Militaristic Putin, the State Drug Cartel, Rybka in Danger

[music]

Hello everyone. It's 8:18 p.m. in Moscow, and in the studio—

Alexei Navalny, or rather,

"a certain individual," as Vladimir

Putin called me at the Interior Ministry board meeting. He spoke about a number of

individuals who organize

unauthorized rallies, and said that these individuals

must be fought and stopped. So,

that's all—three times "individuals."

They're insolent and provocative, so

there you go: I am insolent and provocative.

And today I also have a weapon with me. We

will be talking a lot on our program about

weapons.

Here is our weapon. It's this little device—you may have

seen it with flight attendants or with some

other people whose job is to count things.

Because on the 18th, at those elections

that we do not recognize, we will be counting

people, and all of our observers will have

one of these cool devices. And there's also

an even cooler version—

an electronic one that somehow fits on your finger

and counts people. Already

tens of thousands of people have signed up, and I urge you

to sign up as well for our

observation campaign. We are boycotting

the election, and we are urging everyone not to go, but

we are going to count those who do come

so the authorities can't rig things and

claim that the whole country, supposedly,

turned out in one great patriotic surge.

A lot of people will apparently come because they'll be forced to, but

we'll count them anyway. Today we have

item number one, item number two, and

item number three in our giveaway. We are

raising money to run the observation campaign,

and those who send the

largest donations will receive this

counter with an autograph—this very counter

signed. And the grand prize is Nastya Rybka's book,

that very book by Nastya Rybka. We'll talk a little

about it today, though I can't promise

Nastya Rybka's signature on it, because she

has certain problems—she often

ends up in jail in Bangkok.

Well, I'll probably sign it for you myself. That would be

a little strange, but anyway, you can

ask me questions on Twitter using the hashtag

#Навальный2017, and I will

try to answer them.

Three prizes in our program—sign up

to be observers.

A huge number of things happened this

week—it was genuinely hard

to choose what to cover, because things happened

that seemed impossible.

So impossible that if we had seen

all this in a TV series, we would of course have said,

"Come on, what kind of nonsense is this? This can't

possibly happen—some cocaine in an

embassy, and a plane belonging to the head—

the former head of the FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service), now

the head of the Security Council—carrying

something dubious, or flying off somewhere

to Bangkok

to rescue a girl—Nastya Rybka, no less—and

all of this is impossible to imagine, and yet

it happened. A disappearing and

reappearing nephew of Deputy Prime Minister

Dmitry Rogozin—we'll try to talk about all

of it. But of course it's impossible

to start with anything other than our

grandpa, who reappeared—you remember, in the

last program he had vanished, and I was looking for him.

Where had our grandpa gone for a whole week?

Vladimir Putin.

He had disappeared somewhere, and now he was back—and

he came back in a very belligerent mood, because

at this public appearance of his

today—his address to the Federal

Assembly, an annual mandatory

event—they postponed it.

It should have been held in 2017, but they held it in

2018, and staged it with maximum pomp.

And, really, this was apparently

the main—probably the only—

campaign event in which

Vladimir Putin is taking part. And it was

right there in the Manege (the exhibition hall by the Kremlin); they packed in

the maximum number of people. There were two

giant video screens that

showed various graphics, and everyone was

very surprised that for 47 minutes

Vladimir Putin talked about the successes

of our defense industry and basically

gave us a virtual

tour of new secret types of

weaponry.

This is something almost unthinkable in

Russian politics—even in Soviet

politics. The Soviet Union and Russia are, of course,

known for loving to talk

about weapons and rattle the saber,

and that's not necessarily bad. I myself

like parades—they're interesting. But it was impossible

to imagine Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev

listing, in his address,

some tactical and technical

characteristics of weapons. But that's

just silly; it's somehow beneath the level. Nevertheless,

Putin spent 47 minutes talking about it,

surprising the whole world, and showed us

some astonishing computer graphics. So let's

probably start with that: 47

seconds of Vladimir Putin, President

of the Russian Federation, presenting

new weapons—retaliatory weapons. Forty-seven

seconds.

The project—well, in this phase we will install

giant

—you know, the Moon revolves

around the Earth like this.

When the Moon reaches the proper position

in its orbit, I will destroy the city of

Washington. As you can see, I have turned the Moon into

something like a Death Star.

[laughter]

This isn’t the video, but you know the one I mean.

It’s better because, well, first of all,

the audience listening to it

looked more respectable

than those strange people who were sitting in

the hall today, representing

the Federal Assembly. Second, actually,

you’ll laugh, but these

mock-ups and this computer graphics, this

what we just saw in this clip from

the film *Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me*

looks far more

convincing than what was shown today

by Vladimir Putin, because

well, he really stunned us. By now, you probably already know

and have heard that there’s already

a huge discussion on social media that

basically, Putin has, well, beaten his own

previous record. Not long ago, in the

interview with American director Oliver Stone,

he showed missile strikes by the

Russian Aerospace Forces, and

it turned out that it was footage of

Americans in Afghanistan. Then we were shown

video game footage passed off as

some kind of recordings from military

operations. But today we were shown

some fragments from a film that aired on

Channel One (Russia’s main state TV channel) in 2007, that is, 11 years

ago. Channel One showed

some nonsense back then, and today it was shown to us

as some kind of prototypes of super-weapons

that supposedly have absolutely no

equivalent. Still, let’s take a look, without

any jokes. It’s 1 minute 52

seconds, but it’s worth it. And I

hope this footage captured the

moment when they show the hall during this whole

story about the missile, they show the audience, and

even they are laughing. Let’s watch: 1

minute 52 seconds of video, I’ll show it

to you now.

[applause]

[music]

By the way, the provisional names of these two

new types of Russian strategic weapons,

the global-range cruise missile

and the unmanned underwater vehicle,

have not yet been chosen. We are awaiting suggestions on the

Ministry of Defense website.

I was watching all this and thinking—one

thought was in my head: Lord, Lord,

please let our achievements in the field of

weaponry be at least a little better than our

achievements in computer graphics.

Because, well, the computer game

I played when I was still in school

looked better than all of this, and

well, well, well—it’s even a little embarrassing

to look at all this. Already now I can see in the

press that comments have appeared from

various scientists and physicists, very

prominent ones, who are simply laughing at

what Putin is saying about some kind of

nuclear-powered missile. I think that

in the near future we’ll hear many more

sarcastic comments of that

kind.

What I wanted to say is this: I read that

quite a lot of people

interpreted these statements,

these belligerent, strange

computer videos, as a kind of

preparation for war, or that

Putin’s rhetoric is going to move into a

practical stage and we’ll see the start of

a new war, a new Cold War with the United States,

or a new arms race will begin, or

something else like that will happen. It seems to me

that it’s nothing like that at all. No new arms race

can begin, because

unfortunately, Putin’s Russia does not

produce anything. Everything we have is

still the legacy of the Soviet Union, no matter what

Putin may say. During his years in power, we

have ended up with absolutely nothing. We aren’t even capable of producing

a calculator now, and all

our so-called high technology is all Chubais-style stuff (a jab at Anatoly Chubais, a Russian reformer/business figure), like

these smartphones, phone cases

that don’t exist, that exist only

virtually.

At some exhibition, when

they show a single prototype and then

talk about it on television, then apparently

that means the technology exists. In real life, none of

this exists. I am convinced that the main reason

why Putin talked so much about these

weapons, and why

he showed all these videos, is

that this is the only subject on

which he can lie with impunity.

Because, really, listen—what can he

tell you? Every time he talks

about successes in healthcare, well,

you laugh, because you go to those hospitals.

How can anyone convince you that

healthcare has improved? It’s impossible.

As for education—

you laugh, because you or your children go to

school. You know what it’s like. You can’t be fooled.

Security, good roads, economic

development—but today Putin once again

said that they would ease the pressure on

business owners. He has been saying this for 18 years,

every year, and every year he says it

several times. But everyone understands that it is

complete nonsense, and it’s impossible even to lie

convincingly. But when it comes to weapons,

you can spin all sorts of tales about how we have

these kinds of devices,

but we won’t tell you about them—that you can do.

You can still talk about some

top-secret weapons that

are already in service, and that means we’ll

defeat everyone, crush everyone, and all that.

You can lie about that as much as you want.

It’s impossible to disprove, because to

any refutation you make, well, you say

Well, listen, all Russian physicists

say that right now no kind of

nuclear-powered rocket is possible, because

that would have had to be preceded by

decades of development, and

you all know that such developments did exist

but they ended back in the 1950s.

But then they tell you: this is just a very

secret project, you know, it's so, so

secret that even those physicists

don't know about it. It was supposedly developed at

the secret Omega facility

so just trust us. That's what

all this is for. There won't be any

arms race, nothing like that. What there will be is

endless lies, and that

has, in fact, already begun. This

absurd statement that we have

a super-weapon, and it doesn't even have

a name yet, so anyone interested, please take part

in the contest to name the

super-weapon. Putin announced this

billboard-style appeal—you just heard it in that clip.

And already Margarita Simonyan is rushing in and saying,

"I've got it: the rocket should be called Volodya"

"I'm entering this contest—let's

call the rocket Volodya." And then they'll

say, well no, naming it after Volodya is immodest,

let's give it some other name, but then

its unofficial name will still be Volodya, and there'll be

a vote. And some kind of laser

system doesn't have a name either, and they need

to come up with one, and there'll be

voting, and there'll be scandals, and there'll be

discussions, and there'll be this whole

endless fuss around

some supposed weapons. A bit later we'll

talk about Mr.

Rogozin, not only Russia's failures in space but also

unfortunately the failure with thermal imagers. But

everything we can actually assess, we

see that Putin's economy has failed at

everything. Putin's entire

way of governing the state has failed at

everything, including in the defense sector.

The only thing they know how to do is PR, and already

Volodin—look at him, the legend is already

growing instantly.

So, about this super-weapon, it turns out

Volodin has spent the whole day on the super-weapon theme, and

Volodin, the former deputy head of

the presidential administration, now

the speaker of the State Duma, has already declared

that, you know, Putin personally took

part in developing the super-weapon. Well,

good Lord, it's just ridiculous.

But nevertheless, the myth lives on.

Wait a little longer and we'll learn that he was

a master designer, and that when one

engineer made a mistake, Putin came over and pointed it out

and said, "You know, you've calculated this incorrectly here

because back when I was in school

the KGB taught me in math class, and I found

the error in your calculations." And then the engineer

and everyone applauded him, and only

thanks to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

did the rocket fly exactly to its target. This is not

a joke—that's how it will be. Well, in North

Korea that's exactly what happens. At their

parades

they literally haul mock-ups

of this or that weapon around in order

to show North Koreans

what powerful weapons they have. In North Korea

they air reports saying that

the North Korean national football team

or whoever else has become world champion

even though they didn't even compete anywhere.

Of course, all this won't be on quite the same

scale as in North Korea. You and I

will laugh at it, but a significant

number of people—well, they'll have this nonsense

fed to them. So this is not an arms

race, and it's not a new Cold War.

It's just a load of nonsense from a man

who has completely wrecked and

failed at everything

and can now only lie about some

amazing secret developments. Let me

remind you that today we have

we are raising money for election monitoring, and we have

three prizes. Our weapon is far more

powerful than Volodya's rocket: it's this

counter. At the very least, the presidential administration and

Putin himself are clearly much more afraid of this

thing than they are of

any weapon. That's exactly why they are so

hysterically driving up turnout. Svetlana

Lazovskaya asks me how

to resist people being herded to

polling stations under threat of expulsion

or dismissal. Just don't go. No one is going to

expel you, no one is going to fire you. How

could they possibly fire you for not going

to a polling station? It's that kind of threat—

just a figure of speech. In reality they can do

nothing to you. Just don't go. Ideally,

you go up to the person

who is trying to herd you there and say,

"You know, I'm actually in the opposition, I'm against

these elections, I'm not going," and I assure you, they'll

leave you alone immediately. They'll leave you alone, no one

will want to mess with you. You

can also just nod along and

do absolutely nothing. March 19 will come

and they'll forget all about it, and in general

no one will care anymore. So just

don't.

Don't go. So, Obormot 2018 writes that he

knows the names of several people

who are currently organizing carousel voting (multiple voting by bussed-in voters).

Well, for 1,000 rubles for themselves, 1,000 rubles

for the carousel voters—they've already recruited about 200

people. But of course, not a single election in

Russia has ever gone without fraud,

so this time there will be fraud as well.

There will be ballot stuffing for Putin too, although it's not

really that necessary—they mainly need it for turnout.

ballot stuffing

So, guys, that’s why you should join

us — there’s a link in the description of this video

to sign up as election observers.

We’ve already received 2,400 rubles (about $25), and there is already one contender

for our prizes. Sign up as

observers in order to catch these

carousel voters — they’ll be out in huge

numbers, especially in certain regions:

Kemerovo, Tambov Region, Tatarstan,

Bashkortostan — they simply can’t do anything there without fraud and falsified additions to the vote totals.

They can never do anything there

without that, so that’s where they’ll do it first.

Dmitry asks how many training courses on

election observation you’ve organized and how to take them.

So, we run observer training courses at

our campaign offices. Go to the public page of our headquarters

in your region, and you can sign up for

the courses. But mainly we try to make it so

that being an observer is easy. This

time, observing is easy because we are

primarily tracking turnout, so

don’t be afraid.

Don’t be afraid — sign up. In fact,

from my personal experience, I’ve been

an observer at polling stations many times.

What you really need there is, well, not exactly nerve,

not brazenness, but rather the ability

to stand up to the authorities when they

try something. It doesn’t happen often, but if they

try to throw you out or somehow

push you into a corner, you need to say: no,

I’m not leaving, I’ll stand right here and

press my clicker, counting every

ballot. That’s the main quality

of observers, along with knowing the law. So, well,

let’s talk after all about how such

astonishing things

happen in our country — that when we

discuss what’s happening and politics in

our country, we end up

having to discuss cocaine, because

two weeks ago in Russia there erupted

an absolutely enormous

scandal, of course.

A scandal on such a scale that, really,

the entire leadership of the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs

and the leadership of the Russian security services

should resign. Unfortunately, that

is not happening. But in general, the situation

deserves extraordinary attention.

400 kilograms of cocaine were found at

the embassy in Argentina, and in fact

somehow this did not make it into the Russian press.

Argentine newspapers were writing about it until

a remarkable person named

Maxim Mironov brought it up. He helps us a great deal

in the election campaign. He has

written many articles; he is a fairly well-known

economist and mathematician. He works at

a Spanish business school, and he lives in

two places: part of the time he lives in

Spain, and part of the time he lives in

Argentina. It so happens that his children

attend the school at the embassy,

and, as it happens, it was in

the premises of that school that the

drugs were found. And Maxim Mironov,

understanding what an embassy is

and how strict access control is there,

which is quite strict, after reading all

the Argentine newspapers and all the papers that

wrote about it, wrote a post that

essentially brought the story of this

cocaine into the Russian media space.

Mironov wrote some fairly simple and

obvious things: that of course this was not the first

time;

that of course this was obviously a

standing channel for drug trafficking

through diplomatic channels via the Russian embassy

into Russia; and that

this could not have happened without the involvement of

diplomats and security service officers. Then

it all started: Mironov was

denied by the Foreign Ministry and denied by the embassy.

And the denials were very characteristic:

they started dragging his name and his wife’s name through the mud,

saying that he was the leader of some kind of

Argentine

opposition cell,

that he was generally a very bad person, that his wife

had supposedly fallen out with someone somewhere

over money — in other words, they dumped a pile of

gossip. Then not only the Russian embassy

in Argentina, but the entire Russian Foreign Ministry

started denying all of this, and in particular

responding to Mironov’s statements. It was very interesting to watch.

I asked

Maxim Mironov himself today,

we called him on Skype, and we have

literally two minutes of what he thinks

about this whole

scandal, and about the position of the Russian

Foreign Ministry — why they are so actively

denying him. Let’s listen to Mironov.

As for the cocaine scandal, this whole

story began on Thursday, if memory serves,

in Moscow,

with a report in the Argentine newspaper *Clarín*

saying that 400 kilograms of cocaine had been found

at the Russian embassy, and very quickly

it got thousands of views, and so on, and

there was complete silence from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Then there was an official comment, a standard one,

basically saying that the cocaine belonged to a former

former

technical employee, and that

this was a successful operation. But if you start

looking into it, it becomes clear that

it wasn’t just one technical employee involved.

certain

And within that framework, well, I simply

wrote down some facts myself,

and some conclusions based on my own

experience, since my children attend the embassy school,

and apparently I hit the mark very precisely.

it turns out I was right, and that is exactly what caused

the hysteria, and the further it goes, the worse it gets

I was right on this point; you can see it in every

Kovalchuk came out and started saying that

the poor guy was transporting coffee in a private jet that

costs—well, I happen to know roughly how much it costs

again, it costs at least 300 euros

I don't know of any coffee that costs 1,000

dollars per kilogram—there simply isn't any such coffee

that would justify even

sending a little plane out for it, let alone

the fact that they are all essentially admitting to

smuggling—whether it's cocaine, cognac,

or coffee, if it's brought in without customs clearance, that means you are using

a diplomatic status as a cover for smuggling

any ordinary person understands that

no one is going to

go to such lengths over coffee that doesn't even grow there

they do make cognac there, but in general, what are you

really chasing after?

It seems to me that one of the main

pieces of evidence that, after all,

senior officials

of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were involved in

this drug-smuggling operation involving Russia

is the astonishing way they lie

so brazenly. But in general, Zakharova and

all these people basically lie in

every sentence—they do not speak

any truth

ever. But now, interestingly, in fact

it's worth looking at what their real dialogue is

They are not arguing with Mironov; they are already

arguing with the Argentine police, because

they claimed it was a lie that

the drugs were transported out on the plane on

which Security Council Secretary

Patrushev flew, saying it was a fake

photograph, after which the Argentine

police said: here is the video recording

These are case materials; this is not a photograph, but a

screenshot from the video recording, and

and now we know for a fact that on

Patrushev's plane, somewhere there sat

Patrushev, and somewhere nearby with him

there were 400 kilograms of cocaine. We do not know

whether he had anything to do with it or not

whether the delegation of FSB officers (Russia's Federal Security Service) was using it or not

whether they were sniffing cocaine or not, but the fact

is that Patrushev's plane

was carrying this cocaine. They claimed that

the Russian Foreign Ministry said that this involved

only some technical staff

and that no real

diplomats were involved, after which

the Argentine police leaked wiretaps

from which it is absolutely obvious that

diplomats were involved in all of this

It is now clear that the Russian ambassador did not

just suddenly, on his own initiative,

come forward and say something—the Argentine

police tracked the shipment precisely by

seeing how cocaine was being brought into the

embassy. After that, under the pressure

of such facts, the Russian ambassador was

forced to acknowledge it. By the way,

that tells you quite a lot about the ambassador

But in reality, unfortunately, of course

we do not know, and apparently under this regime we

will not find out what really happened. We

simply have several facts that

seem impossible to refute

First, Yevgeny Roizman said something absolutely correct about this

matter

This was obviously not the first shipment

If it had been the first shipment, there would have been

one kilogram, or two kilograms, maybe 10

kilograms—but no one is going to

test a route with 400 kilograms

of cocaine worth tens of millions

of dollars. Second, this of course could not

have happened without the involvement of

high-ranking diplomats

and senior embassy officials

because, well, it is impossible

to just carry it in under a coat—there were 12 suitcases

Anyone who has ever been in an embassy

any embassy, including a Russian one, has seen

what security measures are in place

You cannot even bring in a mobile phone

everything is scanned, and yet these

suitcases were moving around everywhere

Obviously, the plane on which

the head of the Security Council apparatus

or the Security Council secretary flies—but

that is probably not the kind of plane on

which you can bring absolutely anything. If

you can bring aboard a suitcase full of cocaine, then

you could bring a bomb aboard too. There were

twelve such suitcases—400 kilograms

Besides, let's look at the other

side of this. After all, 400

kilograms of cocaine, even for a city as large as

Moscow, is, I don't know, half a year's

consumption, or several months' worth

of consumption. So on this end, in

Moscow, there must be a huge

distribution system

You are not just going to transport

400 kilograms if you cannot

move them here. If this was a route through which

dozens of kilograms or hundreds of

kilograms were passing, that means here in Moscow

there is some kind of extensive

drug-mafia network for selling this cocaine. And

when officials of the Russian Federation

from the security services say that

they arrested two people—well then, two

people? Where is everyone else, then?

It turns out one person was arrested at the

embassy, one person is somewhere on the run in

Germany, and two other people

were arrested here who were supposed to

receive it. It all looks as though

the Russian authorities—well, of course, probably, I

hope Putin was not involved in this, and

that would be strange—but some

high-ranking diplomat and staff members

the intelligence services organized such a large-scale

drug mafia, and when they were forced to

shut it down, well, yes, they arrested four people

because if this had been

a normal police operation, they would have needed

to catch everyone who was supplying

the cocaine — Argentina is responsible for that part — but

once it was brought here, presumably it should have been delivered under

the control of the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) to

the major dealers, and then those major

dealers, at some warehouse where they

store other things too, where there should have been

some kind of packaging operation — well, we’ve seen it in movies

at least, and in reality all the viewers

of this program have only seen this in movies

how all this gets distributed, at least

through medium wholesale or large wholesale channels

but still, nobody writes

on the dark web, “a suitcase of cocaine for sale” — no,

it’s sold in batches, portions of 100

grams, 50 grams, well, maybe by

the kilogram — so there must have been somewhere

some kind of lab where it was somehow

what do they call it — diluted or

mixed or packaged — why was none of that

raided? It wasn’t raided because

they themselves were organizing it. Here are some frequently

asked questions and objections.

Well, it seems kind of stupid — why would they do this?

These are people who can simply

steal from the state budget, so why get involved in heroin too?

That would be stupid on the part of

officials, to engage in smuggling

heroin and cocaine — or heroin, I don’t know

what exactly they’re transporting there. Listen, but siphoning off

money from the tax service

and buying houses in Dubai with that money, and then

killing lawyer Magnitsky (Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian anti-corruption whistleblower) who

exposed that scheme — wasn’t that stupid too?

And all the other things, from the war in

Ukraine to the downed airplane, and those

Wagner people who tried to

storm an oil facility guarded

by Americans, where they were killed, and

now we’ve disowned them —

wasn’t that stupid? So these people

who are in power now are driven

only by greed and avarice, and

further down, at different levels — someone at

Gazprom may be stealing, some people in

the media — well, those lower down also want their

million dollars somehow, and some

FSB guys

handling embassy security

or with Patrushev (Nikolai Patrushev, senior Russian security official), who travel the world with him,

they also want to get a million

dollars, and they want to grab it however

they can. On cocaine? Sure, no problem, on

cocaine — because who’s going to do anything to us?

We are the power here. And they were right, weren’t they?

Look, they didn’t bust any drug mafia.

They arrested two people, and one of them

has already said that this was an American

provocation, and the officially accepted

versions being discussed here are things like

coffee, or cigars, or something else — right,

Mironov said it’s simply laughable

to discuss whatever kind of

coffee or whatever kind of

cigars — you’re not going to charter a plane

for tens of thousands of dollars to bring in

coffee or cigars. That’s ridiculous. So it seems to me

an absolutely indisputable fact

that this very drug mafia existed

and was being covered up or organized

by intelligence officers and Foreign Ministry staff.

Maybe at some point it started as

an operational game: they found

a drug mafia, they infiltrated it, and

then, after some number of years,

they were supposed to shut down the whole

network. But they infiltrated it and realized that, well,

there was cash — here’s a million,

there’s another million — and gradually they simply

put this drug network to work for themselves.

And when the Argentines started saying, well,

let’s finally do something, after all this had been

discovered a year earlier, let’s move already

and expose it — they didn’t expose it. Why would they?

It was bringing in money. That’s why I

absolutely do not rule out — in fact,

I am convinced — that none of this could have happened

without the Foreign Ministry and without the FSB, without

the leadership, without generals and ministers

and deputy ministers. The fact that our Foreign Ministry is mired in this

is absolutely disgusting.

It’s very revealing, by the way. You may

remember that I once did

not even an investigation — it wasn’t an

investigation, just a piece based on the American

press, which wrote when our

diplomats in the U.S. were caught cheating on

insurance claims. Again, it seemed like,

well, idiots — why were you doing this?

As diplomats in the U.S. — in the U.S., obviously,

you are under constant surveillance. It’s the most

risky country from the standpoint of

any kind of cheating or illegal side income.

Nevertheless, dozens of embassy

employees were cheating on insurance claims,

making a few thousand

or tens of thousands of dollars from it. They

did it there; with heroin, the same thing, and with cocaine

they can do the same and did do the same, unfortunately.

What can you say?

Degradation, degradation. Roge writes to me:

“The missile should be called ‘Pensions.’” Well yes, that is,

the missiles should be named

‘Instead of Pensions.’ On the website of the Ministry of

Defense, after all,

they announced that there is a vote underway on their site.

Go there and name the

missile ‘Instead of Pensions.’ I think that

would be very popular.

Let me remind you that today we are giving away three

items: two tally counters

that will help — we’ll sign them and

reserve them — they’ll help election observers count.

people in the by-elections on the 18th, and

Nastya Rybka's book, which Nastya Rybka

won't sign, but I will sign it, by the way.

Speaking of which, let's talk about Nastya Rybka then.

I've already mentioned it, but I'll say a couple of words because

I feel a certain responsibility.

There are a lot of jokes about this.

There are also a lot of conspiracy theories about it

because there can't help but be.

Conspiracy theories, because it was the very same

"cocaine plane" that Patrushev

used to bring here either cocaine or

flour disguised as cocaine, or something else entirely.

It was exactly the same plane, with the same

Patrushev, that suddenly flew to Bangkok

when this whole situation there began with

Nastya Rybka, thanks to Instagram,

through which the investigation was released

about oligarch Deripaska and Prikhodko

who was sailing with him on a yacht, all together

with this Nastya Rybka. And now it has been announced that

they will be deported—and deported are Nastya Rybka,

this Alex Lesley, their sex coach,

they are being deported to Russia. There are plenty of jokes,

about this, but I, without

but without any snickering, I think that

of course, if they are deported to Russia, then

they are in danger. This Les-

ley spoke with Kira; we have 36 seconds.

They are literally being taken from one

sort of prison and deportation facility to

another prison, and journalists gave them a

phone; over Skype he said a few

words. Let's listen—three seconds, look.

This really does look very strange.

You can talk about whether

he went there by chance or not by chance, whether he

went to rescue someone else or not—

but listen, these people, sex coaches,

were arrested in Thailand. That already sounds

a little absurd. Thailand is a rather

specific country,

with effectively legal prostitution,

countless sex bars, sex

shows, and so on—and suddenly these people are arrested

for some kind of sex seminar.

That hardly sounds believable. Then they

are, for some reason, not released on bail,

the appeals for bail go nowhere, and then they are

again

detained, their visas are canceled, and they are

told that they will be deported to

Russia, even though Rybka is a citizen of Belarus,

and many other

surprising things are happening. They are being moved from

one place to another, but they say that

they have some kind of

kompromat (compromising material) on Trump, Manafort, whoever,

you like. This is already in all the world's

news outlets—I saw a CNN report about them.

And even if the things they are saying now—

the claims that they

know certain things about American

politics—even if they are making it up and

inventing it—most likely they are inventing it,

yes, but they are doing it to save

their own lives, simply because, well,

it's more or less clear why they want to

take them to Russia: they want to bring them somewhere,

I don't know, to a police station or

just to a safe house,

hook wires up to them, and then, you know,

turn that little telephone machine,

beat them with electric current until they

record a video saying that

State Department agent Navalny bribed us

to slander

Deripaska and Prikhodko, or that all of this

was made up, that there was no yacht at all,

something like that. That is obviously what

the Russian Federation expects from them.

So I really do, in fact,

believe they are in danger. They are

not my heroes by any means.

I have no

admiring attitude toward them, but in this

sense, of course, I think that they should not

be handed over to the Russian Federation.

They obviously will receive no fair justice there,

but we need

to follow their fate, because overall

this scandal is, of course, very important for

understanding how power is structured. I

still want to remind everyone that if you

are discussing Rybka, then please discuss

Prikhodko along with her; please discuss

Deripaska as well, because this

is a story about monstrous corruption,

a story of monstrous corruption

that was witnessed by a young woman

who worked in escort services and wrote some kind of

little book about it—and for that, for having been

a witness to all of this, they are now hunting her down.

Aha, Putin V.V. donated 10,000 to us.

He clearly wants to get this book

signed not by Rybka, but by me.

So anyway, our state, instead of

dealing with Prikhodko,

sends planes in order to

hunt down this unfortunate

Nastya Rybka. Today is Cat Day, apparently,

and there is also a cat behind me. I send

my regards to the cat.

Behind me, Voda is sitting in our window.

Greetings to all cat owners.

So, 21 Green writes: tomorrow the film

**He Is Not Dimon to You** turns one year old. And that is

true—one year ago we released the investigation

**He Is Not Dimon to You**.

And yet it feels as though ten years have already

passed; many different things have happened,

but the main thing did not happen: Medvedev

remained in power. Putin has already said that

Medvedev should continue as prime minister

after his re-election.

After his reappointment, essentially nothing changed for you.

Only we got dragged through the courts here; they

seized our equipment and dispersed people at

at protest rallies, so, well, a year has passed

and we need to understand that if we haven’t

achieved all this in a year, we must

keep pushing forward, because it’s impossible

to just put up with all of this. So, Yelena

Yatsenko writes: “Alexei, the MFC (multifunctional public services center) is herding people to

Luzhniki (a major Moscow stadium) for the concert on March 3. I’m planning to go. They say

you have to check in three hours before it starts,

at the beginning and at the end, and then they’ll give you

time off,” writes Yelena, with a smiley face.

You can clearly see it’s bought-and-paid-for. What I like is that they break up

the illusion for me — and I like that. But

at one time, friends, I saw it differently. To me,

all mass rallies of any

significance — if there are

more than 1,000 people at any event

in support of the authorities, that means they were rounded up

either for money, or for time off, or

simply forced to go. That always happens. And

on March 3, we’ll once again see this dreary

spectacle.

When work collectives start marching in, everyone

will be checking in. You need to document all of it,

record it all, expose it all,

record audio, record video,

upload it online. This is the best, the perfect

example that there is no such thing as 80 percent — not

a damn chance. It exists

only in a vacuum; it does not exist in

real politics. And since we’re talking about this,

let’s move on to the ratings.

This is quite interesting for us, because

today we have Moscow’s ratings. It’s the

main city for candidates, especially those

with a democratic orientation. But

it is a federal subject with the largest

number of voters — 10 percent

of the country’s population lives here — and in

many ways, how Moscow votes

will determine the outcome of the election. And many believe

— we published polls, and you saw

the polling figures —

that all the candidates except Putin are getting

very little. And there was a common objection:

“Well, Moscow will change everything. You’re not measuring Moscow.”

Moscow is very hard

to measure. Muscovites — our sociologist, and

the head of our sociological

service, was cursing Muscovites in the strongest

terms, because of course no one here

wants to talk about anything, and they immediately

tell everyone to get lost. Muscovites are brazen and secretive.

But nevertheless, thanks to volunteers

who had to serve as a logistical center,

we conducted quality polling, surveyed

a sufficient number of people so that later

we could weight the results by demographic groups

and do everything properly. And now I want

to tell you what

the voting results in Moscow are likely to be.

Let’s look at slide number one. If

we imagine that the election were held

next Sunday, which of these

politicians would you vote for? You can see

the red is Moscow, and the blue is

the nationwide poll. Let’s just

look right away at the very last line

in the second column: you can see that in Moscow, “won’t say / undecided” is

significantly higher than in

the rest of Russia. And as I already said,

Muscovites are secretive, and of course that affects

all of the poll results. We

can see that

out of 100 percent, Putin in Moscow has

significantly less. Grudinin here is clearly

ahead of Zhirinovsky. Sobchak, yes, has

2 percent, but if we look — that is,

it’s also somewhat higher than in

the rest of Russia. Now let’s

measure this approximately — well, not approximately, but quite precisely —

by looking at the rating among decided voters, that is,

if we remove that 41 percent,

what will happen? What will the result be

in the actual ballot-box vote?

We immediately see here that Putin gets

significantly less — 75 percent — although it is still

an enormous lead. Apart from him,

no one really sees anyone else. We can see that

in Moscow, Grudinin will almost certainly

overtake Zhirinov

sky: his Moscow rating is above 10

percent, compared with 6 percent

nationwide. Zhirinovsky is also in Moscow

a little above 7 percent, compared

with 6. There is a margin of error, but in

any case,

Zhirinovsky is in third place. Sobchak gets 3

percent among decided voters, and

that is already significantly more than across

the country, where it is 1 percent. Yavlinsky has 2 percent

— also higher in Moscow than in Russia as a whole.

Nationwide it’s 1. So this is exactly

why the ratings of these liberal candidates, or

candidates presenting themselves as liberal,

are higher in Moscow, but not as high as

they usually are. Which suggests that

of course

Muscovites, too, have figured out what these

elections are. They don’t want to support anyone.

Forty-one percent of them don’t even

want to say anything, and those who do want to

speak — 75 percent support Putin.

But by the way, don’t take down

this slide just yet.

If we conduct a little thought

experiment, and take this 41 percent of those

who refused to say whom they

would vote for, and divide them equally

among everyone except Putin — the hypothesis

is that no one was afraid to say they were for Putin,

but they were afraid to say it for all

the others, and we divide them among

all the others — there’s no slide for this, but simply

these figures would turn into, for Grudinin,

in that case — that is, this is the assumed

upper-bound maximum estimate for our

candidates — Grudinin would have 20 percent

in Moscow, Zhirinovsky 15, Sobchak 7.

Yavlinsky gets 5, but let me repeat,

assuming that everyone who refused

is redistributed only among the opposition

candidates, and Putin gets 0 from them, that is,

that’s the maximum upper-bound estimate, but

still, frankly speaking, it shows no super

breakthroughs at all. Let’s

look at the negative ratings in Moscow. These

ratings in Moscow are different too. We

can see that Sobchak’s negative rating in Moscow

is 63 percent, which is slightly lower than

the 68 percent nationwide

across Russia, though it is still

off the charts, enormous—interesting.

Yavlinsky is very interesting: for some reason, in

Moscow—honestly, we just, well, we

were surprised ourselves—but in Moscow his

negative rating is higher than across

Russia as a whole: 27 percent of people say they would not

vote for him under any circumstances.

It’s 24 percent nationwide.

But, as expected, Zhirinovsky is disliked in Moscow

even more than in the rest of

Russia: his negative rating is 26 percent, compared

with 21 percent

For Grudinin in Moscow, the same thing

is happening: his rating in Moscow is higher, and

so is his negative rating, because he was more

well known here. What’s interesting is Putin.

Across the country, in the rest of the country,

people are obviously afraid to say that they do not

like Putin that much. In Moscow they are afraid too,

but in Moscow many more people say it openly:

8 percent of people clearly and directly

state that under no circumstances would they

vote for Putin. Let’s

take a look at whether campaigning is at least noticeable in Moscow,

whether the candidates’ campaigning is visible.

And we can see that yes, this is where the biggest

differences are: Muscovites notice the election

campaign, while in the rest of the country

somehow people barely see it. In Moscow, well,

that is, still 47 percent

—almost half of Muscovites—do not notice any election

campaign at all, but in the

rest of the country that figure is 67 percent. But at the same time,

37 percent of Muscovites see

Zhirinovsky’s campaign, while in Russia overall only

16 percent do. 30 percent see Sobchak’s campaign, 29

percent see Grudinin’s campaign, and Putin’s

is noticed by 24 percent. Around 19 percent

have noticed Yavlinsky. Interestingly,

Zyuganov and Mironov are also mentioned in Moscow

—though Mironov is not taking part; we

include them simply as reference indicators—but

Muscovites clearly say that they do not see

any campaigning by Zyuganov or Mironov. Well,

strictly speaking, that is entirely correct:

they do not see it. So overall, what I want to say

is that, broadly speaking, the results in the

country’s largest city, the city with the

largest number of voters, are not very

different from the nationwide ones. In Moscow too,

people have figured out and understood what kind of

strange, murky, and fake

election campaign this is.

The candidates who were put forward

to pretend that there was some kind of contest

enjoy no real support, because

everyone can see that there is no real contest, and

of course, I have already seen a lot of

tweets asking, precisely, what do you think

about the statement by Sobchak’s campaign chief

regarding the lack of choice. There were many

questions about what I think of the debates, what I

think of everything else. Well, indeed,

we were waiting for the debates, and I was waiting for them too. Everyone

was interested, and in fact for

these candidates—but Putin is not taking part

anywhere. He has already won. Putin

is getting 80 percent—this is a

reappointment, and there is no point discussing it

in Putin’s case. But for the other candidates,

the puppet candidates, obviously, it still

matters who comes in second

and who comes in third, whether they get

1 percent or 4 percent—that is still

a big difference. And we were all waiting for the debates, and

I was waiting for them too. They could have gone in two

directions. Option number one: create

a scandal and draw attention to themselves through

harsh criticism of Putin, attacks on Putin,

and exposing Putin. Of course, I

expected that; I hoped for that path.

Option number two: draw attention to themselves through

some kind of scandal, a fight, splashing

water around. Here, in our weekly editorial meeting,

my colleagues won’t let me lie,

I kept saying to them constantly

that there would be debates, and all these campaign teams that

had done nothing would try to attract

attention simply by starting a fight,

a squabble, and throwing things at each other.

And that is exactly what happened. We

saw debates in exactly that format. Of course,

it was pre-programmed: Zhirinovsky

does this at every election. Zhirinovsky

shouts and does not let anyone say anything, and everyone

else shouts back at him, and in this

predictable clown show, in this complete

trashiness, even

Vladimir Solovyov seems to feel

his own superiority. 3,500 rubles (about 35 euros / 38 US dollars) have been received

from Karina. Let me remind you that

we are raising funds for election monitoring. Even

Vladimir Solovyov—there he is, standing there already,

saying: I am forced to put up with all this,

I, the respectable Vladimir Solovyov, even I

am better than these pathetic candidates.

Come on, of course you all saw this

water-splashing and everything that

happened. Let’s look at it once again,

just please do not analyze it from the

point of view of who acted correctly

or incorrectly, or whether it was a brave act.

But look at the happiness on Ksenia

Sobchak’s face—real happiness. She is smiling.

At last, she has found herself in a setting familiar to

In this format, Zhirinovsky is pleased too, you can tell.

Everyone is happy with it except Yavlinsky and, apparently, Lesky.

He stood there looking sad because, well, somehow...

He turned away and was clearly upset, while everyone else...

finally got what they wanted.

They splashed water around, they caused a scandal.

They got their clip, which ended up with a million

views on YouTube, and that is exactly what

their election campaign basically amounts to, by God.

Their campaign. One minute six seconds. Let's

watch it, ladies and gentlemen.

Gentlemen, but I keep saying...

And you, Baburin, broaden it...

Everyone is satisfied, everyone is happy, everyone got

what they wanted. And the happiest of all is

Putin, because, naturally, any

ordinary voter—just read the comments under

the YouTube video—this isn't even

an unusual reaction. A voter from

the internet looks at all this and thinks:

"Well, they're clowns, aren't they?"

"Sure, I don't like Putin, I'm sick of him, but

I'd still rather vote for Putin

than for these

squealing, shouting, and on top of that

water-splashing people." That was all obvious. But I

took part in similar debates during

the Moscow mayoral election; I was there too.

At one point there was an LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) representative who wouldn't let

anyone get a word in, constantly

babbling on. But if you want to play

that game of shouting over him,

then he'll gladly play it with you.

And there was Ksenia there,

pushing and pushing at Zhirinovsky,

shouting and shouting something at him, and then she got

what was coming to her: he splashed water. And now everyone is

talking about it. And the only question is whether

it was worth causing this scandal, or whether she should have drawn

attention to herself by doing something through

criticism of Putin, somehow

exposing him, bringing up his son-in-law or

some other things like that. You're a candidate—

say something about him, about how he

personally singled out Kiriyenko (likely Sergey Kiriyenko, a senior Kremlin official)...

Say something about that. No—none of that

is of interest to anyone. If you don't like

the debate format—and the debate format

is monstrous—then Grudinin was absolutely

right. I saw several questions here asking

whether Grudinin did the right thing by

walking out. He absolutely did. But

if you guys are real

candidates and you really want real

debates, then don't stand in the studio shouting that you don't

agree. All of you have members

on the Central Election Commission, with the right

to vote decisively—the Communists and

Zhirinovsky do, and Sobchak has the right

to an advisory voice. Go make a scene there.

Cause a scandal there.

Tell Ella Pamfilova (chair of Russia's Central Election Commission) that you

will disrupt a CEC meeting if you are not given

proper debates, that you will walk out

in protest, that all of you will refuse

to continue, that you will withdraw from the election

if you are not allowed to debate properly.

But they don't do that, you see. They

perform outrage in public, like when they

were splashing water around, but they don't take

the right steps. They don't go after the CEC, they don't

threaten to withdraw. That's what they should

be threatening, because they're happy. They

exist quite comfortably in this

format that suits them. But in the end, this

format is clearly uncomfortable for Yavlinsky.

He feels bad there, it's unpleasant for him. This format

is clearly uncomfortable for Grudinin too. But for everyone

else, it's just great. It's exactly what

they need.

But the ones who lose from all this are us.

I hope these debates once again

showed what a sham all these elections are.

And let me remind you that today we are

raising money for election observers.

We have three prize lots, and the person who

sends the largest donation

will receive the grand prize: a book by Nastya Rybka (a Russian media personality known for scandalous memoirs),

which also would have fit in perfectly at

these debates. I noticed two

things. Let's start with this: there are only

six seconds where one of the candidates directly

assesses his prospects in this

election and says what kind of

election this is: "None of us will

become president of Russia. Unfortunately, in our country

the president is always the same

person." Great. Just great.

It's wonderful to take part, go into these elections, and then

tell the whole country

right from the start: "Well, of course none of

us will become president. We're basically

just some random people here." And then later

splash water around. Everything is simply being done

to play into Putin's hands

completely. Why say that? Talk about

Putin, at least somebody talk about him. But neither

Yavlinsky nor Grudinin—nobody there—said the surname

Putin more than just a few

times. And then there was the person who—I ended up

talking a lot about Sobchak in this

episode—but Sobchak's campaign chief, Igor

Malashenko, simply astonished me, really

pleasantly surprised me, genuinely impressed me,

because he probably formulated his

attitude toward these elections on this program

even better than I could. It's 43 seconds.

Let's listen to the only honest

person among all the campaign staffs of all

the candidates. Here's how he relates to these

elections—and this is how we should relate to them too.

Igor Malashenko. Forty-three seconds. Look, he

said, in essence: it turned out the way it turned out.

Putin—Putin is already president of

Russia again, forgive me.

I'll try to be brief: he is again

the president. There are no elections, as you

know. That's what your participation is called...

candidate Ksenia Sobchak

She is taking part in a certain political

process that

was organized, so to speak, in connection with the day of

the nationwide vote on March 18, and

Come on, really, why kid ourselves

there is no election, Putin is the next

president

There is no election; Putin is the next president.

Who are we to argue with that?

If Igor Malashenko, the campaign chief

of the candidate, says, Igor, I agree with you

completely.

We have our weapon: we will count

the voter turnout. We won't go. Somehow I've

been talking about Rogozin for too long, and I

absolutely have to say this:

it's an amazing story.

Novaya Gazeta released a report, and for

us it was very important, because we had also

been looking into this topic a little, only from

a different angle. We were not dealing with

Rogozin's relatives, let's say.

What interested us was a situation in which

1 billion rubles was spent on

thermal imagers, an absolutely essential

type of equipment for the Russian

army, absolutely crucial in modern

combat conditions. A billion was spent, but

nothing was received, and after several

different iterations, the shares of the company into which

huge sums had been invested turned out

to belong to the son of one of the

top officials of the FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service).

And on the board of directors of this company

sits Rogozin's nephew. And with this

nephew, Rogozin simply got into

a comedic farce. I know Dmitry

a little personally; you can

feel differently about him, generally speaking,

but he is a rather cunning, smart man

who understands PR well—what can

be said and what cannot. And here I don't

know, maybe in the government they had some kind of

collective brain freeze, because

with Rogozin, the classic thing happened.

Novaya Gazeta published this investigation

—read it, by the way, it's very good.

Rogozin started denying it and said,

"I don't have any nephew, never have,

Novaya Gazeta, learn the facts." But

you can still find a huge

number of screenshots, because Dmitry

Rogozin is proud of his relatives.

He wrote many times about his nephew.

You can see there was just a whole set of tweets, photos

of this nephew, congratulating him on

various things. And when

the scandal naturally broke out, Rogozin

started saying, "I never had a nephew," and

deleted all those tweets. It got even funnier

because he's such an international

guy, right? Look, screenshots are still all over the place.

By the way, those screenshots were published everywhere

because he too,

Dmitry Olegovich, likes to joke around.

He started sort of trolling journalists and

saying, "I called my

aunt and asked whether she had given birth to any

nephew, and she said she hadn't, haha."

But Rogozin forgot to delete

his English-language Twitter.

And there too it was full of all these references

to his nephew. So, in other words, the nephew exists.

After that, Dmitry Olegovich began making

some truly chaotic

moves. First he

deleted his Facebook, and made access to his Twitter

restricted, so then he

deleted

his English-language Twitter. Then he deleted

—actually, he restored the deleted Facebook

but locked it, and he also locked

his Twitter. And now we simply

can no longer enjoy his wonderful

gems, like that one about trampolines

and the American rocket—remember how he bragged

and said that the Americans still couldn't

manage it at all? Or those heart-rending

statements about how he would give anything

to leave this warm

government post and end up in a trench

near Sloviansk (a city in eastern Ukraine).

He has deprived us of a lot. I've been following him for a long time,

but for me he

didn't delete me, so I won't be able to

enjoy all that. But the real question is:

all of this is pretty funny, it's a kind of

media fiasco for Dmitry Rogozin.

But 1 billion rubles disappeared, the thermal imagers

are nowhere to be found, and the company that received the 1 billion rubles

belongs to the son of an FSB general, and on the board

of directors sits this nephew. So

explain it, Dmitry Olegovich, explain

it to us, government; explain it to us, FSB: what

happened? Where did the 1 billion go?

Military experts—and in fact

this is not even denied, not denied even by

Russia's own defense-industrial complex—

say that nothing worked out with

these thermal imagers. Putin can

tell fairy tales about some super-

missile

at the Federal Assembly,

but thermal imagers—which, let's be honest,

are less technologically complex to produce than

a nuclear-powered missile—

could not be made. What did succeed

was siphoning off the money. Of course, we would very much like

this story

to end with something other than simply

deleting Twitter and Facebook and all sorts of

comic antics like these.

We want an answer: where did you put

the 1 billion rubles, and why are your

relatives suddenly involved in

the production of thermal imagers when they

should have absolutely nothing to do with it?

relations — I mean, this is an extremely important thing.

a corrupt, corrupt manifestation.

to which we have no answers at all.

Our time is coming to an end, but of course I

can't help but mention the disgusting

things that are happening. One such

disgusting thing was the arrest of

Konstantin Sudakov — he was arrested.

He was detained together with me. Here he is,

they were detaining me, and they detained him because

he supposedly grabbed a police officer the wrong way,

and he spent 30 days in custody, and yesterday

he was arrested again — they simply opened

a criminal case and put him under arrest. Let's

watch these few seconds of his

detention and try to understand what exactly he

did that could have caused, as they say,

the police officer such acute pain that

a person has to be kept in a cell for a month

and now needs to be sent on to a

pre-trial detention center. Let's watch these

few seconds of the detention.

So, you can see this fair-haired guy

next to me, standing at first in

the line beside me. He was immediately pushed aside there, then he

then grabbed one of the police officers,

tried to pull him away from me, and this

is supposedly inflicting acute pain so severe that

it means a person has to be kept behind

bars. These same police officers at every

rally do things like this all the time.

And that's not even mentioning what they do as part of their

ordinary work — things for which,

if this is enough, then they should all simply be locked up for life.

If this is grounds for arresting

a person — a young man — he has no

parents, he lives alone. Right now my team there

is helping him, we're helping with a lawyer, helping

however we can. But we're simply seeing yet another

example of a random person being simply

snatched up for no reason and then they try

to jail him. Today, Mikhail Golyashkin as well,

who was prosecuted over the protest on the 12th, fortunately received

a suspended sentence. And what does “fortunately” mean here? It means that

he was punished for nothing — yes, he sprayed something from a canister there,

he shouldn't have sprayed from a canister at

the rally, but he was given a one-year suspended sentence. I also have

a suspended conviction, and it's not the most

pleasant thing in the world, so of course

regarding Mikhail, I can say that I'm glad he's

still free, even with a suspended sentence, but

that suspended sentence was for nothing, and all of this

is happening against the backdrop of a huge scandal.

Though it's not as huge as it ought to be,

when FSB officers (Russia's Federal Security Service) seized some

anti-fascists and, in fact, simply

tortured them with electric shocks. They

told their lawyers about it, they

spoke about it in interviews, and on their

bodies anyone could see the so-called

electrical marks — traces left by electric shocks.

So they were tortured with electricity. As if that weren't enough,

the developments there became absolutely monstrous:

some people decided to support them

and came out with one-person pickets against

torture.

So they were grabbed too, taken to the FSB, and

they too were tortured with electric shocks, about which

they gave numerous

interviews — and nothing happens. No one

is arresting any of these investigators, these

operatives, these people

these deranged fascists who simply

grabbed some random left-wing

activists and are trying to force confessions out of them

that they have some kind of weapons caches.

Using torture — and no one

arrests them, nothing is done to them,

nothing happens to them. This is the

revolting face of the regime, and that is why

we will fight these people.

Tell me, are we ready to sum up

the results of our contest? Today we have

counter number one, counter number two, and

a book by Rybka, which at the end I'll wrap

in plastic wrap and sign

for the winner. I see Oksana is writing to me

to tell me what the

results of this contest are. So then, in

third place, counter number one

goes to Karina,

who donated 13,500 rubles today.

And we'll send 22,024 rubles to you.

He gets this stylish counter.

And Snow Bilen, who donated 23,000

rubles, gets this wonderful book,

which I do not recommend reading. Here, I'll

sign it.

But I sincerely recommend that Snow Bilen,

who donated 23,000, and the observers —

no, thank you very much — read no further than my signature,

because if you do read it,

it will never leave your head again.

Huge thanks to everyone who watched this

broadcast. In the description there's a link where you need

to sign up as election observers; you'll get

the same kind of counter, and you'll be counting people.

Until next Thursday — bye everyone.

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