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

[music]

Hello. It's 8:18 p.m. in Moscow. Alexei is in the studio.

Navalny, or a political loser, as

Sergei Prikhodko called me — the same man who

fortunately continues to be the subject

of constant publications, the hero

of remarkable, astonishing discussions

that are taking place in blogs, in

the mass media. We are very pleased

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

the main thing, properly speaking: the fact of corruption.

The fact that Mr. Prikhodko, who

calls me a loser, is

a bribe-taker. At this point I don't even know which is better:

to be a loser or a bribe-taker. In

my view, it's better to be a loser.

But Sergei Prikhodko probably feels today

that he is once again the winner, because

they blocked my blog, Navalny

dot 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 #Navalny

2018. I will try to answer them, and

today we are raising money in support of

the Voters' Strike. So then, Sergei

Prikhodko, Oleg Deripaska, all these

wonderful people, whom, of course,

Vladimir Putin supports,

blocked my blog today, and I have

not the slightest doubt that this is

of course not only about the pocket

Ust-Labinsk court — yes, the Ust-Labinsk

court, a tame court —

because Mr. Deripaska

basically owns that whole town — but also about

the political desire of the authorities

to block this. Look at what they did:

they blocked the Navalny 2018 website, the

Navalny.com website, the strike website, and the

observer recruitment website — in other words, all at once

they blocked them after the ruling of

this court. This is absolutely illegal,

because, naturally, the strike website

or the observer recruitment website are in no way

connected with

Deripaska's private life, nor are they connected with

Prikhodko's private life or with Rybka. There is nothing there,

and more than that, this directly

contradicts what is written even in

Roskomnadzor's own unlawful decision. Nevertheless,

they basically said: great idea,

if there's some fake ruling saying

we can block something related 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 that this information is not

removed from the internet. Roskomnadzor has already

forced 29 media outlets

to delete certain information, and now they are

running after everyone. Yes, they have now

made our lives much more difficult, though

we are fighting the blocking fairly effectively

nonetheless.

In any case, we will absolutely do

everything to ensure that information about the adventures of

Deripaska and the adventures of Prikhodko not only

remains on the Russian internet,

but becomes even more accessible, so that

a large number — an even greater number —

of people can 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, knowing how to get around them,

is now simply a basic life skill in Russia

today.

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 bypassing blocks are banned. If I

show you something now, then

Roskomnadzor will be obliged to block those

people who explained how

to fight blocking. 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 gave this 40-second explanation. Blocking

popular internet resources is a matter

of little use,

essentially pointless, and as was emphasized by the

Russian Ministry of Communications, it fosters in

citizens legal nihilism and

increases their computer literacy.

This is dedicated to everyone suffering from blocked

social networks but who can still watch us.

There are many ways to bypass website blocking.

There are plenty of them.

One of the simplest is to download an app

that changes your apparent country 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 allows you to access

websites without being tied to your computer's

address. Not entirely convenient, of course.

Still, quite something — the Russia-24 TV channel

was explaining how to get around blocks.

You've probably already guessed: they were doing

this because evil officials

had blocked 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 began to...

to tell us on television, to explain to us

the Ukrainians, yes, about how to get around

the blocks. Well, those instructions will be useful

to us too. Still, the simplest thing

you can do is download

my blog's app.

The links are in the description for this video.

There is an app for Android, and there is

an app for iOS.

No blocking will stop it, and you

can use it easily. I don't even want

to go into great detail for you

about the legal aspects. Well,

it's practically pointless. Any person

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

somewhat familiar with legal procedures

in this country, will simply start

laughing out loud if you tell them the story

of how

on a weekend you can come to court,

immediately get a hearing scheduled, and on

that same weekend day

obtain interim measures that will block

something, somewhere, across the whole country, while

without notifying the actual, let's say,

affected or involved parties. More than that, from

the court's official position, this does not concern me

at all. No.

Just appreciate the elegance of the Deripaska

- Prikhodko - Putin combination.

We'll block Navalny's resources, and when you

come and say,

"Hey, give me the paperwork," they'll say, "This doesn't concern

you." That is the official wording: that

Navalny's interests were not affected

by the blocking of Navalny's resources.

Everything is clear with the Russian courts.

What interests me more is the moral

assessment of what was happening on Deripaska's yacht,

with Prikhodko and so on. So, we

see that all the people involved in our case

were silent all week, silent. Prikhodko

said something along the lines that he would deal

with them man-to-man,

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

and the first official

high-ranking official who

spoke out on whether this was acceptable or not,

whether what

was happening on that yacht was normal or not, was the minister—

in fact, the minister

for Open Government, Mikhail Abyzov. You

know that he is an old friend

of the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

because he is usually the one who blocks everything we

have collected. Several times we gathered 100,000

signatures in support of various

bills, and under the procedure it was precisely

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, thanks to them,

got a brief comment on how the minister

assesses 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

or bribes. A bribe implies the provision of

a service, and it's complete nonsense in essence. I

worked in business for 20 years; all

the oligarchs are, one way or another, either my friends

or people I have worked with. I have

friendly relations with

them. So now I can't go into a restaurant with them?

Why not? What difference does it make? Maybe

I can't? What the hell is the point here?

What's the key issue? Can you explain to me what

is expensive, and what about a car? Is a car allowed?

There is something to listen to in this, and there's no need

to turn everything into absolute nonsense and

some kind of complete phantasmagoria.

The fact that people want publicity and for that

purpose inflate certain stories or 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 standard. I can say

that Prikhodko is an absolutely decent man. I

have worked with him for many years. He is a person

who deserves

the highest praise and deep respect,

a consummate professional and a true friend, and I

am glad that I work with such people. And all those

who throw mud around—God will judge

them.

I'm trying to find my moral standard; it

has fallen so low that it's impossible to find it

anywhere. It's apparently on the fourth floor or

the third, because, well—even to me

Abyzov, a government minister,

sitting in his Italian villa

with Prikhodko and Deripaska,

surrounded by dancing girls and escorts,

addresses me and says something like,

"Alexei, where is your moral standard? What

is happening to you? That's a question for your

parents—they raised you badly,"

they say. And meanwhile, when they

address me, meanwhile they have

some naked girls, escort services,

they are talking, they are giving each other bribes—

there is nothing normal about that. A minister, to the whole

country, can say: yes, he's a good,

most honest man, a wonderful exemplary

official. Well, you can see how far

this government has degraded. But these people are not even

embarrassed. He could at least have said, "I am not

going to discuss this; it concerns only

Prikhodko," or said, "This person

always lies, just as he lied there about me,

so none of this interests me." But no, they

actually, you understand, are still trying to climb up

onto the podium and, standing there in nothing but their underwear above

us, say, "Come on, guys, what are you doing?"

you’re digging through our dirty laundry

it’s indecent, and on top of that they’re shaming us for it

for being indecent. I suggest that you

remember the episode that happened to

Mikhail Mikhailovich Kasyanov, whose home,

his residence, his apartment, was quite obviously

illegally entered by the FSB (Russia’s security service) or some other agents, I don’t know who exactly,

who installed a camera and filmed him several

times over several days, and all those

various bits of footage from his private life,

his personal relationships there, they

broadcast on television. And when

Kasyanov went to court and said, well,

actually, everything has been violated here:

the right to privacy,

illegal surveillance and operational-search

activity, illegal filming, and

basically every possible norm was violated here,

violated—I don’t know, in principle this is

something that simply cannot be shown

on television, with that kind of content, with

those dialogues.

Kasyanov lost in every court, and everywhere

he was denied. They said, more or less,

Kasyanov, this doesn’t concern private life,

it doesn’t affect anyone’s private life. But when we aren’t

filming anyone with a hidden camera and simply show

what

one of the participants photographed on Instagram,

then suddenly there are questions about our upbringing,

questions about our moral standards,

which, apparently, have fallen so low they’re lying at Abyzov’s feet

and at Prikhodko’s feet—brazen,

absolutely, just brazenly

and, excuse me, completely shameless

people with no conscience at all. So

of course they need to be crushed, of course this

government must be fought, of course we need to

spread this video so that

at the very least those arrogant expressions

might somehow slide off their faces, because, well,

it’s simply impossible to listen to them still

trying to prove that they are somehow

highly moral people, while we are the ones digging through

dirty laundry. Unfortunately, I was very upset by

Instagram. Instagram is

Facebook and Zuckerberg, after all,

because I still don’t think YouTube

will delete our videos, at least not for now

—so far it’s holding out. But Instagram deleted two

photos. And since we have these

photos, we’ll show those very

photos. Here is photo number one: we

see Deripaska with Nastya Rybka on a yacht,

and photo number two.

Unfortunately, Instagram, at the request

of Roskomnadzor (Russia’s media and internet regulator), deleted them and thereby, well, became

part of the Russian censorship

and corruption machine. That is very

disappointing. But I see that quite a lot of

Western media are writing about this, and I hope that

the public will now somehow give

Zuckerberg—or whoever made those decisions—a good dressing-down,

because, well,

this is completely, absolutely outrageous,

it is unacceptable 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

different people. Some write about Deripaska,

publishing articles and investigations

about why this might have happened; some even

come up with conspiracy theories about who commissioned

the investigation against Deripaska. It’s always

very funny to read these enormous biographies.

Then there’s Prikhodko.

There’s a very interesting recollection about Prikhodko

in a book by Yelena Tregubova,

*Tales of a Kremlin Digger*,

a book published in the early 2000s. There’s a very

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

Rybka herself, and there is one

absolutely astonishing figure in

this whole case named Alex Leslie.

This very Alex Leslie—I don’t even know

who exactly he is; I find it hard

to define this person’s occupation, but

he is described as a sex coach, and for Rybka

he is a sex trainer, a guru at the same time,

and also, well, some kind of scientific

supervisor—or some kind of mentor,

because she keeps talking about

him. Let’s listen for a few seconds to what

Nastya says about Alex Leslie.

two trainers who for almost a year have been

helping... look, yes, that’s what it’s supposed to...

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everyone knows how... I’m saying, well, this is

some kind of her trainer, and she repeatedly

stated that Deripaska arranged all of this

because he is jealous of Alex

Leslie, and she is putting Alex Leslie forward as

a presidential candidate. Here he is at the wheel,

sitting there—so 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 Leslie

but Alexander Kirillov, including because

when lawsuits were filed over reposts about him, it turned out

that he is, no less, a resident

of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. You can see

his photo there at Skolkovo—this

photo

was on the website until quite recently

of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. If

you go there right now, you will

read an absolutely astonishing

profile

of Alex Leslie on the innovation center’s website.

You see, they have bashfully removed the photo, but

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

and an investor in the Center for Intelligent

Forecasting Systems, a participant

and speaker at international congresses,

an author and developer.

artificial intelligence systems with

increasing complexity, an increase in

complexity, and he works at that very

wonderful, amazing innovation

center, Skolkovo, on which you and I

dear YouTube viewers, spent 100

32 billion rubles (about 1.4 billion USD at the time), so

just look, you can see it from this, from

the government decree. This is not my

analysis; this is money that was allocated

to the Skolkovo information center, where

artificial systems

of artificial intelligence with increasing

complexity

are being handled by Alexander Kirillov. These

and

and Alex Leslie—I spent some time

trying to find some trace of his

scientific work. There obviously should

be some, because, well, frankly, I have

no complaints about Alexei

at all. There is even a kind of—not

admiration, exactly, but recognition of his audacity

that he even got in there and

became part of this amazing

Medvedev innovation center

Skolkovo, but I was looking for some traces

of scientific work or some visualization

of some kind of project involving artificial

intelligence, space programs—they've got

a lot of things 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 it. Now you're going to watch 26 seconds

of an innovation project that

obviously, or most likely, was funded by

the Skolkovo innovation center.

Twenty-six seconds, dear Russians.

And now, the future president of the Russian

Federation.

Alex Leslie will present to you the new Kim

of Russia... That was Alex Leslie,

a resident of the information and innovation center

Skolkovo, on which you and I spent

132 billion rubles (about 1.4 billion USD at the time).

A perfect video. This is the best resident. I

really think Alex Leslie should be

made the symbol of the innovation center.

He and the bear shouldn't be there together—and maybe

even Medvedev could appear there in the same way

like this, taking part. There were

three girls, yeees—and the fourth should be

Medvedev lying there with an iPhone or something

turning around and talking about how

Russia is expecting a breakthrough in innovation. That's

exactly

how it should be. It's absolutely brilliant,

amazing, I think—just super.

It perfectly characterizes everything 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 anything like that—

well, Elon Musk is launching something, and

we'll be able to do it too, we'll be able to make something

in artificial intelligence or something

in biotechnology, nanotechnology—all of you who

are waiting for that, guys, watch this

clip more often. This is the ceiling of innovation

technology that it can provide,

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

if you get upset about it, they

will block it, 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. By the way, the previous episode,

Navalny 2018, exactly the same way, they

put it on the register of banned websites. This one

they'll add too, because these are secret

technologies that he has just shown—

not everyone should see them, not everyone.

From amusing topics, let's move on to something serious,

even partly sad, because after all

the main international news story, and

a very serious one, with long-term

consequences for

Russia, of course, was the situation—was

the situation in Syria, connected with the so-

called Wagner guys, and a huge

number of media outlets, a huge number of people,

spent the week, basically, discussing

what happened, because even now

we don't really understand what happened, and

there are probably some facts that

cannot be denied: there was some kind of

combat clash in Syria, and in the course of it

of that clash

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,

moreover,

including 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 people had died, then

Bloomberg, accordingly, stated that actually

200 people had died. There is an

organization, a research community

group calling itself CIT (Conflict Intelligence Team); they

write a lot about this, by the way. I recommend it to everyone. Ruslan Leviev, for

example, Ruslan Leviev

said that 200 people is

an obvious exaggeration, but most likely

there were 30 to 40 dead there, and we still

cannot understand what exactly

happened there, how many people died, how many

were Russian citizens. But today Maria

Zakharova stated that as a result of the

strike, five Russians may have been killed,

and she still doubts whether they were Russians

at all. And that is an obvious lie. Well, frankly,

Ms. Zakharova never

speaks a single word of truth,

because already now there is

documentary confirmation

of the deaths of at least 8 people, that is,

there are already—it's horrible—those very

weeping wives, those children left

orphaned

funerals and so on—at least 8

Russian citizens who, whatever letters and however

we may have regarded them—you may

consider them good, you may consider them bad,

you may consider them anyone at all, but one way or

another

some number of Russian citizens

were killed. We do not know who was killed there and

why they died, because the

reports that have been appearing over

the last few days, well, they generally

look monstrous, because

the American command says that

the Americans bombed a convoy in which

some people were traveling, and before

they bombed this convoy, they requested

information from Russia's Ministry of Defense

on whether there were Russian servicemen, 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. Well, that

is, of course we should all treat it with

skepticism, but this is a serious accusation, it is

an accusation that the Ministry of Defense

simply sold out, betrayed Russian

citizens. It does not matter whether they were servicemen or not,

they said there were no Russians there,

after which they were all blown apart and killed

—our citizens. And we see that the Americans

are, generally speaking, reluctantly admitting this, because

well, nobody likes the idea of some kind of

clash in which Americans and Russians

kill each other. The entire press

naturally jumps on this: World War

III, rising escalation—nobody

wants that. But if these facts

are confirmed, this is of course a serious

question for the Ministry of Defense, which, well,

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

good—they were Russian citizens, and they

said: please, bomb ours, there are none of them there,

even though they knew ours were there. And

of course, what was absolutely monstrous was the statement by

Mr. Peskov after the first reports

including fairly well-founded

reports that at least dozens of

people had died there. He was asked whether it was necessary

to declare some kind of mourning or at least

do something, and Peskov said roughly

the following: what mourning? What are you talking about? I do not understand

what is happening there, and in general there are no

Russian citizens there, no servicemen

—no, there is nobody there, and there is nothing

to talk about. I repeat, at that very moment

interviews, video interviews, were being published

—you can watch them—featuring

those very people giving tearful

accounts, some Cossacks, unit leaders, all sorts of people

—whoever they may be—they state that yes,

ours were killed, from our district, from our

city, from our—whatever you call it—

Cossack association

These facts exist, everyone knows about these facts, and

state officials are the only ones

who simply disown Russian

citizens and betray

Russian citizens. And once again, we all must

raise the question: what are 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

they do roughly the same thing that

the Americans do. No, guys, let's

establish some clear facts.

There is a certain man who is called

Wagner. About this man, it is known

what his surname and first name are, there is a photograph of him, his name is

Dmitry Utkin. Here he is at a Kremlin

reception of some kind at which

Putin is also present. No organization

under the name of Wagner exists, and

it cannot exist, because many people

mistakenly believe—I even see

interviews with some clowns who also

sign themselves as the head of some kind of

private military company

the head of this or that—this

cannot be. Even a law on private

military companies in Russia has not even

been considered in its first reading; it is not even clear where

it is sitting at all.

In Russia, there is Article 359 of the Criminal Code

called mercenarism

and any Russian citizens who, for

money, for payment, somewhere out there

fight, do something, with a weapon in

their hands—under this article they are mercenaries, they

must be brought to criminal

liability. So, as you can see, we

have at the very least a gray zone, obviously

some corrupt people, some kind of

organization that receives money

—from where and how? It cannot be

a legal entity

it cannot be, under the laws of the Russian

Federation. Which means there is some kind of

huge flow of cash, or something

else. We know this now; repeatedly

Fontanka has written about this extensively

in many investigations: that this very

so-called Wagner group, that is,

some illegal armed

formation engaged in who knows what

but at the very least in combat operations

in Donbas and in Syria, but

is in fact financed by the man

whom we will henceforth call Putin's chef

—Mr. Prigozhin—about whom we

have done a great many investigations, and about

which we know for certain that he

is feeding off by robbing

the Ministry of Defense, but perhaps he

because they receive from them absolutely

staggeringly large contracts, and this is

a cartel-style collusion. But look at our

investigation: it documents

proven corruption. Maybe part of

the money he steals, and part of it is given to the man

with Wagner; maybe it 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

What's more, it was stated not long ago that

— I'll read it now — Fontanka (a Russian news outlet)

wrote in 2017 that a quarter of

the oil and gas extracted in

territory not controlled by Assad could go

to a company linked to Putin's chef

Yevgeny Prigozhin; in return, he is 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 are financed by

the Russian state, because, well, who else

is paying these poor men, the compensation, and so

the so-called death benefits and everything else? These

people all train in training

camps of the Ministry of Defense

near Molkino (a locality in southern Russia); people talk about this too, and it

involves Cossack leaders — really, all the people

participating in all of this. That is, they

train at an official base of the

Ministry of Defense, and then go on

to retake or seize certain gas

fields and oil fields for

Prigozhin. And why do we need this? Why are we

connected to this? Why does the Russian state

need any of this? Why should Russian citizens

have to take part in some kind of

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

Americans, with Kurds, and so on? For

what? So that Putin's chef

can make money? And the latest article that

appeared in Kommersant (a Russian newspaper) — moreover, another

statement by the Ministry of Defense

shows an extremely strange thing overall. That

is, it effectively states that

these armed Wagner groups

were already acting even without coordination with our min-

istry of defense, trying, as it were, to

capture some military facility

that the Americans bombed, 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 Ministry of Defense sends them, they all

obviously arrive through our military

base, and what they are doing is solving the personal

financial problem of this Prigozhin fellow.

All of this looks very, very dubious

and, of course, all of this must be

investigated carefully, in the most

thorough way possible.

And once again I want to stress that there is no

parallel here. In interviews one often has to

read: well, in the world the Americans have

private military companies, and we have

a private military company too. But they

exist all over the world and 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. In particular, in

Iraq, that same company Blackwater

— the famous private military company —

that is constantly compared to

Wagner, trained the local police.

As soon as facts become known about their

involvement in direct combat clashes,

those cases are investigated. You can find

that 125 specific cases were investigated

when these private military companies,

American ones, took part in

direct combat operations, because

they are not allowed to participate in them. They

were guarding something and were attacked. But in our case

the situation is completely different: some people,

very strange people, are actually waging war in

active combat. How can that possibly be

proper? It is obvious that no private

military company, without the support of

a regular army, is simply not capable of

fighting a war, because, well, a private military

company cannot have aviation, 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 fairly gigantic gray

zone, a go-between between the Ministry of

Defense and that crook Prigozhin, and in that

zone there are literally billions of

dollars — at the very least, many tens of

billions of rubles — which these sides

are dragging off in different directions. And again,

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

saw a post on Twitter that put it well:

people are dying, and

someone 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.

Socially, this is definitely, truly

a human tragedy, however you may relate to them:

children left orphaned, wives, and everything

else. Besides that, people will

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

mental state. Again, read the interview

with the wife of one of the dead men. She

writes that he served in Donbas, and then

came home, got bored, and started

thinking about his rifle: where is my

dear rifle? He grew restless and went off to this

the episode where he was given that rifle

didn’t end very well, but still

when people get sentimental about having a rifle, the answer is

from the normal point of view, if you join the army, in the army

you are issued a rifle; if you enter the regular army

you’ll be given your own rifle, and it will be kept

under a number in the armory; you’ll receive it

when you’re supposed to, and you’ll

shoot when you’re supposed to shoot

that’s how it works: you got an order from the commander-in-chief, but we

with our own hands are simply creating some kind of

gangs that will later roam around

Russia and do who knows what, and well, I mean

this won’t lead to anything good

it will cost us an enormous

amount of money, and again the main

question is: why do we need any of this? Well, I’ve got

a message from Andrei Shpagin: Nino Rota is dying

Putin’s crazed [__]—well, you can

feel about them however you like; some people

consider them heroes, others consider them

not heroes at all, but obviously these people

went there to make money, but they are still

Russian citizens; they live next door to you

in the neighboring building. Those crazed [__] didn’t

come from some other country—they live here, and

however you may feel about them, you will

be paying their expenses, and that’s a lot of dollars

It’s a stupid idea to rejoice that they

were killed over there, like

“400 Putin supporters got bombed”

by the Americans”—that is an absolutely stupid position

because these are Russian citizens; here

their families are still here, their acquaintances are here

some have died, some will return

here, and it’s unclear what will be

going through their heads. This is our shared

problem, and of course we

need to treat this problem accordingly: we must

demand that this lying government

this disgusting Putin, who

has already said 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, whose wives are here

weeping in Sverdlovsk Oblast (a region in Russia)?

Let them answer that, then.

Vladislav Lozinsky: In the Beautiful Russia of the Future

of the Future, won’t they jam the internet

of Elon Musk? Is that within Musk’s power—Elon Musk’s, I mean?

First he has to roll out his own internet—at least that’s what he said

it all sounds nice; we’ll see. But

to wrap up the Syria topic, the main thing

we need—I propose that everyone simply

I urge everyone to focus on

the personalities of these people [__]. They are not

[__], but simply to say that we

as a state, as a society, as communities—whoever

you like—we 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 kind of

murky financial flows connected with

their 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.” That won’t happen, Andrei, because

foreign presidents don’t really care what

is happening here. Foreign presidents

say: let these Russians sort out

their own problems. I mean, if they

allow Putin to stay in power for 18 years

and rob them openly, then that is

the Russians’ problem. There’s no need to expect that

some Western politicians

will be outraged; they will consider him

a crook, a completely indecent

person, and we will suffer because of it, but

they will not solve our problems. So, well,

since we’ve started talking about

the elections

I’ve once again sunk to the bottom, where, according to

Bykov’s words, my moral bar lies

because somewhere down there, next to that

moral bar, deep below

lie our so-called elections and

the ratings of the so-called candidates

and, as you remember, we promised

we would continue conducting weekly

opinion polls so that you

could get real polling data on what

is actually happening 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, well, basically

nothing has changed. Putin’s rating

is still 80 percent; Zhirinovsky has

7 percent; Grudinin, 6 percent. But

a one-percent change, for us,

actually means nothing, because

it is within the margin of error. We still see

the main thing: Grudinin and Zhirinovsky

are fighting for second place, and all these

candidates have absolutely no

chance of forcing a second round or

of being noticed in any way in

this election. In other words, nothing at all

is happening with them. Let’s look at

the negative ratings—maybe they managed

to do at least something so that their negative

ratings would rise. 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 come Grigory

Yavlinsky and Zhirinovsky.

Putin, meanwhile, still has a low

negative rating. Obviously, people are simply already

afraid to say

whether they like him or don’t like him; they all don’t

include him in their negative ratings. Why?

The ratings aren’t rising, and the anti-ratings aren’t rising either.

Nothing at all is changing in the ratings.

This gives us the answer to that question.

The next slide gives us the answer. Let’s take a look.

Let’s look at the campaign materials—

which candidates’ materials have you

come across over the past two weeks?

Let’s go straight to the last column right away.

We look there: “none of the above.”

Seventy-four percent—that is, basically

74 percent of people, an overwhelming majority,

don’t see any campaigning at all and

don’t see any election campaign at all.

Well, there’s Zhirinovsky,

and of course Putin and Grudinin.

Zhirinovsky and Sobchak are at least somewhat visible,

since they show up on television.

So,

the minimum is Sobchak at 7 percent,

Zhirinovsky at 12 percent, Grudinin—well,

Putin is at 17 percent, not that far ahead, actually.

People notice them, but all the rest of our

fellow citizens don’t see any

election campaign at all. That’s rather depressing.

And by the way, have you seen

any campaign

materials? Today, an employee from our

office showed me

some campaign material that, for example,

Mr. Tsvetkov had put out:

improperly parked BMWs

decorated

with the logos of the Party of Growth and everything else.

So you can see what they’re doing:

they’re doing nothing.

Some little gimmicks for, say,

a funny photo, something for social media,

some statement that 27 people will discuss

on Facebook—but nothing meaningful,

not on a single important issue.

They don’t speak out on any of them. But for you,

we specifically asked

what people themselves consider important.

And it’s quite interesting—let’s see

which topics people want

the candidates to speak about: the quality of

education and healthcare—59

percent. That’s the number one issue. Russian citizens

want them to talk about that. Rising

prices and poverty—50 percent. Housing and utilities—47

percent. Corruption—which I’m glad to see—40

percent of people think it needs to be

discussed. Now let’s see

where the issues are that our candidates keep

going on and on about. Let’s go,

go, go, go all the way to the bottom.

There we see the country’s participation in international

military conflicts. It’s an important issue for me,

but

still, civil rights,

democratic freedoms, freedom of speech—

5 percent. Russia in

international politics—12 percent. And yet,

that’s all our candidates are talking about right now.

Grudinin says he’ll annex

Donbas (the war-torn region in eastern Ukraine). Sobchak goes, in the middle of the campaign, for

four days to the U.S., and there too they act

as if they’re great masters of foreign policy.

Yavlinsky is asked about Syria. It’s an important

issue, and I support him on that, but even so

the fact remains: most

people are not interested in international

politics at all. They don’t care about

Ukraine, America, Syria, or 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 events, no statements on these issues,

no debates on them—nothing at all.

It’s total emptiness. So, really,

there isn’t much to discuss here.

There is no election campaign. These candidates

are doing everything they can not to be noticed.

There’s a month left until the election, a month left,

and not one of these

candidates, as far as I know,

has any debate performance or even a single video

that has managed, in terms of views, even to

outdo this livestream of mine. And not because

I’m so amazing—

it’s because they’re not.

It’s because they don’t do a damn thing,

and don’t want to, because of the terms of the deal.

So don’t go to this election, don’t

take part in this disgrace.

Sign up as an observer

to stop them from falsifying turnout,

and don’t be part of this shameful, worthless,

pathetic spectacle. If the candidate isn’t

fighting for your vote, then why would you go

to the polling station? You can’t be more

active than the candidate—surely you agree

that’s obvious. It looks strange

when you sit there arguing with me

somewhere on social media, saying, “I absolutely

have to go vote,” while your candidate

whose name is on the ballot isn’t actually

participating in this election de facto—he just signed up,

and that’s it. And you’re rushing somewhere—don’t.

Don’t go there. Boycott it, and urge

everyone else to boycott it too. But do take part in

the campaign—well, I see people are asking.

“I’ve already signed up as an observer—should I wait for

training?” Of course. We’ll train everyone, and

of course we’ll send

prepared people to polling

stations. Okay, Alyosha Dementyev—well,

come back, I only caught part of it.

“I’m 19 years old…” I read that you were a participant

in a rally in Monchegorsk (a town in Murmansk Region), then I

didn’t manage to read the rest, so for now,

while they bring it back to me—here’s another question: “What do you think

about the news that money was allocated for the killing of

stray animals?” Well, the killing of animals

—of stray animals—was allocated funding too. Just

can one meet up with you

and take a photo with you in Moscow?

It’s very easy to take a photo with me in Moscow.

At any rally, there will be a march.

By the way, come to the Nemtsov March (a memorial march for opposition politician Boris Nemtsov).

At the Nemtsov March, you can take photos with me there.

As for the news that

the Moscow city government really

allocated money for killing stray

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

in all the cities that will host the World Cup.

It’s not

or money for sterilizing animals.

They’re talking about killing them, but that is stupidity,

cruelty.

And besides, it’s a pointless waste

of money. There are tons of studies that

show that populations of stray

animals—even if you kill all the cats and

dogs,

within three years the population comes back.

That’s just how big cities work:

the population of stray

animals recovers. So it is senseless,

stupid, and cruel. Is it normal

that my relatives call me a traitor because

I support you? No,

it is not normal that they call you

a traitor. 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 are.

My dear friend, talk to them.

Show them the video about

“the little fish” (apparently referring to an investigative video), and by the way, show them Abyzov’s house.

First show them the comments,

show them Prikhodko (a Russian official), whom I showed you today,

show them the TV Rain (Dozhd) report, show them his house,

show them his estate in Italy, and ask your relatives:

“My dear family, 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:

it doesn’t matter whether they like me or not,

they would say, “Well of course, that’s a patriot.”

It’s hard to ask Little Roll what

will happen to Volodya’s quadcopter when

Navalny becomes president—whether Volodya

will be in charge of reconnaissance in the country. But

Volodya’s quadcopter is still operational; we

use it and will keep using it. It’s just that

it isn’t suitable for the most important

operations. But of course we will

use it.

I hope that when I become president

of Russia, there will be higher-quality methods

and tools for reconnaissance than

quadcopters that can fly only three

kilometers (about 1.9 miles). Look—there are satellites,

satellites.

Technology has advanced so far now

that objects the size of

a pack of cigarettes can already be seen from orbit. We

want to move beyond quadcopters. As for

campaigning, let’s talk a little

about that. We’ve established that our opponents’

candidates aren’t doing a damn thing at all,

so there’s no campaigning from them.

But Vladimir Putin

is not asleep, Vladimir Putin is not dozing, and he is not

using his electoral fund—he is simply

constantly present on television. What’s more,

they have started rerunning a film that is

an absolutely sycophantic, disgusting film

which was made, unfortunately, by the wonderful

director Oliver Stone about Putin, and they began

showing it on Channel One.

And the Central Election Commission, after

numerous complaints—by the way,

including from Yavlinsky himself—stated that

it does not recommend showing this film,

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

here is a leaflet—our leaflet—on

which, as you can 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. So apparently, once again,

they understand that the word “deception”

of course means

Putin—but his name is not written there.

The Central Election Commission

considers this campaigning, and the police across

the country are confiscating these leaflets. But

the film about Putin contains no campaigning,

they say. 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 the candidate. What

are you about to see in these one minute and seven seconds?

Did you think this would last long? These were not the best

times for the country. There is a war in Chechnya,

and the situation is terrible.

And moreover,

in August 1999, Russia entered

the Second Chechen War.

And it was a very difficult

test for the country. I had to

practically take upon myself

responsibility for this situation.

You did a great deal during your first term:

you strengthened industry,

electronics, machine-building, agriculture,

increased GDP, raised

incomes, reformed the army,

resolved the Chechen conflict,

stopped privatization. A true son

of Russia. —Not exactly. I did not stop

privatization; I simply tried to make

it more fair. I did

everything so that state

property would not be sold off for next to nothing. We

put an end to the schemes under which

the oligarchy was created, and under which

people in the first stage were left behind.

Billionaires? Vladimir Vladimirovich, you...

You're so cool, so great. No, no—well, I...

I'm not great, I'm just—well, really...

just very cool, Vladimir Vladimirovich.

How did you manage to solve all of Russia's problems?

Russia—after all, Russia was practically in

ruins, and you solved all the problems. Well, I solved

most of them. We still have problems, of course, but

yes, I solved most of them. And this is not

the creation of a positive image. It

says that, well, he got rid of

the oligarchs, showing Gusinsky and

Berezovsky, who have long since

been gone.

At the same time, in reality Putin is

the father of Russia's oligarchs, not Yeltsin.

Under Yeltsin there were nine billionaires; under

him there are more than a hundred. And this is not

creating a positive image for him. Channel One

stopped showing this film as

some kind of—well, it's just a herd there, but what really

especially outrages me is that

the Central Election Commission

lies so blatantly that it says this leaflet, it, it

constitutes some kind of violation of

election law. As for that

film—they watched it and supposedly found no

violations at all. But

they're crooks, what else 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—people who aren't really campaigning.

And of course he'll say to you—no matter whom

you try to persuade—he'll say, "Are you nuts?

What is he even doing here? Voting for anyone

is worse—I'd rather vote for Putin." That's what all 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. There are much

richer countries with larger

populations, and they change power regularly.

One president replaces another, and no

catastrophe happens, nothing terrible occurs.

On the contrary, people live better because

power is replaceable. And if we think that in

a country of 145 million people there isn't, or won't be,

even one person who can

govern, then that is genuine

Russophobia. No one knew Putin until

Yeltsin, the 'Family' (Yeltsin's inner circle), and

Berezovsky made him president. What

does that mean—that Russia would have fallen into

some kind of abyss, I don't know, that it would have

shattered into pieces, or we all would have died

if Putin hadn't appeared? Of course not.

Obviously not. So you need to show

the example of other countries and say that there are

two iron facts. Fact number one: if

power changes regularly, the country

gets richer

and lives better. Fact number two: if power

doesn't change, the country gets poorer, lives worse, and

then ask your acquaintances, well,

has your salary's purchasing

power—has your salary gone up or

down? Have milk prices over the last five

years gone up

or down? Has your real income gone up or

down? Prices for, I don't know, phones and

food, for what—for gasoline—have they gone up

or down?

Well, maybe Putin did a good job, and you

think well of him—fine, he worked,

you think he worked well. But probably

he should be replaced by someone. There need to be some

methods of pressure, levers of influence. The people should

have someone to hold accountable; he probably should

answer questions. Probably all of his

entourage—from Deripaska to

the Rotenbergs (businessmen close to the Kremlin), to—well,

in short, all these

guys, the Rotenbergs, Timchenko, and all

the rest—they probably should provide

some kind of accounting of how exactly they

earned their billions. Officials

should answer for their palaces. Talk about this

and show them more videos.

That is, you shouldn't immediately tell such

stubborn people that Putin is your

bad guy, a scoundrel, and so on. Say instead:

start simply—there must be turnover of

power. Putin was good, fine, he ruled

for long enough—18 years. Let's replace him with someone

else, because in recent years

there is obvious decay, obvious decline

in people's incomes, simply across the board. And here's

another topic, by the way.

I was absolutely furious, just beside myself,

about Putin and about what

our country has turned into. We have

an activist, Ilya Popov.

He's twenty years old. He lives in a place you've

probably never even heard of.

He, Ilya, lives in the settlement of Zykova, or

Zaykov—most likely Zaykov—which you've

also probably never heard of, because it

is very far away, in the Irbitsky District

of Sverdlovsk Region—so, very

far away, a small settlement. This Ilya Popov

is an absolutely wonderful person. He

took these leaflets—"Real Citizens, I

am coming"—and went around posting them all over his settlement

because he was campaigning for a voters' strike.

So, using surveillance camera

footage—just imagine, in the settlement of

damn Zykova in Irbitsky District—some

police officers apparently had nothing else to do, they had no

other business except, from the camera footage,

surveillance footage.

They couldn't find this person or establish his whereabouts.

So they took him to court.

He was fined 1,000 rubles, and then

they took him to the factory administration office.

At the dairy plant in the settlement of Zykova, there is

the Irbit Dairy Plant, which belongs,

incidentally, to the state, and

to this state-owned dairy plant they brought him

to the director.

There, the director gave him

a lecture about how I am with foreign

agents, that he is engaged in extremist

activity, and forced him—or rather fired him.

He said, “Take out a pen and write your resignation right now.”

He apparently decided not to escalate things and said, well,

“Fine, I’ll write it.” They fired the guy because

he was putting up those leaflets. The director’s

name is Sergey Suyetin, I think—Svetishcha?

Sergey Suyetin, exactly right. Well, I

read this and got really angry. I thought, what a

bastard this Sergey Suyetin is, really.

Most importantly—why? Fine, even if you

support Putin, even if you back

Putin—your employee, in his free time outside

of work, was going around putting up these leaflets.

You’re at this dairy plant in some settlement—why are you

interfering with him? Why do you think

it’s necessary to summon him and say,

“Write a resignation letter, because we

have to throw you out of the factory for

putting up leaflets”? And I very

quickly found the reason.

If you google the Irbit Dairy Plant

and google this very Sergey

Suyetin, the director of this plant, you

will find out why he likes this government.

Because this dairy plant,

which is state-owned, not long ago announced a

procurement

for a car for this very Suyetin—

that car was a Lexus 570 for 7 million

rubles. A dairy plant in the settlement of Zykova

in Irbit District, Sverdlovsk Region.

After a huge scandal there,

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

canceled the purchase. But just think

about this man’s sheer audacity: you work

at a state-owned factory. I don’t want to offend

anyone in Zykova, in the middle of nowhere, but

you want, with state money,

to buy a car that

presidents of developed countries don’t even buy.

Go on, 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 bigger than Russia’s GDP—yes, look at

what the governor of California drives. I doubt

you’ll see a Lexus 570 there.

And that’s why this bastard hates

this very Ilya Popov, because

he speaks out against this, because we

want to create a government under which it will be

impossible. First, the state does not

need to own any dairy plant. Second,

it certainly does not need to

buy a car—let alone buy

itself a Lexus 570 for 7 million rubles.

The average salary at this plant

is 25,000–30,000 rubles. This Ilya Popov

worked there as a trainee foreman

and earned 10,000 rubles there. So you

pay people 10,000 to 30,000 rubles and

want to buy a car for 7 million.

That’s why they adore this government so much.

So here is the dairy plant’s website. If we

go there now, it looks like this. Please show

me—there, you see? This is

the dairy plant’s website: “Everyone to the elections,”

“Everyone to Putin’s re-election,” because this

Sergey Suyetin is a disgusting crook. He

adores this government with every fiber of his being.

What other government, what other system

would allow him to post procurements like that? In

any normal country, he’d be jailed. It wouldn’t even

occur to anyone. Why, workers at a dairy plant

would punch your 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

Suyetin. And I want to call on

the residents of the settlement of Zykova to tell this

Suyetin, when you meet him, everything you think

needs to be said.

About the opposition—I also wanted to

show you an interesting

video, because a very interesting situation is

developing in one particular

district of the Moscow region where the opposition

won and came to power—in

Krasnoselsky District.

You know that in several districts of Moscow

independent deputies won the majority, but in

Krasnoselsky District in particular

they really

put Ilya Yashin in charge 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 власти, and you, the opposition, are

the minority. And of course, United

Russia, Sobyanin, Rakova—they just can’t

calm down. They created special

movements literally called “Against

Yashin,” and they hold pickets outside his

municipal office. And it’s very interesting

to watch. It’s curious to see how

this is supposed to work: they came to power,

there is some opposition—Putin’s people are pushing back,

they’re there, but those people most likely are being paid.

they get paid off, but the husband doesn't

isn't paid off, and in any case we obviously

there are people in the Krasnoselsky District who

don't like Yashin, and

and right now they're simply barging into his

municipal office, disrupting these meetings

well, taking advantage of the fact that the police

support them in an informal way, and so

let's just take literally a few

seconds—up to 55 seconds—on how exactly

a normal politician who has come to power

handles things, how he suppresses the opposition

in his district—55 seconds, basically

girls, the agenda still has various items left

if there are any proposals on the issue

that I want to put to you

in working order. Thank you, colleagues. With that,

I declare the meeting of the Council of Deputies

closed

those questions were heard

and so on. Let's start with this: you can see what kind of

situation has developed around your movement

we are ready to ensure representation at

the meetings of the Council of Deputies. I can

guarantee you that on all issues

on the agenda, if desired, we will provide

time to speak, in accordance with common sense

that works

completely. We talked—this is how we

will deal with the opposition in the Beautiful

Russia of the Future. This is what every

politician should do. Look, Yashin didn't

die from it; it's his job. There are some

people who are pretty... well, they still

haven't... they force their way into the meeting hall, they

shout, they stand there with signs against Ya...

their movement is called 'Against Yashin'

I sat them down, talked to them, shook hands with them, and already

the tone was completely different. That's the work

of a normal politician, and our country

will become normal when politicians and

officials... Yashin, by the way, yes,

he is an opposition politician, but municipal

officials—if you live in Moscow, then he

gets his salary 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. One very

small topic, and perhaps you've already

read about it on my blog—well, it's a

small but pleasant victory, a small

victory over idiocy. Did you see that

photograph for which our activist in

Arkhangelsk was charged? It's the famous photograph from the

Victory Parade (the Soviet/Russian WWII victory commemoration parade)

He was prosecuted for

displaying Nazi symbols, and he could have

as you can see in the photo, he could have been

put on the list of extremists, and I organized

a special campaign against idiocy because

to be honest, it infuriated me too

It's a well-known

wartime photograph from our history, and these

idiots—when I say 'these idiots,' I mean

everyone involved, really: the FSB, the Interior Ministry, the courts

everyone was involved, and at every link in this

chain they said, well yes, here's a person who

posted this photograph

it's in history textbooks, so apparently we

need to punish him for extremism and

fine him

and after we launched it—after I

told this story

thousands of people took part in the campaign

against idiocy by reposting, as a sign

of protest, this photograph. And today, in

the appellate court, he was acquitted

obviously under our pressure. I congratulate you all

on this. Let's work in such a way

that we can achieve at least small victories

over the idiocy of this government, of these idiots

there are many of them, they keep pressing on us, and for now, unfortunately, we are

losing to them overall. But when we

come together, we can deal

a fairly painful blow to idiocy and to idiots

and many thanks to everyone who watched

see you next Thursday

sign up as election observers—we'll catch

the crooks red-handed. Goodbye

[music]