Rybka Blocked, What’s Happening in Syria, Putin Didn’t Violate Anything

[music]

Hello. It’s 8:18 p.m. in Moscow, and Alexei is in the studio.

Navalny—or “politically unsuccessful,” as

Sergei Prikhodko called me, and who

fortunately continues to be the subject

of constant coverage, the hero

of remarkable, astonishing discussions,

and footage that is circulating on blogs and in the

mass media. We are glad that

this topic remains in the spotlight. We are very

glad that people are discussing not only Ms.

Rybka and the various circumstances that

took place at the dacha (country house), but also, in fact,

the main thing: the fact of corruption, the fact that

Mr. Prikhodko, who calls me

a loser, is in fact a bribe-taker.

At this point I don’t even know which is better to be:

a loser or a bribe-taker. From my point

of view, it’s better to be a loser, but

apparently Sergei Prikhodko today

feels like a winner again, because

they blocked my blog, Navalny

.com, and

for us this is the main news. We want

to discuss it right at the start. But let me

remind you that you can send me

questions on Twitter with the hashtag

#Navalny2018, and I’ll try to

answer them. And today we are raising money

in support of the voters’ strike, but

so, Sergei Prikhodko, Oleg Deripaska,

all these wonderful figures, of course,

who are backed by Vladimir Putin,

blocked my blog today, and I

have not the slightest doubt that this is

of course not just about the pliant

Ust-Labinsk court—yes, Ust-Labinsk—

that tame court in Slavyansk,

because Mr. Deripaska

owns practically that entire town, and there is also

a political desire on the part of the authorities

to block this. Just look at what they

blocked: the Navalny 2018 website, the

Navalny.com website,

the strike website, and the observer recruitment site.

That is, all at once they

blocked them after this court

ruling. This is absolutely illegal, because

obviously the strike website or the

observer recruitment site has nothing to do with

Deripaska’s private life and nothing to do with

Prikhodko’s private life or with Rybka—there is nothing there.

Moreover, this directly

contradicts what is written even in the

unlawful Roskomnadzor decision. Nevertheless,

they basically said: great idea,

if there’s some fake ruling saying

we can block something connected to Navalny,

let’s block everything at once. I want

to say: we will do everything

and I believe we will succeed in making sure this

information is not removed from the internet.

Roskomnadzor has already forced 29 media outlets

to remove certain

information. They’re running after everyone, and

yes, they have made our lives much more difficult right now,

though we are fairly

effective at fighting these blocks.

However, we will absolutely do

everything so that information about the adventures of

Deripaska and the adventures of Prikhodko not only

remains on the Russian internet,

but becomes even more accessible, and so that

a large number—an even larger

number—of people see it. I hope you

will help us. Thanks to you, our

film has already reached five million

views. Please keep going,

send it to your grandmothers, grandfathers—to everyone.

Let millions of Russian citizens know

what is happening. And of course, fighting

blocks—the ability to get around blocks—

is now simply a basic life skill in Russia.

If you still haven’t learned how to do it,

make sure you do. I wanted to show you

some kind of guide, a short

guide on how to bypass blocks, but

then I remembered that in Russia

even instructions on how to bypass

blocks are banned. If I show you one now,

then Roskomnadzor will be obliged

to block the people who

explained how to fight

the blocks. Still, I think I’ll

take the risk and show you 40 seconds

of explanation on how to bypass blocks, and

I even somewhat hope that after this

Roskomnadzor will block those who explained it.

Forty seconds. Blocking popular internet

resources

is, to put it mildly, useless. As

was emphasized by Russia’s Ministry of Communications,

it fosters legal

nihilism among citizens and increases their computer

literacy.

Dedicated to everyone suffering from blocked

social networks but who can still watch us:

there are many ways to bypass website blocking.

One of the simplest is to

download an app that changes your apparent country

of location to one where the resource

is allowed. Often this method opens

access to many websites. Another option is to

use an anonymizer; it also

lets you visit websites without being tied

to your computer’s address. Not exactly, of course,

convenient—but still, wow, the TV channel

Rossiya-24 was explaining how to bypass

blocks.

You’ve probably already guessed: they were doing

this because evil officials

were blocking websites in Ukraine. Exactly right:

as soon as decisions were made in Ukraine

to block Russian websites,

righteous anger filled

all the very same officials who

block websites inside Russia and then began to

to tell us on television, to tell us

yes, Ukrainians, about how to get around

the blocks. Well, we’ll need those instructions too.

We will. Still, the simplest thing

you can do is download

my blog’s app.

The links are in the description of this video.

There’s an Android app there, and there’s

an iOS app.

No blocking will stop it, and you

can use it easily. I don’t even want

to go into great detail telling you

about it. I’ll dwell on the legal aspects, well,

though that’s almost pointless. Any person

who is even a little bit of a lawyer, or at least

somewhat familiar with legal procedures

in this country, would simply burst out

laughing if you told them the story of

how

on a weekend you can come to court,

get a hearing scheduled immediately, and on that

same weekend day

obtain interim measures that will block

something somewhere across the whole country, while

doing so without notifying, essentially, what should we call them,

the affected parties involved. More than that, with

the court’s official position being that this

doesn’t concern me. Just appreciate the elegance

of the Deripaska, Prikhodko, and Putin combination.

We’ll block Navalny’s resources, and when he

comes and says, “Hey, give me the paperwork,” we’ll say

“This doesn’t concern you.” That is the official

wording: that Navalny’s interests are not

affected by the blocking of Navalny’s resources.

Navalny’s. Everything is clear with the Russian

courts. What interests me more

is the moral assessment of what

was happening on Deripaska’s yacht.

Prikhodko and so on. So, we can see that

all the figures in our case were silent this

week, silent. Prikhodko said

something to the effect that if it were up to him,

he’d deal with it “man to man,”

but wouldn’t. After that, they started blocking everything,

and the first official

high-ranking government official who

spoke on whether this was acceptable or not,

normal or abnormal, what

was happening on that yacht, was the minister,

actually, the minister

for Open Government, Mikhail Abyzov. You

know that he is an old friend of our

Anti-Corruption Foundation, because

he is usually the one who blocks everything we

have collected—several times, 100,000

signatures under various

bills.

Under the procedure, it was Abyzov and

his ministry that were supposed to

review them, and they successfully

buried them every time. We released

an investigative film about the luxury real estate

of Mr. Abyzov in Italy. Today

the TV Rain channel (an independent Russian TV channel), thanks to them, took

a short comment. So, as a minister,

how does he assess what happened, including from

a moral point of view? Let’s watch.

There,

1 minute 21 seconds: “Complete nonsense, and don’t

confuse

normal comradely, friendly

relations with some kind of offerings,

bribes. A bribe implies the provision of

a service, and this is complete nonsense.”

Then: “By the way, I worked in business

for 20 years. All oligarchs, one way or another, are either my

friends, or people with whom I

worked. I am connected to them by friendly

relations. So now I can’t go to a restaurant

with them anymore? What, uh,

what difference does it make? Maybe I’m not even allowed

to… what’s the essence here? What’s the point of a car—

can you explain to me why it’s expensive, and in

a car, well,

can’t people ride in the same car? So what?”

Listen, and there’s no need to turn everything

into absolute nonsense and some kind of absolute

phantasmagoria.

The fact that people want publicity, and for that

they blow up sordid stories, dig into dirty

laundry and private life—that is a matter of

upbringing. That’s a question for their parents. Everyone

has their own moral bar. I can say

that Prikhodko is an absolutely decent man. I

work with him. He is a person who

deserves the highest praise, deep

respect, a consummate professional and a true

friend, and I am glad that I work with such

people. And all those who throw around

filth—God will judge them.”

I’m trying to find my moral bar. It has

fallen so low that it’s impossible to find. It’s

somewhere, apparently, on the fourth floor or

the third, because, well—even to me

Abyzov, a government minister,

sitting in his Italian villa,

Prikhodko with Deripaska, surrounded by

dancing escort girls, turns to

me and says, “So, Alexei, where is your

moral bar? What is happening to you?”

That’s a question for your parents:

they raised you badly,

they say. And meanwhile, when they

address me, right past them go

some half-naked girls providing escort services,

they are discussing things, they are giving each other bribes.

There is nothing normal about that.

A minister can say to the whole country:

“Fine, an honest man, wonderful,

an exemplary official.” Well, you can see

how degraded this government has become. But

these people are not even ashamed. At least he could have

said, “I’m not going to discuss this,

it concerns only Prikhodko,” or said

“This character always lies, just as he lied

about me there, so none of this

interests me.” No, instead, you understand, they even

try to climb up onto the podium and, standing there,

Here they are, standing over us in nothing but their underwear, saying, well—

guys,

why are you digging through our underwear? It's

indecent. And on top of that, they're shaming us for it,

calling it indecent. I'd like to ask you to remember

the episode that happened to Mikhail

Mikhalych Kasyanov, whose home—his

residence, his apartment—was obviously

entered by illegal FSB officers (Russia's security service), or—I don't know who,

who installed a camera and filmed him several

times over several days, and all those

bits of footage from his private life,

his personal relationships—they showed it all on

television. And when Kasyanov filed a

lawsuit and said, well, actually everything here

is a violation of the inviolability of private

life,

illegal surveillance and operational-search

activity, illegal filming, and

that all possible norms had been violated,

violated—I don't know, basically this

simply cannot be shown on

television, with those kinds of scenes and

dialogues.

Kasyanov lost everywhere, and everywhere we

were refused. They said something like,

"Kasyanov's private life wasn't

affected." But when we, without filming anyone

with a hidden camera, simply show

what was photographed and posted on Instagram

by one of the participants in these events, suddenly there are questions about our

upbringing, questions about our moral

standards—which have fallen so low they're lying at the feet of

Abyzov and at the feet of Prikhodko. Brazen,

absolutely brazen,

and, excuse me, completely out of control—

utterly shameless people. So

of course they need to be taken on hard; of course this

government must be fought; of course we need to

spread this video so that

at least those brazen expressions on their faces

might somehow slide off their physiognomies, because, well,

it's simply impossible to listen to them as they still

try to prove that they are, supposedly,

highly moral people, while we are the ones digging through

dirty laundry. Unfortunately, what really upset me

was Instagram. Instagram is

Facebook and Zuckerberg, after all,

because I still don't think YouTube

will delete our videos—at least not for now.

It's holding out. But Instagram deleted two

photos. And since we have those

photos, we'll show those very

photos. Here is photo number one: we

see Deripaska with Nastya Rybka on a yacht.

Photo number two—Instagram, unfortunately,

at the request of

Roskomnadzor (Russia's media and internet regulator), deleted it, and in doing so effectively became

part of the Russian censorship

and corruption machine. That's very

upsetting. But I see quite a lot of

Western media writing about this, and I hope that

the public will now somehow give

Zuckerberg—or those who made these

decisions—a good dressing-down, because this is

absolutely, absolutely outrageous and

unacceptable. But when

they take the side of crooks and

help those crooks hide their

corrupt little schemes,

This whole affair already has many participants: Rybka,

Prikhodko, Deripaska—and a lot has already

been written about various people. Some write about

Deripaska, publishing articles and

investigations into why this might have happened,

some even offering conspiracy theories

about who supposedly commissioned our investigation against

Deripaska. It's always very funny to read.

Huge biographies of Prikhodko are coming out,

and there's a very interesting

recollection about Prikhodko in a book by

Yelena Tregubova,

*Notes of a Kremlin Digger*.

The book came out in the early 2000s, and it has a very

interesting section on Prikhodko—read it. A lot is also being written about

Rybka herself. And there is one

absolutely astonishing figure in

this whole case by the name of Alex Lesley.

This very Alex Lesley—I don't even know

exactly who he is; it's hard for me to

define this person's occupation, but

he's described as a sex coach, and Rybka is both a sex

coach and a guru at the same time,

well, some kind of academic supervisor—no,

some kind of mentor, because she

constantly talks about him. Let's

take a few seconds to hear what Nastya

says about Alex Lesley, the two coaches

who for almost a year have been helping

you—and here's what came of it.

[music]

You can do everything.

I believe in you. So that's some kind of her

coach, and she repeatedly claimed that

Deripaska set all this up because

he is jealous of Alex Lesley, and she

is nominating Alex Lesley as a candidate for

president. There he is, sitting behind the wheel,

looking cool, dancing.

He turned out to be an astonishing person, because

when people started googling him—well,

just googling him—we found out that his

real name is not Alex Lesley

but Alexander Kirillov, including because

when a lawsuit was filed over reposts about him, it turned out

that he is, no less, a resident of

the Skolkovo Innovation Center. You can see

his photos there at Skolkovo. This

photo

was on the website until quite recently

of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. If

you go there right now, you'll

read an absolutely astonishing

profile

of Alex Lesley on the innovation center's website. You can see the

photo has been discreetly removed, but

it still says he is a science director, a theologian,

and an investor in the Center for Intellectual...

forecasting systems

a participant and speaker at international

congresses, an author and developer

of artificial intelligence systems with

increasing complexity, increasing

complexity, and he works at that very

wonderful, amazing innovation

center Skolkovo (Russia's state-backed innovation hub)

which you and I, dear YouTube

viewers, spent 132 billion

rubles (about 1.4 billion USD), so look, you can see

this is from a government decree

this isn't my analysis, these are funds that

were allocated to the Skolkovo information center

where artificial systems

of artificial intelligence with increasing

complexity are being worked on by Alexander

Kirillov, and

and

Alex Lesley. I spent some time and

tried to find some trace of his

scientific work—they obviously ought to exist

because, well, to be honest, as for Alex

I don't really have any complaints at all

there's even a kind of—not admiration, but

recognition of his audacity, that he even

got in there and

became part of this amazing

Medvedev-era innovation center

Skolkovo. Well, I was looking for some trace

of scientific activity or some visualization

of what seemed to be a project from this

artificial intelligence, space

programs—there's a lot written there

I found it, I found it: there was a 52-second video

but I cut it down because I thought you

wouldn't survive all of it. You're about to watch 26 seconds

now—an innovation project that

was obviously, or most likely, funded

by the Skolkovo innovation center. Twenty-six seconds.

Dear Russians, now the future

president of the Russian Federation

Alex Lesley will present to you the new anthem

of Russia, 'To Serve'—that was Alex Lesley

a resident of the innovation center

Skolkovo

on which you and I spent 132

billion rubles (about 1.4 billion USD)

Perfect video. He's the best resident. I

really think Alex Lesley should be made

the symbol of the innovation center

he and a bear should be there together, and maybe

even Medvedev (former Russian president and prime minister) in the same style could

take part like that too. There were

three girls there, right, and the fourth should be

Medvedev lying there with an iPhone or something

turning around and talking about how

Russia is about to see a breakthrough in innovation—that's

exactly how it should be. It's absolutely

brilliant, amazing, it seems to me, just

a perfect characterization of everything

that's happening in our country, and

those of you who expect that from Putin or

from Medvedev there could be some

improvements in our country—technological

breakthroughs or whatever. Sure, Elon Musk

launches things, and we can too, we

can do something—artificial

intelligence or biotechnology or

nanotechnology or whatever—everyone waiting

for that, guys, watch this clip

more often. This is the ceiling for innovation

technology that it can provide

the Putin regime—this is the ceiling. And what's more

if you keep getting upset, they

will block it too, and I have no doubt that

tomorrow or the day after, Roskomnadzor (Russia's media and internet regulator)

will declare that this also needs to be

blocked. The previous episode, by the way,

Navalny 2018, exactly the same—they

put it on the register of banned websites, and

they'll add this one too, because these are secret

technologies he's just

shown—not everyone is supposed to see them

not everyone. From cheerful topics, let's move to

serious ones, and even partly sad ones, because

after all, the main international

news story, and a very serious one with

long-term

consequences for Russia, of course, was

the situation in Syria, and

it was connected with the so-called Wagner guys

and a huge number of media outlets, a huge

number of people, spent a week

basically discussing what happened

because even now we don't really

understand what happened. Well, there are

some facts, probably, that

can't be denied: there was some kind of

combat clash in Syria, and in the course of it

the Americans bombed

and destroyed a column

of certain people—no one really understands who

they were. Among those people there were

some Russian citizens, and

the estimates varied wildly. So

at first they were talking about hundreds of these people, and

among those saying so was Igor

Strelkov, who, well, we know

for sure that he maintains ties with

these people and has some

information. Then it was said that 20

or so had died, then Bloomberg

in turn reported that actually

200 people had died. There is a

research organization, a community

group calling itself CIT (Conflict Intelligence Team); they

write a lot about this, by the way—I recommend them to everyone

and Ruslan Leviev from there

said that 200 people is

an obvious exaggeration, but most likely

there were 30 to 40 dead there, and we still

can't understand what exactly

happened there, how many people died, how many

were Russian citizens. But today Maria

Zakharova said that as a result of the

strike, five Russians may have been killed

and she still doubts whether they were Russians

And this is an obvious lie, basically.

Generally speaking, Ms. Zakharova never

tells a single word of truth.

Because even now there is already

documentary evidence

that at least eight people were killed, that is,

there are already—it's horrible—those very

weeping wives, those children left

orphaned,

funerals, and so on. At least eight

Russian citizens who, whatever we may

think of them—you may consider them

good, you may consider them bad, you may

consider them anything at all—but in any case

some number of Russian citizens

have died. We do not know who died there or

why they died, because the

reports that have been appearing over

the last few days, well, they really

look monstrous, because

the American command says that

the Americans bombed a convoy in which

some people were traveling, and before

they bombed that convoy, they requested

information from Russia's Ministry of Defense

on whether there were Russian servicemen or

quasi-servicemen there, and the Ministry of

Defense told them there were none. This is

the official statement of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

So of course we should all

treat it with some skepticism, but this is a serious

accusation. It is an accusation that

the Ministry of Defense simply sold out,

betrayed Russian citizens, regardless of whether

they were regular servicemen or not. They said:

there are no Russians there,

after which they were all blown apart and killed—

our citizens. And we can see that the Americans

are, in general, reluctantly acknowledging this, because

well, nobody likes the idea of

a clash in which Americans and Russians

kill each other.

Naturally, the entire press jumps on this:

is this World War III, an escalation,

nobody wants that. But if these

facts are confirmed,

then this is, of course, a serious question for

the Ministry of Defense, which simply—

again, it does not matter whether they were bad or good—

they were Russian citizens, and they said

essentially: please bomb them, ours are not there,

even though they knew ours were there. And of course,

Mr. Peskov's response was absolutely monstrous

after the first reports.

And after reports, including fairly well-founded

reports that at least dozens

of people had died there, he was asked whether

some kind of mourning should be declared, but apparently

Peskov said something to the effect of:

What are you talking about? I do not understand what is happening there,

and in general there are no

Russian citizens there, no servicemen,

there is nobody there, and there is nothing

to discuss here.

I repeat: at that very moment, there were being published

interviews, video interviews—you can

watch them—with people familiar with these

very groups, giving some kind of

Cossack (semi-military traditionalist) officers, unit leaders, whoever,

and they say: yes,

our men died, from our district, from our

city, from our—whatever their unit is called—

our Cossack association.

These facts exist, everyone knows about them, and

the only ones who simply refuse

to acknowledge Russian citizens are state officials,

who disown and betray

Russian citizens. And once again, we are all obliged

to raise the question: what were we doing in Syria, and

who exactly are these Russian citizens

who are doing something there

and taking part in some operations? And I

would simply like to draw attention to the fact that

there is this discussion going on: well, there is

the Wagner PMC, a private military company,

like the Americans have, and they do roughly

the same thing the Americans do. No,

guys, let's establish a few

clear facts. There is a certain man

who is called Wagner. About this

man, we know his surname and first name, and there is a

photograph of him. His name is Dmitry Utkin. There he is

at some Kremlin

reception attended by Putin as well.

There is no organization called

the Wagner PMC,

and there cannot be, because many people

mistakenly think—I see even

interviews with some people who

sign themselves as the head of some

private military company or other—

that there can be a director or person like that. This

cannot exist.

There is not even a law on private military

companies in Russia that has passed even a first reading;

it has not even been considered yet, it is lying somewhere,

who knows where. In Russia there is Article

359 of the Criminal Code, which is called

"Mercenarism," and any Russian citizens

who, for money, for remuneration,

fight somewhere, do something with

weapons in their hands—under this article they are

mercenaries, and they must be brought to

criminal responsibility. So you see,

we have at the very least a gray

zone, obviously involving some kind of corruption,

some people, some organization that receives

money—from where and how, we do not know. It cannot be a

legal entity.

It cannot be, under the laws of the Russian

Federation. That means there is some kind of

huge flow of cash, or something

else. We know this now; repeatedly

Fontanka (a Russian news outlet) has written about it, and many

investigations show that this so-called

Wagner PMC is, that is,

some kind of illegal armed

formation engaged in who knows what.

but at the very least for participation in combat

operations in Donbas and in Syria, but

it is effectively financed by the man

who is commonly referred to as the

"Putin's chef"—Mr. Prigozhin—about whom we

have conducted many investigations, and about whom

we know for certain that he

feeds off the theft of

the Defense Ministry. But perhaps he

because he receives absolutely

enormous contracts from them, and this is

a cartel arrangement. But look at our

investigation: we have documentary proof of

established corruption. Maybe part of the

money he steals, and part of it is simply given to him. This guy

from Wagner—maybe that is connected in

one way or another, but in any case

what we see here is a very strange and

suspicious connection between this

"Putin's chef" and the people fighting in Syria.

Moreover, not long ago it was reported that

that

let me read it to you now: *Fontanka* wrote

in 2017 that a quarter of the oil and

gas extracted from territory recaptured for Assad

could go to a company

linked to Putin's chef, Yevgeny

Prigozhin. In return, he was supposed to liberate

these plants and oil-processing facilities,

some gas fields, and so on.

So this is how it seems to work: there are

certain people who finance

the Russian state, because, well, who pays

these unfortunate women the so-called

death benefits and everything else? These

people all train in training

camps run by the Defense Ministry.

People talk about this too, and it

comes straight from Cossack leaders and other people

involved in all this. That is, they

train at official

Defense Ministry bases, and then they go on

to recapture or seize certain gas

fields and oil fields for

Prigozhin. But why do we need this? Why should we be

mixed up in this? Why does the Russian state

need any of this? Why should Russian citizens

have to take part in some kind of

clashes—I don't know, with anyone at all,

with Americans, with Kurds, and so on—for

what purpose? So that Putin's chef

can make money. And the latest article that

appeared in *Kommersant*—more than that, another

statement from the Defense Ministry

shows an extremely strange thing, namely

that it effectively states that

these armed Wagner Group units

were already acting even without coordination with our

own military authorities and were apparently trying to

seize some kind of military facility.

The Americans bombed them, and this was either

a lack of coordination or something else. In other words,

there are some groups effectively financed

with taxpayers' money—groups that, well,

de facto act on behalf of the Russian Federation.

After all, not everyone knows they are Russian.

The Defense Ministry sends them; they all

obviously arrive through our military

base and then go about resolving the personal

financial interests of Prigozhin.

All of this looks very, very

dubious, and of course all of it should

be investigated carefully, in the most

thorough way possible. And once again I want

to note that there is no real parallel here. In

interviews one often has to read, well,

that Americans have private military

companies, and we therefore have a private

military company too, as they exist all

over the world. They do not take part in combat

operations; they sign official

contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense

or with other organizations for

security services, for example. They guard things, they

conduct training, including in Iraq.

That famous company Blackwater,

the private military company that

is constantly compared to Wagner,

they trained the local police. As soon as

it becomes known that they

were involved in direct combat clashes,

those cases are investigated. You can find

that 125 specific cases were investigated

in which these private military companies,

American ones, took part in

direct combat, because

they are not allowed to participate in it. They

were guarding something, and they were attacked.

Our situation is completely different: some

very strange people are actually waging

war, conducting combat operations. How can that

possibly be proper? It is obvious that no

private military company, without the support of

a regular army, is capable of

fighting, because a private military

company cannot have an air force, cannot have

drones, cannot have satellite

imagery, satellite communications, cannot have

tanks—at least not in a Russian

private military company. So this is

some kind of enormous gray

zone, an intermediary between the Defense

Ministry and that crook Prigozhin, and in this

zone there are literally billions

of dollars—at the very least, many tens of

billions of rubles—that these parties

are dragging off in different directions. And again

the question is: why do we need this? Exactly. I

just saw a message on Twitter, and

people are dying, while

someone else is raking in money by the shovel-load. People are dying,

and you and I will have to pay death benefits

to the families of the dead, social support—well, I mean,

this is genuinely a human tragedy, however

you look at it: orphaned children, wives, and everything

else. Besides, people will

be coming back, and it is not very clear in what

mental state they will return—again, in interviews.

Read what the dead man's wife wrote—here it is.

She writes that he served in Donbas.

And then he came back, got bored, and

started thinking about his assault rifle again: where is

my beloved rifle? He missed it, and went off to this

Syria, where they gave him that rifle, and

it did not end very well. But when

people long for an assault rifle, the answer

from the normal side is this: join the army. In the army,

they give you a rifle. You join the regular army,

they give you your rifle, and it will

be kept under its assigned number in the armory.

You will receive it when you are supposed to,

and you will fire it when you are supposed to fire it.

You fire when ordered to—when you have received an order

from the commander-in-chief. But with our own hands we are

simply creating some kind of gangs that

will later roam around Russia and do

who knows what. In other words, nothing good

will come of this.

It will cost us an enormous amount of

money, and once again the main question is: why

do we need any of this? So, Andrei writes to me:

Shpagin dies, Nino Rota, those who went off

[__] for Putin—well, you can feel however you want about

them. Some consider them heroes,

and some do not consider them heroes at all, but

obviously these people went there to earn

money. But they are still Russian citizens,

they live next door to you.

Those who went [__] and those who did not go—it makes no

difference, they live here all the same, and however you

may feel about them, you will be paying their expenses, and

this—well, this idea of stupidly

rejoicing that they were killed over there,

like, "400 pro-Putin fighters, Putin supporters,"

"the Americans bombed them"—that is a stupid

position, absolutely, because these are

Russian citizens. Their families are still here,

their friends are still here. Some have died,

some will return here, and it is unclear what

will be going through their heads. This is our

shared problem, and of course this problem

must be treated accordingly. We must

all demand that these lying authorities,

this disgusting Putin, who

has already declared several times that we

withdrew

our ground forces from Syrian territory,

explain to us what is happening. If you

withdrew them, then who was killed there while wives here

are crying in Sverdlovsk Oblast (a region in Russia)?

Let them answer that, then.

Vladislav Lozinsky: In the Beautiful Russia

of the Future, won't they jam Elon Musk's internet?

Elon Musk's, I mean—Elon Musk.

First he has to roll out his internet—at least that's what he

said. It all sounds nice; we'll see. But anyway,

to wrap up the Syria topic:

the main thing we need—I suggest,

I simply urge everyone not to

focus on the personalities of these

people [__], they are [__], but simply to

talk about the fact that we, as a state,

as a society,

as communities, whoever we are, must get

an answer to the question of why people with the same

passports as ours are dying somewhere, and for

what they are dying, and why there are some

murky financial flows connected with

these deaths.

Andrei asks me whether it could

turn out that, as a result of low turnout,

foreign presidents will say to Putin,

"Sorry, man, we don't want to have

anything to do with you." It won't happen that way, Andrei, because

foreign presidents do not really care what

is happening here. Foreign presidents

say: these Russians are deciding their own

problems themselves. In other words, if they

allow Putin to remain in power for 18 years,

to rob them openly, then that is

the Russians' problem. There is no need to expect that

some Western politicians will

be outraged. They may consider him

a crook, a completely indecent

person, and we will suffer because of that, but

they are not going to solve our problems. So then,

since we've started talking about

the elections,

let's once again plunge to the bottom, where, according to

Bykov, my moral bar lies,

because somewhere down there alongside that

moral bar, deep below,

lie our so-called elections and

the ratings of the so-called candidates.

As you remember, we promised

that we would continue conducting weekly

opinion polls so that you

could get real polling data about what

is actually happening right now. Let's take a look.

Let's start with the candidates' ratings. What would happen

if the election were held this Sunday?

First slide, please. On the first slide we

see that, essentially, nothing has

changed. Putin's rating is still 80

percent, Zhirinovsky is at 7 percent,

Grudinin is at 6 percent. But a change of

one percent does not really

mean anything for us, because that is below

the margin of error. We still see the main thing:

Grudinin and Zhirinovsky are fighting for

second place, and none of these candidates

has even the slightest prospect

of forcing a second round or in any way

making an impact in this election. In other words,

nothing at all is happening with them.

Let's look at the negative

ratings. Maybe they at least managed to do

something to make their negative

ratings go up. Let's see

whom our country hates. Next

slide.

Here is the next slide. "Hate" may be too

strong a word, but we can see that our voters

are still very strongly irritated by

Ksenia Sobchak by a wide margin. Next comes

Grigory Yavlinsky, then Zhirinovsky.

Well, Putin still has a low negative rating.

Mm, obviously people are simply already

afraid to say

whether they like him or not; they all don't

include him in their negative ratings. Why

aren't the ratings rising, why aren't the negative

ratings rising, why is nothing changing at all? It

this gives us the answer to that question,

gives us the answer. Next slide, let's

look at the campaign

materials of which candidates have you

come across over the past two weeks? So,

let's go straight to the last column

and look: "none of the above."

Seventy-four percent. That is,

seventy-four percent of people,

an absolute majority, do not see

any campaigning at all and do not see

any election campaign whatsoever. Well,

there's Zhirinovsky,

well, naturally, Putin, Grudinin,

Zhirinovsky, Sobchak somehow at least

are taking part—they appear on television,

so

the minimum figure is Sobchak at seven

percent, Zhirinovsky 12, Grudinin

and Putin 17. Yes, they are much more,

incidentally, noticed. All the rest of our

fellow citizens do not see any

election campaign at all. That's rather sad.

And by the way, have you seen any

any campaign materials? I

today an employee from our office brought

and showed me some campaign material

that, for example, Mr.

Tsvetov had put out: improperly parked

BMWs decorated

with the Party of Growth logos and all

the rest. So, you can see what they

are doing—they are doing nothing, just some

little stunts for a funny photo,

something on social media, some kind of

statement that will be discussed by

27 people on Facebook, but nothing

meaningful—on not a single important issue

do they speak out. But for you

we specifically asked

the question: what do people consider important

issues? It's quite interesting. Let's look at

which issues people want candidates

to speak about: the quality of education,

medical care—59 percent.

The number one issue Russian citizens want

them to talk about is this; then rising prices and

poverty—50 percent; housing and utilities—47 percent;

corruption, which pleases me—40 percent

of people believe it needs to be discussed.

Corruption. Let's see where

the issues are that our candidates keep

going on and on about.

So we go, go, go, go, go, all the way to

the very end: the country's participation in

international military conflicts—an issue

that matters to me, but

still, civil rights,

democratic freedoms, freedom of speech—

five percent. That is, Russia in

international politics—12 percent. That's

all our candidates are doing.

Right now Grudinin says he will

annex Donbas (a region in eastern Ukraine); Sobchak is going

to the United States for four days in the middle of the campaign and

there too pretends to be some great

foreign-policy figure; Yavlinsky is asked

about Syria—an important issue—and that supports him,

but nevertheless the fact remains the fact:

most people are not interested in this.

International politics does not

interest them at all—not Ukraine, not America, not

Syria, not Donbas. They want to know why

prices are rising; they want to hear something about

corruption; they want to hear something about

the state of healthcare and education.

But apparently there are no actions, no statements on

these issues, no debates on these issues, nothing at all anymore.

There is absolute emptiness. So,

really, there is not much to discuss here.

There is no election campaign.

These candidates are doing everything they can not to

be noticed, and there is one month left until the election.

One month remains until the election, and not one of

these candidates, as far as I know,

has either debates or even some video clip

that, by number of views, has at least

surpassed this livestream of mine. And it's not simply

because—it's not because I'm so great

or we're so great, but because they don't do a damn thing,

don't want to do anything, because of the conditions

and arrangements. So don't go to these

elections; don't take part in this disgrace.

Sign up as election observers in order

to prevent them from falsifying turnout

and do not be part of this shameful

worthless, pathetic spectacle. If

the candidates are not fighting for your vote, then

why would you go to the polling station? You cannot

be more active than the candidate, well,

you have to admit, that's obvious.

It looks strange when you, let's say,

argue somewhere on social media

and say, "I absolutely have to go to

the election," while your candidate, whose name is on the ballot,

is not actually participating in this election de facto.

He just signed up, that's all, while you are

running somewhere. Don't run anywhere—boycott it

and call on everyone to boycott it. But

take part in campaigning—well, people are asking.

I see: "I have already signed up as an observer.

Should I wait for training?" Of course, we will train everyone,

and of course we will send

prepared people to the polling

stations. So, Alyosha Dementyev, well, come back, I

only have one of them.

I'm 19 years old, I read—I was a participant

in a rally in Monchegorsk, then I didn't

manage to read anything. Now, while they return it to me,

LK asks: "What do you think

about the news that for a murder..."

homeless animals, but killing animals

money was allocated for stray animals, secondly

The question is: how can I run into you and

take a photo with you in Moscow, run into you

Taking a photo with me in Moscow is very

easy — at any rally, there will be the Nemtsov March

(in memory of Boris Nemtsov, opposition politician), by the way, come to

the rally and take a photo with me

however much you want. The news that

indeed, the Moscow city government

allocated money for killing stray

animals — and not only in Moscow, but at the federal level

in all the cities where the World Cup will be held

they should have allocated money for sterilizing

animals, not for their mass killing, but this is

stupidity. It is cruelty.

And besides, it is a pointless waste

of money. There are tons of studies that

show that

with stray animals, you can

kill all the cats and dogs

and within three years the populations will recover, because

that is how large cities work — an empty niche

gets refilled, and the population of stray

animals recovers. So this is pointless

stupidity and cruelty. Is it normal that

my relatives call me a traitor for

supporting you? No, it is not

normal for them to call you

a traitor. You

if you support me, if

you support our movement, then you are

a patriot of Russia to a much greater

extent, apparently, than your relatives, dear

Dio Brandon. Talk to them, well,

show them the video about the little fish, show them

Abyzov's house, by the way

show them first the comments by Abyzov and

Prikhodko that I showed you today

on TV Rain (independent Russian TV channel), and then

show them his estate in Italy and

ask your relatives: my dear family, tell me,

do you think I am a patriot or

a traitor when I speak out against people

like Abyzov, against people like Prikhodko, and

it seems to me that any normal person

would of course say — regardless of whether they like me or not —

they would say: of course, a patriot.

Yes, that is patriotism. Little Roll

asks me what happened to the quadcopter

Volodya, when Navalny becomes

president, Balotelli will be in charge of

intelligence in the country. But as for the quadcopter

Volodya's is still operational; we

use it and will keep using it, it just

is not suitable for the most important

operations. But of course we will

keep using it. I hope that when I become

president of Russia, there will be better

quality methods of intelligence and

intelligence tools than quadcopters

that can fly three kilometers (about 3 km).

Look at satellites — satellites now

technology has advanced so far

that objects the size of

a cigarette pack can already be seen from orbit. We

want to move beyond quadcopters. As for

campaigning, let's still talk a little

about that. So, we have established that our

opponents' candidates are not doing a damn thing

in terms of campaigning, so nobody notices them. But

Vladimir Putin is not asleep, Vladimir Putin

does not

pay for it from his campaign fund, and yet

he is simply constantly present on

television. More than that, they have started

rerunning a film that is absolutely

a disgusting, sycophantic film made by

the unfortunately brilliant director

Oliver Stone about Putin; they started

showing it on Channel One, and

the Central Election Commission, after

numerous complaints, by the way,

including one from Yavlinsky (liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky), stated that

it does not recommend showing this film, but

after reviewing it, found no campaigning in it. Now I

have a leaflet here — this is our

leaflet, and as you can clearly see,

there is not a single mention of Putin, not

a single surname, not a single candidate. And yet

the Central Election Commission

considers it prohibited because it creates

a negative image of some candidate. Well,

apparently the word 'deception' again

makes them understand that

of course the word 'deception' means

Putin — even though his name is not written here.

The Central Election Commission

considers this campaigning, and the police across

the country are confiscating our leaflets. But

this film about Putin

contains, in their view, no campaigning at all.

Let me now show you literally

one minute and seven seconds from this film, and

you tell me yourselves: campaigning is

the creation of a positive image of a candidate.

In this excerpt, the CEC did not see

any creation of a positive image

of a candidate. What could there possibly be in this one minute

and seven seconds?

Vladimir Vladimirovich, you are so impressive,

so great.

No, no, not at all, I am not great, I am

just — well, really — simply very

impressive. Vladimir Vladimirovich, how did you

manage to solve all of Russia's problems? Russia

was practically in ruins, and you solved

all the problems.

Well, I solved most of them; we still have

some problems left, but of course I solved most of them.

And this, supposedly, is not the creation of a positive

image? He tells us that

he got rid of the oligarchs, showing

Gusinsky and Berezovsky, who have long

been gone. And yet in reality

Putin is the father of Russia's oligarchs,

not Yeltsin. Under Yeltsin there were

nine billionaires; now there are more than a hundred.

This is not something he created.

a positive image. Channel One

stopped airing this film as

such. There was a whole herd there, but really,

what is especially outrageous is that the Central

Election Commission is so deep in a puddle over this

that it recognizes this leaflet, it recognizes it

as somehow violating election

law, while a film like this

they watched and found no violations at all,

no violations were found. But they’re crooks—what can

you say? Twenty-seven thousand people are watching us

live right now.

Kyiv, yes. Danila asks me:

register on Twitter

to ask how to campaign among

Putin supporters. Their logic is

ironclad: if not Putin, then who?

I work for the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Exactly. That’s why they created

this kind of election, where a person takes

the ballot and sees Sobchak, Yavlinsky,

Grudinin—who hasn’t really campaigned at all—and

of course he’ll tell you, no matter whom

you try to persuade, he’ll say: well, you’re nuts,

there’s simply no one here to vote for.

Might as well vote for Putin.

That’s what all of this was designed for. So right now

it’s important simply to tell people that, well,

it just doesn’t happen that in a country of 145 million

people there isn’t another person to be found. There are

much richer countries with larger

populations, and they change their governments regularly.

One president replaces another,

and no catastrophe happens, nothing terrible occurs.

On the contrary, people

live better because power is transferable. But

if we think that in a country of 145

million people there hasn’t been and won’t be found

even one person who can

govern, then that is genuine

Russophobia. After all, nobody knew Putin until

the Yeltsin family and

Berezovsky made him president. Does

that mean Russia would have fallen into

some kind of abyss, I don’t know, and

shattered into pieces, or we all would have died

if Putin hadn’t appeared? Of course not.

Obviously not. So we need to show

the example of other countries and say that there are

two hard facts.

Fact number one: if power changes regularly,

the country grows richer

and lives better. Fact number two: if power

does not change, the country grows poorer and lives worse.

And here, ask all your acquaintances:

how is your salary, your purchasing

power? Has your salary gone up or

down? Have milk prices over the last

five years gone up or down? Have your

real incomes gone up or down? Prices

for, I don’t know, phones, food,

what about gasoline—have they gone up or down? Well,

maybe you think well of Putin, maybe you like him.

Fine. He has worked, and if you think he

has done a good job, then probably it’s time to replace

him with someone else. There need to be some methods

of pressure, some accountability—he must be serving

someone, and he probably should answer

questions. Probably his entire circle, from

Deripaska to Rotenberg,

how should I put it, all of them,

in short, all these guys—

the Rotenbergs, Timchenko, and all the rest—

they probably should provide some kind of

account of how exactly they

make their billions. Officials

should answer for their palaces. Talk about that

and show them more videos.

That is, you don’t need to immediately tell such

stubborn people that Putin is your

bad guy, a scoundrel, and so on. You should say:

let’s start with something simple—there must be rotation

of power.

Putin was fine, sure, but he has been in charge

long enough—18 years.

Let’s replace him with someone else, because

in recent years there has obviously been decay,

an obvious decline in people’s incomes,

plain for everyone to see. And by the way, one more

topic.

I was absolutely furious,

I was raging.

A question about Putin and, brothers, what

our country has turned into. We have

an activist, Ilya Popov.

He is twenty years old. He lives in a place that

you have probably never even heard of.

Ilya lives in the settlement of Zykova, or

Zaikova, more likely Zaikov, which you

have probably never heard of either, because it

is very remote, in the Irbit district

of Sverdlovsk Region—that is,

very far away, a small settlement. This Ilya Popov

is a truly wonderful person. He

took leaflets saying “Real citizens”

and distributed them around his settlement.

Because he was campaigning for a voters’ strike,

they used surveillance cameras

to identify him. And in the settlement

of, damn it, Zykova in Irbit district, some

police officers apparently had nothing else to do,

nothing better to do than use camera footage

to find this person

and identify him. Then they took him to court,

fined him 1,000 rubles, and then

they drove him to the factory administration office

of the dairy plant. In that settlement of Zykova there is

the Irbit dairy plant, which belongs,

incidentally, to the state—

a state-owned dairy plant. They brought him

to the director,

where the director gave him

a lecture about how I am a foreign

agent, that he is engaged in extremist

activity, and forced him—or fired him,

essentially made him write a resignation letter.

At that point he apparently decided not to escalate things and said, well...

All right, I’ll write it.

They fired a guy for putting up these

very leaflets. The director’s name is Suetin.

Sergei, I think—yes, Sergei Suetin.

Exactly right. Well, I read it and I was really

angry. I thought, what a bastard this

Sergei Suetin is. But most importantly—why? Well,

fine, maybe you’re even for Putin,

maybe you support Putin. Your employee, there in

his free time outside of work, was going around putting up

these leaflets. You’re at this dairy plant in

the settlement—why are you interfering with him? Why do you

think it’s necessary to summon him to your office

and tell him, “Write your resignation,” because

we supposedly have to kick people out of the plant

for putting up leaflets? And I

really

quickly found the reason. If you google

“Irbit dairy plant” and google

this very Sergei Suetin,

the director of this plant, you’ll find out why

he likes this government so much. Because this

dairy plant is state-owned, and not long ago it

announced a purchase of a car for this

very Suetin—a Lexus

570 for 7 million rubles (about US$110,000 at the time). The dairy plant is in

the settlement of Zykova, Irbit District,

Sverdlovsk Region.

After a huge scandal there,

even the ONF (All-Russia People’s Front, a pro-Kremlin movement) got upset, and they

canceled the purchase. But just think

about this man’s sheer arrogance. You work

at a state-owned plant—I don’t want to offend

anyone in Zykova, in the middle of nowhere, but

you want, damn it, to buy with state money

a car that isn’t even bought by

the presidents of developed countries. Show me,

find me a president of some

Scandinavian country, or, I don’t know, the head of a

major region—California’s GDP is larger

than Russia’s GDP—yes, look at what

the governor of California rides in. You’re unlikely to

see a Lexus 570 there.

And that’s why this bastard hates

this very Ilya Popov, because

he speaks out against it, because we

want to create a government under which it will be

impossible. First, the state

doesn’t need to own any dairy plant. Second,

you definitely don’t need to be

buying a car with public money. Want to buy

yourself a Lexus 570 for 7 million rubles (about US$110,000)?

The average salary at this plant is

25,000–30,000 rubles a month (about US$400–500). This Ilya Popov

worked there as an apprentice foreman

and was getting 10,000 rubles (about US$160). So you’re

paying people from 10,000 to 30,000 rubles, and

you want to buy a car for 7 million.

That’s why they adore this government so much.

That’s why—here’s the dairy plant’s website. If you

go there right now, it looks like this.

Put it on screen.

There you go, you see? This is the website

of a dairy plant: “Everyone to the polls, everyone to

Putin’s re-election,” because this Sergei

Suetin is a disgusting crook. He adores

this government with every fiber of his being. What other

government, what other system, would allow him

to put out tenders like that? He’d be jailed in

any normal—well, it wouldn’t even occur to anyone in

a normal society. The dairy plant workers would

smash his face in for something like that. In a normal

society, in a normal system, this is

unimaginable.

And they all need Putin, because Putin

gives them all this, gives them the ability to

keep everyone in poverty, to pay their workers minimum

wages, while driving past them

through puddles and mud so that, you know,

the water splashes right into those workers’ faces

from his fancy Lexus 570.

After we come to power, we’ll deal with this

Suetin. And I want to call on

the residents of the settlement of Zykova to tell this

Suetin, when you meet him, everything you think

needs to be said. We also have

a little time left to show

an interesting clip, because a very

interesting situation is developing in

one particular district of Moscow

Region, where

the opposition won and came to power.

Krasnoselsky District—you know that

there are several districts in Moscow where

independent deputies won a majority, but

in Krasnoselsky District in particular,

Ilya Yashin became head of the municipal council.

He brought in his own supporters, and they have

a very clear political line there.

They say it outright: we are against

Putin, we are the Solidarnost movement,

we are fighting this government. But in this

district, we are the authorities, and you, the opposition,

are the minority. And of course, United

Russia, Sobyanin, Rakova—they simply can’t

calm down. They created a special

movement literally called “Against

Yashin,” and they stage pickets outside

the municipal office. And it’s very

interesting to watch. And it’s curious

to see how this is supposed to work: well, they

came to power, they have some position, and

the opposition is allowed in too. They’re, well, most likely

being paid, hired protesters,

or maybe not—but in any case,

obviously there are people in Krasnoselsky District

who don’t like Yashin, and

right now they’re simply barging into

the municipal office and disrupting meetings,

while taking advantage of the fact that the police

support them in an informal way. So

let’s just watch literally a few

seconds—55 seconds—of how

a normal politician who has come to power

handles this, how he deals with the opposition

in his district. Five seconds, practically.

The girl on the trip stayed behind—it’ll be different.

If there are any proposals that would

I wanted to ask you under what working format

Thank you, colleagues. With that, I declare

the meeting of the Council of Deputies closed.

These issues were considered.

Let’s start with the obvious: you can see what kind of

situation this is.

Representatives of your movement are ready

to ensure representation at

the meetings of the Council of Deputies.

I can guarantee that on all

items on the agenda, if you wish, we

will give you the floor in accordance with

common sense. That is completely acceptable.

Let’s speak frankly: this is how we will

deal with the opposition in the beautiful

Russia of the future. This is how every politician should act.

Well, look, Yashin (Ilya Yashin, Russian opposition politician) didn’t

die from it. It’s his job. There are some

people who are really quite hostile to me, and they still

haven’t stopped — they push their way into the meeting hall, they

shout, they stand there with placards against Yash-

in — their movement is called “Against Yashin.”

I sat down with them, talked to them, shook hands — and suddenly

the tone was completely different.

That is the work of a normal politician, and our country

will become normal when politicians and

officials — and Yashin, by the way, despite being an opposition figure,

is still a municipal official —

if you live in Moscow, then he works on

a salary paid from your taxes, and in

that sense, he earns

his salary, because even with the opposition

he communicates the way one ought to communicate with

the opposition. Our time is almost up, but there is

one very small topic, and you may already have

read about it on my blog — a

small but pleasant victory, a small

victory over idiocy. Have you seen this

photograph?

For this photograph, our activist in

Arkhangelsk — it’s a famous photograph from

the Victory Parade — was prosecuted

for allegedly promoting Nazi

symbols, and because of it he could have

— as you can see from the photograph — been added to the

list of extremists. And I organized

a special campaign against this idiocy because,

to be honest, it infuriated me too.

It is a well-known

wartime photograph from our history, and these

idiots — and when I say “these idiots,” I mean

everyone involved: the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the courts —

everyone was involved, and at every stage

of the process they said, “Well yes, since he

put up this photograph,”

even though it is in history textbooks, that means he is guilty of

extremism, and he must be punished, penalized, and

fined.” And after we

launched the campaign — after I told this story —

thousands of people took part in the action

against idiocy by reposting this photograph themselves as a sign

of protest. And today, in the

court of appeal, he was acquitted.

Obviously under our pressure. I congratulate all of you

on this. Let’s work in such a way

that we achieve at least small victories

over the idiocy of this government, of these idiots.

There are many of them, and they keep pressing in on us. For now, unfortunately, we are

losing to them overall. But when we

come together, we can deal

these idiots and their idiocy a fairly painful

blow. And many thanks to everyone who watched.

See you next Thursday.

Sign up to be election observers — we’ll catch

the crooks red-handed. Goodbye.

[music]