Top 7 polling stations. Atlas Putin holds up the country. Red diagonal cross

[music]

Good evening, everyone. In Moscow, it's exactly 8:00 p.m.

That means your favorite live program is on the air.

Your favorite program, *Russia of the Future*,

and I’m its host, Alexei Navalny, or...

a blogger, just a blogger. This week on

I can already see a question coming in from Darina.

She writes: “Alexei, are they really showing you

on Rossiya 1? Technology really has come a long way.”

There really was a big report on

Rossiya 1 where they showed me. I don’t know

how many years it’s been since the last time

they showed me in such a long

segment. They called me

a blogger, actually.

Lyubov Sobol dropped by today,

all triumphant, and said: “On Rossiya 1

you’re just a blogger, while I, by the way, am a lawyer

at the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation). Please send your questions

with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture on Twitter, and I

will try to answer them

whenever possible as they appear here.

Let me remind you that there are two

links below. One link is for becoming

a friend and sponsor of our channel. The other

link is for sending ducks

and other animals that will

appear at the bottom of the screen, and each such

duck or other creature

is a donation that will help

our program keep going. So let’s

start with who is profiting from

the memory of our ancestors. Because in that report

on Rossiya 1—I’ll show you that clip later—

that part was actually

more or less about this very thing: that, supposedly,

Navalny is speaking out and cashing in,

gaining political capital. There were

experts sitting there, a whole bunch of them, and they

were saying all sorts of things. But what’s very

interesting is that my previous

video—the very important one I

talked about, where I proposed and submitted

a bill, and where you too added

your signatures in support of raising pensions

for war veterans,

that is exactly the thing they avoid, and it’s

very, very uncomfortable for them. And I want

to say once again: I’m not going

to let this whole issue

of United Russia

refusing to raise pensions for war

veterans go. We will keep pushing it, and I urge everyone

to push it too, because exactly what

we said would happen has happened:

the same thing that happens every year, really.

Putin comes out again and talks about

these war veterans and how much he

loves them—he loves talking about them—but he

doesn’t want to raise their pensions. 34,000 rubles.

The campaign is moving forward. Many thanks to Maxim Reznik

—a great deputy of the St. Petersburg

Legislative Assembly—who submitted this

bill.

That is, for it to end up in the

State Duma, there are

several routes. One of them is when

a faction in the State Duma

simply takes it and submits it. We’ll see whether they

do that or not. But the process can

also work like this:

a regional legislative assembly

votes on it and then submits it to the federal

Duma. And that’s very important because in

regional legislative assemblies there are the same

United Russia members, and in the next elections

in St. Petersburg and all across the country

we’ll have an excellent opportunity to ask

them: “So how did you vote, exactly?”

And specifically right now in St. Petersburg,

after Maxim’s speech,

after Maxim Reznik submitted

the bill, not a single United Russia member in

St. Petersburg will be able to say,

“I didn’t know,” or “I hadn’t heard.” Let’s

listen first

to what Reznik said when he submitted

the bill: “Dear Vyacheslav

Serafimovich, dear colleagues, I’ll begin with two

quotes. One quote is this: ‘Colleagues

are proposing to cash in on the patriotic

agenda.’ Those are the words of Vyacheslav Serafimovich

Makarov at the previous session. The second

quote is somewhat older, from

the wonderful Soviet film *We, the Undersigned*.

In it, the character played by Leonid

Kuravlyov says: ‘To love your homeland

is not to kiss birch trees; it is to support

the most honest,

the most devoted, when times are hard for them. They

are the homeland.’ Colleagues, I spent a whole

week thinking about your speech, and yesterday

I submitted to the legal department

a draft law on amendments to

the federal law on veterans, in which

I propose radically increasing pensions

for participants in the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet term for World War II) by

five times, to 200,000 rubles. I

believe budget money should

be spent, even in large amounts—this is

just 80 billion rubles a year for veterans of the

Great Patriotic War.

Not on Sechin, Deripaska, Kovalchuk,

Rotenberg, Vekselberg, and Putin’s other friends.

That is what money should be spent on. That, in

my view,

colleagues, is what a patriotic agenda is. Let us

make it so that the symbol

of state policy toward people

is the pension of a Great Patriotic War

veteran: 200,000 rubles,

not endless parades, war churches,

and miles of propaganda

that we are seeing now. Vyacheslav

Serafimovich, that would be a responsible

decision. And how responsible was the

decision to hold a parade in the middle

of a pandemic? Let’s make it so that a war...”

the victors had pensions higher than, for example,

the average pension of a veteran of the German army

that would be real gratitude to these people

that would be genuine appreciation for them

and there are only 75,000 left in the entire

country

they will never see fair

gratitude from the state, the very people who

defended it—that’s what I want to understand

why do they need this parade now, when

there’s an epidemic? This is an example of how important it is

to have a decent independent deputy

and once again, for the hundred-millionth time, I’ll say

and I’ll keep repeating very often that in

September there will be new elections

Smart Voting should work everywhere

there are 31 regions involved, so look—there is

a decent deputy, and he comes out and says

simple and obvious things, but as in the film

*The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed* (a famous Soviet TV series)

the United Russia members are stunned—they’re basically saying, “You’ve completely

thrown us off, son, with this

question, and we have nothing to say in response”

the one who came out there to argue with Reznik was a deputy

from United Russia, Vasilyev. Let’s

listen to 1 minute and 10 seconds of his

speech—well, basically, that’s all

United Russia can offer in terms of a substantive

response to us, at most

Gentlemen, I want to say this: you could at least

have a little shame before us, but no

based on Navalny’s words, he’s even citing numbers

just like that

[music]

you need to be at least a little more careful somehow

in how you act, at least in this respect

because using the podium

of a specific issue

to pursue your political ambitions

yes, well, that’s probably not

quite what we expect here

there’s no need to turn the Legislative Assembly into this

there should be a pile of primary sources—well, like in

Navalny’s case, 200,000 in calculations, and you, well

somehow... And now I would like to say

something after all about internal

financial control

Boris Lazarevich, if you are a deputy

of the Legislative Assembly, then if you speak about something

you should at least, in the first

approximation, know what it is

they have nothing to say in response—they get lost, they’re afraid, they are

in principle very afraid even to

discuss it, although in fact, well

it’s simply the way the question is posed. Let’s look at

Vasilyev’s income declaration there

the very one who just spoke—he has there

those same 200,000 rubles a month (about $2,200), even

a little more. And all we want

is for our victorious soldiers to receive

a pension just as high. Aren’t they no less

deserving than deputy Vasilyev from United

Russia? In fact, they are more deserving. We were literally told

on television, they came out and said our

soldiers who fought—veterans, and

the remaining participants in the war—are holy

people, literally. So what, are we really unwilling

to pay these holy people 200,000 rubles (about $2,200)?

No, we’re not unwilling—but we do feel sorry for Vasilyev from United Russia,

and not for these holy people. So that’s why I urge

you to keep a file on every United Russia member at every

election—their refusal to raise pensions

for veterans—and I urge you to do exactly the same

43,000 people are on the Smart

live stream with the hashtag #Russia

OfTheFuture on Twitter; you can ask

questions. Inna Yanpolskaya

Zinchenko asks me how things are going

with Pyotr Verzilov. If you’ve been following

this story about Pyotr Verzilov

with all its twists and these astonishing

explanations—they arrested Pyotr Verzilov

who is the publisher of Mediazona

and a member of the well-known collective Pussy

Riot, and also of the art collective Voina (a Russian protest art group). He’s a

creative, remarkable person, and he

became famous for many things, in particular

for running onto the field during the

World Cup dressed as a Soviet-style police officer, and

now they simply start jailing Verzilov

every time the authorities prepare some

event involving Putin. And so

first they broke down Verzilov’s door this

week

and took him away to an unknown location

for no clear reason. Then they said it was in connection with

a criminal case—the so-called Moscow Case (a series of prosecutions tied to 2019 protests)

then

well, they had to release him

they released him, and then some kind of provocateur attacked him

but that has already been proven—there is

video footage, and he was brought there by the

police themselves. And they wanted to

detain him immediately as he left the police station because

supposedly he had started a fight in the street, but

there was video footage, as I understand it,

showing that Verzilov did not start any

fight at all. But in the end, all they

managed to invent against him was using obscene

language in a public place, and

they jailed him for 15 days on an obviously

fabricated case. He is now being held

in the Mnyovniki special detention center

which, as I understand it, is a decent detention center

well

I’ve been there more than once—it’s better than the

detention center where I most often

end up, but still, you understand, well

you can joke about it, but 15 days of arrest

is still a punishment, and it is completely illegal

an absolutely illegal arrest. I actually wanted

now, especially since it has been mentioned

and we’ve talked about this kind of thing

to remind you of those people who constantly need

our support, and it is very

important to give people that support and not

forget about them. This week a verdict was handed down

in the so-called case

The Network case was completely fabricated, and so on.

a fabricated case against

young people. And this isn't even the St. Petersburg episode

of the case; it doesn't concern this story here,

with all those murky stories about murders and so on.

That too was fabricated by them.

The scuffle in, well, in St. Petersburg was absolutely

made up, and the local anti-fascists

and the FSB officers simply decided to lock them up.

And they really did lock them up for a long time. There was Viktor

Filinkov — 7 years in prison; Boaryshinov

received 5 and a half years

in prison.

These were simply completely innocent young people,

so that some officer could move up from

captain to major, and a major could become

a lieutenant colonel.

And they invented a case against them; they tortured them

with electric shocks. This has been repeatedly

documented — it's completely obvious. And

what else is happening now?

They slapped them with these huge sentences. Let's

watch 28 seconds — an armored police van was pulling up somehow

during the reading of the verdict.

[applause]

Seven years.

[music]

You saw it on the left side of the screen — there

several dozen people were detained

who had come to support these people.

So this is exactly like the Stalinist repressions (mass political persecutions under Stalin),

meaning: for nothing, on the basis of a completely

made-up case. Back then, it used to be:

"You're a Japanese spy," and that was it — 10 years in prison for you.

And here it's: "You're a terrorist,"

and you get seven and a half years. It's absolutely

the same thing, just without any

real involvement by these people.

We absolutely must not forget them; they need

to be supported, and this must constantly be compared with

what happens to actual

criminals, who enjoy

complete favor from

the Putin regime. Within an interval of 1

hour, two verdicts were delivered. One was in

the Network case — 7 years and 5 and a half years — and

the other verdict was handed down to

a major general in the Interior Ministry named Alexander

Kuznetsov.

So what did Alexander

Kuznetsov do? In 2012, he

was working in Norilsk, and the Norilsk police headquarters

— the local Interior Ministry department —

signed a contract to build

a pretrial detention center.

372 million rubles were allocated (about US$5.8 million at the time), and 200 million of that

Kuznetsov transferred with his signature,

but the detention center was never built. So,

that is, they didn't just skim a little off the top or something,

it wasn't a matter of shaving off some percentage in kickbacks or anything else,

they simply stupidly transferred

200 million rubles somewhere, and it vanished.

And this fine major general

of police, 50 years old,

what did he get as punishment? 5

years suspended. The man will not spend

a single day in prison. You understand — he wasn't even really

put on trial properly. And this is very important

to explain and show to everyone, because

these are not just people who are ideologically close to the regime,

but rather, absolutely — I mean simply —

an obviously corrupt part of Putin's

nomenklatura (the ruling official elite) gets away with suspended sentences.

And these really are dangerous people.

They robbed us — in one case alone, 200

million rubles, and then they laundered that money. But

these are police officers — this is a truly

real criminal gang

that existed and probably still

exists in this department, yes, and

there are a huge number of such groups. Five years

suspended — that's how it works. This

week there was an online campaign in which

1

everyone was posting tweets and messages with the hashtag

#FreeTheShaman, and of course I joined it.

Today, Memorial (the Russian human rights organization) recognized

Alexander Gabyshev — that very

Yakut shaman who was marching

to drive Putin away — and recognized him as

a political prisoner. I mean, well,

I also said "shaman" and laughed, but

there is nothing funny about this situation.

Gabyshev isn't even in prison — he is under

forced psychiatric

confinement. This is one of the most horrific

things that can happen. You can

read about it in the memoirs of Soviet

dissidents, and in fact even now

there are quite a lot of people

who have gone through this to one degree or another.

When they lock you up somewhere and you

shout, "Get me out of here, I'm not

crazy" — and you're obviously a completely normal

person — then they give you some injection, and

you

lie there for a month, unable to move properly,

unable to stir, unable to

think clearly. These are in fact monstrous

forms of torture that people are subjected to, as I

understand it.

That is what Alexander Gabyshev is being subjected to now, and

he was absolutely rightfully recognized as

a political prisoner.

He is a political prisoner.

And regardless of whether he wanted to

drive Putin away with a drum or was simply sitting

at home in Yakutia watching television, no one

has the right to do this to him, and

no one has the right to subject a person to

forced psychiatric

confinement. Just look — this is far

more dangerous even than, say,

when they took Verzilov and jailed him — for nothing, of course —

making up 15 days of detention, because at least there

are some rules, however minimal. We

know that Verzilov is sitting in a cell, that he is

fed three times a day, and...

from a psychiatric evaluation there,

there is no trial, no verdict,

a commission just shows up and says he has,

so-called sluggish schizophrenia and they start

injecting him.

And after six months, you really will

turn into some kind of psycho or madman

because they just kept injecting you and injecting you.

There are huge numbers of such cases in history.

That is exactly why, in Soviet times,

Soviet psychiatrists, for example,

were condemned and were often not allowed to attend

international conferences on

psychiatry, because everyone was outraged and

said: you really created some kind of

fascist torture machine against

people. Artyom Ivanov, an employee of BK,

this week — a person who

helped me, among other things, produce these broadcasts,

especially when we were broadcasting from home, setting up

the internet — a young guy, he is 18 years old. He

has had, since his school days, from a long time ago,

a medical certificate saying that he has

asthma and is not subject to conscription. They simply

grabbed him not even near his home — he was on his way to

the hospital for an examination because

he had received a summons, and he was going there properly,

to the police, knowing he had asthma. They caught him,

and took him away.

He was conscripted instantly; now he is somewhere in

some dump in the Vladimir region,

stuffed into some training unit. So of course we

appealed it in court, and from the moment

the appeal was filed in court, his conscription should

have been suspended.

But this is a typical example: the army

has turned into a prison — any person under

27 can now be grabbed, dragged away,

sent to Novaya Zemlya (a remote Russian Arctic archipelago) or somewhere else, and

that is that. We also actually have, in

Yaroslavl, a local staff member from the headquarters,

Daniil Volkhin — the same thing. Long ago, by

decision of the commission, he was deemed unfit for

military service, yet the draft office keeps

sending him text-message summonses and trying to

declare him fit. Alexei, let's

finally talk about the cross on the mug.

Tomorrow I'm going on Krasny, I'll talk about it

in quite a lot of detail. Well, I saw, I watched

today's mini-broadcast by Milov.

Everyone in the comments was going on and on about

those red crosses. I like the red

cross — I'll talk about it separately. So, about

the Saratov Duma, I'll talk about Bondarenko.

There are lots of questions — I'll talk about Bondarenko.

Alexei, how is the voting going? How many

people voted in favor? But I heard that

yes, the Moscow

Election Commission said that there were

something like 6

percent during the day, and now already 10 percent

have voted. But really, who

can believe or verify these numbers? And

even the very question of how many people

voted looks absurd. I mean, you

saw those ballot boxes — does anyone really think

someone can count that seriously? We will also

talk about this in detail. There are one

thousand people watching us live right now. In the

previous program I talked about it, and there was

a certain amount of resonance around

this church — that church of war

that they built in the Moscow region

at a military training ground where there is no congregation at all — and I am glad

that a large number of Orthodox Christians,

along with me — well, atheists

being outraged is understandable, they never like anything,

but quite a large number of

Orthodox believers are outraged that what was built is

an absolutely pagan temple.

A priest from Novosibirsk wrote

a post saying, literally in my words —

though not really my words, he simply couldn't find other words —

he called the whole thing a pagan

shrine, and for that he was immediately

— you see, he said this is not a church but a

pagan shrine — immediately suspended

from service and subjected to all sorts of

repressions there.

And the situation around this church

keeps developing, developing in the most

absurd way possible. And the fact that

they really did build a church to war

or to the god of war is no longer just something

hinted at in speeches — it is being

stated outright. And of course Patriarch

Kirill, the head of this church in the name of the god of

war, he

— on June 22, they gathered a large number of

service members there, and speaking before

them, he literally congratulated everyone on the beginning

of the war. Everyone thought that maybe

he had misspoken, or people had misheard, but in

fact he even explained that this was,

of course, tragic, but at the same

time also a solemn

day. Let's play 9 seconds of Patriarch Kirill

who

congratulates everyone on the beginning of the war, on this

momentous, mournful, but at the same time

solemn day: 'I warmly

congratulate you all.'

Quite something, isn't it — 'I congratulate you on the beginning

of the war.' Yes, of course, some 25

million, maybe 30 million people

were killed,

tens of millions of families were destroyed,

a monstrous tragedy — but I congratulate you

because it is, of course, a solemn

day. After all, thanks to that, now we

can build a huge church, hold

parades, and feed the whole country a line

about how this is somehow our

achievement.

The photographs of what was happening around

this church from June 22 to the 24th, up to

yesterday, when the parade took place, are simply

staggering. In all seriousness, not as a joke,

In all seriousness, they put tanks there.

Right next to the church, they set them on fire, and people

were walking around and taking pictures, you know.

Some kind of scene with burning tanks on the approach to

the church, I mean,

as if burning tanks were somehow normal.

If it's a reenactment, then you can set it up somewhere

out in a field: burning tanks, people around them

running around pretending they're soldiers and

taking pictures—that's great. But why are you doing this

next to a church, next to the house of God?

This is just, really, in terms of basic feeling,

a genuine insult, and

nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. I'll say it again—yes, I repeat myself

often.

But I'm convinced of this, and I think it's important

for everyone to understand that, of course, these

leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)

and of our state do not believe in God.

Without a doubt. And this is one of the biggest

lies—yes, one of the biggest

deceptions they engage in when they

talk about being believers of some kind.

They are not believers at all—they're pagans, that's what they are.

The only thing missing there is for

someone to walk around with a staff,

with, say, a goat's skull on it

or a cow's skull. Then it would be

the proper and complete finishing touch

for this pagan shrine. Not that

I'm against someone

walking around with a goat's or cow's skull,

but still, you have to consider what's appropriate

for each religion.

That same shaman, Alexander Gabyshev, might

use accessories like that in his own

ritual religious practices,

but in Orthodoxy, that's not how it's done. And we all

saw, since the church was open to

visitors, that very main artifact,

the religious relic that not everyone

was boasting about: Hitler's uniform. That's what it

looks like. Let's take a look—there it is,

in this museum attached to the church.

This is the main exhibit. You see, there

is the swastika and everything—Hitler's uniform. So

now all the great admirers of Hitler

can come there, bow down, kiss

the glass or whatever, and just

perform some rituals in service of Hydra.

This wonderful opportunity has been provided

to them by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Ministry of Defense.

So anyway, I started by saying that

I was shown on Channel Two

on a program there, and yes, it really did surprise me,

and

of course I want to express my great

gratitude

to Olga Skabeeva and, Lord forgive me, Vitaly

Popov.

Vitaly or Vladimir—anyway, that same

guy who once made

that report claiming I was Agent Freedom, an agent

of every foreign intelligence service imaginable.

It was a very absurdly concocted report, delivered

with a completely straight face, saying that

I work for absolutely all foreign

intelligence agencies.

I sued, with absolutely no result,

because the court—those who have watched my

program for a long time know this—the court literally

replied to me as follows: that "Agent Freedom"

is not, in fact, an insulting nickname.

It's just "an agent of freedom."

So none of your honor, Navalny,

the program

on Channel Two did not defame at all.

Everything is fine. So apparently, as a form of

rehabilitation for that monstrously

ridiculous story, this married couple, Skabeeva and

Popov, put out—well, they spent a long time there

discussing me, criticizing me, but there was an almost

one-minute segment, and they showed

a big chunk of my video. Let's

watch it for a couple of seconds.

Let's watch. The whole country is

bewildered: why the hell do we need a parade on June 24?

What's it for? Why is it needed? Just on

transporting servicemen alone, 290

million rubles were spent to show this parade

to the whole country, which is apparently dying

to see yet another parade.

They organize a live broadcast, and it costs

almost 93 million rubles, plus

the scorching asphalt in central Moscow,

the rehearsals, those endless traffic jams that

cost the city's economy dearly.

Add to that the treatment for all those

people who will, of course, get infected at these

insane parades in the middle of an epidemic.

This parade has a single viewer. The whole country

is tapping its temple and saying,

have you lost your minds? Buy medicine for pensioners

with that money, give some kind of help instead.

Great—they even showed all the key parts.

They probably assumed that people

watching that second program would think:

at a time like this, we want to spend 200 million on

transporting servicemen, we want to spend

90 million on the broadcast, on these

wonderful

video clips from the broadcast where

the camera flies out of

a jet engine nozzle and into

the barrel of a tank. Let's see how it

all looked—wonderful, amazing

special effects.

[music]

[applause]

So apparently, apparently they thought that

everyone would be outraged, but it seems to me I even

managed, even through that little excerpt, to get across

all the right points: that it really

was a parade for one man, that it was

just some incomprehensible thing from the point

of view of the country, strange from the point of view of veterans,

from the point of view of the older generation,

an absolutely absurd thing from the point of view

some kind of demonstration of Putin’s

geopolitical superiority, because

if we look at the list of leaders

who came there, then honestly

speaking, it’s hard to look at without tears. I mean,

there was Abkhazia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the young guy in Serbia,

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and South Ossetia.

Wonderful. There’s your international clout. I

was honestly even surprised. I mean,

Putin had of course invited them already.

He invited all sorts of people, various

representatives, including, I can say, from normal

countries—these are normal countries too, but

representatives of, let’s say, more

powerful and important countries refused. So in the end

you invited these minor ones, and you can’t even

shoo them away—they came, so you can’t

say, “I’ll stand alone, and you

stand there in the third row.” So he had to appear with

such a, frankly speaking, unimpressive

selection of presidents. Really,

it would have been better if he had been alone; better

not to have invited anyone at all. And this whole

Putin-style circus around the

parade

as I said

in my previous program,

it is clearly no longer meeting with

any interest from the public,

because this is why people of the older

generations say the parade is just for show,

that it isn’t needed at all, because they

remember that in the past there were no

parades. Even I remember that back then

when there were still lots of veterans,

when they met up, when they were

alive—all these people who are now

being glorified; now there are very few of them left—

when they were alive, there were basically no

parades taking place.

Let’s take a look. There was this popular

infographic on social media.

You can see the years in which they held

the parade—the parade in the form

we know it today, a pompous

event with tanks and so on—that is

purely a Yeltsin invention. I found it

very funny to read all those pro-Putin types

who were writing in response to the video

and to Navalny,

saying, “So you begrudge spending billions on the parade?

Then let’s shut down the Yeltsin Center

which costs a billion, and use that

money for the parade.” Fine, dismantle the Yeltsin Center

if you like, but just remember that this parade

was created by

Yeltsin and Putin. Yeltsin’s ratings started collapsing,

and for the 50th anniversary of Victory Day (marking the Soviet victory in World War II), he then

staged a super-pompous parade, and then

it was repeated every year, throwing

huge amounts of money at it. He was trying

to do the same thing—he was trying

to fill his presidency

with a kind of sacred aura drawn from the Great

Patriotic War (the Soviet term for the Eastern Front of World War II). So this is

an absolutely artificial construct. All

those veterans remember that the main

demonstration was on November 7

—that was the main holiday. Now it’s been completely

forgotten. Then there was also the important

May Day demonstration—people simply

marched. And earlier, when there was

a May 9 celebration, it was a completely

different kind of day. It wasn’t steeped in this

hellish militarism the way it is now, when all those people were still alive.

And not even the war participants themselves—

just older people in general—they

remember perfectly well, and they understand perfectly well

that Putin is engaged in something absolutely

disgusting and pointless, and

my God, I’m not afraid to call

it exactly what it is: utter vileness and disgrace.

All these various displays

of servility that are presented

under the guise of love for veterans, and “we,” supposedly,

“honor the memory of our ancestors.” In

Novosibirsk, people organized an

Immortal Regiment march

—an Immortal Regiment event. So what did they do?

They put portraits into

an airplane, and those portraits were then

flown over the city.

44 seconds

[music]

This is the first time in 70 years that the Victory Parade

has been held on June 24. Besides the fact that

it was held in 1945,

that historic date means that today we are, in effect,

2

[music]

Ah, sorry, that was Yekaterinburg—I said

Novosibirsk. Well, I’m sure that those

very ancestors, those frontline soldiers whose

portraits were being flown around on a plane—if they

saw this,

they would say something like: “Well, we

won the war, everything was fine, except for one

problem: our grandchildren

...” Because really, what kind of nonsense is this?

Some absurdity—flying portraits over the city

in an airplane. Why? What for? What is this?

How does this have anything at all to do with

honoring the memory of our ancestors? To this day, we still have

millions of people not properly buried, around places like

Rzhev, and even in the Moscow region—you don’t have to go far

to find places where, if you

scratch the ground, there are bones lying there, unburied—

people still not laid to rest. But no, damn it, instead of

doing that proper work, we’re going to

do what? Fly portraits around

in an airplane. What amazing remembrance.

As if the whole country desperately needs

some portraits flying over the city

of Yekaterinburg. This is, of course, just

I don’t even know what to

call it, you know. Yes, it’s that worn-out thing about

a cargo cult—but really, that’s exactly what it is too.

all this dancing with tambourines, and I’m sure many people

any normal surviving participant

of the war would not just laugh at it,

but would look at it with the utmost bewilderment,

just as, in fact, they would at

the huge number of medals with which

now practically every official is decked out. They’ve all

suddenly become such

organized guys now. Back in the day they

used to walk around in ordinary civilian suits,

but now a different fashion has taken hold, and everyone wears so many

medals as if he had conquered half of

planet Earth. You look at Shoigu

and, good grief, you get the impression that

the man conquered all of Europe. Where did

so many medals come from? For what? And all of them have them.

What really struck me at this

at this parade, in this footage,

in this recording,

was Russia’s transport minister,

a man named Dietrich. Let’s—just a second—can you

show him? He looked like,

I mean,

he was dressed like some magnificent, I don’t know,

captain—or, I don’t know, the captain

of an alien ship or a starship—and on top of that

there he is, walking along in this luxurious white

uniform, covered in medals.

I looked and saw it said: Minister

of Transport of Russia. I thought, well, I don’t know,

maybe he fought somewhere, although judging by

his age that doesn’t seem to fit. So I went

to look up his biography, and the guy literally

in the most literal sense—his main,

indeed his only “victory,” if you can call it that,

was privatization—the very same

monstrous privatization of 1996

that Putin now recalls as

the “cursed ’90s” in every one of his speeches.

Let’s look at Wikipedia for this man’s biography,

Dietrich.

In 1995, he joins the State

Committee of Russia for the Management of

State Property, then

deputy head of a department division,

then in property relations, then later

deputy director of the department of economic

development, deputy head

of the road agency, and so on and so forth, and then

now first deputy, then first

deputy transport minister, and now

transport minister—and there he is, walking around covered in

medals in a white dress tunic, and really, I mean,

I mean,

what a disgrace. Sure, it’s obvious these

are all medals for the 85th anniversary of Moscow and whatever else,

some other ridiculous little

jubilee medals—ones that people who actually earned

real combat decorations

would be embarrassed even to wear. But it’s just

interesting how this all, to me, is very

interesting—how it transforms when they

are just utterly, to the marrow,

civilian people, and on top of that simply crooks,

who carried out privatization together with Chubais

and all the other crooks, and now he has put on

medals and

walks before us, and so we’re apparently also

supposed to think that now he too will file

a complaint against me and say I insulted

a veteran—after all, he has medals, a white cap,

some kind of cockade, I don’t know, everything

is in place—so he’ll file a complaint too, of course.

How dare Navalny insult

decorated men? And they’re all like this. It’s actually very

important, in fact, to point all

of this out and show it to everyone,

especially to older people, whom they

are trying to brainwash with all this.

You have to show them and say that these people have absolutely

no right to wear any of this. It’s like,

you know, the old badge for higher

education—they used to have that little diamond-shaped badge,

a little blue one—roughly the same kind of thing.

It’s the same idea. But if you have such a badge,

fine, let it hang at home on your wall,

but don’t come out here

showing off your fake medals

at a parade next to people who really

actually

fought somewhere.

Igor Makarenko asks me how my case for

the rehabilitation of Nazism is going. No, no,

no, it’s not a rehabilitation of Nazism case. They

tried to open a case for the rehabilitation

of Nazism,

well, yes, they were trying to scrape together grounds for criminal charges against me,

but as it stands, there is a defamation case

involving a veteran, and it’s not

going anywhere at all. But I don’t know, I’m kind of

waiting.

Something should be happening—summonses or

an interrogation or something—but so far absolutely nothing

has happened. Probably that’s because

they themselves understand just how

fabricated and made-up this case is, and, well,

as for whether I’m preparing any additional documents,

I don’t know—nothing is happening.

Alex Zveri asks: isn’t it true that

the 10,000-ruble (about 100 USD) payments in May for children

will be deducted from our pensions? I’ve seen—people have written to me

about this, and frankly I’d need to ask someone more knowledgeable,

I wouldn’t risk stating it outright right now, but I

have seen several messages saying that in fact

this money was taken from

the funded part of pensions. Here we need

someone who understands better than I do

the mechanics of the budget process itself.

I’ll try to clarify this issue, or

I’ll ask Volodya Milov

to talk about it in more detail on the next broadcast.

But in any case, don’t

doubt that this money, one way or another,

came out of your pocket.

In any case, it’s from the budget—from your

pocket. And if it’s from the funded part

of pensions, well, that would be entirely in character for our authorities;

that’s how they operate. But for now, I don’t

I can't make such claims about vote rigging.

That's what I was saying about the voting, and about Telegram as well.

Last time.

Marduk asks: "Isn't Alexei being too kind?"

Good evening. Why is everyone paying attention to this?

Exclusively because of the "reset" (a reference to resetting presidential term limits).

In my view, there are those who

bear responsibility for everything,

for the crimes that were committed. So, when

Putin had just become president, his first

decree on his very first day was that

all presidents would be exempt from any

liability. But even if such a thing exists, it

doesn't even need to be written into the current

Constitution, because simply

it's already unlawful, and we all understand perfectly well

what he did here. And what exactly did you do for

the Yeltsin family so that they wouldn't dump everything

on the others who stole hundreds of millions

of dollars—not much money by today's

standards. They simply, in this way,

sold Russia, in essence, to one specific person—

Putin—in exchange for personal safety, and

he, too, signed for himself the same thing

that he later signed for Medvedev. But really,

that doesn't matter much, because

this is, of course,

an unconstitutional decree, and it has

no legal force whatsoever.

Lyubov Sobol had a great story here,

because she really caught

an official out—really very

impressive, because our officials are like this:

first of all, they lie a lot, and

they're very self-assured, and probably none

of them expected Sobol to act like

a lawyer. She simply thought like a lawyer and

did what lawyers do instead of

arguing. We had a segment on our

channel that featured various

examples

of officials coercing people to vote.

I mean, everyone who lives in Moscow—

really, across the whole country—knows a million

such examples. You have relatives

who were almost certainly pressured to vote.

And there was a segment there where, while I was there,

we were sent a recorded voice message from the

Education Department, where the deputy

head of the Moscow Education Department,

a woman named Smirnitskaya, was engaged in

that very coercion. Let's

listen to those 27 seconds.

Employees living in Moscow

must log in today and

register to vote on the

constitutional amendments electronically.

Those in Moscow Region must also log in today

and register that they will

vote at polling stations 1778 or 1779.

After registering, send the information to the group chat.

Thank you, everyone.

Naturally, it caused a scandal, because

at the same time, Pamfilova and all these

phony observers, the entire authorities,

and Peskov were saying that nobody was

forcing anyone. You know, they said these were only

isolated cases, student incidents on the

ground, and that there was no systematic effort

to coerce people. But here,

the deputy head of the Education Department

is saying that all Moscow teachers, meaning

all department employees, must go

and must register. This is

simply legal evidence.

A criminal case should naturally follow. They immediately

rushed to deny it. RT (Russia Today) published

what felt like a million articles saying

that of course it was fake. And in the end, that very

scheme trapped her, and she made a mistake:

she recorded a video statement in response

where she said that of course it was all a lie

and that nothing of the sort

had happened. Let's watch Smirnitskaya

deny our report.

Good afternoon. I am Smirnitskaya, and I

work at the Moscow Education Department.

And it so happened that today I became

the unwitting participant in a video posted

online. Someone, using my name and

place of work,

tried to impersonate me. At the very least,

that is unethical.

And in fact, I believe it is criminal.

At the very least, it is improper, just like all the

constant claims appearing on social media

that Moscow teachers are allegedly

being forced to take part in

the vote. It apparently seemed to her like a very

good idea to address teachers again

with a statement saying that it was improper and

indeed criminal. Remember that word—

criminal. Sobol, who in fact

produced the original

video, did a simple thing: she took

this video where Smirnitskaya denies everything,

plus another video of her speaking, and

simply sent them for a forensic voice

examination to an Interior Ministry institute and got

the result. And the experts—an official

expert examination that can be used

in a criminal case or anywhere else—

and

the official examination stated that

the original voice, without any doubt,

belongs to the very same person

who denied it, and to the same

person who was speaking publicly

somewhere else—the second recording was taken from there. And

now we have, first of all,

clear grounds to

fire her, and grounds to

open a criminal case. And now, when it comes to

all this talk about so-called criminal fakes, they

can stop talking. And besides, it has now

been legally proven that the Moscow

Education Department is coercing all

teachers and all employees.

to take part in this most disgraceful

voting. Sobol did well.

A really great story came out of this. We'll see

how it develops, what exactly they

are going to do now that they have really been

backed into a corner. Right now, as I understand it, Sobol

has already filed a statement

to open a criminal case, and so on.

So we'll see what they do with that.

We'll see how they squirm and spin

like they're on a frying pan.

There are a lot of questions about my favorite

regional deputy,

deputy Bondarenko, who continues

to wage a very amusing war against his

United Russia people. He serves in the

Saratov Regional Duma, and they are in the

Saratov Regional Duma too. As I understand it, they have a

fairly close-knit group there. I'm not personally acquainted with

Bondarenko,

and everything I know about him comes

from the videos that get attention and from the press,

which writes that they are quite a cohesive

faction that really does

speak out fiercely and aggressively

against United Russia, and that is absolutely

the right thing to do. I mean, they basically just lash

into them, and that's exactly right too. United

Russia deserves to be castigated. And the first

episode happened back last

week. I didn't have time to tell you about it

on the show then.

It started over a minor issue at a commission

meeting: the Communists wanted to make

one day in Saratov Region

some kind of regional commemorative day

dedicated to the aircraft factory, and while doing that they

were at the same time telling United Russia,

guys, but you're the ones who destroyed it,

which is the pure truth. The authorities, represented by

those very officials who

migrated from one party to another—

Fatherland, Unity, Our Home Is Russia—and now

they are in United Russia. They are the ones who wrecked it.

And one of the United Russia members there got so

furious that he jumped up and started shouting obscenities

right at the commission meeting.

Let's watch 39 seconds of that.

Still, it's pretty funny to watch.

[music]

It's actually very right that they go at

each other like that—listen, this is

what political debate is, and this is what cornered

United Russia members look like, because they

are trying to tell us, oh, they only

just appeared in 2000, or better yet

in 2005 or 2007,

as if Putin hadn't been working since 1995

in the Presidential Control Directorate,

as if they hadn't

been sitting in all those parties and hadn't been

Yeltsin's servants, and before that hadn't been

Gorbachev's servants, and before that hadn't been

some kind of Andropov servants. And they

absolutely should be reminded of that. And

you can see how they lose their minds when

they're told: guys, you are the ones who

wrecked everything here in those cursed '90s. You

United Russia people are the ones who destroyed it all. So, as I

understand it, this whole story

heated things up, and then already at the

main session of the Saratov Duma,

several United Russia members simply attacked Bondarenko there.

I'll show you this in a second.

You see, it's funny—at one point there

he's even chuckling at them.

There's also a very funny moment where

one United Russia guy falls down, and another

runs up and from behind jams a bottle

of water into his back. Here are 44 seconds of scandal in the

Saratov parliament. Now there will be a

question.

Give me the floor. Can you imagine, these

crooks—give me a question.

Who thinks now—Mr... for

that brazen mug—what challenge is he going to

talk about?

So everyone can see his face, basically.

I will.

Well, who's arguing? Go ahead.

We will pull it out from there for the experts.

They're saying someone did something to someone.

Doctors.

Better to hit.

Ah.

Fun stuff. By the way, this

gentleman in the white suit was also the same

guy—I recognized him by the beard—

who was shouting obscenities at the meeting. But, well,

you see, the United Russia members

can't respond on substance.

And when you film them, it becomes clear that

what Bondarenko is doing is, in a sense,

really provoking them, throwing them off

balance—and that's exactly right, because

what else can an opposition

deputy do? They are constantly trying to deprive him

of the floor, they squeeze and suppress

the opposition in every possible way, they rig elections, they

do all of that. But then you simply point

a camera at them and ask them uncomfortable

questions, and suddenly some guy

comes at you and sticks a bottle of water into your back.

Very funny. Eighty-four thousand people are

watching live right now. I want to say to everyone:

well done, Bondarenko,

and well done to his colleagues in the faction.

That is exactly how you should act toward

United Russia. And there is really nothing

so bad about people in parliament

speaking in raised voices. Of course,

they are speaking in raised voices—

the issues being discussed there

really are very important. Smart

Voting will take place in September in 31 regions.

Take part, so that we can have more of these

real debates and fighting deputies—we really need

deputies who are ready to fight, who do not

are afraid, in order to carry out [it] in

parliament. And United Russia members are now very

vulnerable right now, because they really

are ashamed of themselves. We had a

truly remarkable case in Ufa

Our coordinator, Lilia Chanysheva, she

released an investigation—well, in

the investigation, a video about how there

a local United Russia member is involved in development.

Let’s first watch a clip from this

video. Watch it and think about

which words this very

United Russia member might sue over.

What could offend him enough to sue our Lilia?

In just 34 seconds: all infill development

in Ufa happens because of

the coordinated actions of the city and

republic-level administrations and

developers, many of whom are

deputies.

Andrei Noskov, a deputy of the Ufa City Council and

the developer behind the high-rise in the courtyard of 5 Rustaveli Street,

believes

that the most important thing for a deputy is his voters.

His voters. The hypocrisy of this United Russia member

knows no bounds, so we call on residents

to unite in the fight for their courtyard and

to register on the Smart Voting website.

So, what do you think—what

could have offended him? What could he sue

over?

Hypocrisy? That the developer wants to take over the courtyard?

No. He sued because Chanysheva

called him

a United Russia member, even though he is a member of the

United Russia party.

But in his statement of claim, he said

that, well, you know, I’m a member of the United

Russia party, but I was elected as an independent candidate,

an independent deputy. You have no right

to call me a United Russia member. So being called a hypocrite,

a developer who is taking away a courtyard—that all

he’s prepared to tolerate, but “United Russia member” is a step too far.

I asked Chanysheva specifically for our

program

to record a comment about all this

that’s happening. Let’s listen to Lilia—just

one minute and 30 seconds.

Near residential buildings, Ufa City Council deputy

Andrei Noskov has decided to build yet another

skyscraper. Residents are protesting, and we

made two videos about it. Because of them, Noskov sued

me and two local

women residents. He wants to defend his honor and

dignity and recover from us jointly

100,000 rubles each (about $1,100 USD), and also force us

to remove the videos from YouTube. Specifically,

he didn’t like that we call him

a United Russia member and say that the public

hearings on the neighborhood development were held

with violations.

In his view, he suffered moral

distress and damage to his business reputation amounting to

10 million rubles (about $110,000 USD). Deputy Noskov

was elected to the city council as an independent candidate,

but he is a United Russia member, and he does not deny it. In Ufa,

he is known as

an aggressive developer who demolishes

even historic buildings.

The head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov, said that

he would fight infill development, but

since he is also a United Russia member, he did not keep

his promise. And Mayor Ulfat Mustafin, who

issued the construction permits,

is now hiding and not engaging at all

with local residents. I believe that

the concepts of

“United Russia member” and “honor” are incompatible. We do not plan to remove the videos;

they tell the truth.

I call on all residents

to support us and register on the

Smart Voting website so that people like

Noskov do not get into the city council again.

What’s the moral of this story? The moral of this

story is that right now

it is very effective simply to

really

go after United Russia members in terms of PR, in terms of

driving down both their ratings and Putin’s. It’s

very rewarding work.

Talk to people, send them

links—and it works, it

works wonderfully. Right now, during this

term-resetting campaign, the first link

that should be under this video

will be a link to the Putin’s Friend website.

Guys, if you want to do at least something,

instead of just sitting on the couch—what

should you do? Go there, download the video,

and send it via WhatsApp. Right now, there is a

hypothesis that we’re testing. In

fact, we’ve already tested it, and we know

that it works, but we need to test it

on a somewhat larger scale. My view is that

right now, these short videos

that everyone forwards on WhatsApp—they

work the way leaflets used to work

before the internet era. In other words, this is

a great campaign tool

that you can spread simply

without getting up from the couch. And while you’re sitting there

—each of us, let’s be honest, spends six

hours a day sitting like this with

a phone in hand, without changing this wonderful

position—you can carry out very effective

campaigning. Let me show you an example of a video

that’s posted on the Putin’s Friend website:

46 seconds about how everyone, by going to

vote, can help make

Russia one of the world’s best countries. To

be the best, you have to learn from

the best.

Today, the experience of the most advanced countries

can be used so that

Russia becomes stronger.

Constitutional amendments resetting presidential term limits

have been adopted in many

countries: Tajikistan, Senegal, Uzbekistan.

Peru, Burkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan, and Burundi.

They proved that the longer presidents

stay in power, the stronger the country becomes,

the more united the people are. Come vote and

vote for the constitutional amendments. Maybe

your vote will be the one that puts our

motherland on the list of the best.

Right between Senegal and Burundi.

The funniest thing is reading the comments on

these videos. There’s Vladimir Solovyov (a pro-Kremlin TV host),

boasting about their houses in Italy,

Maria Zakharova (Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman), supposedly a stern, sober

diplomat. The funniest thing is reading

the comments from these United Russia supporters or

Putin loyalists, or just ordinary people

whose brains have been washed,

by propaganda — the very people this is actually

aimed at.

They read it and say, “What is this supposed to be?”

“Now they’re even bragging about this?” Well, yes,

of course, this kind of provocation — a provocation

designed for viral spread — and

we can see that the videos are

popular. So take them and

share them. If this thing takes off, we’ll

keep experimenting with this

going forward. But these small, short

one-minute videos really can become

an incredibly powerful information tool,

because right now 84,000 people are watching

live.

Half of them, of course, will be too lazy to do it,

but if 20,000 people take one video,

download it, and send it to five acquaintances, then of course the

audience — with a request to pass it on further —

the final audience for this mosaic after

20 steps will simply be

millions of people, millions. And that is

real action, very much needed right now,

because, well, they’re afraid. Their ratings

are just collapsing. But they won’t

keep collapsing on their own forever — there’s

of course they’ll keep falling simply

under the weight of their own actions, but

when we apply pressure there too, it

will collapse much faster. So

take part in campaigning every day — that is

the real work. The link to this

site is in the description. Now, questions with the hashtag

#RussiaOfTheFuture can be posted on Twitter. Al

my — could you comment on the termination

of Sobchak’s advertising contract by

Audi? I read in the media

that Audi had terminated

its contract with Sobchak. I read in those articles about

those Sobchak posts. Well, what can I

say? A big hello to everyone who

voted for Ksenia Anatolyevna (Ksenia Sobchak)

back in 2018. The problem turned out to be

not even that she’s extremely mercenary

— we all knew that — but that she also turned out to be simply

fantastically stupid. And she writes

fantastically stupid posts and does so

very arrogantly, in an utterly categorical tone,

with some kind of claim that she

understands what she’s writing about. She

understands absolutely nothing. And so

that’s precisely why some of her

advertising contracts are being terminated. Don’t

worry — she won’t be left without money.

She’s in the business of selling you off,

constantly selling out those fools who

go and vote for her

in presidential elections. She earned

enough from those who voted for her

to be able now

to live just fine even without a contract with Audi.

Audi. So please comment on

Putin’s article. I’m not even going to

comment on it, seriously. But

really — they’ve already found some fake quotes,

and the publication itself, on a website

that is some kind of third-rate

website run by

some

guy named, well,

who appears on third-rate Russian TV shows — this is

just, well, I’d say

a foreign policy blunder by Putin, because

this article was aimed at America, and

everyone saw it and thought, my God, this is so pathetic.

After so much effort and money put into it, couldn’t they have placed it in

a respectable newspaper? I’m

sure they could have gotten the article published somewhere

else. I mean, it’s done

in this clumsy way, full of nonsense, lies, fake

quotes.

And, and, and the main thing I read in

that article was basically a squeak,

a thin little pleading squeak: please lift

the sanctions, please lift

the sanctions, we want the sanctions lifted.

There’s a lot written there about how

great we supposedly are, and how correct the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was,

but the main thing written there is that we

are saying: please, we want you to lift

the sanctions. So it’s a rather

pathetic article. I’m surprised that Putin

did it this way, because he still

tries to play the role of

a tough guy on the international stage.

Naturally, the main event

happening this week is the voting that began

today. But it’s interesting how all the

preparations for it unfolded. We’ll discuss both

the voting itself — it’s all very funny — and

the most absurd things that happened. But still,

here’s the thing:

the preparation for it was quite extensive, and

the most disgusting advertising, of course,

the most disgusting ad I saw was

placed by those who are massively

buying up ads for these constitutional amendments,

buying up all the Instagram influencers, all of them,

everyone under the sun. But one of them, a little

kid — what was his name again? I’ve forgotten now,

it’ll probably show up in the clip.

which I’m going to show you, but they really put out

the most disgusting, vile ad about

showing the corrupt, disgusting essence

of these people, because this isn’t even remotely cool

they even dragged a poor dog into it

and made up an entire story about an abandoned

little dog, a dumped puppy, but for

the Constitution, of course, you have to go

and vote, because after that

people supposedly won’t abandon dogs anymore. 37 seconds

of cheap, sellout prostitution

How can you betray a defenseless creature

that is endlessly loyal to you? I don’t know who

you are, you animal abuser, who tied a dog up in a park

and left it there to die, but I know for sure that

this is what you are. And I also know that in the new

Constitution there will be amendments thanks to which

you will be held accountable for

your behavior

If there is no moral law inside you,

then state law will stop you

[music]

This young man really ought to be deeply ashamed

of what he did, well

and it really is the purest form of

political prostitution — there’s no other way

to describe it. Maybe some spin doctor advised him

to do it, or someone else did

it doesn’t matter — this is exactly what they do

What’s interesting is that in the last few days they’ve somehow

started really pushing the topic of

animal abusers, animals, and so on, because

as far as I understand, they want

to attract some new, younger

audience that isn’t interested in

politics, an audience whose feelings

are supposed to be affected, whose emotions should

be stirred up by all these stories about

abandoned dogs. And there was another video

about how there are

terrible animal abusers among us

but once the Constitution is adopted, terrible animal abusers

will be no more. 28 seconds

[music]

[music]

Do you realize how many such animal abusers there are

that we don’t know about? Come vote for

the Constitution. If you think this doesn’t

work — well, because it’s obviously

super-mega nonsense to me — what kind of

Constitution is going to help? And in fact

the animal protection law isn’t

very good, but there are at least some laws, and they

just, simply, don’t work. But this, this

really does work on people. I was

watching out of curiosity, and

in the comments under it, a large number of people

of course pointed out this very thing — his

political prostitution — but some

people really were saying, yes, I’ll go

vote too, because this is so important, we

have to protect animals. You have no

idea how many people there are

— millions — who simply don’t get

anything about it, who aren’t interested in politics and

will fall for this kind of nonsense and go

take part in a fake vote and

vote for resetting

Putin’s term limits, and by going to the polling station they become part of this

mass performance, where something nonexistent

is made to look real — that is,

a real person goes to the polling station and

votes, which means the voting starts to become

real simply because that person showed up

The issue here isn’t turnout, but the fact that when

there’s just a person sitting by an empty

table with a ballot box, that’s nothing. But when

someone comes up and says, I decided

to vote because of the little dog, then it already

becomes

turns into big politics, and it’s very

important. Let me remind you once again that simply

talking about it is spreading propaganda, because

after all, money has already been thrown at it, and

they’re continuing to spend enormous amounts

A video by a fairly well-known

person caused a huge stir

named Erik Davydych; he is

the founder of the Smotra community

— basically a motorists’ group, people driving cars around

He said he had been offered

7 million rubles (about US$75,000) for this video, for 1

minute 30 seconds. Let’s listen, yes

let’s play it, though there’s a lot of swearing there

so we’ll have to bleep some of it

so the broadcast doesn’t get marked 18+, but

let’s watch. For a minute and a half, I’m not

going to use this video to tell you

whether you should go vote or any of that

Do whatever you want, but I’m not going to take part

in this circus. Why? Well, first of all

because I’m sure that I

I mean, you understand how it

is counted, right? If they don’t get enough votes

okay, so they didn’t get enough votes

so it gets canceled — you think that’s what will happen? But

then how is it that in the news

they’re saying and showing — I saw many bloggers too —

that the Constitution with the

amendments has already been printed? This is insanity

It’s gotten to the point where some people come

and make offers. We were offered support for this

— 7 million rubles (about US$75,000), like,

come on, call people, let them

go there

let them go here, let them go

vote. I just had a smile on my face

because this is alien to me, and I’ve been out of this

for three years, I wasn’t involved, and then suddenly

they decided bloggers were exactly what they needed

Now they’re going around to everyone and saying

here’s 5 million, 10 million, 70

— here you go. And I’m out there looking

for business partners, writing letters, saying we’re looking

for someone to do advertising for in the automotive

world — it’s hard to find a good client like that

like that

and here it’s even better

Here, all you have to do is go around licking their balls.

The authorities are spineless, that's all.

When I posted this video on Twitter, there

were comments along the lines of, well, how

can anyone believe this guy, Davydych, when

he once, somewhere in an interview, friends,

lied about how many push-ups

he could do, or squats, or

something like that. But I believe

it completely. 7 million rubles, about $100,000,

they spent tens of millions

of dollars, and here there's a huge audience,

an audience of millions, and for 7

million rubles, that's exactly the kind of

audience you get.

You know, one that is generally, by default,

anti-Putin, but they don't give a damn that it's

anti-Putin. They still have to go there, and the leaders

of public opinion speak there—no

expense spared. Look, they bought Buzova (Olga Buzova, a Russian pop celebrity), I mean

all the biggest, top-tier people with

multi-million audiences on Instagram,

all those Instagram influencers have been bought, all of them.

They've all turned into these

political prostitutes, because huge sums of money

have been allocated. I mean, what's $100,000 to them

if it means buying one more

person? They set aside a budget of 20, 30, 50

million dollars—at that rate you can buy everyone,

well, everyone who's willing to sell out, you can

go through them one by one and buy them, and it

works beautifully. This shouldn't be

underestimated. And of course they bombarded

people with all kinds of videos—those people, the ones

we see. Maybe they weren't even paid,

or maybe they were paid so long ago, and paid so

much, that now they just constantly

record these things. What shocked me more was Boyarsky (Mikhail Boyarsky, a famous Soviet/Russian actor).

I showed you, almost twice, the video

he recorded two weeks, three weeks

ago, where he very movingly

talked about how they were raising money

for two children of an acquaintance of his who

worked with them, who are ill and need

imported medicine, need treatment, and he

was genuinely in tears there, really

asking for money for his colleague. As I understand it,

they raised the money. And this shameless man,

Mikhail Boyarsky, recorded that,

and then a week later he puts out a video saying

that people need to vote for the Constitution

because we must feel

protected.

Thirty-five seconds of shameless Boyarsky.

Today, in general,

I find myself thinking about what future awaits our

children and grandchildren. I want

them to feel protected

in these difficult times, to be confident in

the support and help of the state

throughout their lives, and to be

provided with the guarantees due to them,

including guarantees of a достойный standard

of pensions and social benefits.

These are enshrined in the amendments to the Constitution

of Russia.

What a fantastic level of hypocrisy

and double-dealing. If a person comes out and says, 'I

think about what future awaits

our children and grandchildren'—well, this is the future awaiting them, the one

you were just talking about: that money

for an operation in our country has to be

collected by recording a touching

appeal from a famous actor. It's very

upsetting, and it irritates me. I love

the film about the Musketeers so much.

Everyone loves it—it's a great film. And yet

Mikhail Boyarsky, whose

whole public image, his lifelong persona,

has been that of a brave, valiant

guy, turned out in real life to be the most

cowardly, vile toady, who

lies all the time, who fawns all over this

government, sucking up to it so

shamelessly.

It's so frustrating. But out of all these

statements piling up as voting day approached about

our wonderful path—well, of course the most outrageous of all

the toady, the prize for Toady of the Week,

of the week,

without question goes to the governor

of Moscow Region, Andrei Vorobyov.

He came out and simply said that

the most important thing for us is, basically,

the Atlas on whose shoulders the whole country rests. Thirty-three

seconds from the winner: stability,

social guarantees, economic development,

values—all of that

is of course important. But it seems to me the most

important thing is that we have our

president, our Atlas, who holds up

the system. Our president has the opportunity

to remain strong, to keep getting elected, and we

can be protected from any

unpredictable events, and it seems to me

that this is the most important thing. That's why I

very much hope—and I'm sure—that everyone

understands this perfectly well.

Of course, of course—the life, money, and fate

of Governor Vorobyov in particular

are, without question,

resting on the shoulders of that very

Atlas—Putin. And who is Andrei

Vorobyov? Just the pampered son of a deputy to

Shoigu (Sergei Shoigu, a senior Russian official), another corrupt figure who

worked in the Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM),

and built giant palaces that we

investigated. And this little princeling

was shoved into the job of governor

of Moscow Region after him. So for

Governor Vorobyov, of course, this is the most

important thing. But you understand, a major state—

starting with Moscow Region, a huge

region—just comes out and simply says:

'Yes, we need a tsar.' That's basically what he says, in so many

words, and that's a very important

statement. Because look, at the beginning

they were saying that we supposedly had to do all this

Reset the count—but maybe Putin will run, or maybe he won't.

Maybe he won't; nobody knows yet, even now.

The line being pushed continues quite openly on the theme that

he is the Atlas holding everything up, and he has to keep going.

And Senator Klishas, also a great "friend"

of the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

came out with an explanation and said: yes, we

have to reset the terms, because otherwise, otherwise

the authorities won't obey—if officials, all these

people, don't understand that Putin will remain

a lifelong tsar there, or at least has

the possibility of lifelong rule, then

their eyes will start darting around, and they will

start thinking and looking to someone

else. It says, in effect, that this is needed so that

the system can function exactly the way

it is described in the amendments. You know what

has to happen? Very importantly, people in this

case—the so-called political class—

first and foremost, including officials,

parliamentarians, our major politicians,

and members of the government,

they must stop thinking about

some kind of transfer of power; we must stop

speculating about who will be

the successor, when it will happen, and so on.

They should simply do their

jobs. This amendment is very important: it

allows us to take the topic of successors and transfers

and so on

and put it in brackets—set it aside. Great: the topic

of successors and transfers is to be taken

out of the equation. But what's wrong with that topic?

Any person, any state official,

comes into office for a fixed term,

then someone else replaces him, then another after that—

a third one replaces them—and that is one of the good things

about democracy. That is how

all normally developing countries are organized.

Here they are already saying it outright:

let's stop talking about it. Our

country can exist, and this whole

system works—we feed it and

assume it should work the way all

bureaucracies work. But no: this system

works only if everyone

around it knows that there will be no other

president.

That was, in effect, a statement that

everyone must understand: there will be no transition,

no transfer of power.

One God, one nation, one Führer.

Putin himself says this too.

He says that if you start looking for successors

and discussing who will come after me, it will

be bad; people need to work. But one of the amendments

submitted by deputies

implies that you will have

the opportunity to run for another

term. Let me say this absolutely

frankly: if that does not happen, then in

about two years—I know this from my own

experience—instead of

normal, steady work at very

many levels of government, there will begin this restless

searching with the eyes for possible successors.

People need to work, not look for successors.

By the way, that is a very curious

statement about the complete incapacity

of this system. So it turns out that

nobody will work—meaning, if

officials, the whole political class, as

Klishas said, do not know that Putin is

the tsar, then they won't work. What a great

system. It's just that we don't find it very

acceptable, because it turns out that

our entire government, the whole

political class, United Russia (the ruling party),

is really just a bunch of screwups who

—I've said many times on my programs that

as soon as Putin

leaves or weakens, they'll devour him.

The United Russia people—and he himself confirms it.

He says, in effect, that if all of them

know that I will always remain in

first place, then they won't start orienting themselves toward

others. Otherwise, one will run to this oligarch,

others will run to Sobyanin, of course.

More than anything, this whole crowd is waiting

for Putin to weaken so they can run to

Sobyanin: he has the most money,

the biggest media resources,

and swear allegiance to him.

They'll hand Putin over, along with his team, and

finish off whatever remains. Others will run to Shoigu,

and others to someone else. This simply

shows a complete lack

of loyalty, a complete lack

of governability, because they are just waiting

for grandpa to die—or they understand that

this Putin regime will suffer not just

a transition into some other form,

but an obvious collapse. And after

Putin is gone, in one way or another,

whatever the circumstances—retirement, or I don't know,

illness, or something else—but usually

it begins simply because every person is mortal.

All of this will lead to some kind of collapse, and Putin

is saying this directly. That is why this is my

longstanding thesis: if Russia, God forbid,

ever falls apart someday, the main

person responsible for Russia's collapse will be Putin,

because he created such a system

that every transition simply leads to

people stopping work,

scattering, and the system simply

falling apart into pieces. But people are writing to me here

about animals—what infuriates them most is that you

...

wear yourself out trying to save them, while they just try to curry favor.

and do absolutely nothing for animal protection.

Yes, absolutely right: in reality, all

systematic work on

animal protection in Russia is done only by volunteers;

the state does absolutely nothing here.

Absolutely nothing. And now they write about anti-vaxxers:

they say they will come vote in favor because

the amendments will make it possible not to comply with rulings.

Please comment on this: all of this is nonsense, these

amendments — not a single one of them has

any real force except for

resetting Putin’s term count. That’s the main and

only amendment there; everything else

about the priority of international law is

complete nonsense. Even the same

European Court of Human Rights

will still function as long as Russia does not leave

the Council of Europe. All of this means basically nothing.

So, they are calling various

social groups to the polls; apparently someone

is working with the so-called

anti-vaxxers,

telling them, “Come

vote, because it’s good for you,”

and another group is working with pro-vaccine people,

the ones being told, “And children too —

vote.” They’re simply targeting

different audiences, deceiving everyone, and urging them

to go to this vote. But that does not

mean anything.

Valentin Heystonen

Alexei, good evening. I’ve been writing for two weeks

— please say at least a couple of words about Nor-

ilsk. Why is everyone silent? Well, I’m not silent. I

did a big segment about Norilsk; there was

a report on Navalny Live about Norilsk.

I know they fired that employee from Ros-

tekhnadzor — or rather Rosprirodnadzor (Russia’s environmental watchdog),

who spoke about the violations.

So we are following the events in Norilsk quite

closely — at least on Navalny

Live, we cover it regularly.

Since we’ve sort of moved on to

Putin while describing the events of the week,

along with the escalation

and all the pressure before the vote, Putin

made an address that was rather strange,

and it was quite unclear why.

He was portraying himself as “good Putin,” and surprisingly

today he says that he

will make yet another address today.

Either he liked this genre of his video

“addresses from the bunker,” or someone

misled him and told him that they

work so wonderfully. But most likely they

feel insecure, and that is exactly why

he will keep making more and more

addresses in order to say something

positive and

monitor the audience, trying to find

some evidence that

Putin’s previous promises worked really

well. This week there was

an address where this “kind

Putin” appeared and of course spoke about

successes.

*sip from mug* and, told you so.

Remember, I said that when the

coronavirus — when the authorities say that they

have defeated it, they will

report that they didn’t just defeat it,

they defeated it fantastically, better than anyone else. The corona-

virus was retreating, and in general our state

worked flawlessly, and our

healthcare system — everyone saw with their own

eyes, and a huge number of people

personally experienced what a failure there was in

the Russian healthcare system. We are in

third place in the world in terms of the number of

infections, and that’s despite the fact that

not a single person believes

Russian statistics.

But nevertheless, what does Putin do?

That’s right — he comes out and begins this

address by talking about how

wonderfully the Russian

healthcare system worked, how brilliantly we defeated

coronavirus. Fifty-four seconds

of magnificent success: Russia today

leads among the world’s major countries in

the number of tests per thousand people.

The total number of tests conducted

has exceeded 17 million. Right now, 14

federal scientific centers in Russia

are working on creating a vaccine against

coronavirus.

Clinical trials of the first samples

have already begun. Overall, we

are forcing the epidemic to retreat, achieving

a turnaround.

The epidemic showed that Russian

healthcare is capable of responding effectively

to emergency situations and, in

a short time, expanding its

capacity. I have already said that in many ways

this is the embodiment of the experience and principles

of organizing medical care that

were laid down in Russia by entire

generations of specialists. And these

sessions, these constant addresses

that Putin is making now — these are

sessions of hypnosis/slash-lying, really.

A man just sits there and tells

whoppers — he is simply lying outright.

And, well, it probably works on some

part of the audience. Probably in

the last address they did some

things right, but it wasn’t convincing enough,

so they need to make one

more address. It will be on the 29th, I think.

I think they simply monitored

the polling data, just monitored how people

reacted to the two

“carrots” from kind Putin: another 10,000

rubles (about $110) that they handed out,

and tax cuts, alongside

higher taxes on the rich.

Well, let’s start with these 10,000

rubles, and once again, well done to everyone who

supported the “Five Steps” program, because

what Putin is doing now is

carrying out point number two of the Five Steps program

in a somewhat trimmed-down form,

but overall it is almost word for word, point number

two. And they never would have done this if

you had not forced them to with your letters.

with their signatures, with their support

for the bill, and we can see from polling

that my Five Steps program needed, first of all,

to be known by tens of millions of people—our

Five Steps program was known by tens of

millions.

And second, absolutely everyone supported it, and

Putin was forced to do it. That is a good thing,

the right thing, but this is specifically

a typical example of how the public, by exerting

political pressure on the authorities,

forced them to pay out money. 46 seconds.

Putin and another 10,000 are necessary as well

once again in July.

An additional payment of 10,000 rubles (about $135) will be made

for each child from birth to age 16.

In total,

this measure can be used by

Russian families raising around

28 million children. Let me immediately draw the attention

of those who have already received

the June payment: the July one will be

processed

automatically. There is no need to submit a repeat

application for this assistance

or collect any certificates. The same

automatic payment mechanism will also be

implemented for families raising

children under 3.

What can be said about this? Very

good, but not enough. We still maintain

the demands of the Five Steps program:

more money needs to be given to people, money needs to be given

to adults, because these 10,000

rubles per child are also, in principle,

help for the adult who

supports the child. Money needs to be given to small

businesses. Look, a huge number of

cafes, restaurants, small businesses, all sorts of things

are closing down. Money needs to be given out.

We need to keep up the pressure, and

why will Putin do it? Because

from the very beginning our campaign was

framed as, if you like, a campaign

of blackmail: if you don’t comply, we won’t

vote. If you don’t comply, through Smart

Voting we will crush United Russia. If you don’t

comply, we won’t vote for your

constitutional reset, and that is exactly why now,

on the eve of the reset, despite the fact that

of course not everything will be falsified there—actually

it will all be completely rigged—but he

still needs to somehow placate the audience. He

has to come out and say something positive.

One thing that is fairly

popular in Russia is the idea of introducing

a progressive tax scale, and

Putin announced this, but it is one of those

I don’t want to use a rude or harsh word,

I’ll say the word deception, but it is simply an obvious

sham, what he did there with

that supposed tax increase for

the rich. Let’s listen for 45 seconds, and

to how he said it, and then I’ll explain

why it is a complete sham. From January 1

of next year, to change the personal income tax rate

from 13% to 15%

for those who earn more than

5 million rubles a year (about $67,000).

Let me clarify right away that the higher rate will apply

to

not to all income, but only to the portion

that exceeds 5 million a year, but

this will bring the budget around 60 billion

rubles (about $800 million). I propose to ring-fence these funds,

as specialists say, to protect them from

any other use and direct them specifically

to the treatment of children with

severe rare diseases, to the purchase of

expensive medicines, equipment, and rehabilitation

devices.

Why did he do this? It’s obvious, because this

government has been getting slapped in the face by everyone, even United Russia members,

even Putin supporters, endlessly

asking: what the hell

are we doing collecting money by text message

for children’s treatment? It’s simply outrageous.

We have free healthcare

guaranteed by the Constitution. Children should

be treated, not have money collected for them, and Mikhail

Boyarsky (a famous Russian actor and singer) shouldn’t have to call for it.

So he decided

simply to play to the sentimental

part of the audience by saying, yes, look,

let’s now take

an additional 2% from the rich and solve these

problems. Well, first of all, this is a tiny,

microscopic tax increase there,

affecting 0.1% of the population. You can’t raise serious

money from this, as you

heard—even Putin himself says the maximum is 60

billion rubles. Second, look

today Milov discussed this in detail

on the program, but briefly:

where does this personal income tax go? Into the budgets

of the regions where wealthy people live,

those earning more than 5 million rubles a year—in

Moscow, in Moscow, in Kazan, in St. Petersburg. So

those 60 billion rubles—well, the larger

part of them will go to Moscow, where there is

already so much money, a sea of money there. Well,

Moscow does not need any extra 60 billion.

Sobyanin (the mayor of Moscow) spends 60

billion just to

replace

new paving tiles with even newer paving tiles. That is

nothing at all; it’s laughably little money anyway. Well,

and most importantly, I just think that further on

some great operator there, someone like

Peskov (Putin’s press secretary), came up with this slick PR move.

But what will happen next? They will collect

these additional 60 billion rubles,

but do you think the fundraising

for children by text message will stop? Will

the posts saying that we cannot treat

a little child stop? Of course not, of course

not. Well, 60 billion rubles

okay, maybe they’ll give it to three major hospitals, these

That money will either just disappear there,

be wasted, or simply fall apart.

It will change absolutely nothing, and we will still have

a very effective campaigning opportunity,

including because

next time Mikhail Boyarsky (a famous Russian actor and singer) will pop up again

and say, "Let's raise

money for children's treatment," and you'll say,

"But you also introduced a new tax on

the rich, and even that money you

stole or squandered, and still managed to do nothing

with it."

And I guarantee you 100 percent that

that is exactly how it will be.

There will still be those Instagram posts

and heartbreaking pleas everywhere, because

this system is corrupt and incapable of

doing anything. The issue, after all, is not

60 billion rubles (about US$650 million).

The issue is the healthcare system itself: the fact that

paid operations are needed by children and

adults alike, there are no proper medicines,

there is no equipment, and if over 20 years

using insane trillions of

petrodollars

they were unable to build a healthcare

system, then of course they will not be helped by

raising taxes by 2 percent on 0.1

percent of the population. It's just a sham. And

the funniest part is that everyone is discussing how Putin

cut taxes. Look, Putin cut

taxes, that's so great. Putin supposedly

cut taxes for the poor and for IT companies,

but raised taxes on the rich.

Pay special attention to the fact that, as part of

this whole package of supposedly good measures,

when he changed the tax system, what he actually did

was drastically cut taxes for

the super-rich. There is such a thing

called a CFC — a controlled

foreign company. In other words, if

a person here earns a salary of

600,000 rubles a month (about US$6,500) as an airline pilot, or

say, an entrepreneur earns

5 million rubles a month (about US$54,000), they will

charge him some additional

microscopic amount. But if your income is

40 million rubles a year or 100

million rubles a year, if you are truly

a wealthy person and a businessman, then your

business in 99 percent of cases

is structured through an offshore company in Cyprus

or somewhere else abroad,

and there used to be this thing called

a controlled foreign company. If

I have, say,

a giant shopping mall,

then of course that shopping mall is 100

percent owned by a Cypriot company, and I

am the owner of that Cypriot company.

Previously there was a proportional tax, in

percentage terms, that I had to pay

on the income of that Cypriot company. Now

they have changed all that and replaced it with

a flat 5 million rubles a year (about US$54,000), which means

that for the richest people, for

real

multimillionaires and multibillionaires,

Putin has simply created

heavenly, wonderful conditions. For them

he cut taxes, because they are

essentially his entire team —

those very fake patriots who keep their

money and whose property is

registered to offshore companies. For

offshore companies he did something very

beneficial. One last thing.

By way of analogy, I just want to brag a little.

Volodya Milov (Vladimir Milov, Russian opposition politician) talked about this today

on air: Putin cut

taxes for these companies, and the main

thing there is the reduction of the unified social

tax — roughly speaking, payroll tax.

If you earn 50,000 rubles a month (about US$540), then 37 or 43

percent on top of that amount your

employer has to pay, so

they might be able to pay you not 50 but 80,

but they won't, because then the taxes

would crush them. In Russia, in effect,

it is not profitable to pay a large official "white" salary (fully declared salary).

And Putin reduced that. There were also quite a few

articles by Leonid Volkov saying that in fact

it would not work, but he did reduce it,

and all of this is being presented as a great,

great achievement. And who has a mug that says

"all that the i told you so"?

Once again, I am savoring my own pre-election

presidential platform — the only one that

had a specific point on this. Please show us

the slide saying that we need to

cut these payroll taxes. But

I proposed doing this not only

for IT companies — it should be done for

everyone.

This tax should be lowered so that

people can be paid higher wages.

If Putin says this works so well

for these companies, and these companies

will develop, then let all companies

develop. We should be reducing payroll

taxes. I am very glad that Vladimir Putin

has at least partially implemented one of the measures

that I proposed, thereby acknowledging the

superiority

of the presidential program that I

wrote together with my expert colleagues.

That is very gratifying and great. Before

we discuss these specific

"reset" amendments, yes, there are a lot of

them now, naturally. It's a popular genre, and I

constantly use various

video clips and things like that featuring

Putin's promises that he made about how

he would not change the Constitution. I

just found another really great one.

It's not a video, unfortunately, just a text one, but

interestingly, it is still sitting there on

the Kremlin website. I'll just show you the quote.

He gave an interview to the Fox News channel,

back in 2005, and he said very, very clearly right there

that he would not change

the Constitution. And just notice,

how aggressively he says it: "What, do you

want me to swear in blood or something, and

repeat for the 100th time what I've already said 99

times? I will not change the Constitution." You see,

the top quote underlined in red: "Under no

circumstances will I change

the Constitution. I have no such intention." Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin is a crook and a liar

who said this many times. Again,

look how aggressively he said it: "How many times

do I still have to repeat this to foreign journalists?

Not under these circumstances.

And as it turned out, the "circumstances" were very simple:

his term was ending, and they changed the Constitution.

Everyone completely forgot.

On to a new term. And basically,

that was the beginning of this very

"reset." What is happening today has been staged

in, of course, an absolutely astonishing

way. But those who can see it, it seems to me,

those who have been watching this

so-called vote,

have by now lost absolutely all illusions.

They are gone, and there is no point in having any.

But still, this discussion,

even though it has already faded,

continues over what

the best strategy is: boycott or not boycott,

vote or not vote.

I still believe that, first of all,

this discussion is pointless. Roughly speaking,

it makes little difference whether you do not go to this

vote or whether you go and vote

against.

The main thing is something else. And

I'll talk about this cross. I saw a video,

it was sent to me, and many people asked me

to discuss it, from a channel called

*Byt Ili* ("To Be or..."). And since I was, so to speak,

criticized there, but I absolutely loved

that video, because in it

the person who runs that channel,

a big channel with around a million

subscribers, not some anonymous masked figure,

was doing exactly what I keep talking about:

we need to stop this passive nonsense,

we need to start changing the reality around

us, we need to campaign. Because this person

essentially proposed a system under which

we simply persuade the people around us,

including people we know. One minute, two

minutes. It's a fairly long segment, a big excerpt

from the *Byt Ili* channel, but it is genuinely

important and excellent, and even this small

excerpt:

"So, as he criticizes me, you should understand:

you may be able to win a poll

camouflaged as a referendum,

but what is in your hands is to create

an atmosphere of disagreement, which is far more important.

And now let's determine which path

of struggle, in this specific situation,

might be more effective. Both boycott

and voting against have been considered.

The issue of the reset has been decided. So then what?

Just not go to the polls? Honestly, that

approach surprises me. In effect,

before your very eyes,

a constitutional coup is taking place, and meanwhile all

the main opposition figures are proposing that people simply

express their inner disagreement. To

say no, you can take part in my

vote; to say no, you can

write a tweet; you can support

political prisoners. There is a huge

number of possible forms of activity.

That really is not as little as it may

seem. However, people need

to be organized.

Once again, I do not understand why nobody is doing this.

Fine, supporters of a boycott

are calling on people to express their disagreement through

social media and one-person

pickets. But what if we went further and

turned the one-person picket from a one-off

action into something widespread? For example,

let's agree right now

on some kind of sign that will

symbolize disagreement with the current

government. That would be more powerful than a one-time

one-person picket after which you

get detained for 10 days. For example, let's

take a red cross on a white background as

a symbol of the opposition.

And it does not matter what your

views are, whether you are a liberal or on the left: the red

cross is a symbol of protest.

It can be drawn on any badge or

ribbon. That is exactly how an atmosphere

of disagreement is created. If you see around

you hundreds of people with such symbols,

you will begin to feel certain

that you are not alone in your views.

That is already more than simply mentally

disagreeing with the constitutional coup.

Watch the full video on the *Byt Ili* channel.

Of course, I am certainly not

someone who proposes that people simply

sit and wait or just write tweets.

Once again, right now we are working on

many campaigns in 31 regions,

and that is why we have now launched this website,

"Putin, say goodbye" (or similar), friends. I absolutely

urge people to take an active position.

In fact, I believe that simply going

to vote against is exactly the same as sitting

on the couch. This is the big

deception: that we will go, vote against,

and thereby express a civic position. But that is not

really a civic position at all, it is merely

doing the bare minimum. It is complete nonsense. But this

idea is great.

I regret that I did not come up with it myself.

I do not mind admitting that at all.

to support someone else’s great idea

I know, I googled what it means

a diagonal red cross is the symbol of Saint

Patrick, but these rectangular ones

square ones

apparently don’t mean anything. Or it could

mean something, yes, absolutely right. Symbols,

statements,

agitating the people around you is super important, and

it’s genuinely a positive action

You can vote, or you can choose not to vote,

but if you’re persuading the people around you, then

you still need to remember

there are 60 million brainwashed people around us

simply brainwashed, and until we

start working with those sixty

million people, nothing will work. So

on the other hand, roughly speaking, I really

want to criticize good people

who launch a campaign like this. No, they

are spreading the message, urging people to go and

vote — no, to vote against

and today the voting began. What

does the campaign do? They write appeals

Who are they writing these appeals to? To me, to Dud (likely journalist Yuri Dud), and

to Yavlinsky (Grigory Yavlinsky, Russian liberal politician). Seriously, come on,

I mean, you understand, not a single person

who regularly watches Dud’s videos

for example, is going to vote for this

constitution. They may boycott it, or

they may go and vote against it, but for it

absolutely no one there is going to vote in favor

So why engage in this kind of nonsense?

Appealing to Yavlinsky, to me — I mean

not one of the people who watch

these broadcasts is going to vote in favor, except

for employees of the Presidential Administration

who are watching — though I wouldn’t be surprised if

even they vote against it

because they don’t understand how this

system works either. But we need to stop

just heating up outer space, the universe

stop stewing in our little bubble

it’s not that small, but in any case

stop stewing inside those 10 million

people who are already

strongly opposed. That’s where we need

to have an impact. This symbol here —

put it up so that later a person thinks,

“What does this mean? Let me google it.”

Then they find out it’s that anti-

Putin symbol, and it’s everywhere, and people walk around

putting it up as a sign of protest. It’s a great

idea. I don’t know whether it will be implemented or not, but it’s

a very, very right thing, so

I fully support it

Uh,

the discussion is still considered

pointless. I just wanted to show what seems to me

to be a very accurate statement

by Nikolai Rybakov, who is currently the formal

leader of the Yabloko party (a Russian liberal political party). The leader of Yabloko

is still Yavlinsky anyway, but technically the leader

of the Yabloko party is Nikolai Rybakov, and

he’s someone I’ve known for a very long time

someone I’ve been criticizing lately

because the Yabloko party isn’t helping

us at all, particularly with

election monitoring and everything else. But he

very accurately formulated why this

vote is needed, yes, and

now we’ll look at a specific

example of how it happens, and you’ll see

it’s very important for them to involve people in

complicity — as I already said, to make

the nonexistent into something real. There is

a ghost

it’s bodiless, and they want to

fill it with blood, make it real

make it into something real, and that can

only be done with the help of real people

who either see it, or better yet come up

and vote, and thereby somehow

interact with this thing

this absolutely illegal thing called

the nationwide vote, which is neither

a referendum nor an election, but you

come up to it, you begin to

interact with it, and you make that ghost

somehow denser, more tangible. At 33

seconds, Rybakov says: “Why did they come up with this

nationwide vote? What for?

Why spend money on it if they could just as easily

adopt it anyway? Because they understand perfectly well

that dirty work has two

sides, and they don’t want to be here

alone. They want to bind citizens to it too,

to tie them in by mutual responsibility,

to make them participants in this process. And that’s why the very

procedure for holding the

nationwide vote was invented

in order to involve citizens in

the destruction of the Constitution.”

That’s a very accurate phrase. What we

are seeing now is truly the involvement of

citizens in the complete destruction of everything

Today is the first day, and they’re kind of

trying to make the first day at least

a little bit like a real

vote. What happens? Right away,

first thing in the morning, two people — a correspondent from TV Rain (Dozhd, an independent Russian TV channel),

Lobkov, and

Vasily Vasin from Golos (an independent election-monitoring movement),

one of the observers, go and each of them

freely votes twice

There was a short report by Pavel Lobkov, who

filmed a video about it, and naturally

a major scandal broke out, and Ella

Pamfilova has already called it all a provocation

But a person simply went and voted

both electronically and in person at a polling station,

that’s all. And this immediately

showed that for them

in this voting, a vote — in this new

setup — means nothing, because

you can produce as many of these votes as you want

even without any administrative

pressure — just some guy working on the commission...

the territorial commission for that whole thing there

some kind of IT guy, and it’s easy to do

a public-sector employee

or a soldier who was told, well, go over there

secretly vote twice? well, no

people with opposition views

observers go and vote twice

Lobkov’s report on how he did it

the TV Rain channel released the most important

day this year: I’m going to vote on

the question of approving the adoption of amendments to

the Constitution of the Russian Federation

the first day of voting, literally 9:30 a.m.

in the morning—six planes came in here—that I can

vote electronically as well

and at the polling station, but I should say that I submitted

an application for electronic voting, and it was

approved, which means that basically after

10 a.m. I shouldn’t be able to continue

electronically. I wonder whether I’ll manage

to vote in two places

leave TV Rain alone—the voter also

to be elected, of course, it’s all looted

around the neck of the world

[music]

and if someone had a high fever, what

would need to be done? there is a separate room

for people with a fever, separately

an equipped room, that button, that one

passport, eat, knight, wipe it, and then

and because this is my choice here

it’s obvious

there it is lying on top, and so once I

have voted. I wonder whether I’ll manage

to vote a second time. The first time was

was

analog, and now today it’s digital

let’s proceed to voting, hooray, receive

the ballot and

with great—and TV Rain—the second time, change, I

have decided everything, votes for

approval—I do not, I do not approve

I voted. Bingo.

I voted twice today, and if

they also bring a ballot box to my home, then

that’ll make three

thank you. Well, yes, it’s a pity that Lobkov

just posted it in the morning on the adult

posted it incorrectly so that

right from the morning no one would have any

illusions. It’s interesting that two people

did it publicly: Lobkov and Semberg

but Lobkov works in television

a scandal broke out, and so there too

this funny thing happened: they

said that they would invalidate it, you see

how can you invalidate a ballot

he put a check mark on it, and the ballot

is lying in the ballot box

the box is sealed and is only supposed to be opened

only on the evening of July 1, but then

they said—well, nonsense

everyone simply started

laughing out loud, because how can you

invalidate his ballot, then? so in that case

did you already open the ballot box or what? this is

just complete nonsense, and they said

you know what, we’ll invalidate the whole

box. But then that means that

some people came and voted, some

for, some against, and then just some

Alexei Venediktov or Ella Pamfilova

just said, to hell with it, and

sorry, we’re invalidating the whole box, and

they invalidated it

well, I mean, this is just an absolute

an absolute sham, of course, we’ve seen that

there are absolutely no such observers there

there was one such video from observers

people were expecting a large number of ordinary

videos that observers make at

polling stations. There were few of them, and if there were any, they

were like this example from

St. Petersburg—32 seconds

of an observer trying to do what

observers always do at a polling station

film. Tell me, why is filming—filming what?

doing this—the reason? Idiot, denied. Don’t you

understand Russian words? come on

you can see him, please, he is violating

the law of the Russian Federation by filming

how is it illegal? what law? what law on filming?

is being violated? at this polling station here

military personnel are voting. Put the camera away, and

he said, show it on camera—put it away

this is why I say that taking part in this, in

all this, and involving people in the very

procedure of destroying elections, because

just some bearded guy, by the way

the deputy chair of the territorial

commission, comes over and says: you are violating

the law by filming, and a cop is already standing nearby

so, in order to—what law exactly?

hands off, yes, and filming is lawful

there is no ban on filming

military personnel, none of that exists, and

you need to learn that at polling stations you should film

but there is simply nothing there, and this of course

is surprising, just how much, of course

they organized it so that

now everyone is just laughing

but there were still some people who

still—I believe that if you

think it is right to vote

that this is a civic act, and

that on principle you should go and vote

carefully, because you might

catch coronavirus, but go and

vote—that’s entirely up to you, just

go vote, no problem, just don’t

harbor any illusions, as

was rightly said by this

wonderful person in the video, whether

his approach is correct—he says

that the Constitution has already been adopted, yes, this is not

a vote, it’s a complete fake, but you can

still go there on principle

and vote, for example, by ticking a box

It can be arranged, it can be done, but you just shouldn't

lie to ourselves. That's what

upsets me most about those people

who say, "Let's all immediately

go vote." It's just

a lie—a lie that the constitution hasn't yet

been adopted, a lie that there supposedly won't be

any falsification there.

These falsifications can be carried out on a massive scale.

Yes, this doesn't resemble, it has nothing

to do with the elections we used to know,

where it really wasn't always easy

to rig the results. This has absolutely nothing

in common with that.

I'm amazed at how our authorities

have just—well, first of all, this is

a failure, of course. It's obvious that the state,

that Putin did not want the whole country laughing

on the very first day at how

fake this vote is.

And that is exactly what it's doing—laughing. But there are two main

symbols of this vote, which is underway,

continues, and will end in a week. I

think we'll see a lot more absurd things, but

it seems to me that two symbols are already clear. They are,

first of all,

voting on a tree stump. Today everything was simply

flooded with things like that, and there it was—

all the attributes: a polling station, a raised Russian

flag, some people wandering around who-knows-where,

and actually on stumps, on newspaper, and on

stones

they're collecting someone's ballots.

Where they will end up, who will

count them there—unclear. And of course, the second

is a video that is just incredibly symbolic.

Look at this video—Zhdanov posted it.

It really was signed by the director—

damn it, Zhdanov. Look at this video and

decide for yourself what's wrong with this vote.

You see an ambulance in the foreground,

clearly having arrived in full protective gear to pick up

someone with coronavirus. In the background,

there's some strange little table for the nationwide

vote. That is exactly how everything

is set up, you see: an epidemic is happening,

hospitals are full, but these guys are like, all right, time to

switch from the vote to the Immortal Regiment (a Russian commemorative march honoring WWII veterans), let's drag it out into the

street, set up some tables, and start collecting

votes.

This isn't a feast during the plague,

it's madness during a plague. Toward the end of the

program, I decided not even to

spend time criticizing and analyzing

the violations in all these little setups. I simply

decided to make a top 7 list for you of the best polling stations

for voting.

There are many different ones, and I think

my ranking won't necessarily match your

personal top list.

But let's just take a look at the 7 best

polling stations in Russia and

understand what this so-called vote

for the update is. Number seven, then—number

seven. I've always dreamed of holding a parade in 7th

place.

A clip that, of course, became the biggest

hit, and almost everyone has already

seen it, which is why I ranked it so low, but

it's also very symbolic, showing that

the voting was organized, in the literal

sense, without any embellishment, in the trunk

of a car. Vladivostok—not a village, not some remote place,

and this isn't some kind of, you know, temporary

polling station.

No, this is literally an official polling

station organized in the trunk

of a car. Seventh place. People don't believe it—

that voting is really taking place.

They say, "So I went back, drove there myself,

to the city center—yes, on 48

at polling station 638. What, you don't believe me?

Hello, is this the vote on the amendments?

I just can't believe it. Can you really vote like this?

Yes, you can. This is an innovation in our

political system—an electoral

polling station in a trunk, that's

how it is.