CURRENTTIME — broadcast
20260920 073000 UTC
343 transcript segments
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[00:00:01] want it to end with Russia's victory, but one way or another, as
[00:00:05] quickly as possible, no, so, as soon as
[00:00:08] this meager population sees this opportunity, it will immediately go to this
[00:00:11] point, as it was with Yabloko, whose rating began to grow rapidly,
[00:00:15] even among those who had never even heard of the name of this
[00:00:18] young people, party among
[00:00:21] accordingly, this is what we need to fight for, for this anti-war message
[00:00:25] to survive somehow,
[00:00:28] probably create.
[00:01:00] gives for themselves big political repressive risks, which is also
[00:01:03] very important, why did Yabloko's support grow so sharply? Because people
[00:01:07] believed that they would not be punished for it, this was not true,
[00:01:10] in fact, it should have been honestly said, I think they will be punished
[00:01:14] gradually, after the elections conclusions will be drawn, the one who
[00:01:18] stuck out, I would like to talk about the topic of what
[00:01:21] will happen after the elections, in your opinion, September 20th is coming, the CEC
[00:01:25] announces preliminary, still preliminary results
[00:01:28] of the voting, well, it's clear.
[00:02:00] control KGB the degree
[00:02:02] of omnipotence of repressive bodies in Russia will sharply
[00:02:05] increase, with all the ensuing consequences,
[00:02:08] as we observe the process
[00:02:12] of Chechenization of Russia, that is, we expect repressions first of all, we expect
[00:02:16] first of all an intensification of repressions, inevitable, you
[00:02:19] are absolutely right, we expect a struggle for the interpretation of the results.
[00:02:23] Putin has already said how we should interpret these results,
[00:02:26] having arrived at the congress of United Russia, pre-election.
[00:02:31] this is mobilization victory military
[00:02:33] mobilization question, I believe that
[00:02:37] they do not yet have a decision on military
[00:02:39] mobilization. And what do you expect after September 20th, in
[00:02:43] what country will Russians wake up? Well, you
[00:02:45] know, it seems to me that
[00:02:49] September 20th in this sense
[00:02:53] is a very conditional threshold, because
[00:02:55] before it the government, by the way,
[00:02:58] means that...
[00:05:01] to see how the party that managed to pass
[00:05:04] registration and get a number on the
[00:05:06] ballot disappeared from it.
[00:05:11] What happened? In April of this year, the leader of the Irkutsk branch
[00:05:15] of the Yabloko party, Grigory
[00:05:18] Gribenko, was detained. His home was searched in a case involving the storage
[00:05:21] of narcotic substances. As a result, Gribenko spent almost a month
[00:05:25] in custody under various pretexts. The party
[00:05:28] stated that the politician was pressured due to an attempt to hold a rally
[00:05:32] for free internet in Irkutsk, and to prevent
[00:05:35] him from participating in the elections. Two deputy chairmen of the party
[00:05:39] have already received many years in prison. Maxim.
[00:06:00] in cases of repeated discrediting and fakes about the army. Shlosberg is one of the most
[00:06:03] recognizable members of the party. I can judge more by
[00:06:06] the Pskov region, where we
[00:06:09] crossed paths with him and I don't know.
[00:06:32] Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Robakov lost the opportunity to participate in
[00:06:36] elections to the State Duma due to a fine, the court considered
[00:06:39] the demonstration of extremist symbols, his post on Vkontakte.
[00:06:42] with a portrait of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The presidential administration
[00:06:46] last year directly stated that they were dissatisfied
[00:06:49] with the Yabloko party. Recently, Yabloko has become very
[00:06:53] radicalized, because of this, a number of Yabloko leaders
[00:06:56] were included in the lists of foreign agents.
[00:07:00] The Yabloko party has existed since 1993.
[00:07:03] In recent years, it has been operating under the slogan "For
[00:07:07] Peace". In the last elections to the State Duma, according to the Central
[00:07:10] Election Commission, the party gained.
[00:07:42] winding up new people, but few people know new people and few people understand
[00:07:46] who they are, but the Yabloko party, everyone
[00:07:50] has known since the early nineties. According to Yabloko itself,
[00:07:53] 12 party members became defendants in criminal
[00:07:56] cases, eight of them are in prison, 11
[00:08:00] activists served administrative arrests, members
[00:08:03] of the party had 44 searches
[00:08:06] in their party offices. 12 members of Yabloko were included in the register
[00:08:10] of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice. I
[00:08:14] see the main and, probably, the only goal
[00:08:17] is to force Yabloko not to run in the
[00:08:21] elections,
[00:08:24] that is, so that the party itself does not get involved
[00:08:27] in them, so hostages are taken,
[00:08:30] so throughout the country
[00:08:32] cases are initiated against more or less prominent people from
[00:08:36] Yabloko, Yabloko remained such an island that allowed
[00:08:39] one to stay in the country, to stay...
[00:08:59] Yabloko approaches the elections already without a federal list, the Supreme
[00:09:03] Court canceled its registration, the party lists
[00:09:05] of Yabloko were not admitted to some regional
[00:09:09] elections, in particular in St. Petersburg and Karelia.
[00:09:43] list, but retains the opportunity to fight for individual mandates in
[00:09:46] constituencies,
[00:09:49] while, as was said in the report, Yabloko does not completely refuse
[00:09:53] to participate in the campaign, the party still has candidates in
[00:09:57] single-mandate constituencies, the party leadership announced a so-called
[00:10:00] plan B, what to do for its
[00:10:02] supporters, how to act so that
[00:10:05] the next day, looking in the mirror, not
[00:10:08] to feel disgust,
[00:10:11] how to act? In order
[00:10:15] to be able to answer the question of your
[00:10:18] children with dignity and honestly: Mom,
[00:10:21] Dad, what did you try to do then, so that... The State
[00:10:34] Duma. Second, be sure to
[00:10:36] vote for our candidates on the lists in
[00:10:40] the constituencies in the regional elections. And
[00:10:43] third, under no circumstances
[00:10:46] vote for other political parties, for
[00:10:50] their candidates. We present you with proof
[00:10:54] that... that all these parties in the State Duma
[00:10:58] vote absolutely
[00:11:00] identically, there is no difference from United Russia in their
[00:11:04] voting on all key
[00:11:07] laws.
[00:11:15] Federal and regional companies diverged in this story. For the State Duma
[00:11:18] elections, the authorities cleared the space as much as possible so that they
[00:11:22] would pass as calmly as possible for the Kremlin. At the same time as
[00:11:25] the federal voting, legislative assemblies are being elected in the regions,
[00:11:28] there is a different scale of companies, different barriers,
[00:11:31] sometimes different space for political competition. The topic
[00:11:35] will be continued by the host of the program "Face to Event", Artem
[00:11:38] Radygin.
[00:11:43] It seems that this year it died, all
[00:11:46] the intrigue in the elections, parties spend many times less on campaigning,
[00:11:49] candidates do not come to debates, and if they do,
[00:11:53] besides a memorized phrase - they can say nothing,
[00:11:57] the state will support them,
[00:12:00] support for large families begins with supporting one
[00:12:17] calculated that out of a hundred candidates not from parliamentary
[00:12:21] parties, the CEC registered only about a dozen.
[00:14:25] the leader of Yabloko in the city duma of Yekaterinburg, the police detained on
[00:14:28] the way to the debates. At the police station, he was charged with an administrative
[00:14:32] article on displaying extremist symbols.
[00:14:35] His colleagues in the Sverdlovsk region were accused of the same thing.
[00:14:39] The risk of continued pressure on the party certainly
[00:14:43] exists. Of course, it exists, we see this, among other things, by the pressure on
[00:14:47] our candidates daily. But,
[00:14:50] dear friends, I want to say again that our position is
[00:14:53] known, it is unchanged. "we will do everything possible
[00:14:57] to, to bring back peace, so that
[00:15:00] people stop dying. although the fine for so-called
[00:15:04] extremist symbols is only 2,000 rubles.
[00:15:07] for a politician, it means that for another year he will
[00:15:11] not participate in elections. if in 2026
[00:15:14] Yabloko members are not elected to the Duma or
[00:15:17] legislative assemblies, then in the next elections they will no longer
[00:15:21] be able to register politicians without collecting
[00:15:24] signatures. most likely Yabloko will lose
[00:15:27] its exemption from collecting signatures for the State Duma after
[00:15:31] this campaign, yes, they will have to collect
[00:15:35] if, of course, they survive another 5 years until the next
[00:15:39] campaign, but it will be much easier to reject them. According
[00:15:42] to Verstka, almost 40 regional candidates for the
[00:15:46] State Duma have already dropped out of the race due to Facebook
[00:15:49] logos, ownership of foreign shares,
[00:15:52] and posts about Navalny. The latter just takes away the right
[00:15:55] to run for a whole year, so in these elections, with
[00:15:59] rare, of course, exceptions, there are no well-known
[00:16:02] opposition figures. Elections are not about, well, in Russia in 206
[00:16:06] year, yes, it's not about achieving some numbers and results, but about
[00:16:10] causing the greatest damage to the ruling party, creating points of some
[00:16:13] social and political tension, in this sense, it seems
[00:16:16] to me, yes, many really understand it this way and
[00:16:19] do it exactly like that, in this sense, probably, the Yabloko party can also
[00:16:22] be singled out, because well,
[00:16:25] there are indeed top party members, the most media-visible ones, they are simply
[00:16:29] imprisoned, this is like the strongest Moscow,
[00:16:33] so Comrade Kruglov, the second strongest
[00:16:36] is Shlosberg, yes, Emiliya Slabunova in
[00:16:40] Karelia is also under pressure, there are also constant some
[00:16:42] showdowns,
[00:16:45] so I understand that some other VIPs,
[00:16:49] some also chose not to go to
[00:16:53] the elections. Social tension is expected by researcher
[00:16:56] at Carnegie Berlin, Andrey Pertsev. According to him, the Kremlin
[00:16:59] has never had such difficulty drawing a confident majority
[00:17:03] for United Russia. To ensure more than
[00:17:06] half of the seats in the Duma, the presidential administration even
[00:17:09] lowered the unofficial quota for opposition single-mandate candidates
[00:17:13] from 16 to 10, the core
[00:17:16] rating is falling, that is, it's around 32
[00:17:20] I think now, yes, if it drops another couple
[00:17:24] of times by a couple of percent by election day, it will be below
[00:17:27] thirty, well, and they will make it
[00:17:31] there, and this means that, well, special selections
[00:17:35] there are FOMA, how they calculate there.
[00:18:37] anti-war sentiment is growing in the country, but if
[00:18:40] you let some of these
[00:18:43] fronding regional KPRF members in, but
[00:18:47] that's a bad decision, that is, naturally, the KPRF is a party
[00:18:50] controlled to a certain extent, like all parties in Russia, but I would
[00:18:54] say that along with Yabloko it is one of the most uncontrolled
[00:18:58] controlled parties. Moscow, Komi, Irkutsk,
[00:19:01] Krasnodar, Perm, Altai Krai, Khakassia and
[00:19:04] Buryatia. In these regions, says the political scientist. there are still
[00:19:08] candidates who do not openly support the war,
[00:19:11] yes, they go to the Duma from the Assembly with
[00:19:14] the pro-war KPRF campaign, but they try
[00:19:17] not to talk about the war, that is, in the so-called
[00:19:20] victory program it is written about victory over fascists in
[00:19:24] Europe, but to the voters they talk about victory
[00:19:28] over poverty, now, in principle, it seems
[00:19:31] interesting to follow candidates who start flirting with
[00:19:35] an anti-war agenda.
[00:19:38] well, flirting on their own, yes, from
[00:19:41] the KPRF, from those I listed, that's actually Tsyrenov,
[00:19:45] Bondarenko, in Chuvashia there is also
[00:19:49] a candidate who also advocates for peace,
[00:19:52] yes, and in Kamchatka it's also good,
[00:19:55] in Kamchatka you can also watch, there's a strong
[00:19:58] branch, they were dispersed for several years, dispersed, but not
[00:20:02] completely dispersed, in Buryatia, a region that is a leader in losses from
[00:20:06] mobilization, the KPRF nominated a candidate with the
[00:20:08] slogan "Peace to the World." Bair
[00:20:12] Tsyrenov's campaign video even begins with the words: "When will
[00:20:15] the special military operation end?" The politician actively criticizes United
[00:20:19] Russia, but Tsyrenov himself
[00:20:22] explains why he criticizes the ruling
[00:20:25] party? To defend the honor of United Russia, which does not need to be defended,
[00:20:29] which has already failed in everything it possibly could in this country. I urge
[00:20:33] Doshibal to still come to the next debates, to participate in them together
[00:20:36] honestly. to judge the problems of our republic, otherwise we will not
[00:20:40] be able to get out of this quagmire, otherwise we will not be able to help our thousands
[00:20:44] of soldiers who are on the front lines, and their families, even though fully
[00:20:48] anti-war registered. it is difficult to call candidates, politician
[00:20:51] Mikhail Lobanov sees in regional campaigns a chance for
[00:20:55] anti-war, or at least simply opposition
[00:20:58] sentiments, to be somehow represented in
[00:21:02] the Duma or in legislative assemblies, this generally became possible
[00:21:06] in Buryatia, possibly characterizing the entire regional organization, in
[00:21:10] general, because this is once he was nominated, understanding
[00:21:13] what he is capable of, there is still
[00:21:15] Markhaev as a leader, yes, so in principle,
[00:21:19] let's say, on average... across the region, this
[00:21:22] is rather an anti-war sentiment, that is, I won't vouch for
[00:21:25] everyone, and accordingly, it is possible that it makes sense to support
[00:21:29] the KPRF in order to increase the chances that someone from this regional group
[00:21:33] will go and that this person
[00:21:36] will represent both the republic and
[00:21:40] its interests at the federal level, and accordingly, somehow,
[00:21:43] well, not to condone the war, political scientist
[00:21:47] Levin agrees with Lobanov, he explains, these bold
[00:21:51] decisions of the KPRF by the fact that the party leadership does not always
[00:21:54] know the details of regional campaigns, but if problems
[00:21:58] arise for the leadership due to regional politicians, then
[00:22:01] the party itself will remove undesirable candidates from
[00:22:05] the elections.
[00:22:08] Simultaneously with the elections to the State Duma, dozens of regional campaigns are also taking place,
[00:22:12] where voting also becomes a test for governors, local elites,
[00:22:16] their ability to fulfill the task set by Moscow. We will talk about this and
[00:22:19] more with political scientist Ruslan, who has been studying the politics
[00:22:31] in fact, start the conversation with all our
[00:22:34] guests with one very important question, why are these elections
[00:22:38] really important and for whom are they important first
[00:22:41] of all?
[00:22:43] In general, elections are probably a stress test, you could
[00:22:47] say, for the entire system, for...
[00:22:50] the nomenclature, for the political class, it is obvious that the
[00:22:53] authorities, of course, have all the opportunities to falsify
[00:22:57] the elections, to draw the desired
[00:23:00] result, but it is smooth on paper, but
[00:23:03] they often forget about the enemies, because in this
[00:23:07] case, the authorities may face strong
[00:23:10] social protest, as was, for example, in 2011-2012,
[00:23:14] when dissatisfaction
[00:23:17] with the elections...
[00:23:50] it's impossible to stop it, it's impossible just to
[00:23:53] tighten everything up and not have any
[00:23:56] consequences.
[00:23:58] In fact, the authorities are now trying
[00:24:01] to play it safe, removing undesirable candidates, like the
[00:24:05] Yabloko party,
[00:24:08] which they didn't even consider before, well, what is Yabloko,
[00:24:11] it will get some statistical error,
[00:24:15] they said, but now even this Yabloko party, which, it must
[00:24:18] be said, was still pushed to the sidelines
[00:24:22] of mainstream political life, started
[00:24:25] gaining votes, well, not because it is so good and wonderful, but
[00:24:29] because people want to vote protestingly, people
[00:24:32] want to express their disagreement with what is happening in the country, and the Yabloko
[00:24:36] party, well, generally accumulates these votes, because
[00:24:40] the other parties somehow either are integrated into
[00:24:43] the Kremlin's agenda or they agree with it, like the KBR,
[00:24:47] now if a person doesn't see this choice, what should he do?
[00:26:03] that is, Moscow says: decide for yourselves, but how can you decide if you have no
[00:26:06] powers, neither political nor administrative, and at the same time
[00:26:09] they force you to draw the result the authorities want in the
[00:26:13] elections, that is, the Moscow
[00:26:16] authorities step aside and say, you yourselves oppress,
[00:26:19] draw,
[00:26:21] regional authorities, of course, go along and
[00:26:25] draw fire on themselves, that is, in fact,
[00:26:28] all the hatred, let's say, aggression
[00:26:31] of the local population.
[00:27:02] dirty political technologies, but at the same time we will not
[00:27:06] insure you, because in the last
[00:27:09] few years, we know that both vice-governors are being jailed,
[00:27:13] and governors are being jailed, that is, no one is untouchable,
[00:27:16] then the question arises, why should we break our backs,
[00:27:20] our fifth point, for what,
[00:27:23] so that we are jailed, so that we are made scapegoats,
[00:27:26] and this causes
[00:27:29] this break in this...
[00:27:32] political matrix, how many
[00:27:36] war participants will we actually see, because these are
[00:27:39] the first elections that are held after the full-scale invasion of Russia into
[00:27:43] Ukraine?
[00:27:46] I saw statistics, most of them, I think, are in
[00:27:49] United Russia in the electoral lists,
[00:27:52] either 12 or 15%. We
[00:27:55] know that before that there were instructions
[00:27:59] that representatives of the special military operation
[00:28:03] should also be incorporated
[00:28:07] into the regional parliaments, whether they fought or not,
[00:28:09] that's another matter,
[00:28:13] they must be represented, well, I think that it's naturally United Russia,
[00:28:17] KPRF, because this is their rhetoric,
[00:28:20] LDPR,
[00:28:23] yes, naturally, but even
[00:28:26] for example, such systemic parties as Fair Russia, as we
[00:28:29] see, face problems, well. Mironov, this
[00:28:33] active defender of Russian desmans and everything
[00:28:37] else that is interesting, he also
[00:28:40] threatened with papers, waved something, said that our
[00:28:44] patriots are being removed from the elections, that is, even within this
[00:28:47] power conglomerate or pro-government conglomerate, there is
[00:28:51] some kind of competition, we also understand this perfectly,
[00:28:55] this is connected with the fact that regional lobbying groups promote someone,
[00:28:58] law enforcement, by the way, corporations promote someone, yes.
[00:29:02] their armies promote FSB officers, for example,
[00:29:05] the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the investigative committee,
[00:29:08] some large oil corporations, like the
[00:29:11] Sechenskaya group, so the struggle between them will probably be more
[00:29:15] fierce, between a conditional pro-government
[00:29:19] opposition group, well, and all the more it is worth asking whether
[00:29:23] these participants of the so-called special military operation
[00:29:26] will be elected to the State Duma, can they, it is clear that probably no one
[00:29:30] will allow them to.
[00:30:32] here they are, yes, or we know that there is
[00:30:36] such a movement as NOD, which
[00:30:38] says that Putin is surrounded by traitors,
[00:30:42] that the White House is in charge, and
[00:30:46] Putin should be given more power, that the boyars
[00:30:49] are bad, the tsar is being deceived, I think that their
[00:30:52] rhetoric will be similar, this will greatly hinder the authorities, because
[00:30:56] well, in general, it will be, as I already said,