A Duel with Zolotov. The Kerch Mass Shooting. Putin and a Donkey

[music]

Hello, everyone. It is exactly 8:00 p.m. in Moscow. In

the studio is Alexei Navalny, or a product of an

American test tube, as General Zolotov called me,

General Zolotov, whom we will apparently

be discussing quite thoroughly today — our General Zolotov

is going to be hearing about it for a while. And I

have finally returned to you on my second

attempt, though. And on the channel, as

you may know — those who follow

our channel know — Lyubov Sobol is currently in charge.

So I have come back to a

somewhat revamped

version of the program. From now on, it will always

air at 8:00 p.m. And now it is called

*Russia of the Future*. Well, because there was

a logical argument: it was *Navalny 2018*,

and next year, in a couple of months,

it would have to become *Navalny 2019*,

or something like that. So, uh, the program is now

*Russia of the Future*. Welcome to it. And

every Thursday, I hope, it will once again be me,

Alexei Navalny, hosting these broadcasts.

A great many things have happened,

an enormous number of events. I don’t know — while

I was away for two months, things just kept

happening here all the time. It was actually

quite amusing for me, because, well, you

understand, in a certain sense I was

isolated from everything. Sometimes in the cell

the radio is on, but in the overwhelming

majority of cases it is just music, and

they kept bringing in new

detainees who would see me and say:

“Alexei, can you imagine — Zolotov?”

And I’d say, “No way.” Then: “Alexei, can you

imagine — Petrov and Boshirov?” And I’d

say, “No way, that can’t be.” And so

on and so forth. A lot happened.

We probably won’t discuss absolutely everything

that happened over those two months, but

we will talk about some interesting things, at

least the important ones. But we will begin,

of course, with the very sad,

tragic news of the Kerch shooting.

And once again, I want to express my condolences to all

the families of those who were killed and the families of the injured.

And to the injured themselves. This is truly

a terrible tragedy. And now,

besides the fact that, of course, everyone will

be analyzing why this happened, how

this could have happened — yes, this young man,

Vladislav

Roslyakov had a gun, and he killed 21

people there and wounded 40, but

the explosive device — where did he get all

that? Still, the main question is: what

do we do about this going forward? Because this kind

of attack, this kind of

terrorist act,

happens fairly often in

the modern world, above all in the United States.

They are called mass shootings.

And this is the first time we have had such a

mass shooting on such a

large and horrifying scale, with dozens

dead. And we, like the rest of the

world that has faced this before,

are now trying to understand what

to do about it. If you look at this

chart now, you will see that the majority

of these kinds of shootings

take place in the United States. It is a rich country, a

developed country, a country that, naturally,

is highly dependent on public

opinion and on politicians. And for years they have

been trying to figure out what to do about it.

And, broadly speaking, so far they have not

found an answer. In Russia right now there is

a fairly typical kind of

discussion going on. Naturally, everyone is saying:

“We need to ban everything.” Already

there have been statements that, uh, well, Vladimir

Solovyov, of course, rushed in and started

writing that the death penalty should be introduced.

Yes, which in itself sounds

idiotic to anyone who

understands the issue even a little, because

well, as I just showed you on the chart, this is

mostly happening in the United States, where the death penalty

does in fact exist. It is one of the

few — perhaps the only —

developed country where the death penalty is actively

used. Nevertheless, all these

murders of this kind are not

stopped by it. They are not stopped.

The FSB, naturally,

missed the making of the bomb. And here I

would like to make a qualification. It is almost impossible

to stop a lone attacker. He went and bought

a gun in a store — no one knows what

is going on in his head.

You cannot prevent that. We cannot

right now accuse the FSB — even if we do not like it. And

even if we think it is staffed entirely by

idlers — with a serious complaint:

“How could you miss the fact that a

person bought a gun?” But he made

a bomb. And, uh, presumably he somehow

— obviously — was looking for

ingredients; perhaps he searched for them on

the internet or bought them in a

fertilizer store or a chemical supply store

or somewhere else. The FSB missed a bomb — a bomb

that was quite powerful, as we can see from the

consequences. But now, of course,

they do not want to talk about

why they failed to notice the making of a

bomb in Crimea, in that region where everything is

swarming with FSB officers. Yes, they want

to talk about the internet — urgently,

hand the internet over to their control,

because, well, without being able to

read what you are writing there to your

girlfriend, mother, or grandmother on Telegram

or WhatsApp, the FSB, of course, cannot

possibly control terrorist attacks

The State Duma, naturally, tightened the sale

weapons, but

it doesn't work. It's pointless

to restrict gun sales. Well, in

the United States, the rules on gun sales are fairly liberal,

whereas in Russia they are not liberal at all.

Here, you can't buy

a legal handgun. Here, it's extremely

difficult to buy a rifled firearm. A

young man like, in fact,

this killer, could not have bought a rifled

weapon. Honestly, it's enough to drive you crazy.

I had two shotguns myself—speaking from personal

experience. And then, when I was first

jailed for 15 days, I received

a notice saying: "So, Navalny, you

have been stripped of the right to possess firearms." And I

sold those shotguns to my wife, who

went and got a license. They were kept in

a safe at home. Then she started receiving

some letters from the National Guard (Rosgvardiya). Then

"greetings to our Zolotov," saying that she had to

go and re-register something. It's some kind of

wild, utterly insane system that

ordinary hunters all across

the country, ordinary gun owners,

are sick of, because they're forced with this shotgun

to keep trudging off to the police on a regular basis.

Why does this poor shotgun need to be

registered and re-registered? We

already have very complicated rules for owning

firearms, and yet someone who really wants one

could still buy one. And most importantly,

let's remember now what

the

most significant mass shootings in Russia in

recent times were. And the first thing that will come to mind

is

Major Yevsyukov—remember him, the head of the Tsaritsyno police precinct

(a district in Moscow), a police major who, with

his service weapon, went into

a supermarket called Ostrov, I think, or Ostrovok,

something like that, and killed several

people. There you go. And he,

wasn't just an ordinary policeman, but the head of

a police station, someone who was also supposed to

undergo psychological tests of some kind,

who was being monitored, watched

closely. A station chief is a fairly

high-ranking officer; some internal security

service is supposed to keep an eye

on him. And yet he still

snapped and went out shooting. Let's remember the second mass shooting.

So who in the audience, so to speak,

can recall when a Russian citizen

was involved quite recently in

a horrific crime involving

this kind of senseless mass shooting?

Not on Russian territory—but a Russian

citizen. It was in Gyumri, in Armenia,

when a conscript soldier went and

shot several people,

including a six-month-old baby. By the way,

what an astonishing

coincidence: I was in jail with a guy from

Orenburg who had served at the Russian

base in Armenia together with this

killer at the same time. And he

told me that the guy really was being

bullied by the "grandfathers" (senior conscripts),

the older servicemen. They bullied him because

he himself was the kind of person who, well, in the army,

you know, you're expected to be very

quick and sharp. And he wasn't. On top of that,

he was caught a couple of times for some kind of

theft, and they bullied him over it. They

kept bullying him and bullying him.

And then he went and took an assault rifle. He was on

duty, they had given him the rifle, something

happened in his head, something snapped, and he

went off to kill people. As you can see,

neither internet controls,

nor tougher sales regulations, nor even

the death penalty in the name of Vladimir

Solovyov, no measures at all would have stopped

either of those two people.

And obviously they would not have stopped

this young man either. So, uh,

most likely

we need to stop discussing some kind of

simple solutions to this problem. They

do not exist. And more than that, we

are now seeing

the use of far more terrifying

weapons than an assault rifle, a rifle, or

so on. Do you remember, not long ago

there was a German pilot who decided

to commit suicide, and he

simply flew a passenger plane

into—crashed it, rather—into

the side of a mountain, I think. Because

he had some kind of personal

problems, he lost it, he went

mad, and he decided to end his life. And while he was at it,

he decided to kill all those little people he

hated as well. And

completely innocent people died. And it was impossible

to stop it in any way. A pilot—well,

a pilot is a pilot; he doesn't need

a pistol at all. There is supposedly some kind of psychological

screening, at least minimal, but it

didn't help. These days, the most

horrific terrorist attacks—

well, not the very most horrific, but among the most

horrific that we see in

modern society—what kind of attacks are they?

Someone gets into a car and drives into a crowd. So what,

starting tomorrow? Should we stop selling cars

to anyone? It's impossible to cont—by the way,

incidentally, you can see

this car attack in Moscow now, about which

people were also saying that it was a terrorist attack, that it was

something suspicious. But

quite recently there was a verdict, and it all

ended with just one and a half

years of forced labor. One and a half

years of forced labor. Compare that with

the sentences given to, uh, participants in

rallies who

they gave the police a funny look,

and they decided to haul them in just like that. I

was in court today at the hearing for Konstantin

Saltykov, where the prosecutor asked for 1

year in prison, even though he has already spent

8 months behind bars because, well,

he supposedly grabbed a police officer’s coat the wrong way

. Here, it’s a year and a half

of forced labor. I’m not saying that

this migrant taxi driver

should be shot. Maybe he had fallen asleep

plain and simple, and he had no

real, most likely no

intent at all. I’m simply saying

that none of this can be controlled 100%

completely. And there are no simple ways

to deal with it. What we will most likely

have to do, but what our state does not want

to do, is

make changes and put more money into the

education system. Classes need to be smaller.

Teachers need to work with each

student individually. And if a teacher

has a relatively small number of students and sees

that Petya is feeling down, that Petya

is saying strange things, that Petya

is drawing something odd somewhere,

glorifying the Columbine school shooting, or

something along those lines, then the teacher probably

needs to take some action. This is

very difficult work. Obviously, there are millions

of schoolchildren, and it seems impossible

to stand over every single one of them. You can’t

turn on Big Brother

and have teachers watching what they write

on the covers of their notebooks. Still,

parents and, above all,

teachers need to pay closer attention

to their students and

schoolchildren. If we see that one of

them is drifting into a kind of antisocial

path, going down an antisocial road, and has

some conflicts, then

we need to rush in and help, because God forbid

if he decides

to leave this life in such a dramatic way,

then no one will get off lightly. And the second thing

that needs to be done first and foremost

by the leader of our state

is to stop talking nonsense. Today I was simply

horrified when I heard Putin’s

statement at the Valdai Forum (a major Russian policy conference). So,

first he was asked, naturally, about

the Kerch tragedy. He said: "Well, this is

a consequence

of globalization."

And then, when he started being asked about

other important matters of life and

death, which naturally attract

anyone with an unstable psyche,

he was asked, in particular, about

nuclear weapons and the possible destruction of

humanity. Let’s just

listen to what Putin said. We do nothing, as it were.

Well yes, but then the aggressor

must still know that retribution

is inevitable, that he will be destroyed, and, well,

that we, as victims of aggression,

will go to heaven as martyrs, while they will simply

drop dead,

because they, because they won’t even

have time to repent."

Now take that as a written quote

and remove the signature "Vladimir Putin."

They are the aggressors, we are the victims. So,

we will all die, only we will end up in heaven,

and they will simply drop dead.

That could have been the suicide note

of that Kerch terrorist, murderer,

shooter—call him whatever you like. But this is

precisely the cultivation of this

dangerous nonsense: that, uh, we

will go to heaven, and here we need to take everyone

with us somewhere, and all the rest of it.

The head of state should not be saying

such things. It sounds insane, it sounds

unacceptable. When you are

asked about topics like this, you

should say only one thing: peace to the world. We are

for there being no war. Of course,

there is the doctrine of mutually assured

destruction, that’s understood. But you shouldn’t,

when you know perfectly well that on television

you are being heard simultaneously by

a million lunatics—or if not a million

lunatics, then a million people who have

serious problems in life and who

are thinking about how to leave

this life. Look at Russia’s rates

of suicide. We are

among the top countries in the world

for the number of suicides. So when

things in the country are already generally hard and

quite depressing, you should not say

things like: we will die,

drag someone down with us, we are martyrs

and victims and will go to heaven, while they

will just die and go to hell. Well,

that is, these are absolutely

unacceptable things, and they should not be

said. In general, over the last 2

months, a lot of

unacceptable, strange, and crazy things have been said.

Yes, you have probably already guessed that I am

moving on to the main topic of tonight’s

discussion: my, uh,

dearest, most beloved General

Zolotov. Ah, but in general, notice

what is happening. This is the question

I was asked most often.

What is happening at all? And this is connected

not only with Zolotov and his

completely insane address, but with

a whole series of strange things.

So first I want to say a few words

about why, in general, this

madness is happening. Take note,

I have this

this idea came to me.

This whole thing began very

clearly. With the

unpopular decision to raise the

retirement age. The authorities ran into

absolutely fierce resistance from the public

and intense pressure from

the population, which showed up, among other things, in

election losses in some

regions and, more broadly, in falling approval ratings for

United Russia. I’ll say a couple more words about that

in a moment. And under this pressure, the authorities

started doing strange things. Remember,

the sequence is very simple.

First, Putin makes a very strange

address about pension reform. The one

where he says, “try to understand our position,”

and says all sorts of odd things. Then

there were Petrov and Bashirov. First Putin says:

“We’ll show you Petrov and Bashirov now; they’re

not GRU officers.” Then there was some strange

interview. I mean, you all

saw it, and I was reading about it in the newspapers and simply

couldn’t understand what was happening at all. And

to this day, nobody buys it. Then,

naturally, they were exposed with some kind of

fantastic ease.

And not just them, but seemingly half of our

GRU agents around the world as well. It was

a colossal failure of Russian

intelligence. And then there was a whole string of the most

insane,

most self-defeating statements, the most self-defeating

moves from the authorities’ own point of view—just

completely baffling. Everyone asks why

he does it. And my version, since I don’t

believe in elaborate schemes, is this:

if you apply it to everyday life,

say you have a grandfather, a beloved grandfather,

and you love him. But he gets older, and

at first he gets a little odd, and then he gets

really odd. He says

strange things, loses his train of thought, and you

still say to each other affectionately:

“Well, Grandpa’s lost his mind.”

There’s nothing unusual about that. I mean, I’m not—I’m not

trying to insult elderly people. I

mean, one day all of us will lose our minds. Me, and

you, and everyone else. Someday

it will happen. And that’s why it’s very important

to understand what has happened to

them. They’ve been in power for 19 years, and sooner

or later this kind of degradation

was bound to lead to a point where we would plainly

see it. At first, with your

grandfather, something just seems a bit strange,

then you discuss some odd behavior,

and then it becomes obvious to everyone: he’s

lost his mind. And it’s the same not just with Putin

himself, but with this regime—and not only, and

not even primarily because of age. All these

people receive excellent medical

care, but power

degrades on its own; it

collectively loses its mind. And now,

at the end of 2018, we can finally

see that they’ve all lost their minds because

there is no competition,

no pressure, no serious

criticism in the major mass

media. In elections, you don’t

have to compete with anyone. You

appoint your own candidates. You

are swimming in money. Just look at

Zolotov himself.

“I live at Mikoyan’s dacha (country estate). An apartment there,

an apartment here. I do whatever I want. I’ve sewn

as many kilograms of

gold onto my cap as I like. Want to be

an Army General? Fine, Army General.

Want to award yourself, uh, some kind of

medals for something? Go ahead and

give yourself as many as you want, award yourself medals,

make yourself a Hero of Russia. Want to,

boost your image? Sure—you

can stage a PR stunt like the one

Zolotov did. After

his video address

was poorly received, there was this simply

utterly wild, staged

story with that G-Wagen (Mercedes G-Class SUV) on

Vasilyevsky Spusk (the square by the Kremlin). Yes, you see this

video where we’re told that a man arrived,

his car full of some kind of

explosives, and he summoned Zolotov.

Zolotov came immediately. Because he’s

a real man, as that

would-be terrorist later

said too: “Well, I knew Zolotov was

a real man. And a real man

came, and they talked. And,

naturally, this amazingly

ended with—or rather, it hasn’t ended, it’s still

going on—that this

super-terrorist, yes, the one for whose neutralization

Zolotov supposedly had to come personally, is now

being charged under the article for

hooliganism.

Not terrorism, not even a terrorist threat. Why, even

if you call somewhere and say on the phone,

“My school has been

bombed,” you’ll be charged

under a different article, not hooliganism. But

here, you see, with this supposedly

genuinely threatening act—

real explosives, fake explosives, a mock-up

of explosives, whatever it was—

it’s treated as hooliganism. So, I mean,

it’s obvious that all of this was

completely made up—I don’t doubt that

for a second—by some of Zolotov’s PR people,

but you can pull off a

PR stunt like that and they’ll show you on TV.

And it’s obvious that, well, under these

conditions, they degrade and lose

their minds, and

that’s how things like this

address happen. Yes, people asked me

several times, they wrote by email: "And

how did you even find out about

this address? I'm sitting in my cell, drinking tea".

Come on, what is there to do in there? You're always

just sitting and drinking tea. Either reading, or

drinking tea. And most often, you're reading and drinking

tea. And Russian Radio is playing, where there are also

periodic news updates. And then,

the radio cuts off and they say:

"News, uh,

Army General Zolotov has challenged

Navalny to a duel and promised to turn him into

mincemeat. And I was like, you know, just like in a movie, with

this person—so what on earth

is going on?" Ah, but then, ah, later I,

of course, heard about it on the news. And I

read a more or less detailed

version of the text in the newspapers—marvelous. Uh, I saw

funny photos, even doctored images (photo memes). I know

about the amazing flash mob when

people started challenging Zolotov to contests in

other sports—swimming and so on.

And, well, my lawyers were saying, say-

they came and said: "It's amazing." I

said: "Well, I can more or less imagine it."

I heard it on the radio, and they said: "No, you

can't imagine it, you have to see it." And

I really did—when I got out, uh, I got out on

Saturday, and on Monday I watched all of it,

and it really was, honestly,

something else. And once again I just want to

confirm what I said in the video. I am

very, well, glad that this happened,

because now I don't have to spend so much

time explaining

to people that the Kremlin is run by

madmen. You travel around everywhere, at

rallies, saying the same thing: as long as

these crazy people are in power, nothing

good awaits us. And then you hear the argument:

"Come on, Navalny, enough. They can't all

be crazy. After all, they're

generals and such, sitting in their

dachas (country houses). They have secure lines there,

they can start wars—they can't

really be as crazy as you

say." But now everyone is convinced: they really are

insane, senile

people. Ah—meaning, of course, undoubtedly,

there was some rational reason

why he did it. And here I agree with

Sobchak first and foremost—this I heard on

the radio—after all, she knows him fairly

well, right? For many years he

guarded her family. She says that, well,

this 100% could not have happened without

coordination with Putin. I, I also

believe it was coordinated with

Putin. And I saw a very funny

meme online, you know, where there was

uh, this photo that you can now

see on the screen over here, and

the caption said that when your

boss doesn't have a handle, doesn't have an account on

YouTube, and he asks, and it's like he's posting from

his avatar. Ah, well really, this is

more like a, uh, well, sublimation of

what Putin feels, and Zolotov

is just saying it all out loud. Why did they

do all this so demonstratively, so aggressively?

Well, because, uh—

there are two reasons. Reason number one.

If you want to hide a leaf, hide it

in a tree. They have a lot of media problems.

And first and foremost, these enormous

problems with pension reform, uh, with

raising the retirement age, with

the elections, and so on. They need to create

some kind of, uh, sensation in order

simply to shift attention.

Zolotov himself, naturally,

is more interested than anyone in making sure

that you and I are not discussing the price at which he

buys potatoes and cabbage, but are discussing

something else—some kind of fight. Like,

will it be, interestingly enough, on the tatami

or in the ring, and what color

shorts will each of them wear? That's

the important thing. They just want

to shift attention. They do this

all the time. This is the Kremlin's main

media strategy. They come up with

some news item or some sensation

so they don't have to talk about the topics

they don't like. Naturally,

the corruption in the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) is on such a scale that

it's not just Zolotov lining

his own pockets there, but also, I think, his

various superiors and friends. Medvedev

for sure, most likely, and Putin or

some people around Putin, people

inside the system. And of course they want

to shift

the focus of the conversation. To do that, they need something

stronger, more unexpected, more

insane. That's reason number one. And

reason number two? Well,

they want to scare people, of course,

plain and simple. Uh, everyone understands what

Zolotov is—the closest friend of Ramzan

Kadyrov. And so I think the idea there

was something like: come on, well, basically

he's not afraid—not he, not the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation), not

these people running around

at rallies—they somehow don't seem to be afraid of, uh,

the system, aren't afraid of the police, aren't afraid of

corrupt judges. So why don't you just go out there

and, basically, unambiguously

hint—practically say outright

say: "We'll kill you."

Or, say, we'll catch you and break your legs, or

do something else. After all, everyone knows.

Zolotov's role, including in the case of

Nemtsov. Now you will see a document,

yes, which you can also see there on

Vadim Prokhorov's Facebook, the lawyer

who represented Nemtsov's interests.

This is a submission by a general from the Investigative

to Zolotov from the Investigative Committee,

which states outright that improper

performance of official duties

was the reason for the commission and concealment

of the crime. In other words, they wrote this to Zolotov.

And Nemtsov was killed by officers of the

Internal Troops, which later became

the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiya). As I say in the video,

they were on duty,

they had service weapons, and later

Rosgvardiya covered for them; Rosgvardiya and

Zolotov personally obstructed

the investigation of this crime,

which is clear from the fact that even the Investigative

Committee was forced to issue a formal notice

addressed to him. And I don't know—I can't

know; that is what the investigation should

determine: what role Zolotov

did or did not play in organizing this

murder. But the fact that he played a role in

covering up for the criminals is a fact. He was

head of the FSB. Where are all the video recordings from

the Kremlin? That's one of the main questions. Why

did these men, Internal Troops fighters, spend two

months driving around Moscow?

What kind of assignment were they supposedly on?

Why was no one looking for them? I mean,

it is completely obvious that this man

is known for, let's put it this way,

being responsible for or involved in certain operations

useful to Putin, operations that lie far

beyond even the appearance

of legality.

And the idea was that if you said this now,

they would get scared,

leave you alone, and generally behave

more quietly. That has not worked for them

and never will. We know everything about

who these people are and what they are capable of

doing, but that fact does not frighten us;

it only makes us work even harder, even better.

Because the only thing I feel toward them is

toward them,

contempt and outrage that

they are in charge of my country, that

I, as a taxpayer, have to pay

their salaries. So

all this clowning around is, of course,

ridiculous, and my video is done in a

sort of satirical,

sarcastic tone. But even so,

this is a serious matter. I really do—

the clock is ticking—I demand from Zolotov:

he spoke so pompously about

an officer's honor and all the rest, so let's see

whether he backs away from giving satisfaction

or not. I really do demand

these debates. I really do demand

this conversation. And at these

debates I really intend to—how should I put it—

turn him into mincemeat, verbally speaking,

within the framework of a discussion, because they must

answer certain questions before us,

and they must answer to all of us. How did you

become an Army General and one of the heads

of a law enforcement,

damn it, agency? Rosgvardiya is now a

law enforcement body. They are

constantly demanding more powers for themselves,

operational-search powers, almost

investigative powers. How is it possible that

no one knows where your family's

real estate worth 3.5 billion rubles came from?

And no one asks you any questions,

except the Anti-Corruption Foundation.

So we will ask them. Explain where you got

this money. First of all,

take note: we published extracts

from the registry for each of these twelve

real estate properties, and from them you can

see that we stand by what we say.

And all of these real estate properties

belong to the Zolotov family. You can

verify that for yourselves. And by the way, let's

not watch the full sixteen-minute video,

but just to remind you,

let's watch one minute of it,

which deals primarily with the real estate.

And the dacha in Kolchuga, which personally

bothers me the most.

Here, among tall trees and dense

forest, we see your personal dacha.

Maybe from the air it does not look

particularly luxurious, but its value has nothing to do

with a glass roof or a swimming pool. On a

plot of more than one hectare (about 2.5 acres), there is

a main house, a guest house, and utility

buildings. And what you see here, throughout

the entire existence of the USSR (the Soviet Union),

was practically the main dacha

of the country's leadership. Mikoyan,

Dzerzhinsky, Voroshilov, Ordzhonikidze,

People's Commissar Mikoyan, lived there.

When my father

was removed and was no longer a member

of the Politburo, he was moved to another dacha,

also a respectable one, but of a different class,

so to speak, of a different rank.

General Zolotov, I could go on asking you

questions about your family's real estate for a long time.

A 180-square-meter apartment in Gelendzhik, a house and

a large plot of land in Valdai,

a 170-square-meter apartment in an elite residential

complex in Yakimanka.

All of that also belongs to you personally.

In total, we estimate your family's real estate holdings

at 3.5 billion rubles.

That Mikoyan dacha bothers me more than

anything else. And

not only as the person who founded the Anti-Corruption

Foundation, because this is

property he cannot

account for, but also as a citizen of Russia,

as a patriot of Russia, as someone

who values Russia's history. This is

simply something beyond description.

Let me say a little about that. So,

if you are watching the program right now,

Go to Google Maps and type in

Kolchuga. You’ll find

exactly that area on Rublyovka (the elite residential district west of Moscow).

It’s quite close to the residence

of Putin in Novo-Ogaryovo. I think it’s about

500 or 600 meters. That is, 500 or 600

meters — extremely close.

Right there are located

FSB units responsible for

Putin’s personal security. And

right there

there is the so-called Zubalovo. It is

Zubalovo. And there is a building complex

that people colloquially call the

Mikoyan Dacha. In fact, it is a communal

state dacha where, immediately after

the revolution, the people who had made

that very revolution moved in. Which is,

in itself, an interesting story.

Zubalov himself was, well, a

pre-revolutionary industrialist. And Stalin, back

in Georgia, at Zubalov’s factories,

was organizing some kind of schemes. Then

the revolution happened, and naturally they were

thrown out. They went off somewhere, to Paris,

I think. And the revolutionaries — and this was, in

part, a kind of symbolic

gesture — moved into Zubalov’s house.

Ah,

so, in other words, the rebellious

proletariat got

the house of its oppressors. In fact, this

house, this communal dacha, was first

discovered by Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Soviet secret police). Dzerzhinsky moved in there.

After that, Dzerzhinsky, Voroshilov, all

the others lived there. Mikoyan lived there

the longest. But it was always a communal

dacha. That is, even in those years,

when these people wielded simply

indescribable power, they still lived

as several families together. And in this complex

there are two main houses; there are many

memoirs by the children of these party bigwigs,

including Stalin’s children, who spent

virtually their entire childhood in Zubalovo.

So this really is

a crucial part of the country’s history. It is

the place where the leaders of the

revolution lived, the people’s commissars,

where Dzerzhinsky was, where

terrible things happened, where terrible things were conceived; it is

also, well, a hugely important part

of Russian history. And, well, the Soviet

regime, even at the stage of its, well,

when there was already, let’s say, a kind of

decline, in the

1970s and 1980s, still

always considered this, well,

a state dacha that could not

be given to anyone. How could it be? Even

Mikoyan — you just heard the recollections of his

son. He was the legendary figure of the saying, “from Ilyich

to Ilyich without a stroke or paralysis” (a Soviet joke about political longevity). One

of the best-known Soviet

sayings — sayings about Anastas Mikoyan,

who stayed at the top for so long. And

he was immensely decorated

and honored in every possible way. But

it was impossible to imagine a situation

in which, after leaving his leadership

post, he would remain at that dacha. In other words,

he was not even allowed simply to live there

until his death. There was no scenario where,

you know, the Politburo gathered and

said, “Well, we’ve removed Mikoyan,

but why throw the old man out of the dacha?”

“Let him stay there until he dies, and then

let his family stay on for a while.” No, that

was simply impossible. He was

told, “Sorry, my dear, this is such an

important site that you have to move to

another one.” As his son explained just now in the video,

and as you can hear in more detail in my video

if you want. And in the

1990s, this dacha was already considered so

important and so luxurious that

it was seriously considered appropriate to

settle the Russian imperial family there.

At some stage of his presidency, this was actively pursued by

President Yeltsin and,

incidentally, Boris Nemtsov; they actively

tried to bring the imperial family here,

and Zubalovo was intended for them,

because this is a property of such

prestige, equipped with, well,

everything from special communications and so

on to household staff and everything else.

In other words, the imperial family arrives with great pomp,

and here you have

a ready-made residence.

So this is an extraordinarily historic

building,

part of the heritage of the whole people. And somehow

Putin’s bodyguard

ends up owning it, registers

the land there in his name. How is that even

possible? And that brings us back to what

I was saying at the beginning about how they

degrade. This is how they degrade.

And are you sure they’re not over there in the

Armoury Chamber (the Kremlin museum treasury) getting

some crowns, I don’t know, so they can

put them on and take

selfies or family photos, or

hitch ponies to

imperial carriages and ride around

Zubalovo in them? Or, I don’t know, ask,

“Could you bring us some diamonds from the Diamond Fund

for us? We want

to play poker and use them,

I don’t know, as chips.” That’s the point. And these are not

strange comparisons, not

inappropriate comparisons — it is exactly the same thing.

There is a historic site, and

some guy just takes it and

privatizes it for himself, and it ends up in his

personal ownership. If you and I do not

remove these people from power, and when

We will remove them, of course, and we will overturn these

illegal decisions, and Zolotov will end up

in the dock, and one separate

count in his criminal case will be how

he managed to grab a Soviet-era

collective state dacha. That is,

not just one Politburo member

lived there — several of those party

bigwigs lived there. He took it into

his own ownership. So judge

everything through the prism of this

wonderful general of ours. These people

have no conscience; they are insane,

they imagine themselves to be God knows what.

And so, of course — well, today I

had several people write to me saying,

that my response was, like, pretty harsh.

But what else could it be? Not

harsh? Am I supposed to give a gentle response

to all this? How much further can this go?

They’ll privatize the Kremlin and register it

as their dacha,

and St. Basil’s Cathedral. Sure,

ha-ha, very funny. But that’s exactly

where we’re heading. I want people to talk

about this. I want the media

to report on it. I want Rosgvardiya (Russia’s National Guard) officers

to see and know who is

leading them. I want Zolotov to come

and answer all these

questions in a debate, and explain what is going on. Well,

maybe he has some

arguments. Maybe he’ll say: "Vladimir Putin and I,

as they like to

say, saved the country from falling into

the abyss in the 1990s — when the country was

basically collapsing into dust — but we

saved it. And therefore,

given the scale of our historical

importance, we award each other

historic state dachas. And

indeed, we believe" — and then Zolotov

will say: "I believe that I, Zolotov, am greater

than any Mikoyan, Dzerzhinsky, or

Voroshilov, and my role in Russian history

is more important." Well, that’s an argument too. Well,

let’s hear it. I very much hope that

you, General Zolotov, who will of course

watch this program, won’t dodge it by demanding

some kind of satisfaction, but will pick up the phone, call

Konstantin Ernst and say that you

are ready to take part in this debate

live on Channel One.

Well, if Ernst won’t show you that kind of

respect, then send over your

second. Who handles your PR?

Deputy Khinshtein, or whoever it is, and we’ll

arrange to hold the debate here

on the channel,

on Navalny’s main channel. I’m not

promising some luxurious studio, but we’ll

try to organize everything. In any

case, from a substantive point of view, it would be

very interesting. I’m waiting.

Let me say a couple of words about the governors,

because this is very important. It

has such long-term

consequences. And this is precisely one of the

reasons why they’ve gone so crazy.

And apparently they will never return to their senses

again. While I was locked up,

10 governors were removed. And those 10

governors —

well, the explanation for why they were suddenly

sent into resignation was what? Especially since some of them

had only recently been elected.

They said they were a burden for Putin.

Because they had very low approval ratings, and

because of them United Russia’s ratings were low.

And in the next elections,

next year, they most likely would not be

re-elected.

But then I look:

Poltavchenko in St. Petersburg

got 79%

in the election. Khamitov in Bashkortostan

got 82 percent. Kokorin in

Kurgan got 85. Zhilkin got 75. In Lipetsk, Korolyov

got 81. These are the most popular people in the

country. So why are you removing them?

Why, then, are they supposedly a burden

for you? The point, folks, is that you should not

pay attention to all these

results. They mean nothing. As

I’ve said many times, I’ll repeat again:

Putin’s percentage in elections means

nothing. It is simply a percentage of emptiness. It’s

something fabricated. Look,

the retirement age was changed, and

attitudes toward Putin changed

completely and radically. United Russia lost, on average,

15%. And all the authorities can do now

is

simply refuse to let those who actually won

the elections take up the governors’ offices.

And of course, the most

monstrous situation is in Vladivostok. Well,

you’ve discussed all this a million times already,

I understand, but let me talk about

it too. I want to — I had

no one to talk to about it for all, all those, uh, two

months. But this is absolutely monstrous.

And another thing — when I was reading

articles about it, Ella

Pamfilova, an old friend of mine, infuriated me.

And it’s all being presented as if:

we came to Primorye

and sorted it out.

Some election was flawed,

dirty, and so we called

a new election.

No — what this is called is: a person won.

Ishchenko won that election, and you

stole that victory from him. He became governor.

The people of Primorye elected him

governor. The people made their choice, and then you

came in and said: "No, no, no, no — he will not

become governor." And, uh, well, this is,

of course, it’s just that the situation fills me with

rage. It wasn’t for nothing that right there

in the special detention center I wrote a note, and it

was read out on Lyubov Sobol’s channel. I wrote a post

saying that I call on all

residents of Primorye to come out

for open-ended protests. That was at the very

hottest moment, when the Kremlin

was just about to hand victory to the United Russia candidate

Tarasenko. That didn’t happen. But

we will be dealing with

the Primorye elections as well. Well,

how will we deal with them? Very

simply. We will, of course, urge people

to vote for Ishchenko, because he was already

elected governor. And it doesn’t matter to us

whether it’s Kozhemyako or whatever else happens there. This is

a matter of principle. And I call on all residents

of Primorye to vote exactly

that way. Don’t even think anymore about

anything else — you elected a governor. Even if you

didn’t vote for him in the first round,

what they’re doing now, just taking and

wiping out the election results like this, is

simply an insult, a spit in the face of any

decent person. So it’s simply

a matter,

a matter of honor, a matter of satisfaction, as

Zolotov says — to simply come,

go to the polls, make sure that

Ishchenko is registered. I think now

they will try not to let him

run again, and to simply sweep aside this Kozhemyako and

all the other candidates and say that

no, we will not allow them to

mock us like this. This is very important. And our, our

headquarters is working on this, and I will

work on it too, as much as I can,

campaign for it, and I call on everyone else

as well,

I urge you

to take part in all of this too. As for

Ingushetia,

well, let me try to answer

a couple of questions before

talking about Ingushetia.

Sorry, I’m stumbling over my words, I’ve lost a bit of

the habit. So, Artyom Vartanyan, what do you

think about the latest events in Armenia?

The latest events in Armenia, as I

understand it, Nikol Pashinyan is stepping down

in order to call new

parliamentary elections. That is the right, uh,

course of action. And naturally, he needs

control of parliament in order to

pass normal laws, because

right now their local version of United

Russia is sitting there, and it won’t let him do

anything good. Uh, sorry that

for the second time I’m citing such a

powerful and authoritative source as my

cellmates during my latest arrests.

All the Armenians who were there were absolutely

delighted with Pashinyan. They praise him highly.

Let’s take another question. What do we have there?

Ah, Tyoma. So, Alexei, what is known

about the criminal case they’re

trying to pin on you? Tyoma Negativ is asking me. Well,

what is known? They called my lawyer

and said: "Tell him to come in, we’ll

formally charge him." I wrote a post about

that, and after that, somehow, when

we came to the investigator, it was written all over

his face that he had just

been chewed out, and he said: "Here,

sign here to confirm that you’ve been informed of

your rights." I signed, basically, and

that was it — now leave. So, they want to do something,

obviously. And some kind of

retaliation for my response to Zolotov

will definitely come. And of course it

will come one way or another in the form of some kind of

criminal case, in the form of some kind of

illegal actions. I have no

doubt about that, because they always

do this, and they’re doing it now. Well, uh,

so, Lila asks: "Zolotov won’t accept the

duel, that’s predictable. Your next

steps, though, are not so predictable."

Again, I can’t imagine how Zolotov,

after all this utterly wild grandstanding,

where he’s pretending to be some kind of

I don’t know, musketeer and, as I said,

a White Army officer (anti-Bolshevik officer from the Russian Civil War). And all the rest of that nonsense. And

with such incredible swagger, he

said all that — how he’s now going to back away from

this whole “satisfaction” business.

I don’t know, it’s hard to say. I mean, again,

who the hell knows what’s going on in his head.

They’re crazy. I’d be surprised. Well,

listen, why not? What if he

shows up and agrees to these debates? Why

not? We’ll see. What

are my next steps? I’ll wait until

this week is over, and then

we’ll see. They’ll say something. Ah, well,

the most obvious thing is that he’ll come out

and say: "I wanted to fight you on the

mat, but you, Navalny, proved that

you’re a coward. So I have nothing

to discuss with a coward. And as for talking,

debating with some, what was it, what was it,

ah yes, “debating”

with a product of an American test tube, I do not

wish to." Something like: you’re not

important enough, and I’m a general. Look how much

gold I’m wearing; you’re wearing no gold at all.

Well, that’s kind of the most

obvious move, but for some reason I even

think that he will probably

agree. So, Ingushetia is a very

important topic, because, well, the Kremlin

created a system in which, as they

believed,

the republics of the North Caucasus are

their political stronghold. 99%

turnout in elections, uh, 99% for Putin. Everything is very

good, everything has been thoroughly cleaned up, uh, and everything

Great. And then, bang,

the very popular Yevkurov can't

cope with anything. People take to the

streets. Everyone comes out. People of completely

different social backgrounds and ages

take to the streets in such numbers that, basically, they can't even be

dispersed. So what happened there?

Well, sort of,

sorry, for the third time I'm referring to

such a powerful insight, and such powerful

communication, from my, uh, cellmates

in the special detention center (a temporary detention facility in Russia) — whenever you're sitting there,

there will definitely be Ingush people in the cell,

Chechens. And so we discussed all this quite a lot.

But of course, there

was this rather banal view shared by everyone,

that, well, people are dividing something up, but

Ingush and Chechens are more or less the same

thing. And as one Chechen told me,

if you go up to someone,

you're not going to ask them

whether they're Chechen or Ingush — you'll ask them,

are you

from the wars or not? In other words, that's what

unites both groups. In that

sense, they really do see themselves as

absolutely

very close peoples, and there is no

confrontation between them. And what

is happening now is, well, some kind of

scheming by the authorities. But I want to say that

well, obviously, yes, it's scheming

by the authorities, but Yevkurov's mistake,

Yevkurov's crime, if you like,

the crime of those people who

started doing this, is that, well,

you cannot insult a people like this, and you cannot

not even try to explain anything. But

still, the Ingush

are a people for whom the territorial

issue, the territorial dispute, is

a conflict that has lasted for many years. It's something

they think about constantly. The confrontation with

their neighbors. And many, many families were involved in this.

That whole Prigorodny District (a disputed area in North Ossetia)

— in other words, the problem of territory,

the problem of land taken away, is something that

every Ingush person carries in their mind.

Naturally, any talk of

"let's now give something up here,"

well, right away — uh — they can't think about anything else

but that. And rightly so.

So what should the authorities have done?

Well, yes, let's imagine that there are

some rational reasons. Let's say there really is

oil there, as everyone believes,

that there's some kind of oil angle involved.

Yevkurov is handing Kadyrov some

territories where money can be made.

Well then, come out and say: dear

Ingush people, here's the situation: oil. We

think Kadyrov will handle this oil better,

but he will pay. Those who have

cemeteries there, ancestral villages, or

something else,

they will receive compensation. And everyone will receive

compensation. The population isn't that large. Or

they'll build us a hospital — let's

come up with something. We have an oil field, they

have the money to develop it.

Let's make a deal and

benefit from it — in other words, get something out of it.

It should have been said plainly. Everyone

understands — the people standing in the square in

Ingushetia aren't fools. They understand that

there is an interest here,

a financial interest, including for certain

people. If there were no financial

interest, nobody would

be bothering over some mountains out in the middle of nowhere

to move this border around and do all this

so strangely, so secretly, falsify

the results of the deputies' vote. Well,

nobody would be doing this

if there were no financial interest. So

share it.

This isn't just your land. This land belongs

to a great many people. It is

the land of those who have villages there.

Share it with them. Give them part

of the benefit you're getting. Since

you presumably understand that starting now to

resolve the territorial problem

between the Ossetians and the Ingush is impossible. There is

absolutely no solution to that problem. So

all we can do is damp down the

conflict so they don't kill each other.

But you can't just come in and easily solve this

problem. But between the Ingush and

the Chechens there is no tension at all.

So come and divide up that benefit.

The money — well, then,

divide the money more or less

fairly, and everyone will be satisfied, and

they'll draw this border, and together they'll

dance the dances they dance there, and

everyone will be happy. But here it's deception, here

it's obvious rigging. Everyone is standing there

understanding: "You're going to make

so many millions from this, and then you come here

and feed me a line of nonsense." That this is some

technical matter that should have been settled long ago? All you had to do was

simply put this border on paper. It's

deception. And of course, when an entire people

is confronted with such brazen deceit,

when they see that their

land is being sold, money is being made from it, and they

aren't given anything in return — well, of course that

drove them into a rage. And that is why I

certainly support those people; they hold

completely different political views,

who are going out there. And what finally

convinces me that something here is

absolutely not clean is this: there are financial

interests involved, and the transfer of these lands is

a kind of crime. And what

happened to Oleg Kozlovsky. You

you know, he is a political activist.

He is one of the staff members of the international

human rights organization Amnesty International. He went

there. Some rallies were taking place, and he

went to see what was happening there. And, you

know, Amnesty International also

takes part in deciding who is

a political prisoner and who is not

a political prisoner. And there

they opened criminal cases against

the organizers of the rallies. So what

happened to Kozlovsky? He was simply

abducted from his hotel

by local police officers. Let’s read

these tweets. They put him in a car and drove him out of

the city. They showed no documents

at all, just said they were officers. Well,

naturally, from the Center for Combating

Extremism. In a field they stripped him, took

photos, threatened to rape him, uh,

made demands, tried to recruit him, broke

his rib, beat him, pressed a gun to

the back of his head. Well, excuse me,

of course, we understand that the North

Caucasus is a region where rather

little happens within the bounds of the law.

But this is just such a completely

brazen outrage. But they understood

that he was a political activist, and while

a local person can be intimidated, this man would return

to Moscow and tell everyone everything. Even

so, they still did it all there—

beating him, threatening him, breaking his rib. And

that means these people are so

afraid that the rest of Russia

will learn the truth about what is happening in

Ingushetia, that they are ready to do such

things. Well, that means something is definitely

not right there. It means there are definitely

financial interests, corrupt

interests, and some kind of ties between

families. Well, there is big money involved,

obviously. But these police officers go

through with such crimes because

they receive very persuasive orders. And those

very persuasive orders are received by their

superiors from people who

will lose very persuasive sums of money if they do not

keep threatening everyone with a gun.

So once again, I believe that in this

situation, of course, the residents of Ingushetia

are absolutely right to be outraged. And, uh, I

hope there will be no violence there,

but they are right to come out. I wanted to talk about the Little Donkey and

Putin at the end of

our program.

What a thing has happened, after all. Quite

recently, Mount Athos and, uh, all sorts of

relics, monasteries on Mount Athos,

were presented as the very foundation of Orthodoxy.

Look at all our top officials. Chaika (Yury Chaika, former Prosecutor General),

my favorite. This whole gang

used to go to Athos once a year and, you know, there

they prayed and brought relics back from there. These

elders of Athos were treated as the very

most important thing. And then suddenly

all of a sudden this happened:

that’s it. You can no longer go there and

pray. There is an official ban on

taking communion and praying there

in institutions of the Constantinople

Patriarchate. We have severed

relations with it. And one of our ultra-

Orthodox figures, a man who very

keenly senses this state

policy, state ideology, and

the words that, uh,

are supposed to be said right now,

Ivan Okhlobystin, our rather fierce

priest, suddenly burst out with some kind of

post. It seems he wrote there

everything the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church

would like to say but are still too embarrassed to say openly: that,

basically, we will force all these people, uh,

to believe what we want, that in general

they are servants of Satan, they have been stripped of

their bearings in some bloody way. In other words, we will take

everything away and force them to believe what is

convenient for us. This is absolutely

astonishing, because only quite

recently, you remember the story about Putin and

the Little Donkey.

I was simply in tears laughing when that happened. And every

time I hear that the Russian Orthodox Church

has declared that the Constantinople

Patriarchate is this bad and that bad, I

keep thinking: "But what about the Little Donkey? What about

Putin? It happened, it was shown on

all TV channels, that when

Putin arrived at the holy Mount Athos, with

which we supposedly have unbreakable ties, in front of

his car a little donkey was walking. And it was a miracle,

because this little donkey was, as it were, opening

the way for Putin on Athos and showing that

the Holy Mountain loves Vladimir

Vladimirovich. Let’s watch.

Ah, 41 seconds. Putin and the Little Donkey. Vladimir

Vladimirovich personally got behind the wheel and drove

to the Iveron Monastery. And right as he was

driving out, an Athonite mule was standing on the right. This

mule, for some reason, suddenly darted

onto the road and ran strictly down the middle

in front of the president. He seemed to try,

perhaps, to veer left, and the mule veered

left; right, right. That was the situation.

So as I understood it, the president

realized that something unusual was happening here and

was in fact moving along behind the donkey.

I can tell you, nothing like that had ever happened on

Athos. For a mule there, as we

call it—never mind—to run ahead

of any vehicle and, so to speak, not

let it pass—well, that had simply never

happened. But on the way back,

when we were already returning and, well, the

police car drove by, and then I

drove past and saw that the donkey was standing in the same

place and watching our meeting, and

will lead us away.

So what does that mean now? Where did

this little donkey come from? Who sent it? It’s frightening

to think about. Maybe it was a delusion

of Satan. A satanic little donkey was running along. But after all,

now they are our enemies. But it can’t be

that just recently, then,

there was the little donkey and practically a halo around it, and

Putin is riding along, and everyone is moved. But

now look at the things that have come to light.

As it turns out, those

Greeks have always hated us. They were plotting against us, and

we’ll soon make it believe in

whatever we want. That little donkey was dreadful.

That little donkey was leading Putin down the road of evil. Is that

really what it comes to? But it seems to me that all this

should lead us to a very important

thought. So here’s a toast. Let us too

not follow just any little donkeys, including

those found in the leadership of

Russia. Thank you very much. I’ll see you

next Thursday at 8:00 p.m. This was

Alexei Navalny.