Nightmare in Chechnya and Dagestan, doctors and Vladimir Obeshchalkin, Medvedev’s yacht on Avito (a Russian classifieds site)

[music]

Good evening, everyone. It is exactly 8:00 p.m. in Moscow.

That means that if today is Thursday,

then the program *Russia of the Future* is live on air,

and I am its permanent host,

Alexei Navalny, or the man who,

as various Kremlin media outlets said this week,

risks losing his main source

of funding.

So that I do not lose my main

source of funding, please do not forget

to stop by and click

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a friend of our channel. There is also

a link through which you can send

all sorts of little ducks and funny pictures. We

have a new set of all these

things there that you can send across

the screen, and with every little duck

a few of your rubles flow into our

coffers. And that lets us keep this

program going. And please write to me

on Twitter with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture with your

questions, suggest topics, voice

complaints, and so on. And today we

have a lot to discuss, as

usual, really. I do not know how long it

will take—three, two hours, or less, or more.

We will see. We will go with the flow.

I will gauge it by how much you

are watching. Those who came on time, I will

treat to a very cool document right

off the bat. This document really

does a great job of, first, putting everything

in its proper place—showing who is who in today’s

Russia—and second, it gives a straightforward

instruction manual for action for everyone. If

you want to achieve something—whether to stop construction

from happening, or to make sure wages are paid, or

to get candidates registered, or whatever

else—there is a direct instruction there.

Although it is not some

telegram from the Washington obkom (a sarcastic Soviet-style reference to an alleged foreign command center), and it is not a secret

manual on how to carry out orange

revolutions. It is a letter from the Minister

of Ecology of the Moscow Region. The thing is,

that in the Ruzsky District—for those who do not live

in the Moscow Region and do not really know

it, there is such a district called Ruzsky.

It is not the near suburbs of Moscow, but it is the kind of place with

an elite reputation, good ecology, and where land

is fairly expensive. And so the minister

of ecology for the Moscow Region

is coordinating with Governor Vorobyov,

a billionaire, well known,

a notorious election rigger, and generally a kind of

mafioso, the location for sand

quarries. Well, they need to make

sand quarries. You understand perfectly well that

nobody wants a sand quarry built next to their

dacha (country house). And the way they choose

where to build

and dig out that sand quarry,

and where it cannot be done, is explained by

the Moscow Region’s ecology minister. Look,

he writes to the governor that in this

particular place he is issuing a negative

opinion. Construction is not allowed there because,

please show this document,

part of the population has high social

status and wealth. In other words,

he says outright that you cannot build

in this place because

rich people live there. In addition,

apparently some officials live there too, a couple of

bureaucrats, so building here

is not allowed. Wealthy people, high social

status. And where can they build? That is on the second

page of this letter. It says directly

that mineral extraction can be carried out

where there is low protest

activity among the population. That is, if you

do not make a fuss, do not go to rallies, do not

write open letters—in other words,

if you simply do not do the things that

the authorities really dislike—then right next to

your home they will build a sand quarry.

And this really is a very

important description of what

is happening in Russia. And probably some of you

are thinking right now: “Well yes,

we have seen what those dachas

look like. I am not an oligarch, but

I have a decent dacha, two or three

stories. I drive there in a foreign car, while

over there there are these places where some

drunks have put up little shacks, maybe

or they just have vegetable gardens and

greenhouses. So of course it makes sense that

it is better to build a sand quarry there,

knock down all those ramshackle huts, and

put something there, build something, right?”

But the thing is that those

greenhouses, compared with you, are a

shack. And your own little house, the one you

drive to in your foreign car, bought on

credit—or even not on credit—is also

just a shack compared with

Rotenberg, compared with any

official whatsoever, compared

with simply any rich person at all.

That is exactly how the system works.

They simply look at wealth,

high social status. So if, say,

I do not know, some

buddy of our governor Vorobyov,

Shoigu, or that whole prosecutorial

mafia, just needs some space, you know, at the

dacha. “We decided to ride ATVs, so

we need a couple of hectares of open land,”

then they will demolish your place, relocate you, or

simply deny you any permits for anything.

And that is because they have

high social status, while you

have nothing. And on top of that, you have low

protest activity. So, my friends,

in order to

achieve at least something, you need high

protest activity. It is absolutely not

guaranteed in our country that if

you have strong protest activity, you

will definitely get your way. But

it is guaranteed that if there is no

protest activity, you will get 0

rubles, 0 kopeks. In other words, you’ll get a dump,

a landfill nearby, a sand quarry, and so

on, and so on, and so on. Remember

that. Today we’re going to discuss, uh, many topics

that, as usual, in fact

as always, require a high level of

protest activity. 40,000 people

are watching us live. Great.

Send, I repeat, your questions with

the hashtag Russia of the Future on Twitter. They

will be put up for me, and I’ll

answer them. And below there’s a button to become

a sponsor of our channel. There is also

a button, uh, a link you can

click and send all sorts of ducks

and Medvedevs. I think Simonyan is there too

among the newer ones, and Mishustin. They can also

be put on screen, and they’ll be

hovering here on my screen. There are a lot of, uh, sort of

snarky questions for me. So

well then, Alexei, what do you think about the fact that

Maria Zakharova was given the Order of Honor? There are lots

of jokes about this, that Maria Zakharova was

awarded the Order of Honor for winning the

debate against me. Well, actually,

that’s exactly what it is. It’s a pattern

of behavior. It’s not even just some kind of

joke in the Kremlin, like, let’s

award her because, well, you know,

Navalny went after her, and she got torn apart

on social media. Even the association

of travel agencies is writing her huge

letters, there are thousands of signatures, tens

of thousands collected demanding her

resignation. I mean, this person is genuinely

bringing disgrace on the country, both by

her behavior and her stupidity, however

you want to put it, a real disgrace, an embarrassment. And they

award her the Order of Honor right

now. Why? Because this is what they

always do. Let’s remember how this

works. There have been many such cases. Let me

just remind you. Geremeyev, remember

Geremeyev, from the

Federation Council, was awarded on the day of the

fifth anniversary of Boris Nemtsov’s murder, although,

well, you know very well, I personally believe

that his nephew, Geremeyev’s nephew, and obviously

the elder Geremeyev, were involved in all of this. He,

uh, I mean, even from the case materials

everything points to the fact that he was one of the

organizers of this murder. And they

knew perfectly well that the fifth anniversary of the

murder was coming. And everyone on social media would be writing

how outrageous it is that even Geremeyev wasn’t

questioned, the organizers weren’t found,

the masterminds weren’t found, everyone would be furious.

And specifically on that day, they demonstratively

support their own. The same goes for Maria

Zakharova. Precisely because she is being criticized on

Twitter, precisely because, well, it’s hard

to find a person in the country who would

look at Maria Zakharova in any way other than

like this and say: "Horrible, horrible, horrible."

It is very important for them to support her because,

well, basically, she does what her

she just lies endlessly, yes, she

lies in a deeply shameful way, but she is ready

to serve them, uh, in absolutely any way and do

whatever is required and endure any humiliation,

for the sake of her superiors’ interests.

That is why it is so important to award her the Order

of Honor with the wording: for implementing

the foreign policy course and for many years of

conscientious diplomatic service.

It’s funny to us. Funny. It’s shameful for us to

look at this. It’s shameful for us to look at this. But

for Putin, this is very important. Let me give one more

example. Remember there was

Yakunin, the head of Russian Railways. Some of you may

have forgotten. And how much time we at FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) spent

on this man? My God, the biggest

chart that ever hung

on our office wall was a chart

of Yakunin’s offshore empire. It was

enormous. We printed it on several printers,

uh, photographed it, released film after film

about him endlessly. I mean,

we took his whole empire apart

piece by piece. He was the head of Russian Railways, a very

powerful man; nothing could

be done to him. In 2013

we released an investigation about him, and he was

awarded the Order of Friendship for his

labor achievements and many years of

conscientious work. Demonstratively.

So, we lay out all the

irrefutable evidence that

the man simply stole everything. Simply everything

at Russian Railways. The famous fur storage room.

Where did that come from? Remember Yakunin? Well,

in his enormous estate in Akulinin

there was a special little room that on the

floor plan was marked as: a room with

refrigerators, a fur storage room. Because

fur coats have to be kept cold so that

their, you know, little bits of fur

from these killed animals would stand up and

look beautiful, smooth, and shiny. And,

I mean, so he too was specially,

demonstratively awarded, like yes,

of course, Navalny came after you,

millions of people saw it,

everyone is outraged, everyone at Russian Railways is sending it

to each other and saying: "What a

crook our boss is. But no, that won’t do." Despite

the fact that he was a crook and unpleasant, and

even though we did eventually secure Yakunin’s dismissal

a few years later, right then and there

it was important for Putin to show support for his own

— for these thieves, crooks, these

nonentities, drunks, idiots, riffraff

everyone he has gathered around him. It is very important

to show support. And the main method of support

right now is what? Of course, trinkets. And so

that’s what he is handing out in this sense. We can see that

Putin is rapidly turning

into Brezhnev. And in that sense, there is

nothing new about it. Every crazy,

authoritarian leader who sat on

his throne for decades eventually reached

the stage where he simply started

handing out various things to everyone and, well, pinning on himself

endless medals. And they are simply

covered in all these medals. Putin has now

reached that stage. This is now their

main form of entertainment. And today

Shoigu was given one. And how exactly was he awarded?

With the Order

For Merit to the Fatherland, First

Class—but not the regular one, the one with swords. And

all the media stressed so heavily that it was with

swords—so what? I mean, good grief,

some swords—it's all ridiculous, but for

them it is very important, because they

give each other these baubles, and we will see a lot

more of this in the near future. 53,000

people are watching us live. Go ahead and

send me your questions, and I will

answer them.

People are asking me why there is a 0.5 on my

mug. What does it mean? Where else have you

seen the number 0.5, my dears? Of course,

you’ve seen it on numerous—or maybe not so

numerous, but still passing by you—

lowered, tinted Lada Prioras. That is,

of course, Dagestan, which I’m going to

talk about today and to which, in

fact, we all ought to express

our support, because today there is

a real catastrophe unfolding there. We’ll

talk about that. That’s why today my

mug is about Dagestan. But before we

move on to the main topics, I wanted

to follow up on some recent reports.

It’s very interesting. I know that, generally speaking,

not many people follow regional politics,

because, well, what’s happening out in the regions—

elections there, some kind of

local peculiarity. But in fact, this is

very important politics. So anyone who

does follow it, good for you. And if you don’t follow it and

find it boring, bear with me a little. Last time I

talked about, uh,

the scandal that is now unfolding

in the northern part of the country, because there is

an administrative process underway

to merge Arkhangelsk Oblast and

the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. And the Nenets

Autonomous Okrug is categorically against

this merger. And every person

who follows regional

politics knows this. But in Moscow, someone

decided, let’s merge them. And they

started trying to do it. I spoke about this in

the previous program and said it would be

very difficult to pull off. And of course,

they will falsify all the results of the

referendum, and there both federal

subjects have to vote in favor, but

it will still be very difficult. And it is

interesting how the notorious vertical of

power works, right? It would seem that everyone there

has been trained: once they’re told, well,

obviously this has been coordinated with Putin.

Merge. They are all supposed to fall in line from the top

down. But no, the vertical of power there

has bent or warped in this

case, because absolutely everyone is

outraged. The governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, of course, is signing

everything, but people there are genuinely furious,

holding one-person pickets and so on. Well,

the population there is small, but

very angry. And on the spur of the moment they

came up with the following option: let’s

have another United Russia member pop up and say:

"Why don’t we merge three

federal subjects then, so that, you know,

the residents of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug would be happier that

Arkhangelsk Oblast is being joined to them,

and it wouldn’t be just Arkhangelsk Oblast, but

Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and Komi." Well,

I mean, for those of you who can picture

the map of the country, right? Roughly

what it looks like? You see

how large that federal subject would be

if you just, you know,

draw it with a marker. It would be, damn it, a third

of Europe, and still with a fairly small

population—probably somewhere around 2 to 2.5

million. I mean, population-wise, it’s

just complete nonsense. Once again, they simply want

for some unclear reason to take a gigantic

territory and cram it into one

federal subject. As it is, the country is already

quite difficult to govern. I mean,

in that case, why not just merge the entire

European part of the country? Why not? There are

some tiny regions there—let’s just mash them

into one region. But most importantly, why?

It’s as if United Russia said so, and

everyone is supposed to say, "Yes, sir," and go

do it. But no, in Komi this no longer

works. And it’s not just that it can’t even

be faked there anymore, because Komi is

a fairly, well, nationally minded

region in the sense that they

want Komi identity to remain, they want to have

their language, because there really is

a people there, an ethnic group, and even the governor,

the newly appointed governor, comes out

and, well, sort of

in mild terms, says: "And why exactly

should we be merging here?"

Even despite the fact that the Kremlin

and United Russia ordered: let’s

create a super-region. Let’s watch

Komi Governor Vladimir Uyba. 1 minute 9

seconds.

This is a very serious issue. It is

the issue that has emerged over the past week

of merging the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) and Arkhangelsk Region.

I want to say right away that I, uh, am against

such

such talk, against such

ill-considered actions.

I believe this initiative should

come from the grassroots. It should come from

the people living in these regions. If

they need it, if it is a mutual decision

of two or three federal subjects, then yes, it

could happen. But if it is

some kind of bureaucratic decision-making

without the opinion of the people living in the

territory, then it is a doomed

option from the outset. So, of course, once again I

want to tell you: please do not

give in to the feeling that

this issue has already been decided, that this

is really happening. In fact,

this is just a hypothesis that is

being discussed.

My

position on this is what I have just expressed.

You see, now even the governor, the governor,

United Russia (the ruling political party), United Russia, is already

wriggling like a little snake and saying, "Don’t

fall for this." And you can practically hear

that the word is already on the tip of his tongue—

the word "provocations." But he can’t quite say, "Don’t

fall for provocations." After all, these are deputies,

members of United Russia, the official, official

message from the Kremlin, but he can’t say it anymore,

because the public is pushing back,

because, well, in order for everyone in Komi

to vote for unification,

they would have to falsify 100% of the votes. And in

the NAO they would also have to falsify 100% of the votes,

and the people on the ground, well, somehow

the times are different now, they understand

that Putin is no longer nearly as

popular, and on top of that we have elections coming. United

Russia is completely, utterly unpopular.

Well, of course it’s clear that teachers will

be made to help rig the elections, but even those

teachers, both in the NAO and in Komi, are strongly against

this whole thing, uh, so the vertical chain of command

immediately works much, much worse.

All right, a couple of questions. Viktor asks

me: "Alexei: comment on

the latest 1 million ruble lawsuit from the National Guard (Rosgvardiya, Russia’s internal security force).

When will they finally stop?" They never

will. As I understand it, the question

came up because reports appeared in the media

and I had already decided not to

write about it, but once again I was

fined over the lawsuit—excuse me,

the very same Zolotov case, the army general, the general

covered in medals, who robbed his own

soldiers, stole money on cabbage,

potatoes, and so on. After that we

released a video, and he sued me.

Naturally, he won that case, despite

the fact that we fully proved that

every word in our video was true, but

now they are demanding that I

delete all of it. And as long as I do not delete it, they

keep opening administrative cases

against me and fining me. Then, probably,

they’ll open a criminal case. The exact same

thing is happening to the director of

our foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, who

refuses to delete the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*

(an anti-corruption documentary about former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev). What’s more, he cannot

delete it because it is on my personal

YouTube channel. But nevertheless

Zhdanov is being fined, and they have opened

a criminal case against him. The same thing is happening with

me over this Rosgvardiya lawsuit.

Alexander Shidnikov asks me:

"Please don’t forget to cover the issue

of Synergy’s lawsuit against the blogger and simply

good person Alexander Gorbunov,

aka Stalingulag. Well, indeed, I

wrote about this today on social media and

shared a link to his video.

They are threatening to launch

lawsuits against Gorbunov, even some kind of criminal case,

because they are demanding that he, uh, also

delete the video he made about

Synergy University, which he caught

engaging in some, uh,

some sort of abuses. As far as

I understand, from everything I have seen that he

says, it is absolutely well-founded.

Well, this is exactly how things work in modern Russia.

Back in the day they used to say:

"Well, either take it down or we’ll

sue, or let’s sort it out, because you’ve supposedly

damaged our

honor and dignity." Now everything works

differently. Especially since Synergy University

is the kind of place with

administrative

clout, let’s put it that way. And they,

naturally, go straight to: we’ll jail you, sue you,

fine you. In other words, they are trying

to crush him. And in that sense, of course,

he needs support. First and foremost, we need

to give this situation public attention,

because Synergy University probably

doesn’t want negative publicity,

and they may possibly back off from him

if people keep talking about it. All right, about the petition—

I see two questions. Ah, and I’ll talk about

that a bit later. The petition is an important

thing. Now,

you have probably noticed that

when Vladimir Solovyov had only just started

running his

YouTube channel, I was constantly taking little clips

from him, and all those nicknames of mine

for myself came from

when I introduce myself in the very

first seconds of the program, like "toad-like

hopper," I borrowed them from Vladimir Solovyov,

because he used to be so amusing on

his channel. That’s it, I’ve fallen out of love with Vladimir.

Solovyov's show. A new star. This is, of course,

Dr. Myasnikov. He is just an absolute idol

for us right now, really an idol of everything under the sun,

because he is not just, not just

some figure within Solovyov's program, but

also a catastrophic

and astonishing—rather, astonishingly—liar; he also

officially heads the information department of the task force

for combating the coronavirus. That is,

the chief official spokesperson for Russian

officials on the subject of coronavirus. And

he is simply a star. A marvelous

man—incidentally, the chief physician of a

large hospital in Moscow. Well, as a

doctor, frankly speaking, he's mediocre at best, he's

just one of those, well, from Soviet times,

nomenklatura types. His daddy was a big-name

doctor. Accordingly, this

spoiled little golden boy was sent abroad.

He came back and now has also landed

an administrative post. So, in other words,

a hereditary, uh, Soviet-style

nomenklatura figure, very brazen and very

pushy and also catastrophically, of course,

stupid, uh, and insolent.

So, the reason I

paid attention to his statement is simply that

because, well, fine, you can

be whatever kind of person you are, but you are supposedly

still a doctor, right? And the chief physician

of a major Moscow hospital. If you are

the chief physician, can you really reason in

such

categories, the way, I don't know,

not even a Christian but a pagan would, like,

yes, we all die. Everything that happens to us

is, you know, written in the

book of fate. And whatever measure is allotted to us,

that is what will happen to us. I mean,

whether you get treated or not, do something or don't,

try or don't try, you'll die anyway.

And it seems, honestly,

speaking, insane, but this is what is being said to us by

the official spokesperson on the topic of coronavirus.

49 seconds

Dr. Myasnikov and the book of fate.

You have your own life,

and it has been ordained by the Lord God. And you will die

when it is written in your book

of fate. You cannot do it either earlier

or later. It says there: "Don't

fuss, it will be so anyway." And

there is no point in being afraid of fear. What are you

afraid of? Dying. Remember, I read to you

about dying, but there in unknown forests there wanders

a husband/man, he waits and does not forgive. Before

your time, you will not die anyway. Therefore

live the life that has been allotted to you,

and don't listen to anyone. The only thing

you can do yourself, aside from what

is written in life's book of fate, is

to ruin your own mood. That's all. So

don't ruin it. Smile. Smile.

We will all die. God willing. We will die

an easy death. If not,

then we will atone.

Well, it really makes you want to say the classic

phrase: Excuse me, are you definitely a doctor? And

I'm curious—at the admissions desk in the hospital

headed by Dr. Myasnikov,

is that how it works? A person arrives

by ambulance, someone looks at him

with the same philosophical

mindset and says: "Hmm, it looks like in

your book of fate it is written that you

should be taken to the morgue." Or: "As for you,

it seems to me you might be worth treating."

Well, generally speaking, basically, whatever

is written there is written there. Or

let them just lie there in the ambulances. And this guy

didn't just, you know, say something stupid, he

is actually, uh, pushing this main line,

that, well, why are you even worrying about

this coronavirus, running around,

shouting on the internet, getting outraged.

Well, everyone who is meant to die will die.

12 seconds.

Just live. The infection will take its toll anyway.

It will take its toll. We will all

get sick sooner or later anyway.

Whoever is meant to die? They'll die. That's how they

all, all die.

I am seriously suggesting that this be

written, say, on the hospital in

Kommunarka (the Moscow infectious-disease hospital) or, really, on every

Russian hospital right at the entrance, the way

slogans were written at concentration camps,

like "work makes you free." So let them

write: everyone who is meant

to die will die, so that a person simply

has no inflated

expectations of Russian medicine, of

doctors. So it would be clear right away: everyone

who is meant to die will die. But really,

this man, with his, well, some kind of

this sort of

cheap attempt at philosophizing—he is

the chief physician, he is the main man on

coronavirus. What on earth are you talking about? The head of Moscow healthcare

should be telling him that,

and so should other

officials. But no, he just

keeps saying things, just, well, just babbling on

and on. That's why he has actually become

such a huge sensation right now, uh, such a

mega-celebrity. And I can just see how

uh, all the top-tier

suppliers of nonsense, the ones

the internet loves, and Twitter especially,

are just smoking nervously on the sidelines

across the country, because Dr. Myasnikov, he

is on fire, and his little videos with his

statements are just spreading

everywhere. And in fact he is also some kind of

astonishing liar who

has, well, this talent for convincingly

spouting ultra-mega nonsense. Let's listen to

how he explains how things work

an American hospital, because

an American hospital is a branch of Hell.

You know, they shoot there in

the wards, they shoot in the emergency room, there

it happens all the time. You walk into

an American hospital, and, uh, there’s just

someone shooting, or someone has

like, a knife in their heart, I mean, well,

the hospital there is Sklif (the Sklifosovsky Emergency Medicine Institute in Moscow). Come to Sklif,

they probably regularly bring in

people with knives in their hearts there too, but in

an American hospital, in any one of them, this

just happens constantly, because

Dr. Myasnikov saw it with his own

eyes. 1 minute 11 seconds.

In New York, there are several large

hospital monsters that are

overcrowded. Really, it’s hell. There

they shoot right in the ward, they shoot in

the emergency room. I’m a personal witness. There

is a situation where you’re on duty, sitting there,

a gunshot, the door opens. A woman runs in,

holding her stomach, and collapses in front of you. You

look at her. But why? This one

shot me. I personally

had that happen. It happened to me personally. I

talked about it with my doctor, she’s from

Armenia, a man comes running in, you’re like

stunned, and another one comes after him and

shoots at him. And we’re standing right in the line of fire

like this. This is a hospital. This is so it’s clear

what an American

hospital is, where every night, if I see

it filling up with police officers, then I

understand that a police officer has been shot,

because they’re bringing in a colleague.

it starts, where all the time these patients

are handcuffed by one arm to— It’s a branch of hell.

It really is a branch of hell. When

they bring in a person, you push your way toward him through the nurses

through the crowd,

a big, healthy guy with his throat completely slit from ear

to ear. You look, still

shocked. And the nurse tells you: "You’re not

looking in the right place." You lower your eyes, and

his heart is sticking out, the knife handle goes

like this: thump-thump."

72,000 people are watching us live

on air. I hope you understood why all

this was being said: that it’s, uh, horrible,

horrible. If you ever have the chance

to choose between ending up in

an American hospital and the clinic of

Dr. Myasnikov, then of course go only

there, because there everything will be

wonderful. Well, of course, everything is written, basically,

in your book of fate, but nevertheless

this is, actually, jokes aside,

an important function: to keep lying about

how terrible everything is there, because, well, we

are simply outraged by what’s happening. We

say: "My God, we’re a fairly

rich country, why is there nothing?"

Why is everything falling apart? Why are ventilators

catching fire?" And to that, Malysheva replies.

They say: "What, do you think that over there

the salaries are high?" As I showed in

the last program, in the one before that

program, when there was that segment with Malysheva.

There, yes, it comes out to 40,000 if

you convert it into rubles as take-home pay. The same

thing Myasnikov says: "What, do you

think it’s good there? Sure, our

ventilators catch fire, and this many burned,

six people died. But on the other hand, in

an American hospital in New York

they shoot there too. You just walk in, and

bullets are whistling over your head. And

most people just say that

this idiot is talking nonsense. But some people do believe it.

Some people do believe it. And that’s exactly what it’s designed for,

so that those who believe it will go

to the polls in the end and vote. It’s this

small part of the population that

understands nothing, that is ready

to believe people like Myasnikov, that will once again

determine the future of our country, because

it will vote for its vile, disgusting

party, United Russia, Solovyov’s fist. And

you’ve seen, of course, that cool video of

Vladimir Solovyov, who

demonstrates his super punch that

would knock absolutely anyone down. And apparently

that’s where Solovyov’s fist comes from. Alexei asks me:

Alexei. Rosneft’s lawsuit against RBC for 43 billion

rubles (about 43 billion RUB). Is this a challenge to the Russian media, or what

are they trying to achieve with it? Well, it’s obvious

what they’re trying to achieve. The company

Rosneft, with Sechin personally, uh, through his

press drunk—remember, there was that

Leontyev, uh, journalist, always this kind of

half-drunk guy who kept spouting all kinds of

nonsense. Uh, he was probably most

famous for the fact that on air

—not live, on his

first program on Channel One

he was showing satellite images, supposedly,

of fighter jets that shot down the Malaysian

Boeing. All of this seemed, well, of course,

all of it seemed like lies—what kind of

satellite images of planes in flight? But

nevertheless, he showed them

and convincingly claimed that it was true.

And now he works for the company

Rosneft. Sechin and his people have this strategy,

without question: to crush and bankrupt

everyone who writes something

bad about them. But journalists are frightened that

a lawsuit for 43 billion rubles is possible. Even if

it gets reduced forty-threefold, that

would mean that RBC would cease

to exist. And RBC is already a fairly

censored media outlet. Well, the same goes—also

they act this way toward Vedomosti as well,

toward everyone. So by now, in fact,

everyone has gotten the message and nobody writes anything,

because he won’t just simply

bankrupt you like that—he’ll take your publication away afterward.

for themselves. Ah, and since people are asking me about the petition,

I'll say a few words about it. Uh, Viktor

asks: "Alexei, why are they now

considering holding a

parade in June? If the date marking the end of

World War II, and therefore the parade as well,

was moved to September 3. Guys,

don't look for logic in this. There is absolutely no

logic here. It's just that in Putin's head, and in the heads of the people

who work with him, there is

a certain construct. And they genuinely believe that

when they hold a parade and once again

spend some absurd amount of money on it

in rubles, everyone will get so inspired that they'll go

and vote for Putin's constitution.

So, uh, they'll come up with some date. I

think that, most likely, it will

happen on June 24, or maybe September

3. Or it'll be some other date, I don't

know, August 6, 7, or 28. They'll also

come up with some kind of heroic

date, but in any case we'll once again see

this hysteria. "A parade, we must

hold a parade." Why? There will still

be a parade next May 9 (Victory Day) anyway,

so why can't they hold the parade next

year? They can't, because

they believe that when you see a parade on

television, you get up, go to the

polling station, and vote for

Putin. Well, presumably this is backed up by

some kind of sociological research

or something else, because, well, in

principle, there will probably be an Immortal Regiment march

that day, and they'll start running around and

shouting: "On the day of the Immortal Regiment

let's stop talking about anything

else. Let's speak only about the most, most

sacred things, about the fallen,

blah blah blah blah blah." In other words,

this is simply an attempt to appropriate

the victory, to appropriate all those

heroic sacrifices of the Russian and Soviet

people, and by using all of that,

that truly sacred thing, to resolve

the issue of getting people to vote for Putin,

when, generally speaking, hardly anyone

really wants to vote at all.

I was just telling you

[music]

it looks like we're live again. I haven't

told you this, but over the last few

shows we've really been in a kind of battle

for the broadcast. It's pretty funny, because

they've started cutting off my home internet. And it's

very funny. We ask

the provider: "By the way, how many people

dropped off? Please show me

how many are watching." So,

it looked like about 75,000 people were watching when, uh,

everything cut out. They'll tell me the new

number in a moment. But in any

case, the point is this:

the provider started saying, "You know,

there seem to be some problems with your panel or

something somewhere." These

"problems" start exactly at 8:00 p.m. Here,

this time they started a little later, but

to be honest, we had originally

planned a backup setup, because

we understood that, uh, of course the authorities

would try to shut us down. The fairly

obvious solution is simply to cut off

my home internet and take my

show off the air, each episode of which

now, thanks so much to you, is watched by

more than a million viewers. It really

irritates the Kremlin, Putin, and everyone

else. So they were cutting off my home

internet. We had a clever backup

scheme. Today, half an hour before the

show, they sent me photos. I won't

go into the details of how we set it

up. Well, actually, I could

tell you. In short, we installed a

transmitting antenna there, and somewhere else they

found it and cut it out. They simply stole

the transmitter, cut all the

wires clean off, ripped everything out, and

half a day later, half an hour before the broadcast, we were left

without internet. But it seems we managed

to restore it using yet another backup

scheme. I hope our

broadcast won't crash again before the end, and that I'll still

be able to finish the stream. Uh, does this

annoy me? Absolutely, it annoys me a lot,

but they really are just blatantly

cutting off my home internet with complete impunity.

My provider is Rostelecom, by the way,

Rostelecom. As far as I can tell, they just

go ahead and individually cut off

my internet, Alexei Navalny's, in my apartment,

they shut off the internet, they steal

the transmitter. In other words, they're simply

engaging in this kind of, uh, petty

criminality. Though of course, at the same time,

I honestly feel a slight sense of

self-satisfaction and gratification from the fact

that our show irritates them

so much. So once again, thank you very

much for watching it, for asking me

questions, and for sharing this

link. So they switched it off. But it

didn't work. Last time they tried

to shut us down, and it didn't work. Nor the time before that.

So for the last three times, we've really had

an ongoing

competition over who can knock out whom

using technical means.

Though maybe I'm bragging too soon,

maybe they'll do something now. They're

perfectly capable of, I don't know, switching off all the cell

towers around the house

in order to

take my stream down. Anyway, before I got

cut off, I was saying that you should definitely

watch Volkov's video,

and subscribe to his channel, because he

explains very clearly what is happening

with mortality right now. And I’ll repeat that

what I said last time—this

lie about how in Russia

very few people were dying—will be the main thing

they will keep saying ahead of

the constitutional vote. Every time

someone even starts to say, “You

failed at everything, your Putin failed at everything

in a crisis situation,” they will

reply: “Failed? What? How dare you

even say that? You know, this is

like desecrating the Immortal Regiment

(the annual Russian march commemorating WWII veterans) and saying that Putin failed at everything.

After all, mortality in Russia is 10

times lower than in all the other countries.”

They will lie about this. And that is why

let’s watch a minute and a half of Volkov’s video, but

please go and watch the whole thing.

Russia’s official coronavirus statistics

are lying. It is as obvious as

two times two is four. The state’s lies

are bad and criminal in themselves,

but in our case they also

lead to tragic consequences.

The official charts published by

many Russian regions have an

artificial rather than natural pattern.

In real life, under no circumstances

can a real chart of detected cases under

genuine and conscientious testing

look the way it does in

Krasnodar Krai, or the way it does in

Lipetsk Oblast, or in Kursk, or

in Kabardino-Balkaria,

or in Moscow Oblast. All these

figures are simply made up. A real

chart looks like a hedgehog, with

spikes sticking out in different

directions. Why? Because in

the real world, the detection of many

cases is affected by a large number of

random factors pulling in different directions.

The available open data not only

collectively paint a vivid, unmistakable picture

of the total falsehood of Russian medical

statistics, but also make it possible to

estimate, more or less accurately, the true scale

of the disaster that has struck Russia. We are talking

about roughly 20,000 deaths, but

in about six out of seven cases, the

deceased are listed as having died from other causes.

The main problem is that

distorted, falsified data

are being used as the basis for long-term conclusions and

decisions. If the authorities do not

immediately revise their

approach to the numbers and to the management decisions

made on their basis, there will be

even more victims. Tens of thousands of lives

will be on Putin’s conscience.

Leonid Volkov’s channel. The link will be below.

Subscribe and watch the video. Roman

Artyukhov asks: “Alexei,

switch to another provider.” Well,

I will. But only if we’re talking about

ordinary home internet in an apartment.

First, I have a limited choice of

providers. Second, obviously,

any provider will disconnect me,

because every provider is completely

dependent on the FSB (Russia’s security service) and, more broadly, on this

law-enforcement system. And in that

sense, no new provider will

help me. But still, still,

I’m on the air. You’re watching me.

So apparently there is still some technical

ability for us to keep broadcasting.

69,000 people are watching me live

—the numbers are recovering. I hope we

get back to where we were. So,

I see a lot, a lot of questions.

Kantslerka Gorchakova: The authorities jail people

for emotional social media posts.

Meanwhile, Poznyakov is engaged in inciting

hatred, propaganda, fascism,

harassment, and violence. Will anything

at all be done against him? Uh, well,

please comment on the situation with Poznyakov.”

Katabulka Klubnichnaya asks. I have

a lot of questions about this. And I can’t

say that I know the situation in detail,

but as far as I understand, there is this guy

named Poznyakov, he has a public page on

VKontakte, and I think he also

heads this strange organization

called Male State.

Uh, mainly it is engaged in,

well, I used to think it was engaged in

trolling feminists, but in fact

what they are doing, as far as I

understand, has by now turned into outright

cybercrime,

harassing people online. In

particular, their latest stunt, if you can

call it that, is that

some unfortunate woman who

worked as a teacher, uh, somewhere in

a school or university, apparently

a hundred years ago

appeared in some porn video, and they found

it, posted it everywhere, sent it to her

workplace, sent it to her children, sent it

to everyone. I mean,

first of all, that is everyone’s private business,

second, it is a private matter for each person’s family,

third, nobody knows

what circumstances she had in life

that may have forced her into it. In any

case, this is none of

Poznyakov’s business, none of

Male State’s business, and most importantly,

I believe this is a very real

crime. I mean, you cannot

do this, and it should be—and it is

illegal. But there are a lot of

questions here about, basically, what can

be done about him. Again, I can’t say

that I know the situation in detail, as far as

I understand it, he simply lives somewhere in

another country. And in that sense, well,

he is doing this because he believes he has

some kind of right to do it there,

some moral right, or he thinks this is

an expression of free speech. But in any

case, what can I say? It is a rather

disgusting act. And from my point

of view, this is unquestionably a crime. And

what kind of pleasure, really, can a person

possibly get from simply attacking

this unfortunate woman and trying

to destroy her life now?

to make her child's life much harder.

They are practically sending these photos

to the children in his class. I mean, this is

just, frankly, the work of some

perverts doing this kind of crap. And

I am ashamed that they are engaged in

this. And, well, unquestionably, this is,

without a doubt, a crime.

Of course, legally speaking, right now,

as far as I understand, there is nothing

that can be done to him because he is

abroad. But, well, then, simply,

maybe at the very least, we should not

help him spread

this information, because after all

he is counting on publicity. Although, on the other

hand, of course, these things need to be

condemned, and the people who condemn them are doing the right thing. So, I have

a lot of questions about the petition, but I will say more about it later.

Right now Sergio Pogano

is asking me:

"Alexei, the petition

has collected 100,000 signatures. Does it still make sense

to keep collecting signatures, including

on Change.org and VKontakte? Of course, yes.

Well, first of all, it is not difficult. Second,

continuing to collect signatures is a kind of

political act that shows

that we continue

to demand cash compensation

for people and direct aid for businesses,

because, well, excuse me, I am still

broadcasting this livestream from home, not from

the office, because I am forbidden to leave

my home. And many of you are forbidden

to leave your homes, while you are still buying masks

with your own money, and

you are required to buy them with your own money, and

so on and so forth. Tens of millions of people are still

sitting without

any income, so we have done this. Once

again, thank you all very much. We collected these

100,000 despite the fact that they

tried very hard to obstruct us; we collected hundreds

of thousands, and there are already several million

signatures on other platforms. We need

to keep doing this, and most importantly,

to keep talking about it, because

many people are getting the impression:

"So, like, isn't the coronavirus

almost over already?"

No, unfortunately not. And it will still be with

us for several more months. And everyone's incomes

will fall. And in fact, direct

cash compensation is absolutely relevant

and even more urgent now. And our demand remains

to make payments for April,

to make payments for May and June, to all people,

who have been affected, absolutely everyone. And

to pay children 10,000 rubles each (about $110). To everyone,

not just

those who are receiving payments now, but

specifically from age three to sixteen. Payments should be made

to absolutely everyone. We continue to uphold

this demand. 76,000 people are watching us

live, which means more

than before the stream cut out. Hooray! Thank you very much for

joining us.

What should we call them in the Kremlin?

Kremlin crooks, or I don't know,

Kremlin riffraff. They cut us off, but we still

came back on. We rose from the ashes.

Let's talk about Vladimir Vladimirovich

Promisekin.

I gave

an interview to Radio Svoboda (Radio Liberty). Sergei

Medvedev is a great guy. He is

one of the professors, I think, at the Higher

School of Economics. And he asked me

a question there: "So, Alexei,

right now everyone is sitting at home, and we can see

that, of course, protest activity in

the country has declined, so what is

the opposition going to do? It's all so difficult, blah blah blah,

there are no protests."

That is absolutely, 100 percent not true." Well, I answered

that question somewhat incoherently,

and then I thought: "Well, of course,

we are all wise after the fact." And then I realized

that in fact, right now, in May 2020,

we are witnessing one of the highest

levels of protest activity,

and not just online, you know,

not just online where everyone furiously likes

opposition posts, but actually

practical activity, including street

activity. One of the highest

levels. Right now we are truly

witnessing an unprecedented confrontation

between the authorities and 3.5 million people,

at a minimum, including their family members, who

are Russian medical workers. And this

confrontation is also, well,

spilling out into the streets, because they

gather near their hospitals and

actually record public appeals. This is

a mass phenomenon. Every one of you has seen

such appeals: "My God, they are everywhere,

Instagram is full of them." That is, people

are gathering and, with varying degrees of

aggressiveness, they are demanding something. The

government has not seen anything like this. In all

the time I can remember, maybe in the 1990s

the miners did something similar, but in all these 20

In all the years of Putin's rule, he has never

faced such a massive reaction

from specific groups all across the country.

And that is very important. I want to

talk about it, because, well, Putin

makes promises and lies. He makes promises and lies. That's what

his entire rule is built on. He just

keeps promising. For 20 years he has been promising

all sorts of things. But now he has entered

a situation where there is this kind of

absolute specificity. He is not promising

something vague like building you a market

economy or getting rid of dependence on raw-material

exports, or fixing this or that, or

creating 25 million jobs. By that year, for

example, he clearly promised there would be 25

million high-tech jobs. But

who exactly did he promise that to? To you personally,

the viewer of this program, to the

76,000 people watching? No. I mean,

he just promised it in general, and then didn't

deliver. And everything else he promised, he also didn't

deliver. And yes, we get outraged, but somehow

there are no people who were personally

deceived, as if something was directly stolen from them. And

now this situation has developed because

with the coronavirus, everyone is shocked that

a huge number of doctors are falling ill,

a huge number of doctors are dying,

and doctors are simply, well, starting to

rear up in protest. Go and read,

if you haven't already, a great piece by

Mediazona (an independent Russian media outlet).

They analyzed all the doctors' deaths. Did you

know that doctors themselves keep this kind of

well, just a Google spreadsheet online,

and they enter the names of their

deceased colleagues there. And, well, everyone

knows that doctors themselves maintain it, so

there is no fraud there. But even so,

it always gives all those Kremlin

propagandists a reason to say, "Oh, that's just nonsense,

some list on the internet."

Anyone can make one, it's just a Google

document. I could create one tomorrow, and

it would have 1,000 names on it. Mediazona

went ahead and analyzed that entire

list in full. And, well, basically,

the numbers are catastrophic. They, they

removed some people from that

list because there were, for example,

doctors who had died, but their deaths were obviously

not related to coronavirus in any way. In the

end, they kept only those who died

directly from coronavirus. And

it turned out that 7% of those who died in Russia were

doctors, nurses, and other medical workers.

That is an enormous number, and it is simply

16 times higher than in those

countries that have a number of cases

comparable to ours. Where the epidemic has simply

reached a similar scale,

it is 16 times higher. This is just some kind of

catastrophe. And at the time the article was published,

in Russia, the total number of medical workers infected with coronavirus was

9,500. 9,500. So, basically,

right now the medical profession is very

dangerous. Being a doctor now is more dangerous than

being a police officer. I won't even say

it's more dangerous than being a

member of the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), because a Rosgvardiya officer

faces no danger at all. I don't know,

a miner, or anyone else.

A medical worker in Russia is now in the most dangerous

profession. And they are not being paid. And when

before, they were being paid 17,000

or 18,000 rubles a month,

well, they weren't paid, they weren't paid. No one is

paid properly in Russia, but here they pay 17,000

or maybe 25,000, or 40,000, and say:

"What a great salary you have, but you

are working at risk to your life." And that changed everything.

And here Putin is already forced

to respond. And when I said 3.5 million

people, in Russia 3.5 million people are

doctors, mid-level medical staff—

nurses, junior medical staff,

paramedics, plus drivers, and so on.

So that is 3.5 million people. Plus their family

members—they feel that, basically,

this has spread across the whole country, people are buzzing,

they are going to announce strikes. What does

Putin do? He comes out and starts making promises.

Promise number one, at 1 minute 19 seconds.

We have also provided additional

payments to doctors, nurses, and medical

personnel for special working conditions and

increased workloads.

More than 10 billion rubles from the federal budget have been allocated

for these purposes and will

be sent to the regions in the near future.

People must receive these payments

on time, without delays.

In addition, I consider it necessary

to implement one more measure, namely, for 3

months starting in April, to establish

a special federal payment for

specialists who directly

work with coronavirus patients and

risk their health every minute.

For doctors working directly with

patients infected with coronavirus,

this additional payment will amount to 80,000

rubles per month. For mid-level medical

staff, paramedics, and nurses, 50,000

rubles. For junior medical staff,

25,000 rubles per month.

As for ambulance doctors,

who also work with patients sick with

coronavirus, they will receive a payment of

50,000 rubles per month. Paramedics,

nurses, and ambulance crew and vehicle drivers will get

25,000 rubles.

81,000 people are watching us live.

And you saw it: an absolutely

traditional problem arises—

you need to do something, promise something,

lie. And then Putin comes out and says: "We

"we’ll pay everyone." Blah blah blah — he promised it,

made the promise, and left. But then his apparatus took over.

He knows those promises don’t have to be

kept. I mean, they never have been,

really. He promised something or other, and then

the wheeling and dealing begins. They

first issue a decree saying

that payments are supposed to go to everyone

who is in the risk zone. You see,

it’s underlined in red. Everyone who faces

the risk of infection. But after a while

they no longer feel like paying. That’s the,

you see, idiocy of our state:

there’s money — tons of it. And in principle, yes, they could

and should pay them all. But if this is

right now, in fact the riskiest

profession, if doctors are dying at a rate 16 times

higher than in developed countries, well,

then let’s pay them. Besides,

they weren’t promised a million rubles each, after all.

80,000 rubles to those working in

the red zone, 25,000 rubles to the driver:

"Come on, for God’s sake, that kind of money exists. It’s

not some astronomical sum, right? None of them is going to

become a millionaire, and nobody is going to

blow it all at a casino. Tomorrow they’ll go back to

being ambulance paramedics. No,

it’s not a huge amount — it can be paid. But

why pay, really? We never have

paid before. It’s always like the old man

promised something, and then they issue a new

decree saying that we pay,

but only to those who are directly

involved in treating patients with

COVID-19. And then the

wheeling and dealing begins,

so, an ambulance driver or

a paramedic — they spend all day transporting

patients. Obviously, half of those

patients have coronavirus, and he expects

to receive his 25,000 rubles afterward. But then he’s

told: "Well, you know, you transported

eight patients, and only one had a test

confirming coronavirus. And you transported him from

4:23 p.m.

17 seconds until 5:01

25 seconds? That’s the time we’ll pay you for".

So here is your

pay slip, and it says 45 rubles 27

kopecks." And naturally,

the internet was instantly flooded, because

a unique situation emerged:

it was simply

like, have you completely lost it? They had just

been promised, told: "You’re like people on the

front line, go on, we’ll pay all of you,

we’re counting on you." Everywhere people

put up badges: Thank you, doctors.

Margarita Simonyan launched a flash mob. Uh,

all sorts of things were said.

Of course they were promised awards, some kind of

badges, pennants, and everything else — but no money,

as usual, damn it. They just don’t pay,

that’s all. So medical workers started going out into the streets and

recording videos. And probably the most

telling example was the appeal

from medical workers in Armavir, because they didn’t

just say it — they said it in a, well,

creative way: "Well done." And I

therefore wrote a post on Instagram,

saying I applaud them. Really

well done. But on the other hand, it’s frustrating.

To force them to pay you your salary,

you apparently have to come up with some creative stunt,

I don’t know — soon you’ll probably have to dance

or sing or clap your hands

just to get someone’s attention. Let’s watch

the video from Armavir. Twenty seconds.

Let’s go.

Armavir ambulance service. We did not receive

the promised payments. Not the doctors, not the paramedics,

not the nurses, not the drivers — no one. Not

a single ruble, not a single kopeck.

And what can you even say against that? At this point

you can’t say something like, Navalny is spinning tales

with State Department money,

because this is the ambulance service in

Armavir. The ambulance service in Armavir drives

around the city of Armavir. And when they meet someone,

people ask them,

some grandmother asks: "How are you doing, kids?

" And they say: "Terribly,

grandma, that’s how we’re living. Because Putin isn’t

paying us our bonuses. So you,

grandma, should know that Putin is a liar and that

Putin is bad." And right away the situation

started to change. This was a mass

phenomenon, absolutely widespread. And then Putin

comes out and starts clarifying things.

He says, well, you know,

it turns out there was suddenly some

bureaucratic red tape. Thirty-one seconds.

Listen to me, listen carefully.

We agreed, and it was stated clearly and plainly

that this money must be paid

for work with patients suffering from

coronavirus infection, and not for

some hours, minutes, and so on. No,

they turned it into some kind of

bureaucratic mess. They started counting

something there, some hours. Did I tell them

to count hours or what?

No.

I hope, I hope that by

the end of today, if it hasn’t yet been done somewhere,

everything will be fully sorted out.

It’s just that

they immediately started turning the situation into the same

old classic: the good tsar, the bad

boyars (nobles). Your government wrote

that decree, didn’t it? Of course he knew.

Of course he knew what they had put in there,

because from the very beginning, on

television, they said: "We’ll pay everyone."

But among themselves they decided: "Well, this is just

like always. There’s a promise, but no implementation.

" How do you make it so that you

make a promise but don’t have to pay? By using little

write it out in words by hours and by

minutes. But the medics went out into the streets.

The medics started recording public appeals.

Let’s look at Irkutsk. Here’s the major city of

Irkutsk. They simply are not paying, that’s it. An appeal from

Irkutsk.

We, the ambulance service workers

of the city of Irkutsk, want to draw attention

to the fact that there is a constant failure to comply with

the directives of the President of the Russian

Federation, starting with the May decrees (a set of major presidential policy directives issued in May 2012).

The promised bonus payments of 25,000 and 50,000 rubles

as incentive compensation for special

working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic

to all ambulance service workers

in the city of Irkutsk—to doctors,

paramedics, and drivers—as of 16/05

have not been paid.

So what can you even do with that? I mean,

you can lie as much as you want. But they’re out there

recording these messages—I could, in fact, show you many such videos here in the script.

There really are a lot of them. I just

don’t want to show them all. Although

honestly, I want to support every one of them,

yes. Because they post these videos on

Instagram. And all of Irkutsk, all of

Vladimir Region, all of Krasnodar

knows that, yes, they are not paying a damn thing. Even

to the medics now on the front line,

blah blah blah, ‘thank you doctors,’ but they’re not paying

a kopeck. They held back 25,000 rubles there,

held back 80,000 rubles from those going into this

red zone. That is, people who are literally

in this risk zone,

a zone of mortal risk. They withheld it and didn’t pay. And

they still are not paying. And this, of course, is

the huge confrontation that

is happening right now. What’s interesting is that

how

they seem afraid to toy with this even in those very

moments when something slips out like

‘what are they demanding from us there,’

and how quickly they backpedal.

A telling story happened in Perm.

There, the health minister

is holding a meeting. And at this

meeting, naturally, someone from the ambulance service

says, “You haven’t paid us.” And

the head doctor of that ambulance service is sitting there and

mocks him. Well, the head doctor’s salary

is huge. And he imitates him—or rather, not

exactly imitates, but, you know,

he makes these gestures like

‘look at our fighters over there, demanding

something,’ smirking. Let’s watch this

little clip—they’ve already deleted

it. But every move was recorded. 26

seconds.

You handled it incorrectly. Every

employee, as in Vladimir, should

receive 25,000 rubles each. That’s for doctors, and

mid-level medical staff

must unconditionally receive their

11,000, and then there will be no

discord.

And as I understand it, our trade union

is doing absolutely nothing. And things will move

off dead center only when we

turn to other unions.

Well, you see, he put on a bit of an act,

but all the medics were watching that livestream.

And the comments

were exactly what you’d expect, like, ‘Are you

out of your mind? You’re not paying people

their money, and when they get upset, you

mock them as if this were some kind of game.’ Well,

for him, those 25,000 rubles are genuinely

very important. It’s his tiny,

microscopic payment for the deadly, without

exaggeration, risk he faces

every day.

He recorded an apology, because they immediately

understood that you cannot play games with things like this.

Here are 30 seconds of how this

head doctor apologized for those

gestures of his.

Quite often, decisions have to be made

in emergency mode. And unfortunately, I,

like everyone else, am not immune to mistakes,

or emotional reactions to what is happening.

If my behavior yesterday offended anyone,

I ask your forgiveness.

for my rather sharp reaction

I was emotional.

Thank you. Wishing you good health.

Of course, the authorities want to suppress all of this.

And suppress it in their usual way.

And of course, Krasnodar immediately

stepped in the way it usually does. So, at the

Abinsk Central District Hospital

people recorded a similar video appeal about

the fact that they had not received the payments. Here are

21 seconds. Let’s watch what

the doctors said.

We, the ambulance workers of Abinsky

District in Krasnodar Krai, state that

the payments promised by our president

had not been transferred to us as of May 18, 2020.

The management of Abinsk Central District Hospital is trying to

convince us that no payments

are due to us.

We

are being paid nothing.

What do the local authorities do? What does

the local police do? They bring these doctors

a warning about the inadmissibility of

extremist activity by medical workers

who complained about the lack of

payments. So people are literally saying:

“We are not being paid the Putin-promised,

repeatedly promised bonuses.” And they

say: “Yes, they are being paid. In that case, we are warning you

not to engage in

extremist activity.” And

at the same time, the game began. They started

paying those who were protesting,

they paid them.

And at the same time, they are also trying to, well,

who can do more to please the federal authorities,

at the same time, they are trying both to

intimidate them and, at the same time, pay them,

because, well, the situation really is

for Putin, for this entire government,

explosive. I’ve been getting a lot of, uh,

messages from medical workers asking, basically, what should we do?

Please explain what needs to be done.

The main question is that people genuinely do not

understand whether they are entitled to these bonuses or not

because there are two government resolutions

and they say that payments must be made

to those who directly

interact with coronavirus patients. There is

another government resolution, and fewer people

read it, but that is exactly the one that needs

to be read, because it states very clearly, let me

show it again, please, it says

underlined in red, that payments are due

to everyone who falls into the risk group

for infection.

So, dear medical workers, dear

relatives of medical workers and friends of medical workers,

who can forward this video,

to medical staff, doctors,

uh,

ambulance drivers, or simply

hospital employees. You know that

there are hospital employees such as,

for example, someone working at reception—

a woman at the front desk who is not formally a medical worker

by status. I mean, what does she do at

reception? She sits there, and people come up to her

and say, "Dear, how do I

get an appointment with such-and-such doctor?" She

fills out their file for them, and then

the next person comes in and coughs on her.

Then, of course,

all the people who are currently working in

medical institutions and who

interact with people share

this risk and danger. Therefore,

the position is very clear: payments should be made

to everyone. No—if you are asking yourself

the question, "Should I be paid?" the answer is:

yes, you should be paid. What should you

do? First of all, pay attention to

the medical union’s resources created specifically for you.

A brief digression: how incredibly

happy I am that I turned out to be right. And all of us

turned out to be right when, 2 months ago,

we were running around shouting, "We will

support the medical union."

We raised money here for protective

equipment, we were outraged, and we said that

infected doctors would become sources

of infection for everyone. How right we were.

We were right in absolutely every word. We,

there was the medical union. Now everyone

has seen that we were absolutely right.

And so, once again, thank you to everyone who

supported the Doctors’ Alliance. They launched

a project, a special map. So

step number one: what should

every medical worker and every hospital employee

do? Go there, and there is

a special map of these violations.

Select your issue and report what is

happening to you. Let’s take a look. Uh,

here is one minute from one of the appeals in the

video instructions for this website, which

was created by the Doctors’ Alliance.

A new feature has appeared on the medical inspection website:

an interactive map. On it, we

will mark problems, both new and

resolved. Now everyone, from an ordinary

citizen onward,

You see, I was bragging to you that we

would beat the Kremlin and be able to stream without

interruptions, but that’s not

working out. We’re back on the air again, but

every time it takes

some effort, because they are

doing all sorts of cunning

things. To be honest, I don’t understand it all that well.

We have a technical

team—many thanks to them—that is

dealing with this right now. But here I am,

back, and probably some number of people

dropped off the stream again.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. It is very important

to

understand a few things. First, go

to the union’s map and indicate

your problem. Second,

attention: the most important thing you need to

do. If you are a doctor, a medical worker, and so

on, and you are not being paid these bonuses, you

must sit down and write a statement by

hand saying: I, so-and-so, work

there and face a risk of infection,

a direct risk, which I want to notify you about,

and I want to receive the bonus payment,

and submit this to the chief physician. And you can

also send it to the prosecutor’s office, because

the thing is, these people keep asking me,

sweetly, "How do

we know? It’s Putin’s fault, not the officials’—

they are refusing to carry out his orders." Well,

of course, you see, Putin bangs

his fist on the table, and the officials

refuse to carry out orders.

The officials were not given the money; the officials

were instructed to pay as little as possible,

so they are twisting themselves into knots. Abuse number two:

abuse number one is calculating it by

the minute. And abuse number two is that

in every specific case,

the chief physician issues a local order and

writes: "This person has a risk of infection, but

this one does not." Therefore, you

must submit a statement and write that

I believe that I am at risk of infection

and I demand to be paid. Until you do that,

they will not include you anywhere

on their own. And most importantly, just do not

stay silent. And right now, we have, I don’t know,

how many of us are left before we

...dropped off; 84,000 people watched it through live.

broadcast. Ah, well, it has started. And now,

how many? Please show me.

Still, yes, 80—more than eighty

thousand are still watching us. We started with

30,000. At the beginning of the broadcast I showed

a very important document. Please show

it again, if you can find it for me right now,

uh, the letter from the minister of the Moscow

Region, which he sent and in which he

explains in what cases it is not allowed

to build, specifically, near

certain homes, sand quarries and so on

and so forth. Can you show me that letter?

What, did we cut out again?

I can’t tell whether I’m live or not.

Ah yes, here’s the letter. Look, here

they write that if people who

have high social status and

wealth are involved, they must not be inconvenienced. And

the second page of this letter says that

sand quarries can be built where there is

a low level of protest activity.

So doctors and everyone else: if you have

a low level of protest

activity, you’ll get nothing. Meanwhile,

everyone who protests and records these

videos will get paid, I have no doubt, because

they’re afraid you’ll disrupt the vote,

that you really will simply

tank United Russia’s ratings in every

specific area. Still, a protesting hospital

really is in some

village, town, and so on. It can

lower the level of

voting for United Russia or for

President Putin by several percentage points. They are terribly

afraid of that. So if you protest,

they’ll pay. If you don’t protest,

they won’t. That’s how the system works, because

they do not want to pay and do not consider it

necessary to pay. And for them, really, it is

some kind of critical, almost

hostile act. To pay wages

to anyone in Russia is like, you know,

paying tribute to the enemy. Because the population—

really, any people who demand

something—are seen as collective enemies

who must be fought, and they do fight them.

And when you put something out, you—

you start fighting them, and they

are afraid of open battles and begin to

pay you. My personal political

advice is this: if they absolutely won’t

pay, if they don’t want to pay you, make

a video appeal. Of course, it’s better if you make it

interesting, like that Armavir

hospital did. But, I repeat, this is a

humiliating kind of advice in some sense,

basically: sing and dance for your own

money. Better, perhaps,

you know what to do? Just

record an appeal saying that

if we are not paid, then on the gates,

on the doors of our hospital, we will hang a

notice saying that our

hospital opposes the United Russia party

and opposes extending the powers of

Putin. And to every person who

comes to us, the staff of our

hospital will say: "Do not vote

for United Russia, vote against it, and do not

vote for extending the powers of

Putin." Then vehicles with flashing lights

will come racing to you, loaded

with money, and they will pay your wages.

Because that is what they fear most of all.

They are afraid that you will destroy their

ratings, and they are ready to—there’s a sea of money

in the budget, a sea of it. But they will give it only to those

who fight for it. So, uh, Oleg, why

is there this difference in payments between a doctor, a driver,

and an orderly, if they all work in the same risk zone?

Is that fair? Well, actually,

it is fair, because there are

people who are in the red zone,

dealing directly with coronavirus patients, and there are

people who simply face a somewhat lower

level of risk. In principle, I agree

that everyone should be paid more overall.

Without question, everyone should be paid more,

not to mention that, well,

come on, seriously, the maximum

bonus, the maximum extra payment for people

at the highest risk is 80,000 rubles (about US$1,000). 1,000

dollars. Yes, that is simply ridiculous. But

to be fair, there should be

some kind of scale. People simply need to

be paid. I believe that absolutely at least

some money should be paid to absolutely

everyone. Right.

Hit Surf asks: "Why was it necessary at all

to funnel these payments through governors,

to push this money to medical workers through the regions, through

the bureaucracy? There’s a register of medical workers, so why

can’t payments be made directly to them?"

Excellent question. In fact, it can’t be done,

because there is no such register of medical workers,

because they kept building, building, building

this system. And it turned out that there is no

such direct button, you know. You

think there’s a button that Mishustin (Russia’s prime minister)

presses and a doctor’s salary is credited to

their bank card? No, absolutely not. Because

for a long time they deliberately built such a

differen-

differentiated system under which

the chief physician and the governor can pay

less. Why did I run this campaign?

So that everyone—teachers, doctors, everyone

who is entitled to it—would be paid in accordance with

the May decrees. But no one was being paid,

because, well, exactly the same kind of

fiddling is going on: base rate, salary, bonus,

allowance. This one works 1.5

positions, that one six. And this one was brought in

full-time on a half-time basis. They created

a system under which the chief physician,

The minister can rig things. They set it up so

they could pay less. And now, basically,

this whole top-down system,

for doctors, teachers,

the military, the cops,

basically any state employee and any worker

at state-funded enterprises, is designed

in such a way that the chief

distributor of funds—the head doctor in this case—

can receive a lot of money, and he

really does receive fantastical sums.

Take that same Myasnikov I showed you

in the middle of the program—he,

I think, gave an interview today and said:

"I earn..." Well, literally he said,

"a hell of a lot" or "a whole damn lot." Something

like that. In Moscow, head doctors very

often make millions of rubles. There are

doctors who earn 500,000,

700,000, 200,000 rubles. But this system is built

so that if you want him to be paid

500,000, you pay him that and he

gets 500,000. If you want him

to get 17, he gets 17. And all of it

is perfectly legal. They created a system whose purpose

is to pay as little as possible,

because as much money as possible has to

remain with the federal center so it can

go to construction projects, corruption, and so

on and so forth. Because, well,

healthcare is expensive.

They do not want to put money into it, and

they cannot let it bypass the governors.

That is the whole point of this system.

So, what else are people asking me?

A video in which a police officer is choking

a man. Are we all just going to watch things like this

and tolerate it—is that enough?

Muva Mokh asks me. I am not going to

show you that video. I saw it myself

online; it was widely shared. Well,

it really is just police

lawlessness. As I have said many times on this

program, we have now

entered a zone where, with the latest

amendments, the law on the police has truly put us

into a state of genuine

police lawlessness. You can easily

find the video. In it, cops are simply choking

a man—just choking him—while around them

women are screaming, children are crying, everyone is yelling,

shouting that they are going to strangle him; blood is

coming from the man’s mouth. They keep choking him,

even though he is offering no resistance

at all. The era of the

police state has arrived. Do not

stay silent. We need to be outraged every day.

We need to vote against it. We need to persuade

everyone to vote. Speaking of voting,

someone asked me about it. Let me find that

question. Maybe it was removed. The person

asked: "Why boycott

the vote? Wouldn’t voting against it be

much more effective?" Guys,

the so-called vote on the

Constitution and its results will have absolutely

nothing to do with how you

actually vote. And there will be no effectiveness

there at all, because there is no

monitoring, there is nothing, no

procedure—there will just be a screen on

which the results will be announced to us. Therefore,

our approach to this vote

is this: we do not recognize it. I will not

take part in it. If you are being forced to go, and

it is clear that all state employees—

all doctors, all teachers, all

employees of municipal organizations—

that is, tens of millions of people—will be forced

to go there, then vote against it. In that case,

you should vote against it. But overall, it is about non-

recognition, because no matter how we

vote, the result there will be

whatever they say it is—they will say that 90%

voted to extend Putin’s powers.

Well, let’s move on to Dagestan (a republic in Russia’s North Caucasus).

My mug has 05 written on it.

Why is this so important?

Because in Dagestan, exactly what

we were warned about is happening right now.

We were told that what makes coronavirus dangerous

is not that there would be people,

I don’t know, lying dead in the streets,

or that there would be millions dead. No, that is

not it. The particular danger of coronavirus is

that it overloads the healthcare

system, and indeed

hospitals will be packed with bodies, packed

with sick people, and nothing can be

done about it. The healthcare system will simply

break down. That is exactly what is now

happening in Dagestan. But the most

terrible thing is that here, well, in

Italy too, at one point, the healthcare

system broke down. But in Dagestan,

it seems the only thing it has in common with Italy is the beautiful

mountains; everything else is very different,

because all of this there is layered

on top of monstrous lies and

monstrous corruption. Because,

despite the fact that the situation in Dagestan

is extremely hard to hide, the peculiarity

of Dagestan is this: do you know your

second cousin? No. But in Dagestan,

everyone knows their second cousin. Do

you even have this concept in your

head: "my village"? No, you do not.

But there, many people have a particular

village, relatives, a huge number of

people. So everyone is connected, everyone knows

about everyone else. When your, I don’t

know, second cousin or some

god-knows-what nephew dies, that is the death

of a close relative. Everyone

finds out about it fairly quickly.

And Dagestan, despite the fact that

it has received enormous amounts of money in recent years,

had everything stolen there. The system there

the healthcare system is simply destroyed,

especially in villages, in small

settlements. I mean, there

is total collapse there. And right now in Dagestan

that very catastrophe is unfolding, and they

are lying outrageously. So, the minister

of health of Dagestan did a livestream

last week, because it was impossible

to hide the situation, and it had already started

to be discussed by literally the entire country

everyone is talking about it, because, well, a catastrophe

is happening. He starts the livestream, and in

that livestream, uh, he still keeps

saying that there are only something like

13,000 sick people, but only 3,000 of

them, uh, have coronavirus, and the rest

have pneumonia. Let's listen.

Well, the number of people who have fallen ill, due to, uh,

is more than 13,000.

13,000 sick people.

Overall, if you count, uh,

confirmed COVID infections and

community-acquired pneumonia, to be more precise,

that is to say,

697.

Confirmed

uh, COVID infection cases: 128.

Hospitals are packed with the sick and the dead. According to

official statistics, only 3,000

people are ill and only, uh, 36

people have died. That is the official

statistic. Everywhere they say: "We have

had 36 deaths." In that same livestream

meanwhile, the health minister

of Dagestan says that among doctors alone

40 people have died. By now they already have

at least 50 doctors dead. At that

moment, 40 doctors had died, but officially

they were saying that only 36 people had died in total. Let's look

at these 40 dead doctors.

How many doctors have died

as of today while on the front line?

Well,

as for our colleagues who

there are more than forty of them, I, I can say

Yes,

at the same time, one of Dagestan's particular features

is that everyone there loves

Instagram and uses it to spread this

information. And again, Instagram

is simply starting to overflow with

video testimony that

spills beyond the borders of the republic. They

are already being seen by everyone. And basically, uh, well,

now anyone can, uh, talk about

something. And in one of these livestreams, to that same

blogger named Ruslan Kurbanov,

uh, one of the nurses simply describes

live on air what is going on in the

hospital. And this account, well, completely

matches what people know, and

does not match at all what

the official authorities are saying. Let's see

what the situation is today in the hospitals of

Makhachkala.

Terrible.

There are very many infected people. My

acquaintances, my coworkers, all the ones who

work there, they say: "There are bodies in the

corridors, here and there, and no one is taking them away."

The military even went door to door, knocking,

trying to find the relatives of these bodies, because

I also couldn't find my dead for a whole day.

I only found them later; they had been lying there for a day

even though they had phones, they

called, I was outraged too, the documents

were lost, we can't find them. That's the kind of

circus going on there. The hospital staff can't

keep up. They live there, the medical workers,

that's clear. Many thanks to them. They

live there, they don't leave. But then again, you

understand—there are so many infected people, so many.

Well, excuse me, but if the ambulances

weren't properly equipped and kept going out like that, then wouldn't the number of infected

rise? I'm telling you honestly,

there is chaos here. This is not Makhachkala anymore.

There is no real leadership here. I

don't know, it's as if no one cares about

Makhachkala, as if nobody cares about anything. It feels

as though we have been left alone,

no one is helping us. I don't know whom

to turn to. I have already, in this

state, decided to come to you.

And this situation has, well, simply so far

exceeded

the usual level of chaos. In principle,

you could say there is chaos here

about almost any Russian region. But

there, that chaos has immediately risen

several levels higher. And Putin is forced

to hold a special meeting, because

several million people are watching this

unfold. It's the North Caucasus, very

densely populated. And every word

of lies keeps angering and angering people,

because anyone can go on

Instagram and watch a video like this

from the intensive care unit in

Khasavyurt. Let's watch.

Khasavyurt

intensive care unit.

[music]

You

[music]

can see for yourselves, I can't show everything,

because I think it would be

too shocking.

Just now,

just now, two people died here.

I'll say just one thing:

[music]

we've been abandoned here, abandoned.

Only Allah can help,

not our healthcare system.

Cursed be the one who brought this

to such a state.

No one is responsible for anything.

No one.

Nobody cares about anyone. I mean the

people and our officials.

Our officials are sitting in their ivory towers, completely

isolated from everything, because they have

a lot of money they've stolen.

Only the people suffer. In any case,

it is only the people who suffer.

And still, here we are now

discussing this, and the information there is simply

absolutely overwhelming. Everyone is talking about

20 people having died in this village, 10

people having died in that village, and in

some villages 500 people are infected,

600 people. The hospital is packed with corpses.

And their official statistics still say

36 people. I mean, it's just some kind of

mega-lie. TV Rain (an independent Russian media outlet) did an excellent

report. They went there and

spoke with Ziyudin Uvaysov. He is

the head of an NGO that simply monitors

the coronavirus situation. He is the one who

explains why everyone knows. Well, because

the population is very tightly connected. And simply

everyone in Dagestan knows how many people are sick

in their village. Let's take a look.

It's one minute and 15 seconds.

Standing next to me now is Ziyudin Uvaysov,

the head of the public organization

Monitor Patients. What is the situation overall?

Hello. In fact, the situation is,

you could say, terrible. There are very,

very many sick people. I think the health minister's figures

are close to the truth.

Most likely, in reality we actually have

somewhat more cases, and the number of deaths is probably

approaching a thousand after all

patients. All the hospitals are overcrowded.

I have to ask about the villages. As I

understand it, that is where the situation is most serious,

because some villages have already almost entirely

gone through coronavirus; people there

are dying, but there are no tests at all, and

they are being diagnosed with pneumonia. Could you

tell us about the main hotspots, the biggest

problems in Dagestan specifically from the point

of view of the villages?

As for the villages, in fact, people there

interact more closely. And because in the

initial stage the virus is not noticeable, they

were not afraid of infection. There are villages

where more than twenty people have died. These include

Gergebil, uh, Tlokh in Botlikhsky District,

Tebekmakhi in Akushinsky District,

where the number is approaching twenty, and Gubden,

and in Komsomolskoye, they said, there are also

more than twenty dead.

There are very, very many villages

where 5 to 10 people have died.

There. I mean, why lie like this? If

everyone knows. Twenty people died in a village.

Can you imagine what it means when in a village

20 people die in a month?

Everyone there is in an uproar; everyone knows it.

Why this lie? And of course,

the final nail in the coffin of this

lie was hammered in by Khabib. Probably the most

famous—well, definitely the most

famous person from Dagestan. Possibly the most

famous Russian. His level of fame

in the world is probably comparable to

Putin's. He recorded—I’ll show you a clip—

it’s about four or, I think,

five minutes long. A very heartfelt video on

Instagram. Well, he has his own

difficult situation, because his father, as I

understand it, is ill with coronavirus,

and was taken somewhere to Moscow. So

it’s a serious situation. And here he is

recording a message and describing the real

situation—just plainly, calmly—

and asking all his fellow Dagestanis

not to take part in the holiday celebrations. Right now, uh, not to

go to Friday prayers simply

because the virus is spreading, and this

is no joke. Let’s watch, uh, a minute of it.

I, Khabib, would like to make an appeal to

my fellow countrymen, to the people of Dagestan, in connection with

the recent events involving this virus, this

disease.

We are in a very difficult situation in

Dagestan, a very dire one.

Hospitals are overcrowded, many people

have fallen ill, and very many people have died.

It is a very difficult situation. I personally had

more than twenty people from among my

relatives, my close relatives, hospitalized.

I’m not talking about acquaintances; I’m talking about

more than 20 close relatives

who were in intensive care.

Many of them, many, are no longer

with us. Very many acquaintances have died, very

many parents of my close friends and acquaintances

have died.

He recorded a long video. There was also

an interesting exchange in the comments.

One user wrote to him saying

that, basically, “I’m disappointed that

you believe in coronavirus.” To which he

replied: “In my village, 500 people have fallen ill

with pneumonia, 11 have died, and

dozens are in hospitals. In the neighboring village, over the course of

one night, 14 people died. They couldn’t

bury them fast enough.” Can you imagine—that phrase really

was said: “They couldn’t bury them fast enough.” When

medical workers record video appeals like these,

like the one I showed you, from

other regions—and in Dagestan they really did

record them too, I think

it was the Khasavyurt hospital, with the

words: “There are very few of us left.”

Do you understand? It’s as if they are actually

standing on the front line. But in a sense

they are on the front line. But there are fewer

medical workers now, because they are dying,

because there aren’t enough of them for everyone,

because everything is full, everyone knows about

the dead in their village, their relatives, and so

on. And this lying continues. I

I’m deeply outraged by all of this and

by how utterly senseless it all is. Why are they

lying? What exactly are they lying for? There,

the most popular person in the republic comes out

and says, "We have a very grave

situation, a huge number of people have died."

Then an official says, "We have had 36

deaths." And everyone knows that’s a lie. But

why? I mean, it’s not Putin, not

United Russia, really, that is directly

to blame for this. Yes, they are guilty of

stealing all the money and destroying

the healthcare system. They are guilty of that. And,

apparently, in order to somehow

hide that guilt of theirs, uh, they

just lie. But the scale of the lying, the way they

look people straight in the eye. And again,

this is Dagestan, where this whole culture of

being a "real man," uh,

of manly behavior and masculine deeds,

all this talk of masculinity and

honesty and decency, is, uh, at least

in words, constantly elevated by officials

into some kind of absolute ideal. If you

say anything there, go apologize. You

have to apologize for this, you have to

apologize for everything. But who is going to

apologize for these lies? And how are they,

all of them, these petty officials, not ashamed

to come back to their very own village,

where 20 people have died? Or they’ll

come there in a month, after they

lied that there were only 36 deaths in the entire republic.

It’s astonishing, absolutely astonishing

super-mega hypocrisy

from Dagestan’s elite, and really, from

the elites of the North Caucasus and

Chechnya as well. We’ll talk about Chechnya now.

They just constantly

lie outrageously, and at the same time demand that everyone else

apologize, believe their

lies, and under no circumstances challenge

their words. And of course, the worst part is this.

This really is just

I don’t even know how this could be

said. There is this speaker of the

Legislative Assembly, Khizri

Shikhsaidov.

A grown man, gray-haired.

You’re the speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

Putin is holding a meeting on this

coronavirus situation, because it’s impossible not to

do so. In fact, out of all the federal subjects

of Russia, Putin separately addressed

Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Dagestan. And nothing

else. Because in Dagestan

there is a catastrophe, and you can’t not hold

a separate meeting. So Putin

is holding a meeting on coronavirus, uh,

and it concerns your republic. You are

the speaker of the Legislative Assembly. All the

people’s representatives, so to speak, are

subordinate to you to one degree or another. You

show up, and all of Dagestan is watching you.

So what do you say? What does this

man say? Listen:

"People are asking you, uh, that those

amendments that we are supposed to make to the

Constitution of the Russian Federation not

be delayed, but be adopted

in a timely manner, because people are waiting

for this. And there is understanding,

so to speak."

I watched this, and my jaw just

dropped. A gray-haired man, probably

some kind of respected figure. He was elected

somehow, after all. So this whole

ritual dance is performed around him.

This whole performance: let’s appoint a respected

man. Everyone is looking at you. Zero

people in Dagestan right now have any

desire or request to extend Putin’s

powers. And at the same time, absolutely everyone

has a request: "Help with money,

send ventilators, we need medical staff, we need

something." We’ve got the Emergency Ministry puffing

itself up with some kind of mobile

hospitals and whatever else. At the very least,

you could pay doctors more money,

pay them more, like in Italy. In Italy

there was a catastrophe. Italy, uh, honestly

said, "Guys, we have a catastrophe,

help us." And everyone helped them,

sending aid, and we sent

some assistance too. And it was an honest

conversation, because really,

you cannot hide the deaths of your

neighbors. And this man, when he,

well, even just from a political

point of view, should have said: "Vladimir

Vladimirovich, if you really want to flatter him,

we all love you very much. In Dagestan

everyone respects you so much, everyone values you so highly.

And of course, we are sure that now you will

provide us with help. You will send us

ventilators, give us additional

financial assistance, and to some villages we will

send mobile hospitals, and so

on and so forth. In other words,

you would use the opportunity and get something out of

him, because this is live on air.

Because in this situation Putin cannot

answer anything other than

"Dear Mr. or Comrade Shikhsaidov,

of course, yes, of course. We always

allocate huge amounts of money to

Dagestan for everything. And in this

situation we will help and send it." But

instead, the man really burns up this

opportunity of his just to

show that when his

fellow countrymen are dying right now, he must

fawn over Putin. Notice and remember,

Putin: even in a tragic, crisis

moment, I bowed and grovelled before

you so that you would remember my

servility. It’s simply disgraceful. I

know that right now in Dagestan signatures

they’re rallying against him, but they’re all like that,

the whole of United Russia, they’re all built that way

They really are traitors. What’s

happening right now is an act

of betrayal of Dagestan. What irony,

yes, everyone is writing to me about it now. You

used to shout, “Stop feeding the Caucasus” (a Russian nationalist slogan about ending federal subsidies to the North Caucasus). And

now you’re the one running around there the most. Well,

that’s exactly what I’ve always said,

that no matter how much money you give them, they’ll

steal it all, that whole elite, they’ll

loot it and siphon it off. And that is exactly what

happened. They took everything. There is absolutely no

healthcare at all. Everything

has fallen apart. And now they’re

coming back and fawning over Putin again. For

what? So they can once again get

uncontrolled money, which they will again

steal. And for that they need

people to vote for United Russia. When

the time comes to vote for United

Russia, they’ll run to these doctors and

force them to vote. They’ll

go to those villages where there were

huge numbers of deaths, which they

lied about, and once again they’ll ask everyone,

pressure them, falsify things,

make them vote, and so on. Don’t

do that. In the next election, in the

vote on the constitution. I just

really hope—I know that

a fairly substantial number of people

from the North Caucasus, from Dagestan, are watching.

Well, of course not everyone, certainly not everyone,

but let’s somehow, well, let’s try just once

to be outraged and respond to this insult

by not voting

for them, plain and simple, and by not staying silent about

this insult. Because, well,

it’s impossible, simply impossible. How can anyone

cover up the deaths of hundreds of people and 36 doctors?

It’s just absolutely

outrageous. Chechnya.

We’re not getting the same kind of information from there as from

Dagestan, but something bad is clearly happening there too.

Well, first of all, today

reports appeared saying that Ramzan

Kadyrov had been hospitalized with

coronavirus. There are a lot of jokes going around online about it.

I’m not going to

gloat under any circumstances.

A sick person is a sick

person. I wish any sick person

a recovery. And I wish Ramzan Kadyrov

a recovery as well. But of course I

can’t help noting that after all these years

he has been in power there, after the enormous, unimaginable

amount of money poured into Chechnya,

there wasn’t even a single intensive care unit

to treat the president of the republic.

No one is even saying otherwise: he

is in Moscow; he was flown there on a special aircraft

and is being treated in a Moscow

hospital because, well,

the man needs to be cured. That’s how

the country works, you see. If you need

to treat someone—not only in Chechnya, but in

Kamchatka, the Urals, or Chechnya—if

they really need proper treatment, what do you

have to do? Take them to Moscow. Damn, but

you can’t exactly send everyone by special plane,

can you?

There’s nothing there. Where did all that truly

colossal money that was

allocated to Chechnya go? We don’t know, but

it went somewhere. Or rather, we

do know. Just open YouTube, please,

and watch videos from Chechnya. And the most popular videos

from Chechnya—there are hundreds like them—show

some motorcade driving around in Bentleys,

Porsches,

I mean, I don’t know, gold

rims and all that stuff, some

leopards jumping around, and people throwing

money. That’s where it all went,

you see? We can send entire gigantic lines

of Bentleys down the roads

of Chechnya, but there isn’t even one hospital to treat

at least the president of the republic.

There’s nothing.

Let Ramzan Kadyrov be treated in Moscow.

That’s very good. But then why

at the same time actually intimidate and

humiliate your own medical workers there in the

hospital? There,

the medical staff tried to do the same thing

that people are doing all across Russia. They did exactly the right thing.

They spoke out,

saying that they, uh, didn’t have enough

protective equipment. They simply gathered

in front of the hospital. I’ll show you 23 seconds of it.

It’s mostly in Chechen, but

people who know the language translated it, and the medical workers

are protesting the lack

of protective equipment. This is what it looks like.

Nobody likes videos like these. I

show them here often. I’m drawing

attention to the medical workers’ union. These videos

don’t please anyone. Not in Chechnya, not in

Dagestan, not in Smolensk. And in

the Pskov region, no one in the authorities likes them either,

but only in Chechnya, in its finest

traditions, did they

force the medical workers to apologize publicly. Yes,

good Lord, why? They came out

simply to say there isn’t enough

protective equipment, we’ll get sick, we’ll infect

you. But no, instead someone has to come and

make a special report, a TV segment,

on the Grozny TV channel. They called those

poor medical workers provocateurs. And they

were made to explain on video what

terrible mistakes they had made. Forty-seven seconds.

As for the protective equipment, we didn’t know.

It turns out the hospital did have it. We

got scared; we weren’t prepared for this.

Basically, it was panic because

I was not informed about the availability of

of COVID-19 protective equipment,

uh, a meeting was held. Well, we were

later told and had it explained to us

that such forms do exist. For the time being,

those same forms were provided. We, as

doctors, should not have been so

worried. And our problem

is that we raised

a problem that, supposedly, we do not have. We

did not know that this protective

equipment was

actually available. Of course, we should first have

made sure, uh, whether, ah, the

personal protective equipment was in stock.

That was a brilliant phrase. Our mistake was

that we raised a problem

that we do not have. I mean, I

laugh at it, but the situation is actually

monstrous. Again, the whole republic

knows that doctors really did not have

protective equipment. They are obliged—

if they are decent people, they are obliged to

shout about it, because otherwise

they themselves become a source of

infection. I am simply curious how this

works. So they watched this video,

and then, I do not know, Kadyrov and some of his

top officials saw it. And what did they do?

Did they, I do not know, drive to that

hospital with assault rifles and say, "Record this or we

will kill you," or, I do not know, somehow

shame them or pressure them? I mean,

these are clearly frightened people,

intimidated people, and it is obvi-

ous that they were telling the truth, that they

did not have protective equipment, and now they are being forced

to lie and say that the protective equipment

is there. Why? That is the question: why?

Oh, supposedly so as not to disgrace

the republic, so they can say

that everything is available. But in Moscow, doctors

—and Moscow is richer than even Chechnya—

even in Moscow, doctors say: "We do not have

protective equipment." So they said it there on

the issue of protective equipment, Kadyrov could have come out

or the others could have said: "Yes, the

doctors appealed to us, and now we will buy from

the Ramzan Kadyrov Foundation masks and

respirators and so on." But no, they

send in some people who are

simply intimidated and then humiliated before

the entire republic, forced to apologize for

speaking the truth. What is going on? Why is this

being done? And again, all of this is done under

the banner of: "We are a great people, we are

the proudest," while they themselves force their own

people to humiliate themselves.

It is simply, absolute- it is simply

disgusting and utterly monstrous. And

this is, of course, the style of United Russia. And on

Instagram it is the same thing; Instagram is very popular

there, and everything gets pushed through Instagram.

It is very prominent. They have a man,

the chief physician of the local hospital, Kozbek

Sultanovich Mezhidov.

His account is extremely pro-Kadyrov. Every other

photo is Kadyrov, Kadyrov, Kadyrov,

Kadyrov. And between those photos: such-and-such

doctor has died. He is basically

writing almost every day: "The chief doctor of the ambulance service,

the deputy chief doctor of the ambulance service,

has died, another person there

has died." That is, he is constantly writing

about colleagues who have died. When you

were just showing it, please bring it back,

please, yes. And the deputy chief of the ambulance

service, yes, a young man—young

people, young doctors are dying, including

because there is no protective equipment. So why

are you busy with this nonsense,

making them apologize on camera?

This video was sent from Chechnya. I will say right away

that it is in the Chechen language. We asked

an acquaintance from Chechnya to translate it. And

it is claimed—I cannot

say this with 100% certainty, because I did not get it from

Instagram, right? What is this? A hospital

in Grozny. At that, at that

moment—it was recorded, I think, yesterday—

the official line in the republic says that they have

only nine deaths. Here

a woman in this video says:

"Who said that only nine people

have died? We alone have had two

people die—there are still warm bodies. And here there are another

four bodies. Let us watch this

video.

Four.

We do not know how catastrophic

the situation in Chechnya is. Whether it is

as catastrophic as in Dagestan. Well,

it seems that in Chechnya there was a much

stricter self-isolation regime,

because Kadyrov introduced it from the very

beginning. But clearly there is the same

lying about this there, about everything. I very much

hope so. I know for a fact that

the leaders of the republic will be watching

this broadcast, and tomorrow whoever it usually is there,

some press minister, will put out a whole

angry and indignant

statement. Every time I say something about them,

about corruption in Chechnya,

they say that Navalny has slandered

our republic. Do not go looking for the

person who recorded this video. Do not

waste time on this nonsense. Just

admit it—what is the problem? Admit it. I

for the life of me really do not

understand. If you tell the truth about all

those who have really died and fallen ill, who

will be worse off because of that? As Volkov said in

his video: "And when you conceal

mortality, you are committing

a crime against your own people, including

because, well, you make it harder

to fight viruses like this in the future,

because, well, we have to understand,

what the real dynamics of the spread are

in the North Caucasus. There, there is a particular

kind of distinct way of life, it seems,

probably, into play. On that very day, many

people infect one another. It is customary

to hug, kiss, and so on.

It is important to understand how

rapidly and intensely infection is spreading in

the republics of the North Caucasus, and how

dire the healthcare situation is there.

It is important to know this so that people can survive in

the future, starting right now. And when you lie,

you are committing, and I repeat for the millionth time,

what is simply a crime against

your own people. You must immediately,

immediately stop lying about this. And I

am simply calling on everyone, and on the residents, well,

of Russia and of the North Caucasus in particular,

where the lies are the most brazen, to simply

go after your authorities. Well, in Chechnya,

of course, that is very difficult to do. There,

for every comment you leave on Instagram, someone

comes to see you and forces you

to apologize somewhere on a treadmill. But

even so, do not vote for them. Talk

to one another, agree among yourselves on

the fact that it is right to fight and go after this

government. Show solidarity with such

medical workers. Now, to the questions. 92,000 people

are watching us live. And the account FANAkunt

Dashki asks me: "Why do you

think officials from Tyumen

keep ending up in high-ranking positions in

the state?" Sobyanin, Yakushev, Falkov,

is there some kind of pattern?"

Of course there is. The mafia. The wealthy Tyumen

mafia. And it became allied with Putin's St. Petersburg

mafia. That is why Sobyanin drags

his own people along and brings them from

Tyumen. Tyumen is a region where

political lawlessness and

electoral fraud have always been the norm. In that sense,

well, they are simply bringing in their own

mafia, so that this mafia

could help here, including

to loot money. But it is not only, not only

the Tyumen one. For example, now

the construction minister, and before that

the deputy

to Sobyanin for construction, Khusnullin, brought his own

entire Kazan mafia with him.

Yeltsin used to bring along various

people from Sverdlovsk. In that sense, this is a

tradition, a disgusting tradition

of Russian politics: a person arrives

and brings a whole clan with him. Ah, and it is not

even in the sense that these are people with whom

he has worked. Any person

who is appointed somewhere—if I were

appointed or elected somewhere, there would be people with me

whom I know, whom I trust,

with whom I have worked. But there

it is a geographic principle, because, well,

it is like, we handled little matters together there,

and that is why they keep bringing them in. This is

the kind of personnel reserve they feel they need to bring in. And

that is because, well, well, like any mafia,

there is this, uh, system of mutual

cover-up and simply a system of oaths and

never giving up your own people. That is how everything is built

in Russia.

And when will they officially comment on

the petition? Well, there are a huge number

of questions about the petition. Last time, we

were not able, live on air, to collect

100,000

votes, because apparently, in the Kremlin,

not apparently—obviously—in the Kremlin they were very

worried that we would, right there live

on air, literally within a day, within a few

hours, triumphantly collect 100,000

verified signatures. So they

simply stopped counting signatures during

the broadcast. But in any case, we

did it in less than a day; we did it the

next day. And when will they

comment on it, and what will they say?"

Of course, they will drag it out until the very end.