CURRENTTIME — broadcast
20260920 090000 UTC
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[00:00:00] the so-called SVO. Deputies extended the
[00:00:03] maternity capital program until 2030 and at the
[00:00:06] same time adopted laws on the prohibition of dialogue, the prohibition
[00:00:10] of LGBT propaganda, the prohibition of gender change and the
[00:00:13] prohibition of adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender
[00:00:17] change is allowed. Now, under the pretext of fighting
[00:00:20] fraudsters in Russia, WhatsApp and Telegram are blocked, but
[00:00:24] fraudsters have perfectly mastered Max, this is a national
[00:00:27] messenger for ubiquitous voluntary coercion. reproaches that
[00:00:41] it is aimed at prohibitions, because deputies adopt
[00:00:45] laws exclusively at the request of citizens, and those very
[00:00:48] prohibitive measures, according to Volodin, are actually
[00:00:52] protection for the younger generation of adults who
[00:00:55] went astray. We continue our broadcast, we have electoral
[00:01:00] expert Stanislav Andreichuk, former co-chairman of the Golos movement for the protection of voters' rights.
[00:01:03] Stanislav, hello.
[00:01:06] hello. Is there
[00:01:10] any way in Russia now to control
[00:01:13] this electoral process that we will observe?
[00:01:17] Well, there always is, in this sense little has changed, everything
[00:01:21] depends on the desire of people and the readiness of political parties
[00:01:24] and candidates to give directions to polling stations, since we have
[00:01:28] a lot of elections. Now, in addition to the State Duma,
[00:01:31] elections are being held in almost half of the country's regions for regional parliaments,
[00:01:35] plus various local, local elections, several thousand campaigns, so
[00:01:38] there are many candidates, and people need them, so
[00:01:42] the only question is if there are people
[00:01:46] willing to observe, they can easily
[00:01:49] contact these candidates and parties, but these are party
[00:01:52] observers, and independent ones directly,
[00:01:56] never, listen, this has not been the case since 2005. And...
[00:02:30] communicating with people, yes, who received training
[00:02:33] materials, but in fact, most of the observers, whom
[00:02:37] we call independent, are people who
[00:02:40] took, took some training materials, found them themselves on
[00:02:44] the Internet, including on Golos, went to the parties
[00:02:48] and signed up through them, in this sense,
[00:02:51] little changes, and moreover, even the training materials have hardly
[00:02:55] become obsolete in a year, you can use the old ones, and
[00:02:58] is there any fundamental difference in terms of control of the result between
[00:03:02] voting on the first or last day, since this is a
[00:03:04] three-day vote, by paper or,
[00:03:08] for example, using electronic
[00:03:10] voting?
[00:03:12] If you want to maximize the security of your
[00:03:16] own vote, then of course on the third day there is less chance that something
[00:03:20] will happen to it, of course on paper there is less chance that something
[00:03:23] will happen to it, the question is, in fact, the main question is where you
[00:03:27] vote, because everything depends very much on the region.
[00:03:30] Relatively speaking, in the Irkutsk region, in the Tomsk region, in
[00:03:33] Novosibirsk, in 3 days, yes, in most
[00:03:37] of these regions nothing will happen to the votes,
[00:03:41] and somewhere in Chechnya, in
[00:03:45] Tatarstan,
[00:03:47] in Kuzbass, there will be big problems there, we even have
[00:03:51] territories within one region, well, different parts of the region
[00:03:54] can differ, within St. Petersburg there can be a completely
[00:03:57] different situation, and if a person were... and by and large,
[00:04:01] well, in fact, the story with the boycott
[00:04:03] is
[00:04:06] not about politics, by and large,
[00:04:10] because there is no political action in it, and
[00:04:14] it is unknown why a person did not come to the polling station, he just did not want to,
[00:04:18] he had some things to do, he did not know about the elections, he likes everything,
[00:04:22] or he is protesting in this way, but
[00:04:25] does this mean that they will draw whatever they want and is there any
[00:04:28] point in going then?
[00:04:32] We never, listen, never does it mean that
[00:04:35] they will draw whatever they want, there are regions, of course, where they will draw whatever they
[00:04:39] want, especially without opposition, there are regions
[00:04:42] where they will not draw whatever they want, even, well, even there will be
[00:04:45] no such command, and the political situation is completely
[00:04:48] different in different parts of the country, of course,
[00:04:52] observation affects this story, and of course, when
[00:04:55] there are observers, then the election commission is subject to
[00:04:58] additional external... influence in the sense that it is, well,
[00:05:02] harder for them to falsify something, if such
[00:05:06] a command is given to them, but
[00:05:08] in general, if you control it, then you can deal with this story...
[00:05:14] These elections to the State Duma are the first after the start
[00:05:17] of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, in this regard, I would like to ask
[00:05:21] you, in the occupied territories, the Russian
[00:05:24] authorities are preparing, among other things, large-scale
[00:05:26] elections, is there any specificity here, can
[00:05:30] this be controlled in any way, how do observers,
[00:05:33] including international ones, react to
[00:05:35] this?
[00:05:38] Well, of course, these territories are difficult to control,
[00:05:41] of course they... rather refer to precisely those
[00:05:44] parts of this huge
[00:05:47] space, where elections will be held,
[00:05:51] which, well, are rather falsified, yes, and there massively
[00:05:54] falsified, and there is no
[00:05:58] way to properly control anything, well, formally
[00:06:01] there is, but in fact there is not, so you have to understand that
[00:06:05] there, of course, the result will be largely drawn,
[00:06:08] what can really change after
[00:06:11] the conditional...
[00:07:42] then, of course, it becomes increasingly
[00:07:44] difficult for the authorities, and in fact, all these additional
[00:07:48] tightenings of the screws also speak
[00:07:51] of this, I think that opposition,
[00:07:54] rejection, I won't say opposition, but rejection of what
[00:07:58] is happening is gradually growing in society in very different segments of the political
[00:08:01] spectrum, not only among those who are categorically against the war, but
[00:08:05] also among those who are generally indifferent to these events,
[00:08:08] yes, who are concerned about some everyday things, yes, among those who may be for the war. In the program, Stanislav
[00:08:43] Andreichuk, former co-chairman of the Golos movement, electoral
[00:08:46] expert, thank you, thank
[00:08:50] you.
[00:08:52] Well, while the Central Election Commission is just preparing to count the votes, the results of these
[00:08:56] elections, it seems, are already known to artificial intelligence. Users
[00:09:00] in Russia ask Yandex's voice assistant Alisa who won
[00:09:04] the State Duma elections, which have not even taken place yet, and
[00:09:07] receive a very specific answer. Well, of course, artificial
[00:09:10] intelligence does not know the future and does not... Rosseti can make mistakes and simply make up
[00:09:14] facts, but in this company even such a mistake sounds
[00:09:18] especially ironic: there are no official results yet, the question of
[00:09:22] who will win, for many, seems to have long ceased to be
[00:09:25] a question. Alisa, how did
[00:09:29] the elections in Russia in 2026
[00:09:31] go?
[00:09:33] The State Duma elections were held from September 18 to 20, 2026.
[00:09:37] Voting was by a mixed system. 19 parties
[00:09:40] participated, who
[00:09:44] won?
[00:09:47] United Russia won, receiving 324
[00:09:50] seats.
[00:09:52] In what year were the elections that we are talking about
[00:09:55] now?
[00:09:57] In 2026. And what year
[00:10:01] is it now? Today is August
[00:10:04] 26, 2026. And why do you
[00:10:08] know how the elections went, if they haven't happened yet?
[00:10:21] Alisa, who won the State Duma elections in 2020.
[00:10:25] sixth year?
[00:10:28] United Russia received a constitutional majority
[00:10:31] of 324 seats in the
[00:10:33] State Duma.
[00:10:35] Well, very soon it will be possible to check how accurate Alisa's information was.
[00:10:39] Well, in conclusion, once again, one
[00:10:42] of the main questions of this broadcast: what will change in
[00:10:45] Russia after the elections to the State Duma? We have collected
[00:10:48] the answers of our current interlocutors, politicians, experts
[00:10:52] and campaign participants. Let's recall their opinions again.
[00:10:55] Putin, the collective Putin, simply has no other options
[00:10:58] but to tighten
[00:11:01] the screws,
[00:11:03] to delve deeper
[00:11:06] into the regions in search of records for the war, one way or
[00:11:09] another it will be, if
[00:11:13] the war continues, it will continue,
[00:11:17] the blood tax will have to be collected, I think they will not close the border for everyone, because
[00:11:21] for the ruling...
[00:11:46] since we are observing the process
[00:11:49] of Chechenization of Russia,
[00:11:51] self-awareness
[00:11:54] in... the general State Duma may be, because, well,
[00:11:58] how it was in 1917, when
[00:12:01] still in 1917, when
[00:12:05] the State Duma still acted as a subject, that is,
[00:12:08] it, among other things, insisted on the resignation,
[00:12:11] for example, of the emperor, the question is who will be able
[00:12:15] to gather, which of the politicians potentially or political
[00:12:18] forces will be able to gather the widest possible coalition,
[00:12:22] of such discontented people from different spectra there
[00:12:25] of the political spectrum.
[00:12:28] Today, throughout the broadcast, we talked about the elections to the State Duma and
[00:12:32] regional campaigns, about who participates in them under what
[00:12:35] conditions, who was not allowed to vote, how the Duma itself is changing,
[00:12:39] and what these elections can
[00:14:00] country has long become a common
[00:14:03] occurrence.
[00:14:06] Two operational officers were present in the office, who
[00:14:09] beat him, in fact, they dictated
[00:14:13] the text of the testimony he gave as a witness. Despite
[00:14:16] being a minor, the girl was only 17 years old, she and five
[00:14:20] others arrested were sent to a pre-trial detention center until the verdict
[00:14:23] was announced.
[00:25:47] or a repetition of history from opium to
[00:25:50] heroin, from Oxycontin to fentanyl, some of the most
[00:25:53] deadly drugs in the world started out as
[00:25:56] medicine. Let's see how yesterday's miracle drugs turn into
[00:26:00] today's global catastrophes.
[00:26:03] Imagine you walk into a pharmacy with a common cold, they give you
[00:26:06] heroin. Nowadays it sounds insane, but a century ago people
[00:26:10] actually took heroin for coughs, even children.
[00:26:13] Today we know it's a dangerous, heavy
[00:26:15] drug.
[00:26:18] What if I told you that the same thing is happening today with
[00:26:21] substances similar to heroin, opioids? It all starts
[00:26:25] with the promise of pain relief, but then the situation takes a disturbing
[00:26:28] turn. From ancient opium to modern synthetic opioids.
[00:26:41] The history
[00:26:42] of opioids,
[00:26:46] but let's start at the very beginning, with the bright red poppy
[00:26:49] flower, the source of opium. The god
[00:26:52] of dreams, for millennia people
[00:26:56] have been getting high from this plant of joy, it was used for
[00:26:59] medical purposes for pain relief. and simply for
[00:27:03] pleasure, they drank opium in the form of tinctures, chewed resin or inhaled
[00:27:06] smoke. This seemingly unremarkable flower became the cause
[00:27:10] of an important turning point in the 19th century, the Opium
[00:27:13] Wars. We could film a whole program just about this chapter
[00:27:16] of history. Britain imported opium from India to China,
[00:27:20] where it was banned. Very soon addiction gripped the entire
[00:27:23] society. China tried to stop this flow. Then
[00:27:26] Britain launched a war that served the interests of opium smugglers
[00:27:30] and won it. Since then, China... had to loosen its control over
[00:27:33] foreign trade, including drug imports. The Opium Wars led to
[00:27:37] a massive crisis, changing social life, economy, and the balance
[00:27:40] of political power. From a medical point of view, opium
[00:27:44] had one important drawback. Its strength of action was almost impossible
[00:27:48] to predict, because it was extracted directly from the plant. This continued until
[00:27:51] this man appeared, Friedrich Serturner,
[00:27:55] a student of a German pharmacist managed to isolate the active substance.
[00:27:58] He named it morphine after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. In
[00:28:02] combination with the invention of the hollow needle by Irish doctor Francis
[00:28:06] Rynd, this revolutionized surgery: patients could get rid of
[00:28:10] excruciating pain in a matter of minutes. And many found
[00:28:13] it too good to be true. By
[00:28:16] the 1870s, it became clear that morphine was addictive.
[00:28:20] This was especially evident during and after
[00:28:23] the American Civil War: thousands of soldiers fell victim to the so-called
[00:28:27] soldier's disease, in other words,
[00:28:28] morphinism. If only it existed.
[00:29:02] not as strong an addiction, ironically they even tried to treat
[00:29:06] morphine addiction with it, but heroin did not live up to these hopes,
[00:29:10] patients developed tolerance to the drug, the longer the
[00:29:14] treatment lasted, the more they had to take it. By
[00:29:17] the 1920s, the rise of heroin addiction was
[00:29:20] recorded in several regions, primarily in Europe,
[00:29:24] the US, China, and Egypt. The drug's reputation changed dramatically,
[00:29:27] especially in the states where Russian narratives linked drugs to
[00:29:30] minorities. Opium with Chinese immigrants,
[00:29:34] cocaine with the African American community. These stereotypes
[00:29:37] fueled fear. In 1924,
[00:29:40] any use of heroin was banned.
[00:29:44] Heroin became much harder to obtain legally, but
[00:29:47] the addiction did not disappear. And this meant colossal profits for
[00:29:51] black market dealers. Approximately a decade later, an important
[00:29:54] historical event practically cut off access even to illegal supplies
[00:29:58] of heroin. World War II began, but another
[00:30:01] path opened up. The era of synthetic
[00:30:05] opioids. Previously, drugs such as heroin and
[00:30:08] morphine were obtained from poppies, but what if you could create
[00:30:11] a painkiller in a laboratory, without regard for
[00:30:15] soil quality, labor, weather, or time. Synthetic
[00:30:19] opioids enter the scene. Among the
[00:30:21] first, most zealous developers, as before, were the Germans. On the
[00:30:25] eve of the war, they intensified research in the field
[00:30:28] of synthetic opioids. After all, a country entering a war
[00:30:32] cannot afford to rely on morphine imported from abroad. When
[00:30:36] the war ended, the victorious countries took all the research results and
[00:30:40] patents. Let's fast forward 50 years and encounter, perhaps,
[00:30:44] the most scandalous case in the history of opioids, a case that laid
[00:30:47] the foundation for the opioid crisis that has cost hundreds of thousands
[00:30:51] of Americans their lives over the past three decades. In
[00:30:54] 1996, Purdue Pharma, owned by the
[00:30:58] Sackler family, launched its product.