Coronavirus in Russia, greetings from Novaya Zemlya, Meduza, and the Network case

[music]

Good evening, everyone. In Moscow, it is exactly 8:00 p.m.

That means your favorite program is live on air.

Your favorite program, *Russia of the Future*,

and I am its permanent host, Alexei

Navalny—or, as the Kremlin bots called me this week,

a man who has it in for politicians and performers alike.

That's what the Kremlin's lackeys were calling me.

It is true that I went after some politicians

in the last episode, and in this one

I'll be going after an even larger

number of performers, especially since they are

actively rushing into politics. We'll

talk a bit about that. Please send

me your questions on Twitter with the hashtag

#RussiaOfTheFuture, and I will

do my best to answer them. And by the way,

there's one important thing I wanted

to mention. I looked at the stats for the last

episode.

It, too, already has almost a million views.

According to the public stats, it's still under a million, but

from the internal numbers I can see that it's already over

a million views. So since the beginning of

this year, several of my shows have each been watched

by more than a million viewers.

Thank you so much. But come on, let's

look at the statistics: all of you are watching

the show, but hardly any of you are

subscribing. Please show us the stats.

Put the statistics on screen.

Fifty-five percent of viewers are watching without subscribing.

That means out of a million viewers,

about half a million—550,000—are not

subscribed to the Navalny Live channel.

Please, just click that button,

and the little bell icon too.

Subscribe to the channel. It's important for us that it

be large, and it's important for us that it be

easier

for us to reach you at those moments when

we need to reach you. What I want to start with, of course,

is a call to action: this

Saturday, February 29, at 1:00 p.m.,

the annual Nemtsov March will take place.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of his

death. Exactly on this day, a little later in the evening,

five years ago, he was shot

in the back on a bridge. To this day,

the people who ordered and truly organized this

murder have not only not been brought to trial,

not only have they not been punished, but in fact they

feel completely at ease and

speak freely while remaining

important political figures in our

country. And the man who organized

the cover-up,

who arranged protection, so to speak, for those

who killed Nemtsov and ordered his murder,

heads our country. That man is

Vladimir Putin. You absolutely need to come.

Strastnoy Boulevard,

1:00 p.m., this Saturday the 29th. Come for

Nemtsov, for the defendants in the Network case,

for yourselves, for everything. You need to come.

This is, in fact, now the only

event of the year—the march is

probably, and quite certainly,

the only event in Moscow, and probably

the only event in the country

that the authorities still, after all, do not

dare to ban. In Moscow; in other

cities they do ban it. Ilya Yashin made

an excellent invitation video. It is

a bit long—one and a half minutes—but let's

watch it anyway. Ilya Yashin invites you to

the Nemtsov March.

[music]

[music]

There are moments when you cannot just stay home.

On Saturday, February 29, in Moscow there will be

the Nemtsov March, a demonstration under

Russian flags.

It will be a mass peaceful rally where we

will present political demands to the authorities.

We will demand that they unblock

the investigation into Boris Nemtsov's murder and

hold accountable both

the organizers and the people who ordered this

crime. We will demand an end to

criminal cases against critics of

the authorities. Loudly and clearly, we will speak out

in defense of the anti-fascists arrested in

the Network case,

the activists arrested in the New Greatness case,

and the young people convicted in the Moscow

case.

We will demand a change of power. Putin must not

rule forever. It is time to remind him of that.

I call on each and every one of you to come to the march.

Come and stand side by side,

for one another, for the future of our country.

Moscow, February 29, 1:00 p.m. We gather on

Strastnoy Boulevard.

[music]

Good for Ilya Yashin for working every year

on preparing this march. Its

organization is very important work,

and not easy work. In St. Petersburg,

it was banned. And the wording of the refusal was

absolutely astonishing.

Why did the city administration

of St. Petersburg ban the Nemtsov March

from being held in the center? They wrote that in

the application—along with all the formal details,

about where it would be held and so on—we said

that we oppose the lawlessness

taking place in the RF (Russian Federation). And in all

seriousness, actual officials wrote that

they could not approve our application

because they did not understand what the abbreviation

RF meant.

This is not a prank, not a joke. This is literally

the leadership of the country's second-largest

city, in all seriousness,

replying to citizens that they cannot

grant the request because they do not understand

what RF means.

But, I mean, the city of St. Petersburg

is run, of course, not only by thieves and

scoundrels, but also by complete [__], very

brazen [__]. In general, the number of such

outrageously rude things that were deliberately

timed specifically to today’s

anniversary of his murder

the anniversary of Nemtsov’s murder—the killers, well, it’s really

just been building up. This morning we read that

the Mediazona portal was being required—or rather,

Google informed them that several of their

streams of the court hearings on the

Nemtsov murder case had been removed.

You know, it turns out that in Russia, if you didn’t

know, there is a so-called “right to be forgotten” law under

which you can demand that something be

removed from the internet entirely, from search

engines.

Though for you, most likely, that won’t work,

but our officials

make very active use of it, and in

particular, Mediazona was simply running

an open livestream from an open

court proceeding, and some people on

apparently among the defendants in this case,

demanded that Google remove absolutely any

link to

those courtroom livestreams. That is,

if you know the link—if you have the exact

address—you can still access it. But if you

go searching on Google and say, “My

God, where was it? There was

a livestream of the trial,” you won’t find it because

it has been removed at the request of people who,

as a matter of fact, have already even

admitted that they directly

took part in Nemtsov’s murder.

And of course, an absolutely outrageous thing, from

my point of view, happened literally

an hour ago, and it was very demonstrative, and without

a doubt Putin did this personally, and

apparently Putin personally came up with it, because

no one else could have done this. Today exactly

a decree was published under which

Putin awarded a special medal for

legislative work to Senator Veremeyev.

Senator Geremeyev, a senator from Chechnya (a republic in Russia), and

he sits there, basically.

Nemtsov’s lawyers, his family, and I personally as well

all believed that he was responsible for

directly organizing Nemtsov’s murder.

Ruslan Geremeyev, the nephew of this

Geremeyev from the Federation Council (the upper house of Russia’s parliament), was

the very

Rosgvardiya serviceman (member of Russia’s National Guard) who

was the key direct

perpetrator of this murder. As you

know, to this day he has not merely not been questioned,

he hasn’t even been detained. This is the same

remarkable story about investigators from

the FSB (Russia’s security service) who wrote that they could not

question him

because they came to Chechnya, knocked

on his door, and no one

answered, so they went back

home. And this very Geremeyev,

who is undoubtedly implicated in Nemtsov’s

murder, is today demonstratively

being awarded a medal for legislative work, while

during all his time in the Federation

Council he has not introduced a single bill.

This is simply a spit in all our

faces. So please come, if only

for that reason alone, so as not to tolerate this

insult—come to the Nemtsov March.

It’s very important. So, as I already said,

write to me with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture and I

will answer questions. I saw a question here

about the subsistence minimum. A person

is outraged and says, “I read the news that

the subsistence minimum was lowered for

pensioners.” It’s not for

pensioners specifically. This is actually, by the way,

an extremely important issue. I even

made a short video about it on my

Instagram—by the way, subscribe.

In all seriousness, the Russian government

is now

officially saying that prices in Russia

are falling, and therefore the subsistence minimum—well,

that is, the cost of all goods and services—

they have, so to speak, calculated it: you went

to buy milk, bread, bought some meat,

paid your utility bills for the month,

incurred various expenses, and previously it

was more expensive, but now it has become cheaper

because prices have fallen. I mean, it’s

nonsense, but the Russian government is

saying this in complete seriousness and

proposing to keep lowering the subsistence

minimum. That is what is actually happening.

Only it’s not for pensioners—it’s for

everyone. I can see here that Ms.

Abdurakhmanova is asking—I’ll talk about it.

About the Nemtsov March, I’ve already said.

Alexei asks—no, Daniil Klimkin asks whether

there is a risk that if you go to the Nemtsov March on the 20th

of February, you could be detained and sent away for

some number of days. There is no such

risk, I believe, neither for me nor for you.

This is a fully authorized

event.

Well, all sorts of nonsense can get into

our authorities’ heads,

but however many times I’ve gone to the Nemtsov March

every year, and when I leave, I have never

been detained; nothing like that

has happened. The next topic I

wanted to mention is one that is

underrated. For me, as someone who

did, after all, found the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

I follow very closely

every anti-corruption or

corruption-related case. A very

underrated piece of news—many

media outlets wrote about it, but it seems to me this is genuinely

quite sensational, because it simply

shows the Kremlin’s attitude toward who

our little friends, the ones we love, remember?

When I was under house arrest and I

would come to court hearings, journalists loved

filming my leg, because on my leg

there was an ankle monitor. I was under house arrest.

And so there literally was this

plastic contraption on my leg.

It was attached to me, and at home there was this

hellish-looking, awful, prehistoric kind of

telephone. You couldn't dial anything on it,

on that phone. You see,

something like this box here, though this one is more

advanced. Anyway,

just imagine an old telephone, only

take away the rotary dial, and that phone

basically tethered me: I wasn't allowed

to go more than 25 meters away from it.

This was equipment that the

Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN, Russia's prison service)

had manufactured somewhere and purchased at an enormous

price. When I first heard that this

little ankle bracelet on my leg

— which I later cut off, quite

demonstratively, while these people were running after me —

that this bracelet alone, the one

I cut with scissors and then stopped

complying with house arrest,

I was told that this prehistoric

little phone — basically just a plastic

box — and this bracelet cost 300,

or maybe 400 thousand rubles to procure.

I said: that can't be right. I mean,

they were obviously stealing 90 percent

of it. And apparently they were stealing too

much and not kicking enough back,

because then there was a huge scandal.

Later — I think it was

2016 or so — the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service,

Alexander Reimer,

was arrested and jailed, and they proved

quite clearly that he was simply taking devices

that cost 10,000 rubles

— in fact, I think not just supposedly, but actually

they really did cost 10,000–12,000 rubles — and then

they would procure them from themselves for 200

or 280 thousand rubles, something like that.

And in this way Reimer caused

damage — he stole 3 billion rubles — and

there was a show trial, and everyone

really was outraged, because

it was just such an

outrageous, blatant case of corruption.

It's completely obvious: you put this bracelet on

someone's leg,

whether some alleged criminal, as in

my case, or a real one, and even then

you can plainly see that this thing

cannot cost 200 thousand rubles, yet they

were procuring it that way. There was a trial, and Reimer then

was hit with a fine of only 300 thousand rubles,

but he was given a real, lengthy sentence of 8 years, and

everyone said: well, of course, the man stole

3 billion — 3.2 billion — rubles, and they fined

him 800 thousand rubles. That's a bit strange.

But fine, whatever — he did get 8 years

in prison. And then

the Moscow City Court even removed that 800-thousand-ruble fine,

so he didn't pay a kopeck of the fine.

Okay, damn it, unfair as that is,

he still got 8 years. But he got out last

week — he hadn't even served two years in prison.

He was released on the grounds of

How that happened is just astonishing,

absolutely astonishing. I mean, here we have

people getting gigantic prison terms under the Criminal Code,

while right now someone is sitting in prison for four solo pickets (one-person protests),

a guy stood there with a sign like this, and got 4 years

of imprisonment — he's in prison.

And this man,

who stole 3 billion, served less than two

years of an 8-year sentence, didn't pay a single

kopeck in fines, and now he's out, smoking cigars,

with three

billion rubles — more than 3 billion rubles — at his disposal.

There were lots of stories saying that

he was in a separate cell with a sofa, almost

with a billiards table, and drinking

cognac just fine. There you have it —

the Putin system. You understand? They'll lock you up

for anything, crush you, but this damn

Reimer is one of their own.

And even though they staged what looked like

a show trial against him,

and told the whole country back then, 'We gave him

8 years,' now they've quietly let him go.

It happened with no fanfare at all.

That's why I decided to start this program with it.

I want everyone to know about this.

I mean, this is really some kind of

utter lawlessness: he served two years out of

an 8-year sentence and kept his 3 billion

rubles that he stole from us.

When people often ask me how we should

persuade people who support Putin — well,

this is how you persuade them.

Tell them about this Reimer.

Maybe we'll even make some kind of

separate video about it, to explain it all, because

it is just absolutely infuriating.

It hits me especially hard because

when I had this

ankle bracelet on my leg and that box at home, it

broke down three times. This is how it worked:

suddenly there'd be a ring

at the door, and there would be these guys

from FSIN saying, 'You've violated the rules, you've run away.'

And I'd say, 'I'm in the apartment.' But the device just

didn't work. It didn't work — it was sending

a signal saying that with my bracelet I'd somehow

gone somewhere. So they replaced this thing

three times. It didn't even

work at all. By the end I had the feeling

that they were thinking, 'Do we really need to replace it a fourth

time? It's actually convenient for us as it is,'

especially since I kept writing about it, I kept

saying, 'Your equipment doesn't

work.' I had the feeling that it

never really worked at all, actually.

Speaking of which, you can see the cut on this bracelet.

Then they sent me a separate claim.

Saying that I was supposed to pay something like 15,000

rubles for damaging the equipment.

to the FSIN (Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service), and I paid those 15,000 rubles.

But Reimer stole 3 billion rubles and

absolutely did not

not

pay anyone anything. Against that backdrop,

a lot of people have been asking me to talk about

the case of Yulia Tsvetkova, if you’ve heard of it.

It just seems to me like an excellent

contrast, I mean,

who the real criminals are and who

who the socially dangerous people are. There’s a young woman living

in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur

in the middle of nowhere, in Khabarovsk Krai (a region in Russia’s Far East). This

young woman is a feminist.

Great. What she does is run

a public page about women’s education, and

she publishes various comics about the female

body, about how there’s no need to be ashamed,

that yes, women can be fat, that

women can have body hair, that women

have muscles — in other words, just ordinary

normal stuff. You can’t even really call it

feminist — it’s just ordinary

normal human education. But

she also ran a public page called

*Vagina Monologues*, where, basically,

she drew these things in a rather

schematic way. If you go to

the page, it still very much

exists to this day. And by the way, it clearly

says 18+.

And here, you see, this picture that

appeared

on our broadcast — this picture was deemed

by the local police to be terrible

pornography. There are many similar pictures there.

Maybe someone likes this picture,

maybe someone doesn’t, but

in a special page clearly marked

not for anyone under 18,

if you walk across Mother Russia

along just about any fence, you’ll see plenty of

schematic, symbolic, and fairly

realistic depictions of many, many

different things. And yet

you don’t see people running around over that, you know.

Police officers don’t faint and they don’t

open criminal cases against

some young woman over it, seriously.

Akira Armash, the press secretary

of Funduk, drew my attention to

this case — she even recorded a special video about it.

It’s also on the channel. She’s now trying

to help Tsvetkova together with many other people.

Tsvetkova.

She talked about it. Well, this is a very

important thing. When I watched the video

she posted — let’s take a look

at how they’re pulling her out of a car. She

had just flown in, with a suitcase, and then

the police approached her and took her away.

Let’s watch that.

[applause]

[applause]

[music]

A whole bunch of big, burly cops really

were, in all seriousness, digging through VKontakte (a Russian social network) and

looking at these drawings. I don’t know,

maybe they were getting inspiration there or something

with their department, but anyway

they decided it was pornography and opened

a criminal case against her.

She is now under house arrest, and

she has a toothache, and

this is an important thing I wanted to mention.

Look, I had a toothache too when I

was under house arrest. I

had to write a special request,

“Dear judge, please allow me to go to the

dentist from such-and-such time to such-and-such time,”

and they would let me go. I’d go there, and for one hour

I was allowed to stay at the dental clinic, and

they specifically monitored me so that I wouldn’t spend

any longer there. But she isn’t being allowed out. Her

tooth hurts, she writes, “Please let me go to the

dentist,” and they still won’t let her. So here we are:

the Khabarovsk

regional authorities, or the police in Komsomolsk-on-Amur,

are actually busy with all this.

Remember, I once showed a video here

about how in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, with

full honors and some kind of police

escort, they buried a *vor v zakone* (a high-ranking mob boss in post-Soviet criminal culture). That

was apparently normal, and the police stood there

saluting — everything was just wonderful for them,

magnificent. But here, my God, it’s like

that famous meme: “What if there’s crime somewhere?”

Some girl drew

some little picture. So I’m also trying to draw

everyone’s attention to this case, because

you know, there’s an important aspect here:

she drew vaginas, and everyone feels

awkward talking about it, and awkward defending her, but

it’s uncomfortable to defend her because somehow

it feels awkward to say words like that out loud.

And so she’s sitting at home

under house arrest, way out in the middle of nowhere, in

Komsomolsk-on-Amur, suffering, while

I want the whole country to know

both about her and about the sheer idiocy that

the Russian police are engaged in, because

it turns out that you and I are paying salaries

to people who literally sit there and

write up these case materials, these materials

for a criminal case against her. And it’s absolutely

astonishing. What’s more, they’re also running

a PR campaign. When people started defending Tsvetkova,

first and foremost feminists, they

started parading various experts

who supposedly prove that this is

pornography. The best expert of all — let me show you in a second.

I’ll show you.

Just one important point: at the very end of this

video, pay attention — there he is.

The expert is clearly saying something, but they...

They simply cut the audio already, because on...

a federal TV channel, you can't say...

what she is obviously saying. The expert, well...

it's clear what kind of expert she is, but you can easily...

read her lips. Let's take a look. Yulia...

is trying to present herself as a victim, a victim...

of the regime, supposedly. Allegedly the security forces are pressuring her while...

not letting her go to the hospital.

She knows perfectly well that all she has to do is file...

an application, but at the same time there's no need to make...

fools of people when you supposedly go...

to get something treated and at that very moment...

schedule a meeting with your own...

like-minded supporters. You broke the law, and...

you are not trusted. You tried to run away...

now be so kind as to comply with what...

the court, so to speak, has ordered you to do.

What Tsvetkova was doing—I believe this is...

unacceptable.

Did you hear what they say she was doing?

What Peskova was doing is...

Well, I can't repeat that on air either.

So that's how it all works.

This gathering of idlers opened...

a criminal case. They grabbed some...

bald idiot who's on television, there...

he uses...

swear words to string sentences together, but really it's just...

some person who drew...

a picture. You broke the law, so...

now sit under house arrest and...

think about your criminal behavior.

Whom exactly did she wrong? Why is it any of your...

business what she draws on the internet?

She draws whatever she wants. She isn't violating anyone's rights...

This is not some kind of pornography...

It isn't that. It's a women's online community about women's...

health. Leave Yulia Tsvetkova alone.

Of course she should be immediately...

released. These police officers should either be...

fired or jailed, because they are not...

doing what they are supposed to do.

Danil asks me, Alexei...

How many cases like Yulia Tsvetkova's do you think there will be?

Like Yulia Tsvetkova's? Why, Danil, there are already...

plenty of them right now.

It's just that Tsvetkova has support groups...

some kind of support there, women...

feminists, I don't know, they wrote to me on...

Twitter, and today before the program they...

wrote to me: say something on air about the case of...

Tsvetkova. And I do. But you cannot...

imagine how many people there are like this who...

don't have a support group, or who don't believe...

that it's possible to get through to anyone. It's just...

someone in some village gets picked up somewhere...

for writing something on VKontakte (a Russian social network), and now...

in every region, someone writes...

somewhere in the comments, 'Putin is an idiot,' and...

the cops immediately rush to open a criminal...

case, because it's...

good for their statistics, because it's a new...

star on the chart, because dealing with real...

crime is too much trouble, while here...

all the cases are very simple. That's why there are...

more and more of these cases all the time.

So, 'Flag of Capitulation'—what the hell...

a wonderful name for...

a Twitter account. They're asking me...

Alexei, how can you comment on...

Meduza's recent article about the defendants in...

the Network case.

Forty thousand people are watching me live...

right now, probably some people from the media are watching too, and...

I, of course...

at the risk of getting into yet another scandal with...

Meduza, still—I, I, I kept silent...

for a whole week. Yes, they published it last...

Friday, based on these materials, but I...

will still say everything I think about it...

because, well, today they published new...

materials there. So what...

actually happened? If you suddenly don't...

know, there was and is this very...

Network case, where some young people were simply...

forced under torture to confess to...

having allegedly organized...

a terrorist group. There is not a single...

victim in the case, and not a single...

serious piece of evidence. But there is...

a huge amount of evidence that these people...

were subjected to fascistic torture, forcing...

them to falsely incriminate themselves. And they did incriminate themselves...

because they were being tortured. They were given completely...

monstrous, inexplicable sentences: 18 years...

12 years, 10 years—enormous...

absolutely enormous sentences these people received. And against...

the backdrop of all this, there was huge, colossal...

support for them from everyone, because, well, everyone...

saw the complete lawlessness. Here you...

see the photos—this was last...

week, I showed them on air too.

Hundreds of people came to the FSB building and stood...

in solo pickets last Friday...

after my broadcast. Let's...

take a look. This is what the FSB building...

looked like from above—please show...

the image. You can see, they...

filled the whole area with buses because they understood...

that a huge number of people would come...

to support the defendants in the Network case.

Teachers wrote letters, scholars wrote letters...

Konstantin Kinchev (lead singer of the Russian rock band Alisa) spoke about it at a concert...

saying, 'Guys, what are you doing?' to the FSB, and...

in general, our authorities had a huge...

problem because the whole country saw...

that innocent people were tortured and given...

enormous prison terms. And then Meduza comes along. I'm...

not trying to say that, you know, Putin or...

the FSB called their newsroom. I'm not...

saying they deliberately published it last Friday...

the article.

But damn, it looks extremely...

suspicious. What did Meduza do? It...

published a strange piece and for some reason called...

it an investigation, and published...

it rather sheepishly on Friday at nine o'clock.

in the evening, well, because they understood that

there would be a huge scandal because of it

but apparently they wanted to minimize it and

this piece is called an investigation

in fact, it is a retelling

of the words of some kind of left-wing activist named

Ilya, and this left-wing activist says

that actually, in this Network case, they all

were drug dealers and killed two

of their own people, two people who were with

them there, and they killed them and buried them in the

forest

but the FSB people did not investigate it

because otherwise the case would have been taken over by

the Investigative Committee, so they

left out two murders — note that, two

murders — they threw them out and left

the case as it was, with nothing else, and well

naturally, you understand what happened

I mean, at first there was one story

that was told to you here on air

innocent people were tortured and forced

to confess to something they had not done, and

they were given 18 and 12 years, and now Meduza

is going to tell us a story that everything was different

that drug dealers killed two people from

their own circle — yes, they were tortured and forced

to confess, yes, absolutely, of course, and

they write that they were drug dealers — well yes, but it does not matter, you must stand up for

any people, even if

they are murderers and drug dealers, I

still say they must not be tortured either, but all this

looks different; here we are talking about the fact that

Meduza

and therefore, of course, they cannot be offended with me

— Galina Timchenko and Ivan

Koltpakov — when I say directly that they

acted vilely, acted despicably

because they simply took

some person, and this person now

— and when he is questioned, when they take

an interview from him, he says outright

I have no direct evidence

I do not know anything. Timur Olevsky

posted today, simply

on Facebook, that he spoke with this

same Ilya, and

Ilya

judging by the words Meduza wrote, he is already

expressing himself much less categorically, but

it was a vile, despicable act

by Meduza

a despicable act, sorry, at the moment

Meduza's act was that they

published all this, and they did not even

reach out to the defendants in the case, just imagine

they had just received

18, 12, 10 years; they are being held in isolation, they

cannot even read what

Meduza wrote

and their whole life right now is, in a sense,

being rebuilt from scratch

it is not even clear whether they have lawyers or not

lawyers, how they are going to

manage going forward

how they will somehow handle legal representation, how

their situation there will be arranged

a person is sentenced to 18 years under what is formally

a conviction, supposedly guilty, but in which

the confession was beaten out under torture — sorry, I am just

so outraged that I am starting to stumble over my words, but this

situation really does

outrage me; we do not know what is happening there

it is very hard even to remain in any kind of

sound state of mind when you are given an 18-year sentence for

whatever, and Meduza does not even reach out to the two, to

them there, does not even try to contact these people

it just dumps out some material

from some supposed left-wing activist and talks about

double murder. Well, first of all, what is

a left-wing activist? Let us be honest and say that

a left-wing activist in Russia, just like a right-wing

activist in Russia — for every one

activist there is one police

informant, one FSB informant, and one

simply

undercover operative as well

from the FSB — not because left-wing and right-wing

activists are so terrible, but because our

security services

have spent years doing nothing but

infiltrating both the left-wing movement

and the right-wing movement, and the liberal one

too, with their own agents, and to write

some story based on the words of a left-wing

activist simply means writing a

story

based on the words of someone who is quite possibly exactly the same kind of

FSB agent

they simply had no right to do that; it is

utter swinishness, just to go ahead and

not ask those people for comment; they cannot

defend themselves, and this was done

between the verdict and the appeal — that is

the key moment for any person

who has ended up in prison: the verdict

is unjust, you have enormous

public support, and you hope

that everything will happen at the appeal, and then

Meduza comes out saying that actually it was not two

people who were killed, and that means they all ought to

be put away for life now, basically, and simply

and of course, immediately, in perfect sync,

Dmitry Kiselyov starts beating the drum, all those

Prigozhin-linked guys, just as if on

command

they write front-page pieces, saying

see, all the usual set of

Prigozhin-linked media: what a great Meduza

Meduza has published a real investigation

let me show you Dmitry Kiselyov

absolutely jubilant on Friday

the foreign online outlet Meduza

publishes its investigation into the so-

called Network case

Meduza's investigation is precisely what

confirms that leftists and anarchists

were making money on the side through drug dealing, and also

they killed those who had any contact with them

because they feared information might leak, the story is

horrifying: it involves two corpses and at least two

suicide attempts, a great deal of brutality and

ignorance. Now some of the

human rights activists are trying to cast doubt on

the investigation’s findings and even

the court’s verdict. But Meduza itself, introducing

its publication, admits: “We are fully aware

that this is a heavy blow for everyone who

supports the defendants in the case, for their

relatives and loved ones.”

“Many of the facts are still hard for us

to wrap our heads around, but to conceal such

important information is something we, as journalists,

have no right to do.”

I don’t know with what motive Meduza did this,

but this was done precisely for

reports like this, precisely so that

now, in response—well, in response to

the accusation that “you imprisoned people for nothing,”

they can say, “For nothing? How is it for nothing? There were

two corpses there, drug trafficking there, excuse

me.” As for these two corpses—well, I

am, after all, a lawyer, and I have taken part many times

in various capacities in different criminal cases.

If someone tells me that FSB goons (the Federal Security Service, Russia’s main security agency)

whose task is

to spin things up lawlessly and lock up

some people, earn themselves stars on their epaulettes,

“solve” a criminal group case—and they have

two bodies buried in the forest, and they’re

saying, “No, we won’t take the two bodies,”

“we’ll throw all that out, bury the case, because

otherwise this material will be taken away from us by

the local committee”—

and we won’t be able to investigate it within the FSB—

since when has the Investigative Committee

ever interfered with torture? The Investigative Committee is delighted

when someone is tortured. The Investigative Committee

is a branch office of the FSB. Not for a single second do I

believe that, in reality, there

the FSB investigators and operatives threw out

two real corpses from the case, threw out

drug trafficking. In the case materials

when they imprisoned all those people in the

“Network” case,

there isn’t a single word about any of this. So why

would they then give such a gift to the people who tortured them

with electric current,

and throw it all out? Because, as Meduza wrote,

Meduza

the FSB knew about these murders, but for some reason it

threw them out. But that’s

nonsense. It sounds like nonsense; it is

nonsense. This Pchelintsev, who was sentenced to

18 years, wrote an open letter today

saying that I don’t know any of these people at all,

but what will happen next is simply

going to be something such that—well, what exactly?

We will never get to the bottom of it.

I mean, obviously, for those bastards

who have already been caught

torturing people, it would be no problem tomorrow to go to

a cemetery, buy two corpses from wherever,

bury them again in the forest, in the same

grave, and put a note there from

Pchelintsev or anyone else: ‘Ha ha ha, I killed you,’

and then drag it into court and say that this is

evidence. Therefore I absolutely

believe

that Meduza’s actions are utterly unworthy of

journalism. Even they themselves

have already admitted that this is not some kind of

investigation; it is weak, half-baked material.

And the fact that they published such weak and half-baked material

at precisely the moment when it would

do the maximum possible harm to people

who cannot defend themselves right now and do not

have the ability to defend themselves—this is simply

a horrifying, monstrous act.

And they should apologize—I don’t know—

to their readers and to everyone

else, because this is

simply vile. And we absolutely

must keep following this case and watching it

and not

—sorry—give in to any

information that comes from who knows

where, just out of nowhere.

A person shows up and says—as was written in

the Meduza piece—“At our

picket outside the FSB building, a man approached us

who had conducted his own

investigation, and we are publishing this man’s story.”

Fantastic. And you know,

a man just approached me in the hallway

and said that Meduza’s organizers,

Galina Timchenko and Ivan Kolpakov,

are making illegal flights over Moscow, having turned

Karlsson (the children’s-book character who flies with a propeller) into their means of air transport—or

something like that. Well, it’s nonsense, and they write this

nonsense and don’t verify it. And here it’s the same

thing: Meduza, which is constantly trying

to present itself as meticulous journalists and

sticks its nose into every one of our investigations, here

simply dumps all this out. I repeat:

it is not hard to suppose that someone in the

FSB or in the Presidential Administration

called Meduza directly and

ordered them to publish such

material. Maybe this provocation

happened at a lower level, but this is

absolutely shameful, simply a shameful

page in Meduza’s history. It’s not just that

journalists, you know, disgraced themselves;

the journalists disgraced themselves, and some people

may now end up with life sentences.

This case is still ongoing; there is

a St. Petersburg part to it, and these people in St. Petersburg

definitely could not in any way

have been involved, not even remotely,

even if we assume all this really happened. But

now they will be crushed to the fullest extent.

And Meduza is unquestionably responsible for the fact

that enormous public

support collapsed over the past weekend.

How many people were out picketing in support of them, of the “Network” case defendants?

Hundreds, and how many is it now?

No, well, because in the new one... though it seems like...

Not exactly, but it seems they killed someone, they...

Apparently they didn’t kill anyone, well, what happened there?

What happened, and it was done by that, you know...

That piece, yes, of course. And human rights...

There will be support there. Decent people don’t...

You and I know that right now 41,000 people are watching.

Watching live, and maybe a million

will watch over the course of a week. We, of course...

as principled people who

believe that no one should be tortured, will

defend them. But broad, genuine

public support—so much so that

teachers are writing letters in support—that kind of support,

Meduza (an independent Russian media outlet) destroyed that possibility, so this act...

the people from *Kniga? Diski?* can be offended with me

as much as they like. By the way, also for

comparison: in the Network case ("Set" case, a Russian political prosecution), not a single

injured party—under the verdict, not a single one.

Not one injured party, and sentences ranging from 12 to 18

years.

Right now, this very moment, in

Yekaterinburg, there is this

huge scandal going on, because there

a well-known local architect

was walking down the street and made a remark to two

people on the street. One of them,

who turned out to be a former FSB officer (Russia’s security service),

no, sorry—not FSB, an Emergencies Ministry guy, they...

beat him badly, beat him very badly, and he

ended up in the hospital. Today he died. So,

this Emergencies Ministry guy, who apparently

used some connections retroactively, and some kind of ties,

as I understand it, in law enforcement,

what do you think? You’re probably now

thinking I’m about to say, all right, and he was

placed under house arrest.

Nope. They released him under a pledge not to leave.

That is, they really inflicted

serious bodily injuries after which

the person died—a well-known person,

a well-known architect. The whole of

Yekaterinburg knows him. So in effect,

they killed a man, and he was released,

walking around free under a pledge not to leave.

That’s how Russian justice works.

I see a question here from Max

Tarasov: what do you think about the case of

Alexander Litreev? Is there any point in standing up for him?

Litreev is a programmer

who was detained in

Yekaterinburg for allegedly—well, supposedly—

buying drugs together with his girlfriend,

and it was some laughably small amount of

drugs.

Even according to Supreme Court statistics, with

that amount of drugs,

people are placed in pretrial detention in less than 1% of cases.

But Litreev had been engaged in

de-anonymizing police officers, that is,

he’s a programmer and worked with

social media. All these creeps

who beat people in the streets—when he

got a photo, he would say: look,

this is Petya here in the photo, and here are his social media accounts.

The police really, really didn’t like all that.

I don’t know whether there was a provocation there

or not, but right now he has been

put in pretrial detention. Next question.

As for standing up for him—his

lawyers and his mother wrote to me asking me to provide

a character reference, and I did.

Because I believe there is not the slightest

reason to keep him in pretrial detention now for two

months while a criminal case is being investigated.

Let them do the same in Yekaterinburg:

people inflicted grievous bodily harm, and they

are under a pledge not to leave—so give

Litreev the same pledge not to leave.

But at the same time, I want to note, dear

viewers—all 45,000 of you—drugs are evil.

Damn it, don’t go out and don’t buy any

drugs, and don’t go rummaging around for any dead drops.

Because half of those dead drops are set up by

the police so they can later

arrest you and put you in prison—not to mention

the fact that, in general, from using

drugs, nothing good is going to

happen to you. I see I’m being asked here:

Good grief, how do people even come up with such

usernames—my God. About Mishustin’s apartment in

New York, LoveSniper asks:

“Alexei, explain

why the Magnitsky case matters. Why is everyone

talking about it now?” This is our major

investigation that came out today.

Probably many of you haven’t seen it

because we didn’t make a video, as we usually do,

for the main channel—we post videos there

about major investigations. It’s just that we

found this and rushed to publish it

because it seems to us this is a very important

matter. Besides, it was expensive to go to

New York to film the apartment of our

new prime minister’s son-in-law. We thought it was

a bit too pricey. By the way, below this

there’s a link with donation details, and if you

put enough money there, then maybe next time

my investigations department will have the chance

to

go to New York and film the apartment of

that very son-in-law of the prime minister. But

joking aside, what we found and published

today is a major post on my blog.

This is extremely important information, and note

that the business media, which

love Mishustin very much, are silent. They’re like

fish.

Well, because this is quite a sensational

story. So, what is the Magnitsky case?

It was huge and still is, but many of you

have either forgotten about it or never knew. You really should know.

There were so-called VAT refund schemes

through which a huge amount

of assorted crooks and thieves stole from

all of us

billions. What did the scheme consist of?

for a VAT refund, you take a little plastic cup and

put on paper that it is not

a little cup but a huge crystal vase

worth $100 million, and

you sell it to your shell company

located abroad, I don’t know,

in Cyprus or in the United States, and you make

fake paperwork saying that you sold abroad

a huge crystal vase

for $100 million, and built into

the price of that vase there is, effectively,

a 20 percent value-added tax

and when you sold it, under

Russian law, the state budget

since you sold it abroad

has to return that 20 percent to you, and

that’s how these schemes worked: you sell

the little cup, effectively, and bring to

the tax authorities

documents saying, I sold $100

million worth, and the state budget

returns $20 million to you, and that is how

huge sums of money were stolen, as you

perfectly understand. Without this guy—

this guy who headed

the tax service—such schemes would not have worked.

Well, because tax officials are supposed

to check this; the falseness of such

documents is almost always obvious. But there everything

was arranged in such a way that the tax

officials got their enormous kickback

or very often simply

organized such schemes themselves and refunded

this supposed VAT to themselves. Magnitsky

exposed one of these schemes, after which

the police officers who were involved in it

arrested him and tortured him

to death in prison. And then, when Bill

Browder and his Hermitage Fund—the lawyer

whose

lawyer Magnitsky worked for—

investigated, they found out, and later

it was repeatedly confirmed that

people in the tax service who worked under

Mishustin received tens

of millions of dollars and at the same time bought

a whole lot of real estate. Give me a second

to recall exactly how

this case was arranged. Sergei Magnitsky

helped expose the crime, and thanks

to him the fund sent to law enforcement

a complaint as early as three weeks before

the theft of money from the treasury, identifying

the perpetrators of the crime and the involvement

of Interior Ministry officers. Sergei himself gave

testimony against Kuznetsov and Karpov.

Soon afterward, Kuznetsov’s subordinates arrested

Sergei, subjecting him to torture in prison, from

which he died. He was only 37

years old. He left behind a wife and two children. Soon

after the theft of 5.4 billion rubles from

the Russian treasury, the Stepanov couple

finished building a Moscow estate worth 20

million 212 thousand dollars

and bought a Mediterranean villa in

Montenegro worth $700,000

an even more luxurious villa and two luxury apartments

in Dubai worth $7 million

as well as receiving $11 million

into the accounts of their offshore

companies. Thus, the Stepanovs’ undeclared

income amounted to 38

million 900 thousand dollars

Fantastic money, for someone who was merely the head

of a district tax inspectorate, to have received $38 million.

By the way, they say Vladlen Stepanov

—the man in the photograph—sued me for a very

long time because I talked about this

scheme

many, many times and wrote about it on my

blog. And it was clear to everyone that

Mishustin and some of his people were involved in these

schemes, but direct

evidence was never there. Well, in Stepanova’s case

it was obvious:

she signed the document and then, bang,

bought a mansion in Dubai, sold one for $3

million, bought another for $5 million

and built palaces on

Rublyovka (an elite residential area outside Moscow). But with Mishustin, that wasn’t enough for me.

And then, a few days ago,

Roman Udotov, the very man whose connection

to Mishustin we investigated

and showed that this

Udotov had appeared several times

in criminal case materials precisely concerning

such laundering schemes

and was mentioned directly many, many times, hundreds

of times, as the organizer of these schemes

in real criminal cases—and he gave

the Mishustin family multimillion-dollar

plots of land. And this Udotov gives an interview

to the newspaper *Izvestia*

and in the very first paragraph he says, you

know, I am the prime minister’s brother-in-law.

Mishustin’s. Well, when we read that,

honestly, our jaws dropped

and hit the chair, because it was obvious

why he was saying it: he was trying

to say, I gave Mishustin’s sister

plots of land and houses not because

they were bribes for Mishustin, but because I

am his brother-in-law. But no one forced him

to say that.

He effectively said: I was involved in

all these VAT refund schemes and

at the same time was Mishustin’s brother-in-law. But we

also had an ongoing

investigation, and using a completely

official real estate registry in

New York City, we found 6

apartments—first he bought 5, then one more, making 6 apartments

worth several million dollars

in a building in New York.

But the most important thing is that at the same time, in

that same building, similar apartments were being bought by

a guy named Katsyv, who was implicated in

the Magnitsky case—and not just implicated.

the New York prosecutor's office charged him with

in that case, he pleaded guilty

and paid a fine of 6 million dollars to the U.S. budget

million dollars, so that is why we

the picture that emerges is the following: take

the then-head of the tax service

who appears in criminal cases, is involved in

VAT refunds, and at the same time buys apartments in the

same building as the guys

who were implicated in the Magnitsky case (the case surrounding Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who died in custody)

from which we conclude, it seems to me

and I think on very solid grounds, that

the Magnitsky case and all these documents under which

colossal sums were stolen there

vast amounts of money—they could not have been

Mishustin's; he was directly involved in these

schemes. Take the head of the tax service

take the current prime minister, I mean

to be directly involved in such schemes

where this is not just, you know,

white-collar crime, what

you might call something written down on paper

they stole several billion, tortured a man

to death in prison, and who knows

how many more people like that they tortured in

prison. These are outright, genuine

bandits, and this is the prime minister of our

country.

It is very important to us that this investigation

be seen by as many people as possible and that as many people as possible learn about it

and pay attention to it, because, well, this

changes the situation, you have to admit

because a paper fraudster is one thing

and quite another are fraudsters who work

in tandem with murders and all sorts of

violent criminals. This is really

this is a very big deal. We urge you

to read the post; it seems to me everything

is quite clear there, and all the documents are there

for the most curious

and skeptical listeners

if you need something in English

check that too, the New York registry as well, but

read it—everything is there, and it is all very

easy to prove. I see many

Viktor Medved asks me: Alexei,

please comment on the court's ruling on the legality

of Ruslan Shaveddinov's conscription into the army

Vitaly Kolesnikov asks what is happening with

Ruslan Shaveddinov. There are very many

questions about Shaveddinov. Ruslan

Shaveddinov is our colleague and comrade

and employee of FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation); he was abducted and taken

to Novaya Zemlya (a remote Russian Arctic archipelago), and no one understood what was happening to him

because he was completely

isolated and there was no contact with him at all

he was not being given parcels, he was not being given

letters. We filed a lawsuit, and finally

after several weeks, our lawyer

managed to reach Novaya Zemlya on a military

plane, saw Shaveddinov, and now

I will invite him into the studio, and he will tell us about

how he traveled to that very Novaya

Zemlya and what is happening there. But before that, I

want to show you a clip

from a kind of propaganda video where they

talk about how wonderfully soldiers serve on

Novaya Zemlya, how absolutely everything there is

wonderful, excellent, supposedly the best

place to serve.

And then we will compare that with what

Alexei Molokoedov tells us. So, Rossiya 24

is telling us how wonderful it is on Novaya Zemlya

right now.

[music]

Meals are taken with music, so that food is better

digested.

Music is always playing.

Lada.

USA.

[music]

If all this had existed in the army even

ten years ago, who then

would have refused to serve the motherland? I feel

that the state needs us now

that it cares about us, that we are needed.

Alexei Molokoedov, an FBK lawyer, is in the studio

here in the Navalny Live studio. Hi, Alexei.

Thank you very much for coming. We have just

watched how wonderful Novaya Zemlya supposedly is

I heard that phrase: if everything were like this

like this,

if people saw that service could be like this, then probably

there would be no end of volunteers. You have been to Novaya

Zemlya—what was it like for you? This

territory—when you stand on Novaya Zemlya

do you feel something? What do you see? What does it

look like in general? I feel the wind

taking my breath away. The thing is that I

arrived in the season when there are constant snowstorms

but I also feel the cold, which, by the way,

was not as severe as I

might have expected. I mean, there

you could walk around Novaya Zemlya

if it were not for the wind, probably. Though, yes,

you will sink into snowdrifts many

meters deep, but overall it is not as bad

as I expected. In principle, I agree

with the Rossiya 24 report that everything is

not that bad. Please tell us

how you got there in the first place. How

different was this from

a standard court case? You go to court

for FBK all the time, to different courts

and now you ended up on Novaya Zemlya. How did that

happen, and what was going on there at all?

How is this different from a standard court case?

First of all, it differs in that

usually I have the case materials, and usually I

know in advance the whole story of how

a particular problem developed

and what caused the dispute. But here we

were litigating

from the mainland about what was happening there

based only on the simple fact that

Ruslan was neither writing to us nor calling us, and

accordingly, all the actual evidence

was over there, beyond the ocean, and

and accordingly familiarize myself with it

I had to do it on the fly, which of course is not ideal, and

why they did it that way, why they didn’t hold the hearing right away

in Arkhangelsk, I think it was

it was done in order to avoid

drawing press attention to it, and possibly

so that Razvan wouldn’t somehow run off

all right, maybe not that, but you flew in

on a military plane and for some reason couldn’t

bring a camera with you there and record anything

be both a lawyer and a

journalist, a correspondent, because

they were actively preventing me from doing that

the military, who accordingly forbade

me from filming, and the very first thing that

happened was when I met the driver

who was taking me from Arkhangelsk

airport to the military airfield from

which I was flying out, he handed me

a receipt and asked me to sign it, but I

didn’t do that, but the situation there

is absurd—after all, you’re just a civilian

person, they have no

authority over you, they have no right to take anything from you

or confiscate it

a phone and a voice recorder are the most important

tools in a defense lawyer’s work, without a doubt

they certainly cannot do that, especially not

by force, but they simply didn’t want

to let me onto the base

I just couldn’t get in. And

tell us, please, about what you saw—did you

manage to see him at all? Was it easy to see him?

I mean, everyone imagines it in their own way

you’re dropped off in front of the base gates, snow, a blizzard

you walk in, and somewhere there stands

Ruslan [__] waving at you

smiling—but it wasn’t like that at all. At first, I was told by the judge

that supposedly we would fly there

and then literally, eight

hours later, fly back. The hearing itself was supposed

to take place, but honestly, viewers of the live stream

will remember how I stood there recording a video

in which I was talking about how Ruslan

would be defending the motherland without enough sleep

and exhausted, but when I arrived, the situation

had changed a bit, and it turned out that the court hearing

would actually be the next day

they took me not to Ruslan’s unit but to

another unit, where I was supposed to stay overnight

and live there as well; accordingly, the hearing was held there too

strangely enough, despite the fact

that according to the ruling it was supposed

to take place elsewhere. So how did you actually

get to see him?

He was brought in that morning

at around ten o’clock for the hearing; he arrived on

a snowmobile, while I was brought in on a Ural truck

on a Ural, together with the commander

then he went up the stairs

to the third floor of the headquarters building, where the hearing

was taking place. I promised our viewers that I would show

a short address, a video message

from Ruslan. Am I right in understanding that they

were simply checking you there with metal detectors

so that you wouldn’t bring in any kind of phone

or anything personal?

So, literally speaking

the way police do it, except it was done

by military personnel who have no right to

check all that on you. Let’s look at where

this was happening—just give us a little

a little context. So, you

came to defend a person; you have

the right to spend as much time as needed with

him, sit with him and do whatever is necessary, discuss things

take notes, record, film, and so on. What

did that look like in practice?

In practice, it looked like this: I arrived and

accordingly asked that we

coordinate our position with Ruslan and, in general,

that I understand

all the facts of the case and be

up to speed on what I could not possibly

have known while on the mainland

but the court told me: you get 20 minutes

then we bargained it up to 30, and we

accordingly went into a room that

was a couple of doors down from the courtroom

we went in there, and accordingly

they stationed a soldier outside who stood there

and listened carefully to what we were

talking about

Let’s watch the attempt at a video message

Hello everyone from sunny Apatity—just kidding

apparently. I want to say a huge thank-you to everyone

for the support, for the letters

you’re writing—I can see some of them

brother

to get me out of the clutches

of the polar bears, to whom I’ll be returning for now, but

while I’m here, I want to say...

Yes, so what actually happened?

Why did some people suddenly rush in

for the phone? But they didn’t snatch the phone out of my hands

What happened was that they

simply did not want any

information leaking to the mainland. They did not

actually take anything away, right?

Right. So you’re neither a soldier nor a

prisoner—you’re simply a person who

is on the territory of the Russian

Federation

Sitting opposite you is a person who is not

a prisoner either; he is also a soldier, but his

rights are not formally restricted. Nevertheless

what happened was that

they started banging on the door, and then

accordingly began demanding that we

speak only with the door open, and of course we

did not agree to that, and although

we kept the door closed, the banging and

the military’s unexpected appearances in the room

still continued to happen

And as I understand it, ahead of your

trip there, various pro-Kremlin

Telegram channels had started

spreading various things there

There are endless little videos of Videnov.

Recording things properly like that just doesn't happen.

There is a person who is constantly filming him, yes.

That's a separate story in itself.

There really is someone from among the

military personnel who is constantly

filming him—and on command, not

justifying it by saying that they're only taking

photographs, as if this procedure were somehow

typical of that harsh northern

region. They are not supposed to be constantly monitoring this.

They simply cannot assign someone to follow every soldier around.

They can't put another soldier next to every soldier

just to keep him occupied—it's obviously nonsense.

And Ruslan is being filmed; I know these

videos, and the FSB (Russia's security service), as I understand it, during the period

of my absence, all sorts of Telegram posts appeared

with specially made videos showing

how wonderful everything supposedly is.

Shaverdin trying to curry favor: him swimming in a

pool, reciting poetry—let's take a look.

Forty-two seconds of that kind of video, right on the edge of absurdity.

Dressed

with mustaches, and standing nearby are military men, teachers,

militiamen,

workers, schoolchildren—and all of them said:

"Death will fear us sooner than we fear it,

burning with death,

and even at death's door, by your life, on this

solemn and sorrowful field, they will stand forever,

their banners raised—Motherland, Hero City."

[applause]

The man swims in a pool, goes to the

gym, boxes, and seems quite

pleased; he reads poetry and gets applause.

Let's put that to the test—tell us about the conditions

of Videnov's service.

Is it really all as wonderful as

it looks? As I understand it, the case with the

pool may have been the only

time Ruslan actually got to swim.

He was specially taken to the pool

to be photographed and

to send that to us deliberately, very deliberately.

I can't say for certain, but it's quite possible that

this event was planned

in exactly that way. But in general, tell us about the service conditions.

Tell us a bit more—what does he tell you? Is he

satisfied or dissatisfied? What's happening to him?

But Ruslan

has something to compare his

military service with a special detention center (a facility for administrative arrest), and he still

says the detention center was better, because

there you can have visits, there are phone calls,

correspondence isn't restricted there, and there

is a lot of free time there, which

is very different from military service, where

he spends most of his day

shoveling snow, and by the way he already has blisters

on his hands.

Or grating laundry soap on a grater.

Why? Why grate laundry soap?

This is the army—why are they making them do that?

With laundry soap—this isn't some kind of

hazing ritual; that's just how they wash things in the unit.

Okay, fine. Well, Ruslan, accordingly,

never really gets a chance to read there, never

gets to be alone—and that's an important point.

At least, that's how I understand it.

We know that our lawsuit was rejected because

they said that Sasha Videnov can

call and write, and no one has restricted

his means of communication. Nevertheless, we know

that he is restricted. So what, then,

is really going on? It's important

to understand that even the rejection of the lawsuit does not

take away Ruslan's right to make phone calls,

which, accordingly, are in no way connected

to that court ruling. But the court's reasoning

is not ready yet, so of course I can't

jump ahead and try to guess what

it says. And during the hearing, among other things,

a lot of uncomfortable details came out about how

the mail is handled, and about the fact that

Ruslan really was forced

to speak on speakerphone for the purpose

of monitoring the information being passed to

the outside world. Because, that is, they admitted that

he can call only when there are

certain people standing nearby. This was written in their first

objections to our lawsuit, and

it says there that these people were assigned to

him because things started appearing online—

some internet publications about the unit—and

for the purpose of controlling the information being

transmitted, officers were present during

every phone call. Wonderful. As for

the broader situation, I mean,

this whole situation with Sheri—Shaverdin, to you,

is being viewed by many people

in a somewhat comic

light, like a comedy of errors: they took

the guy to Novaya Zemlya (a remote Arctic archipelago in Russia), he's serving there, ha-ha,

seeing polar bears. But what you're

saying is that if Videnov thinks

it's worse than a detention center, worse than arrest,

why? What do they feed him? What's actually going on

inside there? Why does he think

it's worse than prison?

Simply because there is no free time?

Well, first of all, that—and second, loneliness.

That is, first of all, in general

there is a feeling of being cut off from the world; that feeling is there

even in a detention center, but here especially.

There, at least, there are cellmates you can talk to—that's

human contact. Ruslan feels like an outcast

because, as I understand it, the other conscripts were given instructions

that Ruslan is a bad

boy, a troublemaker, and they must not

associate with him. Because of that, he feels

completely out of place.

And besides that, he also has

health problems. The water there is very bad—

the water that comes out of the tap—and

even at the military store you can't buy still water,

only carbonated water. I lived there myself.

Only soda. Sorry to interrupt, but we

showed at the very beginning of the report that there

Like, a buffet and everything is just wonderful and

yes, and overall everything is very good, I don't know

you'd never eat like that in civilian life there

really, it's a buffet

but in all this, they showed us in the report that

everything is just wonderful and excellent, and I

in your free time and everything is very good, but in fact

the meal process, Ruslan and

is organized there like in an ordinary

school cafeteria: there's a serving window from

which food is handed out; there may be

some kind of buffet-like setup where

there's bread and butter, and once again he

somehow tries not to eat too much so as not to come back

from there as a fat little bun, basically I

ate

and lived in another part of the base, so I didn't

try it and can't judge; but Ruslan

says that the food overall is also not

that different from the same kind of food in a

special detention center — those who've been there will understand — and

he called the next day and said

that there

one of his teeth fell out, and that there, in general, everyone's

teeth are falling out — is that true, or is that all

being covered up? Not everyone's teeth are crumbling, but his

got to the point that the tooth itself

fell out there after two months, and he

connects it specifically to the water quality, but

I can confirm the water quality issue

again, we lived in different parts of the base; in

the part where he lived

the hot water was rusty — literally

brown — and the warm and cold water

was, accordingly, kind of chlorinated, not

quite clear, and it was difficult to

deal with; I mean, what I lacked most there

was water, and a separate point is

that at lunch soldiers are usually given not even

water but juice, and Ruslan — and everyone there —

are constantly thirsty; we don't

understand how that's supposed to help them — it doesn't do them any good

still, you saw all this firsthand, so give us

a little more context, all right

they're sitting there in the evening, their

free time has started — can they go out and walk to the

store and buy something, is that even a thing

is there a store on site, or is there such a thing

as going out somewhere, is there such a thing as

a store? There is — there's a military supply store

but Ruslan can't just go there freely because

he's a conscript

there they only go in formation, with someone leading them

in a reflective vest; they even have to smoke there

on command, in a centralized way

they gather there — I saw this myself in his

unit — how it happens at the corner of the building with

everyone waiting there, and so, well, there

apparently that's how they take care of their

safety, apparently because of the threat

of a bear attack — or is the threat

of a bear attack just some kind of

local joke, or

it's not a local joke — I saw a bear on that

100-meter stretch where I

used to move between headquarters and my dorm

I encountered bears — as many as three: one

adult and two cubs — right at the entrance

I ran into them there and, sorry,

well, I saw them from the window, fortunately — you could

say I misspoke; they come at night

so naturally everyone is asleep, and after

sunset people start moving around a bit

like that — so yes, there really

the military

are worried and look around; they say that

a bear can reach speeds of up to 60

kilometers per hour (about 37 mph) in a second, basically

it can launch straight from a standstill and charge at you

and it approaches quietly; I saw a bear from the window

when I woke up at around 3 a.m. and

heard a wall of barking dogs, I looked out of

the little vent window — actually, I looked out of the vent window

because outside the main window there were

about 30 dogs, in the usual spot where they normally gather

under my window around the trash area

and there was a mother bear lying there with two cubs

on her belly, while the dogs were trying to harass her

she was swatting them away with her paw and growling

and this went on for at least

four hours, because I only fell asleep

when the sun had already come up, and when I woke up

the bear was already gone by then

basically

I was watching the drama unfold, but nothing

happened — but this wonderful story

about bears — but okay, let's get back

to Yedinoye (likely meaning the main issue); so, what is

our legal plan now

do we believe his rights have been violated, what

are we going to do, and what's the plan — we can already

say that his rights have been violated

because I brought Ruslan a phone with a

SIM card and agreed with the unit commander

that he would be allowed to call on it; the unit regulations

provide for daily calls in the

evenings on weekdays, half a day on Saturday

and the full day on Sunday, but so far

Ruslan has only been in touch on

Sundays, and that aligns well with

what was said in court, actually

the unit representative and ordinary soldiers

serving there all confirm that

there is one so-called 'soldier's letter hour'

when they are all made to sit down centrally

to write letters and are allowed to call, but judging

by everything, this 'soldier's letter hour'

is something we haven't managed to overcome, and we need to keep

waiting

so when Sunday comes

we hope that he will get in touch, but

I can already say here that the regulations are not

being followed; but of course we'll see what

happens on Sunday, whether they give him the phone — well, I

just want to add on my own behalf that all this is

of course an amusing story about bears

and some funny little videos, but I just

want to tell the Ministry of Defense that

You kidnapped a person, and that is exactly how we will treat it.

That is how we will regard it. It is one thing to know

that someone was abducted and taken away to serve; it is another thing

when it turns out that all of your

soldiers there are losing their teeth, and apparently not only that,

and that all the other soldiers are simply

being forced into some kind of labor around the clock

that they may, perhaps, be required to do under

some regulations, but clearly they

are not supposed to be shoveling snow 24/7.

After all, they are soldiers; they are not

slaves.

So I certainly

call on everyone who knows about any

shady dealings in the Defense Ministry, regarding procurement or

regarding what is happening on

Novaya Zemlya (a Russian Arctic archipelago), regarding this situation

to write to us, to get in touch with us,

and we will certainly, of course,

wage a fight on this issue against

the Ministry of Defense, which will be

fought in the interests of this soldier and

other soldiers. If this is—if

if you are not feeding them, or feeding them in such a way

that their teeth are falling out,

then, sorry, guys, we cannot, under any

circumstances—whether in peacetime or wartime—

keep people in such conditions, and

of course, certainly—for example, I am

absolutely outraged. What are these prison-style

rules? A lawyer arrives, starts filming this,

and someone runs in and takes the phone away—how is that even

possible? They had no right to take anything from you

or to obstruct you. These are two people who

are not prisoners; they are simply

normal, fully entitled citizens

of the Russian Federation. One of them has

epaulettes, the other does not, but nevertheless

you were absolutely within your

full rights; they acted

lawlessly. I agree with that, I agree.

I agree with that. Thank you very much.

Alexei, and now we will move on to another

topic. I have been asked a lot here

specifically about Tumso and

this very, very well-known Chechen

blogger who was attacked.

The video about it is actually being blocked by

many YouTube channels, but nevertheless

I will show a few seconds of it in fragments—here is

this strange video from which we

learned that the attack had taken place. Thank you

very much, thank you very much, Alexei, for

coming and telling us. Who sent you?

Where are you from? How did I end up here? How

did he get my address? How did I manage not to kill

you? You came with this hammer to hit me

on the head, to scare me? What about your mother?

As you can see, this is a rather strange

and chaotic video involving Tumso

Tumso Abdurakhmanov. Tumso is

the most famous Chechen video blogger,

a man who was forced to flee

Chechnya and who is, in effect, truly

Kadyrov’s personal enemy.

Kadyrov’s close associate by the name of

Delimkhanov publicly declared a blood feud

against him.

And now we see that, in Poland, where Tumso lives,

someone got into his home there

and struck him on the head

with a hammer, judging by what

is happening. But we have not yet been able to get in touch

with Tumso.

Apparently, some kind of fight broke out there.

At the moment, that person has been arrested, and Tumso

is in the hospital. About the man

who attacked him, as we hear, he

says something like:

“They told me where your address is. They have

your mother, and they have my mother,” and

all of this looks very strange. But looking

at what is happening, there is not the slightest

doubt, honestly, that these people,

who, for some strange reason,

are called public officials and live on

our money and the money of Chechnya’s residents, and

sit in their offices, they

still have not given up trying

to silence this man. Therefore,

of course, I would certainly like to express

my solidarity with him. Forty-nine thousand people are

watching live. Daniya asks me

what I think about the latest

interview with Sobol. I think it is an excellent interview

on Irina Shikhman’s channel

“A pogovorit?” (“And to Talk?”). It already has more than

a million views—be sure to watch it.

It is an interesting, interesting video.

Here I am also being asked for a comment on Putin’s words.

I will talk about that now. Will there be a video

with a detailed breakdown of the constitutional amendments?

Valery is asking me that.

Anomaliya and

“Russia Will Be Free” asks me

what is the best way to handle the April 22 vote:

not go, or vote against?

I think we will, of course, make such a

video about the vote. But as I have

already said, the main idea regarding this

vote is simply not to recognize it in

any form. I mean, what is happening now

is just complete trash, really, and

today Ella Pamfilova stated that

there will be virtually unlimited

home voting, there will be

virtually unlimited voting outside

polling stations, there will be no

observers there, and observers

will be sent only by the Civic

Chamber.

And today it was already announced that there will be no

turnout threshold. In a referendum,

it is supposed to work like this:

no fewer than half of Russia’s citizens

must take part in the vote; then everything is considered

adopted. Here they are abolishing the threshold, well,

because—because all of this is very strange.

And, by the way, here's another thought.

An important point, it seems to me, is this:

a few words about the coronavirus in Russia.

And what our authorities are doing now—

look at any country right now:

they are canceling mass events, concerts,

canceling any large public gatherings.

They are canceling them because, well, this is escalating—

the coronavirus epidemic itself is growing,

and the number of people infected is getting larger

and larger and larger. And only in Russia are they apparently

planning to actually organize

a mass event where as many

people as possible will come into contact with other

people. You know that from the coronavirus,

it is elderly people who die first and foremost—exactly

the same people who usually go to all these

votes, whether normal ones or

idiotic ones like this one. So,

quite apart from the fact that this is an absolutely illegal

thing that we should not recognize,

and you can refuse to recognize it by voting

no, or you can refuse to recognize it by simply not

going there at all. I just wanted

to draw attention to the fact that this whole

thing is being done so that

Putin can give himself more powers, but in doing so

he is putting

millions of people at risk.

Because if the coronavirus continues

to spread at this pace, and we

go ahead in April—on April 22, as planned—

and simply hold

a mass gathering of citizens, herding

half the country together, then that will simply be

a crime against its own people.

Someone will say: but there is no coronavirus in Russia.

Just look—every country

right now

is recording more and more

cases, thousands of people,

dozens—you can see the map yourselves—and yet

only in Russia

there are officially just seven cases. How can that

possibly be? Many people think maybe

it is because we are some faraway country

somewhere off in the middle of nowhere, with no

such transport links. Or maybe

who knows, perhaps because of some kind of

especially good healthcare.

But I will tell you this: that figure of seven

should fool no one. It is that

small because in Russia they are not

detecting it—they simply are not diagnosing it.

Our authorities lie constantly, and they are lying about the

coronavirus too. Today I saw

a great post written by Yevgeny

Berg on Facebook. He recently

returned from Iran. You know that flights to Iran are now being

suspended because

there are, well, a lot of people there

who are getting sick with the coronavirus. Berg writes:

"Please repost this.

I came back from Iran and, just in case,

wanted to get tested for the coronavirus. Nowhere

can you get tested. If you want

to try the same thing, you won't be able

to get tested for the coronavirus,

because they simply will not let you

do it. Officially, here, I just

sat there and googled how to get tested

for the coronavirus: only with a doctor's referral

and only if you have symptoms. And I am more than sure

the doctor will not refer you,

and those symptoms will not be acknowledged, because

for some reason—God knows why—our authorities are

covering this up. I genuinely do not know why they

are doing it. More than that, our authorities are doing

some super strange things. For example,

you have heard a million times that we closed

the border with China and restricted

air traffic with China. And, I think starting next

week, we are also restricting

air traffic with Italy, because

Italy also has a lot of coronavirus cases. Please go

right now, just as I did

today, to the Sheremetyevo website, and you will

see that even today there are flights

arriving from China. It is all there in plain sight.

And there are still plenty of flights

flying to Italy as well,

and to Iran. The thing is that, as

usual, it is corruption: when our authorities

say that they are restricting

air traffic, what that actually means is that they

ban everyone from flying except

Aeroflot. Aeroflot continues

these flights, and Chinese travelers keep flying calmly

into Russia, and then onward through Russia.

And, amazingly enough—those of you who have been to

Sheremetyevo know how all this

is set up—the old terminal, what used to be called

Sheremetyevo-2, Terminal F,

was set aside only for those arriving from

China. And now it has also been set aside for those

arriving from Italy. That means

if you fly from Italy to

Moscow, you will arrive at the coronavirus

terminal, where only

Chinese arrivals were being sent. I mean, that is a rather

questionable decision. After all, we understand that

the risk of returning

from Italy with the coronavirus is much

lower than from China. But when you are

brought specifically to the terminal where

people from China arrive, the likelihood

of infection only increases. But the most

absurd thing happening is that

the Moscow authorities, somewhere on

public transport,

are stopping unfortunate Chinese people—or people who look

Chinese, along with Yakuts, Buryats (ethnic groups from Russia),

Koreans, and basically everyone else—and

start checking them somewhere on buses

for the coronavirus. But that is nonsense.

Here, in the office next to ours, and generally

in ordinary daily life, when I

walk through these hallways here...

I most often run into Chinese people because

the huge office next door is rented by Chinese tenants,

but they live here, they go about their business,

and these Chinese people

aren't flying into

Moscow by plane every day, so why the hell are you

engaging in this nonsense and rounding them up

on public transport? On the one hand,

and on the other hand, you don't allow

anyone to get tested for

coronavirus. Still, all of this looks

absolutely hellish and absurd, but in terms of

sheer absurdity it very much

reminds me of that now-famous, millions-of-views

video—you've probably seen it too—

from Iran, where the local deputy head of

the Health Ministry

was responsible for coronavirus, he had met with

patients who had coronavirus, and

he held a press conference where he

was talking about coronavirus, while he

was obviously sick with coronavirus himself,

and you could see he was about to faint any second.

Let's watch 30 seconds of it.

magnum bedu na angl chto-nibud v

razvedke chastymi bokala piva Baltika

tumba subbota 2 3 da dias sharpu

What a brilliant idea: catch coronavirus,

call a press conference,

seat journalists right next to you,

put the minister beside you while he's practically dying

of coronavirus, and while dabbing yourself with a tissue

tell everyone about all these supposedly

great measures you're taking against

the virus. The actions of our authorities really do

actually

look a lot like that. I

want, as far as coronavirus is concerned,

to tell a personal story, as an example

of how these things go undiagnosed.

Maybe some of you

remember that in 2009 there was an even larger-scale

epidemic of the so-called

swine flu.

Back then, the World Health Organization

actually declared it a pandemic, not just

an epidemic—meaning it was treated as

something genuinely dangerous. And of course,

coronavirus now does seem, in terms of

mortality, to be more dangerous than swine flu was then,

but everyone was very worried back then too. At that time

I was living in Kirov Oblast (a region in Russia),

where I worked as an adviser to the governor,

and in Kirov Oblast back then

roughly the same thing happened as is happening in

Moscow now: some number of

Vietnamese people were detained in a dormitory,

they found swine flu among them, and on

television they talked about it nonstop, all the

media were broadcasting it.

What horror, my God, they said—obviously

the entire Health Ministry was in an uproar, and everyone

was endlessly discussing how

these Vietnamese people were going to infect us all

with swine flu. At the same time,

my kids came home from school sick; my son

got sick too, though he wasn't even in school yet.

Dasha got sick as well, and with the flu quite

badly—she almost

fainted once—and my wife got sick too.

The flu wasn't going away, and of course

we kept joking endlessly that it was swine

flu, ha ha. Then we went to the

hospital and got tested simply for flu—

to find out what type of flu it was. The doctor came out and

said, "You've tested positive for—what was it called again—

the other name for it—

H1N1, swine flu." Naturally, Yulia and I were

just in shock, and we thought

that any moment the sirens would start flashing,

some people in full protective gear would show up,

in gowns and

hazmat suits, take us away somewhere,

and put all our children into

a sealed isolation unit so that we wouldn't

spread swine flu any further. And where had

we even caught it? I mean,

obviously the kids brought it home from school, but

the doctors said, "Everyone has it now." We asked,

"What do you mean, everyone?"

"Well, we just don't test everyone,

so we don't diagnose it in anyone.

Because if right now half the region

and everyone living around here went

to get tested in order

to determine what kind of flu they had,

it would turn out that we have a great many people

sick with swine flu, and we don't want

to do that. So the result is that

it looks as if everyone just has the regular flu." So

I think that now—I don't want to

scare anyone—and coronavirus does seem

to be, as they say now, quite dangerous; it has

a fairly high mortality rate, but it's

still around 2 percent. It's very dangerous for

older people; for younger people with

strong immune systems it doesn't seem to be as

dangerous. But what our authorities are doing is, in my view, completely

wrong,

and what I would like to draw everyone's

attention to is this: they are clearly lying. They are lying in order

to say that Russia does not have

large numbers of coronavirus cases, probably

including so they can go ahead with

their idiotic

vote and not frighten older

people.

But nothing good will come of this. On the

one hand, they are simply lying; on the other

hand, they are staging this whole show

where they detain someone here and there, like

this man was saying—a Chinese man

who has lived in Russia for a long time—how

police came to his home, some kind of

protective suits on. Let's watch a few

seconds of that.

Police came to my home in Moscow, and not one of them

even checked—this is all happening right next to...

They took the form and photographed everything.

They checked everything, all the documents, of course.

It's awkward, not really very pleasant because of the whole situation.

I still don't know when I'll be able to go home.

The others, on the contrary, are all going.

For example, right now they live in Moscow, and...

They only banned it temporarily—send it here.

others.

They can travel here freely, and they left.

Right now it's more dangerous at the moment, both in terms of cost and...

than for Chinese people here and there—that is, really...

They're doing idiotic things; it's unacceptable.

They stage show raids: they find an address like Building 8/15...

Apartment 23, a Chinese person lives there—attention, we're going.

to check on this Chinese person, while at the same time...

Aeroflot carries tens of thousands; our country...

simply has thousands of these Chinese people every single...

day at Sheremetyevo (Moscow's major international airport), and they disperse wherever...

they want, and at the same time—and what's worst...

the worst part is that here it's impossible to get tested for...

this.

to detect the coronavirus. That's what I'm talking about...

I'm saying this so that our Ministry of Health...

would stop dragging its feet and finally make it...

accessible and possible so that everyone...

could go and quickly get checked for...

coronavirus, because right now the map...

is terrible—Russia looks good on that map...

with the number 7, but that only makes it worse...

for us, because this is...

because later, someday, God forbid, if...

things get worse, we'll see the real...

situation, and we'll all simply be in a state...

of shock at how many people actually...

are carriers of it.

It's better to know the truth about the coronavirus right...

now than to faint later. I...

I started by saying that in pro-Putin media...

this week they called me a person...

who hates artists-turned-politicians, and...

there are more and more of these artist-politicians...

all the time, and Sergei Shnurov, whom I...

talked about last time, has raised his...

banner for people who decided, for money...

to help Vladimir Putin, and singer...

Valeriya joined that banner—or rather...

not singer Valeriya, but Iosif Prigozhin—well...

this strange bald guy who...

really loves talking all kinds of nonsense on...

political topics.

Apparently he grabbed his singer, Valeriya, and...

dragged her off into some election campaign, while...

all of this is called the party of Strong...

Women.

It's absolutely hilarious, but at the same...

time it was announced that singer Valeriya...

is creating the Strong Women party. Then...

it was announced that the Strong Women party would not...

defend certain people who...

appeared in a Rammstein video, or someone else...

it won't support some, but it will defend others, and...

there's a lot of assorted information about the Strong...

Women party, and...

the best thing about...

the Strong Women party is that all the statements...

from the very first one—from the announcement of its creation to...

various technical statements...

are made by singer Valeriya's husband. In other words, the husband...

of the party leader tells us everything about...

what is happening in the Strong Women party...

and it's just...

it really is hilarious. But I...

wonder—do they seriously...

think they'll find idiots who...

are actually ready to vote for something like this? Well...

apparently they're going to look hard for them. As for...

Shnur's tweets, I would like...

to address him once again: Sergei...

if you're being held hostage and...

someone is forcing you to do something, then at every...

opportunity, blink—or at least on Instagram...

write something in code and we'll come running to...

save you, because what Sergei Shnurov is doing now...

is so disgusting—there's no other...

word for it. But at least we...

thought they'd pay him some $10 million...

and now he'd energetically...

strip down to his underwear and tour the cities...

playing his greatest hits and bring...

young people out to vote.

They'd get that, and we'd get three or four...

percent and help the Party of Growth of Russia, but...

instead of staying...

in his underwear with a guitar...

Sergei Shnurov put on a jacket, a turtleneck...

square politician's glasses, and travels around...

the cities helping this nightmarish...

thing.

which is called businessman Titov.

Let's watch the video. They came to...

Chelyabinsk. In Chelyabinsk, the city there is...

also monstrously polluted, and Titov...

got some pitiful number of votes there in...

the elections—he's terribly unpopular in Chelyabinsk...

because he supported the construction...

he was one of the few politicians who...

spoke in favor of building the Tominsky...

mining and processing plant, which would poison all the water in...

Chelyabinsk. I myself spoke twice at...

rallies against it.

That plant in Chelyabinsk—the whole city there...

hates this construction project.

And this project is still being carried out by...

one of Russia's most corrupt oligarchs...

it belongs to an offshore company, nobody will get a...

single kopeck from it, but everyone's water will be poisoned, and they...

show up there—my God, just let us...

watch a few seconds of how a cool...

musician, seemingly cheerful and lively...

guy...

can turn into some kind of...

I don't even know—some dreary, dull bureaucratic...

creature that sits there and tells residents, well...

you give me the facts, and I'll deal with the facts...

Shnurov has become a politician. Let's...

take a look. Of course, I will pay attention...

to Chelyabinsk's environmental problems...

but for that I need the facts. Why do I...

I wrote a poem, and quite a successful one, about

Krasnoyarsk, because I was sent

many, many, many messages

My point of view here has always been

pragmatic: right now you are fighting against

the imposition of technologically advanced factories, those

new factories.

They already use completely different technology.

Or free output... one hundred... you have

a complete...

all of this was built a hundred years ago, all these

metallurgical enterprises.

That was what I was getting at.

[music]

Give us the facts, let’s speak

specifically about this. Back then I spoke in favor of

the idea that a new enterprise is better than an old one.

This is very... you see, so give us

the facts. A man comes and tries to prove to

residents that a new, wonderful

excellent, high-tech

mining and processing plant

will have a great effect on the health of the residents

of Chelyabinsk, and Shnurov (Sergey Shnurov, frontman of the band Leningrad) is sitting there saying something

and rambling on—give me the facts.

I wrote about Krasnoyarsk; I’ll write

a poem about you too. Sergey put on a suit

—why are you doing this? It’s just

truly shameful, completely disgraceful.

Someone must have found him—I don’t know, there must have been a lot of money involved.

From someone, some politician of ours, whoever it was.

I don’t know, something more interesting. Well, we do not

have large financial

resources—probably very large ones are needed, because

as is well known, for a concert by the band Leningrad

they charge €100,000 for a single performance

at a corporate event, so Shnur (Shnurov) must have been paid a lot of

money. I don’t even know how much he was

paid for these minutes of shame

that Chelyabinsk had to endure because of him.

By the way, did you notice the hall?

They show it, and there’s almost no one there. I mean,

basically almost no one had even arrived yet

for that pathetic spectacle.

So yes, absolutely, I will condemn it, and

I urge all of you to condemn those

artists

—I don’t know, shame them and call them out for

selling out and engaging in this

filth.

If Shnurov himself had gone into

politics, if he had some

political views and stated them, and

was actively backing them—great, good for him, we’d

kiss you for it and even vote for you.

But good Lord, to sit there with that title

and keep telling us, “Give us the facts, we

will consider your request,”

“Write to us and we will

respond within 30 days”

—what a disgrace.

Absolutely dreadful, just some kind of nightmare, and

dreary. So, Daniil asks me:

2,500 people are watching us live.

Thank you very much. I want to remind you once again

that, guys, please

subscribe to the channel, because a lot of you

are watching, but half of you

are not subscribed to the channel. Please subscribe.

Please don’t forget the link.

Daniil continues, asking whom

I would comment on regarding the situation with

Putin and his opinion on rallies and

protesters. This really is a classic

lie and hypocrisy—what Putin said in

his recent interview with TASS (Russian state news agency), where he gave

a big interview, stylishly filmed as they see it,

with all these different camera angles,

all in black and white. They cut it into pieces

and are releasing it piece by piece, and today a segment came out

—or maybe yesterday—where Putin

says that, no, there’s no problem if, like,

it’s an unauthorized rally and some woman there

gets beaten up—well, that’s normal, she

came out to an unauthorized protest, so she

can be beaten. Let’s first look at the

situation in which

a riot police officer beats a woman—a young girl—in the stomach.

Young.

[applause]

I mean, anyone watching this

video says: “What a brute, in that

helmet of his.” I mean, he simply hit

the girl for his own sadistic pleasure.

He hit her with his glove. Anyone who has seen them up close

—the gloves used by the National Guard (Rosgvardiya)—

it may look like just a black glove, but they have

plastic or metal plates in them.

That is intentional.

So it is effectively brass knuckles, and he struck her

in the stomach. And when Putin is asked about it, he

says, well, if you came out to

an unauthorized rally, then let them beat you. Let’s listen to Putin’s answer.

Let’s listen to Putin’s response.

No one is beating any citizens.

No one is simply beating anyone.

No, no. If people

act within the framework of the existing procedures,

rules, and laws, then no one will be swinging

batons at them; on the contrary, they should be protected.

Watch the video to the end—right under the ribs.

And afterward they somehow can’t find who dared to do it.

He is obviously talking here about

so-called unauthorized actions, yes.

Well then, get authorization and go

express your point of view. After all,

you understand, there is the internet and

the mass media, including

opposition media—they will come wherever you

are.

Wherever you are, wherever you

go, wherever they gather in order to

express their dissatisfaction with the current

government, with the help of the internet and

the media, this will be conveyed in two

minutes to millions. So then why

block street traffic in order to

provoke action by the security forces?

the agencies so they could help out with batons and

then so that you would ask me about it in

that is the point

there is no other point than to keep saying that they

are these so-called heroes, and that in the same district they

will defend the interests of citizens, and if

they make it into government and administrative bodies

criticizing the authorities in order to convince

the voter that these are exactly the people

who are needed—that alone is not enough

there absolutely must be a positive, constructive

program somehow—on that machine, that code

on

models—that is good, but it is not enough

to effectively develop

the country. What a liar, just absolutely

a brazen, disgusting liar and hypocrite

Putin is certainly a kind of king of lies, and

lying is the main instrument

of his rule, and it really is

that kind of tactic, when you lie completely

shamelessly to people’s faces, and many people simply

are left stunned

they cannot even find anything to say

because how can you possibly lie like that

he says it is not enough simply to criticize

the authorities; a positive program is needed

candidates went into the elections with that positive program

but they were not allowed onto the ballot

then they wrote those idiotic

applications to hold rallies, and you

did not authorize the rallies

near city hall, by the detention center, these

people were beaten, and now you say, well, how

did that happen—get a piece of paper, get official approval

get approval. I submitted a request for permission for

a rally, for example, on Tverskaya Street (a central Moscow street), many

times, and I got permission. United Russia

or pro-Putin trade unions constantly

use Tverskaya Street with no problem at all; for us

they give no permissions whatsoever, and they do not allow us to take part in elections

and then Putin says, well,

the opposition media

and the internet can speak freely

express themselves freely. Zhdanov is being tried right now

in a criminal case, the director of FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation), for

what—for the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*

and Putin sits there and brazenly lies to people’s faces about what kind of

agenda we have, what kind of—well, all of it

so of course, I mean, this, this

lie simply has to be dragged out into the open, it needs to

be exposed endlessly, and we need to

simply—not get tired, guys, and

talk to people about this

because Putin never stops lying

several times a year he holds live call-in shows

and on them, on those shows, every

single day he has several TV channels

that lie every single day, and it

starts to seem to you like there is no need to

keep repeating the same thing—about that

girl who was hit, about the right

to protest, about our right to vote

as if everyone already knows. They do not know. He is in an endless

offensive

and they are washing people’s brains; we need

to try at least a little, at least

just a bit, to open their eyes, and in

that sense we can act

effectively. I have a huge

number of questions here. I see: Alexei,

please comment on the rebranding of United

Russia. This is from Viktor Medved.

My comment is this:

Viktor Medved, you have simply defeated

United Russia. What irony: you are Medved ("bear"),

and they are the bears of United Russia, and now they

need rebranding because we, together,

through our joint efforts, destroyed this

vile party of crooks and thieves. Unfortunately,

not as a political structure in a formal sense, but seeing

such minimal public support, we

destroyed it. Nobody wants to vote for

United Russia; only through falsification and

only with a small number of their loyal

pensioner voters can they still get anywhere

in elections

otherwise, nobody wants to vote for it, and

that is certainly why, back in 2011, we launched this

campaign: vote for any party against

United Russia, the party of crooks and thieves, and

many people were already telling me, you know, enough already

with your constant talk about the party of crooks and

thieves, blah blah blah, United Russia, blah blah blah, in

every video—but you see, we kept at it, and

we reached the point where

Putin, with all his machine, with all

his armor, does not have a party with which

he can go into an election and win a majority

that is why they are now thinking about rebranding

about how to change the party, how, how

to make it so that this party could

attract young people, how to make it so that

when people hear the name of this party, they do not

feel irritated, because right now, let us say,

even any notional pro-Putin

person whose brain has been washed—if you say

United Russia, he will simply start

swearing under his breath or even out loud

because everyone hates United Russia, and

you and I made a huge contribution to that

a huge contribution. A great video, absolutely

I saw it

from one of the victims of our work—

Metelsky, the leader of United Russia in Moscow

whom we, once again through joint

efforts, kicked out of the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament)

he is now putting on various TV shows

including cooking shows, where he talks about

what a great

party United Russia really is

and how bad we are. But it is satisfying

to watch the trajectory of this disgusting

lying United Russia politician, who likewise

lied for years and thought he would be in

the Duma forever, and that we were just some kind of internet marginals

from the internet, nobodies—and yet

we kicked him out

and all he has left now is to somehow

act like some kind of weirdo

because of their poor command of the language, the youth

public chamber members were herded in to feed people nonsense

(literally, “hang noodles on their ears”) and there they stand, nodding

their heads, while thinking to themselves: you’re a disgusting

liar. Let’s look at the main thing.

The key quality, they say, is telling the truth. I

always tell everyone the truth, whether they like it

or not. If someone doesn’t like it, I say it straight away:

this is the truth, this is how it is, and this is how it will be.

If you want, come with us. If you don’t, fine.

We decided it was beneath our dignity to be with United

Russia. We worked a little and now we’ll run

as independents. We thought our strength lay

in intellect and argument, that we would still persuade

Muscovites that what matters is not

which political party you come from today,

but what matters is whether you can bring any benefit

to Moscow. That’s the whole point.

That’s why we took all our candidates and

sent them into the election as independents.

In fact, what is happening now

in the Moscow City Duma is a vivid example of

what happens when the opposition first

says one thing, and then, when it comes to

power, does something completely different. There will be no

United Russia—believe me, there will be no country without it,

Whenever unpopular

decisions have to be made, it’s United Russia; but whenever

something is very good, sweet, and

pleasant, then that’s supposedly us, while our

opponents—I think that if

Navalny, with his investigations, were in

America, he would have been in jail long ago, seriously

locked up, because he would have had

to answer for everything, quite simply. But

here, unfortunately, it turns out that you

can do whatever you want on our

internet—you can insult

yourself, your friend, your enemy, whoever you want,

and there’s no real accountability for it. This

wonderful sound effect, when at the words

“Navalny should not be in prison,”

my photo popped up with that kind of sneer—

that was their sound effect. On our behalf, we

made that kind of creative jab at United Russia, but

there also stands a harmful United Russia member,

who owns hotels in Austria—we proved it—

and there he is with some people around him,

telling us: “I believe the main thing in life

is to tell the truth.” Honestly, it’s a wonder no one

lost control, picked up some of that

filth they had prepared, and simply

threw it in his brazen face. And when

he’s there saying, just casually, well,

“United Russia is such a good party,”

“without United Russia there will be no

Russia at all”—well, fine, great that he’s lying

like that while standing there stuffing himself

with doughnuts.

And he sits on the presidium of the Moscow City Duma,

and now I see that Daniil is asking me

a question: “Alexei, what do you think—

is the rebranding of United Russia connected to the success

of Smart Voting?” Of course it is connected.

There is unquestionably a direct link.

Together, we destroyed United Russia’s

approval rating. We organized voting for

other candidates, and that is why they are now

inventing a new party. By the way, in the

description there is a link to Smart

Voting, which we will continue

to develop and use in the new

elections that will take place this, this

September.

What you need to understand is that they will create a new

party. And what is our task? To destroy this

new party. In some ways our task

will be easier: Putin has been in power for 20 years,

and no one needs to prove anymore that he has

run everything into the ground. In another sense, the task will

be harder, because they will bring in new

people, put forward exactly the sort of people—I don’t know,

again,

other singers, musicians, and so on—

who will then say to us, “Guys,

but we’re normal, we’re honest, we’re

even against United Russia. We came here

from—whatever they call it there—and

just yesterday we were playing the piano. We haven’t

stolen anything, we haven’t done anything bad.” But

we really need, just as ruthlessly,

from the very first moment,

to destroy the approval rating of this

clone party, because it is a clone of United

Russia, a duplicate, and people need this

explained to them—broadly, to the public.

People love discussing doubles, especially

Putin’s, so at last Putin was asked a question

about body doubles, and it was

quite amusing. Let’s watch. Putin:

“Body double? There is no real evidence,

and there never has been. No. But the topic did come up.”

“Yes, it did come up, and I refused.”

“That was in the hardest

times of the fight against terrorism, that is,

the early 2000s.”

So, they asked whether a stand-in would travel where things were dangerous.

For us,

he would go and appear there—but no.

In the hardest years of the 2000s, when,

you understand, bullets were whistling overhead,

Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin’s patronymic-based form of address) refused

to use a double.

This is one of the most persistent myths, but I still

think it is a myth. I do not believe that Putin has

any

body doubles—body doubles who talk.

When you see this photograph,

it really does look like a before-and-after.

People look at one in particular, but there is also

this well-known

large photo—bring it up and let’s show it—

where they even assigned specific names

to all these doubles; it’s all quite

an endless joke on the internet:

“the Udmurt,” “the banquet one,” “the talker,” and so on.

It really does look like different people.

Absolutely.

But his explanation, it seems to me, about

comes down to the idea that Vladimir Putin

is into plastic surgery and, as we can

see, quite effectively. In other words,

the guy who is the original, here in this

photograph, looks, frankly speaking,

much worse than the newer,

upgraded Putin. But in that sense,

well, in the end, there doesn’t seem to be

anything especially bad about it, because he

is just tweaking his appearance a little.

He simply started having plastic

surgery; sometimes he may get a little

swollen or something, so he looks

a bit different from time to time. But this is

without a doubt the same person, I think.

I think they do use stand-ins, but not

in situations where he has to speak, of course—only where that’s not required.

There’s no such thing as several different people

showing up—one arrives, another sits at the banquet,

at events like that, and so on.

It’s more like sometimes they bring out a

newer-looking one instead of some kind of

worn-out old one—that sort of thing.

That does happen. But of course, the secrecy of

the authorities,

and of course the fact that this government

lies endlessly, actively

feeds these myths. To wrap up the program,

I want to say: 53,000 people are watching live right now, and

I’ve been hosting for almost two hours already, so I’ve probably

become pretty tiresome by now, but still,

I want to end with one more clip from Putin’s interview,

which irritated me a bit, because

in it he talks about how

doctors in particular—but for now we’re talking about

doctors. According to Putin, it’s apparently a perfectly fine idea

for the motherland to decide for you,

sonny, where exactly you’re supposed to work, because

after all, the beautiful, mysterious motherland

—the state—

paid for you, it

bestowed its favor on you, fed you

and watered you, and

therefore now it will demand from you

that you work where you’re told to.

You’re supposed to work. Let’s take a look at this

what seems to me, generally, to be a rather

brazen statement: the state should

create conditions that

attract

top-class specialists. There are two

ways, basically: either you close things off and

say, “don’t let them leave,” grab people and keep them from going,

burdening them with additional

obligations—like, once you’ve received higher

education, you can’t leave,

you have to work here, you have to do

this and that, or else pay the money back,

and so on. That’s what is being proposed

in healthcare. Or else

the labor market should sort it out on its own, or in general,

if a person studied

at the state’s expense, they should work it off

or pay the money back—that’s one of the

proposals.

So, overall, do you see this as

a possible option? It is possible if

it is clear to the person—fine, why not?

But if you study at your own expense,

you have the right to go anywhere and

work wherever you want. But if you study at

the state’s expense, especially under a targeted

program, when a region is paying for you

in the hope that you’ll come back—well, that too

is fair enough. If you don’t want to work there

and you’re not fulfilling the contract, then pay

the money back.

How interesting: if the state pays for you,

if you’re simply an excellent student,

you graduate with good grades, you got in,

the budget pays for you—then you are supposed to

work wherever this

wonderful great state orders you to?

Here’s a question: where did that very

state get the money from? I have a