputy there,

who said that if

you find out who shot down the Boeing,

will that make you feel any better—that was the quote. Volodin was there too,

the well-known champion of freedom

of speech. And Leonid Slutsky was there too, the one

we were just talking about. These are the people

who represent Russia and lecture others, with

those solemn faces, about how freedom of speech

should be upheld in Russia.

It’s the height of cynicism and brazen arrogance. And,

of course, they should all be kicked out. They all ought

to be put in the dock and tried

by an honest court, because simply

these are people who are not merely unfit

to pontificate from high podiums about any kind of

morality—these are people who ought

to be tried for their crimes.

As the author says, effectively: M-m-m, fake

news. Bad, bad, very bad. Shall we move on,

perhaps, to the next topic—gasoline? Yes,

it’s a very important topic, and naturally

we want to discuss it.

Maybe let’s answer a couple of

questions, since they’re coming in fast.

For example, I’ve seen many times people asking about

Prokhorov’s lawsuit for the protection of honor and dignity.

Today was the first

hearing. Judge Vasina—the same one

who heard Usmanov’s lawsuit over

the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*—and she is very

quickly, within five minutes, postponed it, not

postponed it, but scheduled the main

hearing for the twenty-sixth at

10:00 a.m. So that’s another topic as well.

We invite everyone. It’s an interesting case,

because in this instance we have

we don’t even need to call any

witnesses. We have all the

evidence, all the contracts, which we will

present to the court. It will be amusing to see how they

will try not to accept this

evidence. And Slutsky was developing

economic zones. No need to send

questions like that. The approximate cost

of the apartment is 1 billion rubles (about US$11 million). I think it was

worth around 500 million (about US$5.5 million).

Not 400 million rubles. Again, we refer you to

watch the video. But let’s move on,

because the next topic is very important,

and I think it concerns everyone

who uses transportation in Russia.

It’s the issue of rising gasoline prices. On the

main channel, a video by Vladimir

Milov was released, in which he explains simply and

shows, with excellent charts,

the rise in gasoline prices and explains why

it happened.

What’s striking about this chart is that the increase

in gasoline prices from January to March was effectively

at the same level. What do we remember happened

in March? The presidential election. And,

of course, before the presidential election

you can’t upset people. That’s not the right chart.

Before the presidential election—or is that the

right chart, sorry, studio. Before

the presidential election, you can’t upset

the Russian people. Otherwise they might not vote

the way you want. But now, just

look, you can see the point where the price shot

up—that’s March. The election is over, so

now they can raise it as much as they like. And as I

understand it, Milov said in his video that

there would be an official appeal to the authorities

regarding violations of competition

law, to the antimonopoly service.

What do you say to that? I’d probably

say that he was absolutely right, and

as for why this increase

in gasoline prices, which has now

really affected everyone

even people who were far removed from

politics, because it directly hits

not only motorists in the wallet, but

also people who, in general,

buy groceries, because

food is transported to stores, to

the stores by vehicles, and those vehicles also

run on gasoline. If the price of gasoline has gone up,

then accordingly even

the products you simply buy at

the store will also be affected by that

as well. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, great,

I don’t drive, so this won’t

affect me.” It definitely will.

And he explains what the main reason is. And

the main reason—a small spoiler before

the video, if you haven’t watched it yet,

although it was very popular and now,

I think, already has around 2 million views—is

that this is happening because of collusion among

companies that have monopolistically taken over

this market in Russia. This is an entirely

man-made problem. This is happening,

of course, because of many different factors,

yes, because of excise taxes, because of

the economic situation, and so on, and

so forth. But the main factor is

the monopoly that has been organized

by these companies. And it is the desire of these

companies and their management, in

particular Igor Ivanovich Sechin,

the head of Rosneft, to enrich themselves at the

expense of people who buy and spend

their money, including on

gasoline. That is the specific reason behind this

story. And in fact, I was following the

antimonopoly service, because it

in this situation sort of played

on the side of good, because it doesn’t

always do that, but in this

case it issued an order to

Rosneft to increase fuel supplies

to the Russian market in order to

bring these prices down. And what

was the response? I was interested in what action

Rosneft would take in response to this order from the Federal Antimonopoly Service. And

we saw the answer today, because

it became known today—I read about it

in an article in *Vedomosti*—that several

companies, including Transneft and several others,

they submitted, they wrote a letter

to the government asking that the FAS

the antimonopoly service be stripped of its powers

over tariff regulation and that they be transferred

to the Ministry of Economic Development. The FAS and

the Ministry of Economic Development have always been

antagonists within the government; they have always

been dividing powers. And here they decided

to take revenge on the antimonopoly service,

apparently for that order. And they

decided, “Now we’re going to take away

your powers over tariff regulation.” And

instead of actually

complying with this order—which is entirely

the right thing—instead of

actually working to ensure that

these gasoline prices do not keep rising but remain

reasonable, so that the population can afford

them—and this can be done, as

Vladimir Milov says—they instead begin

taking revenge through this kind of behind-the-scenes

infighting. I don’t know, it seems to me you’ve been

in politics for a long time, but to me this is just

a revealing example. Look at how they

reacted. Well, first of all, we’ve had

the first protests across Russia

connected to gasoline prices. And the very first

reaction was—I open the business newspapers,

the government will freeze gasoline prices,

the government will freeze the increase in

excise taxes, and the Federal Antimonopoly

Service has issued a certain number of orders.

This is a campaign they have become very good at

running whenever they need to tamp down, uh,

this kind of public outrage. Then

A Just Russia (a Russian political party) introduces a bill,

saying, why don’t we abolish the vehicle tax

instead of, uh, and the vehicle tax

will be shifted into the excise tax. And let me

remind you that the vehicle tax

was supposedly already covered when excise taxes were raised long ago, justified by

the promise of abolishing the vehicle tax, but

the vehicle tax was never abolished. So

there will be plenty of these piecemeal measures, especially

media publications, in order to make sure

that people, above all, stop discussing this issue. And, of course,

that they do not go to protest rallies.

It is good that even something as demonstrative as this

thing

is being done by the Federal Antimonopoly

Service. They still somehow have to

respond to this. But this is already one of those

jar-of-spiders situations, where they are all there

still trying to tear each other apart over this issue

and devour one another. That is normal.

It is clear. It is clear that they have now announced

that prices will be frozen, but

it is obvious that you cannot keep the cat in

the bag. It will jump out anyway, and

these prices will keep rising anyway, because

the underlying causes of the situation have not

changed in any way. That is, the reasons I

just, uh, mentioned to you

a moment ago — the monopoly, the fact that

there is, uh, embezzlement of funds from

state-owned companies, the fact that there is, uh, not

honest earning but corrupt profiteering, and that money,

including in this area, on this very issue,

will not stop — and therefore prices,

naturally, will rise. If not

tomorrow, then certainly in the near term.

Unfortunately, this will hit all of

us.

Right. One of our listeners asks: "Why

didn’t the government freeze

gasoline prices earlier? They go up like crazy

every year. Dmitry, well, they froze them until

the presidential election, when you were still needed

— when, conditionally speaking, you were still

needed to come to the polling

station, because turnout was exactly what mattered in

that election. But now they do not need

anyone anymore, so now they can raise them. This,

by the way, perfectly proves that

the government and the president are perfectly capable of

controlling gasoline prices and perfectly capable of

keeping those prices from rising.

Everything that is happening now, uh,

all of this increase is the result of

the fact, really, that the government

approved these price hikes for them.

Rosneft does not act in isolation. And,

by the way, Putin said today during his Direct Line call-in show

that they had in effect managed to nationalize Rosneft, and yet

Rosneft

still somehow manages to tell

the Federal Antimonopoly Service to go

take a hike and calmly raise

gasoline prices. As for Rosneft,

we could probably talk about it for a long time,

because there is, of course, no

real nationalization here, not even close. It is simply

just

a company that belongs to Igor Sechin,

who runs it not like a hired

manager but as if it were his personal, I don’t know,

property, with which he can do whatever he wants,

including buying

cornices for 80,000 rubles (about US$850).

Well, Rosneft’s setup is remarkable; this really is something

one could talk about

endlessly — the structure of Rosneft.

Rosneft is not just one company. There

are shell entities between Rosneft

the parent company and Rosneft

the operating company. One really could

devote an entire program to this. I think

maybe Vladimir Milov or I will someday

tell you all about it in detail.

Let’s move on and discuss the retirement

age, because this is a topic that

directly concerns Ivan and me, uh,

though we are not that old,

wait, millennials, because

the Central Bank has identified millennials as a

threat to the pension system.

Aren’t those the people born in 2000?

That is what I thought too. Well, if you believe

the Central Bank and the media outlets that

are citing the Central Bank’s report,

it is talking about Generation Y. Rea— it is about

Generation Y, that is, people who

were born between 1980 and 2000.

Naturally,

the pension system,

pension reform, and raising the

retirement age are being discussed very actively

because it was already clear to everyone

even before the presidential election, and for quite

some time now, that there are major

problems there, that there is not enough money to pay pensions,

that, uh, this is

Wait, how can there not be enough? Let us

take a look. There are wonderful — just look at

the palaces the Pension Fund has. There cannot

possibly be too little money. There is plenty

of money there. Can we put up a photo?

We will see it now. This is probably

the photo. There. Yes. Why even need photos?

You can all easily find your local

district Pension Fund office and

see that it will be one of the most

well-kept buildings, one of the most

luxurious buildings, where everything is

beautifully provided for. So there is a hell of a lot of money in

the Pension Fund. By the way, I have been

literally the day before yesterday at the Pension Fund.

It’s a disgusting way to treat people.

So I went there as an individual

entrepreneur, and the Soviet Union is genuinely

still alive there. The building is beautiful, but

they send you running around for every single piece of paper,

and they basically tell you to get lost. So I already

switched to a different language—a different language

of complaints. Because it’s impossible

to talk to them. I can imagine how they

talk to pensioners.

I can talk to them as a

lawyer, but pensioners can’t. It’s simply

disgusting. Do we have photos of the

buildings? No. As for

inefficiency, and the way

they talk to people—actually,

there really is quite a lot of money, but

it gets spent on maintaining this very

pension system itself. We have an inflated

staff, with employees who

deal with bureaucracy, who

perform their duties inefficiently,

things that could have been automated

are done manually. And the Pension Fund’s expenses

again go toward these

luxurious buildings.

6% of the

money they receive, including the money

you pay in insurance contributions

or that your employer pays on your behalf,

which have a huge impact on

your salary—well, 6% of that whole

sum goes toward maintaining

the Pension Fund. These buildings,

these now supposedly beautiful

cars, and so on. Right. But as for

what’s happening now, naturally,

they’re discussing raising the

retirement age. And, uh,

the Central Bank released a report in

which its analysts said

that the current generation is not inclined toward

saving and prefers to invest

its spare money in gaining

quality experiences. So,

it turns out—who is to blame for everything? The people

who invest their money

in experiences, who aren’t inclined toward

saving, who

rely only on themselves, as it says in this

report. It’s a fairly astonishing,

cynical thing, because it seemed to me

that anyone could be to blame for the fact

that the pension system is in bad shape. But surely

not me, because I, as a

law-abiding citizen, pay

all the contributions—or rather, my employer pays them

all from my official declared salary

on my behalf. And now, it turns out,

Ivan and I are to blame for the fact that there isn’t enough money

in the country.

Even though we paid quite a lot into this

Pension Fund. In fact,

back when I was still running my own,

private practice, before I worked

at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, I would just

look at the sums going into

the Pension Fund, and it made me very

sad. I could see that this money would never

actually go where it was supposed to. And besides, the funded part

is about to be scrapped now. There will be no

funded part. Remember how wonderfully they used to

advertise it—how you were funding your own

funded pension account? Soon it,

literally, won’t exist. And by the way,

the report Lyubov mentioned is

excellent. Anyone who wants to understand this

in a bit more detail—the Central Bank report

is still only a draft report,

but as we know, in drafts the most

interesting things, which may not make it into

the final version, are often there. It contains

several charts. You can take a look

and put on screen, for example, the development of the financial

market.

And look there at what places we occupy

in terms of investment

attractiveness, in particular. Right now I

can’t see that specific

chart there directly, uh

Russia is in 83rd place out of

90 countries. What country is there?

Malaysia.

Malaysia is in last place, I think.

Well, that’s awkward. I think the viewers

can see the chart on the screen themselves. Again,

you can see: one indicator is in 137th place, and Russia is in

107th place. That’s the development of the financial

market. And look, here there are specific rankings for

the development of financial

services—110th place; ease of obtaining

credit—112th place; regulation of

stock exchanges—121st place. And we keep saying

that everything is wonderful in

our economy. Come on, guys, it’s enough

just to look at this report and, uh,

examine it carefully. So,

let’s move on to the next topic, probably about

pensions.

Well, again, yes, we could probably talk about pensions

for a long time. And again, unfortunately,

they’re going to tighten the screws now

and try to find ways out of

this situation that are completely the wrong ones,

terrible ones,

like raising the retirement age, even though

it’s obvious that what’s needed is reform—

reforming this whole system.

You have to start elsewhere: by reducing

the Pension Fund’s expenses,

reviewing and improving the efficiency of

the management of pension savings, by

stopping the stealing, stopping

the commission of corrupt

crimes. And then, probably,

there would be money. Putin, as I recall, was the one who

said he was against raising it.

the retirement age.

We even have a video clip. And this is,

I think, if I'm not mistaken, a live call-in show

with Vladimir Putin from 2005, where he

talks about—well, what exactly he says

there, you should probably see for yourselves,

you'll see everything in a moment.

At the same time, I want to draw your

attention to this circumstance. I am against

raising

uh, the retirement age, and as long as I am

president, no such decision will be

made. I generally believe that we have no

need to raise the age for going

into retirement. We need to encourage people

who believe that after reaching

working

retirement age, they can

continue working if their

health allows it. That is what should be encouraged—

creating economic conditions

that make people interested in continuing

their working lives, but without infringing on their

pension rights.

I will repeat once again: I am against raising

the retirement age for both men

and women.

Well, there it is again—another lie, an entirely

unsurprising lie from Vladimir Putin,

when he said in 2005 that under

his leadership, raising the retirement age

would never happen as long as he was president.

And now only some

13 years have passed, and Vladimir Putin is president again.

And now it is already being discussed as

something entirely real. In childhood,

they teach you that lying is wrong. Well, apparently he was never taught that,

so he lies and keeps on lying.

Maybe let's talk about what I wanted

to say on our front—but is it even our

front at all? Let's talk about what

is happening more broadly on the party front. This

week, unexpectedly for everyone—or at least

for many people—they announced, first of all, the

Moscow mayoral election. And in this election—why

was it unexpected? Because, well, according to the plan, it

was supposed to be announced a little later, but

nevertheless, within the legal timeframe, on Saturday

they announced the Moscow mayoral election. It is clear

that

that there are not many candidates, and the candidates

are now facing certain

obstacles. And right now United Russia

can effectively choose

its own opponent, because, as you may remember,

they introduced the so-called municipal filter,

under which a candidate needs, uh, more than 130

municipal deputies, who

must come from different districts, to

sign in support of a candidate in order

for that person to be allowed onto the ballot.

It is clear that in the current

situation only United Russia can make that happen, but

this filter is completely illegitimate, and they

can effectively choose

their own competitors. And those competitors are now

struggling to, uh, try

to get through at all, to try to become

a candidate. Although it is obvious that in any case

United Russia will be the one deciding. And this week

we also saw the party

Yabloko, which is still considered

a liberal party, an honest party, and

it was holding primaries. Lyuba and I, actually,

watched this with interest,

really.

Oh, oh-oh-oh. Vanya, speak for yourself,

because I was not watching it with much

interest.

Well then. And I was watching Sterligov,

who came out with a statement saying that

he too would run for mayor

of Moscow. And his platform consists of

giving every Muscovite

their own small farm in the Moscow region. Now that,

seems more interesting to me. Although, well,

everyone understands that it is probably a joke.

I was joking just now. Anyway, as for Yabloko,

of course I watched these

primaries. And they gave me nothing but disappointment,

shame, and embarrassment—those are the only feelings they

honestly stirred in me.

Yes, it really was interesting,

because the primary process itself

is excellent. It is the kind of

mechanism that can identify

the truly strongest, most genuine

candidate. It is the kind of mechanism that

should become standard. It's just that we all

perfectly understand how, uh,

the primaries held by

United Russia discredit the whole idea. But there are no real

primaries there. The person

whom state employees are told

to vote for is the one who gets through. And that is why

it was very interesting to watch. So here was

Yabloko. We have known this party for a long time, uh, and

have been watching it for a long time. Never mind that, for heaven's sake,

this is the same party

that filed a lawsuit against Navalny.

Although no, we have not forgotten. It is impossible to

forget that. Never mind that this is the party

that did not nominate Roizman for

unclear reasons. But in this situation,

yes, there seemed to be some kind of clear, honest

procedure, or so it seemed to us. And although

many people said—I spoke there with

people in these political circles—everyone

was saying, "No, they'll nominate Mitrokhin

anyway." And what happens?

On Monday, their second

round of voting ends, and the winner is, well, a

candidate not really known to many people,

Yakov Yakubovich, but nevertheless everyone sort of

chair of the municipal assembly in

Moscow,

in the Tverskoy District, if I'm not mistaken,

the Tverskoy District, right? Yes, and everyone,

probably watched this process.

Well, okay, fine, whatever.

Metrokhin, who probably, well,

really,

was actually glad, because

a new face had appeared in politics,

someone who didn't have a negative approval rating,

who, uh, is now already heading

the municipal council, who

was elected to that council in an election,

who made it through that barrier, uh,

and won, and is now working for the benefit

of the residents in his district. And I know him personally

because we've crossed paths,

during the rallies in central Moscow. I

remember that, uh, the municipal deputies

of the Tverskoy District really

helped. They came to the detained people

at the police stations, uh, and to the places where they were

being held in police vans, and they tried

to get in, because municipal

deputies have those powers,

they tried to pass them water and

so on. That is, they tried, uh, to do

something, I don't know, to help in some

way. I remember, uh, Yakubovich

very positively, as a person

who is honest, uh, and someone who

really stands by his principles, who

wants to work for the benefit of the residents of his

district.

Well, and then something wonderful happens. Well,

of course, you could talk about this with, with,

well, it's just a disappointment, of course

it is. As soon as Yakov Yakubovich announces

the winners of these primaries, he comes out with

a statement and says on camera that he

is withdrawing from the election, even though just

three hours earlier he had been standing outside the door of

the polling station urging everyone

to vote for him. And

what exactly happened, Vanya? Can you

tell me what happened in those three hours?

I read that article in *Vedomosti* that

you

I'm hinting at. Uh, the one I'm

referring to, because I urge everyone

who is interested in Moscow

politics, who wants to know what exactly

happened in the primary, to read the article

by journalist Mukhamedshina in *Vedomosti*. It

came out, I think, two or three days ago. And

it explains, uh, with references to

sources, with references to, uh, people

who are familiar with the situation, that

what really happened there. If

I briefly retell that article,

what happened was this: Grigory

Yavlinsky, according to the newspaper

*Vedomosti*, one of the country's largest business

newspapers, had gone, uh, he had gone

to meet with Sobyanin and discussed the issue

of nominating a candidate from the Yabloko party

for the Moscow mayoral election. And Sobyanin

said that no one would get through the municipal filter,

except Metrokhin. Yakubovich, uh,

would never get the votes of municipal deputies needed

to pass the municipal filter

in order to make it onto the ballot.

And so this article

really stirred me up. I even wrote

several tweets. And I'll tell you why.

Because what happened here was a public

accusation against the head and leader, yes,

that is, the informal leader. And

the main face of the Yabloko party, that he

coordinates a candidacy in the election in

the capital, uh, with a direct competitor, with

Sobyanin, a person who has

administrative resources; that he enters into

informal arrangements that

he does not disclose publicly, and coordinates

those candidacies there, discusses them. And for me,

of course, as a voter, as someone

who does care about who

will be the next mayor of our city, it would

be interesting to hear Grigory

Alexeyevich Yavlinsky's position on this,

for him to comment, because

when, as I remember, he was accused of, and

people said that he had gone to meet with

Putin,

among other things,

he responded, he commented

on it. But here

he said: "I don't comment on this." His

answer was: "I don't comment on this." He

at least in some way

reacted to the event, right? But now

a day has passed, or even, you know,

more time since the publication of that article,

and we hear no denials from

the leadership of the Yabloko party that

they coordinate their candidates

as an opposition party with the leadership

of the city of Moscow, with their direct

competitors and with the people who make

these elections unfair and unfree.

Not just the election, but even the primary itself. The very

procedure that democratic

forces have always adhered to. The

procedure that inspires trust. And

when we held democratic

primaries in Novosibirsk, Kaluga, and

Kostroma—Kaluga, Kostroma, Novosibirsk—

those were genuinely democratic

primaries, where everyone could

trust the process, could leave their

personal data knowing that this

data would not leak. But the parties we

trust—PARNAS (an opposition political party)—later had

personal data and email addresses leak

and spread all over

the internet. Yabloko, which is now

under the most obvious pressure, is removing

the candidate who won the primary.

Watching all this is not just

disgusting—it just makes you want to

trust in the primary process among

I want to say, in the words of one of our

colleagues: "Don't fall for it, just don't fall for

it." Well, you can see what

Sobchak in the elections is, what Yavlinsky

in the elections is, what the party

Yabloko is, and who these guys are.

Please don't fall for it. I'm not saying

that, uh, unity is in principle

impossible. Unity in itself,

yes, may be impossible, but at certain

specific points we can always

cooperate. We have to hold these

fair primaries, if, well, obviously,

certain forces support, say, the same

Yabloko, but to discredit

the primary mechanism and this

preliminary voting process like this is

simply disgusting. And please read

the excellent posts on this subject.

First of all, those by Vladimir Ashurkov and

Leonid Volkov, whose main point is,

all in all, they are interesting and

thoughtful, but the essence comes down to

this: unite—but with whom? Who exactly

are we supposed to unite with if this is what's

happening?

But let's talk about something positive instead. For example, we

during this time, over this past weekend

and the previous week, held 53

regional meetings of the political

party called the political

party Russia of the Future. And, uh,

members of the Central Council, which

Ivan and I are part of,

we should do a high five here.

High five.

Right. And actually, as you remember,

we held the party congress. After that, we need

to hold, uh, at least

in no fewer than half of the

federal subjects (regions) regional

meetings. Here you can see these photos from

the regional meetings; for them we are

preparing documents, preparing minutes,

preparing lists of party members. This is

a huge volume of paperwork that our

legal department is now preparing at a

breakneck pace. And

basically, a lawyer's day now consists of

checking documents, drafting these

documents, and sending these documents to

the regions. I hope that in the near

future we will submit the documents to the Ministry of Justice, and as soon as

we receive the minutes from the

regions, we will be able to file with the

Ministry of Justice. And just try to

deny us. Go ahead, find something—you

won't find a single mistake there, but it will be

funny to watch how they try to

refuse us. No, we've done everything according to the law.

We absolutely must have a political party.

And what you just saw

in the photos was not a very large

number of people. That's easy

to explain, because right now—I saw

a question here: how do you become a

party member? Right now, admission to party membership is

strictly limited. It's literally

set up this way so that there are no

VIP members of Russia of the Future—party members

because we are asking, for now, not to let in

people whose

registered address is difficult to process, because we

know perfectly well that if there is

anything extra in the address fields, then

we won't be able to fit it into the application form.

Yes, I'm digressing, but essentially this should not, strictly speaking,

right now—we are going through the formal

procedures to register our party.

The lawyers, led by Ivan Zhdanov, are doing

everything possible to ensure that these

documents, which are now being submitted

to the Ministry of Justice for registration,

because the party was established at the congress, but

now it has to be officially

registered. And for this, an enormous

package of documents is being assembled; it is

being checked over, and everything there must be

perfect so that the Ministry of Justice,

which will very much want to deny

this registration, has not the slightest

grounds to refuse us. Let me remind you that

the previous times when we were denied

party registration, the Ministry of Justice found—you know what kind of

errors? They, they

made up these errors in the form of an extra

space between words that appeared in the

documents, and other things of roughly

that same level.

Spaces. Right now we are recruiting

the minimum number of party members. Under

the law, 500 are required, but we will recruit

more than that, of course—600 party members—

to minimize the number of

errors, because, well, if we recruit

tens or hundreds of thousands—which we easily

could do—then of course we would not

be able to prepare a perfect package

of documents. And right now, it's not that we

can't do it, but it would take us a couple of years.

We must not give the crooks in the

Ministry of Justice and in the authorities a chance to say that some error

in our system led to the

non-registration of this party. We will

register this party. This party has

a future; behind this party stand living, real

people who want to defend their

political rights, their political

beliefs, their rights and freedoms, which are

guaranteed by the Constitution. We are a real

political force in this country, and we will

fight for our representation and

participation in elections through our party. And

we urge you to do the same,

to join us. Right now, unfortunately,

that is difficult to do, but when

this formal period is over,

Naturally, you will be able to become a member

of the Russia of the Future party. So that you can

trust these fair mechanisms in the form of

primaries, and so that in our party—and I

guarantee that as long as I am in this party,

all fair mechanisms will be

upheld in it, and all primaries will be

open, transparent, and there will be no

pressure, let alone any coordination with

Rakovа, or with Volodin, or with

Kiriyenko—there definitely will be nothing like that.

I’ll answer the very last question directly. I

see questions about Yabloko (a Russian liberal political party), about

the party, asking how one really

was supposed to get through the whole municipal

barrier. After all, Alexei Navalny in

2013 also had to get through this

difficult municipal filter, and there were

signatures from United Russia members, and so on. And how

the situation with the Yabloko party and

coordination with Yavlinsky differs from

getting through the municipal filter

with Sobyanin, compared with the situation

in 2013. And I’ll put it very

simply: it differs because

you can get through the municipal barrier

only if—and if you are an honest opposition

politician and you stand up for justice in

our country, stand up for the law, then you

must get through only thanks to

political pressure, political

weight, and the people who stand behind

you. And Alexei Navalny in

2013 managed to get through

the municipal filter thanks to his

active political work,

thanks to the people who worked on

his campaign, thanks to the people

who supported his nomination for

the post of Mayor of Moscow. And not thanks to—but in spite of

all the backroom deals, in spite of

the decision of the Presidential Administration,

which did not want to let him onto

the ballot, he won the right to participate. And

there were ballots in the election in September

2013. And that is exactly what

other opposition politicians should do

if they want to take part in

our unfair and unfree elections in

the country. Not go around making deals,

not beg, not humiliate themselves, not get down on

their knees, not try to curry favor so

that somehow they might be allowed

in somewhere. Because if they are let in on

such terms, then they will be

hamstrung. And then they will not be able to do any

real politics, even if they are

real candidates in an election. And all

of this was thanks to your support—if you

remember, back then tens of thousands came out for Navalny,

people came out onto Tverskaya Street, came out onto

Manezhnaya Square. It was all thanks to you.

Thank you very much for

supporting us. Thank you very much for

sending donations today to help

pay the fines of those people who

have the right to freely go out to

rallies. Thank you very much. We’ve reached the end of

today’s broadcast. It was

interesting. Thank you. This was Lyubov Sobol.

I hope it was interesting for you too, not just for us and Ivan Zhdanov.

We covered the main

events that took place in

the country’s political life this

week. But the next broadcast will feature

Alexei Navalny. We all hope to see him

in this studio, where he will

answer your questions and

share his views on current

political and social news. Thank you

very much, everyone. Have a good Friday,

a productive Saturday, and happy

holidays. And let me congratulate you in advance on June 12,

on the day—uh, on the wonderful day of

our country.

Bye, everyone,

goodbye.

[music]