Magnitogorsk: a terrorist attack? Navka’s apartment in New York. A Rosgvardiya (Russian National Guard) warrant officer appeals to Zolotov

[music]

Hello everyone. It's 8:00 p.m. in Moscow, which means

that we're live for the first time in 2019

with the program *Russia of the Future*, and I am Alexei

Navalny, or

a self-proclaimed anti-corruption fighter, as

the Tsargrad TV channel called me.

I'll start with some breaking news

that came in literally three minutes

before I went on air.

Sources cited by the publication *Znak* reported that

Nastya Rybka, whom many of you know, and her friend

Alex Lesley were detained at Moscow's

Sheremetyevo Airport, for reasons that are still unclear.

Those who have been following the fate of these

people—and we at the Anti-Corruption Foundation

certainly have been, because

we feel, and I personally feel as well,

a degree of responsibility for the fate of these

figures, because it was thanks precisely

to Nastya Rybka, and also thanks in part

to Alex Lesley,

that our investigation happened—about

oligarch Deripaska and how he paid

bribes to high-ranking officials, in

particular to Prikhodko, entertaining him at his dacha (country house).

Not that Deripaska personally provided him with sexual services, but

he paid for such services, well, and various

other things as well, which

probably contributed—or rather, not probably,

quite certainly contributed—

to one of the reasons why Deripaska

was hit with major sanctions and generally

ran into a great many complications.

Or rather, too few complications—he should have

ended up in the dock, but by

Russian standards, even he suffered some

complications. So I understand it this way:

I can't assert this for certain, but I

assume that this was done on Deripaska's

orders—or Prikhodko's, or on behalf of people close to Prikhodko.

It was arranged: people simply paid

someone in Thailand so that they would be

arrested there. They were kept for almost a year in a

Thai prison on charges of

organizing prostitution because they

were holding some kind of sex seminar, and

those of you who have been to Thailand can

only laugh at that, because, well,

entire districts of Bangkok and Pattaya

are devoted to roughly that kind of activity.

No one gets arrested there, but they

were arrested, and now they have been deported to

Russia, and in Russia, at the airport,

they were detained again, for reasons that are unclear.

Rybka was detained, even though she is a citizen

of Belarus, while Alex Lesley appears to be a citizen

of Russia. I hope this detention

is connected simply to purely formal

reasons, because after all they did not

arrive as tourists. It's funny, by the way,

that I myself just flew back

from Thailand, and here at the Foundation we

joked a lot that

since it had been announced they were being deported,

I would be flying back with them on the same plane.

We missed each other

by literally just a few hours. So anyway,

I hope this is a formal detention only,

since they were deported, they probably

have to be questioned here

and processed in some special way

in order to notify, I don't know, the

Thai Ministry of Internal Affairs that they

were properly deported. In other words, there must

be some kind of procedure: a deported

person is not an ordinary tourist. But I

very much hope that what could happen

unfortunately will not happen.

Given that they were arrested in

Thailand, in fact, without any real

serious grounds, it may be that Deripaska, Prikhodko, and

other powerful people,

angered that thanks to Nastya Rybka

their various shady affairs were exposed,

their ugly and indecent dealings, might simply

want to, I don't know,

rot both of them in prison,

just ruin their lives,

to take revenge somehow.

That's how these people take revenge. We understand that they

always use the same tool:

they pay various corrupt representatives

of the security services, who will simply keep them

in prison, or other bad things will

happen to them.

Even though neither Rybka nor Lesley

are in any way admirable

heroes—yes, thanks to them this information

came to light—but let's be honest:

we are not going to

present them as some kind of

fighters against the regime, much less fighters against

corruption. But they certainly do not deserve

to be arrested somewhere like

Thailand or Moscow or anywhere else like this.

We all hope there will be some kind of

fair proceeding in relation

to them. At the very least, we

will absolutely be following their

fate. Let's move on to another topic,

a much sadder and much more

serious one: the terrorist attack in Magnitogorsk—or possibly

a gas explosion in Magnitogorsk.

I spent a long time thinking about how I

should talk about this subject on my

program. Let me remind you: the explosion in Magnitogorsk

happened on December 31.

A section of a residential apartment building exploded.

The central section of the building collapsed, and 39

people died. It is truly a terrible tragedy, and on

the one hand, we all want to understand

what happened. On the other hand, we should not

inflame the situation or spread rumors, but we also

cannot ignore

the huge number of oddities that

have surrounded this case. So, well,

I'll say honestly: if you ask, 'Alexei,'

Do you think there was an explosion there, or

a terrorist attack? I’ll say this: I don’t know whether it was a gas explosion or

a terrorist attack. I’ll say that I don’t know what happened there,

but what the Russian authorities have been doing

over these two weeks

— even longer — tells us that, well,

they are clearly hiding something. The Emergency Situations Ministry

immediately declared that it was a gas explosion.

Then, in the city, some kind of

super-strange event takes place:

a minibus explosion in which

three people also die, and it is instantly announced

that this too was a gas explosion. But the names

of the dead are still unknown.

And all over the internet, a large number of

different

videos are being circulated.

Well, to put it plainly, they are a little

concerning, and let’s watch 45

seconds — probably the most popular of these

many videos — where

you really might think that

some people are running around

with assault rifles there in the background, and

that it looks more like

a special operation than just some

burning car. Pressure on me, the

snow sheep.

Well, it’s one of those videos, you know — everyone can

interpret it in their own way. Some say:

why the cordon? It really does

look like some people are running around with assault rifles.

And others say: no, it’s just a car, and inside it

firecrackers or fireworks are exploding.

A cordon? Well, of course you need a cordon,

because the car is on fire, and those people with

assault rifles — well, probably police officers

set up the perimeter. But then another video appears,

incidentally much less

popular, but it also seems to me

to deserve serious attention.

A witness there, at the site of the explosion of that

GAZelle van, films some kind of

strange people who seem to be

walking around looking for shell casings,

spent shell casings, at a place

where there should not be any spent shell casings

at all. Let’s watch 40 seconds of it.

On the asphalt, he walks up

to the pieces of the GAZelle van — what do you think?

And

they’re probably collecting bullets with flashlights.

Everything is blocked off.

And the vehicle — this is going to be interesting.

The Investigative Committee is here right away.

Well, you have to admit, this all somehow

looks very unusual and rather

hard to explain. A GAZelle van exploded, people died,

but this is supposedly an entirely ordinary

everyday incident. We have tens of thousands of people and

car accidents every year, unfortunately.

But here, a GAZelle van explodes, and immediately

there are some people, something in the snow, cordons,

the Investigative Committee is there with flashing lights,

lights flashing — well, this is some strange business. And

I’ll repeat: neither then nor now do we

know who died in that GAZelle van. We were

told it was simply three people,

some migrants — but give us their names.

Tell us what they were doing, what was inside

that GAZelle van, what kind of fireworks were there,

if any.

It’s a very strange story. But then in

Magnitogorsk, some kind of

counterterrorism operation simply began there.

Two buildings were cordoned off — those are the facts — and many

people spoke with the residents

who were either evacuated

or, on the contrary, told not to leave their

apartments. At the same time, residents of building No.

93 on Lenin Street say

that they heard some kind of gunshots. And if

we look at the hotspot map,

then we can see how all this was unfolding, and

this too, guys, is strange, you have to admit.

At the same time, the Investigative Committee — well,

their last statement was in

the first days of January, and they said

that yes, they had checked everything,

and there were no traces of explosives

there. After that,

the Investigative Committee made no further

statements. But you see, that

statement of theirs can be

interpreted in different ways. They did not find

traces of explosives.

But what if there really was an explosion, a terrorist attack, and

it was carried out using gas — that same

household gas? That is also possible.

No one is answering that question for you.

At the same time, the publication Znak

publishes one article, then another

article citing its sources,

saying that yes, it was a terrorist attack, the security services

know it was a terrorist attack, and that the city is flooded

with representatives of the Investigative Committee

and various security agencies, and that there is

some alternative confirmation of this. But

the authorities are simply concealing that it was a terrorist attack. And

here, well, any normal person

asks the question: why the hell would anyone

hide that it was a terrorist attack? It’s stupid. And

those who run around the internet looking for

these videos,

the inexplicable ones, and fit them to the version

that this was a terrorist attack

that the authorities are hiding — those people

must be crazy. To be honest, I might

have thought so myself. But I am not

generally inclined to believe in conspiracy theories.

Things are usually simpler. But I have

a personal lesson that I myself

call the lesson of Sinai. You remember,

a Russian plane exploded over

the Sinai Peninsula, people died, and

on the very day the plane exploded

— we learned that only later — at first no one

paid attention; an American company

NBC said there had been a major heat signature.

A large amount of thermal energy was detected, and most likely it was

a terrorist attack, while our state authorities

said that was complete nonsense, that there was no

sign of that whatsoever. More than that,

the Investigative Committee immediately

opened a criminal case under the article for

violating flight safety rules and preparation for them.

Russian television, as usual,

vilified everyone who said it was

a terrorist attack. As usual, it was treated as

some kind of nonsense, as if it meant dancing on

the graves. There was supposedly no evidence of a terrorist attack, and I

remember very well that at the time I was tired of

Facebook, and

I saw posts from people saying, well,

of course the plane was blown up, and Putin is lying

because by that point Putin had already even

recorded an address. Let's watch 29

seconds.

Everywhere people were writing that it was a terrorist attack, while Putin had basically

kept silent about it and had only made an address

in connection with the plane crash. Here it is:

seconds. I want once again to express my

condolences to the close relatives

of those who died. This is an enormous tragedy, and

of course my heart and soul are with

you. I want to thank the people of St. Petersburg

for the response the whole country witnessed,

and all the people of Russia for their words

of condolence and sympathy.

And so, the official information was as follows:

it was stated that the case was under the personal

control of Bastrykin (head of Russia's Investigative Committee), and Putin was speaking.

Well, it wouldn't benefit him to keep quiet about it,

would it? That would mean lying, and why

lie? Why lie about that? I thought, and

I read Facebook posts by various people,

including opposition figures, and seemingly

normal people whom I regard

well. They were writing: well, of course this was

a terrorist attack and Putin is lying. And I thought, damn,

people really are losing their minds because of their

opposition stance, because Putin is

so bad. Have they really lost it and

started spouting nonsense? Why would the Russian

authorities lie that there had been no terrorist attack if

it actually was one? What would be the point? There is not

the slightest sense in that. But a few more days later,

yes, a few more days after, after

it had been stated that everything was under the personal

control of Bastrykin, after Putin's address,

well, in fact, just

18 days after the plane crash,

it turned out that yes, it was a terrorist attack, and our

authorities were forced to admit it after

the Americans had already, all the

American media,

and American intelligence agencies had practically

officially stated that it was a terrorist attack, and that they were

passing on all the information they had

to the Russian side. Only after that

were we shown

a Security Council meeting where the head of

the FSB, Bortnikov, said it had been a terrorist attack.

Let's watch 44 seconds.

The tests that were carried out

on the items I mentioned

revealed traces of an explosive substance

of foreign manufacture. In the assessment of our

specialists, on board the aircraft, during

the flight,

an improvised explosive

device with a yield of up to

1 kilogram of TNT equivalent

went off, as a result of which there was, so to speak,

the breakup of the aircraft in midair. That

explains the wide scattering

of parts of the plane's fuselage. At such a

distance, one can say unequivocally that

this was a terrorist act.

So from the very, very beginning,

because from the very beginning aviation

experts were saying that the plane that crashed

had been brought down by a terrorist attack. Accordingly,

American intelligence services reported a thermal

signature, meaning it was a terrorist attack.

That information was later confirmed

by various intelligence data and

so on and so forth. For some reason our authorities

chose to conceal it. We understand now why: because

immediately before that, Putin had launched

his operation in Syria. It had been said

that there were terrorists there threatening us, and we

were destroying them on Syrian territory so that

war would not come into our homes, so that

Russian citizens would not die. But

it turned out that as a result of some

strange, foolish actions, as a result

of our getting involved in such a

complex Middle Eastern conflict once again,

a conflict where everything is mixed together, Shiites and

Sunnis, and we took the side of those

in that part of the Islamic world which, in

fact, is not very numerous in Russia and

is generally much smaller worldwide, we got involved

in who-knows-what, and our citizens started being

killed. In that sense, all of Putin's

propaganda regarding Syria began

to look far less convincing. In other words,

we still hadn't defeated any terrorists, yet

for some reason our planes were being

blown up, and they decided to hide it, and they

decided to lie about it. That is exactly why

now, with the situation in Magnitogorsk,

I do not have the slightest trust in either Putin or

Bastrykin or Bortnikov, and all these

videos, all this data, all these articles marked

as citing a source, and on {URL_1}

I am inclined to take the sources seriously, and

I will reject the version that this was a terrorist attack

only after someone explains to me who

those people were who died in the minibus, who

rented that very apartment in which

the gas supposedly exploded, because to this day

the official version is that the gas exploded

in the apartment.

But we do not know who rented that apartment.

The gas exploded—well, maybe this was

the cheapest, but still fairly

effective kind of terrorist attack: someone came,

rented an apartment, disconnected the gas stove,

I don’t know, with that rubber hose,

let the gas spread so that an even

greater volume would build up in the apartment, and

then detonated it—without using

any hexogen (RDX) or anything like that. And that same building—

an acquaintance of mine who was the first to write about

the possibility that it was a terrorist attack—wrote 14

questions to the Investigative Committee and received

not a single answer.

And since I know, and you know, that our

authorities always lie—every word out of their mouths is a lie—and

it is especially выгодно for Putin to lie here,

because if what happened in Magnitogorsk

was a terrorist attack, then Putin has two

colossal failures on his hands. First,

there is no effective fight against

terrorism, despite what we’ve been told for 20

years straight. We’ve poured huge amounts of money into it, we’ve

fought a war, we spend a third of the budget—

a third of our money, yours and mine—on maintaining

the security services, and yet more and more

people are dying in terrorist attacks, and

Russia

simply ranks, in all sorts of country ratings of where

more people die in terrorist

attacks, at alarmingly high positions.

Now it may turn out to move even

higher on that list. That’s the first thing. Second,

it is a complete failure of immigration

policy. Migrants from these countries—and we’re not talking here about

some kind of

and apparently, if it was a terrorist attack, not

people who came from Tunisia or Syria

or, I don’t know, “Banderites” from Ukraine (a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainian nationalists), right—

these were

migrants from Central Asian countries who

can come here without any obstacles,

without even getting visas, and who in huge

numbers move around without control. And

people like me have been saying for many, many years—sorry—

guys, let’s start

putting migration in order, at least by

introducing a visa regime.

All countries have a visa regime with

Central Asian countries. People from

Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan—

with all due respect to those countries—

can hardly just up and go

anywhere visa-free, but they can come to Russia, to us, without one.

Let’s be honest, that is something fundamentally wrong

that ought to be done away with. But

all these years Putin has consistently

stated that

we should let arrivals from

Central Asia come here without any restrictions,

simply using their domestic passports.

With a domestic passport, they simply

buy a ticket and come.

And that is somehow strange, and it’s unclear why

we need it, but for some reason

Putin needs it, and this situation

continues. So if it turns out

that this was a terrorist attack,

that is a colossal failure, and against the backdrop of

falling approval ratings, obviously they will

drop even further, because now it will also

turn out that they systematically lied about

yet another terrorist attack. So I think they

will stay silent to the end, they will lie to

the end. And our task is simply to demand

the truth from them, and not to forget—because it is very

important—not to forget what

happened in Magnitogorsk, because unfortunately

one of the traits of our society

is that, well, we

discuss something on Twitter for a while, and

then—bang—we forget. By the way, in

the city of Shakhty, in Rostov Region,

there was also an explosion—a gas explosion.

Well, there, by all appearances, it really does look like

a gas explosion.

Five people died. But even there, the behavior of

the bomb squad, OMON (Russian riot police), the National Guard,

the security forces—you have to admit, that also

indirectly points to the fact that in

Magnitogorsk it was, after all, a terrorist attack, and

that is why the special services react so painfully

even now to gas explosions that

happen elsewhere in the country, in other

cities. That’s why a whole crowd of

different security personnel rushes in immediately.

One way or another, this story needs to be

followed, questions need to be asked, and we need

to examine all these vague videos very carefully

and not take off the agenda

any questions or any suspicions, and not

call each other crazy

or paranoid just because we are asking these

questions. Two more

things I would like to say about this

situation. You remember there was that post about a

“New Year’s miracle”—a miracle amid tragedy.

A small child was rescued directly

from under the rubble, although more than a day had passed

since the explosion. Nevertheless, this

child turned out to be alive—a little

11-month-old Vanya Fokin. He had to be

urgently transported to Moscow. People talked a lot about

this, discussed a little how

it could be that a rich

large city does not even have its own

hospital, and moreover the entire Health Ministry does not

have medical transport aviation in order

to transfer this child to Moscow,

because German Gref

from Sberbank had to specially provide

an airplane so that the 11-month-old

child who suffered in

this terrible tragedy—who suffered, not died,

sorry, who was injured in this terrible

tragedy—could be taken to a hospital. I just wanted

to remind you of one figure here: in

the city of Magnitogorsk there is a hockey club,

Metallurg, and just its payroll alone

Plus, this club’s bonus fund is 16

billion rubles (about $175 million), and nine players there

receive more than $1 million each. It’s not that

I’m calling here for us to

shut down hockey clubs. But if

the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works

or some other wealthy sponsors, or

the state budget, have the means, damn it, to support

hockey clubs, pay millions

of dollars to hockey players, and spend billions

from the budget on upkeep, then fine, let’s do that

as the second priority.

But first, let’s simply build, in a

large city,

an industrial city, a hospital where they can

treat infants with frostbite

or anything else. This is just genuinely

outrageous. I remember very well that

on the one hand, everyone was very

happy that the child had been saved,

but on the other hand everyone was furious, and

rightly so, because it looks

completely insane. German Gref (head of Sberbank) — well done, he provided

a plane, but still — kind Sberbank

gave a plane to transport the child. But what if

Sberbank had been unkind?

What if Gref hadn’t had a plane?

What if Gref had been flying somewhere else for New Year?

Then what — they wouldn’t have been able

to treat that child in Magnitogorsk?

It just looks completely insane. That’s

the first thing I wanted to say.

Additionally, the second thing: about “dancing on

blood” or “dancing on bones” — yes, a couple

of weeks ago, when everyone was writing after

the authorities’ statement, after the statement

by Governor Dubrovsky that

we would keep this building,

that it was fit for habitation — well, only

that one section had collapsed, it

had exploded, according to the report,

but it was still livable; it’s a big building, we don’t

want to tear it down, so let people live there —

naturally, everyone was furious, everyone attacked

the authorities and [ __ ], and the group

around Dubrovsky, and he said that this was

“dancing on bones.” And yet the level

of public outrage reached such

a point that Putin ordered [Beretta]

to resettle this huge building

in Magnitogorsk. And look at that — amazing,

Dubrovsky doesn’t accuse Putin of

dancing on bones, and somehow

everyone immediately forgot and started saying, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

what a wise decision, Vladimir

Vladimirovich, and we here in the

region, on the ground, also thought that we should

probably resettle the building after all. Just

what hypocrisy. When we say — when

the entire country says something absolutely

reasonable to this donkey of a governor,

everyone tells him the obvious thing: the building needs

to be resettled. He says, this is dancing on

bones, you’re just grandstanding. And then Putin says

the exact same thing, and suddenly it’s all, yes, yes,

yes, a wise thought, Vladimir, Vladimir

— all these people are disgusting. Svetlana

asks me why no one claimed responsibility

for the terrorist attack, and whether Putin would have come

if he had known it was a terrorist attack

in Magnitogorsk. First of all, I think

Putin’s visit is also an indirect sign

of that,

that it was a terrorist attack, because he simply

probably wouldn’t have come just like that for an industrial accident.

He likely wouldn’t have come. But that’s only an indirect,

an indirect sign.

And secondly, it’s not a Russian tradition

for terrorists to claim responsibility

for their attacks. That’s more of a

Western European or perhaps Israeli

tradition, where some group takes

responsibility. Here — well, do you know many

terrorist

organizations founded by people from

the former Soviet republics of Central

Asia? They do exist, obviously, yes, they exist.

Maybe they did claim

responsibility — but how would you

find out about it from censored television,

which, even if it really was a terrorist attack,

would never admit it in a million years? So it seems to me

that this is definitely not at all

an indicator. So, folks, let’s

respond to Tatyana Navka’s appeal.

Tatyana Navka, in a modest little gray

dress, appeared on television. It’s not

the newest video — yes, it was from some time

ago — but still, every time

I hear and see, in the course

of our investigations, some

signs of the brazen luxury

of our officials, I remember this

video.

In it, Tatyana Navka asks all of us

to chip in money in order to help

a child. Let’s watch 30 seconds.

My younger daughter, whom I recently

gave birth to — her name is Nadezhda. It’s not

just a beautiful name; it seems to me it is one

of the main words in any person’s life,

as important as faith and love. For families

whose children need urgent and

expensive medical care,

hope is as necessary as air — hope

that the money will be found, the operation will happen

in time, and the child will live. That is

why, as part of the Good Deeds Day campaign,

we are not just raising money — we are giving

this child’s parents enormous hope.

Guys, I’m not mocking charitable

foundations. I think very highly of them; they are

wonderful people, and they provide

support to those who have found themselves in difficult

situations. But this — this is not about that.

“My daughter Nadenka (an affectionate form of Nadezhda),”

“Hope — let’s give these little kids

hope.” Just pay attention — that phrase really

the vile phrase "they need"

expensive operations

what the hell do you mean, expensive

operation? We have free healthcare in

this country. How can it be that there is no

such thing as an expensive operation, especially

for a child? We pay taxes. The oil

companies pump our oil, our gas

Deripaska extracts our aluminum from the ground

and that should be more than enough for all

children, without all this "oh, my poor little daughter,"

to receive proper care. I don't need hope for my child

they need a completely normal

healthcare system. And why did I suddenly

remember this? Because it was only in

2015 that this was recorded, by the way

in 2015, that video of hers was recorded

roughly at the same time as the famous

scandal after our investigation

when we exposed the fact that on the wrist of

Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov

there was a watch worth 37 million rubles (about $400,000). Peskov

then claimed that it was a gift

from Tatyana Navka. So, in other words, she

was recording videos in her plain little dress

saying, "Guys, let's send some money

to the charity fund," and

at the same time was supposedly giving her husband

— though we understand it was simply a bribe —

those watches. Whoever gave Peskov that watch, apparently

but even in their version, she was giving

her husband, a top official, a watch worth 37

million rubles (about $400,000), just like that. I remembered all this now

because if Tatyana

Navka is looking for someone willing

to donate money to a charity

fund, and therefore has some

amount of spare cash

to make a contribution and pay for

all those expensive operations that

the Russian

healthcare system for some reason cannot provide — I've found that

person. Her name is — ta-da! — Tatyana Navka

because Tatyana Navka, congratulations to all of us,

—

has finally sold her apartment on

Manhattan. You probably know that

Putin's press secretary's wife

had an apartment in central New York, and she

had been trying to sell it for some time. And all of you

who have a sense of the geography of

Manhattan can judge from this image: here

this little red

marker shows where the

apartment is located. As you can see, it's not far at all

from Central Park. It's an expensive

area, and this is a luxury apartment. Let's

take a look at the building

called The Milan Condominium. This

is the building where Tatyana

Navka's apartment was. Here you can see some

lovely photos from the condominium's website

these wonderful photos. Navka

had been trying for some time to sell this

apartment, and now we have obtained documents

— I'm showing you the extract

that states that Tatyana Navka

has sold her apartment and now

accordingly, together with her husband

Dmitry Peskov

she has become richer by 1 million 775

thousand dollars. And actually

by the way, it's a funny thing — this isn't

just some isolated detail. You might say, so what, someone

sold an apartment in New York. No, this is

first of all, they owned it right up until the very end

which means that our mustachioed

propagandist, together with all his

gang, who are constantly thrashing around in these

fits of false and hypocritical

patriotism, telling us about how

our Western partners

are plotting against us, how the Americans

are imposing sanctions on us, how they are the

worst, the most terrible, how they persecute our

athletes — Tatyana Navka is outraged — and then

she calls her agent in New York

and says, "So guys, what about my apartment on

Manhattan? Have you found some

good buyer yet?" And if they found one at a

good price, that really would be

pretty great, wouldn't it? Every time

they show Peskov and he tells us

that it was a forced decision

to raise the retirement age, or when

Tatyana Navka in her plain little dress

talks about how girls need

to be given hope

and money needs to be raised for an operation — it would be nice if

there were a little ticker running below

saying: "Success story: Dmitry

Peskov and Tatyana Navka sold their

apartment on Manhattan for 1 million

775 thousand dollars." But

maybe then they could somehow use that

money to compensate for the problems in

Russian healthcare, which somehow

appeared out of nowhere — as if

Putin, who has been in power for 20 years,

has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that now

children need expensive paid

operations, as Navka said in her

video — completely unrelated, of course. Well then

maybe you could give away some

part of that money. And in general, explain

to all of us: how exactly do all these things

come about — your 37-million-ruble (about $400,000) watch

—

your 1-billion-ruble mansion on Rublyovka (an elite suburb west of Moscow), and all

those yacht trips of yours

costing 30 million rubles a week (about $325,000)

That would be really great — just a tiny

little ticker. And I understand that

a minimal number of media outlets

will report that Peskov and

Navka did, after all, sell their New York

apartment and became richer by almost two

million dollars — but at least I have

I told you about it on my program; maybe

you’ll tell someone else about it as well. And once again,

returning to the topic of charitable foundations, I

can see that there is this kind of

difficult discussion going on, and

[music]

we have a charitable foundation, and that’s fine,

and genuine philanthropists are suffering a bit

because, well, for a long, long time we were

fed all these ideas that

charitable foundations, especially those

set up by officials and their wives, are

some kind of proper, righteous thing,

that these are holy people — after all, they save lives, as

the singer Slava quite rightly said recently

in her rather

popular comment that she

posted on Instagram (a social media platform), guys — they have

officials’ wives whose earrings cost more

than an MRI machine, and so for a long time we were

fed this same notion of some kind of holiness

surrounding all these official, establishment-type people

involved with charitable foundations.

So now society is already developing

a certain rejection of all this, and because of that

normal, legitimate charitable

foundations — which, after all, ought to exist — are suffering too.

In the end, whether it’s Putin or not, Peskov (Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov)

or not Peskov, or Navka (figure skater and Peskov’s wife) — for those people whose

child is sick and who have no money for treatment,

whose child is not being treated in hospital the way they should be,

they don’t care about any of that — they just want

to get money and save — save

their child.

These people are not guilty of anything, and

real charities are suffering, but

that absolutely does not mean that we

should stay silent. And to say, well, let

Peskov and Navka not be so bad,

but still they’re asking for money for

good causes — no, they’re being hypocritical, and on top of that

they’re sticking their noses where they don’t belong. The task for

Navka and Peskov is not to be involved in

charitable foundations, but to explain

to us where they got their inexplicable

wealth from.

Igor Knyazev asks me:

“Alexei, please tell us about the Porsche driver who

was a drunk judge and ran over

an 18-year-old girl at a crosswalk.

“Judges in Kuban (the Krasnodar region) have become completely bloated with privilege; it’s time to find a way

to rein them in.” Yes, there really is

such a case. It’s quite outrageous. I didn’t

include it in today’s program

because I still don’t fully understand what

happened. But from what we already know, a judge —

apparently a military judge — hit

a girl at a crosswalk. She is in serious

condition and cannot walk, and then

other drivers detained this judge; he

tried to drive away.

There is phone footage showing this drunk

guy there saying, “I’ll cause you all all kinds of problems,”

and it turned out he was a judge. And even

now official channels and television are

telling us that there is no information in the

criminal case that was opened. This

judge has not been suspended, and nobody knows anything.

So, in other words, there is a girl who was hit, there is

video evidence,

it’s clear who hit her — it was a judge — and

after that, as usual in Krasnodar,

nothing happens. I mean, absolutely nothing.

Kuban is simply a zone of lawlessness,

total lawlessness — truly unimaginable

lawlessness. In that sense, things there are worse than in the North

Caucasus. In that respect, everything there

is not just about people who have grown

fat on privilege and officials who have gone off the rails;

there are just some kind of bandits sitting in every

branch of government, at every level, and in

the judicial system and, above all, the prosecutor’s office.

I will follow this case,

and I will definitely tell you in the next program

what is happening with it. Twenty-seven thousand

people are watching us. Anton Montiker

asks me: “Working with the trade union

movement is good. Will you

develop this kind of work with other

trade union organizations besides

the Doctors’ Alliance? Do you have any plans

on this issue?” Anton, yes, we do, and we

will develop it. Anton apparently saw

today’s

report on our channel about how

the Doctors’ Alliance union carried out

another inspection raid at a Moscow hospital. It’s very

interesting — take a look. Moscow’s

healthcare system is wealthy, the city has an enormous

budget — 2.5 trillion rubles — and even in a Moscow clinic

(about 2.5 trillion rubles) and even in a Moscow outpatient clinic

they don’t pay bonuses, and in the X-ray room

there is no ventilation, and so on and so

forth. Take a look. We will

keep supporting trade unions, it’s just that normal,

honest, independent unions in Russia are almost nonexistent.

With all such unions, we will

work together, we will help, we will

offer them our media platform

because unions need a

platform to speak to people; they

are not allowed anywhere.

But we will let them come to us, and

however modest it may be, we do have a platform. Hundreds of

thousands, even millions of people can

watch and get some information

here, on this channel or on my main

channel. Santa Lech asks me:

“Have you watched Limanovsky’s film *The Sticky One*?”

What do I think? I haven’t had time to watch it yet.

I’ll watch it. Some people are praising it, and

some are criticizing it, but absolutely everyone says

it’s worth seeing. So, leaflets.

Leaflets — who do you think started distributing them for us?

You’ll never

guess. You’ll say, well,

“Alexei, you’re the one who loves distributing

leaflets.” We even had the “Good Machine” project.

The truth machine—we are offering, and have offered,

and now we are offering people

the chance to print out leaflets based on our investigations

for those who do not watch YouTube. And you

won’t believe it, but this leaflet was issued by

Army General Zolotov, and it concerns—you

won’t believe it—a warrant officer.

From the National Guard of Russia (Rosgvardiya), because this warrant officer

from Rosgvardiya, named Dmitry Kuprin, had

a YouTube channel.

He called it—he called himself—“Wild Warrant Officer.”

And there, well, it’s simply a case of

a person bluntly telling the hard truth about how the system crushes people.

He talks about what is happening inside

the system, because everyone can see that

lawlessness is going on in that system. The channel was

relatively popular. This warrant officer

did a simple thing, as many people do:

on YouTube, before videos, there are

ads—not before every video. We have almost no

advertising at all on the main channel.

There is very little of it on Navalny Live as well;

we experiment a bit with it, but many people naturally want

to earn something, for example to buy equipment.

He turned on Google

ads and earned some money.

And for that he was fired for criticizing

his superiors, and they put out a leaflet

distributed among the fighters of Ros

gvardiya, which says the following:

“We have established that Warrant Officer Kuprin received

funds from Google

Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street 3,”

that is, in the company name Google—they

even included Google’s full Dublin address—

in the amount of 18,000 rubles (about $200), and as a result

he was dismissed. By his actions, Warrant Officer

Kuprin deprived himself of all social benefits,”

namely paid travel,

sanatorium treatment (state-funded health resort treatment), and the right to retire

after 22 years of service.” In other words, it is simply

a hellish leaflet, you understand—really

it resembles the kind of leaflets

the fascists used to distribute

by dropping them from airplanes. And I asked

that we get in touch with

Dmitry—rather, with Kuprin, that very

“Wild Warrant Officer,” because Zolotov

was distributing this leaflet about a man who

would never be allowed to speak out loudly on this subject.

No one would give him that chance—so we will.

We suggested that he simply record

a short address to Zolotov about what

he thinks about all this.

It is just over two minutes long, but very interesting.

The Wild Warrant Officer addresses Zolotov:

“Viktor Vasilyevich Zolotov...

You say there are 350,000 bayonets behind your back?

Not bayonets—bayonet-knives. And you are no

Suvorov (famed Russian military commander). And for every one of your bayonets,

there is less and less loyalty. I was given very little time

by Navalny Live, and I want

to ask you just one question: how did you

so simply build such a business empire so easily?

You say you had the right to engage in

business only in the period from 1996 to 2000.

The rest of the time you were in

state service and had no right

to do business. So how did you, in four

years, manage to build such a business so easily?

And let me remind those watching Navalny

Live that in 1998, during that period, there was

a crisis in the country.

I myself was unemployed then, and yet you

tell everyone that during that period you very simply

succeeded in business. Well, now I am

unemployed because of your

subordinates, so please tell me:

why is it that we cannot, in four years,

build a business like yours? Tell the whole

country. And tell us again: why is it that

I bought this T-shirt with my own money?

Why isn’t it issued to us? Why do I

buy new patches with my own money? There is much more

I could tell. Why do your

drivers have to buy, at their own expense,

spare parts?

Explain all this, Viktor Vasilyevich.

Zolotov, and one last thing: the idiot who

wrote this leaflet should have

signed it with his surname and rank.

This leaflet is exactly the same kind of leaflet

the Germans distributed, saying:

‘Surrender, Red Army soldiers, and you will be fed and

clothed, with a warm bath awaiting you,’

‘clean clothes’—that sort of thing. I know, Viktor

Vasilyevich Zolotov, that the servicemen

of the Motherland—the special forces, the maroon berets (elite Rosgvardiya special forces)—

the ones you wear for some reason—when they are awarded them,

they say:

‘I serve the Fatherland and the special forces.’ No one

says, ‘I serve Putin.’ No one says,

‘We serve the president.’ Putin is a servant of the people;

he is the one who is supposed to serve the people. Is that

clear to you?”

Viktor Vasilyevich, Viktor Vasilyevich, that should

be clear. Listen, you have to agree—well,

everything he said was right. Everything this

man said was absolutely right.

If a Rosgvardiya fighter says

‘I buy this shirt with my own money,’

‘I buy patches with my own money,’ and if

our drivers are buying

spare parts at their own expense—well, explain

to us why this is happening. But he does not want

to explain; he wants to fire a person

and distribute this truly vile

leaflet. You see, he was

thrown out for criticism, and he lost

his paid leave—40 days of it.

That is exactly right. It really does

sound like: ‘Come over to our side,’

‘Soviet soldiers,’

‘we have

warm baths here,’ and all the rest of that

vileness and filth.

I simply want to express my support

for this wonderful Wild Warrant Officer.

I hope, I don’t know, maybe the police union

for police officers—so they don’t get left hanging, if

No, we’ll try, maybe, to do something

although, of course, Brus Gvardii (unclear proper name) obviously

won’t be reinstated. But still,

I want to express support to all those

people inside the security apparatus, in the army, in

the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), wherever, who

are not afraid and are ready, at least in some way,

to stand up for their rights. I’m being told

the latest news about the case we

started the program with—about Rybka or Leslie,

namely that they have been detained, and they are

being charged under the article on involvement in

prostitution—Article 240 of the Criminal Code. Well,

if that’s true, then indeed

my prediction is more likely coming true,

which is that

Prikhodko and Deripaska, angered by the fact that

because of Rybka and Leslie, their

corrupt dealings were exposed, are now simply

going to try, under various pretexts,

to keep them in prison indefinitely. Nine

eggs.

Everyone has been discussing it for the past two weeks, and

there have been a huge number of jokes related

to the fact that everything started being sold

in smaller packages; everything is becoming

smaller and smaller and smaller, while prices started

going up after New Year’s, quite

obviously. But there were objective reasons:

VAT was raised, prices have already gone up on

mobile phones, everyone saw it with

cars, on food, and naturally on

fuel. Internet prices are rising because of

the Yarovaya package (a set of Russian anti-terror laws), and it’s very interesting that people pointed out to us

that eggs are being sold not

in packs of 10 but 9, Coca-Cola has become 0.9 liters,

and milk is 0.93 liters, grains are no longer

500 grams but 450 grams, and even, even

Burger King has reduced the size of its

burgers and said that

they have new standards. In fact, this

has a scientific name:

shrinkflation. That is, retailers simply can’t

raise the price of a liter of milk or

of 10 eggs, because people are poor—they

won’t buy them. Price increases already scare them

because they’re that poor. So they simply

make the package smaller, that’s all. But in

reality, none of this changes anything, and it

is, well, obvious. When we all used to buy

10 and now it’s 9 for the same price, and when

milk became 0.9 liters instead of 1 liter for the same

price, all of us simply became

10 percent poorer. Prices rose

by 10 percent, not by 3 or 4 percent,

as Sberbank lies to us, and

this, of course, simply shows the overall

trend that we will be talking about

on this program all year long:

the country is getting poorer.

The country is becoming impoverished, and no matter how much they try to hide it

through all these tricks, no matter how much

manufacturers try to hide it, no matter how much

the state tries to hide it, it will become more and more visible.

And it is increasingly obvious that the state will

make more and more sophisticated

attempts so that, at least at the level of

statistics, this poverty can be concealed. And here

the remarkable Tatyana

Golikova said that, yes, there is a lot of poverty in

Russia, of course, but one of the

reasons there seems to be so much of it is that we

are calculating poverty incorrectly, you know.

These are some outdated standards,

we equate the subsistence minimum with

average wages, and it turns out that

when we compare things this way, it appears that in

Russia

there are huge numbers of destitute people. But apparently

that’s not how it should be done. I mean, what difference does it make

what their income is, what the consumer basket is—

let’s use some other indicators.

Let’s introduce them. I don’t know—for example, if a

person still has 50 percent of their teeth left in their mouth,

then they’re happy, and therefore they’re

not poor. Or I don’t know what else they’ll

come up with, what other standards they’ll

redefine. But I have no doubt that

the result of this rethinking will be

that in reality there will be

even more poor people, while on paper the number of poor

will be shrinking. After all, on paper, that same

same

Golikova

together with her husband Viktor Khristenko

has a large income, though not some absolutely

staggering one—74 million rubles. And on January 2,

an investigation came out that I

want to tell you about because it

was an excellent investigation, published by

a consortium of independent journalists, and

Roman Anin was the direct author of this

investigation. But when I saw that it had

come out on January 2, I was genuinely upset,

because, really, who in Russia on January 2

is going to read an investigation? And this one was worth reading.

This investigation concerns

the married couple

Golikova and Khristenko. Golikova is currently

Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government

for social issues—specifically

healthcare, social policy, all that stuff—where

hospitals are falling apart, where children

have to raise money for medicine, and so

on. All of that falls under Golikova. And

it turned out that this wonderful pair of

officials—both of them are officials, and

have spent their whole lives working as officials—

invested in golf clubs. In golf

clubs—$360 million worth of golf clubs.

In Russia, golf clubs are just that famous

image I often mention: yes, we’ve

completely lost it. You’re Deputy Prime Minister for

social policy, and before that you were head of the

Accounts Chamber, which is supposedly, as we’re told,

fighting corruption—and yet it’s you.

you were the Minister of Health and

became famous as “Madame Arbidol” and

then suddenly, bang, out of nowhere you

come up with $360 million and you

invest that money through offshore companies

in golf clubs in Russia. It’s just

seriously some kind of theater of the absurd. On top of that,

as I already said, all of this was done

through offshore companies, and at the same time

let’s listen to what Tatyana Golikova

is telling us about offshore companies in

a time of crisis: Western countries can and

will use every means available

to strengthen their economic and

political position.

Here I would note that the work of

combating corruption is closely linked

to the effort to de-offshorize the economy.

In 2014, the Accounts Chamber (Russia’s state audit body) will

conduct an audit of state

procurement worth more than 1 billion rubles (about $30 million at the time)

to determine whether or not

state funds were being funneled offshore.

A government official — and in just one

short 26-second clip I showed you

her speech.

De-offshorization, fighting corruption,

Western countries use offshore schemes to

fight against us, and at the very same time

she, with $360 million from who-knows-where,

together with her husband

invests through offshore structures

in Russian golf clubs. Damn, I’d like

to ask: if any of you here have the

ability to edit Wikipedia, find

the article on hypocrisy and, as an

illustration for that article, put

Tatyana Golikova and her husband, Viktor Khristenko, there please.

This investigation into Viktor Khristenko and her —

pay attention to it, because it’s a real shame

that it came out in the first days of January and very few

media outlets wrote about it, because once again

Golikova is responsible for the social sector,

and by the way, we decided at FBK (the Anti-Corruption Foundation)

that in 2019 we would spend a lot of time

working on this, yes, and that’s why

these doctors’ unions and everyone else

keep coming to us, because this is something

that needs attention: there’s supposedly no money for anything,

and we’re constantly being told there’s no

money. Oh, and I forgot — I wanted to show

a photo from a hospital in Penza.

If you missed it, in a Penza hospital

they literally didn’t have enough

beds, so somehow they made

these makeshift ones: there are some buckets standing there, and on

top of them they just laid rough, unplaned

boards, and somehow the photos got posted

online, and we thought this would be

denied, but then the Health Ministry

of the Penza region confirmed that, well, yes,

you know, they simply needed to increase

the number of beds in the hospital, and

so they just took some boards,

put them on some chairs or

buckets, and that’s how they created a

bed for a patient. That is, they didn’t even go

and buy some kind of cot for 1,000 rubles (about $15 at the time).

rubles.

No, healthcare is so impoverished that

they simply put two boards on two

old chairs. I don’t know — if a person

needs to be hospitalized, they’ll probably lie

there on that bed instantly.

And meanwhile, in parallel with this, the minister

overseeing the social policy bloc

is investing $360 million in golf clubs,

and, man, 32,000 people are watching — well,

hello everyone, good job for tuning in.

So, I think that out of

these 32,000 people,

quite a lot live in Moscow and

accordingly pay for major building repairs,

and

when you pay for major repairs, guys,

you’re buying penthouses — just not

for yourselves.

For Pyotr Biryukov, another great

investigation came out right after

directly

the New Year holidays. I even wrote

to the author and complained, saying, “Come on, man,

it’s a great investigation that you published, but

why now? No one’s going to read it.” But they

had their own reasons. On

Meduza (an independent Russian media outlet),

an investigation about Biryukov came out, and I

promised I’d gladly promote it

because, because

it’s infuriating: Moscow’s deputy mayor,

who oversees housing and utilities, bought 99 penthouses in

one of the most elite residential buildings

in Moscow — yes, the residential complex Legends

of Tsvetnoy, on Tsvetnoy

Boulevard.

By the way, another one of our

favorites, Dmitry Kiselyov, lives there too. A coincidence? I

don’t think so. But this man, for his family,

Biryukov, bought 9 penthouses for his family.

A lifelong official overseeing

housing and utilities.

What’s more, it turned out that

Legends of Tsvetnoy was built by a

development company called Capital Group, and

at roughly the same time that Biryukov

was buying these

penthouses from Capital Group, the city departments under him awarded

Capital Group landscaping contracts

worth a total of nearly 22

billion rubles (about $330 million at the time).

And right away — hop — 9 penthouses

worth many, many millions of dollars.

Honestly, how long are we supposed to watch this?

How much longer can this even be tolerated? And

somehow — I don’t know — he could at least have tried

to hide those penthouses of his, or somehow

explain it.

At least have some sense of shame.

He mumbles, saying, "Back in the god-knows-what year of the '90s..."

I was in business then"—but he wasn't doing any business at all,

he wasn't involved in any business whatsoever.

The deputy mayor oversees housing and utilities, capital repairs,

and buys a penthouse—and nine penthouses, nine,

nine penthouses. In September, we will have,

guys, elections to the Moscow City Duma. So if

you're unhappy about those penthouses and you live in

Moscow, then let's finally come out and hit back

at all these crooks. We specifically launched

for this purpose the Smart Voting project

so that

in a coordinated way we can try to crush

—I'll say it plainly—crush all the deputies

who support Biryukov

(Pyotr Biryukov) and Sobyanin (Sergey Sobyanin), and all the other enforcers

of this absolutely outrageous lawlessness. But

I don't want to divide them

—the corrupt officials—into cunning and modest ones, and

stupid ones and brazen ones. Still, somehow,

when you've stolen so much and don't even

try to hide it, when you simply

openly go and buy nine penthouses,

well, that's already

something that has to be dealt with. So

let's come out in September. We will specially

draw up a list

of who should be voted for in each district

to make things as difficult as possible for United

Russia, and we will send you that list.

Register, and let's

show Mr. Pyotr Biryukov and Mr.

Sergey Sobyanin—we'll try, how shall I put it,

to put pressure on them, because, well,

because it's simply impossible. Since I've

started talking about the Moscow City Duma,

let me show you a short video about

this little

mad printer. If you're an active

Twitter user, you've probably seen

this video. It really made an impression on me

because this video is about

how the Moscow City Duma voted to raise

paid parking fees. Paid

parking in Moscow is already astronomical, and so

here you have a government body that

is considering this slippery, sensitive

issue, not understanding that a lot of people

are going to go absolutely crazy

because they're raising parking fees yet again.

How much more can they raise them? So it would seem

that at least on this issue

—how to pull more money out of your

pocket—

they would at least try to vote properly.

All right, let's watch 38 seconds of how

this actually happened.

Chairing deputy: "Dear colleagues, the board

shows 33 votes in favor

and three against. Thus, 36 people

Please count by heads how many

are present. I counted 26."

"To do the counting, we have

a special system in the chamber, and I

trust it completely."

"Then your system is working

incorrectly, because use your own

eyes and count: there are 26

people sitting here." "The existing

system fully ensures

proper operation."

Well, you have to admit, that's a really

great moment.

The guy is saying: just count, there are 26

people sitting there. And the other one says: no, our system

counted 33.

How can that be—33? I'm counting: 1, 2, 3... 26.

"We trust our system." And our whole country

is built in exactly this wonderful

way: some guy sits there,

with six people apparently appearing out of nowhere,

with a United Russia sign in front of him, staring blankly

and saying, "Well, the system said so, therefore

Golikova (Tatyana Golikova) can invest 306 million

rubles,

in a golf club, and Biryukov, another

official, can buy nine penthouses, and everything

is absolutely normal. And Navka (Tatyana Navka) can

buy and sell apartments in

New York.

Everything is fine, folks. Believe in the

system. We say: how is that possible? Wait a second,

this wild warrant-officer type with chevrons

is saying, "I buy it myself, I buy it myself."

But the officials tell us: no, no, no,

the system

says everything is correct, and there are no

grounds not to trust our system.

Well then, we do not trust

this damn system. We simply need to

do a little more—not just

make statements, but once again, I won't be afraid

to use this word: crush all these crooks,

including with the help of our Smart

Voting.

It will take place in September, and we

are starting our broadcasts; I'm starting mine

this year, and I will be spending a lot of time

consistently persuading you to take part

in Smart Voting. We will come up

with new actions together on how to fight this

government. We will help independent

trade unions. We will ask you for help

raising funds. Let's be honest: we

will be taking your money and

using it to fight

these people who say,

"No, no, never mind that there are 26 people there,

the system says otherwise." We will build with you

a normal, decent system so that

the number of living people and the number of

people in the computer match. Thank you

very much to everyone who watched my first broadcast

of 2019, and I'll see you in the next

one. Bye.