One last time, let’s curse the authorities. Parasites and drunks. Natasha, read out the whole list.

[music]

Good evening, everyone. It’s 8:00 p.m. in Moscow, which

means we’re live with the program

*Russia of the Future*. Its host is Alexei

Navalny,

— or some obscure civic activist with a

criminal past, as one regional newspaper once called me.

I don’t remember which region it was from,

but it was the honest truth.

An obscure civic activist — true enough — with a

criminal past. Today we have a different topic.

The authorities — there it is, right on my cup,

some kind of hint written on it or something,

some subtle move, you know. But no — it says it plainly:

“The Kremlin is run by idiots,” because

today they didn’t just loudly

declare it — they showed us that

they are going to devour the internet, in the literal

sense of the word, to shut all of us up.

Because today they passed, in the third

reading, a law to combat so-called

fake news, and a law saying that from now on it is

forbidden to insult the authorities. And this topic

is central to my program, because here I

tell truthful news stories that

they call fake news, and here I

insult the authorities, because there is, indeed,

plenty to insult them for. And so that there won’t be

programs like this, so that you won’t

say what you want to say, they

are passing these laws. I want to say right away

that on March 10 at 2:00 p.m. in Moscow,

on Academician Sakharov Avenue,

there will be a large rally against censorship on

the internet. Please come.

Be sure to come. It is being organized by

the Libertarian Party of Russia, but this is

a common rally for everyone, because they did a great job

choosing the date and did the right thing.

A lot of people, in fact,

still don’t fully understand what this bill threatens

us with. They say, well,

there were blocks before, there will be blocks again —

what’s the difference? But guys, you need to understand very

clearly that now the procedure

is completely different. And in that sense, when I

say they want to devour the internet and

devour all independent

digital media outlets,

online media — that is not an exaggeration

at all. Because now the procedure

will not be judicial.

To block something, there will be no need

— in my case, for example —

for anyone to go to court over blocked posts, and for

a court to decide that this information is

prohibited, after which Roskomnadzor (Russia’s media and internet regulator)

sends a notice and then does whatever it does

to block it.

Of course, we have had some fast,

emergency, completely illegal

blocks before. For example, the first Smart Voting site was blocked,

but that was still

a rarity, and it was such an obvious

act of lawlessness. But now that lawlessness

will become the absolute norm, because

the procedure will be as follows:

some guys are just sitting there in the

Prosecutor General’s Office, or they get a call from the

Presidential Administration saying, listen,

there’s some Petya Ivanov, take a look,

please — he posted something on his VKontakte page,

or Mediazona is covering torture

carried out by FSB officers. We

got a call from the FSB saying, don’t do that,

take it down. The Prosecutor General’s Office

calls Roskomnadzor and says: fake news.

The FSB doesn’t torture anyone. I mean, come on,

we all know the FSB doesn’t torture anyone,

and this Mediazona is writing some kind of

nonsense. But do they have in hand

a court ruling recognizing that

torture took place? No, they don’t. So what does that mean? It means

it’s fake news — block it. After that,

Roskomnadzor immediately demands

that it be removed,

that the publication be taken down, and blocks it

immediately. Some vague thing —

it’s unclear — they just block it, and

that’s it. After that, you can run around trying to prove your case,

but it’s already impossible to do anything, because

the Prosecutor General’s Office decided it was fake

news, and that’s the end of it. And if you’re not a media outlet

but specifically Petya Ivanov or Alexei

Navalny,

then the procedure becomes even simpler.

Roskomnadzor just blocks it, that’s all, and

doesn’t notify anyone or do anything else.

There isn’t even any kind of

procedure at all — just blocking

of any media and

Well, let’s look at one more concrete

example. The Prosecutor General’s Office — we

know what the Prosecutor General’s Office is: it’s

basically a gang of bandits. We know that

the Prosecutor General’s family, in particular,

is involved in criminal business all across

the country, connected to waste management, to the way they

illegally obtain state contracts, and so

on and so forth. We know this, and we can

look at it. Let’s watch

a specific 30-second clip from our

film where we simply show

a legal document from the registry showing that

the Prosecutor General’s family — and in fact

the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office — is connected to

the Tsapok gang, who murdered people. 32

seconds.

Olga Lopatina did not disclose in her declaration

that she was involved in the sugar trade. She

is a founder of two companies

specializing in sugar in Moscow and

Krasnodar Krai. In fact, Olga

Lopatina, the wife of a deputy prosecutor general,

has very strong reasons to hide this

business. And her partners,

the co-founders of the sugar

enterprise, are Angela and Mariya Tsapok.

and Natalia Tsepovyaz

These are the wives of the leaders of the Kushchyovskaya organized crime group, Sergei

Tsapok

and his right-hand man, Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz.

The head of the Prosecutor General's Office

his wife sets up companies with murderers and

deranged psychopaths who

terrorized people. We published this information.

So what happened after that?

Did they throw him in jail? No.

What they said—what they said back then—was

literally: well, this is fake news, you know.

Some people probably—these Tsapoks themselves—

went ahead and forged documents in the name of the wife

of the deputy prosecutor general. So from that

formal point of view,

what we published was fake news—it never happened.

There was no such thing, no joint

business. Block everything, obviously.

Of course the Prosecutor General's Office will block everything

connected to the prosecutor general's family,

because you don't have proof that

at their home, under the bed,

there are billions lying around. You can't

produce a photo of that, so everything is

fake news.

Senator Klishas: we show

photos, look at his watches, and

compare them with prices in official

stores.

But let me put myself in the position

of Roskomnadzor and say: Navalny, you're showing

some blurry pictures there,

comparing one blurry picture with other blurry

pictures.

Do you have a receipt from the store?

The proof is supposed to be a store receipt.

It should say: Klishas, here

—or rather, a certificate issued to Navalny,

to Alexei, stating: I, Senator Klishas, bought myself

thirty-two watches, and each one

costs no less than 15 million rubles (about $160,000).

Do you have such a certificate? If not, then they write on the

internet: this is fake news. And don't think

I'm exaggerating, because I know this

perfectly well—I've been sued over it. Well,

they used to sue; now there's no need to sue anymore.

Now you just block it, and that's it. This kind of thing

happens constantly. And when some

United Russia member—remember that giant mansion we showed—

was registered in his mother-in-law's name,

as you may recall.

And he comes out and says: well, my mother-in-law

saved up several hundred million rubles

My mother-in-law sold a two-room apartment—literally, I'm not

exaggerating—sold a two-room apartment in

Novokuznetsk

and then saved some more and built all

this splendor. Prove that it isn't so.

It's all fake news. And that's exactly how it will

work. And you'll see that right now

they'll sign it, finalize

some kind of strategy, and we'll see fines,

and we'll see some arrests. And how do we

fight this? By not complying. By not complying.

By boldly saying that the people sitting in the Kremlin are

idiots, yes; saying that they are crooks and thieves,

yes; saying that our prosecutor general and his

deputy are leaders of an organized

criminal group that works with

murderers.

To speak about it plainly,

in direct terms—that is, not to obey.

The only chance that this law

will stop working is mass

disobedience, because we know what

they're going to do. Just watch: in a couple

of months, some person somewhere in the regions,

in Oryol,

will write something, and we'll learn from Mediazona

that he was fined 15,000 rubles (about $160).

Someone else cursed out the local mayor,

and boom—he gets 15 days in jail.

One, two, three—these won't be mass trials, but

it will be the kind of thing that

gets attention. You may not read about it, but I

will talk about it on the program. It

will be aimed simply at making us

afraid. When you want to write someday

that the mayor of our city is a crook, you'll think:

damn, of course I want to write it,

but on the other hand, what if they fine me

20,000 rubles (about $210), or lock me up for 15 days? Better not.

At that moment, you should say to yourself

that no, I will—and I'll even write it on purpose.

Of course there is a certain risk, a small risk,

but each of us has to take on

some share of that risk. I will take

my share of the risk on myself, and I will

keep speaking out more than anyone

else.

All of you must take on part of this

risk—do not comply. Zhdanov today, the head of

the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK),

wrote an excellent post from a legal

point of view, saying that there is no need to

analyze this at all, no need to pick apart

this bill and think about how to

get around it or not get around it. It is totally, completely

illegal. Therefore, the only thing

to do is to publicly refuse to comply with it. And,

by the way, remember what

they started drafting this law over in the first place?

It was supposedly to fight this fake news. Soon it will be the anniversary

of those events—the fire at the Zimnyaya Vishnya shopping mall (in Kemerovo).

Right after some

Ukrainian pranksters were engaged in that

idiocy, making calls somewhere

and spreading information about some hundreds

of deaths, the authorities seized on that. They

stopped even discussing why, there at

Zimnyaya Vishnya, such a huge number of

people died, why such a tragedy happened.

The focus shifted completely then to

all those Ukrainian pranksters. So

they said we needed a fake news law, and

a year later they are passing this law.

And tell me, please, now a year later, how

There was an investigation into the Winter Cherry case (the deadly 2018 shopping mall fire in Kemerovo).

Who’s in jail over it? Just some scapegoats are sitting there.

Not the EMERCOM people (Russia’s emergency ministry) who were really in charge, not the senior ones.

The officials who approved everything, all of it,

those retail outlets that you gave

permission to operate there, permission to trade,

to set up businesses in a facility that

didn’t even have the proper permits—are any of them in jail?

No. Has the head of EMERCOM been held

accountable in any way? No.

He resigned, but

as far as I know, he works as an adviser to

the current head of EMERCOM. So in fact

not even at the mid-level did anyone

suffer consequences. The people who were making

money off Winter Cherry, right up until

the tragedy happened, were doing just

fine. But if you go out now and

say:

“You didn’t properly investigate

Winter Cherry, and on top of that I hate you,”

“you’re idiots, crooks, and thieves,”

that’s fake—no, fake news combined with

insulting government officials.

Because they supposedly didn’t investigate something properly—

look, they even jailed one guy there,

a man in rubber boots, they locked him up.

He’s sitting there, this one guy,

in his sweater, with his EMERCOM patch, and in

canvas pants—there he is, the main villain.

He’s in jail, so that means there was an investigation.

So everything you’re saying is fake news.

And the fact that you call us

incompetent, swindlers, and crooks—how

dare you insult

the authorities? For that, please go

serve 10 days. Still, you have to say

what you believe is right and

call things by their proper names, even if

they think and say that it’s some kind of

insult, because otherwise nothing—well,

we simply won’t be able to

talk about anything at all. Look, here’s another

example. Today there was a really striking news item.

This thing came out—I’m looking at a news story

about a law being passed, and the very next

story is a report about our

wonderful Roldugin, this

cellist Roldugin, a friend of Vladimir

Putin, whom we know is

Putin’s wallet, and that through his

offshore companies, as we know from the

documents of the so-called Panama

Papers,

billions of dollars flowed in, including

from state-owned companies. But Putin

tells us that all of this is basically fake

news, folks, because he’s a very

wonderful man. Let’s take 48 seconds where

Putin movingly explains that

this is not my wallet at all, this is

just a man who really loves violins

and various instruments. Sergei Pavlovich bought—Roldugin bought—

I think, two violins and

cellos.

These are unique items. The last one he

acquired—

well, I’ll say it, because it was already on

the internet—cost around $12 million.

Did it never occur to anyone that we have

people like Sergei Pavlovich, and that he even

planned to transfer this into the ownership

of the state? That’s what the paperwork is about.

But I ask all sorts of crooks and others

to calm down: Sergei Palych no longer has anything.

He spent more on acquiring these

instruments than he actually

had. He even remained in debt to those

entities, to the funds through which he

bought them. In Russia, you can still imagine

a bribe in the form of borzoi puppies (a reference to a classic Russian expression about extravagant gifts), but

with violins and

cellos—I’ve never heard of that.

Do you see the beauty of it? He literally received

$5 billion through offshore companies,

bought two violins, and now the money is gone.

Can you imagine such a selfless, unmercenary man?

So this very same Roldugin, this supposedly

selfless man—his Talent and Success Foundation

and don’t even think that he’s involved in any

schemes or shady arrangements—this is a man

who thinks only about talented children.

He gets them a violin and

says, “Here, kids, play the violin.” And then he

receives a contract as a sole supplier,

meaning his company was specifically selected

for it.

And he gets a contract worth 287 million

rubles (about $3.1 million) for his Talent and Success Foundation. Guess

what for? For maintenance and landscaping

of parks in the area, on the grounds

of the Olympic Park in Sochi. So the

Talent and Success Foundation gets almost 300 million

rubles (about $3.2 million) for park maintenance. But we understand

what the real news is.

If you put it in plain, ordinary

language, the story is that Putin’s

wallet got a contract that was

tailored specifically for him so they could

channel

300 million rubles (about $3.2 million) to him for some of his foundation’s expenses.

There was simply no other way

to funnel this budget money to him

except under the pretext that he would maintain

some parks, provide upkeep for

the territory of the Olympic Park in Sochi.

Would you agree that this is what the news really sounds like? You can

phrase it that way. But if you put it exactly

as I did, in a fairly harsh form, then

the media will have to say “Putin’s alleged

friend Roldugin, known for the fact that

blah blah blah, he owned offshore companies,”

and “Putin said such-and-such,” but still the

news is what it is. But under current

legislation, all of this will be branded

fake news. What makes you say he’s Putin’s wallet?

And what makes you say that $5 billion flowed into his offshore

companies?

You have no evidence, but there were

some Panama Papers

articles, yes, some things are posted online

bank transfers and documents, but do they

bear Roldugin's signature and seal? He

denies it, and Vladimir Putin

said that all the money bought two

violins. Can you prove otherwise? No,

you can't. That's what it's called: fake news. That's

how it will work. After some

time—why are they doing this? For a long time now

many have been asking questions, or writing things like

well, there they go again, they're only making

things worse for themselves. They understand that there is no

other way out. Just look now, go

to any site, even the most, I don't know,

pro-Kremlin one—everyone criticizes the authorities for different

reasons. All those various

imperialists there, lovers of starting a war with

Ukraine and conquering the whole world—they

criticize the authorities from the right; democrats

criticize the authorities from the left; statists

do too, even Vladimir Solovyov

endlessly.

They criticize this government, finding

various specific flaws. That is, in

principle, these days, unless they're being paid,

no one will say a single good word

about anything—whether it's the government,

the security services, the police—really,

no one, ever.

All discussion of the authorities is harsh

criticism. So of course they want to tone

that down. Of course they want to, well, silence

certain people, because, well, it's starting to sound

a bit too harsh. Besides, they

lie constantly. We'll talk about that

now, and in order to stop you from

exposing their lies, they need

a special law under which your

analysis of their lies becomes, in their view, fake news.

All right, let me answer a few questions.

18,700 people are watching us.

In the case of an administrative charge for disrespect toward

the authorities, does the person end up on the list

of terrorists and extremists? No, you do not

end up there.

No list—at least as of

today, the law does not provide for that.

So please, criticize them. Yes, it is necessary

to criticize them, listen.

You need to ignore this law. You shouldn't even

be thinking about whether I'll end up on some list

or not.

But guys, if we give up, if we deny

ourselves the right

simply in our own little blog

to write everything we think about this

government, then why call ourselves

human beings at all? So, Pasha Bulakhov

asks me how they are going to

prove that fake news poses

a threat or danger. They won't. And how do they

prove anything else, for that matter? How did they

prove things in all the court cases against me,

civil or criminal, in the campaign around

my criminal cases,

which I later won, of course, in

the European Court? I was convicted several

times. Danika,

this will simply be an order from

the Prosecutor General's Office, and there will be nothing

written there except that

some prosecutor, having reviewed a link

of such-and-such kind, found it to be information not

corresponding to reality.

Then Roskomnadzor's order, and that's it. You won't even

know anything. You'll probably see later

that Roskomnadzor, on the basis of

decision no. such-and-such by the Prosecutor General's Office,

dated such-and-such,

declared the news unreliable and

blocked you. I assume you won't even

be able to get that piece of paper from

the Prosecutor General's Office. They won't explain anything

to you. That's not what this law

was designed for. It was drafted

in the harshest possible form

because we thought they would

do what they usually do, that is,

introduce a harsh law, everyone would say, my God,

what a terrible, terrible law, and then they would

soften it a little, and everyone would say, well,

all right, at least our outrage wasn't for nothing. But this

time it was even different: they introduced a terrible,

terrible law, everyone was outraged, and they

replaced it with one even more terrible. Yurets, Yurets

asks me: what about your investigations now?

Will it be possible to appeal these

new measures in courts or in some

similar venues? Yurets, my friend,

I don't give a damn about this new law. I understand that

it is aimed in many ways against me and

against the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

so I won't say that this law, as

many call it, is a personal law

against Navalny. No, these laws are against you. But

to a large extent, it is also because of our

investigations. We don't care about it. We

do not intend to comply with it, because

as I already said, we do not wish

to deny ourselves the right to be human beings and

to be free citizens of Russia.

So I don't give a damn about this law.

I'm not going to spend even a second

thinking about it, and I'm not going to change

my wording for even a second. So, let me remind you that on March 10

at 2:00 p.m. in Moscow, at Sakharov Square,

there will be a rally, as I understand it, and in Khabarovsk

it has also been officially approved.

A rather exotic choice,

Moscow and Khabarovsk; in all other

places, permission was denied.

They refused. Be sure to come. People ask me

whether I will speak. I myself

will not be speaking, unfortunately. I have

long-standing family plans for

that day, so I will not be coming to the rally.

But come, so to speak, on behalf of yourself and your

boyfriend—there will be a ton of people there on VK (VKontakte).

People from our штаб (campaign office) will be speaking there, and I

am sure there will be a huge number of

speakers. Of course, I will support it

remotely, and we are promoting

this rally in every possible way. Frankly, my

physical presence there is not that important

because mentally I will be with you. I

hope everyone goes there. Oh, and yes—don't look for it,

they're writing it in large letters: in Voronezh, on March 10

at 2:00 p.m., at Nikitinskaya Square.

So: Moscow, Khabarovsk, Voronezh—

approved. What else can we do

against this crap?

Smart Voting. Look, after all, in the

State Duma this passed; the Communists

grumbled a little, but overall

there was no

organized resistance in the Duma

at all. We need United

Russia to have fewer seats, and for that we need to

take part in Smart Voting, and

register right now. In September

there will be a ton of regional elections. Let's

try in September to at least slightly

reduce the number of United Russia representatives.

So register using this link,

which Roskomnadzor (Russia’s media and internet regulator) cannot currently

block. So, I said that

these laws are needed because they

themselves spread fake news.

And there is an absolutely astonishing, astonishing

example—just top-tier fake news—when

Putin himself, at an FSB board meeting,

Let's listen to 31 seconds of it.

There, the guy is just lying, talking about

made-up numbers: "I note that the number of

terrorism-related crimes

in recent years

has been declining. The director will speak about this

in his address. Overall, over 10 years

this figure has decreased many times over,

from 997 to 9 last year. At the same time,

I would note that the number of

prevented terrorist attacks remains high—around 20

per year. This level has been maintained for the last

three years."

You and I know how

sensitive this is, how important every missed

blow is.

It matters enormously. Meduza did an excellent

fact-check of these statements: they are simply

numbers pulled out of thin air. There were supposedly 997 terrorist attacks,

and then the number supposedly fell—it's all made up, and

this is once again a perfect answer to the question—we

have discussed it here many times—

Magnitogorsk, where it is obvious, and by now no one

doubts it, that a terrorist attack took place, while the authorities still

say it was a gas explosion, and that's that.

People were writing to me here on this screen, where

questions come in:

why? what for? what kind of stupidity is this? why

do they deny it? Guys, that's exactly why they deny it:

because then, at the board meeting of the

FSB, he wouldn't be able to puff himself up; he would have had to

come in, look around the hall, and say:

well, here we have lieutenant generals,

army generals, and some others, I don't know,

a whole bunch of them, all sitting there in their striped-trouser uniforms, and tens of billions of rubles are spent on you,

tens of billions of rubles, but the number

of people killed in terrorist attacks this year

has jumped up—and there were explosions

in Magnitogorsk.

That means the money was spent for nothing, which means you are

just a gathering of freeloaders. But he can't say that,

so instead he simply uses

some made-up figures. It was said, exposed,

that last year there were also thousands of

foreign agents.

So where are the court cases then? Any

trials involving foreign agents, any proceedings?

Or did they just quietly expel diplomats? Nothing

like that is visible. Fine, let's

assume that part of it is secret

work that cannot be disclosed, classified

exchanges,

or they were convicted in some closed trials,

or killed somewhere, like in a spy

thriller. But still, there should be court

cases, or dozens of cases, or

some significant number of them. But there is

nothing of the sort, and it is impossible to verify.

People carry some kind of nonsense to each other in folders marked "secret,"

some kind of lie. Everyone understands that it is

a lie. I know that right now some

number of FSB employees are watching this

program. Come on, guys, you understand perfectly well

that all of this is lies.

And as for these supposedly brilliant terrorist-attack busts, you

know perfectly well that the Federal Security

Service is now occupied with one thing only:

preserving Putin's personal power and

protecting all the thieves gathered around

him, and

their main activity—what the

mid-level and senior ranks there mostly do—is simply

drink on the job. I'm sure

that right now some FSB guys who, I don't know, like

anime or listen to this are saying,

well, damn, you can't really argue with that,

because really, nobody does a damn thing

—everyone just drinks from morning till night. That's what

the Federal Security Service is. And

so that you cannot do this kind of

fact-checking,

they invented the fake-news law, because if you start

exposing Putin's lies, they will come to the

Prosecutor General's Office and say: well, Putin

knows better, after all—he has

a secret report, and in that secret

report the real truth is written down, whereas you

are writing there about Magnitogorsk,

claiming there was some kind of terrorist attack—it was a gas

explosion. In fact, there was just a question here:

how do they declare this information dangerous?

Well, that's exactly how they do it. They say: this

Navalny on his YouTube channel is saying something different.

Journalists—I found this information about

the fact that in that very GAZelle van

those migrants from Central Asia

had been shot—they didn’t just burn to death from

the fire, and so on. So, a huge

number of other circumstantial

pieces of evidence were found by journalists, but they’re told:

they’re spreading rumors, they’re fueling

panic, this information is dangerous,

therefore it must be removed

immediately, and everything will be

blocked to hell.

Because the FSB (Russia’s security service) doesn’t like it, or

their investigation doesn’t like it. That’s exactly why they came up with

this disgusting, vile

law. By the way, right here in front of me lies

a book.

I’ve been meaning to recommend it to you for a long time, and now

I finally will. It’s by Sergei Aleksashenko

—the book *Counterrevolution*. Everyone who

is interested in the evolution

of the counterrevolution that took place in Russia

under Putin—I highly recommend reading it. I

give this book out to everyone at the Anti-Corruption Foundation

because

I often have to argue with people, and

I understand that, whether because of their age or

because

5–10 years ago, or 15 years ago, they weren’t

interested in the news, and they ask

some strange questions about Putin.

Because everything he does has

a very clear logical explanation in

Sergei Aleksashenko’s book *Counterrevolution*.

Many thanks to him. By the way,

on the last 200 copies there’s my signature, and in the

special detention center he also passed me the manuscript.

I read it—it’s a great book, I recommend it to everyone

to read.

in order to understand how the

regime works. Let me take a couple of questions.

Akella asks me: “Alexei, what

do you think about the situation with Oreshkin in the State Duma?”

“What’s your attitude toward him? Is he a corrupt official too?”

The best thing written about the Oreshkin situation was by

Vladimir Milov. And for those who don’t know, the situation with Oreshkin

is that Oreshkin,

the minister of economic development,

came to the State Duma with some kind of

report, and the speaker of the State Duma, Volodin,

basically told him, “You’re not prepared,” and sort of

chased him out. And now everyone is saying,

“Look, the role of the State Duma

is growing—they threw out a minister.”

Milov wrote correctly: it’s like in the old

joke about Lieutenant Rzhevsky (a stock character in Russian jokes),

I hope I retell this

joke correctly, who said, “Let’s bathe the horse in

champagne.” They told him, “We don’t have any champagne.”

“All right, and we don’t have any money either.”

“Then let’s at least pour beer on the cat.” That’s exactly

the same thing here: the expulsion of Oreshkin, who

is a nobody, a man with no real standing,

a quiet chubby guy who came there with

his figures. Sure, he’s some kind of minister close

to Putin, but he doesn’t play any

significant role, no

political role at all. So the fact that this

quiet chubby guy was kicked out of the Duma is just

like pouring beer on the cat, nothing more.

It means nothing except that

Volodin decided, in some way,

to show off.

Zlyuk asks—I don’t know, excellent question:

“Will it be possible to use the laws on

fake news against the liars in power themselves?”

Dear Zlyuk, it won’t, because

naturally—well, the only thing is,

you’re a clever guy, and I thought the same thing right away

when they introduced this law. I thought:

we’ll take Kiselyov’s broadcasts

—after all, there’s poison in every word—and on

every single point we’ll go through it, just for the sake of

trolling, and file

a complaint over each one of his lies.

But that won’t work, because they

exempted

television, radio, and newspapers from

the scope of this law. In other words, everything that

they control—or their oligarchs control—

is not subject to this law. Why didn’t they say,

“Well, you know, there’s already oversight there anyway”?

I mean, Kiselyov’s life is such that he doesn’t lie

on his program, he doesn’t lie on his program,

so there’s no need to monitor Kiselyov

through this law, and everything is

fine. But the internet—the internet is a different

matter. There, people lie so much,

far, far, far more than on

television. So it won’t be possible

to use it that way. I’m sure that

the Prosecutor General’s Office will be quite

satisfied with how

news is handled on television.

Let’s talk about “parasites” (a Soviet-era term for people accused of avoiding work)

and [__]. Ah, if you thought just now that I was

once again insulting representatives of the authorities

by calling them parasites and drunks—no.

“Parasites” and “drunks” are what, this week, you and I heard in

this little scandal stirred up by

a United Russia deputy,

Gasan Nabiev, because he is exactly

that kind of United Russia member, and he’s continuing

a very interesting trend here, where

United Russia deputies, in response to

universal criticism and universal dislike of

this party, don’t sit quietly, but instead

brazenly lash out and start

branding everyone as parasites and drunks. United

Russia, of course, is constantly being confronted right now with

low pensions and the law

raising the retirement age, and so

Nabiev sat there and sat there, and then

spoke up and said that basically everyone who has

a small pension is a parasite and a drunk.

Let’s listen to these 46 seconds.

When it was time to crack nuts, I was working... characters...

...rubber at an enterprise, when a couple...

They used to crack down on them for parasitism (the Soviet-era charge of avoiding socially useful work).

Go get a job—when it's alcoholism,

go work, but when normal people

worked, they were paid a decent wage.

Or the one about Ford on a poster from years ago.

to get this reaction: they're drunks, and 8

rubles, while those who worked, somehow deciding

that you need to work for 20–25 years, and come on, you

know what I'm going to do now. The regular

viewers of our program know perfectly well

they're already sitting there in anticipation—well, now Navalny

is going to look at the declaration. Yes, of course, yes.

Every time I see some brazen, insolent

United Russia party member, such a boor,

who looks at everyone and says: 8,000

you get 8,800? Then you're a parasite, [__]. I

think: you bastard, because 8,800 is

a typical pension for any nurse, any

childcare aide, any kindergarten employee. 8

800 is the pension, while the one earning millions

in Volgograd Region, where this very

deputy is from—the average salary there is 29

thousand rubles, and so a person

working for the average wage

there gets shouted at: go work, get back to the line, there at the

machine. People are worn out at the machine

and get 29,000 rubles, and some pension like that

will be 10 or 12 or

8,800, but it will never be 25,000.

To have a pension of 25,000, you need to be

an official, or, well, you need to be

an officer, or some kind of

prosecutor's office employee—that is, a 25,000-ruble pension

doesn't come from factory work.

It just doesn't happen. People toil for 40 years and

end up with pensions of 8,800, and this

mug just throws it in their faces: you're all

drunks and parasites. So what do I do?

Of course, I get it, damn it, I

mean, this guy looks very glamorous,

but I think: if this creep is reproaching everyone

over money, then in his declaration I will

definitely find a substantial amount.

This guy definitely makes more per year

than $100,000 in the impoverished, poverty-stricken

Volgograd Region, where 400,000

people live below the poverty line. So we open

the declaration—what do we see? For 2017: 13

million rubles. Damn, the guy works at

Gazprom and gets 13 million. He'll

be just fine, and his pension

won't matter to him at all—he doesn't need any pension.

He feels it, yes—he feels that he is

part of this gang that has latched onto

all of us, and in particular onto

Gazprom—our Gazprom—and pulls

money out of it, keeps pulling money out of it, and

instead of—it's like he has this kind of

compensation mechanism going on in his brain.

But he doesn't want to hear that we

here get 8,800, while you, apparently,

doing who knows what, get 13

million a year. He sat there and thought,

sat there and thought: well, I can't

be the bad guy, right? They're the parasites and drunks.

And so he says: you're the parasites, the drunks.

It's simply, well, utterly disgusting—

vile, agree? And all of them are like that.

And the United Russia party members who don't

earn much are no different in this respect.

Look at everyone who spouts

this kind of filth, like this Nabiev,

various Klishases, all of them who push

these bills, who want to shut us

up.

They're ruble millionaires like Nabiev, or

dollar millionaires like Klishas—that is, these are very

rich people who, it seems, did not

earn their millions through especially honest labor.

their millions.

The good news is that

there will be elections in Volgograd Region in September.

Smart Voting (Navalny's tactical voting strategy), guys—this

Nabiev is running again.

So once again, addressing the residents of Volgograd: but

guys, he insulted you. Your average

salary is 29,000 rubles, which means all of you

will have pensions of 10,000, 8,000—but at least

throw him out of the Duma for insulting

people. Tell United Russia this means:

kick him off the party lists, or you

won't get a single vote. Take part in

Smart Voting. I understand perfectly well

that they falsify results there and all the rest,

but you see, at least let them

falsify them knowing that people came and

voted against him because he

insulted them. That's much better than when

they don't even need to falsify anything because

he just gets elected again, just like that.

They elected this completely

brazen

and outright scoundrel who simply

to people who have worked for decades—what, you

call them drunks?

And God knows what else. Right now, 40 percent of our

economy is in the shadows (informal/undeclared).

You may be earning a high salary,

but because of the huge taxes introduced

by United Russia, your employer cannot

pay you officially. You've been offered a high

salary—100,000 rubles—but in order

to pay you 100,000 rubles officially and on the books,

the employer has to set aside 143

thousand rubles. So he tells you:

buddy, you choose: either I

cut it accordingly and you

get 70 or maybe 60, but officially,

or you get 100, but off the books. And you

say, well obviously, you need the money.

You say, all right, to hell with it, you

take the 100,000, let's say—but what

pension will you have later? 8,800, because

you're not paying those taxes—and it's impossible

to pay them. The whole country works like this, and

he understands that perfectly well. Nevertheless,

this brazen man says these disgusting things.

Smart Voting.

We need to vote against them. They need to be punished.

Let's actually punish all of them.

Let's talk about the good news we supposedly have:

a base on the Moon. Are you aware of that? There is, in

fact, a Moon base in Russia, and apparently it has been

operating for quite a while now, since 2015. And next

year, we, we will start extracting there

the rare isotope helium-3.

If you thought I'd gone a little

crazy from hating the authorities, no.

We have this man, Nikolai Sevastyanov,

who has received

a high-ranking post. He has just now been

reappointed to

RSC Energia (a major Russian spacecraft corporation), and

you know, I like talking about space, about

the space industry.

It really pains me that we are so far behind in

the space industry. I keep

saying that our lag is connected,

naturally, with corruption and with the fact that

space officials lie constantly,

taking advantage of the fact that no one can verify what they say.

Take Rogozin, for example—what can you do? He is constantly

saying, yes, the Americans will be flying on trampolines,

while we have begun promising

development of a new spacecraft,

with a photon engine. Go verify it—everything is

secret. Space is secret, the Vostochny Cosmodrome (Russia's spaceport in the Far East) is secret, and

we'll build it, we'll launch it—go check. If we

go and fly a drone around the Vostochny Cosmodrome,

they'll have to catch the person with the drone

and lock him up, because it's a classified site.

Blueprints are a state secret. You can't verify

anything, and so they lie. But you can verify it

with time. And this very

Sevastyanov, back in 2005, also while working

at RSC Energia, also being one of those

space bureaucrats, lied just as brilliantly,

and that interview of his from

2005 has survived, and it's hilarious. Let's

take a look. I mean, in fact, they

the guy says in the interview, look:

"We plan to create a permanent station on the Moon

by 2015, that is, in four

years' time, and from 2020 there may begin

industrial extraction on the satellite

of helium-3." Sorry for laughing, I just can't

help it. "And also we will

put into operation in 2015

the reusable Clipper spacecraft, with the help of

which flights to the Moon will be carried out."

In other words, he's lying through his teeth.

And everyone understood that it was a lie, but somehow

what could you say? You say it now,

to Rogozin when he starts again about his

Moon base: "Rogozin,

you're lying, this is fake news," and he'll say you're just

not informed,

because the space excavator is already

ready to mine the rare isotope,

you just don't know about it. It's all in

a classified folder.

But it just so happened that

Sevastyanov in 2005 thought, what difference

the hell does it make? I'll feed these fools

a mountain of lies—who's going to check, who's even going

to think about it? By 2019 we'll

all have made a pile of money and will be

living in Monaco.

Well, life turned out such that 2019

did come, he got a high appointment, and

you want to ask: man, how's our

Moon base doing, and how can we keep believing you

and people like you on even a single word?

On the one hand, we know the statements of

engineers and ordinary employees that everything

in the space sector has completely fallen apart.

We see that the Khrunichev plant (a major Russian aerospace manufacturer)

is being demolished in order to build office

centers. We understand that all of this is collapse, and yet

we are supposed to believe guys like this again,

who tell us about some kind of

Moon base. We're supposed to believe this

Putinist lie about some kind of super-

rocket, the Poseidon torpedo,

but everyone understands that none of this exists, and

people in the defense industry laugh out loud when they hear

these Putin statements, because

Vladimir Putin has wrecked the entire defense

industry and wrecked the entire

space industry, and engineers

earning 20,000 rubles a month (about a few hundred U.S. dollars) have scattered. There were

old-timers there until recently, still from

the Soviet era, but they were already elderly.

They retired, or they have already died, and

young people do not go to work there because

when all your money goes

to palaces and to buying violins instead of

a Moon base, all we are left with is

stories about how we are going to build a base on

the Moon. In this sense, the Putin regime is literally

committing a crime: for 20 years, enormous

amounts of money have been spent, and we have nothing.

We have fallen behind even China, and we're supposed to listen to

talk of some super-ship, Clipper, that

is supposedly going to fly somewhere.

Against the backdrop of all this, against the backdrop of a supposedly rich

Russia,

we see this—and meanwhile we're talking about a Moon base.

One of the things that really struck

me this week was in Yaroslavl Oblast (a region northeast of Moscow).

There was a big protest there. I

saw photos from there, from Yaroslavl

Oblast. It was a protest in Yaroslavl—

more precisely, in the RezinoTekhnika settlement,

somewhere within Yaroslavl, but it's a compact

area, and 40,000 people live there.

And it was quite a large protest. Why? Because they

closed the hospital there. This is Yaroslavl, not

some village. It's a fairly well-off,

relatively wealthy region, a kind of Gazprom region,

one of those Gazprom-type places. There is a

processing plant there—in other words, it's

considered a rich region—and yet they closed

the hospital. People simply have nowhere to get treatment. What

are they supposed to do? They have to take a taxi

and ride somewhere for an hour and a half, if they can even get a taxi.

It’s faster by public transport there, with

two transfers, but you still have to travel for an hour and a half

just to get to the hospital.

What is a pensioner supposed to do? Let’s

take a look at what this rally looked like. 45

seconds.

[music]

Beyond the edge.

Did you even stop to think with your head—something this

huge, and now there was a shove there, among

our settlement, our district—and everything is hell.

The hospital—if we lose it, it’s unthinkable.

A cemetery.

We had good doctors here, and our department head was good.

They were good. We want our own doctors, our own

department head. You may say this is just an isolated case,

some minor incident, but one of the hospitals in a huge

number is being shut down. But I always

try in my program to talk about

these small, specific cases. Well, you

probably would never have heard about the closure of this

hospital

if the program hadn’t drawn attention to it. But this is an important

thing—it’s about priorities, you see. At the beginning of the

program I said that 300

million rubles

were funneled into “Talent and Success,” while

Putin’s friend Roldugin got the money, but the hospital

was closed, and elderly people now have to stand out in the freezing cold

somewhere and chant,

“Give us back the hospital! Give back

the hospital!” They shout it in ragged, untrained voices.

What else are they supposed to do? Who have they turned out to be

in this country, and who does this

country belong to if their hospital is being taken away?

What was it all for? Why did they pay taxes all their lives

and continue to pay them

with every purchase they make? There’s

excise tax, there’s VAT, their children work

and pay income tax and everything

else. The budget is filled by these very

people, and then they’re told,

“Well, you know, we’re closing

the hospital. This is your so-called social

state with free

healthcare.” I already know, by the way,

and I can see people asking me there

whether the Doctors’ Alliance trade union can help. There

is already, I think, even a local branch of the Alliance

of Doctors. Naturally, these doctors are outraged

that it’s being shut down. The money exists—that is,

it’s not some impossible sum that

Russia can’t afford. The Russian Federation

can maintain these

hospitals without any problem. It just needs to spend less

money

on various useless parasites. Well,

it’s a question of priorities, you see.

That Roldugin Putin was talking about—well,

apparently he just can’t do without another

300 million rubles being transferred to him

there for some “green pleasures”

through “Talent and Success,” while

people in Yaroslavl—nobody gives a damn about them.

No one will hear about them. Well, I’ll talk about them here

on the program, I’ll write about them somewhere on Twitter,

because otherwise no one will say anything about them.

They’ll just say there was some kind of rally.

So, excuse me, getting back to the topic

of fake news,

the dangerous “fake news” is supposedly that

journalists

or bloggers reported on

an unauthorized, unsanctioned

event with the slogan

“Give back the hospital.” But of course, no one

closed the hospital—it’s just “healthcare optimization,”

and all medical care

—much higher-quality care, no less—will be provided

there, at Hospital No. Such-and-such, which

was merged with another one. Nothing was closed there yet,

there was just a reorganization: two hospitals

were merged, and everyone was reassigned to this one.

So this is all just, like,

they didn’t “close” it, they “liquidated” it—but the hospital

still exists, so these people who

are shouting “Give back the hospital,” and you who

are talking about it—you’re all fake-news peddlers, and

that’s all. This is healthcare optimization.

All right, let me take a couple more questions. 27

thousand 700 are watching us live. Lola

Love.

Irina Lavlinsky asks me:

“Alexei, can the law on

insulting the authorities be regarded as coercion to

renounce one’s own opinions, under Article 29, Clause 3

of the Constitution?

After all, they’ll demand that posts be deleted, they’ll

block them and demand their removal.

Irina,

well, of course, you are absolutely right. This law is

super-mega unconstitutional. It violates

absolutely everything. It’s impossible—not only because

it doesn’t comply with the Constitution, it also doesn’t

comply with the media law, it doesn’t

comply with the Civil Code,

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European

Convention—there is nothing it complies with. It is

absolutely unlawful. But they don’t care about that

either.

Because Senator Klishas, Irina,

needs you to stop right now

talking about his watches, and Vladimir Putin needs you

right now to stop

talking about his billions in bribes, or

about his daughters carrying out some kind of

strange projects inside Moscow State University, because

they’ll tell you, Irina: “What daughter? Vladimir

Putin has never acknowledged that she is his

daughter. That’s fake news. Show us her passport

and the marriage certificate,

then we’ll talk to you.” This is,

of course, absolutely unlawful.

This law contradicts the Constitution.

Konstantin asks: “Alexei, what about

posts on social media—if I repost

some article to myself,”

“say, about Rogozin, will I get fined? But I immediately…”

I urge you all, Konstantin, to spread this everywhere.

Write posts about all these idiots, because as I

already said, mass non-compliance with this

law—we are millions of people. Of course,

a few dozen people, a few hundred people

will be fined, and you may end up

among them. I will almost certainly be

among them. A few dozen people will end up

under arrest.

You may be among them.

I will definitely be among them. So what?

That is the price we must

pay if we want to remain

human beings, if we want to feel like

citizens. So don’t think about that.

A repost—no, not a repost, don’t repost it.

Write your own post directly about how they’re all

idiots.

If you really consider them

idiots. Radik asks: tell us about

Roman Rubanov—how are you defending him from

the authorities? What exactly are they hounding him over?

And speaking of hounding people, Rubanov is being hounded

for exactly this reason. Against the former

director of the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation), Roman Rubanov, a

criminal case has been opened. Why? Because FBK

cannot remove the investigation. It’s not

"He Is Not Dimon to You"—it cannot, in principle,

remove it, because it’s on my account on

YouTube. And even if all of the authorities came to me and

told me to delete it, and for some reason I

didn’t delete it, no one can force me

to delete it. It’s my account. But they opened a case

against Rubanov specifically

for exactly that. But now everything will become

easier for them, because blocking measures

are being simplified. And precisely so that

there won’t be these long procedures with

bailiffs and so on, they did a simple

thing: first block it, and only then let the

person go and prove that he is not

a camel (i.e., absurdly forced to prove innocence). We are defending Rubanov

through our regular legal department, and

right now summonses are being sent here to

all FBK employees.

So this is just part of our routine

legal work. I mentioned Gazprom in the

context of Yaroslavl.

Gazprom pays quite a lot of money

in Yaroslavl. You know, there

as we have seen, there still isn’t enough money for the hospital.

And, of course, an absolutely

astonishing thing was published the other day—

or rather, it was published in the newspaper

Fontanka some time ago, but

it has now spread widely because

Gazprom itself confirmed the authenticity of the

recording.

Gazprom board member Sergei Prozorov

came to a meeting in the town of Priozersk

in Leningrad Region.

They were building a pipeline there, and everything was stolen.

They built nothing; all the money was stolen.

The theft there amounts to

1.7 billion rubles (about US$18–19 million), that is,

with 700 million rubles already confirmed as having been siphoned off.

The contractor received almost

2 billion rubles (about US$21–22 million) and built almost

nothing. And then a board member came there.

Let’s listen—there’s one

clip, 1 minute 41 seconds long, and it’s quite

revealing. Just so you understand—this is not

some playground being built

in your yard. This is a huge Gazprom

facility. That means Rostekhnadzor (the federal technical supervision agency) is there,

attached FSB officers (security service officers) are there,

who are supposed to monitor safety so that no one

blows up the gas pipeline.

There’s also the police, local authorities,

design organizations, and so on and so

forth. Thousands of people are supposed to

control this, and yet what happened was what

Gazprom itself called a complete disaster. 1

minute 47 seconds: ‘The disgrace that you

allowed.’

‘In the theft of the pipe,’

‘I cannot understand the actions…’

[inaudible]

‘Why the hell are we sitting and waiting?’

[inaudible]

‘Priozersk is a complete disaster, this is a total

mess… everything was built on instructions…’

‘Don’t you know where the

control booth is looking?’

‘Now all of you need to…’

‘What do you call it, when already…’

‘He’s talking nonsense…’

‘Why hasn’t this already woken all of you up? It’s obvious

this time bomb that has already been handed to you…’

‘It’s already arrived, so that’s it, across the whole site…’

‘There is no construction oversight, nobody gives a damn…’

‘that things are not being maintained for an hour, an hour and a half…’

[inaudible]

[inaudible]

‘You can’t make porridge with you’ (i.e., you can’t get anything done with you). ‘Don’t give him a damn thing…’

‘No need to know—you can invite those

deputy department heads there.’

This is an astonishing thing. Let’s look

at a photograph of what this

pipeline is supposed to look like, just so you understand.

This is the kind of thing that

is not exactly easy to hide. And here

is the section where the pipeline is supposed to be,

because on paper it has already been completed, but there

is basically nothing there. And notice this:

this Gazprom official,

Prozorov, isn’t even tearing his hair out,

isn’t shouting, ‘My God, we’re all going to

go to jail, guys!’

I mean, the pipeline isn’t there—you can’t hide that.

You stole one and a half billion—well,

2 billion rubles.

‘How terrible, they’re already coming for us’? No.

The conversation there is more like:

‘So, by personal instruction

from Miller (Alexei Miller, Gazprom CEO), you didn’t build it. Here is the

time bomb: you have no construction oversight,’

and at that moment we understand what kind of…

There’s total chaos going on there, but listen—no.

I mean, this is the Leningrad Region after all.

We can assume that somewhere there,

in Yamal, whatever it is they’re laying there,

and back and forth—but there are 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) of pipes there,

worth who knows how many millions of dollars.

It sank into a swamp of shashlik—8,000 portions of grilled meat.

Thrown into an abyss—what kind of things like that

could possibly happen in the Leningrad

Region and still hide the fact that it wasn’t built,

roughly speaking, while the money has already been carved up and stolen,

and this is routine practice at Gazprom, but

basically speaking,

that’s why there’s no money for the Yaroslavl Region,

and that’s why the Gazprom crowd is living so

in clover—these houses,

these watches, this real estate,

Spanish, French—everyone around Gazprom has it all.

That’s why the only people sitting there are

Putin’s friends, because some kind of

super-corruption is going on, if things like this

can happen—where they just up and stole

an entire section in the Leningrad Region.

Well, uh—

Yes, maybe—I really just can’t imagine.

Those of you who’ve dealt with this know—there’s oversight,

and then there’s the FSB (Russia’s security service) everywhere, with every

contractor, at every subsidiary.

There’s what they call an apparatus

of attached personnel, questionnaires, records of where

they were—so it’s obvious they were drinking, like I

said at the beginning of my program, what

the FSB does is drink; they just went and

bought them vodka.

They gave them money and said, guys, here’s

a helicopter,

go off hunting and to the banya (sauna bathhouse), because

well,

you simply can’t fail to see how, over the course of

several years, a pipeline wasn’t built

that was supposed to be built, for which

funds were being spent, and for which

completion certificates were being signed,

saying it had already been built. I mean,

it’s really quite an amazing setup, of course.

Toward the end of the program, I want to say something about sports.

I want to speak out, and I admit that I’m not

a big fan of watching sports

competitions—I try to stay away from it.

I’ve commented on the Olympics or

the World Cup

only in terms of corruption and all that

other stuff; I don’t get into the substance of it.

But now I

do want to speak about

the actual substance, because in Russia

a great sporting event has taken place, and

you’re probably like, what great event?

What great sporting event?

Don’t you know? The Universiade took place in

Russia. Out of curiosity, I ran a poll on

Twitter and Telegram, and after looking at the results, I

asked people:

Do you know that the Universiade is happening in Russia?

And 59 percent of people told me

they didn’t know. I asked in

my Telegram channel: guys, do you know

that the Winter Universiade is going on? And again,

most people didn’t know—either they didn’t know at all

or had heard of it but didn’t know which city it was in.

So, the Universiade took place in Krasnoyarsk,

and it cost us

80 billion rubles.

It’s an absolutely astonishing thing, because

half the population of Russia

has no idea what this

damn Universiade even is,

why the hell it’s needed, or what on earth

is going on there. But it’s presented

as some kind of great, great

magnificent sports celebration.

Let’s listen to what Putin said at

the opening—41 seconds.

Good evening, dear friends. Welcome

to Russia. Today, Krasnoyarsk,

on the banks of our great Siberian river,

the Yenisei, has welcomed a global celebration

of student sports, a celebration of youth

and friendship,

of hard-fought and close competition.

Thousands of athletes from dozens of countries around the world

will demonstrate their skill,

strength, speed, endurance, and of course

the will to win.

Usually in cases like this, politicians—

opposition politicians, I mean—honestly,

we usually prefer to say, well,

yes, this really is a major sports celebration,

we support the athletes,

send our greetings, that sort of thing. But I

like talking about corruption, I like

that sort of thing—but in this case I want to say

something personally. I read quite a bit,

carefully, on Sports.ru, I read an article—

an article came out about the Universiade saying that

this whole Universiade really is nonsense,

nonsense, murk, and a complete mess, as in such cases

Medvedev likes to say—really, it’s absurd and

a scam.

A fraud, a colossal deception, meaningless

and paid for with our money. And then Putin says—

you understand, he stands there and says to everyone’s face:

this is a celebration of honest sport. But our

Universiade—I looked at the statistics,

and I was stunned.

You really have, from one side, some

random student nobodies coming from all over the world,

and against them we put up

professional athletes. For example, we have

in snowboarding, a two-time world champion,

Maxim Burov, the reigning world champion,

and in freestyle, Maxim Kovtun,

a medalist at the World and European Championships

in figure skating. In other words, we’re basically

cheating in a very simple way: formally, these

people are registered as students. That’s

the only criterion, as it turns out, for the

Universiade, because

For example, in Germany, an application is submitted simply by

email. In other words, anyone can do it.

If a student writes, "Hello, my name is

Hans, and, you know, I'm into skiing, I'd like

to go to the Universiade,"

then off you go. In Norway, they chose from among those

who applied, who were simply willing to go

at their own expense to this godforsaken Krasnoyarsk

in the middle of nowhere. But

naturally,

the people going were athletes ranked around 300th,

400th in Norway's rankings. They

come here,

but honestly, they probably ski

worse than I do, and I can't ski at all.

And against them, we put up

professional athletes.

Naturally, we take all the first, second,

third, and fourth places, and then this is

presented as a great victory, and apparently we don't mind

spending 80 billion rubles (about $1.2 billion at the time) for

this "celebration of sport." What a

truly humiliating, stupid lie that is.

It was like that in Kazan too, and in Kazan it was even worse. I

looked at the statistics there, and it was just

an enormous number of

professional athletes, of course,

so naturally they crushed everyone there too.

Well, how could they not crush them?

And now this same absurdity has continued.

In Krasnoyarsk, why the hell? Someone will say, well,

"But look how much Krasnoyarsk improved." On the day

the Universiade opened in Krasnoyarsk,

they declared a "black sky" emergency (a local term for severe smog). Anyone who watches

my

show knows I've talked about this

several times. Krasnoyarsk is a city with

a monstrous environmental situation, and they have this

special official procedure there: when

there are too many emissions from these harmful

industrial plants that refuse to install

treatment facilities, they declare a

"black sky" regime.

For example, everyone is advised to

keep their windows shut, children are not taken to school, outdoor

activities are canceled, and so on and so forth.

So there were definitely things in Krasnoyarsk

that 80 billion rubles could have been spent on. For example,

with 80 billion rubles, they probably could have built

a sufficient number of treatment

facilities so they would no longer have to declare

a "black sky" emergency there, and hundreds of thousands of people

would live longer.

Their health would be better, and we would need

to spend less

on healthcare in that city.

But no, for us what's important is some kind of

bizarre, hellish fetish:

that we gather up some, again, let's say,

random nobodies from all over the world, unfortunate

students, bring in our Olympic

champions, beat these poor guys,

and then stand there happily while Channel One (Russia's main state TV channel) tells us

it's a triumph of Russian sport,

that Russia is once again in first place. But that's just

humiliating. And besides, in the end

it has a bad effect on

sport itself, because we've convinced ourselves

that we have some kind of achievements

where there are no achievements at all. A victory at

the Universiade is not any kind of

achievement; it is the personal, private

obsession of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,

who doesn't want to do a damn thing

except organize

sports events. He likes it.

He likes hockey,

he likes skiing,

he likes the Olympics, he likes figure skating,

he gets a kick out of all this stuff.

And we have to pay for it. It's just

disgusting. First of all, I'd like to

recommend that all of you go to sports.ru

and read a really excellent

article there. Second, second of all, I

want to address the sports

community directly: athletes should

speak out against this and say,

"Come on, guys, let's stop lying to

ourselves, because we're humiliating ourselves

very badly with this." Our Natalia,

our dear Natasha,

our "nyash-myash" Natalia Poklonskaya (a cutesy nickname associated with her), has

just said something astonishing, even

somewhat shocking. It turns out that in

the State Duma (Russia's lower house of parliament), a huge number of

people are corrupt, imagine that.

Poklonskaya wrote an autobiographical

book. I mean, apparently there were so many

great accomplishments in her life that she

decided to put out an entire book about

herself, and in it she talked about compromising material on

deputies, because for some time she

headed

the Duma commission for monitoring

the income of members of parliament. We wrote to that

commission many times, and Natalia

Poklonskaya told us every time: "fake

news," saying there was no basis

for punishing the deputies. But

it turns out our dear Natashenka

had collected some compromising material

and wrote about it in her book. I am even officially

appealing to Natalia Poklonskaya.

She says there are cases

showing that deputies are serving

on the governing bodies of legal entities

registered abroad,

specifically in France and Finland. Are you serious? So that means

this is national

betrayal too? Deputies own

real estate in France,

and that is strictly prohibited. Natalia

Poklonskaya, if you visited the

Anti-Corruption Foundation website more often,

you'd probably have found even more such cases. But I

am officially appealing to Natalia

Poklonskaya: please disclose the full

It is absolutely impossible to put up with a list like this,

with the presence of such terrible, terrible people on it,

and

we are now officially, quite simply,

demanding this. It has been said, and now it must also be said that

if there are deputies

who own real estate somewhere abroad, then let

her name their names, let those

deputies be cast out—let Natalia

Poklonskaya herself perform an exorcism and drive them out of

the State Duma. We are very much looking forward to that.

And in the very final part of our

program, back once again to the question

of LifeNews—we began with fake news, we

continued with fake news and insulting

the authorities, and I would like to end on that note,

once again reminding all 30,000 of you

watching this broadcast that at 2:00 p.m. in Sakharov Square

on March 10, there will be a rally

in defense of the internet. Please come. A video

from the Lipetsk headquarters came out today, and it is exactly

what we are about to see now. We’ll show

a small excerpt. It’s quite funny. I’ll show you

the moment where the former governor

of the Lipetsk region, Korolyov, sings a song, while

our headquarters—I simply, at that moment, just

started laughing myself when I watched this

video. I thought I should show it on air, and to

this music, they show the real estate

of all these people who live in this

some elite section of an upscale residential settlement

in the Lipetsk region, a very poor

region where people are very poor. And what

you are about to see now is exactly why

they are introducing a law under which

all news must be blocked, because

videos like this will be the first

objects and targets of this new

legislation, because they understand

that they will say: this is fake news. You

are showing the governor’s dacha (country house)—did he authorize

you to show it? And if he did not authorize it,

then it is merely disclosure of personal data, a dangerous

act, and fake news—block it. But we

will keep showing it to you. So let’s just,

at the end of the program,

after all, since there is a holiday tomorrow, in order

to create a festive mood,

listen to a beautiful song, by the way,

about love, by the former governor

of the Lipetsk region, now a member of the Federation

Council.

Colleague Klishas—and while we’re at it, let’s also look at

some beautiful images.

*Song:* Above the river, softly, the birches rustle and...

his neighbor...

As if in bloom, I love it when evening falls over the river

and he softly sang to his neighbor:

White birch, I love you,

stretch out your white branch to me with your...

...

turned white...

My darling, she playfully rustled her leaves, and

the dear wind... and from those words

from those poor...

all that could be heard was

how he sang to her

...and so on.

Purposefulness and constant work

on oneself—agreed?

[applause]

I haven’t stood at this podium for so long that there’s nothing more

to do here—I’m off.

That was a festive song, and now I

join this wonderful

official and wish all women, girls,

mothers, sisters, grandmothers, and so on, as

the former governor said, purposefulness,

work on yourselves, and every kind of

happiness. Happy upcoming March 8th (International Women’s Day) to you all.

Bye, see you next Thursday.

[music]