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00:00:00other factions, for example, the Liberal Democratic Party in 2026,
00:00:03announced a mass nomination of candidates with the status
00:00:07of "Special Military Operation". The authorities need elections, but do the voters themselves
00:00:10need them? This is a report by a correspondent for Radio
00:00:13Svoboda.
00:00:20Every 5 years in Russia, parliamentary elections are held, and
00:00:23the results are always the same. This is already a custom.
00:00:27A tradition, I would say, a ritual.
00:00:31It seems that Russians are already tired of this movie. In 2026,
00:00:35half of those surveyed in VTsIOM don't even know when
00:00:38they will go to the elections. At the same time, the outcome of these elections is already known
00:00:41to almost everyone. 75% in the same
00:00:44VTsIOM poll expect that United Russia will win,
00:00:48although the mood in the banned social networks regarding the current
00:00:52and future leaders is unambiguous. Look at what they
00:00:56are doing, my hands are itching.
00:01:00to tear down that poster, in Russia, everyone has long
00:01:03only worried about their own asses, no one for
00:01:07our people, especially not our
00:01:10deputies do not care about their
00:01:13people, ass-holes. However,
00:01:16some things can be learned from search queries. According to Yandex
00:01:20Wordstat, Russians in September, on the eve of the elections, were concerned about three
00:01:23issues to roughly the same extent:
00:01:26mobilization, elections, plantings. Although, regarding
00:01:30plantings in the garden. Mobilization was searched 2
00:01:33million times, planting - 2.2 million, elections
00:01:36a little over 2.5 million. Everything is a little
00:01:39more complicated, because we have a
00:01:43state policy aimed at what is called
00:01:47"drying up turnout," that is, making sure that
00:01:50people who don't like something don't come to the election. At the same time, I
00:01:54mean they, the Russian authorities, mobilize those who are under
00:01:58their control. This is...
00:02:30candidates, when there is no one special to choose from, this reduces
00:02:33motivation. As for the polls in
00:02:36VTsIOM, FOM, or Levada Center. And here too there is something to
00:02:40be surprised about. VTsIOM assures that 54% of Russians
00:02:44will definitely go. More than half have already decided who they will
00:02:47vote for. But the Levada Center, which is recognized as a foreign agent
00:02:51in Russia, but is more trusted, paints a different
00:02:54picture. Only a third of those surveyed
00:02:57are aware of the election date, and willing to
00:03:0025% don't plan to go at all, and
00:03:0320% haven't decided at all. That is, according to some figures,
00:03:07Russians are eagerly rushing to the polls, and according to others,
00:03:10half the country doesn't even know that these polls are opening. To
00:03:14clarify, you can refer to public polls on
00:03:17the streets. Which party will you vote for in the elections? For no party, for
00:03:21that guy, we won't say. I'm for no one. United
00:03:24Russia. I'm for none. I don't vote anymore and I don't need to vote, I
00:03:28don't want to.
00:03:42still nothing will happen our way. Yabloko was not allowed, everyone was removed, there is no one to vote for, and it is sad, at the moment it seems to me that we are all in a rather depressive
00:03:45state and to expect some change
00:03:48by democratic means
00:03:52is not worth it. Well, in general, as practice shows, elections
00:03:55bring nothing, change nothing. Well, honestly, I wasn't going
00:03:59to go, I don't see the point. I think
00:04:02some general fatigue is affecting it. In
00:04:05general, few people believe that anything
00:04:08will change. After a too bright election
00:04:11campaign by the Yabloko party on social networks and the loud
00:04:15elimination of candidates, an Instagram
00:04:18gloom set in. There's no one left to vote for.
00:04:21Well, for example, I can choose the communists, simply
00:04:25because there's nothing else left. That is, it's like
00:04:29an alternative.
00:05:03What about citizens, even candidates don't come to
00:05:07debates. In the region, absolutely
00:05:11no one showed up for the debates. The Russia-1 studio was empty
00:05:14for 2 days in a row, and the presenter
00:05:18said goodbye to the viewers right after the opening
00:05:21remarks. Candidates did not appear in our studio,
00:05:25so I say goodbye to you. Next on air is an agitation
00:05:28block and thematic broadcasting. The debates were ignored
00:05:31by 11 incumbent governors, that is,
00:05:35these are precisely those whose fate will be decided on September 20.
00:05:38And the candidate from the Direct Democracy party, the only
00:05:42one who actually came to the studio. He answered the question about supporting large families
00:05:46in 25 seconds, then
00:05:49looked silently into the camera for half a minute, admitting that he had nothing more to say.
00:05:53Pasha, what if something comes to mind? No, nothing else will come to mind.
00:06:17If you start talking about the specifics, about gasoline,
00:06:20prices, lack of medicine and products, you might not just
00:06:24drop out of the election race, but go to prison for 10 years. Therefore,
00:06:28all substantive debates in the country, it seems,
00:06:31remain in the kitchen. But there are also those who are waiting for
00:06:35a miracle from the elections. For example, according to some Russians, gasoline
00:06:38disappeared specifically so that on the eve of the vote
00:06:41it would reappear: the savior returned fuel to gas stations and
00:06:45gained grateful voters. If you think that
00:06:48there is no gasoline at gas stations, then you are greatly mistaken.
00:06:52Now I will tell you why, and I will also tell you when gasoline will appear. When
00:06:55there are such queues, well, just think about it, if a person stands in line for
00:06:5810-15-20 hours to fill up his car, he
00:07:02is irritated, he is angry at this whole situation.
00:07:06Then some report
00:07:08appears on the news about
00:07:10someone on TV saying that now we will punish
00:07:14everyone, oh-oh-oh, now we will punish everyone and gasoline will be everywhere,
00:07:17oh miracle, by the eighteenth, by
00:07:21the elections, gasoline will be at all gas stations.
00:07:24Let's discuss the meaninglessness and ruthlessness
00:07:27of the Russian electoral process with Stanislav
00:07:30Belkovsky. Good afternoon, Stanislav.
00:07:33Hello. What task is the Kremlin solving
00:07:36with these Duma elections?
00:07:40The Kremlin is solving several priority tasks. First, maintaining the ritual
00:07:44of power, since observing the ritual of power is
00:07:47an integral part of the stability of the entire power mechanism and
00:07:51organism. There is no need to cancel
00:07:54elections, as they always give the Kremlin the desired result. And
00:07:58Vladimir Putin is a deeply conservative inductivist, solving
00:08:01pragmatic tasks. From a pragmatic point of view, any
00:08:04encroachment on the already established election mechanism is
00:08:07counterproductive. Why, if the result is known
00:08:11to the Kremlin in advance and the elections.
00:08:43No, a fire is not scary to the dead. Elections are a pure
00:08:46fake. In any case, whether Yabloko participates in them or not, the scenario with
00:08:50Yabloko generally corresponds to what President Putin's administration has always
00:08:54done, roughly since 2007,
00:08:57when the political system of modern Russia became more or less
00:09:00Putin's and got rid of some excessive
00:09:03features of the previous historical period. The Kremlin
00:09:07always first creates some kind of buzz, that is,
00:09:10the illusion of competitiveness and that... something unpredictable participates
00:09:14in the elections. Fair Russia 2007, which was
00:09:17initially perceived as a real alternative to United Russia,
00:09:21was later deprived of such status during the election
00:09:24campaign itself. Mikhail Prokhorov, with his Right Cause, who was also removed from
00:09:28the elections in 2011, presidential candidate from
00:09:31the Communists Pavel Grudinin in 2017-18,
00:09:34who unexpectedly interested the electorate more
00:09:37than the traditional candidate from this party Gennady
00:09:40Zyuganov, and in all cases the Kremlin... backed down, realizing that
00:09:44the commotion was risky, it carried the threat that
00:09:47the result could not be fully controlled. The same happened with Yabloko
00:09:51this year. The Kremlin initially calculated that
00:09:55Yabloko would get its 1%, and thereby it would be shown
00:09:58how many people in Russia are against the war. In addition, the calculation
00:10:02was that all opposition members, including relocatees, would, of course,
00:10:05quarrel among themselves and not support Yabloko. It turned out
00:10:09somewhat the opposite. It turned out that all opposition members supported Yabloko, despite...
00:10:13the sharp contradictions within their circle, and the number of people wanting
00:10:17to vote not for Yabloko, but in the person of Yabloko against the war,
00:10:20is immeasurably more than 1%. At this moment, as before, in such
00:10:24situations, the Kremlin decided to backtrack and remove
00:10:27Yabloko from the elections. If the composition of the future Duma is largely
00:10:30predictable, why bother spending tens of billions
00:10:34of rubles on these elections? What does the Kremlin buy with this
00:10:37money? With this money, the Kremlin buys the observance
00:10:41of the ritual of power, which is a necessary part
00:10:44of the stability of this power. Of course, everything in life costs money,
00:10:47including the ritual of power. Well, the inauguration
00:10:51of the president costs money, you don't refuse it just because it's expensive.
00:11:05deputies, as it was in the USSR. Let me remind you that voters were offered a single list
00:11:09of candidates, approved by party bodies, and there was always
00:11:12exactly one candidate for one
00:11:15place on the ballot. Putin gives the opportunity
00:11:19to assert that his political system corresponds to
00:11:22the main democratic criteria of modernity.
00:11:55there is a full-fledged, full-blooded electoral democracy, and the fact that
00:11:58Putin is always ready to pass off the formal as the factual, for him
00:12:02follows in this sense Lenin's principle: correct in form, but
00:12:05in essence mockery, this we have known since the very beginning of his rule. Is this
00:12:09facade needed for the West, or for
00:12:11whom? It is needed in general, because there are general
00:12:15principles for building the legitimacy of this
00:12:18apophatic totalitarianism, and these
00:12:21principles include the formal holding of elections and the formation.
00:12:55just slightly corrected the old Yeltsin system and nothing more. Therefore,
00:12:58he does not destroy the established mechanisms of power, he simply
00:13:01emasculates their content, but he absolutely does not need
00:13:05to change them purely formally, because for himself and for, that
00:13:08is, in the universe in which he lives, where the formal is more important
00:13:12than the factual, it is very important that all the formal principles of building this
00:13:15electoral system are observed. Who
00:13:18will be replaced by war participants in the new Duma, who will be left
00:13:22out of parliament?
00:13:25I think that all five parties that are represented in the State Duma will remain. Only Fair
00:13:29Russia is balancing on the brink now, which objectively
00:13:32the Kremlin does not really need. It has outlived its usefulness and done its job. The other
00:13:36thing is that Putin loves stability, so maybe only for this reason he will still
00:13:40mercifully allow the SR and its outdated leader
00:13:43Mironov to remain there. As for the New People, it is clear why they are needed. This is
00:13:47a liberal facade, as we discussed, without which it is
00:13:50impossible – in relations with the West first and foremost, and also
00:13:53giving hope to the next...
00:14:00Somewhere in power, well- disguised
00:14:03liberals will be sitting there until then. War
00:14:06participants will not occupy any decisive positions either in this Duma, or even
00:14:10in power in general. Yes, of course, as a severance package, veterans of the so-called
00:14:14special military operation will be given a certain number of posts,
00:14:18but Vladimir Putin will not give them any real
00:14:21power. He is generally afraid of them, afraid of them as people
00:14:25with post-traumatic stress disorder, who know how to
00:14:28kill. He does not want a repeat of any Afghan syndrome and
00:14:31self-organization of war participants according to the principle of Afghan
00:14:35veterans. Therefore, he will rather additionally control
00:14:37and restrict them. Zhirinovsky repeatedly proposed an elective
00:14:41monarchy. The people, represented by the State Council, choose the ruler, who
00:14:45then appoints the rest himself. Why has Putin not yet followed
00:14:48this path? Well, Vladimir Vreovich had many
00:14:52eccentric ideas, not at all counting on their implementation.
00:14:55And Putin did not go for it, because it is pragmatically
00:14:58completely unnecessary. The currently existing system of fake
00:15:02democracy absolutely works for him and confirms his
00:15:05legitimacy, both within the country and on an international scale. Why change
00:15:08it? We know that theoretically Putin
00:15:11can lead Russia until 2036. Will he
00:15:15follow the path of succession, what do you think? This
00:15:19apophatic totalitarianism system that he built does not imply
00:15:23succession in principle.
00:15:25Because it informally operates under the slogan, expressed, however,
00:15:29formally too, no Putin, no Russia, therefore succession
00:15:32cannot even be discussed. The monarch
00:15:35is absolutely without alternative, this is the most important.
00:15:40The key element of this system. When there were two monarchs, Medvedev and Putin, from Putin's point of view, this was very harmful to the political system
00:15:44and ultimately led to Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue,
00:15:47which must not be repeated. Therefore, the main project that
00:15:51is being implemented in the Russian Federation today is the prolongation
00:15:54of Vladimir Putin's physical life, as we know. Therefore, even after
00:15:582036, he will try to remain in his post. And
00:16:01how? Well, we'll see. Tell me, how will Putin's life
00:16:05be extended after twenty- thirty-six?
00:17:37that you want the country to collapse or are you for
00:17:41special operation Z? If the question is put that way, maybe this special operation
00:17:44Z will turn out to be much more popular. In general, Putin is sure that, firstly,
00:17:48the people, the people support the war until
00:17:51the victorious end, even if not all of them. He has no anxiety about this. And secondly,
00:17:55regardless of what the people think about
00:17:58this, Putin, again, Putin's pre-election address
00:18:02to the people is part of the ritual of power. It must
00:18:05be heard. It contains what...
00:18:37will not differ much from the previous one, in it United
00:18:41Russia will dominate, but regardless of the ratio of the five
00:18:44Kremlin parties or four, if Fair Russia still falls out of
00:18:48the clip, which is still unclear, all
00:18:51this mechanism is strictly controlled from the Kremlin, it is not endowed with
00:18:54any independent will or subjectivity. A bright victory will give
00:18:58him the opportunity to conduct the second part
00:19:00of the mobilization. This has nothing to do with
00:19:03the other, that is, elections are not such.
00:20:07the Duma, the Kremlin continues to claim that there is no
00:20:11need for it, but the history of Vladimir
00:20:14Putin's public statements gives many reasons to return to what he said
00:20:17before and compare words with subsequent events.
00:20:21My colleague, Dmitry Novikov, on Putin's
00:20:24statements that millions of Russians remembered, and which then
00:20:28diverged from the facts. What of Putin's statements during
00:20:32a quarter century in power turned out to be lies,
00:20:35demagoguery, disinformation? Or an information
00:20:38special operation? Top 7 statements, promises,
00:20:41public confessions that stuck in the memory of millions
00:20:45of Russians. I emphasize, they are not participating
00:20:48in hostilities. Soldiers serving conscript service will
00:20:52not participate, and there will be no
00:20:55additional call-up of reservists from the reserves. In seventh place, if
00:20:59we reverse the chronology, is partial mobilization.
00:21:02No conscript soldiers there. The Kremlin on March 8,
00:21:052022, on the twelfth day of Russia's large-scale
00:21:08war against Ukraine, Putin says there will be no additional
00:21:12call-up of reservists, but on September 21, he announces
00:21:16mobilization, that is, precisely the call-up of citizens from the reserves.
00:21:50to bring such a claim against him for this. In sixth place is the statement
00:21:53that there will be no occupation. Let's recall his half-hour
00:21:57speech early in the morning on February 24th. "Our plans do not
00:22:01include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to
00:22:04impose anything on anyone by force." In the autumn
00:22:07of 2022, the Kremlin not only declares the Donetsk,
00:22:10Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine to be Russian
00:22:13territories.
00:22:34playing with pleasure.
00:22:37Partly this is a consequence of his, I
00:22:41think, FSB past, partly, well, he, he is,
00:22:44in principle, a product of the Soviet
00:22:47Union, a product of the Soviet...
00:22:54He says what he deems
00:22:57necessary, and for him
00:23:00this is kind of a way of governing. He
00:23:03is a Chekist, he is a special services officer,
00:23:06he is constantly on assignment, he is constantly on a special operation, and
00:23:10the concepts of lie and truth are absolutely
00:23:13blurred for him, they do not have any ontological
00:23:16meaning. And therefore, well, for him to lie...
00:23:20is like breathing. In fifth conditional place are statements about
00:23:23military mercenaries. Professional killers from the Wagner group in Africa
00:23:27have no relation to the Russian authorities, is that so? Here
00:23:30is one statement by Putin: "The Russian state has nothing
00:23:34to do with this," he says quite responsibly,
00:23:37without any ulterior motives. And another one about
00:23:41the Wagner PMC, with a time difference of a year and a half.
00:23:44The maintenance of the entire Wagner
00:23:47group is completely...
00:25:20distributing. No, we are not considering it. His order for
00:25:23preparations for the occupation of Crimea had been in force for 9
00:25:26days already. He set certain
00:25:27tasks,
00:25:30said what and how we should do. As a conservative person,
00:25:34who loves the Soviet past, he
00:25:37partly lies with pleasure due to this
00:25:40Soviet background. Partly, I think, this is
00:25:44a consequence of that ...
00:25:48criminal gang subculture, in
00:25:50which he himself and
00:25:54a significant part of his entourage were once raised. Well, in terms of their
00:25:58mentality, they are, after all, members of organized crime groups,
00:26:01in essence. So, for this criminal
00:26:05subculture, it is also highly characteristic
00:26:07to have an absolutely indifferent
00:26:11and calm attitude regarding lies towards an external
00:26:15subject. That is, you cannot lie to your own people. If you are caught lying
00:26:19to your own, that's
00:26:21punishment. But to fool a sucker, so to speak, excuse me for
00:26:25the expression, well, that's a sacred thing. That's what we stand on.
00:26:29So, well, a whole set of reasons that...
00:26:32makes Putin a virtuoso
00:26:36of lies. So,
00:26:38that's why he - you know, as a Chekist, he
00:26:42essentially, I think, he formulates it differently. It's not that he lies, he
00:26:46uh, he simply organizes a cover
00:26:50operation, misinforms the enemy.
00:26:53Or, for example, the answer to the question, who seized Crimea? Go to
00:26:57a store, and you can buy any uniform there. Were these
00:27:00Russian soldiers or not? Were they?
00:27:32to the continuation of power, to the prolongation of power. The only goal
00:27:36named is the longest possible stay in
00:27:39power, yes, to the limit of his entire biological
00:27:42life, possibly even after his biological life. Everything he
00:27:46says and does serves only this goal,
00:27:49the satisfaction of his instinct for power.
00:27:52Well, now the satisfaction of some of his other
00:27:56natural needs, for example, now his natural need
00:27:59is war, yes, he likes it. He plays this
00:28:03war, it's his life's work, it will last as long
00:28:07as his life lasts. Well, in first place from the list of those
00:28:10quotes that could not but be remembered by millions
00:28:13of Russians: "I am
00:28:16against
00:28:19increasing the retirement
00:28:22age, until I am president, such a decision will not be made." What else did Putin declare during
00:28:26his time in power? "I do not intend to change
00:28:29the Constitution under any circumstances." Rewritten. In
00:28:322020, rates of basic taxes will no longer be
00:28:35adjusted, changed in 2019,
00:28:392021, in 2026. Or,
00:28:42for example, his words, "Restricting the internet is politically
00:28:46incorrect." Since 2022, military censorship has been introduced
00:28:49in Russia. Since 2025, mass disconnections
00:28:52of mobile internet have begun in the country.
00:28:56Dmitry Novikov, Nastoyashchee Vremya, Radio
00:28:59Svoboda. With that, we conclude the program "
00:29:02Results of the Week". I was Mumin Shakirov. Watch us on the TV channel
00:29:06Nastoyashchee Vremya on YouTube Radio Svoboda.
00:29:09We'll see you in a week.