Navalny at 20:18. Broadcast #006, 25.05

[music]

Hello everyone, Moscow, 20:18. That means

that you're watching Navalny Live in the studio. I'm Alexei

Navalny, and this is the program *Navalny in 2018*. I'm

here to discuss with you

some important issues, to talk over the news

that has happened, and maybe answer

some new questions

that come to your mind. To

send them in, please write on Twitter

with the hashtag #Navalny.

2018. I've written down some things that

people asked me. Earlier today I asked

on Twitter, and I have several topics here:

Google Center, an additional funny

development in the story with the villas and Rosneft,

we haven't talked about that yet; the June 12 rally;

those guys from SERB (a pro-Kremlin activist group) who

attacked me; various video addresses

to me that are being published now and

demand answers. I want to discuss all of that

with you. And of course I want to start with

the continuation—forced to, rather. I don't want to. I'm

already a bit tired of

talking about it, but I have to begin with the continuation

of the story called Like Share Alisher.

Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov released

a second video address to me. It blew up

the dance floor, so to speak. Yesterday I logged onto Twitter

and saw that once again everyone was writing about some kind of

video address. Aren't people tired of discussing

the same thing over and over? It turned out he had released

a second, second video address. We cut out 40

seconds of the most interesting part from

it. Let's take a look. Well, actually, if

we're being honest, a long time ago the great Russian

writer

Bulgakov, in his novella *Heart of a Dog*, described

a character with an enormous mess in

his head—Polygraph Sharikov—who

dreamed only of taking and dividing everything up. So you,

Alexei Polygraphovich, are becoming a real

worthy successor. You lied, and now you

personally owe an apology, and

what debates are we even talking about? That's the same as

holding a debate between truth and

lies. Our debate with each other will now take place

in court, Alexei Polygraphovich Navalny.

Phooey on you once

again. I liked this video much

more—it was better made, despite the fact

that all the familiar markers were still in place, for example

the signature faceted glass for

whiskey—like my glass here,

yes—but it was still recorded in

that cheerful, I'd say rather boorish

manner, with the trademark 'phooey on you once

again,' which amused all of us very

much. From that video it's obvious that

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev asked

Usmanov to draw attention away from him, and

overall it's working quite well.

Look, yesterday absolutely everyone wrote about it—

all the newspapers, all the mass

media, everything everywhere was filled with

'Navalny vs. Usmanov battle,'

*Versus* is showing the best clips, who

responded to whom, lots of funny

jokes on the subject, political scientists

are analyzing it, someone is counting how many books there used to be

in the background and how many there are now,

the microphone used to be worse, now

the microphone is better. In terms of substance, it's being

commented on with lots of conspiratorial

theories—what does it all mean? But there's only one

question: where is Medvedev in this discussion?

He's nowhere. And their ploy is working, because

some supposed duel between me and Usmanov,

discussion of issues that have absolutely nothing

to do with the essence of our

investigation—

rape or not rape, whether he served time, for

what he served time—

and whether he should address me informally or

formally, and whether saying

'phooey on you' is graceful or not—this has become the main,

indeed the only topic of discussion. But there's no

Medvedev, no major corruption,

and it seems to have slipped out of the mass

consciousness that, essentially, Usmanov and

the palace on Rublyovka (an elite area outside Moscow) that Usmanov

gave to Medvedev—I insist, and I will prove

that it was a bribe.

That's just one episode. There are many palaces there,

there's a lot of different stuff there, but again

only Usmanov is being discussed. This is being done

completely deliberately. It's being done, among other things,

so that—well, he sued me, and

there, well, we understand what

a Russian court is, right? If Usmanov

wins, they'll say: well, Usmanov

has disproved Navalny's investigation.

Does this bother me? Well, it

certainly irritates me a little that

the mass media are structured in such a way

that they very easily

switch focus, and in that sense they're fairly easy

to manipulate. You just do

something bright and new like this, and every

day an oligarch addresses someone on YouTube,

and everyone rushes to that topic, forgetting what

happened only very recently. On the

other

hand, Usmanov is a very harmful person. He is

a harmful oligarch. He is a harmful corrupt official's associate,

he is

one of the corrupt figures, and that's why dialogue with

him is something important and substantive for us.

I consider one of the most important goals of my

election campaign to be that we

must return to the political agenda

the question of who the Russian

oligarchs are, especially the commodity-sector oligarchs.

Because unfortunately it's considered that

if you're a person with democratic views,

if you're someone who supports a market

economy, then for some reason you must love

oligarchs. But I don't love them, and I don't think

that they represent a market economy, and I do not believe

that they are businessmen, and I believe they should be

rightly criticized, because they are destroying

both the structure of the economy there and

the structure of society; they impose

completely false stereotypes about

what business is. Overall, they instill

hatred of businessmen in the public. Well,

because an ordinary person looks at

this face and at these lines like, 'You

should all apologize to me here,' and he

basically begins to view

business negatively. That is why this polemic with

Usmanov is also important for us, and that is why I

am taking part in it with pleasure.

And I will release the video that I need to

put out in response to Alisher Burkhanovich; we

To be honest, I have really immersed myself in

Usmanov's life quite thoroughly.

We have read several thousand pages of documents

over the last

while, and now I could probably write a book about

him; the investigations department could certainly

write a book about him. But

we will release a video, and in this video, unlike

what Usmanov is telling us,

who has nothing as evidence except

a glass, it will be

supplied with the full body of evidence.

On that date, in the Lyublinsky District Court

there will be a trial,

mine with Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov, on

the subject of his honor and dignity. I more or less

know how trials are conducted in this, my

home Mariinsky

court. Before this, several prominent United Russia (the ruling political party) members

sued us and sued me, and every

time it is the same picture: none of

our evidence is

accepted, none of our motions are

granted. We show photographs

of houses, and the United Russia members laugh in our faces and

say, 'That is not my house, it is my mother-in-law's house,'

as happened with the well-known United Russia member

Sergei Neverov. Nevertheless, in

this court as well, I hope it will be open.

I hope there will be a broadcast there; at

the very least, we will petition for

such a

broadcast. We will present all the documents, and

of course we will prove that we are right in

every word regarding Usmanov's corruption

and in every word regarding

our assessment of his character. But what decision

will the court make? It is a Russian court, after all. But

still, we shall see. I am confident in

my being right. The next topic I wanted

to discuss is, of course, the situation with Gogol

Center and Kirill

Serebrennikov, the Russian director, whose

home was searched,

and who is now

involved in a criminal case, either as a

witness or perhaps they are preparing to bring charges against him.

We know that

searches were conducted in the Gogol Center theater itself,

the performers there were detained for some

time, shoved somewhere, and there are a huge

number of questions about how I view this

and whether I believe that there really was

no smoke without fire, that they must have been

doing something improper with budget funds.

Well, I rely exclusively on my own

experience, and I want to say that, looking at how

this is unfolding, I of course believe that the case

against Serebrennikov is fabricated,

because this is a completely typical course

of events: this is how it happens. Nobody is told

anything; absolutely nothing is explained.

At the same time that

it is being claimed that Serebrennikov was

involved in some kind of fraud, the next

news item is that they have already found

at his home

hashish. This happens all the time,

because they do not have enough evidence

for the main case, and so they either

plant something or try

to find something on a computer or in a

phone. And based simply on this

outward appearance of things, I can say that

this looks very much like a fabricated case.

And fabricated cases are usually handled

this way. In the Beautiful Russia of the Future (an opposition slogan referring to a hoped-for democratic Russia),

such things should happen

completely differently. If it is a high-profile

case involving the embezzlement of public funds, and the

investigation has already reached the stage

where it is necessary to conduct a search of a home and

mass searches of people, then it is necessary

for a representative of the Investigative Committee

or someone else to come out and explain in detail

what is happening. And when you

carry out a search in someone's home,

that is a serious matter, an unpleasant matter. I

have had searches conducted several times, and

each time you do not understand why your home is being

searched. They show you

a piece of paper from which either nothing is clear

or the substance of the accusation is unclear. It is just,

'The judge said I authorize

the search.' But at this stage there should

be clear explanations given to all of us, to society,

to Serebrennikov, to the Gogol Center, to everyone

in the world, about what exactly happened there

that warrants the following:

that we must lock the troupe in a hall, confiscate their

phones, and keep them there for several hours.

After all, this concerns people's freedom. Therefore,

well, again, I have no doubt that many people

would like to take Serebrennikov's place, and

I have no doubt that the authorities as a whole

view his theater as

oppositional, as something unpleasant, despite

the fact that for a certain period

of his career Serebrennikov was fairly

close to these authorities. We remember

that he staged a play based on a work by Surkov.

Around zero. And in general, it was like their...

Their friendship with us, nevertheless... Of course, they

see the theater as oppositional; this is

on the level of intuition, like the Taganka Theater (a famous Moscow theater) in

the Soviet era — it was an oppositional

theater. It was never quite clear why they

weren't shouting things like 'Down with the Soviet'

government,' but in terms of style, in terms of the feeling,

it was obvious that they were against the authorities. The same goes

for the Gogol Center, which of course

exists on state budget funding, but

everything about it makes it clear that what is happening there

is, well, at odds with the main

line of government policy. So this really

infuriated everyone, and still does. It's a wealthy

theater, a new theater, and many people want

to take it over. And I think that in this way

different interests became intertwined, so it was like: well, let's

stir things up a little here, and

then Serebrennikov can either

and

or, well, be jailed. I hope that won't

happen. And the theater can be taken over. The whole

discussion was

greatly enriched by an interesting thing that

I was watching on social media, and which

I think is interesting to discuss now.

People gathered around the Gogol Center who

had come

to show support. These people are showing support — do they have

the right to? Are they supporting strongly enough,

or, on the contrary, too strongly?

Too weakly? Are they being hypocritical, standing

there and reading out some angry

their own

addresses to the crowd? This is quite

an interesting question. Let's first

listen to what Chulpan Khamatova said

to those gathered there in front of the theater

to stand up for her friend Serebrennikov,

who, it seems, is being unfairly

pressured by this regime. Please play us

the video. 'All the promises made

by Vladimir Putin to the Gift of Life Foundation

have always been fulfilled. Help must be

tangible. I will vote for him.' Oh,

that must be the wrong clip. My God,

the producer made a mistake and played some

wrong recording of Chulpan Khamatova. Well, there was also

Fyodor Bondarchuk in front of the Gogol Center

— he also came to stand up for his friend

Kirill Serebrennikov, who

is being unfairly pressured by this regime

and subjected to lawless searches. Let's

— since Khamatova didn't work out, let's listen

to what Bondarchuk said there: 'On December 2, we

will all vote for Putin, for Russia,

for a new country, so that nothing

changes in the direction that

Vladimir

Putin has chosen for himself.' But again, that's not quite the right video either.

The producer made a mistake, but maybe he

— actually, it was quite an interesting

mistake. He inserted those videos quite appropriately, and

at this point, of course, you thought: 'Well, Navalny, have you

finally decided to join those

people who are snickering and

trying to hound and insult those artists

who came to stand up for their

friend Serebrennikov?' No, actually,

no. I simply believe that

people have the right to remind our

wonderful artists that they are

part of this very system that is now

specifically pressuring Kirill

Serebrennikov. They made a major

contribution to supporting those

people who imprison not just famous

directors, but any ordinary people as well,

evict them, shut down their social media,

make their lives unbearable. That is their great

responsibility. But at the same

time, jokes aside, I really

believe that Khamatova, Bondarchuk, and

Mironov, whom you can see on your screen now,

— there were a lot of jokes about that; there was even

a headline, yes: 'Yevgeny Mironov

whispered to Putin about what was

happening with Serebrennikov,' and people

mocked it quite a lot. But I want

to say this:

it's important to remember that artists

— athletes too, by the way — all these

representatives of the creative

intelligentsia are, of course, terribly

dependent on the authorities, and most often they are — well,

let's be honest — terribly

afraid of the authorities, because their entire

life, career, and future work depend on it.

That's just how it is: they cut you off

from television, and that's it — you're nobody, and

no one will buy advertising from you, and no one

will do anything for you. Therefore,

we should value any people from

this artistic milieu who

overcome their fear and say at least

something. And all the more so, we should value

truly brave people in general. Of course, among artists

there are brave people who do not

hide their point of view at all. You know

such people; you know they are driven out from everywhere, but

nevertheless, they speak with complete honesty

and say everything plainly. These are

heroic people. But even Khamatova in this

situation, and Bondarchuk, whose

political views, obviously, I do not

like at all, and Mironov, who is also

not at all close to me in terms of his

political views — this should be appreciated:

the fact that here he is, handing this note to

Putin, and of course every cell in his

body is telling him: fall to your knees, as you

always do before this authority. But

he still overcomes himself, takes out

the note, and speaks about Kirill

Serebrennikov, speaks about his friend

who is being subjected to repression. Therefore,

everything possible must be done, and support must be given.

to appreciate all the people who, after all,

said something. There are many artists, but

far from all of them came to the Gogol Center (a Moscow theater and cultural venue), but

some did come. Good for them, they came, but at

the same time, looking at this absolutely proper

gesture, it would not be at all unnecessary and

would be quite appropriate to remind them, to say:

Guys, you helped create this system. You

also bear responsibility for the fact

that now some people are going through

Serebrennikov's apartment, turning everything upside down

and, well, finding some—I don't know—

little baggies there, or planting them. You

helped this system, so remember that

and don't act otherwise in the press. It seems to me

this is a very important point.

And none of us needs to, so to speak,

go after one another; those who

criticize them are not being supported by anyone.

Everyone simply has to look at this

situation as a whole.

Eva, people are writing to me: they've made themselves very comfortable,

the Ministry of Defense. Well, yes. A lot of them have

settled in comfortably—artists, athletes, and

so on—because that is the kind of life they have.

They don't know how to do anything else, and

they can

live more or less comfortably and

without hardship, most of them, but only

by attaching themselves to the authorities. Unfortunately, that's how

the Russian state is structured, and

so this artist understands that without

the state he is nobody, without budget money

he is nobody. Theaters in Russia, well, effectively

do not exist

on private money, except for some rare

very exceptional cases. Mostly it is

state budget money. It is absolutely

wrong that it is personally distributed by

the minister of culture. Everything depends

on the minister of culture,

so yes, that is the situation.

The next topic is quite interesting

because I wanted to tell you about those same

little spoons. This week we had

three victories of sorts

for the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation), important ones for us. First,

I believe we did ultimately secure

the resignation of the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Ivan

Karnilin. Of course, he said he was resigning

because

because, because, because he was simply

tired, because he was old, because he had reached

a certain age. But we understand perfectly well

that this was simply, with a certain

delay, effectively

a forced resignation, because we found

his apartments in Miami, and now it is very easy for us

to work in Nizhny Novgorod

because to any objection from

the authorities, to any reproach

that somehow we are doing

something wrong or that the West is behind us, we

say: Well, guys, be quiet. Your

mayor has hidden apartments in Miami

that he bought with money from unknown

sources. For United Russia, this was very

painful. We knew they discussed it for a long time:

you can't give in to Navalny,

you can't remove people. But nevertheless,

you did remove him, you sent him into retirement, and this

is an excellent example of how

real public pressure and broad

dissemination of information help

achieve results. And we achieved it.

Besides all that, we also achieved the fact that

the Federal Antimonopoly Service

finally acknowledged the existence of a cartel

organized by the so-called

"Putin's chef," Yevgeny Prigozhin. This is

also truly a major victory.

The largest cartel, worth 23 billion rubles (about US$390 million at the time). We, unfortunately—

there he is, Putin's chef, as you can see,

standing on the left in this picture. Unfortunately,

we were unable to push the antimonopoly service

all the way, and they did not include in

this cartel conspiracy all the companies

that we pointed to. But at least we

did excellent work. The cartel

conspiracy has been proven; it is now a legal

fact that this man created a cartel

and stole money by the billions from the

Ministry of Defense, and we very much hope

—and will keep watching this—

that they will face punishment, and already

criminal punishment, because a cartel is

a criminal offense. The spoons—

the spoons are a wonderful story.

Rosneft's spoons—you probably saw it. It was

a fairly popular video that we

recorded very quickly because there appeared

this procurement notice in which we saw that

Rosneft was buying caviar dishes for

80,000 rubles and teaspoons for 14,000 rubles each. Well,

naturally, we got angry, quickly recorded a video,

put it out, and it got millions

of views. The company's press secretary

said all sorts of ridiculous things—

Rosneft's Mikhail Leontyev—but nevertheless,

no matter how much they shouted about

how

Navalny was supposedly proposing that we eat

with our hands, no matter how indignant they were, no matter how much they

made various statements, we

forced them to cancel this purchase, and they

did cancel it. At the same time, Leontyev said many times

that they were canceling it for their own

reasons, but that in fact the prices

were reasonable. And today some

very meticulous person—I admit, we

didn't do this ourselves—did a simple thing

and wrote to us about it: he found

how much these spoons cost. The procurement notice itself lists

the exact

specification. This spoon, on the manufacturer's website,

costs $58, that is,

3,300 rubles, while they were buying them for

14,000 rubles. Do you understand the level of sheer audacity?

that is,

even when they are forced to cancel this

procurement, even when they have been caught, when

the whole country is already talking about them, they

still keep trying to convince us that the price

was normal, and even in such a

high-profile procurement, you are buying

some kind of—this is a risky procurement, right, or

buying some caviar dishes, putting it on the

website—a blanket for 124,000 rubles (about $1,350). Well, it is risky

because someone might find it and someone will

start shouting. Well, at least in such a risky

procurement, at least do not inflate the price four

times over. But they still do, because

that is how the whole system is set up: they cannot

steal less than what is called

a fourfold markup, 400% profit—they want

to make that even on procurements like these, where

there is a high probability they will be caught, and

it is an astonishing story. We will demand that

Rosneft conduct an investigation into this

matter, and we will demand that law enforcement

agencies conduct an investigation into this

matter, and we are very interested to hear what

will be said by

the wonderful press spokesman, the “drunk,” as everyone

calls him at Rosneft, Mikhail

Leontyev, who called these prices

inflated fourfold

adequate and fair. But if these are

adequate and fair prices, then I suppose you buy pipes too

when you build, overpaying

by a factor of four. Well, that is a rhetorical question.

We know they overpay, and every

Rosneft procurement is monstrously

corrupt; this is just another

very specific example of

what—of what

is happening. The June 12 rallies: I have received a large

number of messages, letters, and tweets

about the June 12 rallies, specifically asking

what exactly we need to do. Guys, you

need to do one simple thing: on May 29

the period begins when you can submit

applications

to hold these very

rallies. A sample application form for this

application is available here in the video description.

Go there, download the template, and submit

an application for the central square of your

city. We more or less understand what

will happen around all this; we understand

that they will say they already have

events scheduled in connection with

the official celebrations, and that they cannot

possibly

authorize it; they will offer some sites in

remote places. We are acting exactly the same way

as we did on March 26: submit

an application for the city center.

The March 26 rallies proved one

very important thing to us about our rallies, about

the fact that to us

more real, free people come than to

any other official event—

more than to official events.

That is simply an established fact. We bring out

more people. Therefore, we should get

priority, and yes, we are part of this

celebration of Russia Day (the June 12 national holiday).

Especially since our anti-corruption

event will take place

under Russian flags.

Do not ask for some distant square somewhere—

clearly submit for the central square

and demand that they approve

the central square. If no proper

place in the center is found for us, despite

the fact that we bring out more people than anyone else,

then that means we do not need any permits

and we will once again act in

accordance with the ruling of the Constitutional

Court, which clearly states that

first, an alternative venue must be offered;

second, there must be

a proper venue.

You cannot give us permission for a rally

somewhere out there next to the city

cemetery on the outskirts, as happened in

some

regions. So please go to the

description; there are more than 200 cities there, if I

am not mistaken—actually, I think 117 cities have now

said they are participating. Guys,

download the application template and

go do it yourselves. As always, you can

get in touch with our lawyers

if you have any questions.

There was a tweet—one

student asked me about his thesis. He writes and asks:

“Denis Karasyov here. My thesis defense is on June 20. What

if the valiant police

make me spend 15 days in jail as a preventive measure?” Well,

first of all, Denis, that is a valid reason.

If they lock you up for 15 days, you will bring

a certificate—you will have paperwork. They give me those all the time.

So you will be able to

take care of it at another time.

That is first. Second, they are not going to slap you with

15 days; the probability of that

is extremely low. The probability that

I will get 15 days—well, that

is always close to 100%. But that is fine, I will

sit it out and get through it all. Let us

use some simple

math: at the rallies on the 26th,

specifically at the

unauthorized ones, at least 60,000

people actively took part. That is

the minimum; most likely it was more. But let us

take 60,000. Actually, only

were arrested for

a few days—about 80 people across the whole country.

Fine, let us take 100 for simplicity

of calculation. Thus, the probability that

you will end up under administrative

arrest is

0.1%—that is a very, very low probability.

that you’ll leave the house, break

your leg, and miss your thesis defense

because you’re out sick is much higher than

the probability of being detained at this

rally. Well, of course, yes, we

can see even today how people are being jailed,

some of them. Yes, I’ll say a couple more

words about that. Uh, that risk does exist, and we

understand how the authorities work. They always

want to grab some innocent

person and demonstratively throw them in jail,

but when there are many of us, people shouldn’t

be afraid. Bad things do happen, but

again, the probability of that is extremely, extremely

low. They cannot repress masses of

people, so go out boldly to any

rally, authorized

or unauthorized, any one at all. We will, of course,

do everything we can to, uh, obtain

official approval for these rallies, but you

shouldn’t be afraid to go. You simply shouldn’t

provoke anyone, and all the more so you shouldn’t

get into it there with

law enforcement officers. You need to behave

normally and peacefully, but remember that

if you are lawfully in your own country, nothing will

happen to you. I got not 100,000, but 500 questions

about the news that

was published yesterday evening,

saying that the police have no complaints whatsoever against

the SERB movement, whose member, well,

carried out this attack on me and splashed

zelyonka (a bright green antiseptic dye) on me, and that’s it.

They have been identified and established; we know their

names, we know absolutely everything about them, but

nevertheless

no one has any claims against them, and

no one is going to investigate their activities.

And everyone asks me: how can that be?

My God, why is this happening? Are you surprised,

Alexei? Well, guys, first of all, I on

the previous program said that I was

not surprised at all, and I explained that

no investigation is being conducted. And

now I’ve even brought you

a unique

document here: it’s the transcript

of the interrogation of the very person who

attacked me and was

a prosecution witness, I think

the only prosecution witness in the

case under which they sentenced actor Kuliy to 8

months in a penal settlement colony,

and as I understand it, the testimony of this

man, Petrunko, appears in all

the other criminal cases opened

over the events of the 26th, and we can simply see—well, look—

the man writes outright:

“While there, I observed the commission of

unlawful acts against

police officers, which I wish

to report voluntarily to the preliminary

investigative authorities.” And then

come the specifics: “At 4:00 p.m. I was at such-and-such

a place and saw a bearded man

grab a police officer’s baton

and try to wrench it away,” and then a detailed

description of what exactly he saw. On the next

page we see again: “Then, at approximately

5:00 p.m., I observed the following. While located

at such-and-such a place, I saw a young

man of such-and-such an age...” And what does all this

mean? It means that these

representatives of the SERB movement, and in

particular those who attacked me, are simply

freelance operatives. Well, if you like,

informers for the Investigative

Committee, who are needed in order to

fabricate cases against completely

unknown people. They grabbed

several random people, then they take

someone like Petrunko and say: you will be

the witness, and he writes these made-up

statements. And you see, four

people were arrested there, and in all

four cases the necessary witness

just happens to be on the scene. So he

recorded all the unlawful acts and

wishes to report voluntarily to the police about

what

was happening. Who is going to jail him? He

works for them, he’s with them; there they are

right beside him dictating what kind of

testimony

to give. Together they are fabricating

a criminal case, committing a serious

criminal offense jointly—that is,

what is called

acting as a group by prior conspiracy. How

are they going to jail him? They gave him

immunity for doing this, and

let’s take a look. That’s why no one

will ever jail him. But they will jail another

person.

The verdict.

Ladies and gentlemen,

let’s watch the video recording of his

detention. He’s fairly easy to recognize in

this video recording—it’s very short. Yes, he has

a Russian flag on his shoulders, and with

that Russian flag on him they dragged him into

the police van I’m in. Please go ahead and

play this

[music]

recording.

So strong. How strong you are.

Bea— Well, you saw it: he didn’t do anything at all.

He didn’t touch a single

policeman. They themselves grabbed him,

beat him, shoved him into the police van. After that, I in the

police van watched them start beating him

right in front of me, and only after I

started yelling obscenities at them and began

filming it all on my phone did they

stop doing it. But meanwhile this

Petrunko character

goes into detail describing how this

Shpakov struck some colonel.

the police, and so on and so forth. That is,

this case was fabricated. It is

simply obvious to everyone, obvious to every

person. So do you think they are going to

bring criminal charges against

such a

key false witness? Of course not.

Because if they start putting him away,

he'll stand up in court and say, "Guys,

how can this be? We were in contact, I

for you

wrote statements under your dictation, I for you

put that man behind bars — remember, the carpenter from

Lyubertsy (a city near Moscow) who is raising

a child without a wife, and whose mother is disabled. I

got him imprisoned for your sake, so why don't you

love me now?" That's how it happens.

That is why, regarding Shpakov, tomorrow I want

to announce that we need to raise money for him, at least

half a million rubles (about 500,000 rubles). There really is

a monstrous situation there. The man is a carpenter,

a working man, raising his daughter.

He has dependents, and this daughter needs

tuition paid. I really don't want

him, sitting somewhere in a pre-trial detention center (SIZO), to be thinking about

whether his daughter is now going to be expelled from

college because there is no money.

Tomorrow I'll announce it. A registered

Yandex wallet has now been set up. I think we can raise 1,500,

but at least we'll cover some

urgent needs.

But people often ask me, "Tell us,

please, first of all, do you feel

responsibility?" I do. Of course I

feel my responsibility for the fact that

a person who, in part because of my call,

came to the rally and ended up among

these random people they are imprisoning.

Of course I feel responsibility, and it is

terrible to feel all this. And the second, most

common question is: "Doesn't this

scare you? And shouldn't this scare everyone

else? Shouldn't this drive them off the streets?"

Well, honestly, I don't understand how

a normal person could, on the contrary, leave the

streets after seeing something like this, seeing how

they jailed Shpakov for nothing. This is

confirmed on video. It just makes everything inside me

boil. I do not want to live in a

state where some random

carpenter can simply be grabbed and thrown in prison

so that Medvedev can steal more easily.

I am absolutely not prepared to put up with that

for even a second. So of course I

will keep going out into the streets for as long as

it takes to make sure that things like this do not happen in my

country. And I call on everyone else

to do the same. It is impossible —

it is impossible to tolerate this.

This is public abuse. It is not even

some kind of quiet fabrication of

a criminal case. The video

is right there, and you are telling us to our faces

that he beat some colonel, when

we can see he did not, of course he did not. We must

go out into the streets for him, among other reasons for

him, because there are

hundreds of thousands of cases like Shpakov's outside politics — just imagine.

That is why in our country you can

take anything from anyone, seize anything by force,

any business. I don't know, maybe some

lieutenant colonel

takes a liking to someone's wife — let's lock him up

so that she is left here alone. This

happens in practice. That is why, among

other things, we need to come out

on the twelfth. And someone writes:

"Mr. Sovlad: June 12, rallies against

tsarist power." Well, essentially that is

what they are: rallies against autocracy, against

tsarist rule, because they have decided

that they really are autocrats, that they personally

control everything, starting with things like,

"Let's jail the carpenter,"

and "This state company belongs

to me." Artos writes: "He touched the police van." Yes, but

essentially, yes, he touched

the police van. As for the headquarters, an interesting thing happened with

our Moscow headquarters. Those of you who follow

our campaign know that, in

general, our process works as follows:

we prepare an opening, we rent an office,

people start working in the office, we gather

volunteers, after which I usually

come to the region and hold a meeting with

volunteers either at the headquarters or in a

rented venue, after which the headquarters

physically opens and begins

to operate. In Moscow, of course, we wanted

to open a headquarters as one of the first cities, but

here, I have to admit, they really

boxed us in. We have a lot of volunteers here,

and it does not suit us

to have a venue for 200, 300, or even 1,000

or 2,000 people. We need a venue for

5,000 people. Right now, the number of registered volunteers is

17,000.

Even if we ask, "Guys, don't

come unless you really have to; if you can skip it,

then skip it," we still understand that thousands of

people will come.

And I don't know whether it was Moscow City Hall, the Kremlin, or

whoever else, but they literally went around all the venues

with that kind of capacity and told everyone not

to give them to

these

us. Just the other day, we signed

a contract with some rock club, and that

rock club

and its founder sent only

some sad emojis, and then

they posted an announcement on their

website saying that they could not

rent the space to us. But we decided

that we would simply do it differently. So starting

Monday, the headquarters will simply, well, simply

open its doors and start working. We will not

be holding

There won’t be any kind of grand opening ceremony.

The address of our headquarters is Sadovnicheskaya

Embankment, 69. It will start operating on

Monday, so just come by already.

There won’t be any ribbons or, I don’t know,

garlands or confetti — we’ll just open and

start working. And the meeting with volunteers,

as Volkov rightly said in his

video — for those who saw it — we’ll hold on the 12th,

June 12, June 12. Come, and we’ll meet outside,

talk — well, maybe not talk,

maybe you’ll just see me already at the moment

when the court is putting me into that very bus.

Well, never mind. If they don’t let us

gather inside the building, we’ll

gather outside, because basically

everyone understands everything already, and at these

meetings with volunteers, it’s nice for me to

talk to everyone there, but there’s nothing particularly

special or new that I say, so I

think the Moscow headquarters will

start working anyway. Please come,

sign up as volunteers,

sign up as people who

are ready to give us their signatures. It’s very

important, of course, that you also financially

support our campaign — it’s very

important. We’re not oligarchs, and all of this is sustained

solely and entirely by your

donations. In the description to this video

there’s a link. You can go there and make a

donation. We’re now entering

a period in the campaign when we need money

even more. We’ve already opened quite a lot of

headquarters — more than thirty. We have

an enormous infrastructure already, the largest

political infrastructure in the

country, ready to distribute

leaflets, campaign, and so on, but this

already requires

a lot of expenses. Even if your

volunteers — our volunteers — work

for free, it’s impossible to print leaflets for free.

So we need money, and

please, if you have the

opportunity and the desire to support us, then

send your hard-earned

rubles. The last thing I still wanted

to discuss is

YouTube video appeals.

YouTube is full of video appeals addressed to me, and that’s

an interesting thing. Yes, I, I

am constantly praising YouTube and

celebrating how it allows us to break

the monopoly of television. And now

this interesting thing has happened — it

annoys me on the one hand, but I

won’t lie, on the other hand it

shows how cool YouTube is. So, so,

feminists recorded a

video appeal to me. Let’s watch a little

bit of the feminists.

Hello, Alexei, this is

the feminists. In the upcoming presidential

election, we would like to vote for

Simone de Beauvoir or Maria Trubnikova, but

they are already dead; for Mari Davtyan or Olga

Strakhovskaya, perhaps, but we are left with two

options: either boycott the election or

vote for

you. That was the feminists, and on the one

hand I’m flooded with tweets asking, when are you

going to respond

to the feminists? On the other hand, a bunch of people write to me,

asking, Alexei, how are you going to fight

the feminists? Judge Novikov wrote

some kind of video appeal to us, and I’m

flooded with messages saying: respond to Judge Novikov. There’s also

the video blogger, the video blogger Shariy

who, well, as I understand it, is kind of

pro-Kremlin, or I don’t know, anti-Ukrainian

— he mostly talks about Ukraine — and he

has also already recorded a million appeals

on video. Everyone writes to me: respond to Shariy. It’s

interesting, because the feminists

recorded one, and I went and looked —

they had a thousand views. And, well, why

respond to them? Especially since, substantively,

I can say to them: dear

feminists, actually, in our platform

you would like most things

a great deal. That’s first. Second,

the gender balance in both the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) and

the headquarters overall is in favor of women — we have

more women working with us than men. I think

I won’t respond to them, because that would only

promote these feminists. But then

an interesting thing happens:

the pressure inside YouTube is such that, well,

you have to respond. At every meeting in the

regions, people asked me about Judge

Novikov, and we got in touch with Judge

Novikov and will somehow settle

the conflict, answer his questions probably

— maybe Sobol will invite him on air if she wants

to, or somehow this issue will

be resolved. Same with Shariy — he recorded

that appeal to us, and now at meetings I already

say that, well, I’m not going to respond

to him specifically, but I’ll answer all these questions

in my address to Usmanov. This is

a cool thing. It shows that here

you can’t ignore the audience, even

if it annoys me — still,

I’ll have to respond, even if it’s only

a small number of views, well,

a few thousand people. Yes, YouTube creates

a space in which you cannot

ignore the political

agenda; you cannot

ignore, so to speak, what people are demanding.

People ask me this:

yes, maybe they want to

use you for publicity; if you have more women

that doesn’t mean they’re feminists,

and so on. Well, that’s all true, of course.

Of course they want publicity — everyone wants

publicity, everyone wants to get noticed, they want to

We invited them onto Navalny Live in

the feminists’ appeal, where it was pretty, well,

clear and explicit: they want us to

invite them on air. Well, okay, they want

to be invited on air, and quite cleverly, uh,

they’re using YouTube’s capabilities so that, well,

I, so to speak,

get pinned down

by everyone else. And it works in a

pretty interesting way. I mean, basically,

you can’t dodge it, you can’t ignore it,

and you can’t say, well, you know, I didn’t

notice it. You’ve got, what, not many

subscribers on your channel, and I didn’t even see

what you wrote there. That doesn’t work. That

works for Putin with television, yes,

or Peskov keeps saying all the time, we’re not

aware of this matter, even though the whole

information space has already exploded

over it, everyone is

discussing it, and they still have the option

to say, wow, how interesting. We

didn’t even know. That’s not within our

competence. Well, ask someone

else. But I can’t do that.

On the one hand, that puts me, sort of,

in an unequal relationship with them, with

everyone. But on the other hand, if

you like, it toughens up any politician, and any

politician should be able to work in that kind of, well,

aggressive environment. They should constantly

be coming at him from all sides, I mean,

running up to ask uncomfortable questions. I

am forced to answer those uncomfortable questions,

and on the one hand the feminists are

attacking me, and on the other hand those who are

annoyed by the feminists—Novikov, Shariy, and everyone

else. I answer these questions,

and probably, it seems to me, that can

make me—and anyone, not just me,

any politician—a better politician

because you’re forced to work with, among

other things, an audience that

aggressively demands something from you.

That, in fact, is what

the art of politics is. You become president,

and there is always some group that wants

something from you: trade unions want one thing from

you, employers want something else from you,

oligarchs want one thing, the public

wants another, for you to pay, and

doctors want this, teachers want something else,

students want a third thing, and they write in. Some

say, let’s abolish the Unified State Exam (Russia’s standardized school-leaving exam), others

say let’s

not abolish the Unified State Exam. Right, and people write to me, blah blah,

like, yeah, damn it, sure, let’s go ahead and answer everyone.

Why bother going after corrupt officials?

Well yes, of course it takes up

a significant amount of my time, and

you’re absolutely right—I won’t lie,

sometimes it irritates me that I have

to spend time on this and answer

some silly questions that I

may already have answered. But this is

a presidential campaign. If I were just

the head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

I could say, yes,

leave me alone, I’m really not at all

interested in what you’re writing there or what you’re

asking me. But if I’m a candidate for

president, I’m obliged to answer these

questions, obliged to show that I can

work with all groups, because

the president of Russia must be

a president for everyone. He must be

a president for Judge Novikov and for

feminists and for anti-feminists, and for

that Shariy too—well, if he is a Russian citizen,

then of course he should be included too.

That’s very important.

So YouTube is an interesting thing,

YouTube. I still

even having noticed this, sing its

praises. Karl Ukrav asks me,

where’s the Instagram promo? Did you forget again?

Navalny 4 million, and subscribe.

We really do spend a lot of time on

it,

promoting it.

Is it hard with the feminists? It’s not

hard for me at all, because I’m

asked these questions fairly often at

meetings. So, first of all, I

am absolutely in favor of gender equality. Second,

as for the gender balance in our team,

we don’t regulate it; I don’t have any quotas.

I’m against quotas. I don’t have any such rule as

there must be 50% women or anything like that.

But historically, it just so happened that

we have more women working both in the foundation and in the organization

than men, and they work

wonderfully. Third, I really do believe

that there are specific issues affecting women.

Well, they’re not just women’s issues—they’re our issues in general,

because they’re men’s issues too, and anyone’s,

really. When a

woman is paid less than a man

as is often the case, and in Russia the gap is significantly

large, that means the income of the whole family

is lower, right? And a family consists of

a man and a woman, a couple. So yes, that is

really a major problem. Childcare,

care for children,

getting children into daycare and kindergarten—there are, of course,

specific problems that feminists understand

and raise. These are important problems.

I’m not going to brush them aside, so

by and large, I quite share their aspirations

and their demands and concerns. The other

thing is that I know perfectly well that in the country—well,

in Russia,

Western-style feminism is not

widely supported right now by many people, and I know perfectly well

that now I’m simply going to have

a huge amount of criticism come crashing down on me

just for having anything to do with them at all.

So, with these crazies, basically no one...

...supports them. And there are still many women...

...who will scold me for this, but again, this is...

...a significant group that we need to...

...engage in dialogue with. What do you think about...

...Aram Gabrelyanov's involvement in the show?

Will the current authorities move into the internet? Will there...

...be propaganda? Someone asks me—I'm not even going to...

...read it out loud, but the point is...

It's a very funny show. I really...

...honestly—I know that it's made by LifeNews.

And of course, that suggests that it's quite...

...likely that closer to the elections they...

...will start pushing some kind of propaganda. That is...

...they may just slip it in there, but it really is...

...very funny, especially the first two...

...episodes. I watched them and was genuinely laughing...

...not just thinking, "that's funny," but actually...

...laughing out loud. As I understand it, there are some...

...excellent writers involved—they're making a genuinely...

...very good product. Well, I hope that...

...they won't...

...insert any propaganda into it, but LifeNews...

...this Gabrelyanov—they're such vile...

...complete crooks, liars, and fraudsters that...

...they'll probably use it for that too. But...

...then the show will simply be ruined, and no one will...

...watch it. That's what's great about the internet:

...it's easy to spot that stuff here, any little...

...from your manipulations with...

...likes and dislikes to...

...some kind of fakery and attempts to slip in...

...planted information—it picks up on that pretty easily.

That's really what makes...

...the internet so great. So, what else do we have here?

They're asking: put some more...

...tweets on the screen if there's anything...

...interesting. Modern YouTube is like this:

...everyone chasing hype gets into either...

...rap or other people's blogs, and now they've moved into politics.

Well, people go where it's interesting...

...they go where there are views, where there's...

...some kind of buzz—sorry for using that...

...word—but generally speaking, I'm actually...

...glad about it. All these people who record...

...video appeals—they're recording them for me.

They're not recording video appeals to...

...Yavlinsky,

...or to Zyuganov, or even to...

...Putin—they don't record video appeals to him.

Well, because Putin won't answer, and as for...

...everyone else, nobody really cares. And the fact that...

...they record these video appeals to me—I actually...

...value that, because...

...first, they know that I will...

...respond, and second, everyone is interested in my...

...opinion. If this kind of political interest is forming around me...

...this sort of political attention, then...

...that's good. It means we're doing some things...

...right, because it draws attention...

...to our...

...campaign. Navlany asks me...

Andrei Kontsevoy asks: what's going on with the issuance of...

...government bonds to borrow money from the public...

...at interest, like they once did in...

...the USSR (Soviet Union)? Well, as far as I can see, this...

...has failed. All these "people's loans"...

...simply don't work. It was called a...

..."people's loan," but there are no fools...

...willing to bring in their money and buy...

...government bonds. No, because...

...all the Soviet bond issues that...

...are mentioned here—well, it was all...

...a scam. Everyone was deceived and cheated, starting with...

...some of Stalin's loans and ending with...

...the last ones issued in the USSR. I remember...

...my grandmothers. I saw these...

...colored pieces of paper that they kept...

...somewhere in a chest or...

...somewhere else, like family heirlooms. They were...

...bonds from who-knows-what issues, going back to Stalin's time.

And everyone understood perfectly well that no one would ever...

...return the money...

...for those loans, but they still...

...kept them because, well, maybe someday...

...a hundred years later, on this Stalin-era...

...loan, someone might pay something out. Of course...

...no one ever paid anything. People know that perfectly well.

Everyone has that kind of inherited memory of it.

No one is going to buy any...

...Finance Ministry "people's loans" now, especially not...

...with our economy in the state it's in.

Hello, I live in a small...

...town...

...it's easy to rig things there, because there's no one to monitor them.

There are many towns like that,

...someone asks me.

About 50,000 people? That means...

...there are people who can monitor. Right now we have 110...

...probably thousand volunteers, and our volunteers...

...in our overall campaign are in every...

...city in Russia, in every populated area.

I'm sure that among your 50,000 people...

...right now, at least 50 people...

...are already registered in our campaign as...

...volunteers. That means that at every...

...polling station in your town, even now...

...as early as tomorrow, we could place one...

...observer. So guys, you just shouldn't...

...underestimate yourselves.

The number of people who are...

...unhappy with corruption is enormous. The number of...

...people who want an alternative is enormous.

The number of people who simply do not want...

...Putin to be elected for another 12 years...

...is enormous. And they—they are ready to work, they...

...want to be observers. You shouldn't think...

...that you're the only great person in your...

...town. There are lots of great people like that—you just...

...need to find them. Alexei, where can you legally...

...put up campaign flyers? Well, put them up wherever...

...you want. Just do it somehow...

...properly and tactfully. You don't need to...

...use superglue (Moment glue) to stick them on so that...

...they can't be torn off. Use tape...

...and neatly attach one in your...

...elevator. Then the next person walks by; if they don't...

...like it, they can tear it down, and there'll be no trace left for anyone.

So, you went back into the elevator again,

you ride it twice a day—just put it up,

carefully and delicately, this little flyer, and

you can put it anywhere.

You can hang it anywhere. They’ll tear it down, but then

you need to put it up again. You put it up, and after

a few hours they tore it down, but five

people saw it, ten people saw it,

so stick them wherever you want—just don’t

damage the walls, don’t damage

the elevators, don’t damage anything.

My assistant asks me: the Direct Line

with Putin was moved to June 15. What do you

think the agenda will be? It was

moved to June 15—note that, from

June, because you and I are holding

a rally on June 12, exactly why they

rescheduled it. They can’t very well hold

the Direct Line and ignore

questions about corruption—what is this, what

is happening all the time—when at the same

time

dozens, many dozens, possibly hundreds

of thousands of people in 200 cities across Russia took

to the streets to ask about

corruption? They want to see how everything

goes on the 12th, and then on the 15th

answer questions based on

well, what happened—did we get a lot of people,

was it a small crowd, did they detain anyone or not,

they monitor all this every day too.

March 26 scared them, but

now they want to understand whether this is a rising

wave—our anti-corruption protests—or

a declining one. So how many people

come out on June 12, and how you

conduct yourselves, will strongly affect what they

say on June 15. I mean, they

will lie on June 15, of course, but the degree

of brazenness in Putin’s lies

will depend on

us. Alexei Fyodorov asks: my

boss says that if you win

the election, none of the improvements will

affect me—that it doesn’t matter, everyone in power is the same,

everything will stay as it was. But I don’t

agree with him. Alexei Fyodorov, well, you

are right not to agree with him, because

you’re a sensible person, and unlike

your boss, you can connect

a few elementary facts. So, it won’t affect you?

If I win the election, I will make sure

that the raw-materials oligarchs stop

sending money offshore and instead

pay taxes here, inside the country. If

I win the election, I will make sure that the

1 trillion rubles (about US$11 billion) stolen every year

through government procurement stays in

the budget and is allocated to

healthcare and education. After some time, you’ll

go to a hospital in

your city and see that it has been

renovated.

You’ll see that teachers are earning

higher salaries. You’ll see that we’ve started

sending doctors abroad for training. I

will make sure that the several trillion

rubles stolen in state-owned companies

remain in the budget and serve the common

good. I will make sure that urban improvement projects

going on there in Moscow are not another way

to siphon off money. I will make sure that at

Rosneft they won’t be buying little spoons for

3,000 rubles (about US$33) apiece.

They simply won’t be buying spoons for 3,000 rubles

at all—they’ll go to a store and

buy ordinary, normal, decent

spoons, I don’t know, for 100 rubles (about US$1) or whatever

they cost. And that affects you directly,

because it will improve your

life, because I will make sure we have decent

roads at last, because in the 21st century

it is possible to repair all the roads. I will repair them, and

we have enough money. It will affect

you, your boss, and everyone around you

directly. So we need to believe that

Russia can live a normal life.

How do you become an election observer?

Marina asks. Marina, it’s easy to become one:

first, register

as a volunteer on our website. Then, closer to

the election—actually quite soon—we’ll start

training these volunteers and preparing them to be

observers. Then we’ll issue assignments,

and you’ll go to a polling station together with

your colleagues, other volunteers.

It’s very easy—all it takes is the desire, and of course you

can become that kind of volunteer. I’m also asked:

Kurmaev asks about relations between the regions and the center:

federal or centralized—what is your

vision? Please say a few words. In every

region I talk about this, and I’ll repeat it once again.

What is your vision? For 17 years we

have been building a centralized system. And what—does it

work? For 17 years we built a system—Putin

and Kudrin mainly, they built this

system under which all the money

is pulled into the center. And there was this legend

that this would somehow minimize corruption

and help someone. But it didn’t work.

All we achieved is that the regions

became impoverished, but corruption did not become

any less, and the budget process did not become

any better. In other words, the system has simply

gone bankrupt; it doesn’t work. There is

not a single developed,

prosperous federal state

that has a system like the one in

Russia—not one. It simply does not work.

So of course I support returning both

money and powers to the regions, where

that money is, generally speaking, earned. And

there’s a huge message in all caps saying that I

have to

wrap up. Turn the glass over—I’m turning the glass over.

June 12—don’t forget to come to the

rally. Get ready, submit your application,

support our campaign, and

Please stay with us on the channel

Navalny Live — we have many different

programs. Thank you very much to everyone who watches

us. We tell the truth here. Until next

Thursday

[music]

L