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ladies and gentlemen
please welcome the moderator of the
session matricement
there you go welcome everyone and
welcome leonid
uh to this conversation at globe sack
2021 leonid volkov is of course the
chief of staff to alexa navalny
and currently the face of fbr and
in dc at this moment at an opportune
moment right after
the uh biden putin summit um leonid
welcome thank you very much for joining
us
um the first question i think we all
would like to know and understand as
has anyone considering all the news flow
of this week
been able to speak to mr navalny since
he returned to camp
how's he doing um and how do you
think he feels about mr putin not giving
any guarantees on his life going forward
well uh first of all thank you for the
invitation my
pleasure to be here and to talk at this
event
we are still able to be in touch with mr
navalny so his
lawyers are allowed to visit him uh
monday to friday and that's our
connection
uh there are no bad news about his
health condition
and this is good news given all the
circumstances
the fact that he's been transferred back
uh
to the torture colony to to
to a panel colony was a very bad
reputation
on his birthday on june 4th
but so far the situation is stable
uh he's not yet aware about the
press conference uh that the president's
had after his assignment because
there is some delay in delivering news
to him but i'm quite sure he will also
comment on this so we we have a channel
to get
feedback from him so he would dictate
his notes
to his lawyers and they would uh
publish them on his instagram account
later so i
i i believe later this week we'll hear
something back from him
lenin uh you are you have been doing the
rounds in dc
for garnering support um were you at all
surprised by
any of the comments from both presidents
uh yesterday
uh it was not about current support
it was about conveying our message so we
have
a message we had a message to deliver
and we have it
and the uh
we also had the feelings that there was
kind of
a lack of policy so there is nothing
like a real
developed policy uh on how to deal with
president putin
uh and like every things was the
new wave of operations against political
oppositions in russian chemical weapons
and so on
so we became so i came to washington dc
kind of to
offer our perspective about the policy
and i have a feeling
that uh many things
uh of that we were trying to deliver
well very short so people were eager to
listen
we had many fruitful conversations here
and
i have a feeling just a feeling that
this also somehow reflected
also in in in the remarks after the
summit in geneva and in some things that
uh has been also uh delivered to
president putin
we will know probably better in a few
days
so then we'll have actually more
information about like what happens
there
uh in the meeting room and what will be
the next steps there is the possible
consequences
our advice was always that president
biden
should take strong powerful position
on president putin and that there is one
most important
lesson learned from all the past uh
years that there is no such thing as the
recent buttons
that unfortunately every time the west
is talking about
red lines putin is only reaffirmed as
the red lines do not exist
every time the west is trying to find
compromise to build bridges
uh putin is only reassured that he could
do whatever he wants
and he only considers it to be
unfortunately a sign of weakness
so and our policy recommendation was
to try something else because like uh
trying to
push a non-existent reset button
has been tried for many years without
any success so it would be wise to try
something else
we have a feeling also based on how
angry president putin
was after the meeting and how
dramatically irraganvir has
remarks on mr navalny how many lies he
produced in a very short period of time
including assuming that alexander only
deliberately
left russia to avoid to violate the
conditions
of his provisional sentence
after being poisoned it i think shows
that well putin was kind of
pushed off balance during his meeting
with president biden
that he probably had to confront quite a
strong position in quite a strong
argument
and that's good news um i'm going to
tell the our audience both online
and right here in the room that you can
put your questions
uh to leonard that you have a multi uh
three ways to do this
in the room if you want to ask a
question please raise your hand come to
the mic
and very quickly answer ask your
question we don't have a lot of time in
this session
um you can also do it online via the
globex app and
of course you can do it while i zoom
through the virtual studio so just to
leave that with you
we have a question in from our audience
which makes uh my life quite simple
leona because i was going to go there
the parallels with roman petrosevic and
his arrest and
the ability of the russians to parade
him in front of the media
um i know mr navalny um dedicated his
recent
award to people in political prisoners
in both belarussia and
in um in russia ilya is asking
what would your advice be to better
russians at this point
um as they take on the question of
what's going on in their country
uh sorry no advice the countries are
different political situations are
different
and every like historical and political
parallel could be
dangerous i i very much believe that
fellow russians
much better know what to do and how to
deal with their situation we
of course follow the situation with a
lot of compassion and respect and
i mean we are both now really like
brother faults like this is this like
being
uh endangered by crazy dictators
but still i prefer kind of not to give
any advice that could
i mean lead to also negative
consequences because
i don't feel the political situation and
belarus
uh so good as uh leaders of the russian
position uh feel it and it's important
so i've been asked many times like okay
you're based in vilnius now why don't
you like meet and talk with us with
sri lanka and that people and
i very intentionally do not do this
uh because well otherwise of course we
could spend many hours
having nice and pleasant conversations
but
i believe that those conversations will
not help
uh either people of belarus or people of
russia so
let us concentrate on fighting putin let
them concentrate on fighting fighting
and of course we will follow what's
going on and try
well and try to learn from each other
the one common factor with with both
oppositions is that both are young
that's where
uh you you find your support within the
youth in
in russia you've had to shut down your
officers uh you've said that many of
these officers which have been turned
into independent regional political
organizations are not going to survive
you've seen people like miss sobol
having to withdraw from the
parliamentary elections because of being
labeled extremists you've had to move
like you said to vilnius
as have other people within that space
in the last month and a half how much
of passion is still there within those
young people to keep fighting poop
you know mr putin or keep opposing his
policies
have you seen any decrees have is there
nervousness in that or in that entire
group
that age group because they're on social
media that's one of the common factors
isn't it
no i didn't see any decrease
uh contrary to that i mean
uh all the fundamental factors for the
protests in russia
are not gone and will not be gone so
even if mr putin would bulldoze away
all the physical buildings where our
regional offices used to be
this will not this wouldn't help him to
do anything with the poverty corruption
or injustice of the political system
so putin is trying to
uh kind of to to push uh the protest
like under the carpet so to to
to make it less visible like this
um when we now are not any more able to
continue
our offline operations in russia as we
used to be as
hundreds thousands of people are being
disenfranchised from participation
in elections when you are not allowed to
be to appear on the ballot
even running for the village council not
only for the state domain
of course this very much affects
well the visible um
uh things with the of the
the visible artifacts for the political
life but it
can't change the attitude fundamentally
well this actually only makes people a
little bit more angry
that they cannot express their
political views assessments
uh using like legal and public tools
they are not allowed to to campaign for
their candidates
since they are not allowed to donate
money to the organizations they
support and so on so on so the
fundamental factors
are not gone until not begun there is
nothing
putin could do against injustice
corruption or poverty
and people are getting angrier so of
course
this doesn't you know to decrease
country uh
it's actually an increase in
uh descent in our country only that it
is becoming less
visible and it is it is of course
creating
a quite dangerous situation so a
situation when
like anything could become a
spark that would kind of ignite the
situation
do you find it worrying that these laws
and
all the surveillance um is becoming part
of
a arsenal of weapons being used by
um leaders like president putin for
suppressing free expression
independent media how how in your
opinion from
your perspective from the russian
perspective do you reverse a trend like
that when
young people are obviously looking to
voice themselves
but are skirting very dangerously close
to breaking laws in place
uh well first of all you're right i mean
uh like we are having conferences to
discuss
good practices and you know to to
discuss
how how to better reduce this or that
but it looks like putting lukashenka
maduro and and the likes of them are
probably also having their conferences
you know like
sharing the best the worst practices
discussing how to
uh be a better dictator how to
to close more how to produce more evil
things and so on
so they're learning from each other and
very fast
actually very many things that happened
in belarus
uh happened in russia and in just half a
year
and the things putting very clearly
learned like inherited from lukashank
and also some things are going in a
backward direction of course
unfortunately
and yes it results in a dramatic
deterioration of the political situation
now both countries
and what's happening in russia is is of
course
terrible when people are being
persecuted for very legal
forms of participation in political
activities
for participation and peaceful rallies
for an attempt to register a political
party
for an attempt just to be on the ballot
we have filed papers for
registration of our political party nine
times
and we were nine times rejected and now
we are labeled an
extremist organization being not allowed
to exercise any
legal form of public political activity
in the country
is it good no of course it's not bad uh
it's of course it's very bad does it
anyhow
um string pass of of our optimism about
russian future
no not really well the clock
is very clearly taken in our favor you
were
already talking speaking about like
young people
they see that well navalny's support
among
voters under 30 is
larger than putin support so he is doing
just better
in the polls even being in prison
not on the ballot not being able to
campaign
this situation is not going to change so
people are very tired of putting his
there for like 20 something
years every new re-election even
despite the fact that a position is not
allowed to participate
every new re-election becomes more and
more of stress
for him and also that's that that's
something that we've seen
in belarus also that lukashenko
after 25 years in power got into
huge problem trying to get uh
re-elected even with just even with his
like fully cleaned surreal uh political
system
and uh his system of electoral
commission and so on
this will happen this will happen in
russia also so
this dictatorship is cruel
but if it is not capable to over survive
mr putin
and the next generation of
politicians as it will arrive will
will be able to contribute for like
democratic and peaceful transition
in the country just because putin's rule
is based on his personal tyson relations
and of course on negative selection so
he doesn't have anyone
uh in in our generation who could be
like competitive
we have a question in the room if you
could introduce yourself very quickly
and
a quick question please oh well uh hello
everyone um
jake can you take can you take your mask
off so we can hear you i
am jake i'm a short-term intern here at
the globsec conference and
i would very much like to hear your
opinion on whether the character
of russian politics in the last couple
of decades and well
specifically uh putin's uh authoritative
authoritarian
so to say presidential figure could have
influenced the
opinions on democracy in central and
eastern europe
lately the opinion poll we might have
seen on
the previous panel in mary authorisia
for those of you who attended
then it does is that what do you think
of that has his politics has the way
he's approached his uh
his rule in uh russia influenced the cee
well as we see that putin learns a lot
from lukashenko of course many other
dictators or wannabe dictators try to
learn
something from putin because many
uh consider has like political model to
be quite
attractive this is
and putin also does a lot for expert of
corruption
to europe it's a very natural thing like
russia exports
enormous amounts of money of assets
being stolen from russian taxpayer
taxpayers to european countries and
along with this money a lot of
corruption arrives
like when a russian deputy minister
uh would buy themselves a villa
in cote d'azur they would also very much
consider like uh
corrupting local judge local municipal
official
local mayor local police because first
of all
this is their motorcycle randy they used
to operate this way
back in russia and they of course want
to continue this
style of operations also and second
because well they don't want
questions to be asked about source of
their fonts and
and so on so on and putin also
uses expert of corruption as a very
natural tool for him
to to buy influence to rot
the foundations of european political
system to get
like engage these different european
politicians and to see it
here and there more and more uh european
politicians specifically far
right and far left putin doesn't care
of their political affiliation it's just
important for him
that they would contribute to the
turbulence in european political systems
so
more and more far-right and far-left
politicians
are quite openly acting as putin's
agents as his likely really
like being really really like celebrate
employees of kremlin and and this is
becoming
dangerous and of course like many
political leaders in central eastern
europe
first of all see putin as a possible
source of funds for their political work
and second as a kind of
like inspirational model look like the
guy managed to
stay in power for 20 plus years and
squeeze
enormous assets from the economy
uh putin is a better role model and this
is one more reason why he's
dangerous nina that brings up an
interesting point that if it's so
ingrained maria asks is it possible then
to see russia
become more democratic and liberal in
the near future
or will this ongoing regime just extend
until
2036 i think that's
a question to ask especially considering
the position mr navalny is in
and what you were talking about
uh we didn't know when the transition
will happen
we are sure the putinism will not be
able to
over survive mr putin because it's a
very
personalistic regime everything is very
much
built on personal ties that mr putin has
with
this existence this is that guy but
uh didn't know when the change
will come putin will not be gone because
of
an election it could happen for
biological reasons
it can happen because of some black swan
type
event like when something like random
happens
like the arab spring started in march
2011
or it could be like a severe elite split
uh when the political elite will
realize that kind of the
downsides of keeping putin as their
supreme arbiter
uh become to start to become more
important
than the upsides of it each of these
three scenarios is possible
but we can't really make a prediction
when this will happen we know what
should we do
when each of these three scenarios
when either of these three scenarios
comes true we have to be
the largest and the best organized
political
force in the country that will stand up
and
demand for a democratic peaceful
transition and will be perfectly
capable to do so
does anyone have a question in the room
because then
i will go to my final question oh yes
please
just a very quick question i see i see
that you are restricted
and your organization is actually not
having the access to the proper media
because it's controversial sorry zoltan
virgo from hungary so we have
similar experiences with hungary what
you have actually in russia
so how do you reach out to the normal
people to the waters
so how the messages from your
organization is passed actually to the
waters because
otherwise you control or you have the
young generation behind you but the
waters are a little bit older so how you
communicate with the general public
thank you uh well first of all we do not
distinguish young people from
general public young people are general
public
uh the internet penetration rate in
russia
is well over 70 percent so it's
kind of a stereotype of course that only
young people
are there uh the internet penetration
rate is
like 100 among young people over
80 percent in people under 55
and over 60 percent and people
aged 55 plus so we are
perfectly able to be in touch with
all generations through social media but
of course
we also kind of ask young quarters
to be part of our media we very actively
engage them
into bringing our message through
to their like parents
owns uh elder relatives and so on
because
not because uh their parents don't have
access to the internet
but because we believe that the personal
message
uh brought through a devoted supporter
is much stronger than any
uh media coverage and any
other way to deliver the message
that would bring me to one of my final
questions or my final question because
we are running out of time
how do you make that democratic
transition at a point when it is so
difficult for young people
and convince them to stay in the fight
despite the consequences that
might be waiting for them whether it's
prison labor camps
or any other consequences
so we don't have to ask anyone to stay
in the fight
once again i i think it's very important
people
within the country have their feeling
their feelings their perception that the
situation is very bad
the situation is very unfair people
perfectly know
that they have been that all their like
democratic rights and human rights
have been taken away from that we don't
need to explain it to people people
know that they work perfectly so and
people also are aware of the fact that
well
many uh tools
of like political engagement that have
been
available for them are not available
anymore
that they would face severe risk when
uh risks when trying to engage
uh political in the ways they used to be
in the ways it was legal but
is not any more legal but this doesn't
ex
affect putin's perception so the fact
that putin like
uh declares us an extremist organization
doesn't make him
more popular among people doesn't win
him supporters
doesn't convert our supporters to
putting
supporters quite contrary even more
people think that something very
unfair uh is happening
that's it that brings me very nicely to
our poll
leonid and this was a poll that we ran
when this conversation
started the question is is vladimir
putin mostly perceived positively or
negatively in central and eastern europe
and i think you are absolutely right
with your closing comment
where 83 of those participating and
listening to you at this point
think of him quite negatively so i'm not
sure
that we can be clearer about what the
results of uh the meeting yesterday in
geneva
and the conversations we've been having
here at globe sec can say more clearly
leonid volkov thank you so very much for
your time we wish you luck in your fight
uh from all of us here at globesac thank
you
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