Text version
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Hi, this is Navalny, and I congratulate you.
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On the creation of the Putin Team movement.
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Or rather, it’s even called Putin Team, and
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it was the famous hockey player Alexander
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Ovechkin who announced its creation. As is easy
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to guess, this is an election campaign movement
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supporting candidate Putin. Other people
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immediately began joining the movement as well,
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famous hockey players and athletes. The news kept pouring in:
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Pavel Bure joined, Kovalchuk voiced his support,
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Fetisov signed on. I love stories like this,
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and you might ask me:
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why are you congratulating us, Navalny?
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A movement like this isn’t good for you,
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you’re a rival candidate. Yes, I am
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a rival candidate, but the Putin Team
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movement really, really appeals to me because
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using its example, it’s now even easier for me
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to explain what Putin is, what his
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elite is, and what his support group is. Let’s start with
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the initiator, the celebrated Alexander
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Ovechkin. Ovechkin declared his
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devotion to Putin long ago. Just look:
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T-shirts with the president’s face, phone cases,
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video greetings, all the fanfare.
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Wishing you happiness, good luck,
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prosperity to everyone. But the only thing
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Ovechkin has loved longer than Putin is America,
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the country where he has lived for the last 12
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years, for most of Putin’s time in power,
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specifically in America.
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More specifically, in a suburb of Washington.
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Ovechkin first bought this house for $1.6 million,
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and then this
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impressive mansion for $4
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million. And relatively
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recently, he reinforced his love for
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Putin and Russia by buying a 200-square-meter
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apartment for $2 million in Miami.
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Ladies and gentlemen from Washington.
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[music]
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Number 8 on his back at the All-Star Game.
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Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way
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reproaching Ovechkin for his money and
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wealth. He earned it all himself.
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I’m simply drawing attention to a few
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details. Right after Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk
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joined Putin’s team.
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A great athlete, Kovalchuk moved to the
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United States even earlier, in 2000, but you
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understand, that’s no obstacle
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to a great and sincere feeling. Everyone sees
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what changes have taken place. We remember the
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Russia that existed before Putin.
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I believe the future is in his hands.
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Vote for Putin in 2012.
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Kovalchuk urged us to do so from this
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wonderful house in Atlanta,
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or perhaps from this apartment in Miami,
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registered in his wife’s name, whom the media, by the way,
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describe as a U.S. citizen.
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Though there is another possibility: a month before
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the 2012 election, in which Kovalchuk
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was urging us to vote for Putin, he
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bought, for nearly $5 million, a 300-
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350-square-meter apartment right here on Fisher
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Island, also in Miami. And since we’re already
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on the subject, let’s go straight on.
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Now watch, I’ll show you a trick.
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Here is the building where Kovalchuk’s apartment is.
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We move exactly 150 meters away, and in this
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building lives another member of the new
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Putin team: the legendary Pavel Bure. What a
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surprise.
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Here is his apartment, bought for $36
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million back in 2007. Pavel also has another apartment in Miami,
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another apartment in Miami.
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It’s in this building, though a little more modest.
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Bure left Russia at the very beginning
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of the 1990s, but later, to give him credit,
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he returned to Russia and apparently even
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gave up his American
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citizenship.
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But America is still tied to him
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at the very least through his whole family: a brother who is a U.S. citizen,
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who lives in California and produces
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wine in Napa Valley—please don’t
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confuse it with Anapa (a Russian resort city)—and a father who also
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lives in the U.S., though his passport is
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Canadian. All right, now let’s see
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who else was among the first to join
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Putin’s team.
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Vyacheslav Fetisov. Fetisov played in the U.S. and
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coached American hockey
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teams from 1989 to 2000.
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But you don’t think that after the end of
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his sports career, America no longer had
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any connection to him, do you?
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In 2009, Fetisov—or rather, his wife—
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became the happy owner
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of a penthouse in one of the Trump towers with
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a view of Central Park. It cost $6.5
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million. A worthy choice
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for a senator from United Russia (the Kremlin-backed ruling party) and a member
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of Putin’s team. Unlike
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another 1,000-square-meter apartment in Moscow,
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Fetisov did declare this apartment. However, in
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that year it disappeared from the official disclosure
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of the government official. But don’t worry, everything is
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fine.
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The penthouse was simply transferred to Fetisov’s
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daughter, Anastasia, who permanently
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resides in New York City.
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So who else managed to sign up for the
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team? Here’s an unexpected but very
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determined forward: Irina Viner.
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She may not be a hockey player, but she charges into Putin
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Team with such force and fury that
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Ovechkin looks timid by comparison.
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She’ll knock anyone off their feet.
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After all, Irina Viner is the wife of none other than
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Alisher Usmanov, who made his many billions
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during the Putin years.
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Those dollars, stolen from
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Russian taxpayers and state companies,
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were transformed into luxurious foreign
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real estate,
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where the Usmanov-Viner family can love.
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Vladimir Putin in great comfort, but
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this is generally a very valuable acquisition for
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Putin's team—they can also use a private jet
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to take his entire team away in one like this
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it can fit 250 to 300 people
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they could also take a ride on a $600 million yacht
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well, as for the headquarters of Putin's team
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I suggest housing them here in
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Surrey, in Tudor's Cam Castle
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which also belongs to the Usmanov family, although
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once again, since Ovechkin announced
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the recruitment into Putin Team, very little time has passed
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only a tiny bit, and I'm sure not everyone
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has had time to sign up yet, so I'll allow myself
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a bit of liberty and announce an additional
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recruitment into Putin's team. For the draft, I
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would add a few more star players to Putin's roster
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fortunately, at the Anti-Corruption Foundation
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we know a couple of ideal
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candidates. What's more, they're already literally in
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Putin's hockey team in the literal sense
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he plays with them. For example
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just from this one of my favorite photographs
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you could pick two: Gennady Timchenko
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and Arkady Rotenberg, citizens of Finland
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owners of countless properties there
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as well as in France, Switzerland, and Italy
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old friends, well-coordinated hockey players—I
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am sure those are exactly the kind you bring along
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you could also take this young guy
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he's Arkady Rotenberg's nephew, the same one who
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sat with Kovalchuk in an interview on
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Urgant's show (*Evening Urgant*, a popular Russian late-night TV program)
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to be honest, I get confused by his names and
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citizenships, but many people will recognize him anyway
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this is Roman Michael Oliver Rotenberg
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a citizen of Finland and the United Kingdom. So
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there you have the perfect Putin team. In it are
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very rich people; some of them
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earned their money honestly—Ovechkin, Bure
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Kovalchuk—no questions there. Unfortunately
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they got involved in politics and began
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serving the interests of our
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corrupt authorities. But still
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they are outstanding athletes, and they worked for
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Russian sport on the world stage
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they were well paid for it—perfectly legal
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fees. The other part of our Putin Team
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are simply thieves who robbed you and
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are now amusing themselves on the ice with your
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money
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but both groups mostly live abroad
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they invest their money in
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American real estate
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they tie their future to America or
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Europe
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they have it good there, they have work there, they have
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citizenships and residence permits there, and they
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pay taxes there—don't worry about them
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their families are there, their children are there, and they will
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go to excellent schools and speak
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excellent English. Live here in
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Russia? No. The top of Putin's team aren't
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that stupid. The roads are bad here,
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the hospitals are terrible here, the
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education system is in ruins, everything here is being stolen—but
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then again, no one is really asking them
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to live here. Still, they support Putin. He
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has created a wonderful colonial
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world for them: you live there, and the local
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fans love you, and then you come here too, like
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some white master to a backward country
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say a few words in support of the Tumba-Yumba
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who seized power, and you're showered
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with honors, handed a pile of
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billions taken away from the natives
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why should you care about all those paid faces anyway
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feel sorry for them?
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and I want you to understand this clearly here
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got it? Don't answer. If you want, you can
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build a sports school; if you want, you can
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simply decorate things with money; or you can
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join the ruling party and write
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some kind of law just for laughs, just
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behind the scenes, purely to joke around at the expense of
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the locals. Just imagine, bro, I flew in specially
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for two days from Miami so that for
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these idiots I could write a law under which
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they'll owe even more money
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to sign over to our Putin team, ha ha
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ha. That's exactly how it works, my friends
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and my advice to you is: don't be fools
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don't let yourselves be deceived once again
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by famous last names
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all these people don't care about you, about your
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30,000-ruble salary (about $330) or your
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10,000-ruble pension (about $110). They want to support
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a system in which all the wealth of a huge
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country
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is concentrated in the hands of a few families
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if you yourselves can no longer be fooled, then
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help enlighten the people around you
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send them this video, for example, because
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you know yourselves how this is going to
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work: before the election, a bacchanalia
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will begin, and all these actors and athletes
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will start, live on the zombie box (a slang term for TV),
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dancing in circles around Putin. If you
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share my point of view, then add your
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signature in support of my candidacy in
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the election—the link is in the description. Subscribe
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to our channel: this is where the truth is told