We’ll kill with Kadyrov. Lewd acts: Peskov and Svetov. Putin against Wikipedia

[music]

A very good evening to everyone. It’s 8 p.m. in Moscow,

which means we’re live on air

with the program *Russia of the Future*, and I’m Alexei

Navalny — or A "person trained to humiliate people "

just like they did to me this week

in the Kremlin-controlled media.

Please send in your questions

with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture on Twitter, and they

will be shown here. I’ll do my best

to answer them, and as usual I also have several topics

prepared for us to discuss together.

I want to start by promoting

— and, really, showing off — our

clothing collection that we released in

our official merch store. You can

go take a look — there’s a link

in the description. I’m genuinely proud of this collection.

Usually, you know, we’re kind of

conservative about this sort of thing, but

this time, with the new collection, we decided

to really make something cool and

bold. Let’s look at a few photos.

Here’s the photo shoot — all the participants

aren’t professional models,

they’re the real, actual

employees of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).

They’re wearing the very items

that you can buy in our store.

Look — our lawyers.

A very funny photo of our lawyer.

That’s how it turned out, but of course

my personal prize in the “Best

Model” category goes to Georgy Alburov — now let’s

show his photo too. There he is, you see, with

a drone, and actually the dachshund

really does

belong to Georgy — it’s his dachshund.

So, in short, follow the link and buy

items from our great official

store, from the new collection. You’ll get

good T-shirts, and we’ll get the money

we need to keep going. The main

political topic being discussed this

week really is the main one,

it really is very important, although it’s not

especially dynamic. For example, I don’t have

a video clip for it — although actually I do, at the

end I’ll show one for illustration. The topic is

a sociological

study published

jointly by Levada and the Moscow Carnegie Center,

an analytical organization.

This is a real study — not just

another opinion poll where they surveyed

a thousand grandmothers

across the country, or just 1,000

respondents, and published what

they publish every week. This is an actual

study, and it dealt with stability

and the desire for change. And in fact,

it turned out that the main fetish,

the central article of faith of the entire Putin

regime — this idea that people

are tired of any kind of change, that they’ve

suffered so much in the 1990s that you can

feed them any nonsense, tell them any lies,

imprison anyone you want —

the only thing that matters is stability, because

nobody in Russia wants change — all of

that has now been challenged by this major study,

which showed that this is no longer true at all.

Fifty-nine percent

of respondents — that is, 60 percent of people —

want not just change, but

decisive change. Sixty percent of people

say that they want decisive

change.

That’s an increase compared with the previous

study of 17 percentage points.

So here you can rule out some kind of

simple error. You understand, in a study like this

the margin of error might be 2 or 3 percent,

but not 17 percent growth. And

that’s very interesting, because when people

are asked what kind

of change they mean, under what conditions

that change could actually happen, people

say very clearly — let’s

look at the slide — that this change must

come in the context of serious changes

to the political system. In other words, this isn’t the

kind of “decisive change” where, you know,

people want a decisive cut

in vodka prices at the store, or a decisive

improvement in education and healthcare. They

certainly want those decisive improvements,

of course, but they are already admitting to themselves

— and saying it out loud to another person

who came to them with a questionnaire — that of course

they very much want this change, and it

will only come with serious changes

to the political system. Which, translated

into plain language, means either

there will be no Putin, or if he remains in

some form, there definitely won’t be any kind of

United Russia.

But the most interesting thing I wanted

to draw your attention to is this: because a lot of people

wrote about this, and you’ve probably

heard it already — so far I haven’t said anything new.

But one thing was written about very little, and

to me

it seemed like it was actually the most

interesting part. What do you think: among these

60 percent who support the most

decisive changes,

who are these people? What social groups do they belong to?

And you’re probably sitting there right now

saying — go on, say it to the screen —

and you’re saying something like: well, obviously,

it’s Muscovites — they’re the most restless,

running around wanting change, holding

various rallies.

Then there are the residents of St. Petersburg, the residents

of the biggest cities. Then, of course,

it must be young people. In other words, our

usual assumptions — and if, in the past, I...

They asked who actually wants change here.

Well, of course, I would have moved on to certain

groups, but first of all I would say, well,

of course, young people—they see no

prospects. They can’t achieve anything, their

efforts there bring no

results in this economic

and political system. That’s what I would have said.

Probably the residents of Moscow most of all.

Surprisingly, no—not at all, excuse me.

Nothing of the sort. Let’s look at the slide: who wants

radical, radical change?

Respondents in the age category 40—

44 to 50, that is, people who are already entering

pre-retirement age. And they are,

in particular, dissatisfied with the pension reform.

But agree, people around the age of 50

are definitely not young anymore.

What’s more, we see the traditional

result: respondents with higher

education, and residents of medium-sized cities, and here

it is separately specified:

not Moscow. The last point is understandable—

critics of the current regime—but the main thing is this:

the largest share of those who want decisive

change are people from forty to fifty

four years old who live in medium-sized and

small towns. And now let’s look at who does not

want change—that’s also very interesting.

Do you know who doesn’t want it? Muscovites, that is,

and citizens whose education is below

average—that is, those who have not

finished school. It’s clear: with such

citizens, they just watch TV endlessly,

all day long, and television very effectively

washes their brains because, well, because

their education is below average, they simply cannot

critically

process this information. And Muscovites too.

And this, of course, very seriously changes our

understanding of where dissatisfaction lies.

In absolute numbers, of course,

the largest amount of

discontent still lives in Moscow,

because people have simply moved to Moscow

from all over the country. But overall, if we

look at the distribution, it is

really quite a remarkable

thing, because it’s clear that

Muscovites, again, because

Moscow has sucked in all the money, are

still more willing to put up with reality,

because here, yes, here there really are

quite a lot of teachers, for example, who

earn 150,000 rubles a month (about 1,500 USD). There are

doctors who earn 200,000

rubles (about 2,000 USD). In the provinces, nothing even

close to that exists, even in large and medium-sized

cities—nothing remotely like it. And

that is why discontent is spreading across the whole country.

And this discontent, as I already said, is among

these older age groups of the population, and

of course, in the near, foreseeable

future this will, of course, very strongly

change the picture of political struggle

and opposition struggle. This, by the way, is

one of the reasons why in the voting

they won, and why in Moscow we crushed

all those United Russia candidates—not even because

we brought in some new, advanced

young people, but also because those who

regularly go to the polls are older

people, and they all want decisive

change. This is the most important thing. The question arises:

why—why exactly these

people aged 45 to 54? Well,

let’s take an average woman,

50 years old.

Why has she suddenly started wanting decisive

change connected with serious

political changes? To this question,

there is an excellent answer, it seems to me,

in the video published today by

the Doctors’ Alliance. It is also posted on

this channel, on our channel, Navalny

Live. Be sure to watch it—an 8-

minute video. It’s a fairly

typical visit to a hospital, but still,

do watch it, because

when we use the phrase “a total disaster of a

hospital,”

you all probably imagine, again, that it’s

some district center, most often somewhere in the

European part of Russia, those typical Russian

cities—Tambov, Ryazan,

Smolensk—places the authorities gave up on long ago,

.

No one sends money there; everything has gone

to hell.

Or, on the contrary, maybe somewhere in the Urals

or some far-off periphery,

some poor region or rural

area where hardly anyone lives anymore, where

the population is shrinking. But what we are

about to see now—I can’t show it to you in full,

I’ll show you just a small excerpt.

This hospital—let’s look at the map—it

is located ten kilometers (about 6 miles) from

the residence—down below is the residence

of the president, Bocharov Ruchey, and up above,

marked in red, is City Hospital

No. 5. That is, this is Dagomys, in

Krasnodar Krai.

It is one of the most populous regions of Russia.

After Moscow and Moscow Region, it

ranks third in terms of

population.

Its population is growing. This is the territory

of so-called Greater Sochi.

This is where, not so

long ago, in 2014, 1.5

trillion rubles (about 15 billion USD) were invested in the Olympics, remember?

And when we—I, among others, and the Anti-Corruption

Foundation—published a report about

the Olympics, saying that all the money had been stolen,

people argued with us. They told us, well,

Navalny is saying all sorts of nonsense about how

our stadiums are supposedly expensive.

After all, we poured those 1.5 trillion rubles

into infrastructure, and into this whole

Greater Sochi, the entire coastline, the whole

Krasnodar Krai (a region in southern Russia) — and yes, it will all be there, and there will be

everything brand-new, with the latest

infrastructure, and everything there will

shine so much that many generations, I mean,

of Russians will come to Krasnodar

Krai, and specifically to Sochi and Dagomys,

look around and say, “My God, what

beauty. Thank you, Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin, for once pouring

1.5 trillion rubles in here — $50

billion at the exchange rates of the time. That is

a colossal sum, enough that we could have

built up half the country with it. We spent it,

and now this is about that hospital, where even

the direct lines of accountability — and the local

city of Moscow.

But the hospital is in Greater Sochi, very close

to Putin’s residence. It’s a super-

exclusive place.

A mega-elite facility where they supposedly shouldn’t

be sparing any expense.

Let’s watch a minute and a half from

an eight-minute report about this

hospital. For what purpose did you bring— I mean,

there’s documentation, see for yourselves, just look at this.

Why is it that things like this are happening here?

This suggests that your hospital

has problems. There you go. She is not

following my orders. She is not obliged to. Is she

some kind of serf? You should act

in accordance with your employment contract. And Yulia

Konstantinovna, in accordance with her

employment contract as well. Then you should have

paid properly — not just when the camera is on.

I run around all the hospitals, and this is still—

what are we supposed to do when these

medications aren’t there? How are we supposed to treat patients? Even now,

lunch is over — just look at the amount

of vermin. For example, you don’t have to look far.

It’s all right there — just cockroaches.

So what do we see? A union inspection arrives,

which has every legal right

to walk through the hospital under the law,

and a doctor runs out and calls the police.

If you watch the full video, you’ll

see it on their faces: they are locking

patients — elderly people — in their rooms,

not even letting them go to the toilet, because they’re terrified

that something will be filmed in this

hospital. And the real explanation for why

the chief doctor was so badly frightened is that

— do you know what a palliative care

ward is? A palliative care ward is

basically a hospice inside a hospital. That’s where

terminally ill people stay. Roughly

speaking, a person stays there from the moment

it becomes clear that they cannot be cured

until they die. They are supposed

to stay there, and the state pays for it

because we pay taxes for it,

because this is supposed to be a social state,

because we are supposed to have free

healthcare. It is clearly stated everywhere

that people stay in this hospital free of charge.

So, obviously, they are supposed

to stay there for free. But then these

video clips were recorded by the doctors themselves

because the union inspectors were not allowed in.

And it turns out they are all paying:

their relatives come and pay for things

that are, in fact, supposed to be free. They pay the staff —

well, you understand how that system works.

And again, this is a hospital

located in one of the

richest regions, in that very area where

Putin is constantly — just look at

the schedule — where Putin, in his

Bocharov Ruchey residence (the presidential residence in Sochi), spends nearly

most of the year. And this is what is happening there.

And there’s also a very

striking moment about the medicines. Let’s

watch just 26 seconds.

First the chief doctor talks about

how things are — or rather, excuse me,

what the situation with medicines is — and then

there is silent footage, also sent by the doctors

to the union. They simply walked up to

the cabinets. Those of you who have been in hospitals

have seen those glass cabinets where

medicines are kept. They walked up and filmed what

the cabinets in this Sochi hospital look like.

As of today, our pharmaceutical

supply is fully adequate.

Patients are not bringing in essential medicines themselves;

we have everything.

And that, essentially, is why people in

their fifties — older people already —

want decisive political change.

Because they come to a hospital not in

some backwater, but in the town of Dagomys, that is,

effectively in Sochi — and there are no medicines there.

And meanwhile the chief doctor says,

“Our pharmaceutical supply is complete,”

full stop.

But those medicines are not in the cabinet. So the question is: where

did the medicines go? Or, more

accurately: where did the money go

that was allocated for buying the medicines? After all, he says

there are no problems at all with

pharmaceutical supply, so

some tens or hundreds of millions

of rubles must have been allocated, and on paper it says that

everyone has insulin, bandages, and everything else they need,

and that patients with incurable illnesses

are lying there and supposedly lack nothing,

and that they are well fed, and that

the wards are clean and properly sterile,

and that money has been allocated

for all of it — for medicines, for

cleaning staff, for everything, even for pest control

to get rid of cockroaches. But in practice, there is absolutely nothing there.

These people, people around 50, come to

this hospital to admit their relatives, or

they come with illnesses of their own, and they see

that there is nothing there — and they can see it with their own eyes.

Now they want decisive change, and

they are 54 years old.

That’s how it all began when they were 34

years old, while for today’s 40-year-olds, all of this

started much earlier, because

throughout all the Putin years, they have seen no

improvements at all. In other words, living in

their own, say, Dagomys (a resort area near Sochi), or in

the actual Dagomys, seeing that Putin’s

residence just keeps expanding somehow,

expanding, while traffic jams get worse and worse,

road closures become more and more severe,

and there are more and more black official cars,

while the huge hospital still has no medicines,

just as it didn’t before. They waited a year, they waited

two, and now they’ve been waiting for 20 years, and there’s still nothing.

That is why now they want decisive

change.

So, politically speaking, the conclusion for

us is: we have to crush this government. At the end we’ll

talk about Ramzan Kadyrov, who

called on everyone to kill, to kill United

Russia—as if he had somehow legitimized the phrase

“we will kill, we will kill”

United Russia, because people hate it.

What we need to do is simply

explain to our people the direct and clear

connection. As we

can see from opinion polls, they already understand almost

everything—the direct link between the condition of

things and the lifestyles of Shuvalov, Peskov, Usmanov,

Abramovich, Putin and his relatives,

his nephews, his daughters, and everyone else

under the sun, including Dmitry Medvedev with his

wonderful, astonishing residences

all across the country—and the connection between all of that

and the fact that in the hospital, even as we

see in an elite district, there is absolutely nothing

except cockroaches. Cockroaches are running around there

in swarms, in huge numbers. And

it is very important to see that. Let’s see if we

have any questions via Twitter.

Show me if there’s anything. But they

seem to be frozen somewhere right now. All right, while we

wait for more questions, let’s discuss the fact that

Vladimir Putin—well, in the last

program I talked a lot about how he has

really descended into senility, and well,

indeed, over the last year—

probably the last two years—we’ve seen that he

is constantly acting bizarrely; he really

behaves strangely and says

strange things. When serious matters are being

discussed, he is genuinely, well, simply

bored. In the previous program, we

discussed

the State Council meeting on healthcare, where

Putin, in a truly absurd fashion,

proposed that we should create

student brigades made up of doctors and

medical students who would provide treatment.

You know, in that hospital in Sochi,

the cockroaches will keep scurrying around, but some kind of

brigades of medical students will be

traveling around.

In other words, no one tapped their finger to their

temple, so he keeps going a little

further. In particular, he was acting oddly at the Council

on the Russian language, and that was also

quite interesting and quite strange.

Quite interesting in the sense that I look at it and

think: where is this going to lead us? And

well, it’s obvious where it will lead you—to

senility. We’ve seen all this before with Brezhnev

(Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, late Soviet leader).

He ended up there after he had sat

in power for so many years. Putin has already been in power

longer than Brezhnev. He ended up in that state; he

was covered in orders, covered in medals, and everyone

respected and loved him very much

and called him “Dear Leonid Ilyich,” but he

was senile, and everyone understood that “Dear Leonid Ilyich” was

senile. And now

“Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich” is heading there too.

And in a truly remarkable way, he

described to us, told us, that

there is some kind of conspiracy

actually directed against the Russian language, and in this

conspiracy, let’s take a look at who is involved.

Who is involved in the conspiracy against the Russian

language?

War on the Russian language is being declared not only by

caveman Russophobes—and we also

observe this, it is no secret—but also by various kinds of

marginals who are effectively at work, and

aggressive, aggressive nationalists. Unfortunately, in

some countries this is becoming

quite

official state policy.

So, in the conspiracy against the Russian language,

the enemies involved are, let’s see: caveman

Russophobes,

various kinds of marginals, and aggressive

nationalists. As we can see, everyone has been

named. He named the enemies of

the Russian language using

obviously borrowed words, which

from his point of view are probably

parasitic words in Russian. This

also shows very clearly that, well,

these people are really talking nonsense. They do not

understand what the Russian language is; they do not

understand how it should develop; they do not

understand that it is a living, constantly

changing environment.

But for them, it is enough simply to explain that here

there are some enemies, some conspiracy

of Russophobes against the Russian language. Seriously?

What conspiracy of Russophobes? The main enemies

of the Russian language are officials of the Russian

Federation and their hostile attitude toward

the Russian language—and specifically Putin’s

hostile attitude toward the Russian language

was demonstrated very clearly at this same

Council on the Russian language, because there

he stated that Wikipedia, you see,

was not good enough for him, and all of it should be replaced

with some big new Russian

encyclopedias—give me 20, 20 seconds.

about what Putin thinks should be used.

Wikipedia. As for Wikipedia, it has already

been discussed here—better replace it

with the Great Russian New Encyclopedia in

electronic form. We’re talking about this now with colleagues.

This, at any rate, will be

reliable information, in a good

modern format, by the way.

You see, they’re sitting there nodding: absolutely, exactly.

It’s exactly the same situation as at that

meeting on healthcare, where he

suggests student work brigades, and there sit

some people nodding. Meaning, they’re thinking,

“My God, what nonsense. Don’t stop nodding—yes, yes, yes,”

“good idea.” And here this guy is spouting

some nonsense—he really knows nothing

about Wikipedia. If he loved the Russian

language and tried to speak about what

he actually understands, he would say, “You know,

guys, Wikipedia and the Russian language on

Wikipedia are a unique thing, because

it was Russians specifically who wrote a huge

number of articles in Russian.

There are more articles in English, but

the contribution of Russian-speaking people to the development of

Wikipedia is enormous. I once came to a

lecture by Wikipedia’s founder that was held

in Moscow, and he said there that the Russian

community is of fundamentally important significance for Wikipedia,

and that people

writing in Russian write a great deal,

and produce very good articles in that

sense.

Wikipedia—I’m not saying in this video

that we should leave nothing except

Wikipedia, but on Wikipedia this is a triumph

of the Russian language and a triumph of Russian people

who wrote a huge number of

articles there. So when you go online, you

have broad access to knowledge. The articles

vary—some are very good, very

detailed, and very thorough.

There are some articles, perhaps, that

are not a significant source

of information if you are writing some kind of

academic work, but in any case the Russian

language on Wikipedia

has won. Well, that is, it came in—it yielded

to English there simply for

obvious reasons: English is the language

of international communication. But among

national languages, it is unquestionably

dominant. Hooray, we’re awesome, we’re great.

Wikipedia in Russian—damn, he just needed

to come out and say: yes, Wikipedia

has its faults, so for the development of

the Russian language, let’s create a great

new Russian encyclopedia.

There was an encyclopedia in the Soviet Union,

but let’s remember—please look

at this cool screenshot that I found on

Twitter, this image of

Wikipedia.

This is what the Great Soviet Encyclopedia looked like.

And regularly, libraries would receive

a letter saying, “Dear

librarian, please, in our Great

Soviet Encyclopedia,

from page such-and-such to such-and-such,

carefully cut out”—there were literal instructions there—

“using a razor blade, cut along the spine

all of this,”

“and paste in other articles there. Under the letter B,

please cut out and

paste in ‘Bering Strait.’”

That’s what the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia was in Stalin’s

times. In Brezhnev’s times, they no longer

sent out instructions, of course, on how exactly

to neatly cut everything out, but still,

the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, for the most

part, in most of its volumes,

for the greater part,

was not a source of real knowledge.

It was just this kind of nonsense where

they wrote things like, “Thanks to the CPSU Central Committee (Communist Party leadership)

for the fact that the law of universal

gravitation works for us.” In other words, it was an absolutely

ideological thing. But of course, in

Putin’s Russia,

besides wanting to create

some kind of ideological tool and

replace a normal

tool—Wikipedia—with it, they also, of course,

want to siphon off money, because already for this

great

new Russian encyclopedia they have

allocated 1.7 billion rubles

—seriously, already almost 2 billion rubles.

For what? For what purpose? I mean, why?

Maybe they could somehow discuss it first?

Wikipedia is used by—it's one of the most

visited websites in the Russian language.

I’m absolutely sure it’s in the

top five in Russia, probably even in the top three

in Russia—probably after Yandex and

VKontakte, Wikipedia is one of

the most visited sites. Tens of

millions of people use

Wikipedia every day, and they’re being told: let’s replace it, and

we’re already allocating 2 billion rubles for the replacement.

Seriously? This is senility,

progressive senility, really.

People online wrote, absolutely correctly, that Putin

has never been on Wikipedia; he doesn’t

know what it is. As is well known,

he never uses the internet.

All the articles are printed out for him on sheets of paper and

brought to him in red folders. The main

tool

for his informational work is these little

telephones that we see in photographs,

these funny ones with eagles on

the buttons and on the

central part, or else these

flat ones without buttons that you

pick up and there’s already some minister on the line.

when Vladimir Vladimir 4 is big

that is, the person has never

used in the century to sing and the students on not

used the internet, has absolutely no

damn clue about it, and works mainly in

an environment of either people just like him

the same kind of blockheads who understand nothing

about the internet, or complete

assholes who understand everything and use

Wikipedia, but just sit there nodding their heads

and then this person comes in and breaks

something he didn’t even create, well,

tries to break it. Of course, they won’t do anything

to Wikipedia. I mean, after all, hundreds

of thousands of Russians wrote in Russian for

this Wikipedia, these articles.

And instead of going and saying, “Guys,”

“thank you for making Wikipedia largely

Russian and in the Russian language,”

he says, “Yeah, Wikipedia is bad. 2

billion rubles have been allocated—what the hell for?”

And there sit the same petty officials, nodding along—enemies, and

they are enemies, including enemies of the Russian

language. Let’s see. Unicorn Geralt

asks us—a regular listener

or listener, a female listener, I think—

in your view, will the new

imitation opposition party

controlled by the Kremlin really

be able to interest Russians? Why would it even

replace the failed United

Russia?

Indeed, yesterday and today there have been a lot

of articles saying that the Kremlin

is considering creating a new

opposition party. I think, of course,

they cannot replace United Russia

because, well, that would be too significant

a failure. United Russia has certainly become

a burden. In the previous broadcast we watched

a video where a governor and a deputy governor

discussed how United Russia

has failed, it’s gone, but you can’t just

simply take it away like that—it’s too large

a structure that took too long

to build. A lot of people are feeding at this

trough, so they won’t be able to

do it just like that. But yes, they really

will most likely move toward creating

imitation parties.

My forecast is simple: they’ll just be

the same people, just with a different label. Who have we

seen? All these

figures they constantly use

because they have neither conscience nor, well,

they’re cowardly and corrupt.

All these people—Titov, Prokhorov, Sobchak, all

that whole gang around

them all the time. I mean, if you

take these surnames and trace out

who is connected to them somehow,

who belongs to the same organizations, one way or

another—those are the people they’ll use

for the opposition party. But I think

it won’t lead to anything, really.

Nothing will come of it except

the creation of yet another

reincarnation of this spoilage

that will get maybe one and a half or 2

percent. They may fool some number of people,

but I think this is more likely all

being done simply in order to

distort the discussion. They’ll create their own

kind of controlled opposition party

that will shout and call out,

“Let’s all unite.”

And naturally we’ll say, “No,

we’re not going to unite with you, you corrupt

crooks.” And they’ll say, “Oh my God,

Navalny or someone else has insulted us again,”

“called us crooks—how can that be?

These authoritarian opposition figures...” I mean,

this, excuse me, nonsense that you’ve

seen many, many times.

And most likely that is the main goal of creating

the party. It will be interesting—we’ll

watch and see. As I said at the beginning,

the Kremlin media called me

a man who has trained himself to humiliate

people. We will certainly be doing a lot of

that here—

humiliating those people who join

any kind of Kremlin party.

Viktor Medved asks: “Alexei,

are you ready—good Lord, that question that

you could say makes me blush and feel

ashamed—when will there be videos on the main

channel?” There will be. We’re preparing them and working on

them. First of all, you know about our technical

problems: we have nowhere to record, nothing to record with,

and right now all of this is complicated.

Every time we have to rent

equipment. There have been logistical problems. We

are simultaneously preparing several

different videos, but I admit that in all the time

my channel has probably existed,

we’ve never had an almost

two-month break. We’ll try to release

something interesting for you soon,

something new. When we do, we’ll

of course ask that you

help promote all of it.

Yulia asks that I

talk about the situation with Mikhail Svetov.

I’ll tell you. But as for Mikhail Svetov, you know,

I still also wanted to, before that,

touch on this situation involving

Ramil Shamsutdinov, the conscript who

shot people in Zabaykalsky Krai (a region in eastern Russia),

killing 8 of his fellow servicemen, and who is clearly

a victim of dedovshchina (violent hazing in the Russian military), which

he simply could not endure anymore and killed them. This

situation has taken a rather disgusting

turn.

The disgusting nature of that development

was expressed in the fact that there is an

organization called the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee

which once was always very

powerful and very influential, very much so

the right kind of organization

it was precisely thanks to this organization that, at one time,

after the absolute lawlessness there,

of dedovshchina (violent hazing in the military)

in the late 1980s and early 1990s, really

it was completely out-of-control hazing, everyone wrote about it

everyone talked about it, and it was precisely thanks to

the Soldiers' Mothers Committee that it became possible

to somehow force the state to deal with it

to fight it, but then the state became

very deeply displeased, and by the time of

the later Putin years, these committees

of soldiers' mothers had been split several times

and then flooded with completely

some kind of corrupt, bought-off people, and

the head of the Soldiers' Mothers Committee—or rather,

of some version of those committees

that, as we can see, are under the control of

the Defense Ministry and United Russia (the ruling political party)—she

comments on this situation. A private said

that he was beaten there, tortured, humiliated

and had his head shoved into a toilet; unable to endure it all,

he shot them. Out of this tragedy, from all sides,

out comes this auntie named Flyura So-

likhovskaya, the head of the Soldiers' Mothers,

and do you know what she says? Well, she says that

computer games are to blame for everything

and that the internet should be banned—literally

the internet must be banned because all of this

is categorically unacceptable, and it's not

because his head was shoved into a toilet

and he was beaten at night, but simply because over there on

the internet he watched too much and started, you know, there

posting things. Let's take a look here, one sec

our internet, our websites, all these games

they lead to boys

who are, for the most part, left

at home alone by themselves, and they play these

games. Literally, not long ago I spoke with

a young man; he had already served

but got drawn into another game that could have

also led to tragedy. Do you

understand? No matter how much people may distrust

the internet, it needs to be shut down, specifically

blocked in places. A disgusting, lying

woman—supposedly from the Soldiers' Mothers

even they were outraged there too

even the controlled part of them, and they stated

that they were demanding her resignation, or had sent her into

retirement, because after that she also

made, simply, a very long video statement

saying that blaming the military for what happened

is categorically unacceptable. But really,

how do people have the conscience for that?

She knows perfectly well. At the same time, another

interview was published with

the father, who said that in

the materials of this criminal case

Shamsutdinov, of course, was interrogated

Let's look at the testimony he

gives. Here is what he writes verbatim:

"That day they promised they would degrade me,

they said so directly, warned me that they would, like, rape me.

That day the lieutenant told me that, well,

you understand, after guard duty it would all

happen. All the other new conscripts before me had already

been 'lowered' (prison-style sexual humiliation), I know that, and that evening it was my

turn. There was nowhere to go. What was I supposed

to do?" So, in the context of

all this, out comes

this woman and tells us—and the same thing was

repeated by representatives of the Defense Ministry—

that, gosh, the internet is to blame for everything

they looked at the internet and started

shooting. And how can you so simply

so meticulously

avoid the fact that it was a lieutenant

saying this? This is no longer dedovshchina when,

you know, some idiot who was, I don't know,

beaten there thinks he should

beat the next ones. This is not just soldiers

among themselves, one 18, another 19, and they

start playing some kind of games. This is

a lieutenant

who studied for five years at a military academy

who is an officer, on whom

there is, essentially, placed

the duty to make sure there is no

hazing—and he himself beats them, he himself shoves

their heads into the toilet

he himself is engaged in all this kind of

prison-style crap, really

about them. And if

if it turns out that there really were facts showing that

someone was raped or 'lowered,' well, well

that is just—this should be

a scandal on a nationwide Russian scale. How

can people send their children into an army in which

all those people responsible have not been jailed

who are responsible for this, and yet they tell us

that blaming the military for this

is categorically unacceptable. Then who am I supposed

to blame—the company Blizzard

that makes Warcraft and

StarCraft? Who am I supposed to blame? And in this

the one specifically at fault is Shoigu

Of course, he personally didn't beat or rape anyone,

but Shoigu and Putin are the ones who

keep pushing their stupid conscript army

when it should be a professional army, and

Shoigu and Putin do nothing

to root out dedovshchina and abuse, and

Shoigu and Putin and United Russia have done

everything to destroy real

public oversight, just like in prisons

there used to be—there were these, well,

there were real human rights defenders who

went into penal colonies

and made sure no one was being tortured. What

did the authorities do? They

drove the real human rights defenders out and brought in

all sorts of stooges who now go to everyone

and say, yes, yes, sure, well, the fact that

he's complaining that he was beaten nearly to

death

and that one was tortured with electric shocks—but that's all nonsense

nothing like that is happening. The same thing

Now the Soldiers' Mothers Committee is completely...

all these political officers and the entire structure

of public oversight over the army—it

has collapsed. Do you remember who was on the public

council of the Ministry of Defense, and who was

thrown out of there? Brilev, a British

citizen.

The entire system of public oversight

is completely fake. This is a real achievement

of Putin and Shoigu—they are responsible for all of this.

It’s not about the internet at all. I really

wanted to put it this way. First and Only

asks: there was recently news about

the opening of a casino zone in Crimea. What do you think?

To replace Azov-City after it was closed, apparently. Well,

listen, when it comes to these

gambling zones they keep announcing,

it’s honestly ridiculous to watch.

Both Putin and Medvedev

seem to have one idea in their heads: that a casino can

develop some region.

For every question, for every problem, they have one answer:

“Let’s open a casino there.”

They opened a casino in Altai,

while the situation in the Far East,

Siberia, and Altai is terrible.

“Let’s open a casino in Rostov

Region, in Krasnodar—everything’s bad there, so let’s

build one on the border of Rostov Region

and Krasnodar Krai.” “Things aren’t going well in

Crimea, so let’s

build a casino there.” Good Lord, what nonsense.

They are really wasting time on this nonsense and

constantly trying to create all sorts of

special zones.

A special economic zone, a gambling zone—

we don’t need any zones. What we need

is simply normal regulation across the whole

country. And it seems to me that the situation with

casinos really shows the mentality of these

people. They’re just ordinary small-time crooks from St. Petersburg

(Saint Petersburg). Back in the 1990s, Putin and his

friends—Miller and all the others, Chubais,

the whole team—

they took bribes, brought in

whatever they could—some got $5,000, some $10,000.

And what did they do? “Come on, guys, let’s go gamble.”

They would go to casinos, play roulette, and

for them that was the best, coolest life.

Those are their fond memories of youth,

of how they were the big shots there, how they could

“fix little problems” and were the masters of the city.

And that’s why they have the mentality

of people who think that a casino

can solve things—that if you build a casino in Crimea,

it will somehow start solving problems. It won’t solve

any problems. No casino

will ever solve anything, of course. There are 35,000 people

watching our live broadcast right now. I want to ask

all 35,000 of you, and everyone who

will watch later, to show some support for

this. You know, I really love outspoken

deputies. We elect these people, and we very much

want them to work for us afterward.

Unfortunately, partly because of

temperament, not everyone—many do

good things, but not everyone is that

kind of outspoken deputy. I’m very glad that

there are now people in the Moscow City Duma

who are really fighting. Today, just

before the broadcast, so I didn’t have time

to get the footage or photos or anything, but

Yengalycheva and

Shuvalova said they are sending inquiries

based on our investigation, and others as well.

Good for them—they’re fighting. And this week I saw

an amazing video by deputy

Nikolai Bondarenko. He is a deputy in the

Saratov Regional Duma, and in that regional

assembly he also has a fairly large channel,

*A Deputy’s Diary*. I think many of you

watch it. If you don’t, go

look it up—just search *A Deputy’s Diary*. It’s a very

interesting and informative channel. I don’t

know Bondarenko personally,

though of course I’ve heard of him, and I simply

got enormous pleasure from his

latest video. So, the problem is this:

Bondarenko—and by the way, the same goes for other

deputies too—in the Moscow City Duma the situation is even

worse: you’re a deputy, but you can’t speak,

because in the Moscow City Duma, for example,

you’re allowed to speak only in the

“miscellaneous” section, and only on whatever issues

remain on the agenda. And items are simply

thrown off the agenda by United Russia with its

majority. It’s the same with Bondarenko.

He is elected by the people. People want him to

speak, say things, submit proposals, but instead they

just cut off his microphone.

They simply don’t let him speak. What can you do?

The presiding officer sits there, presses a button,

turns off the microphone, and that’s it,

it’s over. So what does Bondarenko do? One

minute ten seconds: “We demand that your

newly introduced habit of switching off

our microphones just as we reach the final

second be stopped, because this has got to

end. Or, according to media reports, which were later

confirmed,

confirmed,

the German government is secretly sending

radioactive waste to Russia. Under no

circumstances should this waste end up...” Something

is happening—I had almost finished speaking, let us

finish. Why are the microphones being cut off?

Does it sting your eyes when you

create this kind of mess in a regional parliament?

All responsibility should

fall on you. We will appeal to the

prosecutor’s office and hold you

accountable. You didn’t care when

you passed pension reform, when

you canceled benefits. We here, as deputies,

are oppressed by United Russia every day; even

here at the regional level you are silencing us.

What, even now—nothing? First

they came up only to me so that you wouldn’t speak.”

We missed it and had to interrupt.

This is a regional parliament, tentacles and all.

The police showed up so that the pilot could tell me.

He was speaking into a gramophone, as they said, but.

A cool little bug, and what else does it do?

You see, it’s such a complicated situation, and.

For a lone person like that, zero—and he even has some kind of faction.

There is one of some sort; it’s quite hard to fight.

But the majority, the overwhelming majority, they.

They adopted whatever rules they wanted, for example.

Even a parliamentary inquiry, again, is simply.

In Moscow, I don’t know very well how things work there.

How it’s arranged in Saratov—you know that, for example.

A deputy’s inquiry—a Moscow City Duma deputy’s inquiry.

He can’t make it happen. You’d say, what kind of nonsense is that?

But there it’s set up in such a way that, in order to.

To send a deputy’s inquiry, you have to.

You have to read it out in the Duma, and to read it out.

At the Duma.

And they’ll only give you time in the section.

Miscellaneous—the Miscellaneous section will come only after.

Many, many hours after the session begins.

And they’ll simply close the session because.

Time has already run out, and you’re supposedly a deputy, and.

People are demanding something again.

And often, in Bondarenko’s situation, people tell him.

Voters say to him, listen, somehow over there.

Everywhere they’re saying that in Russia they’re introducing.

Nuclear waste—can you at least somehow.

Express outrage? I’m outraged—you’re my.

Representative, so why aren’t you outraged? And what can you do?

You try to do something, and they switch off the microphone. Great.

So he took a megaphone and started shouting into it—that’s.

Exactly what needs to be done. And if we had.

Several people like that sitting in every.

Regional parliament, then of course the country.

Would be different. Someone might say, no.

He’s clowning around there, or just playing to.

The crowd, and recording all of it on video.

Posting all of it for hype. But what is a deputy.

Actually there for?

A deputy exists in order.

To speak out on po—on.

Political issues in support of his.

Voters, so that those voters.

Would watch him in YouTube videos.

And say, what an excellent politician—we voted for.

Him, and that’s exactly how it should be done.

That is political work. Right now I.

Think that in Saratov Region.

Well, probably in many places already, they there.

This video is popular; here it’s a bit.

We’ll see—many people will watch the video and.

First of all, once again realize just how much.

United Russia has crushed even deputies.

From other parties—all opposition deputies across the whole.

Country do exist, but they’re practically slaves.

They can’t do absolutely anything, and people will see.

That this is how a normal, genuinely.

Brave guy can act—Mikhail Svetov. I want to discuss.

The situation with Mikhail Svetov, because it.

Is as vile as it gets.

And from the example of the situation with Svetov.

We saw the methods they have started.

To use—these are, you know, the kind of methods.

That are below the belt, and they will continue.

To use them—a real disgrace.

So, Svetov. I think all.

Viewers of my program know him, but if.

By any chance someone doesn’t, he is one of the leaders.

Of the Libertarian Party, of the libertarian.

Movement, and Svetov in particular, in many.

Ways is the reason why.

The libertarian movement, though.

Still, let’s be honest, not the most popular.

Political movement worldwide, it.

Is now quite popular, especially among.

Russian youth, well, because.

In Russia it has now become this kind of.

Honest, very oppositional, and fairly.

Radical movement. I don’t entirely agree with all.

Libertarian ideas.

I agree, and certainly not with all the ideas.

Put forward by certain libertarians.

Sometimes it just sounds like a kind of.

Primitive view: let’s just.

Abolish the state altogether.

And scrap any kind of social support—that’s.

A kind of primitive libertarianism. Svetov.

Approaches all of this much more deeply, and he.

Gives a huge number of lectures around.

The country. Let’s take a look at these lectures.

At a few photos—here he is doing a tour.

A real one across the country, including at.

Our headquarters. He speaks there, and in.

The regions, in cities, to lectures on.

Libertarianism, hundreds of people come, and.

That is really significant.

Apparently, and obviously, this infuriated the Kremlin people.

Because they are used to the idea that.

Opposition figures are always marginal, that they don’t really exist.

[music]

It’s me again. Admit it, those of you who still.

Waited through those long fifteen minutes—what did you.

Think? That you would be rewarded when.

The camera came back on? That there’d be some kind of chaos?

That the studio had been trashed? Unfortunately, no. I.

Apologize—it really was.

A technical problem. In our country, as I.

Said, we now simply don’t buy anything anymore.

Because buying things.

Is pointless—they confiscate everything. Every time we.

Take rented equipment again from scratch.

Every time we set everything up here as if.

It were the first time. So unfortunately, technical.

Problems are inevitable. I hope that in.

The future there won’t be any. My apologies.

Once again. Those of you who watch the program.

As a recording won’t actually notice anything.

You’ll just see me twitch somehow while talking.

About Svetov, and then we reappeared—those who, well.

Just know that 13,000 people were waiting.

And waiting for a long time. At one point, when we.

Cut out, there were 37,000. Well, in general, we.

Are to blame ourselves. So, Mikhail Svetov.

Is a really important topic. Mikhail Svetov travels.

Around the country, Mikhail Svetov speaks, and the Kremlin.

Gets furious because they believe that.

A person can become famous only

because they do something to make it happen,

so that he becomes famous. Well, somehow I

slipped past that, while they keep everyone else out.

They really get enraged by

every new guy who

comes out of nowhere. Svetov, well, some guy

who runs a YouTube channel and then started traveling

around the country.

And then, bang, he's giving speeches. Let's

watch about a minute of his speech

at a rally, at one of the rallies. It was

his most popular speech. By the way, I was

interrupted by Svetov then. Hello,

future free people. I call us

future free people because

for now we are not free, while it keeps us

locked up, while it keeps us within these limits, and

while we are still here, slogans constantly ring out

saying that we will not forget and will not

forgive. But so far, all we are doing

is forgetting and forgiving. I urge you

to remember the names of the people who turned

our country into that

into the prison of nations that it is

today. We must remember these people and

treat them far more humanely

than they treated us.

And these people can switch sides, and really, not like in the '90s.

But one person is very worried about this:

Vladimir Putin. And the one worrying is

the Presidential Administration because

they cannot control Mikhail

Svetov. Tell me, is the broadcast still on? I

lost everything again. Is the stream still going?

Sorry, please, I just can't see

what's showing on the screen. Mikhail

Svetov infuriates them, and they want to do something to him.

So they sat there and thought, sat there and

thought that they needed to do something to Svetov too.

He served 30 days; it wasn't the first time

he had been jailed. They jailed him in St. Petersburg

and in Moscow.

But it's not enough just to lock someone up,

because if you jail a person for 30 days,

his popularity only grows, because

if he comes out after those 30 days and

keeps doing his work—and Svetov

does keep doing his work and does not become any less

radical. I mean, he doesn't say

anything radical; he says normal

things. That's why it drives them crazy. With his

trips to the regions, and then

Svetov started writing that his

home had been surrounded by some shady

types hiding their faces. Let's

watch 23 seconds of this clip.

There are people all around.

Separately, it's very interesting to see how they behave—

they are genuinely afraid because they understand

that what they are doing is absolutely criminal. Well,

and when he published it, everyone realized

that a raid and a search were about to happen—and they did.

Why? Not because of the Moscow Case (the criminal cases tied to the 2019 Moscow protests), or rallies,

or anything like that, or extremism,

or anything of the sort. In a much more,

as they see it, cunning—and certainly vile—way,

they are trying to deal with Svetov, because

they opened a case against him under the article for

lewd acts.

Just think about it—what a label to slap on someone.

It turned out that in this lewd-acts case,

a journalist from the newspaper *Izvestia* filed a complaint against

him because of his post on

Instagram from 2012. At that time, Svetov

was dating a 16-year-old girl, and right now

the age of consent in Russia is 16, and

back then, I think it may even have been 14—though I'm not

completely certain; shortly before that it had been 14.

I don't want

to get into that, and Mikhail's personal life

doesn't interest me. I don't want to discuss it.

But one thing is absolutely certain:

first, he did not break any laws;

second, some Instagram post

that Instagram itself did not even ban for

violating any rules, from 2012,

certainly cannot be grounds for

a complaint alleging, excuse me, lewd acts,

filed by someone from *Izvestia*. It definitely

cannot be grounds for searches,

detention, and an overnight interrogation

lasting 12 hours.

What are they doing? What matters to them is precisely this:

Svetov—lewd acts.

Some story about Svetov—whether he stole something

or something was stolen from him—but in any

case, let's discuss whether

Mikhail Svetov's actions were lewd or

not. That is exactly the plan.

In other words, discredit him so that

if he keeps traveling around

the regions, there will always be some

guy who says, 'All right, Mikhail, you're here

lecturing us about libertarianism,

and all that,

but let's

hear about what exactly those

lewd acts of yours were.' That is exactly

the plan, and we can see it being carried out. I mean,

it's really as if some little schemer

was sitting in the Presidential Administration,

the same kind who comes up with all those lawsuits

for Prigozhin, and rubbing his hands together, he came up with

the next political technology (political manipulation tactic): first they

opened this lewd-acts case,

announced it in all

the newspapers, and then in all the newspapers

they reported everywhere that Svetov had been ordered to undergo

because of an Instagram post

from, what, seven years ago,

a urological

examination. I even googled out of curiosity

what a urological

examination is.

An investigative urological examination—

please look at this—concerns the capacity for

sexual intercourse; the ability...

sexual characteristics and visual signs

sodomy

and so on—if you look into it there,

you'll find a lot of things of that kind there.

As part of the examination, the doctor is supposed to

determine, among other things,

the length and width of the penis in a relaxed

state.

And so on and so forth—lots of different

details. I have no doubt that later, of course,

first of all, they will force him

to undergo this examination against his will,

which is a separate humiliation over

an Instagram post. Then they will publish

the results of this examination so the whole internet can laugh

at some of the data and

caption it with whether Svetov had

signs of sodomy detected, and what

measurements the doctor recorded there, and

the forensic medical examiner.

So that’s what this is about. I mean, in the Kremlin,

there are perverts sitting there, just so you

understand—they are real perverts.

Just look at all this anti-

opposition propaganda, which is genuinely

obsessed with all kinds of sexual

topics, all these sorts of

urogenital themes. I really have no

doubt that Kiriyenko himself signed off on

all of this, and then reported on it, and they

snickered and laughed and said, “Haha, he’s

calling for lustration, and now we’re going to

publish online the exact

data or photographs that are produced as part of

the process

of a forensic medical examination about

whether Svetov

shows signs of sodomy, as they apparently consider proper

to establish in such an examination.”

That, in fact, is exactly the plan.

It is utterly, utterly disgusting.

It’s sad, and we need to be prepared for it, and

they’re going to keep dragging Svetov through the mud.

But in the context of all this, I want to say

something else. You know, there is a man

quite close to Vladimir Putin; his name is

Dmitry Peskov. And Dmitry Peskov—this is

a fact from his official biography—

started dating his first wife

when, at the start of their relationship, she was

14 years old.

So please, let’s conduct one. I am

officially demanding that the Investigative Committee, the

prosecutor’s office, and the Kremlin arrange

a urological examination of Dmitry Peskov

and tell us all whether a criminal case should be opened

over indecent

acts that Peskov committed there in

relation to some person or other. But

never mind how old Svetov is.

If they opened a case against Svetov over a post

on Instagram, then this episode doesn’t even

deny that fact. I mean, it seems

that before it was simply a fact of his

private life, and I don’t care about it.

What interests me about Peskov is only in terms

of him being a crook and a corrupt official. At

what age he dated which girls,

and how old they were—that does not

interest me as long as it remains within

the law. But if they’re going to subject Svetov to

this kind of examination, then let it happen in the next

office over: let both of them, Svetov and Peskov,

come to the expert, take off their pants, and

let the expert conduct his examination, so very important to

the Kremlin. And then Putin, or I don’t

know, maybe Kiriyenko together with him,

can look over those photographs with pleasure

and positively revel in all of it. That’s what they

want, isn’t it? Then let them do it.

So it seems to me that this whole case against Svetov is

completely fabricated.

But since the Kremlin has decided to do this, we

should consider it in the context of Peskov.

If we consider what Svetov did to be

indecent acts, okay—then Peskov committed

far more indecent acts, because

in one case one person was 16, and in the other she was 14. That’s

all I want to say about

Mikhail Svetov. And, all in all, greetings to him

and to the entire libertarian

movement. You have clearly made the Kremlin

very angry, so keep acting

the same way—you’re doing everything right.

Meanwhile, while Svetov is being put through

this examination, Apple, of course, is now under pressure here.

Remember who said that famous

joke-like phrase, “Apple is getting nervous”?

We’ll even show the video now

to remind you, but for now I just

want to say this:

just like with Wikipedia, as I said at the beginning

of the program, our authorities are constantly

fighting against us, and in every possible way.

They are not just fighting to stop us from

going to rallies

or demanding free elections—they

really do something every day, systematically,

to make our lives

worse,

more expensive, and less convenient. In particular, right now

they have passed on first reading a law under

which all mobile phones

must come with

Russian software preinstalled. And at the same time they themselves

are gleefully putting out

articles—I read one today in RIA Novosti (a Russian state news agency)—saying that

you know,

with the iPhone, technically

this can’t be done, so iPhones

will be banned. Ha-ha-ha, what a great

article. I’m reading it there in RIA Novosti,

and they literally write: well, Apple lovers will

have to travel to the United States and buy

their Apple devices there.

And do you know who our biggest Apple fan is?

Apple? Let’s take a look—here’s that

famous funny photograph that

is there for conical photography

our Dmitry Medvedev's

now there's a man covered in dust, I don't even

doubt that he has all the latest

phones and iPads — a deputy with two

Apple phones, Apple

he's basically the main inhabitant of the State Duma (lower house of Russia's parliament), there

there you go, a typical one of them, the whole

United Russia — all of you there in the government

all of them, you won't find a single person using

Android, just like absolutely everyone

uses Telegram, but for us Telegram

has to be banned

they're all glued to these iPhones, but at the same

time they absolutely need to — they're on them

all the time, they live in this, they see that this whole

supposedly, as they see it, advanced

public likes Apple, at least

certainly those people who use all the

Apple devices are most likely

opposition-minded toward the authorities, so

let's pull some kind of stunt

to make life a little harder for them somehow

but they're making life worse for the country as a whole

they really are harming the state as a whole

overall, if their idiotic dream

comes true — though I don't think it will

of course — then everyone will travel, I don't know

people will just buy some gray-market

phones or go abroad somewhere to a

nearby country — to Ukraine, Georgia, or

the Baltics — to buy these iPhones

that's what will happen; sure, prices will rise a little

the price of electronics here, yes, but the main thing is

our sellers, our people who work

and make money from this, they

will lose part of their profit, but the Kremlin

doesn't give a damn, just doesn't care, because for them

it's more important just to snicker about how

they somehow didn't

slightly spoiled our lives, while they themselves

can't do anything

a video about how Apple got nervous

let's take a look: this is 2013. In 2013

two people, two subjects of our investigations,

promised us something

let's watch — they made one, even

some kind of color sheets too, so-called

electronic ink, one hundred percent

a Russian invention

but today, right now, at one of the selected

enterprises

belonging to our state corporation

of Russian electronics, and on its basis we will

implement everything; it will receive the highest awards

it will turn out better than Apple, while at the same time

after our smartphone

we'll live and see; let's hope this is

the first, but not the last

well, Dmitry and Natalya, we've lived and seen that

you've got absolutely nothing. It's 2030 — you remember

that video, right? Some have probably forgotten

but it needs to be remembered because

they told stories, received awards

a Russian development better than the iPhone

cheaper than one — with two little screens, one

black-and-white, the other color — but there's nothing, nothing

no developments at all; it was all completely

made up, both by Rosnano and by Rostec

all their developments, all these promises — zero

nothing. They just allocated billions

stole billions, and now pretend that

well, it's all been forgotten, but those who bring up the past

— 'whoever remembers the old should lose an eye' (Russian proverb) — back then, in

2013, who even remembers what they promised there?

What Svetov posted on Instagram

in 2012 — that's important, but the fact that

the head of a state corporation told the president

at that moment — no, not the president anymore

the prime minister then, that's who he was saying it to

but in any case, whether you

were heading the government — that's not important

they forgot it and moved on. Let's discuss

apologies and all that — Apple got nervous, and

apparently it needs to apologize to

United Russia, and now this

week we witnessed, of course,

something absolutely astonishing. Moving on to

Ramzan Kadyrov, who stated that

he was going to kill a large number of

people. In general, it's very interesting to observe

this kind of colossal

disproportion — we really do have castes

absolutely: people to whom the law

does not apply at all, and people for whom

some kind of

crimes and violations are simply invented, and then cases are opened

out of thin air. Two cases caught my attention

very strongly. First of all, it was

the former mayor of Grozny

the nephew — a close nephew — of Ramzan

Kadyrov

Islam Kadyrov — he became notorious for the fact that

he beat people, he tortured people, he beat people

with a stun gun. I mean, it was just

so open and so well known that you can even

find videos like that on YouTube

give me one second

the video — I specifically prepared it

I mean, a normal person — just look

this is just — I mean, you hardly even need to press

damn it, an official, damn it, the mayor of a city

some woman is standing in front of him

she's terrified out of sheer horror, and he just

takes a stun gun, walks up, and jabs it at her

with that stun gun, on camera, on

camera. Can you imagine what he did to

people

what all of them do to people when there's no

camera? I mean, first of all, this is

really some kind of perversion, I mean, damn

there just aren't even words for it. And what

kind of motivation does a person even have to

say, 'come on, film this,' and then there's this frightened

woman standing there, and he's waving this thing at her

scaring her, and of course she's trembling there

and then he jabs her with it. These people really

need to be kept locked up somewhere, they

dangerous and perverted, and what happens to

them? Is it dangerous to come back? Nothing—he

just apologized, that was all. He offered

an apology—there’s no problem at all. I mean,

just imagine if someone

threw a paper cup at you—well, damn,

a criminal case. Touched a helmet—

got three years. But here, an official in his

office

is shocking women with a stun gun, and then

apologizes with the following excuse: I

am ready to accept punishment for my mistakes,

but I did it not out of malice, not for

self-interest, but in order to help

people who had become victims of fraudsters.

What amazing help—some woman on

camera. I mean, as I said, we can only

imagine what they were doing to

people off camera, if on camera they were simply

shocking them. And one more

absolutely astounding explanation:

why is there a scandal here, why did you do that,

why did you torture people, why are you such a sick

fascist? The explanation: I was in car accidents,

I was put under anesthesia 29 times, I am ready to undergo

treatment and rehabilitation.

But I think I acted correctly and

am helping people. The result: completely

not guilty. This person is not in jail, he is not

under house arrest, he is not under a travel restriction,

not under any

preventive measure at all—nothing

was done to him. He just apologized,

the guy, you know, kind of—well, kind of

apologized. What more did you want from him—

to send him to prison for something so trivial?

And after all, it wasn’t a paper cup, not an empty

bottle thrown at an OMON officer (Russian riot police), this

wasn’t some comment posted online

or even an Instagram post. It was

only torturing people with electric shocks in

a neighboring republic, in Ingushetia. The same thing

is happening there too, you see. There are

high-ranking deputies from United

Russia (the ruling political party).

Some guys were caught with a kilogram of heroin,

a kilogram of heroin. The arrest video is 28

seconds long.

The kid came up—well, the dead-drop, going by the water...

I’ll scatter it around the spots.

This is the son of, excuse me, I should say, one

of United Russia’s deputies.

A kilogram of heroin—what does a kilogram

of heroin mean?

For any person who is not the

son of a United Russia deputy, it

means, well, more than ten years—

absolutely, definitely more than 10 years. Quite

recently, the whole country was discussing how

an Israeli citizen who was in transit

flying from India to Israel, and in the

transit zone they found 7 grams

of hashish, and she was given 8 years in prison.

You yourselves know a huge number

of stories where people got enormous

sentences for small amounts. But here—

a kilogram of heroin, 10 to 15 years. What

happens to this wonderful young

man? Nothing. Basically, he also

apologized, promised it wouldn’t

happen again. You see, if only that

worked for everyone. Then they could catch anyone

with drugs or whatever,

and he says: you know, guys, I won’t

do that anymore, and everyone still

applauds him. Maybe the judge says,

wiping away tears, what a good

person—of course he won’t do that

again, let him go. I mean, I’m not

demanding that this young

man—the son of a United Russia member—be

done away with or necessarily jailed for 15

years. I’m not demanding that, though many are.

I’m simply demanding some kind of equality before the law. I

demand that if one person gets 5 years for a gram,

5 years,

then either you don’t jail that person, or you

jail this one too. I’d like at least some kind of

Well, not all people can be one hundred

percent equal; everyone has some

aggravating or mitigating

circumstances. Maybe this son

of a United Russia member has twenty-eight small

children, and therefore he should get

some kind of discount. But then I at least want

a criminal case,

at least a trial, and at the end of that trial let him be

given something—

a suspended sentence, whatever. But there’s nothing at all.

He just said it wouldn’t happen again, and

that works. So that’s the kind of absolute

impunity and double standards we have. That

is at the base of the pyramid, and at the top

of the pyramid we see Ramzan Kadyrov, but we

also see Putin, with absolutely double

standards. But such a super-vivid

example, a crazy example, an impossible

example in a society that is trying

at least to imagine itself as

a civilized society: Russia is a country

where laws do not function. Russia is a country

where there is absolute inequality. But at

least at the official level, at the level

of rhetoric,

we at least pretend that we have

some kind of rule of law and statehood. These

same people jail others for not

throwing a paper cup—they say, well, they did throw

paper cups, but at

police officers, so under the law we

jail them. But that’s not how it works. All

the same, if there is lawlessness at the top,

there will be lawlessness below.

We’ll show a clip—one minute and 10

seconds. Ramzan Kadyrov is there. This video is from

the BBC; we took it from them, many thanks for

the translation. He basically says that, like, we

will kill for so-called crimes of honor.

They call it a crime against honor, but in reality

it’s simply because someone online went after them.

He says that we will hunt down

such people and kill them. One minute ten seconds.

What does that mean in Russia now?

A governor, executive power, United

Russia (the ruling party), the law, the cassation court, all of it—

all this supposed rule of law, this constitutional

state—everything is right there in this video.

[music]

Ochi-kun

On YouTube, personally—punishment, he must... that he

Beeline in July again... that he is a robot.

The special services, the bridge, a young ork (slur for a brutal aggressor) to take.

motion

unique

the bewitched... year, the law, the constitution

democrats, and that is, prosperity, maybe

the path, Antonida, what’s there, the café, the attending

treacherously, this one is not schizophrenic, alive

a cow, a knee, what, with help

with different things, I boast, described, you’ll stick in order

We must stop this, we must kill

and, I mean, as if—there are insults,

gossips and swindlers, you know—this is literal.

Do you know what it sounds like? Literally the same

video, just if you replace a few words.

The words would be: for faith, for insulting Islam, we

will kill. We don’t care what

punishment we face. What is punishment?

Good Lord, nonsense—so what, prison?

They’ll kill me? Fine, I’ve lived forty-five years, and in

paradise there will be however many virgins... These

statements by Kadyrov are a one-hundred-percent

carbon copy of statements by leaders of

the Islamic State—actual

terrorists. He supposedly opposes them, but

he says literally the same thing: that we

don’t give a damn, we will kill these people, and for

that nothing will be done to us. So what is

the law? What punishment? What can they even

apply? Well, they’ll kill us—doesn’t matter.

There are things more important, and for the sake of those

things, we will kill.

By killing, imprisoning, intimidating—and if we do not

stop it, nothing will work out.

Insults on the internet, you understand.

I mean, even then this still would not

be acceptable for a governor, absolutely

unacceptable for a public official, even if he were saying

that about terrorists, those who

kill our people—we too will, so to speak,

hunt them down and kill them, like Putin shouted

back then, ‘we’ll waste them in the outhouse’ (a notorious Putin phrase). In effect, the man

is announcing a kind of extrajudicial execution. But he

is not even talking about actual terrorists.

He is simply saying: all sorts of swindlers,

schizophrenics, gossips on the internet—we will

hunt them down and kill them. The point is: have you

already killed many people? Have many people

already been tracked down and killed? The cops are sitting right here nearby,

the cops and some, some FSB officers

and Rosgvardiya (Russia’s National Guard), the local ones—and nothing.

It’s all normal. Yes, yes, we’ll kill, of course.

So why is he saying all this? Because

just as nothing worked out for Putin,

this whole engineered system, this whole

‘vertical of power’ has collapsed, and in

Chechnya

there is no support at all for United Russia.

In Chechnya, everyone knows perfectly well that it is a complete

failure. But since they know it perfectly well, despite the fact

that people are intimidated and terrorized, that it is genuinely

dangerous there, people still

write. They write there, in the comments,

they curse at him, laugh at them, or

simply write basic things, like:

‘You’re lying, our salaries are low,’

‘No, I have no prosperity at all, we have

poverty here.’ And they consider that an insult

to their honor. That is why, in particular, they hate

someone like Tumso—I have spoken about him many times

on this program. Here you have a man whom

they want to find and kill because

his ‘crime against honor’—what does it consist of?

This ‘crime against honor’ is simply that he criticizes

the Kadyrov regime, saying that they

seize people, kill people, torture people, and

at the same time—what for? Why do they do all

this? Supposedly for some kind of prosperity, but it still

never arrives. I showed you this man before,

Islam Kadyrov.

A second cousin once removed who tortured

women, who killed a woman with electric shock—he

personally. That is official information. He abducted

for example, that... abducted him there. Let’s

look at a typical video from Chechnya, about five

to fifteen seconds, where in front of him, in front of the person to whom

they are apologizing for posts on the internet: ‘I want

to correct my unworthy act, which

I... me very strongly...

...to the leadership of the republic, and my

parents once again...’

That is what they are trying to achieve. It’s just that people can no longer

stay silent; they refuse to remain silent.

That is why they are criticized everywhere. But these great

so-called fighters for prosperity—what do

they do? The entire leadership of the Chechen

Republic sits on Instagram all

day long, and on Instagram all day long they

write something there and then read

the comments about themselves.

If someone writes a critical

comment, then for them it is simply

immediately a crime against honor. Someone wrote that

someone there is an idler—well, that’s mild; on the internet

they can write

they really can write fairly

insulting things, like ‘I’ll... your...’

some crude line, or something about your mother.

They can write something like that to any

public figure; comments like that are written

constantly, endlessly. But they

want to stop it by intimidating people.

They understand they will not stop it, but they

really have simply become so

brazen that they are now, essentially, openly

telling everyone: if you criticize us on the

in Instagram comments, we will

find you and kill you — that is what they are saying, and

the police are sitting here, so

the continuation of this story is absolutely

fantastic, because today

Echo of Moscow journalist Maxim Kurnikov

managed to reach Dmitry Peskov, our, as we

know, man who committed

indecent acts, according to the

Investigative Committee, several years

ago, and the president’s press secretary

was asked a perfectly

reasonable question. Let’s look at this

dialogue on the slide.

“But please tell me, right now Kadyrov

has said that he will kill

— how do you comment on all this?” To which

Peskov says, “No, we won’t. Our

message by the mission — no, we won’t, who knows

what the BBC reported there, all the more so

it seems it was published without translation.” Kurnikov then

asks him, “But this is a state

TV channel, you understand.”

“A state TV channel is publishing this.” “Well, yes,”

“they published it without translation. We know nothing

about such statements.” All the newspapers

are writing about it, the entire internet is full of this video.

The question is: will these statements be investigated?

If I were to say here, you know,

that corrupt officials like Shuvalov and

Peskov, we are going to destroy

and kill — what would happen to me for that? I’m 45,

I can talk about this almost like

Zhirafy (likely a garbled reference); he and I were born in the same year, I’m

45 years old.

Why would I even — they’d kill me, they’d throw me in

prison over some website, over all these Peskovs and

Shuvalovs, Yakunins, all these crooks and

thieves, Medvedev — if I said we would kill them,

like devils, they would just storm in here

and I wouldn’t even manage to finish the program.

Everyone would come running here,

screaming, with a list, and all these Peskovs and

Shuvalovs would write up statements this long

— this long —

saying that I am a terrible terrorist.

As you remember, Sinitsa was imprisoned over a tweet

in which he suggested that, well,

someone, someday,

sooner or later, would kill the children of

those who break up protests, and they gave him

5 years. One of the members of the Supreme Council

of United Russia is simply, on state

television, saying: we will kill

people and use for this

law enforcement agencies, because they are

gossiping on the internet. And the president’s press secretary

under Putin says: no, we are not

going to investigate this. But why

is all this happening? Why do they not even

try to keep up some kind of appearance?

Again, why can’t Putin

call and say to Ramzan,

I mean, it’s clear what you have going on there, but you must

control the republic. You are a complete

failure, your population is impoverished, while all of you there

drive Porsche Cayennes, and that is why everyone

is unhappy. Of course, you are already

torturing and tormenting everyone there, but maybe at least don’t

say on state

television that you are going to torture

and torment people. He cannot even do that,

because there is no governance at all in

the country — an absolute failure in every

direction.

They can do nothing except

this filth of theirs,

intimidation, electric shocks, some kind of

criminal cases, discrediting campaigns,

cheap tricks, and just some

absolute fabrications, appointing all sorts of

urological examinations and all the rest.

They can do nothing else. Unfortunately,

our task is to fight them.

We will have elections next year, on

the Single Voting Day (Russia’s nationwide election day), interim ones,

and then there will be the State Duma elections.

They will put forward falsifications and new

so-called democratic opposition parties and everything

else.

But nevertheless, United Russia, in an

organizational and political sense, we will

and must destroy, and each of us

must work on this every day, otherwise we will

spend our whole lives in a country where

this kind of trash is happening, which I have

been talking about today for a full hour and a half.

Once again, please excuse

the unavoidable technical problem during

our broadcast. Many thanks to everyone who

watched, watched me — see you next

Thursday. Bye.