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Good evening. In Moscow, it's 8:18 p.m. That means
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that on the Navalny Live channel, Alexei
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Navalny is on the program *Navalny in 2018*
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after a short break that was
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connected with the fact that last Thursday we
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held a debate with Igor Strelkov
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By the way, many thanks to everyone who
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watched. I'm back in the studio to
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answer your questions, and those questions
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have piled up, and I hope today we'll have
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an interesting conversation about sanctions, about
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Saakashvili, an important topic, about the use of
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administrative resources in the elections, and many
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other important and interesting things. But I want to begin
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with a naked woman, and
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that naked woman is a wonderful young woman
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named Ksenia Kalugina, who became
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one of the symbols of this week—
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of what I want to call
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"Offended Russia." It's this kind of
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fully formed, finalized strategy
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of the authorities: to look for some constant
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conflict in society and to build everything around some kind of
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grievance. They are already governing the country through
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some kind of resentment, through the search for insults,
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incitement, and desecration,
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all these alleged desecrations. And they found this
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wonderful girl—she
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had her picture taken in a church, and
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the Investigative Committee for the Republic of
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Tatarstan is conducting an inquiry, and
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statements are being made literally at the level of
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the head of the Investigative Committee
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of the Republic of Tatarstan. So this is all very
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serious. This isn't just nothing—this
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inquiry, even if formal, means they have to
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talk to everyone, they probably have to
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go to the site, they have to speak with
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the girl, with the photographer, look at this
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church,
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talk to the injured parties—so
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a lot has to happen. And I urge you,
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my friends, under no circumstances
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to treat this ironically, although it's hard
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not to. This does not belong in the "odd news" section;
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this is a very real
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strategy—
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a political strategy of the government,
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the Kremlin's strategy, Putin's strategy even,
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perhaps, even if they themselves haven't fully
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thought it through in their own heads. This is
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exactly how it is being built, because
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we all—or at least we in our
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circle—are looking for something in common. We are all against
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corruption. We are all against poverty. We are all
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against injustice. But for them it is very
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important to find different groups and
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constantly declare that these groups
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have been offended by other people: they are
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offended by atheists, they are offended by
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"liberasts" (a derogatory Russian slur for liberals), they are offended by
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homosexuals, and so on and so
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forth, and we are going to see this
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And this system of "Offended Russia,"
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or the "Offended Kremlin"—I am absolutely
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certain that for the next two years this will be
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the main agenda before the elections, it will be
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the main agenda after the elections, and
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all of this, of course, will be saturated with
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absolute, total, disgusting
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hypocrisy. Here's why I say this. All of this
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happened in the village of Gari, in the Yelabuga District
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of Tatarstan. I was curious, you know—
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there's a service called Google Earth,
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Google Earth. If you're watching right now
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not on a phone but on
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a computer, on a desktop, you can simply
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do exactly the same
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experiment as I'm describing. Go to Google Earth,
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type in Gari, Yelabuga District,
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Tatarstan, and it will show you this village.
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And you know that in this service people
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post—the users post—
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their own photos. And there you will find two
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photos from the village of Gari, and both of these
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photos concern this specific
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church. This is what it looks like. Please look—
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here it is.
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That very church—if this
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structure can even be called that—which
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the young woman Ksenia Kalugina supposedly desecrated
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by having her picture taken in her sheer
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dress. And it's astonishing,
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because this isn't even just some
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slightly abandoned church—it's simply
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a building that is barely still standing,
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you can't even just say it's in disrepair;
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it has stood like this for many years—
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ruins. We understand what ruins are
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like somewhere in Russia; there probably aren't even any homeless people
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in this village, so there's no one
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to squat there, but there—excuse me—everyone goes
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to the toilet there. It's simply a garbage dump there,
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with stray animals and rats running around,
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and in general the most
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innocent thing that could happen in these
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ruins is a photo shoot, for which they clearly
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—please put the girl's photo back up—
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for which they obviously even had to sweep the floors
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there so that she
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could be photographed. But nevertheless,
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no one cared about this for a single
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second—that there is an abandoned
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church in the village of Gari and God knows what is happening to it.
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It's obviously in the center of the village. It did not
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concern the Investigative Committee,
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nor the Kremlin, nor the Orthodox Church, until
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the moment when someone
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took a picture there and posted
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a photo of this girl, after which
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this little red warning light of "offense"
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lit up somewhere, the Investigative Committee
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immediately found it, and off it went—and now all of this
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is being discussed, and there's an inquiry into the feelings
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of believers, letters are being written—it's all absolutely
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fabricated and made up, but nevertheless.
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This part of the political agenda will be
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the most important part of Russia’s political
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agenda, specifically, uh,
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the existence of
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offended, terribly offended groups
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the existence of some, well, uh,
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free-thinking people who offended these groups, and
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the Kremlin, which acts as the
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defender of the terribly offended. Right now we have
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at the moment
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Well, there are two major scandals over
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supposed insults, and all of them are
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excellent examples of what a kind of
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total hypocrisy this is. Probably the main
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scandal and the main item on the agenda in
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fed-up Russia is, of course,
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the film *Matilda*
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by director Alexei Uchitel. You know that State Duma deputy
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Natalia Poklonskaya has been filing official inquiries and collected
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100,000 signatures. An entire group of deputies
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appealed as well, and today I read an absolutely
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fantastic
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quote. I want you to see it together with
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me—from the head of the public council
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under the Ministry of Culture, Pavel
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Pozhigailo, who says, well, that, well,
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all right, fine, to hell with it, let there be a
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film, but somehow it needs to be, uh, slightly
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slightly improved so that
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Russian viewers won’t feel so deeply
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offended. In particular, they need to remove
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the German scientist, they need to remove
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the séance, they need to remove the head
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of the ballerina’s naked body, and then maybe it’ll pass
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because, well, it would be one thing if it were about, uh,
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about Alexander II, but this is, after all,
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about Nicholas II, our saint
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who was officially canonized
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as a saint, and this is again, for example,
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an absolutely
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fantastic case of hypocrisy. Many people
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noticed it—it’s impossible not to notice it.
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There’s an entire, excuse me, movement around Poklonskaya,
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100,000 people are writing in, the Duma is discussing it,
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a scandal
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remove the ballerina’s bare breast, don’t do that
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—and at the same time, on Red Square
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in central Moscow lies the body
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of the man who gave the order to execute
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that very tsar whom
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Natalia Poklonskaya is so zealously protecting—to execute
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him along with his children, relatives, and servants,
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to shoot them, kill them in a basement,
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hide their bodies somewhere no one knows where,
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desecrate them, and so on—and that
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interests no one. It’s as if that is no longer
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part of, uh,
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part of the agenda that the Kremlin
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has been imposing, including through Natalia
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Poklonskaya, because what matters is simply
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to throw out some topical issue. Well,
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Lenin lies there, and let him lie there. We’ve forgotten; we
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act as if he doesn’t exist in the history of, of
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Nicholas II—as if Nicholas II and
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Lenin at all
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somehow did not interact with each other
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historically. But instead
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we’re supposed to discuss a film. In this way they
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shift the political agenda,
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they jail people through all this, and they
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defend themselves with it all, but they also attack
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And probably the *Matilda* case is
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the loudest case, but the most outrageous
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case, of course, is what is happening
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right now in Volgograd, where against
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the head of our штаб (campaign office), a criminal case has been opened
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and he has been charged
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with, uh,
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officially charged with
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the rehabilitation of Nazism. He allegedly desecrated
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a photograph
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of the monument
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the sculpture *The Motherland Calls*. Can you imagine
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the situation? It happened because
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it took the form of—when, as you probably
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remember, I was splashed with green antiseptic dye (zelyonka), there was
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a kind of support flash mob: some people painted
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their faces, some altered
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photos of famous sculptures, and among them
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*The Motherland Calls* had green coloring
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drawn onto it. It was not a very successful
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idea; it disappeared from social media almost immediately.
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But then the little lightbulb of “we are
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offended” switched on, and against these people
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a criminal case was opened; there was a search of the office,
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computers were seized, and a travel restriction was imposed,
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and now charges are being filed. And on that
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same day
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—not even the same day, at the very same time today—
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we see news that in Volgograd
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they destroyed the so-called park of
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the Stalingrad widows. That is, it is a park where
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widows of the fallen planted trees in
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1956, if I’m not mistaken.
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It is part of the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex, and they
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destroyed everything there in order to
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make a parking lot, and absolutely no one here
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is offended—no one is offended
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at all. And now even the governor
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says, “Oh, come on, there never were
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any such Stalingrad
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widows, you know.” No one is interested
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in any of this, and the head of
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this museum complex says, “No,
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no, no, it was just some vacant lot.”
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I mean, all the residents of Volgograd know
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that it was a park, that there were trees
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planted by relatives of those who died in
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the Battle of Stalingrad—well, those who died in
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the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet term for World War II). Nevertheless,
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all of it can be safely cut down
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and cleared away, and then they can say it never even existed
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and simply put a parking lot there, and no one
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is offended at all.
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And this is what will keep happening constantly.
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This hypocrisy will keep infuriating us, and we
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will keep drawing attention to it and constantly
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discussing it on social media. This will
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This will dominate the political agenda;
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they’ll talk about it on TV talk shows, and so on, and
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so on. All of this will
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all these nonexistent
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constructs of "offense" will
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push real issues out of the media, out of elections, out of debates,
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the real things that, of course,
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we would like to—and need to—discuss, from
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corruption to poverty, economic
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reforms, and so on and so forth. So
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Guys, I didn’t start all this for nothing. I began
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my program with these very things that
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again are all over the news, in the
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"curiosities" section, because this is the most important thing
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they are doing right now. This is the foundation
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of domestic policy: a constant search for where
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we have been slighted, where we have been insulted,
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dragging all of this out and endlessly
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relishing how we were offended. 197 KDS writes:
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"In Oryol, so much money is being spent either on
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you know what, or on restoring churches—yet that offends
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no one. Well, of course it offends
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no one, because those are different things.
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Where all this concerns money that
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they stole,
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it is precisely so that you won’t discuss it
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that they came up with this story that some girl
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in a church, wearing a transparent dress, offended everyone.
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No one even goes to that church;
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there hasn’t been anyone there for decades.
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An important question from Pavel Volodin:
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related to offending people’s feelings. You
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spoke about freedom of the media. But how do we fight
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real anti-scientific obscurantism, anti-scientific
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nonsense on state TV channels and in newspapers, even in schools?
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They’re discussing all sorts of things, well—
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As for real anti-scientific obscurantism, I don’t really
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understand what exactly that is. Well, perhaps
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such a problem exists, but the real problem,
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the big problem right now, lies
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of course in obscurantism—but not scientific obscurantism at all.
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Uh—
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Obscurantism of a specifically pagan kind, because
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there are constant attempts to foist on us
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certain material objects that are supposedly so sacred
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that they can be offended. Well, here
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in this village, it’s a stone; it is not
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a sacred structure. It is not a church; it is
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a ruined brick wreck, and it cannot
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be offended in any way. Because if we
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believe that there are some
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material things that can be
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offended or desecrated, then that means we
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are not Christians at all—we are pagans.
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Then why doesn’t it offend believers
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the condition of the church where the photo was taken?
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Yes, it does offend believers—normal
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believers, of course it does. And believers
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don’t even know anything about this girl
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who was photographed. That is exactly what I’m
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talking about: they deliberately find this somewhere,
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drag it out so that you and I
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will discuss it. Looking at this church, I
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was reminded of *Leviathan* (the Russian film). Well then, about
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offending believers’ feelings: how do you
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feel about the ban and the designation of
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the religious group
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Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist? I view it negatively. This is,
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naturally, a rather peculiar religious
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movement, but by and large it harms no one.
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People go around,
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preach to one another, walk through
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apartment buildings and try to persuade people. They look rather
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strange, even funny, but they
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do not force anyone to do anything. We do not
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know of any real cases of violence here,
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well, at least not any kind of mass
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violence, or violence significant enough
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to justify banning them. I have no doubt
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that they will win various
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international cases against us, and that
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their ban will be recognized as unlawful. I don’t—rather, I
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do understand why this is being done. It is exactly
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for the same reason: some Jehovah’s
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Witnesses—no one even knew who they were,
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no one paid them any attention, no one
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thought about them. But they have to be
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banned because—why? Because they
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offended us.
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Saakashvili
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There have been a huge number of questions, and I
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have to comment. Why
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do I have to? Probably many of you have noticed
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that I am very reluctant
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to comment on issues of internal Ukrainian
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politics. In fact, I generally do not comment on them
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in this program—probably not once
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so far. I even saw comments today saying,
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"So Navalny is finally talking about
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Ukraine." But honestly, I’m very much
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annoyed
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by the dominance of the Ukrainian agenda in Russian
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news. You go to Yandex and you
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see the top five headlines, and they are all
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about Ukraine. We understand that this is being
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imposed on us. And this endless
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discussion of Ukrainian domestic
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politics is extremely irritating. I do not
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want to meddle in it. I do not want to discuss it.
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I do not want to know anything about it, at least
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not the details. But this is an important matter.
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Today on the program I had actually planned
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to talk about Demyan Kudryavtsev,
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who was stripped of Russian citizenship, even though
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he was, in fact, born in the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg),
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in the Soviet Union, and he was deprived of
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citizenship on the grounds that he had allegedly
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filled out some paperwork incorrectly. And now
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what happens is that we discuss what a
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terrible Putin he is, how disgustingly
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vile, unfair, and illegal
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his treatment of Kudryavtsev was, but
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then the discussion turns into: "Ah yes, but exactly
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the same thing was done in democratic
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Ukraine," they tell us with a smirk.
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Just look at the sheer
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gloating frenzy in the Kremlin-controlled
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media, the gleeful tweets they are posting.
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Medvedev, various
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commentators, columnists, and political analysts
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and everyone else. If Medvedev and
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Putin sat down and thought about what in Ukraine
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should be done in such a way that
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it would directly benefit us, then they probably
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couldn’t have come up with anything better. Of course, I think that
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this
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is absolutely wrong, a mistaken decision, and
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it very seriously—I’m talking about this because
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it harms us very seriously, it
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very seriously harms Russia, because
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Russia’s opposition, Russia’s decent people,
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in Russia—they are interested in Ukraine
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developing, becoming more prosperous, and having everything
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go well. There would be fewer Ukrainian
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news stories here, and everything there would be wonderful. They would be
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richer because of it, and we would become richer too.
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What happened in Ukraine with the stripping of
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Saakashvili’s citizenship, of course,
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shows us that, well, probably
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the moment when Ukraine
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will begin to live normally, will be able to live like
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a normal European state,
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is, of course, simply being postponed. It is impossible
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to strip a person of citizenship, and all this
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legal chaff that is now
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being discussed—whether the documents were filed correctly or
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incorrectly, whether he was in Georgia, whether he was not
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Georgian, and we gave him citizenship and then
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took it away—listen, but he was your
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governor. There were sufficient legal
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grounds to consider his
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citizenship valid enough to make him
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a governor, one of the highest-ranking officials
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who ran one of the most important
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regions, and now they simply went ahead and stripped him of it.
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It’s clear why: they kicked a
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political opponent out of the country. Well, tomorrow, fine,
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tomorrow Putin will strip me of Russian
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citizenship because they’ll say, “Well, Alexei,
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you know, when you were 16, you
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went somewhere in Moscow Region
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to the village council (local rural administration) or wherever to apply for
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your passport. You know, you failed to indicate
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important things on the form, and so now we
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are revoking some decision about your
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citizenship,” or something else. You can invent
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all sorts of things. What has now
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happened with this curly-haired guy—exactly this
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was done in Ukraine, spitting on the principles
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of political competition, spitting on
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the law, spitting on the foundations of the Constitution. They
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simply expelled
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an opposition politician from the country. As for Saakashvili himself,
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I don’t even want to discuss right now
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whether he is good or bad, what he did there in
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Georgia—whether he’s a showman or a real politician. It
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doesn’t matter what he is; he is sufficiently
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popular. Listen, he even has
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Go on Facebook—he has a million likes there.
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He is one of the best-known politicians in
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Ukraine. And now—bang—they’ve switched him off. This
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is what they used to do in the Soviet Union. All
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these little tricks with stripping people of citizenship—
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he got on a plane and left, or went
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somewhere, and while he was there they stripped him of citizenship—
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these are tricks straight out of the Soviet Union. This
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Soviet Union is showing its
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features in Ukraine, and this very seriously
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of course harms the political process,
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and here inside Russia as well, because this is
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exactly what Putin talks about at every
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press conference. This matters to us. We talk
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about fighting corruption, and the response is:
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Look at any press conference—
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when asked about fighting corruption, Putin
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says the following: “Yes, it’s an important
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issue, but there is no place for populism here.
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Look at some countries, for example
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Ukraine. There too, under the slogan of
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fighting corruption, there was a revolution. And
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now look at what’s going on there, what kind of
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lawlessness there is.” And now he’ll add
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after a comma:
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“They stripped an opposition politician of citizenship. We
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don’t do that here. They, the Ukrainians,
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who claim to be Europeans,
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do this.” Therefore I very much
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hope that Poroshenko, or whoever
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can reverse this decision, will
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still reverse it, because, frankly, it looks
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monstrous. And we are all
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interested in making sure that in Ukraine
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no monstrous things
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happen.
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Alexei, tell us about Nikita Belykh’s case.
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I don’t know the details of Nikita
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Belykh’s case. I know that
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the indictment against him has been approved
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and sent to court,
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and, well, frankly, it very much looks like
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he is going to get a fairly long actual
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prison sentence.
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Well, I’ve already commented that the only
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thing I can say, because after all I
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haven’t spoken with Nikita since 2009, is that everything that
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has happened seems very unlike
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him, and I hope that during this trial
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we will somehow be able to better understand what
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actually happened there.
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Actually, talk about censorship on YouTube.
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Kamikadze, say it already. I’m getting to it, Maksim.
20:59
Belozyorov. There is such a topic; I have it
21:01
written down, but before that I wanted to say
21:07
actually speaking,
21:10
when I was thinking about how I would—I understood that
21:13
I was being asked questions, and I thought about how I would
21:14
answer them. I had planned to say that
21:16
this was, of course, not really a significant event at all;
21:18
the Russian media blew it all out of proportion, and it was
21:22
just some kind of instrument
21:24
in the domestic political struggle in the United States,
21:26
and Congress simply passed a legal act
21:28
that would somewhat put the president
21:30
within certain limits, but essentially nothing
21:32
would change. But I was very much mistaken. We have
21:35
a certain Kulachenko in the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
21:37
with corruption, which is simply... a few
21:39
I did a few explainers on sanctions and de- described them, possibly
21:41
you may have read them on my blog, and I also wrote another
21:44
explainer; it’s not quite finished yet, and we’ll
21:46
publish it soon, I hope tomorrow. Well, I
21:49
just want to say briefly that what
21:52
has been passed by Congress and will most likely be
21:55
passed by the Senate
21:57
Very few people have read this document so far
21:59
because it’s long and written in complex
22:02
legal English, so in fact
22:05
there haven’t really been any solid commentaries
22:07
in the Russian media on this topic yet
22:09
But from what we’ve read, and what we’ve managed
22:12
to figure out, it really makes
22:14
an impression — these are real sanctions
22:17
For example, under the earlier law
22:19
from 2014, the first sanctions law,
22:20
the U.S. president could impose
22:24
sanctions against certain financial
22:26
institutions involved in certain
22:28
projects; under the new law, he is required to do
22:31
so. In other words, he is now obligated to
22:34
do it. Same thing here: before, he could
22:37
impose sanctions against people implicated
22:40
in or responsible for corruption; now he must
22:42
do it. And, uh, many of the things they’ve
22:47
adopted will lead to these
22:49
sanctions actually being implemented — they
22:51
will really start working. And that will hit
22:55
Russia very hard — its economy
22:58
and any prospects for development — and
23:01
the most important thing is this:
23:02
for the first time
23:04
the Americans have adopted sanctions in such a way
23:06
that at least some of these sanctions
23:08
actually benefit the U.S. economy. What
23:11
was adopted before caused
23:14
minimal but still some damage; they were, in a way,
23:16
restricting themselves: we don’t want to do business with
23:18
Russia, someone may lose a little
23:20
money, but it was more of a
23:22
negative for the U.S. economy. Now some of the sanctions,
23:25
for example — look, there’s this provision there:
23:26
the law provides the president with the option
23:29
to impose sanctions against persons
23:31
participating in Russian export
23:32
pipeline projects in amounts exceeding
23:34
$1 million at a time or $5 million over the course
23:37
of a year. This means that the Americans, uh,
23:40
are getting the opportunity to start an outright
23:43
sanctions war against our pipeline
23:45
projects, and, uh, that suits them
23:48
because they supply Europe with
23:50
liquefied natural gas, and these are sanctions
23:54
that are beneficial to companies — their companies
23:58
— and later it will be extremely difficult to repeal them
24:00
because by then it won’t just be
24:03
some political lobby that has an interest in it, but also
24:05
a very concrete economic lobby involved in all this. I looked
24:08
at the Kremlin’s reaction — what
24:12
are they saying about this? And honestly,
24:14
I didn’t understand: what exactly is the plan? Today
24:16
Putin said that the sanctions are outrageous
24:19
and that they will respond somehow, but
24:21
the biggest concern is
24:24
that these sanctions really will deal
24:26
a huge blow to the country
24:27
and put an end to whatever chances there were
24:30
of attracting investment and achieving economic
24:32
growth. So what is our response? Are we going to
24:35
ban some products again so that they
24:37
become more expensive? If, in response to this, the Kremlin
24:40
said:
24:41
“They’re squeezing us, but we’ll liberalize the economy,”
24:44
“They’re squeezing us, trying
24:48
to destroy our economic growth, but we
24:51
will cut taxes,”
24:52
“We’ll do things that will allow
24:55
our economy to develop better” — none
24:57
of that is being said. None of that is even
24:59
in the plans. Our response
25:02
to the sanctions is completely unclear, and Putin’s real intentions
25:05
are unclear too — what can he do about it? Well,
25:06
fine, even if he says, “I’m not going to
25:08
implement the Minsk agreements,”
25:10
“They’re trying to force us with sanctions, and we’re not
25:13
going to do it” — fine, even in that
25:15
case, what are we going to do then? They’re
25:17
hoping for at least
25:19
1.5% economic growth, and
25:21
these sanctions will wipe that out. So what’s our response?
25:25
There is none. It’s absolute
25:27
emptiness, this kind of confusion, and simply, uh,
25:30
some renewed aggression directed
25:33
inward, against Russia’s own citizens — that is
25:36
so far the only response we
25:38
are seeing. And
25:39
returning to the first topic, I’m afraid
25:44
that the political response to the sanctions
25:45
will once again be a search for the offended,
25:48
the insulted, and for a “fifth column”
25:50
inside the country, while nothing real for
25:53
the economy will be done. Well, basically
25:55
because they probably can’t
25:57
do it
25:59
All right, I’m flooded with questions about Kamikadze
26:01
We’ll get to that soon, but
26:05
“Alexei, sum up the debate with
26:08
Strelkov,” writes Dmitry Abramov. I wrote
26:11
a long post on the subject
26:13
I’m glad we held that debate
26:16
Thanks — once again, thank you to everyone who watched
26:17
There were a huge number of views
26:21
We can see there’s enormous interest. I can’t
26:23
say that I’m completely satisfied
26:25
with how I performed in that debate, although
26:27
I said what I had planned to say
26:29
Probably people were expecting
26:31
something more aggressive — more of a clash
26:34
or mutual attacks — and, well, that kind of
26:39
fairly calm conversation, uh,
26:41
disappointed some people. But I think
26:45
it was absolutely the right thing, those
26:47
debates. I’ll say again, I want to say that
26:51
I’m proud that I can say that I
26:53
took part in a debate. So I ask you,
26:56
guys, name for me, over the past few years, uh
26:59
What debates have there even been? Remember, I know.
27:01
What debates have I taken part in? You could name them, you could say:
27:03
There were debates with Chubais,
27:06
debates with Pozner, and there were debates with Tyoma
27:08
Lebedev.
27:09
I took part in all of those debates.
27:12
Well, because—it’s not even that I’m
27:14
bragging, it’s because I believe that
27:17
debates are political work. They are
27:20
my duty. In our team, someone
27:23
hands out leaflets, someone works as a
27:25
programmer, someone is standing behind
27:27
the camera right now filming Navalny Live,
27:29
someone else does something different. And I, among other things,
27:31
take part in debates. It is my duty,
27:33
as a candidate.
27:35
Whether I feel like it or not, whether I’m scared or not,
27:39
whether I’m confident I’ll win
27:41
or there’s a risk of a not very successful
27:43
performance on certain topics—maybe
27:46
some of them are, uh, not the most favorable for
27:50
me, like Donbas—they’re not the easiest for
27:52
me, like that same Donbas issue. This is
27:54
my job, and I do it. So for me,
27:56
that’s the main takeaway. I want you to see
27:58
that I’m doing my political work and
28:00
say, well, okay, he’s doing political
28:01
work, we’ll vote for him, we’ll
28:03
support him, we’ll work
28:05
as volunteers today, we’ll send
28:06
him money. That, for me, is the main thing, and
28:09
that’s it.
28:11
Irina Milyutina writes: “Putin realized that
28:14
the film *Matilda* is a little bit about him too, in the part
28:16
that doesn’t boost his ratings.” I don’t
28:19
know, I hadn’t thought about it that way.
28:21
But probably, if he really wanted
28:23
to ban this film, he would have banned it.
28:24
But he isn’t banning it. What benefits them is precisely
28:27
the confrontation, the existence of some
28:30
supposedly offended people, people insulting others, and
28:33
then they act like referees, doing something there
28:35
of that sort, and passing new laws
28:37
to, uh, protect rights, to preserve
28:41
the rights of non-existent, uh, non-existent
28:45
offended parties.
28:48
An extremely important topic is
28:51
Yevgeny Roizman and his non-participation in
28:56
the election in Yekaterinburg.
28:58
It’s one of Russia’s most important regions, and there they removed the most
29:02
popular candidate for governor,
29:05
a man who would almost certainly
29:06
have won this election. They didn’t let him run, and
29:09
he called for a boycott. Let’s
29:10
watch a short 25-second clip of what
29:13
Roizman said, and then I’ll say a few words.
29:15
I want to say this: I’m not going to change
29:18
my opinion. These are not elections. This is complete
29:22
nonsense, and going to these
29:24
elections is unacceptable. If we respect ourselves,
29:28
if we treat
29:31
the very institution of elections with respect, then we cannot
29:34
take part in this. That’s that. And no matter
29:37
what happens, I will not change my position: these are
29:39
not elections.”
29:42
Here is a candidate, you see, sitting there in a T-shirt with a
29:46
barbell on it, telling people the plain truth,
29:48
which is why they’re afraid of him, which is why they
29:50
didn’t let him run. But the main thing is
29:52
the political question now facing us:
29:54
what do we do? This will now be discussed in relation to
29:56
this election,
29:57
it may be discussed in the
30:00
presidential election, and it comes up before
30:02
every election: boycott or no boycott, boycott
30:05
or no boycott—what are we supposed to do about all this? I
30:07
agree that a boycott is the worst strategy.
30:09
It is—it’s bad. It’s much better
30:12
to participate in elections. But tell me,
30:15
my friends, those of you who are against a boycott: what
30:18
should be done in the situation with Roizman’s
30:20
election? What exactly should we do—go
30:22
support the Communist candidate, find someone from A Just Russia
30:25
or the Party of Growth, look at these
30:26
stand-in candidates—weak and insignificant—
30:29
and say, well, let’s just do it because
30:31
it’s the right thing to participate in elections, so we’ll
30:34
go and vote for them, knowing that they’ll
30:36
get 2 percent, knowing that afterward we’ll be told
30:39
the opposition got 2 percent? What
30:42
should we do? What’s the good strategy? Write
30:44
to me, please. Let’s spend the whole
30:47
rest of the program—we still have
30:49
almost half an hour left—
30:51
please, anyone who thinks they have a
30:54
great strategy for what exactly should be done
30:57
specifically in this election
31:00
for governor of Sverdlovsk Region,
31:02
write in. By the way, the exact same
31:05
situation is now happening in the city of Novosibirsk. There our
31:06
candidate, Sergei Boyko, uh, is running in the election.
31:10
He is genuinely a very popular
31:12
candidate, because quite recently he
31:14
was, uh, one of the leaders of the protests
31:17
that led to the cancellation of the
31:20
decision to raise utility and housing service rates.
31:23
He is popular, he can win the election,
31:26
and they are not letting him run through outright lawlessness,
31:29
by throwing out—rejecting—his signatures. Here we have
31:31
a 42-second clip of Boyko. Let’s
31:32
please watch what he says: “My
31:35
team collected more than 2,000 signatures, and
31:38
we submitted them to the district election commission.
31:39
And then the most
31:43
interesting part began: suddenly there appeared citizens
31:45
who do not exist, citizens who
31:47
supposedly did not sign with their own hand,
31:49
citizens whose registered address was allegedly not what
31:52
was listed in their passport. Certificates now from the
31:55
Ministry of Internal Affairs—not the former Federal Migration Service—and reports from their experts are again
31:59
full of errors. The point is that
32:01
the regional authorities do not want a
32:04
candidate who criticizes the actions of those
32:06
very authorities and demands the resignation
32:07
of the governor. That is precisely why I ask you,
32:10
as chair of the Central
32:12
Election Commission of the Russian
32:13
Federation, to intervene in what is happening and
32:16
take the situation under control
32:19
So please explain to me what to do about this.
32:21
Let's formulate a strategy.
32:23
Once again, I don't like the idea of a boycott myself, but
32:26
I don't understand what else people can be called on to do.
32:29
In the situation with Boiko or with Roizman, well, what else
32:31
can be said? They didn't allow a decent candidate,
32:34
a strong contender for victory, a real
32:37
representative of the opposition, into the election.
32:39
What are we supposed to do? Answer me,
32:41
all of you who write to me in the comments,
32:43
saying, “Well, a boycott is bad.” I know it's bad.
32:45
I know about the historical examples,
32:49
the political science theories and all that — I know all of it.
32:51
But this — this is my option:
32:54
an active boycott. Not just staying away from
32:56
the election, but making sure that no one
32:57
shows up, so that everyone knows the candidates were barred,
33:00
so that everyone treats this
33:03
election as a non-election, so that no one
33:06
recognizes this authority, and so that people know
33:08
turnout is minimal, while monitoring
33:10
would still exist at polling stations. That's
33:12
my strategy: to participate actively in this
33:16
political process right up until voting day,
33:19
urging everyone not to go,
33:21
to boycott it and not take part in this
33:23
disgusting spectacle. Write me a better strategy,
33:26
or rather, let's discuss it. Maxim,
33:29
Alexei, why can't people just come and
33:31
spoil the ballots — written in ALL CAPS.
33:33
Well, you spoiled them. So what? Your turnout still counts, your vote
33:36
was still registered, only you spoiled the ballot. There is no turnout threshold now,
33:39
so the fact that you
33:41
came and spoiled it — so what? The authorities
33:45
will say people came to the election. Quite a lot
33:48
of people showed up anyway.
33:50
Your coming to the election will
33:52
be perceived as meaning that, broadly speaking, you
33:54
are okay with what's happening.
33:56
We have never had a single example where
33:59
the number of spoiled ballots was really
34:01
truly huge or significant.
34:04
By the way, the largest number I can remember
34:06
— at least in my memory — happened
34:07
in Novosibirsk,
34:09
when Boiko and the others were barred from running,
34:11
when they went on a hunger strike.
34:13
Back then, spoiled ballots even passed
34:16
the 5 percent mark — I think it was 7
34:18
or nearly 10 percent of the vote. But what was the point?
34:20
How is spoiling ballots any better than a boycott?
34:21
You came, you spoiled them, but it still turns out
34:24
that you recognized the election: you still came to the polling station,
34:27
went in, got a ballot, ticked a box,
34:29
signed your name. I don't understand how that's better. Or
34:32
maybe we really should hold rallies
34:35
as a sign of protest against banning the candidate?
34:36
Andrei Valeryevich, we should.
34:38
We should hold rallies — I agree 100 percent.
34:40
I hope Roizman organizes such a rally.
34:42
I don't know whether I personally would be able to
34:46
take part, but I would actively urge everyone else to.
34:48
But as for the election itself,
34:51
what is the strategy? The strategy is
34:53
to protest. If he's really that popular,
34:54
a lot of people will come out — you can't just brush that aside.
34:58
Right now in Russia, rallies are the
35:01
main instrument of political struggle.
35:02
Of course they need to be held, yes. But even so,
35:06
as for the election itself, for now
35:07
send me your own ideas. Uh...
35:10
About secret FSB prisons,
35:13
I've received a lot of questions asking whether I believe
35:15
in secret FSB prisons
35:18
where people are tortured, because Russia's
35:21
human rights ombudsperson
35:22
— let's show this — Ms. Moskalkova said that
35:25
she doesn't believe it, that such a thing cannot exist,
35:28
that in Russia no one tortures anyone.
35:30
Let's watch 10 seconds of it.
35:32
A secret FSB prison?
35:35
I have never received a single complaint
35:39
about that. I don't believe it.
35:43
And you know, I don't agree with Ms. Moskalkova
35:46
in the slightest. I am absolutely convinced
35:50
that such places do exist. I don't know whether they should be called
35:53
secret prisons or whether they are simply
35:55
safe houses, apartments, country houses, or whatever else,
35:57
but people really are
36:00
being tortured there, uh, first and foremost
36:02
people suspected of terrorism.
36:05
Because intelligence services all over the world do this.
36:08
The FSB does it, they do it in
36:11
Israel, they do it in the United States, and they have done it in the U.S.
36:14
And the U.S. still has
36:16
Guantanamo in Cuba, where people are held
36:20
in some strange, unclear status, without
36:22
a court sentence. Despite the fact that
36:24
President Obama spent 8 years trying to close
36:26
that prison, he was unable to do so, unfortunately.
36:28
This logic is absolutely rotten and
36:32
wrong, but it is the logic by which intelligence services operate
36:34
in the modern world — that's how they
36:36
are structured. So, there is a suspect, and the easiest
36:40
way to get something done and report
36:42
up the chain is to tie him to a chair somewhere,
36:44
take a telephone handset, some tape, two
36:48
terminals, and start shocking him until he
36:50
writes out all the confessions
36:51
you want. After that, this unfortunate
36:54
Kyrgyz man — whether he is a real terrorist or not —
36:56
it becomes pointless even to ask.
36:58
Under torture, anyone
37:00
will confess to anything. And not so long ago
37:04
in our history, hundreds of thousands of people
37:06
confessed to being Japanese and
37:08
Polish spies because they were beaten.
37:11
Now more sophisticated methods of
37:12
torture are used, and there they are, writing
37:15
the confessions that are demanded
37:18
of them. Things like, “My nephew
37:20
was planning something, planning to
37:21
blow something up,” and then the FSB releases
37:23
a press release about how brilliantly they
37:25
prevented it all. Unfortunately, this happens all over the world.
37:28
They do it, but it does not help the fight against
37:31
terrorism, and it is happening in Russia too.
37:32
In Russia, all of this still
37:34
continues to exist quite nicely because
37:36
there are no real courts, no
37:40
parliamentary oversight, nothing at all. In
37:42
America, there was a scandal over the so-called
37:44
waterboarding—a form of torture where a person
37:48
is doused with water from above to simulate
37:50
drowning. There was a scandal over it, and
37:52
it was banned.
37:54
Though who knows, maybe they still use
37:57
it there—but at least officially,
37:59
it is prohibited, and it was established
38:01
that such cases had occurred. “We won’t do that anymore,”
38:03
but in Russia there is no one to deal with
38:05
this. The Human Rights Commissioner was supposed
38:07
to look into it, but she does not want to.
38:09
She says, “I don’t believe it,” and so
38:11
the security services go on doing their own
38:14
ineffective, strange things that are certainly not
38:19
actually aimed at fighting terrorism.
38:21
Look at what happened in the wonderful
38:23
city of St. Petersburg. Please show
38:24
the photo—this is a line at the
38:28
metro because some geniuses
38:31
wrote a very clever instruction. These same
38:34
“terrorism fighters” decided that
38:36
every person must undergo
38:38
a full metal-detector screening, like at
38:40
an airport, in the metro.
38:43
Well, it would seem obvious to all of us
38:45
that this is simply impossible
38:47
to implement, but they decided to run such an
38:49
experiment at four stations, and we can see that
38:52
there are lines in the metro as if they were
38:54
queues to Lenin’s Mausoleum, like in the 1980s
38:56
of the last century, and this is obvious stupidity.
38:59
But they are doing it, and money is being spent on it,
39:01
because this is the logic of law enforcement
39:04
and the security services, the logic of a law-enforcement
39:07
system that exists in complete
39:09
isolation from any public oversight,
39:12
parliamentary oversight, and everything
39:14
else. Some foolish people simply
39:16
come up with foolish ideas, and then all of us
39:19
stand there—just as residents of St. Petersburg are now standing in
39:22
huge and, uh,
39:25
pointless lines.
39:28
I also do not believe Ms. Moskalkova
39:32
when it comes to her opinion about the secret
39:34
FSB prisons, because at that same
39:35
event where she was shown, she also said
39:37
a remarkable thing about the Russian
39:39
judicial system. Here, it’s 39 seconds—we can
39:41
watch it.
39:42
The European criminal court has started receiving
39:45
receiving
39:47
four times fewer Russian citizens’ complaints
39:50
because the European Court today does not
39:54
match our understanding of
39:56
justice: it takes a long time to review cases,
40:00
it does so selectively, and we do not understand why some
40:04
complaints were accepted,
40:08
while others were declared inadmissible,
40:13
and furthermore,
40:15
our system has become more advanced than
40:19
the European one.
40:22
Well then, let her tell that
40:24
wonderful Russian judicial
40:26
system to that guy in a wheelchair
40:28
who was recently convicted of robbery and
40:32
was released only because there was already
40:34
an absolutely enormous public
40:36
outcry. That’s the “fair” Russian
40:38
judge who threw him into pretrial detention (SIZO, a Russian remand prison). So what are we even
40:42
talking about? And any claims by Moskalkova, and
40:44
her statements about the ECHR—that Russian citizens
40:47
now supposedly prefer
40:50
Russian courts more than the ECHR—
40:53
and that is why they are turning there less often—well,
40:55
that is simply a lie and a distortion, not
40:57
of the facts. It is important for me to say this
40:58
because I myself
41:00
work on ECHR cases. Please look at
41:03
the chart of Russian complaints, and we will see in
41:06
it that there really was a sharp,
41:09
dramatic drop in the number of complaints. But
41:12
did this happen because
41:14
Russian citizens en masse started believing in
41:18
Russian courts? Of course not. It is a complete
41:21
lie. The peak figure for us was
41:24
way back in 2010, and then what
41:26
happened? Then in 2014
41:30
new rules for filing complaints were introduced,
41:33
and then again in 2016
41:35
those filing rules were updated, and not
41:38
all complaints that reach the
41:41
ECHR registry are simply not all
41:44
registered—they stopped registering some of these complaints,
41:47
and that is at least 20 percent; at
41:50
least 20 percent of complaints are rejected
41:54
immediately because the form was filled out incorrectly,
41:56
and these complaints are not even reviewed by ECHR judges
42:01
there—their
42:02
admissibility or inadmissibility is assessed by lawyers
42:05
from the registry. So this decline is simply
42:08
connected to the rule changes, to the fact that
42:11
not all complaints are being registered, because
42:12
they decided to deceive us—as our authorities constantly do.
42:15
The Russian
42:17
judicial system, just as it was,
42:19
remains unjust, disgusting, and
42:21
wrong, and unfortunately it remains so. The
42:24
number of complaints will grow. I forgot to mention that one of the
42:27
most important changes that was introduced
42:30
was that previously, in almost all cases, you could
42:32
apply after the second instance, but now
42:35
for the largest group of complaints you need
42:36
to go through four instances,
42:38
so many of those who would already have made it
42:41
to the ECHR are still
42:44
in the process right now. They
42:45
will go through four levels of appeal and then reach
42:47
the European Court.
42:49
Kamikadze, everything is jammed here. Kamikadze, I
42:52
have to say something about Kamikadze, my friends.
42:55
I have the images in a certain
42:57
sequence, and if I start talking to you about
42:58
Kamikadze at the beginning
42:59
the program, everything here will break down and
43:01
the program director will just run out and
43:04
start tearing his hair out.
43:06
Kamikadze Dmitry
43:11
Let’s watch it — 1 minute 19 seconds.
43:13
Let’s listen to everything he said, and then I’ll
43:16
comment on that part.
44:37
And honestly, I don’t understand why you
44:40
keep flooding all my comments with questions
44:43
asking whether I support Kamikadze. Of course
44:45
I support him. Naturally, I
44:48
support him — he is saying absolutely the right things. He
44:51
says it, and we all see it. We see how
44:53
the Kremlin, worried about protests, worried
44:56
about YouTube in general, worried that, uh,
44:59
our channel has appeared, and there are other
45:02
similar channels — and they are obviously going to
45:03
keep growing — is now trying
45:05
to ruin YouTube. And many of you
45:08
probably remember there used to be LiveJournal
45:10
(a once-popular blogging platform), and at first the Kremlin’s strategy there
45:12
was exactly the same: they simply ruined it. There was
45:15
the same thing — they spammed it with all kinds of garbage,
45:17
then there were huge numbers of bots
45:20
flooding the comments, then some kind of
45:21
paid posts — in other words, the goal was to turn
45:24
the platform into, excuse my language, a dump. That
45:27
uh,
45:28
goal is being carried out. They did the same thing
45:31
with VKontakte, they did it with
45:34
Odnoklassniki, they did it with
45:36
many online media outlets.
45:37
And now they are doing the same thing to YouTube.
45:39
They are using botnets and using, uh,
45:43
huge quantities of these piles of
45:45
comments, likes, and dislikes in order
45:48
to exploit YouTube’s rules,
45:50
including for removing
45:53
illegal content. Uh, it works quite
45:56
effectively, because YouTube’s management,
45:58
which Dmitry is absolutely right to appeal to,
46:00
Dmitry,
46:04
doesn’t really see Russia. Russia is
46:06
a small, very small market for YouTube, and
46:09
a fairly marginal one, and I imagine
46:11
their attitude is: what’s even going on there? Well, something
46:12
is happening there, things are being handled according to the rules,
46:14
some things are being automatically banned — they’re not interested in it.
46:17
But for us, this is a major
46:18
problem. Go right now and
46:21
look at how many likes and dislikes
46:23
this broadcast has — you’ll see that they’re
46:26
roughly the same.
46:28
In recent months, we’ve simply seen that
46:31
a botnet, basically manually, under every
46:34
stream on the Navalny Live channel,
46:37
adds a certain number of likes
46:38
and throws in a certain number of dis-
46:40
likes. At first, we ourselves
46:42
laughed about it, and I said, don’t pay
46:44
attention, it’s nonsense. Let the dis-
46:45
likes stay there, we don’t care. But it turned out that
46:48
we simply don’t understand
46:49
YouTube’s algorithms as well as these
46:52
Kremlin contractors do, and video has
46:55
stopped being, uh, a very attractive
46:58
platf— an attractive platform in the sense that
47:00
videos no longer make it into the trending section. Today
47:02
I was told
47:04
that one of the programmers noticed there is,
47:06
it turns out — who would have thought — such a
47:08
clever way of preventing videos from reaching the top of
47:10
YouTube. So when one of our videos comes out on the
47:13
main channel,
47:15
there are 1,000 bots that simultaneously un-
47:19
follow our channel, unsubscribe from
47:21
the channel at the moment the video is released. YouTube
47:23
interprets that as meaning the video is somehow terrible — well,
47:25
people are unsubscribing en masse — and it doesn’t let
47:27
it grow in
47:29
promotion. Then those thousands of bots
47:32
subscribe again over the course of the week,
47:33
wait for the next video so they can suddenly
47:35
unsubscribe again and trigger that algorithm.
47:37
It’s very cunning, very smart. We didn’t
47:39
realize that’s how it worked, but it
47:41
does work — meaning that, really,
47:44
malicious people are breaking our
47:48
YouTube. And they’re not just breaking
47:50
political YouTube, but YouTube in general,
47:52
all in order to interfere with the promotion of
47:54
political content. So of course
47:55
he is right, so of course we
47:58
support him. To be honest, I don’t really
48:01
understand what can be done about it.
48:03
And I think YouTube is aware of this
48:06
problem. All right, there are bots, they leave
48:08
dislikes — and what then? Ban dislikes altogether?
48:10
Honestly, I don’t understand
48:12
how to fight this, but I hope that this
48:15
sacred and absolutely justified
48:17
fight that Dmitry is waging will lead to
48:19
some kind of
48:20
will make possible some kind of
48:22
technological solution. But I connect this more
48:26
with you, simply. Well, my friends, I can’t
48:28
do anything here except say to you:
48:29
please give more likes.
48:30
Let’s do a better job of spreading these videos around.
48:33
There are more of us than there are in any network of
48:35
bots. If right now everyone who
48:38
is watching this live gives it a like,
48:41
that alone would be great — no botnet
48:44
will defeat us. I’m looking now at what people have
48:46
written to me regarding the strategy of
48:49
boycotting — boycott. So, Mikhail Kovyatkin
48:52
suggests organizing a rally near
48:53
a polling station,
48:55
bringing together at the same time all the people
49:00
bringing together at the same time all the people who
49:02
signed, to the place where they are saying
49:04
that the signature is fake. Well, that’s something we
49:06
will probably do on Monday, or maybe
49:08
even today, and we did this
49:11
when we were barred from the elections.
49:12
We brought real, living people to the
49:14
election commission and said: here is a real person, and you
49:16
are saying that his signature or his personal details
49:18
They’re not genuine—what did the Central Election Commission tell us? Well,
49:20
they told us: we have a person, we have documents,
49:22
information from the migration service, so it doesn’t
49:24
work. Unfortunately, in Buryatia (a republic in Siberia), they did not
49:26
allow a popular candidate to run. Nowhere did they
49:29
allow a popular candidate to run. Look at
49:30
the latest report. Kudrin has a
49:35
excellent group that deals with
49:37
election monitoring; Alexander Kynev is
49:40
the key figure in it. Their
49:42
report says that they did not allow
49:43
strong candidates to run in any of the regions where there are
49:46
gubernatorial elections—strong candidates
49:48
were blocked across the board. So everywhere
49:51
the elections are of the kind where the winner is known in advance,
49:54
and even the absence of competition is known in advance.
49:56
Well then, I’m not really seeing something here,
49:58
my friends. And where is our Alexei?
50:01
Everything you’re saying is correct regarding
50:02
the boycott of pseudo-
50:05
I’m saying this with
50:07
pain in my heart. I’m proposing it, but I don’t
50:10
like this strategy. After all, I myself am running in
50:12
elections—you understand, I’m also shouting, “Don’t go
50:15
to the elections, don’t go to the elections, don’t go
50:17
to the elections.” But I myself am going to the elections, and
50:19
that’s why it’s very important to me that all of you—
50:21
the viewers and the broader public—somehow
50:24
act selectively and very intelligently: boycott
50:26
these elections, but in these others
50:28
go and vote instead. But that’s already complicated, so
50:31
it requires a certain cleverness, so
50:34
I can’t say that these
50:35
pseudo-elections—I want to ban them altogether.
50:37
But no, not exactly. A rally with your participation in
50:40
Yekaterinburg—well, that’s a great thing. But as for
50:41
the elections, what exactly should be done?
50:43
That’s exactly what I wanted to ask for advice on, writes
50:46
Elena Oreshkina: actively stay away from the elections
50:48
while simultaneously organizing rallies across the region.
50:50
Only active protest. I agree with
50:52
that. I hope Roizman will do this in
50:55
Yekaterinburg. We are ready to support it.
50:56
Active protest, active public explanation,
51:00
an active boycott—make sure that among
51:02
your friends and acquaintances, no one goes there,
51:04
and that everyone knows why they are not going.
51:07
And persuade everyone else as well.
51:11
It took place, as a rule, and yesterday we—tell us,
51:15
please, writes Roman… Alexei,
51:17
Bondarets writes that Milov and Movchan had
51:20
a more productive debate. I don’t even
51:23
argue with that much—an excellent debate
51:26
on the TV channel, between
51:29
Vladimir and Andrei.
51:34
They concerned my economic
51:36
program—our economic program.
51:38
We have a short clip, less than two
51:40
minutes. Unfortunately, the TV channel
51:43
Dozhd (TV Rain, an independent Russian TV channel) is keeping it under lock and key there. If you have
51:45
no subscription, you won’t be able to watch it.
51:47
But apparently they promised to release these
51:50
debates into the wild. For now, though, here is a clip of less than
51:53
two minutes. Let’s watch.
51:58
First: we have an impoverished population. According to
52:01
Rosstat, half of working Russians
52:04
earn less than 25,000 rubles a month (about 25,000 RUB/month), and two-thirds
52:07
earn less than 35,000 rubles, and more than
52:10
80% earn less than 50,000 rubles a month. You speak as if
52:13
that settles it. What does the minimum wage have
52:15
to do with people’s incomes? That is a very strange
52:19
logic. Instead of thinking about how
52:20
to earn money, the redistributionist asks: how do we give
52:22
people the chance to earn? You are thinking about how
52:24
to divide up what does not exist. Your next step will be
52:27
to say that we need to take it from the oligarchs
52:28
who robbed the people. Where to get
52:30
the money is not such a difficult question. We have
52:33
huge resources—above all, the oil and gas
52:35
sector, which is underpaying.
52:36
Money is being thrown around. It would have been possible
52:38
in 2017 alone—apparently in 2018 as well—
52:40
to see federal budget spending on officials
52:42
and the security services at around 40%. We do not need
52:46
twice as many police officers per 10,000
52:48
people as the United States has.
52:51
We have excess police personnel. Let’s take their
52:54
salaries and use them to solve
52:55
wages and pensions
52:58
for people who are not police officers.
53:04
Well, let’s move away from this black-and-white conversation
53:06
where everyone says: beat corruption tomorrow,
53:09
we wake up and corruption is gone. No, that is hardly
53:11
possible to do. But it is possible to very seriously
53:12
reduce its scale. By various estimates, from
53:16
1 million to 4 million people
53:17
are directly involved in corruption.
53:18
What you are effectively saying is—and we
53:20
are being warned—do you think you can
53:22
win? Can the president of a country,
53:24
relying on a small group of supporters,
53:26
of liberals, win a war against four
53:28
thousand—with four million people, of whom
53:30
a third are actually armed, and
53:32
the rest are very well organized? I think
53:34
not. There is no need to scare us. We know how
53:36
to carry out reforms in Russia, and we will be able to
53:38
implement them. If you want specifics on the
53:40
program, we’ll provide them. Yes, difficult questions
53:42
must absolutely be asked. But still,
53:44
there’s no need to frighten us. We weren’t scared off.
53:46
Simply.
53:47
These really were much better debates.
53:50
Milov won them, in my view. He
53:53
performed very well—probably better,
53:54
certainly better. I think that
53:58
he performed better there than I did in my own debates,
54:00
and I’m completely fine with
54:03
admitting that. It’s good that there are such
54:07
wonderful people on our team, that they
54:09
join us. At the same time, Milov is a very
54:11
smart and excellent economist, but we
54:13
for example, my history of relations with
54:16
him has not always been rosy either.
54:19
Google “Navalny Milov” and read about it. He
54:21
wrote a lot about me and said a lot
54:24
about me, and we had fairly
54:27
serious political disagreements, but
54:30
We are building a team, we are building
54:33
a big team. We cast aside the dead weight.
54:35
That doesn't matter when it comes to uniting
54:38
around the most important things, and I am very glad, I
54:43
am proud that the entire debate
54:45
agenda is centered on our platform.
54:48
All this discussion of the presidential
54:51
campaign revolves around our campaign
54:54
and our platform. Some say it exists,
54:56
others say it doesn't. Some call us
54:59
populists, while others
55:02
like it. But the only election platform
55:05
anyone is discussing is ours, because only
55:08
we are actually running this election campaign.
55:10
Only we are acting as responsible
55:12
politicians and candidates, and it's great
55:15
that Milov is speaking, and there will be more
55:17
of these debates, and we will present
55:19
an expanded version of our economic
55:21
program at the end of August. Today I was
55:25
discussing it together with Vladimir Ashurkov
55:27
on my program, and we will be talking about it
55:28
a great deal more, and we will
55:31
argue over a large number of
55:34
issues, and we will convince everyone, including
55:37
highly respected people such as Andrei
55:39
Movchan, because what we are proposing
55:41
is not some kind of utopia, it is not
55:46
populism. It is a real
55:47
European practice; it is the practice
55:50
of developed countries. The fact that Russia has
55:53
never had anything like this does not
55:55
mean it never will. There is no need
55:57
to be afraid of it. It's just that, well,
55:59
these things really have never been discussed in Russian
56:01
practice before.
56:03
For example, raising the minimum
56:05
wage. Look at the kind of debate
56:06
that is going on.
56:08
"Let's raise the retirement age"—now that
56:10
is considered a worthy subject
56:12
for discussion, and for years
56:15
one idea has been endlessly repeated: it is assumed that
56:18
liberal economists are supposed to
56:20
well,
56:21
believe that the main, almost the only,
56:24
measure that will give Russia
56:25
economic growth is raising
56:27
the retirement age. And no one is at all
56:29
interested in the fact that by the current
56:32
retirement age, half of people with
56:34
disabilities are already unable to work.
56:36
Today, Vedomosti published some striking statistics
56:38
showing that in Russia, peak earnings
56:41
come at age 25
56:46
to, I think, 35. So what are we expecting
56:51
from those people for whom we are
56:53
proposing to raise the retirement
56:54
age even further? By age 60 they have already
56:56
become much poorer; their wages have fallen, according
56:59
to Russian statistics. And we are going to
57:01
tell them: work a little longer?
57:04
Why? What for? There is simply no
57:08
truly rational
57:11
explanation or serious calculations behind it. If
57:14
we are talking about the retirement age
57:16
in Europe and the United States, let's take a look.
57:18
Even the article—look at today's
57:20
Vedomosti—shows that for workers in Europe and the U.S.,
57:23
the peak, meaning the highest salary of their
57:26
working life, comes at age 45
57:30
to 55. That is their peak. Of course, they can
57:34
work longer if by age 60
57:36
they still have a high salary. But our worker
57:38
started earning well at 30; by 60, he
57:41
is earning almost nothing, and yet we
57:43
tell him to keep working.
57:45
What is the point of that? How much tax
57:47
will he pay? How can he realistically
57:49
keep working? No one discusses that. But
57:51
still, these kinds of figures and calculations
57:56
do exist, and in developed countries
57:58
they are not seen as populism. I saw
58:00
a really great tweet from economist
58:03
Maxim Averbukh. Please show it,
58:05
I liked it very much.
58:07
Because it is about real numbers. For example,
58:11
the minimum wage is
58:13
set in almost all developed
58:17
countries. If we take the Organisation
58:19
for Economic Development, then three-quarters
58:21
of the countries in it—that is, three-quarters
58:23
of wealthy countries—have
58:24
a minimum wage in place.
58:26
And we can see that this works in Romania,
58:28
in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Hungary.
58:31
But we are told that in Russia this will
58:34
never work, that it will never, ever
58:36
work: the moment you raise the minimum
58:39
wage in order to lift
58:41
some substantial number of people out of
58:43
abject poverty, that's it—
58:45
hyperinflation, everything will collapse, and the earth will fly
58:48
off its axis. But that is not true, and
58:51
empirical data proves that it is
58:53
not true, and the experience of other countries proves
58:56
that it is not true. We understand that in Russia,
58:59
for historical reasons, all those who
59:02
or most of those who call themselves
59:04
economists believe that what needs to be done is
59:06
two main things: raise
59:08
the retirement age and abandon all
59:10
social programs. That is their
59:12
main panacea. But that is not so, and we will
59:14
prove it, and we will very
59:18
steadily and patiently persuade everyone.
59:22
So, as for the election boycott, it seems it will not
59:24
be possible to boycott the elections completely.
59:26
Alexei Pustovalov writes:
59:28
state employees, out of fear of being fired,
59:29
will be forced to go, state employees will be made to go
59:32
because they fear dismissal. So should we go
59:34
along with the state employees because of that,
59:36
since it did not work out—that is, it did not happen that
59:38
there would be zero turnout at polling stations—so
59:40
we have to go? There was even a question here:
59:42
what percentage of spoiled ballots
59:45
would blow up the election? None.
59:47
No, under the current
59:51
legislation, these elections cannot
59:53
really be derailed de facto. This is
59:57
a political decision: do we recognize them or
59:59
not? It’s a painful, difficult,
1:00:01
unpleasant decision. Roizman is a real man,
1:00:04
the real deal, Deniska writes. Roizman’s removal
1:00:06
is a complete—I can’t say that
1:00:08
word. If I were in Yekaterinburg, I’d go out for him
1:00:11
to protest without hesitating for a second. So
1:00:13
yes, people need to come to Yekaterinburg, go out, and protest.
1:00:15
I absolutely agree about Roizman, but the issue
1:00:17
isn’t just Roizman. It’s about our
1:00:19
right
1:00:21
to support a candidate who can
1:00:23
win. We found such a candidate,
1:00:24
and they tell us the opposition is weak. But we have
1:00:26
a candidate in Yekaterinburg—he can
1:00:28
win, he says the right things, he
1:00:31
would crush any United Russia candidate, and they won’t
1:00:33
let him run. So what are we supposed to do—uh, just
1:00:36
pretend not to see it? As for a boycott, a strike—
1:00:40
that’s a political tool that in
1:00:44
Russia, probably no one has used in the last 100 years.
1:00:46
Well, perhaps
1:00:47
the time has come for it, but it’s not very clear
1:00:50
how it should be organized.
1:00:53
I can see, my friends, from your responses
1:00:57
about the boycott that you’re also
1:01:01
thinking actively about this, just as I am.
1:01:04
And for now, there is no ideal solution,
1:01:06
and there won’t be one. Forget the idea that there is
1:01:10
some best, optimal solution in a situation
1:01:12
where they won’t allow our candidate onto
1:01:14
the ballot. There is no optimal solution. There are
1:01:17
always some weak candidates
1:01:18
who will squeak plaintively, or maybe
1:01:20
they’re good people. They will
1:01:22
say, “How can you boycott? What about
1:01:24
us?” And others will say, “But we’re
1:01:26
election observers, and we don’t want
1:01:28
to boycott, we want to monitor.” And there will be
1:01:30
political analysts saying that, well, in no
1:01:32
country has a boycott worked,” and so
1:01:34
on and so forth. There is no optimal
1:01:36
strategy, but nevertheless, when it comes to
1:01:40
elections where our strong
1:01:43
candidates are not allowed to run, we must develop our own
1:01:45
clear position. And I believe that out of all
1:01:49
these bad strategies, nevertheless,
1:01:50
the best one is an active, active,
1:01:53
the most active possible boycott—convincing everyone
1:01:56
not to go to the polls, not to recognize
1:01:59
the election results, and not to recognize those
1:02:01
who are elected as a result of these
1:02:04
non-elections. And we will discuss this
1:02:07
many more times. We can see what
1:02:09
is happening in the country: this has become the main
1:02:11
strategy—keeping candidates off the ballot. And this
1:02:13
is the subject of many programs, but now
1:02:15
our time is up—I can already see that I’ve run over.
1:02:17
I’m making scary eyes. Thank you very much.
1:02:20
See you next week.
1:02:22
[music]