Putin’s scripted response about Navalny, the campaign year, and the “Day of Free Elections” on December 24

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

Navalny Live, Mikhail Saakashvili.

Or I don't even know what to call myself anymore.

All those names you mentioned—maybe that could actually

become the trademark of my show, because

every time they come up with

wonderful new names for me. In

recent episodes, as you may remember, I was

a bungler, then I was a visiting

ticket inspector, and today I'm Mikhail Saakashvili.

And obviously that's because this is

the main thing—the most, I think,

quoted piece of news from today's

press conference by President Putin,

which, generally speaking, was supposed to be

something momentous. After all,

the man is running for a fourth term. He's been in power for 18

years, he had just announced before

workers that he was running in the election, and

then held a press conference. We were all waiting.

I'll be honest: I watched all three

hours—well, with breaks. I went

to lunch, attended one meeting, but

overall I watched almost all of it, because

I was expecting something interesting. What exactly

would Putin's answer be to

today's challenges, to the obvious

public fatigue with him, to the obvious

economic downturn, the lack of

economic growth, and finally to

the rallies that took place across the whole—well, all

the things happening in the country. He

was supposed to give some kind of

powerful response at least—one that he himself

would consider powerful.

After all, last time there were the May decrees

and various other interesting little things,

statements that were meaningless but loud,

foreign-policy ones. But this time all we heard was

a double serving of coughing,

and overall, of all the press conferences,

this was of course the most

uninteresting and unconvincing one.

Nothing at all was really said. But we

were expecting something new on

the economic program, at least some

promises.

Something like last time—remember, when it was like,

"We'll create 25 million

high-tech jobs." Well,

it was terrible nonsense, and everyone understood that

you couldn't actually do that, but at least

it sounded like something. You may remember that some

time ago all the newspapers were writing that

the presidential administration was busy searching for

an "image of the future." Those people sit there earning

big salaries, and we all hoped that they would

somehow formulate this image of the future

and present it. Our fingers were already poised

over the keyboard so we could joke about

this image of the future and mock everything

Putin would say. But he said absolutely

nothing. He just came and said

nothing, except that

the opposition has no program—whereas he does.

He doesn't have one, in fact. And besides,

there was the whole "I'm Mikhail Saakashvili" thing. Let's

take a look. We have two minutes; we've

trimmed it a bit. Ksenia Sobchak

asked Vladimir Putin a question, and he

answered it. Let's watch it and discuss.

My question concerns competition in elections.

Your press secretary, Dmitry Peskov,

has already said that our opposition has not

matured yet.

Today we were saying that, well,

it's not for me to cultivate it, because there are no

people. But it seems to me that everyone matured long ago,

and no one needs to be cultivated—everyone has

grown up on their own. But the problem is

something else: today either

opposition candidates are not allowed onto

the ballot,

or obstacles are created for them. I feel this

myself. For example, there is a candidate, Alexei

Navalny, who has been campaigning for a year.

Against him,

fabricated criminal cases were deliberately

created. Their falsity was

proven by Alexei Navalny in the

European Court. The European Court's ruling,

as you know, is recognized by the Russian

Federation.

And yet he is still not being allowed to run

in the election, even though it is known that there is also

a separate opinion from the Constitutional Court on

this matter, and so on. The same thing

is happening in connection with my own activities after

my announcement.

It's very difficult to rent any hall in the country; people

refuse, even on normal commercial

terms, to cooperate. It's hard to place

any campaign materials at all, and all of this

is simply connected with fear. People understand

that being an opposition politician in Russia means

either you'll be killed, or you'll be

jailed,

or something else of that sort will happen.

My question is: why is this happening?

Is the government really afraid of real competition?

As for competition, as for

where we have a viable opposition—I have

already answered that at some length, and

the point of that answer is not that

someone hasn't matured enough for something, but

rather that

the opposition must come forward with clear, understandable

programs for people—programs of positive

action. You are running under the slogan

"Against Everyone"—is that a positive program

of action? And what do you propose to

solve those

to solve those problems that

we are discussing today, specifically regarding—

As for the figures you mentioned,

that question has already been raised here.

About Ukraine—you want our

public squares to be filled with dozens of such, excuse me,

Saakashvilis? Those you named are

Saakashvili.

Only in the Russian version, and you

want

such Saakashvilis to

destabilize the situation in the country?

Do you want us to go through one

Maidan (the 2013–2014 Ukrainian protest movement) after another, so that we have

attempted coups? We

have already been through all of that.

Do you really want to bring all that back? Saakashvili,

Maidan, running around the squares, Maidan,

Maidan, Maidan, Saakashvili—what are you even

talking about? Why isn’t Navalny

allowed to run in the election? Saakashvili, Maidan, not

allowed to run—what does all of this even

mean? And what do your

speculations about a program have to do with it?

We actually do have a program; we

just presented it. In general, we have

always had one. By the way, on the subject of me spending a year traveling around,

“running around the squares”—yes, I do go to public squares,

because I speak in front of people. That is

my job as a candidate. It is very strange

that Putin is not out in the squares now and

is not meeting with anyone and not

talking to people and not trying

to tell them about his program. But I

want to point out something that

so far no one has paid attention to. I

followed the media reaction—everyone is laughing:

ha-ha, Saakashvili, he basically didn’t name

Navalny by surname. It’s a strange

thing. Honestly, this time I was

sure he would finally say “Navalny,”

as if to prove to everyone that he

could do it. He couldn’t. But all that is

nonsense. In fact, Putin once gave

a very simple answer. We all forgot it. It was in

December 2013, and back then he

was asked during his annual call-in show about this—well,

Navalny had taken part in the election; did you

approve of that? I don’t want to misquote him,

so let me not get it wrong—I’ll

even show you the headline from the newspaper

*Vedomosti*.

What did Putin say in response to the question: under what circumstances

would Navalny be allowed to run in the election?

“They will not bar Navalny from the election

if he did not pose a threat; if he posed a threat, he would not have been allowed

to run.” That is a direct quote

from Putin, straight out of 2013. It is as if

from there, from the past, he is answering us here

in modern Russia, not letting us move forward

into our beautiful Russia of the future:

“Guys, Navalny poses a threat,”

and that is why we are not allowing him into the election.

What happened at that

press conference is very important, because he did not,

of course, phrase it that way directly; on the contrary,

he lied.

He said that he is afraid of no one. But for the first

time, he did not resort to his usual pseudo-

legal nonsense. He said quite plainly

that we are not allowing this candidate to run

because we do not like him. Yes, there was an added

bit about Saakashvili and because

he will be running around, but this candidate will

do certain bad, unpleasant things

to me, Vladimir Putin, and to my friends—

Dmitry Medvedev, Gennady Timchenko, or

Arkady Rotenberg. We do not like these people.

They will do something bad to us.

Maidan, blah blah blah blah blah—therefore, in the

election, we will not allow him in, because

the state is not some bearded peasant, as

was put so vividly, who

pulls cabbages out of the ground. Rather, it is—well, I don’t

know—we are these cool technocrats

who can solve problems, and we are eliminating this

threat and not allowing the person into the election.

That is the most important thing that

was said, and I urge everyone to pay

attention to it. And what Putin said

only strengthens my conviction that we

must all together demand my

registration. This is not specifically a question of my

registration; it is a question of our right

to put forward our own candidate.

We need to draw attention to this and

say that an election without a candidate

is not an election—especially when you are directly

saying that he poses a threat, so we

are not letting him run. But as for all this

funny stuff about Maidan and Saakashvili,

there is simply no need to pay attention to it.

It has, in principle, turned into

a kind of running joke: in response to every

question, to every uncomfortable question, Putin

for some reason keeps bringing up Maidan,

Ukraine. He has been doing this since 2014, and

right after the press conference there even appeared

a funny edited video.

I talked about it at one of the

rallies, and now we will show you—there is

literally one

where you can see that Putin is simply speaking from a

prepared talking-points sheet. “Alexei Navalny, regarding

the figures you mentioned—this has already

been asked a hundred times—or there is the question of Ukraine.” As soon as you

say something about corruption, the response is immediately:

“He wants what happened in Ukraine.”

“Do you want our squares to be filled with people running around,”

“dozens of such—excuse me—Saakashvilis?”

What does Ukraine have to do with it?

I was telling you that Medvedev has a palace,

damn it—and the answer is: “He wants to stage a Maidan.” You

“want us to go through”

“one Maidan after another.” Damn, well, there you go.

You see, it is a real joke: in response to

absolutely anything you say to him, yes, something like

a question about the U.S. national debt—and he somehow did not bring it up there.

Actually, it would be more accurate to put it this way:

“But these gentlemen whom you mention...”

Of course we won’t let them in, because they’ll

stage a Maidan (an uprising like Ukraine’s 2013–2014 Euromaidan), and as a result of that

terrible Maidan, we’ll end up in as

dire a situation as the United States is in now, by the way.

Just look at their enormous national debt — that’s

the last thing we need. Everything else that was said

was, of course, well, not even

sad to watch.

I mean, the man has the entire

presidential administration working for him there. They could

have come up with something better. They could have, well,

at least simply lied about something at

that press conference, and the sheer audacity

of that lie would have taken everyone’s breath away.

But they can do nothing except

endlessly, endlessly drone on about

Maidan.

I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that, first of all, we have

an app for the program

Navalny Live, and you can download it. We already have

quite a few thousand downloads.

It works, so go ahead and get it. We had an app

for iPhones before, and now we also have

an app for Android. I know that

many people were offended when last time

I said that Android owners are used

to suffering. Well, you don’t have to suffer anymore.

End your suffering, Android owners.

Come on in and

download the app, and you’ll be able to

watch the broadcasts, listen to them like

radio, and read transcripts. Besides, I

noticed something remarkable:

viewers like it when we raise money live on air.

We were terribly uneasy before

starting to do it, because we

thought it would really annoy all of you.

But it turned out to be quite

an entertaining thing, so in this

broadcast we’ll continue fundraising. I want

to say that over several

programs we collected

850,000 rubles (about 8,500 USD), and we need only another 150,000

rubles (about 1,500 USD) to reach a million. So I’m curious:

in this broadcast, will I be able to make it

to a million in total? The money we

raise today will go to the project that pays

fines for everyone who was detained or fined for

attending rallies. So basically, everything

you donate will go toward that.

If you were fined for

a lawful rally that you took

part in, then you can send those

funniest GIFs that will

appear in the background over my face, and

various messages. Another decent

question that came up was asked by Tatyana

Felgengauer. She was talking about something very important:

in effect, two legal systems. That is

absolutely true. One system is the one in which

we all live, where criminal cases are fabricated

and there is complete

lawlessness. And then there is a second system where

there exist these people with

“special status,” as Prosecutor General

Chaika called them when defending Suleiman Kerimov. He

said: how can it be that a senator,

a person with special status, can simply be

detained on suspicion of a serious

crime? But what else would you detain him for,

if not on suspicion

of a serious crime? But they were

completely serious about it. He simply

he was genuinely astonished: how could this be?

Imagine that — some police force detains

a person with special status. And that’s exactly what

Felgengauer was talking about, using

these people with special status as an example.

Let’s watch it very briefly. We have clip 220.

Q&A. My question is about the situation with

the rule of law in the Russian Federation.

We see two different legal realities.

In one of them, a real

repressive machine is actively at work, when criminal cases are opened

over reposts on social media,

when people are sitting in prison on

completely unfounded charges, and

this has been proven in many cases — Oleg Navalny, for example,

when the case against Kirill Serebrennikov is underway,

and Alexei Malobrodsky is being held in pretrial detention.

We see another legal

reality: in it, Boris Nemtsov has been murdered,

and Ruslan Geremeyev is not questioned

because, well, investigators were simply not

let in.

Andrei Turchak has not been questioned in the case of the

attack on journalist Oleg Kashin.

Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft, does not appear in

court for the crucial trial in the case of Alexei

Ulyukayev, ignoring all summonses, and any

other citizen would almost certainly

be brought in by force, because

that is contempt of court. However,

Igor Sechin gets away with all of it.

So the question is: what rule of

law can we even talk about if in our

state there are different legal

realities?

I agree with you that there are

plenty of problems, but I cannot agree that

there are different legal

realities. As for Sechin and his failure to appear in court,

if there is any violation of

the law here, then the law must respond

accordingly. But

as far as I understand — I may be mistaken,

I have seen the public reaction

on this matter —

the law has not been violated in any way here, and as

the investigation believes, enough material has been collected,

including testimony from

Sechin himself. But I also cannot but

agree with you that Sechin could have

come in — there would have been nothing difficult about it —

and repeated everything he had said during

the preliminary investigation and questioning. Well,

as for someone being in prison and you

considering it unjustified — that is your view.

unfounded, while the investigative authorities consider it

well-founded. In such cases, only the court can resolve the dispute.

Only a court of first instance can do that. We will need to

continue strengthening the judicial and legal

system. 22,000 people are watching us

live, while Putin’s broadcast peaked at

mostly around 32,000 viewers at its peak.

32,000 people — we’re falling a little short.

But then again, I’m Mikhail Saakashvili,

and he’s Vladimir Putin, so

I’m supposed to have slightly fewer

views.

The answer to that question was quite interesting,

because in situations like this, Putin usually

speaks more evasively. I

expected him to say something like,

“Well, yes, of course, Igor Ivanovich should

pay close attention to the requirements of

the judicial system, and if there are any

violations there, then of course

the authorities will look into it. But I’m sure, I

will draw his attention to the fact that he must

treat the courts with particular respect.”

And he would say roughly the same thing

regarding political

prisoners — that their cases are under review, there are

appeals, we are watching all of this closely,

we are not violating anything, after all.”

Tatyana Felgenhauer, thank you. And what

she said about Oleg Navalny as well,

and about the ruling of the European Court,

somehow ended up

showing that Putin still tries not to present himself as

a complete villain when answering these

questions. But today, here, he

fully switched into what you might call

a brazenly indifferent mode.

Meaning: he was right about everything, he did

everything correctly, everything according to the law — although he

obviously broke the law, obviously

disregarded the judicial system, obviously.

What cool things are changing around me — I

started talking and then suddenly

there were fireworks all around. Obviously, he disregarded

the court — just like that, plainly enough.

It was demonstratively

and brazenly dismissive. Nevertheless, everything

is supposedly fine. So this time, in

answering that question, it was stated very clearly

that basically, “we’re the tough guys, and

indeed, Tatyana Felgenhauer, you

are right: there are two legal systems.

In one legal system, we are absolutely

right. The other legal system is for you.

If you’re unhappy, then go to

our legal system — it will

explain to you which part of it you belong to.”

That was quite a cynical answer, and it seems to me

that it shows us how the rest of the

election campaign will go as well.

The same thing will happen again,

all over again.

They will treat you with complete lawlessness; in everything

they will refuse us, they will keep refusing, they will

do absolutely whatever they want.

And he will say, “But we are absolutely

right.” In that sense, there won’t even be

any of those ritual phrases like,

“Let the Central Election Commission

look into what exactly went wrong there.”

I don’t think even that will happen. They

will simply put on stony faces and

keep insisting how they are one hundred

percent completely right. Anton Lesovoy

reminds me — corrects me — that it was time to mention

America, though not “long ago,” but Occupy Wall

Street. That’s right — in fact, he

did say at the end, correctly, that

“Just look at what happened in America.

There was this movement, Occupy — where is it now?

Where is it? It’s gone home, that’s where,”

he said. “Where is the Wall Street movement?” As if,

you know, they had all been shot or

thrown in prison, and that was that.

And this is called democracy? As if they had

been rounded up onto barges and the whole movement drowned.

That’s what he calls democracy.

There was an Occupy Wall Street movement; it

did exist.

It was more or less active for several months, and

then it simply, gradually, fell apart

like any political movement — it lost

its relevance.

The participants in that movement, the leaders of that

movement, are perfectly free.

They are engaged in political

activity, they continue doing it, and

most certainly

no one has banned them, no one forbids them

from taking part in elections, and no one forbids them

from continuing this activity.

They can still get approval for their

actions,

rallies, and everything else. So when Putin

brought up America again, he nevertheless

lied again.

This election campaign, right now,

in my deep conviction — and I think that in the

very near future you will also become

convinced of this —

will of course be focused on turnout. He

didn’t even try

during his main first

press conference to say anything

that would inspire people, win some

votes. They are convinced that everything has already been

decided.

Since Navalny is not being allowed in — although we

will of course continue fighting for

registration — it very much looks like

they will try to issue a decision saying

that I am not being admitted to the election. Because of that, they

believe that

their direct electoral problems

have been solved. They have only one problem left:

voter turnout.

Whatever they may say, of course they do not

want fewer than half of voters to show up.

voters, or so that turnout is much

lower than last time, so

they’ll drag people in by the ears if they have to, using every means possible.

You probably read it—newspapers wrote this week

that the Presidential Administration gave

instructions to all governors to turn

the election into a celebration, both literally and

figuratively. So at every

polling station there will be cheerful clowns,

giveaways of detergent powder, an accordion player—

everything will be there. Plus there will be

—you’ll see—I’m sure that in the near

future such plans will be published:

blanket door-to-door canvassing in order

to drag everyone to the polls.

Workforces will be pressured into going to

vote, some kind of ward captains and block captains,

lotteries—we’ll see it all. They’re terribly afraid

of what’s happening—how should we even call it properly?

It’s not even really a boycott; probably it shouldn’t be called a boycott

at all, because the word itself

“boycott,” of course, implies that you’re

doing something to our

electoral strike—that’s exactly what it is.

That should be the attitude. In other words, this

is a strike: we refuse to participate in

this disgusting farce. That is, we want

to take part in elections, just as strikers

actually want to work, want to receive

their wages—so do we, we want to participate in

elections. But if you won’t let us have a real

choice, if you think you should decide for

us who is supposed to be our

candidate, then we will strike. And that’s

what they’re terribly afraid of—the very idea of this strike.

They will fight it with all their might. In

the last State Duma elections, you

remember, they blocked websites

that called for a boycott. I think that

this time they will try even

harder to do that. And so our

task is to wage a very active

guerrilla campaign in order

to convince everyone around us that you cannot

and must not take part in this.

So, how much money have we raised? I can already

see the bar moving, moving, moving.

Let me remind you that today we want to reach

one million.

And the money we raise during this broadcast

will be directed toward

paying fines for those who, those who

have been fined.

Will Navalny be nominated through a call

from PARNAS (the Russian opposition party) or by an initiative group? We

were asked—Dmitry Anufriev asks:

how do you view Katz’s forecast about

the prospects of both options? Well,

these forecasts have neither

legal nor political meaning. From the very beginning, we

have said that I would

run as the nominee of a group of voters. That

will be the movement itself; a nomination from

PARNAS is impossible, unnecessary, and has

no legal significance whatsoever. That is, I

consider myself a candidate who

truly represents large

groups of people that are much broader than

the PARNAS party.

With all due respect for it,

that’s why I want to be nominated by

the voters; that’s how I’ll run. And in the near

future we plan to hold, we plan to hold

a meeting of such an initiative

group.

Artyom asks me what will happen to those

people who have already taken out a mortgage at 10

percent annual interest for 15 years. He

is apparently asking me in connection

obviously, with

the publication of the program provisions stating

that I believe mortgage rates should be reduced

to 2 percent—they should be below two percent.

And so Artyom asks the question:

“Alexei Navalny, you’ll most likely become

president in 2018, so what

am I supposed to do? I’ve already taken one out at 10 percent.”

Artyom, in that case the obvious thing

should happen: banks will revise those

contracts, which in fact happens

all the time.

In developed countries—Leonid Volkov, who

is still being held in a special detention facility

in Nizhny Novgorod, told me that when

he took out a mortgage for a home in Luxembourg

—yes, he was working in Luxembourg—he initially

got a mortgage at 1.75 percent

annual interest, and then the bank sent a notice

saying, as you know, the central bank’s key rate has been lowered,

so we will revise it

unilaterally, and now the rate

will be 1.5—that is, they lowered it. And here

the same thing should happen. Alexei,

please comment on Meduza’s article

about your program. First of all,

today on Vladimir

Milov’s program, he and I discussed

the program in quite some detail. We will continue

to talk about it for another hour; I’ll say more about

that a bit later. As I understand it, Milov

is preparing a point-by-point response

to Meduza’s criticism of our program,

the criticism and the questions they raised. We

are grateful for all the questions; we are grateful

to everyone who criticizes or praises us.

The main thing is: discuss it. We’re happy that

people are discussing it. Look at the other would-be

presidential candidates—have you ever seen an article

in

Meduza about Yavlinsky’s program,

or Titov’s, or Sobchak’s, or Katya Gordon’s? I

hope there will be—it would be

interesting to compare. But I looked at this

critique that Meduza has just

published, and it seems rather weak to me.

It doesn’t stand up to any serious

analysis. For example, it begins by saying

that Alexei Navalny did not explain to us

happy holidays, and someone writes to us

Alexei Navalny did not explain at what

prices he was using, or where he got these figures

that he uses in his video, although in

that video it says that these figures

were taken from the consolidated budget for 2016

the last budget for which

full execution data has been published. I

say there that I am a real

candidate, and I am working now with specific

figures. These specific figures I took

from the actual 2016 budget because

I want to discuss not a hypothetical

situation in the economy, but a completely

specific one. But we are grateful for all these

questions, and we will answer them one by one there

Volodimir Lov, I hope, will publish tomorrow

such a

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will publish such an answer. An important

question is written to me by Arrakhat: the spiritual leader

of Russian Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, under

Putin's rule, has almost never

been to Russia. As a result, pilgrims

have to spend tens of thousands of rubles on

travel. Under your presidency, will it

be permitted for the Dalai Lama to come? You can

find some very funny photos on the

internet if you google "Navalny and

the Dalai Lama." That is, no, unfortunately I have not

met the Dalai Lama, I have never seen him

but once I was one of the organizers

of a picket, you'll laugh, in front of the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs, demanding that the Dalai Lama

be allowed into Russia. A whole

delegation of Buddhists from Kalmykia

and Buryatia came. I filed the application, we helped, so

you will definitely find photos where

I am standing there, surrounded by a bunch of people

in some kind of orange outfits and such

robes, with signs, and they, they were still

chanting: "We demand that

the Dalai Lama be allowed to visit Russia." You

understand, it's hard to chant that, but they

really were chanting it right in front of

the Foreign Ministry building. Those were the blessed

days when you could file an application for a picket

in front of the Foreign Ministry and get approval for

a picket there. I know the Chinese will

be very angry with me, but I do not

see any problem with the Dalai Lama

visiting Russia, especially considering that

Russia has traditional

Buddhist populations: the Kalmyks and Buryats

who practice Buddhism. He is their

religious leader, so why not

let him in? By all means, let him come. He

has visited Russia before, it's just that

under Putin he is not allowed in

One year and one day ago, I announced

that I was running for president, and

this time, for me and for many

people working here at the FBK headquarters (Anti-Corruption Foundation),

has of course been very compressed; it feels

like it was just recently, yet a whole year

has passed, because we have worked very, very

hard. And guys, everyone who is watching this broadcast

now or who will watch it later,

the main thing I want to say, of course,

is that I am tremendously grateful to all of you for

taking part in the campaign. In fact,

we often write about how, I don't know,

they squeeze us, illegally obstruct us,

interfere with us, open cases, and

arrest people. All of that is real, I repeat

the campaign manager is in jail right now, but

the main thing we have encountered, the main thing I

have encountered, is of course help and

support. That has made up 90, 99

percent of what we have been doing, and the atmosphere

we have been in has been one of support and

help. One percent has been obstacles

it's just that we write about that constantly because it

hits hard when people end up somewhere under

arrest or under pressure. But mainly

of course, this, this, this campaign is moving forward. I

am not summing it up

but it is going on, developing, and it's really great

just last week

I came back from another tour, and there were

wonderful, absolutely amazing

rallies

and even marches in the city of Kaliningrad. We

pulled it off, it was really great, and I am proud

that I have received your support. I am

proud that we have truly created

a political system of 83 campaign offices across

the whole country, 13 of them are so-called

people's offices, where we do not even provide any money

people do it entirely on their own

We now have almost 700,000

signatures, and signatures are not just email addresses

these are people who left their phone numbers and

verified themselves fully, or rather, not

fully verified by coming to the office, but

confirmed themselves through their mobile phones

We have recruited 190,000 volunteers, and

raised and spent 241 million rubles, and held an

uncountable number of pickets and

meetings. We held two major

nationwide rallies that

took place in dozens and even hundreds

of cities across Russia on March 26 and June 12

Since September 15 alone, I have held 27 major

rallies, really large ones

in cities across Russia, despite the fact that

we are simply forbidden everywhere from holding them

everywhere there are problems, and it has to be

done in spite of that. So this is a very

cool, real election campaign, and

most importantly, I would not for a second

be disingenuous if I told you now:

I traveled around cities, held these

meetings, some were good, some were different

somewhere in Volgograd, remember, they grabbed me by the arms and

by the legs

provocateurs with badges tried to drag me out of

the office, or rather, they were dragging the provocateur by the legs

Our volunteers were practically carrying me along, and

then somehow all of this was happening without any obstruction,

but I know one thing: this government can be beaten

at the polls. All this talk

that they’re so powerful and enjoy

massive support—if you work, if

you travel from city to city like this, put out

a platform, talk about it—you can

win elections against them. But that’s exactly why they

won’t let me in, won’t allow it, because they

understand that perfectly well. All these

approval ratings exist when there’s nothing else,

when a Russian citizen looks at the TV

and says, “Damn, I’m sick of everyone,”

“I don’t like Putin, he doesn’t pay my salary,”

“but who am I supposed to vote for? Vote

for someone else? Fine, I voted for Putin.” That’s

the only thing this system is standing on: the fact that

the other candidates do nothing. Right now they’ve

woken up from hibernation and gone out there

hoping they’ll get more than three

percent and qualify for

state funding, and then they’ll be given

a pile of money from the budget. They’re not really

interested in anything else.

Going somewhere and campaigning to people doesn’t

interest them. But I travel and campaign, and I see

that people’s opinions change. You come to

the city of Kaliningrad, and everyone knows

who you are. Whether they support you or not,

at the very least, in Kaliningrad or in

Novokuznetsk or somewhere else, everyone definitely

says: “Right, Navalny came to us,”

“he campaigned here, he paid attention to us,”

“he came, he answered questions while standing

out in the cold, like a candidate should.” So

that makes him stand out from the other candidates, and we

can support him simply because he

came to our city. Moscow is

more or less spoiled in that respect, but here

there are at least some political events.

In Russia’s regions, especially in cities

with fewer than a million people, basically no one

ever comes, nothing happens there. These

people don’t even remotely feel that they

have any influence on politics

in the country, let alone on presidential

elections. So go to them, and you’ll get

support. I got that kind of support, and I’m

proud of it. It’s really great, what

we’re doing, and we need to keep

doing it. You can see Kaliningrad now—

we were there,

the photos show a pretty powerful,

inspiring rally. On my cup it says:

“I have a platform. You don’t.”

And that’s the plain truth, because today

we still haven’t heard what Vladimir Putin’s

platform is. I do have a platform, and we’ve

published it. I just wanted to draw attention

to the fact that this isn’t something Navalny

published yesterday. The platform

has been there from the very beginning. I’ve been involved

in politics for a long time.

I’ve had a whole system of views and policy positions, and

almost all of you are fairly well

aware of them.

I ran with a platform in the

2013 mayoral election.

For a long time I’ve been involved with various parties and have constantly written

all kinds of articles. I think that

when it comes to political and journalistic

texts, I’ve probably written

more than all the other politicians put

together—simply because I was forced to.

I don’t have television access, so I wrote in my blog.

I write about this, I write about my system of

views, so yes, I do have a platform. But

this time we also packaged it, as it seems to me,

quite successfully, because we

decided, as Putin said today,

to put it in language people can understand.

So that’s exactly the kind of language we used for everything. I’m

very proud that we came up with these

case studies for Russia—that is,

translating policy points into the lives of

specific people. And I’ve received a whole lot of letters

saying it’s impossible to watch

the story of the teacher who

earns 14,800 rubles a month (about US$250 at the time), or the doctor’s story,

or all the other stories, without tears. And if you had seen

the full video about Nikolai

Kudryavtsev, then you definitely would have

broken down in tears. He’s a wonderful man,

a teacher from Yaroslavl.

Yaroslavl is actually considered one of the wealthier regions

of Russia, and he gets 14,800 rubles a month (about US$250 at the time) for one and a half

full-time positions, including extra pay for difficult working conditions,

because he works at a boarding school for hearing-impaired

children. It’s just impossible. What we wanted

was to show all this through the example of specific people

and explain to many of those who haven’t

been touched by it that this is actually

the reality for most of Russia. Nikolai

Kudryavtsev is not some kind of, you know,

isolated case from an otherwise prosperous society,

some extreme situation where we all have to rush out and

save him. No—the greater part of the country is made up of people like

Nikolai Kudryavtsev.

And we need to do something so that

this stops being the case, because it’s impossible—

everything simply becomes meaningless if

a teacher earns 14,800 rubles a month (about US$250 at the time).

I got several letters saying that

we should invite him onto Navalny

Live. In fact, all the people we’re doing

these case studies with should be invited here and given

more time to speak.

I think we’ll do that.

That’s a good idea. I’ve received 148 new questions.

Let’s take a look. “Did Vladimir

Vladimirovich (a familiar form of patronymic for Putin) misspeak when he said that fair

and honest political competition will exist,

thereby admitting that it doesn’t exist now?” one viewer writes.

But I’ll repeat: this time he spoke quite cynically,

and said quite clearly that

there is no political competition. Why?

Because we do not want political competition.”

competition, and we do not believe it is right.

So Gennady Nes... says to us that

Navalny and Sobchak are a Kremlin project aimed at

replacing personnel while genuinely

banning truly opposition parties from printing

their own press—for example, *Kurs Pravdy* and

*Yedineniye* in the Lipetsk region. As I understand it,

those are the only newspapers

representing an honest position—*Kurs Pravdy*, *Yedineniye*—in

the Lipetsk region.

So does that mean I’m a Kremlin project too, Denis? Well,

we are also being forbidden to print newspapers in

the Lipetsk region as well, so believe me, I am not

a Kremlin project, and

judge us by our actions—look at what we do.

Look at our campaign, how the authorities treat us,

that is the main thing. Look

at whether we suddenly popped up and are helping

the Kremlin solve certain problems, or whether

we are creating those problems. Then you will see

that for the past year we have been working and creating

very serious problems for those guys.

We are definitely not solving anything for them. Starting tomorrow,

will it already be forbidden to donate or campaign? writes

Baranov Alex. Tomorrow there will likely

be an announcement of the election. Most likely,

the Central Election Commission

will officially launch the start of the election

campaign.

That will mean that from that moment on I

will have to specially

label campaign materials and things like that.

But until that moment, and until

I receive registration or at least

enter the formal procedure and submit

the documents, of course we can

raise money, and we can do everything else

as well—there will be no restrictions. Well,

we’ll see. Tomorrow the Central Election

Commission is supposed to

publish it. So, Inferno Overkill,

wow, what a username you have.

The Kremlin bots are disliking again, well,

listen, they’re disliking—so what? It’s nothing

to worry about. If 22,000 people are watching

the livestream right now, then all of you should

hit like right now at the same time.

Let’s get all 26 thousand—twenty-six,

twenty-six thousand likes. And what a cute GIF.

Who smells so bad? Ah, the scurvy ones. There are 26 thousand

people watching.

Hit like, and then no Kremlin bots

will be scary. We just need to stop, even a little,

paying attention to it. They

have created a structure and pumped money into it.

Putin’s cook (a reference to Yevgeny Prigozhin) is most likely behind it.

They will push their videos to the top of

YouTube, and they will bury

all the other videos in dislikes.

This will go on for months, and possibly even years.

As long as Putin remains in power, they will be there

disliking every video. It’s nothing страшного.

The way to fight it is, in response,

to like the videos. In any case, there are far more of us—real people—

than all of these Kremlin bots.

It’s a huge mistake not to respond to donations and

many people want to ask a question and are ready

to donate money for that. Writes

Ivan. That’s absolutely right, Ivan. As I already

said, I have one problem, and it is entirely

technical. We’ll try to solve it. Right now

I’m looking into the camera and at the same time

looking at the screen where I can see myself. I

see GIFs,

I see messages, but if you write

a question yourselves and pay for it

so that it appears in that corner behind me,

it appears there, but I simply won’t see it. I’ll

have to do this like this. You don’t want

that, do you? We’ll figure something out later.

After they splashed me with brilliant green antiseptic dye (zelyonka) (a common attack on Russian opposition figures), my

vision got a little worse.

It’s not sharp enough for me to

read those questions off the screen. That’s our

problem, and we’ll solve it. We do not want to make money from this.

It’s a pity that I

am a citizen of Kazakhstan and cannot

vote for Navalny, writes Ramis

Sadygov. In any case,

you can still support us or say a few

kind words. I remember all of Kazakhstan came down

on me because somewhere in

some interview I said that I did not know

the poet Abai (Abai Qunanbaiuly, a foundational Kazakh poet). After that, by the way,

while I was in the special detention center, they handed me three

volumes of Abai, and I became very well acquainted with his

work. But in any case, I’m glad

that someone is watching us from Kazakhstan, and I

have atoned for my guilt before the Kazakh

people for having once said

that I did not know Abai. This is an extremely

important story that is happening right now.

Wait, Dendera asks: Alexei,

please briefly explain—when is candidate registration,

and when does signature collection begin? Look,

if the election is announced tomorrow, then before

the New Year there must be a meeting of

voters.

Putin will hold his own voters’ meeting

on December 24, most likely.

They say it will be at VDNKh (a major exhibition complex in Moscow); they’re preparing whole pavilions there.

And around those same days, we will also

hold our own voters’ meeting. We

have it harder than Putin does, and

let me get out from behind this GIF.

We have it harder than Putin does. It is

difficult for us to find a venue. It has to be

fairly large—big enough for 1,000 people—because

500 people take part there just in

the voters’ group, plus journalists.

So, in other words, we need to find a venue for about a thousand people.

They are not giving us a venue, and we are dealing with that

issue right now. After that, we take the

documents to the Central

Election Commission.

The Election Commission registers me as a candidate, and

then we collect signatures.

And that must happen after the New Year.

And precisely because Putin has

a meeting scheduled

with his voter initiative group on December 24, there is now

an extremely, extremely interesting

story unfolding. You remember, we got elected

municipal deputies in Moscow and

loudly discussed how this was a victory, and many

municipal councils, that is,

had been taken over politically — there was a majority there.

I wasn’t all that actively involved in this

process, but there was one municipal

council where we very actively

supported the candidates, and Ilya

Yashin was running there, and he got his whole team elected

and became the head of the municipal

council in the Krasnoselsky District of Moscow.

He has a majority there, and they

started working quite actively.

They’re doing all sorts of good things,

including demonstrative, principled political

things. For example, Yashin refused

the official car that he

was entitled to, because why would the head of a

municipal council of deputies need an official

car, when he can use

public transportation or

drive his own car? Why on earth should

Moscow taxpayers

have to pay for an official car? So he

said, quite rightly: I’m refusing it, and this

money should be redirected to social taxi services

so wheelchair users can be transported

for free.

So, besides these proper

social initiatives, they’re also doing the right

political things. In particular,

when they had just been elected, many people

laughed at the fact that among their

powers — which are fairly limited —

there is such a thing as organizing local

holidays, organizing and holding

local celebrations. There’s also

the organization of patriotic activities,

work with the military commissariat, and things like that. But organizing

local holidays — those who live in Moscow

have seen these holidays a million times. It’s

some event, I don’t know, in some park

somewhere,

a celebration called something like “We Are Cheerful”

and

“We Bake Mari Pancakes,” or whatever

“Happy Kapotnya” or “Joyful Lianozovo” is called.

These kinds of events happen all the time:

some middle-aged ladies stand in the square,

doing something, schoolchildren dance, all sorts of

things like that. In other words, it always

has no political

context. But this municipal council

in Krasnoselsky got together there,

heard the matter, passed a resolution, voted,

by majority vote, and established a holiday

called the Day of Free

Elections, and it will take place on December 24 on their

territory. In Krasnoselsky there is

Lermontov Square

— Lermontovsky Square, to be precise —

located right next to

the Krasnye Vorota metro station. They said: Muscovites,

we invite all of you to the Day of Free

Elections. This is one hundred percent

in line with the charter of this

municipality and with Moscow law.

But City Hall immediately

went into full panic. And not just City Hall — it was

clear that some

federal-level

forces were involved here, because yesterday on Rossiya-2 (a Russian state TV channel)

there was an absolutely hellish TV segment aired.

I’ll show you a small excerpt from this

segment now, but really,

we haven’t seen anything like this since 2012.

Let’s watch a little piece of it.

I read with bewilderment in the media a statement by

some clerk from Moscow City Hall.

Ilya Yashin, on his Facebook page, is outraged over

the ban on the so-called Day

of Free Elections on December 24.

Back when they worked together in Yabloko (a Russian liberal political party),

Navalny and Yashin had close

contacts with representatives of American

international institutions. However, it’s not only

with Navalny’s circle that they have someone to cooperate with.

There are partners in the “near abroad” (former Soviet states) as well. They say that last

week, the Krasnoselsky municipal deputy was visited by none other than

none other than

Heinrich, a citizen of Ukraine, who spoke personally with

Yashin

and proposed establishing an exchange of experience

in municipal governance with the people’s

representatives of “Nezalezhnaya” (a sarcastic reference to independent Ukraine). What a joke.

So, as you can see, this is just completely insane.

Some Ukrainian named Heinrich — I

call Yashin. We’ve raised a million rubles on air (about 10,000 USD at the time), everyone.

Congratulations, we’ve raised one million rubles

live on Navalny LIVE. I applaud all of you.

The money raised today will go to those who

were detained and those against whom

fines were imposed. We are continuing to raise money.

Let me continue talking about Yashin and about

this segment. I call Yashin and say:

“So, did this Ukrainian Heinrich come to see you, or did they

just make up some Ukrainian?”

And what a name they came up with — really,

they might as well have said, “A man came in,”

“to the administration of the Krasnoselsky District,”

“he spoke with a German

accent,”

“and his name was Adolf.” That’s the only thing

missing here. It’s just

utter madness. And we really didn’t understand

why they were so worked up. A rally — or not even a rally,

but a holiday event — people will come

to this celebration, so what’s the big deal? And then

it turns out that on that very same day Putin

scheduled the nomination meeting of his

voter initiative group, so he really does not want

two events to be taking place

simultaneously: the Day of Free Elections, where

Many people, obviously, will point to

the fact that elections in Russia are not at all

free, and that this event is one where they

will keep feeding people nonsense

through the state apparatus: everything is fair, everything is wonderful,

and we will defeat everyone, and all that.

This confrontation between the Kremlin and, clearly,

a group of brave deputies from Moscow's

district councils is one of the most interesting

political stories right now, because

other deputies have already started supporting them.

The council of the Konkovo district

has adopted a decision in their support. Just now,

I saw that Dmitry Gudkov published

a letter in which nearly 100 municipal

deputies

spoke out in support of Yashin, and

really, in no uncertain terms, declared:

we call on everyone to come to this

festival. This is very important because, well,

many of these people are, how to put it

without offending anyone, cautious. So,

when it comes to an unauthorized event, will we go to an

unauthorized rally or not? We won't. But here,

even though in general they ban them, here

the prosecutor's office literally brought over today

this evening some kind of order that is absolutely

illegal. Do we have the video? If we do,

let's show it. The prosecutor's office came to

Yashin.

They recorded the text—let's show

the receipt of this document.

So, in the official log, personally...

in the presence of citizen

Boris Lisovich,

born on May 1, 1963, residing at

the address: Moscow, Akademika

Volgina Street, building 23, apartment 131. His

passport details... and that's it. So,

you see how interesting this is.

City Hall, the Kremlin, the prosecutor's office—they have very clearly

stated, essentially,

that they understand this is illegal, because

one hundred percent

municipal deputies have the right to

do this. Please show the screenshot. There is

Article 8, Clause 8 of the law on the organization of

local self-government, which states in black and white

that they have the right to organize

local festive

and other public entertainment events. That is,

there is simply no way to argue with that at all.

You just can't argue with it. But nevertheless,

they are now, across all channels and

through the media and the prosecutor's office, declaring that it is completely

impossible and that they will ban it. But despite

this, even fairly cautious people

are saying: we are going anyway. One hundred

deputies signed in support of Yashin.

They didn't just sign—they appealed to

all the other deputies and to Muscovites, saying:

friends, we are all coming to Lermontovsky

Square on the 24th for the Day of Free Elections. This is

a festival organized by deputies.

They have the right to organize it. This is not

a situation where, as usual, Alexei

Navalny filed an application for a rally and City Hall

says, well, Navalny is there

running around the streets like Saakashvili (former Georgian president often invoked in Russian political rhetoric),

so they won't allow it because it obstructs

pedestrians. These are the authorities—municipal

deputies.

This is the government, and the government has made a decision to

hold a festival. In other words, this is not

an application for a rally that can be rejected

or where they can say that some other people managed

to file earlier than you. They literally had

some commission on social issues

meeting, a vote, all the paperwork, the whole

process. These are actual officials—well,

municipal officials, in fact—

who made the decision, and now federal

officials are trying to stop them, while other

municipal officials, meanwhile,

are backing them up. Very interesting.

Let's watch how all this unfolds. And of course,

all of us should take advantage of this and

accept the invitation

to take part in this festival, the Day of Free

Elections. So I will try

to definitely come. Twenty-six thousand people

are watching right now—well, if you are watching,

can you send money using the new cards too?

Send it?

How much have we raised already? More than

1,015,000 rubles (about 11,000 USD), so we have already beaten

our, our

our target. But remember, we are raising this money

for those who were fined for

taking part in rallies. Tomorrow, if you are fined,

we will raise money for you too.

So, there is still no proper

law that would truly protect

homeless animals. We are being asked by animal rights

activists who are pushing for the adoption of this

document.

Animal rights defenders are doing great work. At almost

every rally I go to, I am

asked about this law. I am constantly

asked about it on air. This is actually

the right kind of work: forcing

presidential candidates to speak about their

position. I said on the previous program,

and I will say again that I absolutely

support the adoption of this law and do not

understand why it is not being passed in the

State Duma (Russia's lower house of parliament). Yes, of course, there is

a certain hunting lobby

connected with hunting dogs.

There is also a lobby of those who believe that

animal shelters for stray animals

should not have to be maintained by municipalities. But

overall,

it is possible to come to an agreement with hunters.

Hunters, in the overwhelming majority of cases,

are actually great lovers of animals.

And as for the municipalities, it is simply

sheer stupidity on the part of the authorities that this is not being adopted.

The law—Alexei, will you seek to organize

Putin's impeachment in the event of his victory in the

election?

Denis Denis asks me: in accordance

with Russian law, to carry out an

impeachment—first of all, we citizens simply

cannot do that. Deputies can, but

in practice it is impossible. The thing is,

the impeachment law is written in such a way that it

cannot be implemented. But of course, if he

doesn't allow anyone onto the ballot and then

stages a victory, then we will not

accept his rule. We will work

to ensure that no one recognizes

his authority. What will you do with Putin's squad?

Andryukha asks me: Putin's squad—

these are just some athletes,

performers. These people will always swear loyalty

to whatever power exists. Do you know what I'll do with them?

I won't force them to create

a Navalny squad. I won't force

them to humiliate themselves the way they are humiliating themselves now.

Why are they lining up behind Putin? Because

their sports careers, their money, their

shows and productions depend very heavily

on Putin, on the authorities, and so they

crawl over there like lackeys and kiss his

little boots, creating Putin squads. But I will not

do that. I have no use for it.

I just want to give all these Dobbys back their

socks so they can go off and mind

their own business. Alexei, do you have

a pet? Victoria asks me.

I used to have a dog, a French

bulldog named Snoopy.

Dasha had a guinea pig—

no, I remember, a Djungarian hamster.

A Djungarian hamster. Her name was Zoya, but she

unfortunately died too. They really don't

live very long. We have five minutes

left, and in those five minutes I'll show you

two disgusting videos—truly

disgusting videos. Let's start with

the son of the head of the Investigative Committee

in Volgograd Region.

This man works as an investigator. He

also works for the Investigative Committee, but in

Moscow. And he got involved in some drunken

brawl, and today the police tried

to detain him.

And they weren't having much success.

We have the video—let's watch it.

[inaudible]

[inaudible]

[inaudible]

Please, you need to keep your hands—

tell us if you're recording, let us know.

Investigative Committee... brother. [inaudible]

I am the subject's... [inaudible] You saw in that

picture, in that video—usually

these are, you know, funny little sketches from the lives

of alcoholics, homeless people, or someone else. But this

is power. This is real power.

It's not just some investigator—it's the son

of the head of the Investigative Committee in

one of the largest federal subjects (regions) in Russia—

Volgograd Region.

There's a city of over a million people there, plus the whole region.

And by the way, why this especially

struck me: the father of this

gentleman is the one who fabricated the criminal

case against Alexei Volkov, our chief

in Volgograd.

That same ridiculous case over

a Photoshop image on the internet—they opened a case

against him for, what was the formal charge again,

let me put it correctly, desecration of

symbols—no, justification of Nazism. In other words,

complete nonsense, absolutely. But those brazen scumbags

kept him under house arrest, then

transported him from St. Petersburg, and put out

various press releases saying that

this Volkov, with his picture on the

internet, where he had photoshopped something,

was therefore an enemy of the state. And these

same people—these drunk mugs, this 'subject' crowd—

who don't even—well, fine, not to us,

they say all this—they don't even treat the police officers

who come and film them there

with any respect. He's not so drunk that he can't see

he's being filmed. He genuinely

thinks he's in the right. His father will

protect him—and his father will indeed protect him.

Just watch.

Probably after a video like this, this

fellow will be fired, but nothing will happen in the Investigative Committee

to his father, because

his father opens these kinds of

criminal cases for Putin, fabricates criminal cases

like the one they brought against our guy.

And as long as he keeps doing these things

for this regime, these people remain

completely unpunished.

That's why we need to go to the polls

to drive them all the hell out.

This whole gang of boors—

who put on blue suits

and shoulder boards and tell all of us to our faces:

'We are the masters here.' And not just to us—

they say it to the police too.

Come on, brother. Next one.

The second disgusting video is perhaps even

more disgusting. I want to show you

the apology that TNT (a Russian TV channel) made

to the Ingush people. It seems to me this is

even more insulting to the Ingush people

than the original offense. The background is this: TNT

had a comedy show with some kind of sketch.

The sketch was rather odd, not

very funny, and it was supposedly from the life

of prostitutes. So, the madam—

their pimp—reads something out and says,

they answer, and one of the prostitutes

starts saying something they don't

understand, and someone says, 'Oh, I know—'

'that's the Ingush language,' and that's where the girl was from—

from Ingushetia (a republic in Russia's North Caucasus).

Okay, it wasn't a funny sketch, yes, it was just all...

The others were speaking Russian.

Without an accent, which made it obvious that they were

Russian. One of them was from Ingushetia (a republic in Russia), and

there were some signs they were bandits

or some kind of strange armed men.

They just showed up at TNT and

demanded an apology in front of the whole honest

public, and to our great surprise and amazement

they were not taken away by the police, and nothing

happened. And TNT first

apologized there, so to speak, to the Ingush

people in one format, then in another

format, and now they have recorded an entire video

which we are about to watch now. Just try not to

throw up. Where are they all there,

seriously, where are they performing, and

they come across as completely disgusting, just

utter nonentities, and

and... well.

Let's watch it.

[music]

For 20 years, the TNT channel has been broadcasting across the entire

territory of Russia and the world, and over these 20 years the channel has

created hundreds of projects

in many multinational and diverse settings,

projects that bring people together. The TNT television channel

has always promoted love and

mutual understanding among people and nations, and throughout all

these years we have entertained and united

people and have never called for hostility or

hatred. And now we want to offer

an apology to our Ingush viewers for

the joke.

For hurting their feelings, we apologize

for the words and actions that offended

the great Ingush people.

And we, the entire multinational staff

of the channel, call on everyone who watches us

and loves us to be more tolerant

more respectful, and kinder to one another.

You know, I want to address the

Russian people: please look at

me, Ingush people, I... I want to

apologize to you for TNT's behavior, because

well, this is simply disgusting for the Ingush

people to watch.

What people? I don't know—any Ingush person whatsoever—and what does

some joke on TNT have to do with it?

They made a joke, whether successfully or unsuccessfully, and out of that

first some incomprehensible officials

or simply—God, I'm tired of this—bandits, or

I don't know, some strange illegal

groups decided to use this to

score political points and staged

a rampage at TNT.

And now this apology, because of which

ten times more people will watch that sketch.

Most importantly, it is impossible to insult

an entire people with a joke, whether successful or

unsuccessful. Okay, TNT,

I have a message for you then:

aren't you disgusted with yourselves? Then please,

apologize for Ravshan and

Jamshut to the Tajik people, and

I also remember you had those homeless characters, Siphon and

Boroda.

Please apologize to the Russian

people too. From now on, every time

you mock someone in some sketch—

which is the whole point of a sketch, the whole point

of humor is to laugh at something, including

laughing at such vicious

phenomena as prostitution—you yourselves

have mocked it. It is obvious that the general

context of the jokes is that we are discussing

what prostitution is; we are laughing at

certain sketches, slices of life, and

every time you show

well,

a Russian drunk or a Russian prostitute,

will you apologize to the Russian

people? You won't. And who are you after

that? This is disgusting, and it's servility. Well, I

can understand it: some

bearded bandits with Stechkin pistols

came to you and started saying, 'Come on, Vasya, apologize right now,'

and if you are going to apologize, then

you shouldn't

start joking in the first place; you shouldn't be doing

this if you are such cowards and

bootlickers.

It's revolting for all of us to watch this.

In the Beautiful Russia of the Future (an opposition slogan referring to a hoped-for democratic future for Russia),

this definitely will not happen. In the Beautiful

Russia of the Future, the Ingush people will say,

'We don't care about you,' as Alisher Usmanov once said,

'we don't even notice your jokes at all.'

Well, this is just complete nonsense. And in the

Beautiful Russia of the Future, people who

host comedy shows—okay, they may

apologize for a bad joke, maybe

saying it wasn't funny, and they will

try to joke better—but they will not

take part in this shameful spectacle

that has simply humiliated the whole country, because

we have seen that the police, it turns out, in

Russia do not work, that you can just show up and

intimidate these miserable, cowardly

TV hosts to such an extent that they

will record ten different apologies

and all the other viewers

will be forced to become part of it too.

Once again, we have become convinced that

there is no state, there is no law-enforcement

system; there is only

some kind of order in which you show up,

bearded

guys with pistols, and people apologize to them.

Which means that for those on whose behalf

bearded guys with pistols do not show up,

you can do whatever you want to them. That is

not the kind of country we need. And in the Beautiful

Russia of the Future, we will get rid of these shameful

phenomena. Thank you very much to everyone

who watched this broadcast, and to those who will watch

it later in the recording. Thank you very much to everyone

who donated money to us. We have raised

—someone tell me now—1,059,000, we...

So, Zephyr raised the full 200,000, and

we’ll send this money to those who were fined.

Well, see you next Thursday.

Bye.

[music]