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make it stop. Thankfully, there's

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one company out there that's giving you a much

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get the plans shipped to your door for free,

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go to mintmobile.com. That's

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mintmobile.com.

0:49

I'm looking for my brother, Victor Bogdrov. He used

0:51

to live here. This is the

0:53

voice of the actor Sergey Bogdrov,

0:56

playing perhaps the defining role

0:59

in post-Soviet cinema, a

1:01

young Russian man called Danila

1:04

Bogdrov. Danila

1:12

is tough, charismatic and handsome.

1:15

Like his counterparts in Hollywood action

1:17

movies, he radiates quiet authority

1:20

and has a gift for violent retribution.

1:27

The character first appeared in a film

1:29

called Brother. Danila returns from military service in Chechnya

1:33

to take on the gangsters in his hometown of

1:35

St. Petersburg. But he really seared himself into the public consciousness

1:38

in the sequel, Brother 2.

1:43

In this film, released

1:45

in May 2000, Danila

1:46

takes on an even bigger challenge,

1:49

restoring justice in the corrupt and cynical world of post-Soviet

1:52

Russia. Russian

1:57

vodka. With

2:04

shades of both Pulp Fiction and Robin Hood,

2:07

Brother 2 pits Danila against

2:09

an American kingpin who runs a drug and sex

2:11

ring in Russia and who is responsible

2:14

for the death of his best friend. In

2:17

the movie's climax, Danila shoots his way

2:19

to the top of a Chicago skyscraper to

2:22

confront the villain.

2:23

Staring him down across a chessboard with

2:26

a gun by his side, Danila

2:28

utters a line that would soon become

2:31

a national catchphrase. Tell

2:38

me American, where

2:41

do you think power lies, Danila

2:43

says?

2:44

In money? I

2:51

think that power lies in the truth.

2:55

They who have the truth have

2:57

the power. The

3:07

film ends aboard a flight. Danila

3:10

and his friend Dasha are on a plane bound for

3:12

Moscow,

3:13

feeling vindicated. The

3:15

struggle is over. The

3:18

bad guy defeated.

3:28

Boy, bring us some vodka, Danila's

3:31

friend says to one of their attendants. We

3:33

are going home.

3:37

Four days before Brother 2 had its premiere,

3:39

Vladimir Putin was inaugurated

3:42

as Russia's president for the first time.

3:47

Everyone expected Brother 3

3:50

to follow, but that film was

3:52

never made. The

3:54

actor who played Danila, Sergei Badrov, died

3:57

in a landslide.

3:59

Russia is still waiting for a

4:02

sequel.

4:07

I am Arkady Ostrowski from The Economist.

4:10

This is Next year in Moscow. Episode 8

4:18

Arrivals In

4:31

the spring of 2003, I was posted

4:33

to Moscow by The Financial Times, a

4:35

foreign correspondent in my home country.

4:39

My editor asked me what I thought would

4:41

be the big story of my stint in Russia.

4:43

I had a boring

4:45

answer. Now,

4:49

I wish I could respond the same way. Russia,

4:52

I said, was becoming a normal country.

4:55

The excitement of the 90s was

4:58

over. The capitalist economy was growing up. Vladimir

5:03

Putin was no liberal, but

5:06

most people expected he would build on the reforms

5:08

of his predecessor. But then, three months after

5:10

I arrived,

5:12

a story broke that would

5:14

dominate my work there for the next

5:17

ten years. At its center was an oligarch, Mikhail

5:19

Fedorkovsky. Fedorkovsky

5:22

was one of the beneficiaries of a notorious deal

5:26

struck in the mid-90s between the Kremlin and a small

5:29

group of bankers and tycoons, which handed

5:31

them control over Russia's natural resources. It

5:35

was known as loans for shares. As

5:40

a result of the deal, Fedorkovsky, who was then in his early 30s,

5:44

ended up in charge of Russia's largest oil company,

5:47

Yukos. By 2004, he had an estimated

5:49

personal fortune of around $15 billion,

5:52

making him the real-world champion.

5:59

richest man in the country, and

6:02

one of the most powerful ones. Well,

6:05

first of all, let me say this. Forbes

6:07

called me the richest man in Russia. I

6:09

was the

6:11

largest shareholder in

6:13

the Yukos oil company, but I was not

6:16

its controlling owner, so

6:19

it's a little bit excessive to say

6:21

that I was the richest man in Russia.

6:24

This, as you might have guessed, is not

6:26

Mikhail Khadarkovsky. He's the man

6:28

who speaks English for him, Steve Lang.

6:32

He has been Khadarkovsky's translator since they met

6:34

more than 20 years ago. It's

6:37

a period during which the former oligarchs' life

6:40

has been broken down and rebuilt

6:42

again. For

6:46

our interview, Mikhail was with me in our London

6:48

studio, and Steve was dialing in from

6:50

his home in Canada. So,

6:54

this started out, I don't

6:55

know, about 2001, 2002. Russia

7:04

was facing an obvious choice. It

7:07

could

7:08

become a truly Western

7:10

society with a Western economy,

7:12

with a Western social order,

7:15

open up. As someone in control

7:17

of the largest oil firm in Russia, Khadarkovsky

7:20

started to exert influence over

7:22

the future of the country. Putin

7:25

needed to consolidate power and resources.

7:31

At the beginning, Putin

7:34

honestly did think that

7:36

money and power were one

7:38

and the same, which is why

7:41

he focused on amassing

7:43

money. Putin

7:48

is not a stupid man, and he quickly realized

7:51

that money alone does not

7:53

equal power.

7:55

He

7:58

understood. that he needs

8:01

unconditional loyalty. And

8:06

corruption was the means through

8:08

which to acquire this unconditional

8:10

loyalty.

8:12

Corruption was not an ailment of the system.

8:15

It was the system.

8:17

Khadarkovsky, with his Western

8:20

ideas of transparency and property rights,

8:22

was getting in the way of it. And

8:25

in 2003, the daggers were drawn. In

8:29

a televised meeting

8:32

at the Kremlin, the oligarch accused

8:35

the president of enabling massive

8:44

levels of corruption among government officials.

8:48

Putin fired back. He

8:50

accused Khadarkovsky of evading taxes.

8:54

The comments felt like a threat.

8:56

And so I was a very clear and obvious target

8:59

to use as a loud, showy example of the message

9:07

that

9:12

now you've got to toe the line, you've got to do things my

9:14

way or else.

9:16

Putin had the ultimate advantage. Khadarkovsky

9:20

didn't have an army. The president

9:22

did.

9:27

Khadarkovsky was in Washington when the prosecutor

9:29

opened a case against his company. An

9:33

American congressman tried to talk him out of going

9:35

back.

9:36

But he had made up his mind and

9:38

soon boarded his private jet to

9:41

fly back to Russia. Did

9:46

you know what was awaiting you? I

9:51

was very pleased with the fact that

9:54

I was a president. Of course,

9:56

I was aware

9:58

of what awaited me.

9:59

But to be honest,

10:02

I had a little bit more of a rainbowy

10:05

picture of what awaited me.

10:07

He went to Siberia, the home of

10:10

the Russian oil industry.

10:12

In many of its cities, towns and villages,

10:14

Yukos was the primary employer. Before

10:22

I was imprisoned, I wanted to have a chance to talk

10:25

to as many of the people who

10:27

work for me as possible and to explain

10:30

to them what my point of view was.

10:32

But he wasn't only thinking about his employees.

10:38

It was important for me to get to all of Russia's

10:41

citizens, to let them know what's

10:43

going on.

10:45

I'm also quite aware that

10:47

people will listen to you a lot more if

10:49

you speak from prison than if you

10:51

speak from having run away. And

10:53

that's why I returned. Khadarkovsky's

10:57

tour came to an end in Novi Sibirsk, Siberia's

11:00

largest city, on what was meant to

11:02

be a refueling stop. When

11:04

the plane landed, he saw a group of people

11:06

in black uniforms

11:08

waiting for him. They

11:15

sent this huge plane for

11:17

me from Moscow, filled

11:20

with an entire regiment of FSB

11:22

Spetsnaz.

11:24

They

11:27

presented me with a document saying that they

11:30

have been assigned to escort me back to Moscow as

11:33

a witness in a criminal case. But

11:36

of course, obviously all of us understood

11:38

what this all actually meant.

11:40

In 2003, Khadarkovsky was arrested

11:43

and jailed. He would spend the next

11:45

ten years behind bars, some of it

11:48

in a remote Siberian penal colony. Few

11:51

people in Russia shed tears for this wealthy

11:53

man, who personified the inequalities

11:56

of the 90s when the oligarchs willed

11:58

at enormous power. over a state

12:01

that couldn't even pay salaries on time.

12:03

But

12:05

by taking him on, Putin was

12:07

asserting his own political monopoly. In 2004,

12:11

a year after his arrest, Hrzarkovsky's

12:15

oil company, Yukos, was dismantled

12:17

and forced into bankruptcy. Its

12:20

assets and revenues were channeled

12:23

to Putin's friends and cronies. The President

12:27

of the United States of America

12:29

was the President

12:32

of the United States of America. Putin

12:34

has the mentality of a gangster. And

12:38

for him, it was important that he and his buddies

12:41

get rich and really doesn't

12:43

care about what happens with everybody else.

12:48

It was a pivotal moment. Putin

12:50

and his associates, many of them former

12:53

KGB men, grabbed control

12:55

of Russia's oil and gas. And

12:57

in the process, they took over the judiciary,

13:00

ending a brief period of political independence

13:03

in the courts.

13:08

Ten years in prison transformed Hrzarkovsky's

13:10

status in Russia, from oligarch to

13:13

stoic political prisoner. He was

13:15

celebrated in the West and amongst Russian

13:17

liberals at home. To

13:20

Putin, who was by now in full control,

13:22

he no longer presented a threat. But

13:25

he had become a nuisance and keeping

13:27

him in jail would only bolster his image.

13:31

So in December 2013,

13:34

he let him go.

13:36

Hrzarkovsky, in his prison clothes, was

13:39

led out of his cell, bundled into

13:41

a plane and flown out of Russia

13:44

to exile in Berlin. It

13:48

was an abrupt ending to the story.

13:50

And years on,

13:51

Hrzarkovsky is still in exile,

13:53

knowing he'd face arrest if he returned.

13:59

Using whatever he wanted, money and personal capital he

14:01

has, he is now fighting against the

14:03

ultimate act of corruption and violence.

14:07

Putin's war. By

14:10

his own admission, he is not a politician,

14:13

but his experiences give him a perspective

14:16

on what it takes to be one in Russia today.

14:20

If he wants to retain any chance

14:23

of being the number one person in the political

14:26

hierarchy of

14:37

Russia, he

14:40

absolutely has to return to Russia.

14:43

However,

14:45

this is fraught with great physical risk

14:47

for him.

14:51

In August 2020, Alexei

14:53

Navalny, Russia's number one opposition

14:56

politician, was in Siberia.

14:59

He was in a combative mood. Massive

15:02

protests had broken out in one of Russia's

15:04

neighbors to the west, Belarus, against

15:07

its dictator, Alexander Lukashenko.

15:14

Meanwhile, in the east of

15:16

Russia, people were also out in the

15:18

streets, rallying against the Kremlin and

15:21

cheering protesters in Belarus. Navalny

15:25

felt the moment was ripe with potential. So

15:28

did the Kremlin.

15:31

Kyra Yarmusz, Navalny's long-serving spokesperson,

15:34

was with him on that trip through Siberia.

15:38

It was a Thursday.

15:40

They were preparing to return to Moscow.

15:44

I remember that when we worded on

15:46

that plane, I was very

15:49

satisfied with the whole trip.

15:51

I thought how great it was

15:53

and how great it would be to go back home.

15:56

The

15:57

plane took off on what should have

15:59

been a four-year-old plane. four and a half hour flight. Kirre

16:02

and Navalny were seated together. Alexei

16:05

started to watch Rick and Morty, and

16:08

I was reading a book. Navalny

16:11

is well known for his love of Rick and Morty, an

16:13

animated sitcom about a mad scientist and

16:15

his grandson. And

16:18

in 15 minutes, he closed

16:21

his laptop, and he asked me to

16:23

talk to him because he started

16:25

to feel unwell. And

16:28

I remember that he was very pale.

16:32

Now it was obvious that something is wrong with

16:34

him, but no one knew what

16:37

exactly.

16:40

He got up, excused himself,

16:44

told that he will go to the bathroom, and

16:46

he never returned.

16:49

Soon after leaving his seat, he collapsed

16:51

onto the floor of the plane.

16:58

On a video recorded by one of the other passengers,

17:01

you can hear him moaning in pain.

17:13

The moment when the pilot made contact with air traffic

17:15

control is also captured on tape.

17:22

We have a man lying on the floor being sick, he

17:25

says. He's most likely poisoned,

17:27

not drunk. He needs emergency medical

17:30

attention. About 40

17:36

minutes later, the plane made an emergency landing

17:38

in Omsk.

17:39

Paramedics injected Navalny with Atropin,

17:43

and almost certainly saved his life. He

17:46

was soon in a coma. After

17:50

some wrangling, Putin eventually agreed

17:52

that Navalny could be transferred to Berlin, hoping

17:55

never to see him again on Russian soil.

18:01

Medics plays the comatose

18:03

politician in a sealed hazmat

18:05

stretcher before loading him onto the

18:07

plane. It looked like a coffin

18:10

from a science fiction film.

18:14

On the 7th of September, nearly

18:16

three weeks after the poisoning,

18:19

doctors in Berlin

18:20

announced that they had taken Navalny

18:22

out of his coma. The

18:25

moment he awoke,

18:27

Navalny's chief of staff told him

18:29

what had happened.

18:30

Putin

18:31

had poisoned him with Novichok,

18:33

an Earth agent

18:34

only available to operatives of the Russian

18:36

state. Fuck,

18:40

how stupid is that, Navalny said. His

18:44

friends knew he was back in action.

18:51

I went to see Alexei in early October. Kira

18:55

met me on the corner of Kurfürstenstrasse

18:58

in West Berlin and let me into a

19:00

safe house that

19:01

was brimming with German plane-close security

19:03

and police. Navalny

19:13

looked gaunt. His neck

19:16

was scarred where the intubation tubes

19:18

had gone in. His hands

19:20

trembled. His speech was fast.

19:24

He had been having trouble sleeping, he said.

19:31

But

19:33

his near-death experience hadn't dimmed

19:35

his ambitions. Instead,

19:38

it made him more determined than ever.

19:42

He was already planning his return to Russia

19:45

and would get on a plane as soon as he'd

19:47

recovered his mobility and strength.

19:51

As he told me time and again, he was

19:53

a professional politician, fighting

19:55

for power.

19:59

He was confident that time was

20:02

on his side. Putin

20:09

was a throwback, holding on to

20:11

an outdated idea of Russia as an empire

20:14

and its people as subjects. Navalny

20:17

had a different vision, of Russia

20:20

as a modern European nation-state, where

20:22

people have agency. Putin

20:25

is the last chord of the USSR, he told

20:27

me. And people in the Kremlin know

20:29

there is a historic current that is moving

20:32

against them. They are

20:34

scared of me, he said, and desperately don't want

20:36

me to return.

20:47

If you do, I replied, they could arrest you

20:49

and lock you up for a quarter of a century. Russia

20:55

shrugged.

20:58

So let them. Hi,

21:16

I'm Shashen Khoshi, the Economist's Defence

21:19

Editor, and I'd like to tell you about some

21:21

of the reporting that our team has been doing

21:23

on the war in Ukraine. The technology

21:25

of the conflict, the strategy of both

21:27

sides, and of course the fighting on

21:30

the battlefield. Right now,

21:32

there's a really palpable sense

21:34

that Ukraine's counter-offensive,

21:37

a long-awaited attack to

21:39

recover some of their territory from

21:42

Russian occupation, is drawing

21:44

close, that it will happen

21:46

in the coming days or the coming

21:48

weeks. We've been reporting

21:51

on the flood of Western arms going

21:53

into Ukraine, the role of training

21:55

of Ukrainian officers in Europe,

21:57

and the challenges

21:59

that you face.

21:59

Ukraine is going to face in

22:02

breaking through what is now

22:05

a formidable set of Russian

22:08

defences, trenches, tank

22:10

traps, ditches, but there

22:13

really is a feeling now that this

22:15

is a decisive moment

22:18

in the conflict that is looming ahead of us.

22:21

As we cover this, Arkady and

22:23

I are constantly talking to senior officials,

22:26

civilian leaders, military officers

22:29

in North America, in Europe and

22:31

of course in Ukraine itself to

22:33

ensure that our coverage is balanced, that

22:36

it's comprehensive and we hope is

22:38

unparalleled. If you already

22:40

subscribe to The Economist, thank you so much,

22:43

you make all of that possible.

22:45

Otherwise, for access to all of our journalism

22:48

and to join exclusive events with Arkady,

22:51

me and other members of our team,

22:53

please visit economist.com slash

22:56

moscooffer, that's economist.com

22:59

slash moscooffer. The link

23:01

is in the notes for the podcast.

23:25

I've got two bags. Around

23:29

1pm on January 17th, 2021,

23:33

I arrived at Brandenburg Airport in Berlin

23:36

and checked in for flight 936

23:39

to Nukovo, Moscow. It

23:42

was operated by a low-cost airline called Pabieda,

23:45

which means victory in Russian. The

23:48

departure lounge was teeming with journalists.

23:52

We made our way onto the plane and took our

23:54

seats. Then

23:57

Alexei Navalny stepped

23:59

into the cabin. Navalny

24:04

from Israel, he says, you aren't afraid.

24:16

People clapped, cameras flashed. Navalny

24:21

slid into his chair two rows in front of me

24:23

in 13A, his

24:25

lucky seat, next to his wife.

24:28

Looking into a phone camera held by one of their aids,

24:34

Yulia and Alexia Navalny reenacted

24:37

a scene

24:38

from a popular film. Boy,

24:47

bring us a vodka, we're going

24:49

home. The

24:52

clip was soon live on Instagram. Navalny

24:56

barely talked through the rest of the flight. He

24:58

and Yulia sat watching Rick and Morty. As

25:02

we approached our destination, I

25:04

handed my boarding pass to him and

25:07

asked him to scribble his thoughts on it. Yo,

25:11

Arkady, he wrote. Last

25:13

time I passed nodes across rows was at school.

25:15

Glad you're on this

25:17

funny flight, going I don't know

25:20

where. A

25:23

few minutes into our descent, the captain made

25:26

an announcement. This

25:29

is your captain. Just now I'm going

25:31

to put a vodka in, forced by technical

25:33

reasons. We're expecting

25:35

to approximately... Moscow's Nukovo

25:38

airport, where 2,000 Navalny supporters

25:40

had gathered, was, he said,

25:43

closed for technical reasons.

25:52

Sorry

25:55

everyone, Navalny shouted to his fellow

25:57

passengers. We

26:00

were being diverted to a different airport on

26:02

the other side of the city, Siremetiva.

26:06

A few hundred protesters had managed to get

26:08

there in time and assembled outside.

26:13

As Navalny walked through the terminal, followed

26:16

by his wife and dozens of journalists,

26:19

he paused in front of a poster of

26:22

the Kremlin. He

26:24

then turned to address the press.

26:28

This

26:30

is the happiest day for the past five months of my life, he said. I have

26:39

come home. He

26:41

then proceeded to pass with control.

26:44

You must have missed me. I missed

26:46

you, he told border guards. A

26:49

group of officers in black uniforms approached.

26:55

As

27:02

his lawyer argued with the officers, Navalny

27:04

silently turned towards his wife, Yule.

27:08

She hugged him and kissed him

27:10

goodbye on the cheek, then

27:13

attentively wiped away the lipstick.

27:17

Navalny was taken alone to

27:19

a holding cell, an Onto

27:21

kangaroo court, which the authorities

27:24

had hastily assembled in prison. A portrait

27:28

of Stalin's secret police chief hung

27:30

on the wall.

27:48

In the next few days, mass protests

27:50

broke out across the country of Navalny's

27:52

arrest. Putin controlled

27:55

the courts, the secret police and

27:57

the army.

27:58

Navalny controlled the narrative. Speaking

28:04

from the dock a few weeks after landing in Moscow,

28:07

Navalny addressed the judge and the country.

28:14

He spoke like he was at a rally or

28:17

delivering a sermon. He

28:19

cited the Bible before offering a modern

28:21

interpretation.

28:22

What's

28:28

the most popular political slogan in Russia? He

28:31

asked,

28:32

help me someone. Where

28:39

do you think power lies? It

28:42

lies in truth. They who have the

28:44

truth

28:45

have the power.

28:47

Tens of millions of people want the truth and

28:49

they'll get it sooner or later.

28:54

One of those millions of people hungry

28:57

for truth was a young Navalny supporter,

29:00

Maria Kuznyacova.

29:04

I even went to the airport to

29:07

meet him. I was one of the

29:09

few people who went to the right airport

29:11

because he changed it last minute. How

29:14

did you manage

29:15

to get from Vnukovo Airport

29:17

to Shrimetiva? Because I didn't

29:19

go to Vnukovo. So how did you get going

29:21

to the right airport or did you live nearby?

29:23

I just lived nearby. Maria

29:26

hadn't always lived in Moscow. She

29:29

was born in 1998 in Novakuznyatsk,

29:32

a mining town in Siberia and

29:34

one of Russia's most polluted places.

29:37

Actually I remember that the snow

29:39

was really black because

29:41

of the pollution and when

29:43

I was at the fourth grade Vladimir

29:46

Putin was supposed to go to Novakuznyatsk

29:49

and they just painted the

29:51

snow to be white for his visit.

29:55

She saw violence everywhere growing up.

29:58

Boys scrapping at school. drunken

30:00

men beating their wives.

30:17

She moved to Moscow at 17

30:19

to enroll in a diplomatic academy.

30:22

Her ambition was to join the Russian Foreign Service,

30:25

but she quickly became disillusioned with the system.

30:30

I understood quite clearly that

30:32

what Russian universities

30:36

showed to be social sciences

30:39

is just propaganda.

30:41

And in 2017, she watched a film

30:44

that encapsulated the rot. It

30:46

was an investigation of corruption in the Kremlin,

30:49

produced by Navalny and his team. I'm

30:52

from that generation for whom

30:55

that film opened eyes. I

30:58

was not interested in Russian

31:01

politics before that.

31:03

I wanted to work for

31:05

an enjoy somewhere very

31:07

far away from Russia.

31:08

But when I saw that film, everything

31:11

changed for me.

31:13

The film was part of Navalny's presidential campaign,

31:16

and it spoke to a new current in Russian

31:18

politics. Because

31:22

Navalny was a totally new type of

31:24

politician for Russia, he stormed

31:26

Russian politics with a laptop and

31:28

an Internet connection.

31:30

His grassroots campaigns were informed

31:32

by American TV shows like The Wire. He

31:36

made his own fortune. His

31:38

message that change was possible was

31:41

now reaching parts of society well

31:43

beyond the prosperous Moscow and St. Petersburg crowds

31:46

who had protested against Putin before. They

31:49

were younger, poorer

31:50

and angrier. Maria

31:53

herself volunteered for his campaign and

31:56

started collecting signatures. It

31:58

wasn't because she was enamored. with his leadership style.

32:02

But because he hailed the change to a system that

32:05

was preventing her

32:06

and her country from advancing. In

32:09

the years to come, Maria's political

32:12

activism expanded.

32:13

She worked for Open Russia, a pro-democracy

32:16

group founded by Mikhail Khadarkovsky.

32:19

Like many people, this drew her

32:22

to the attention of the authorities. And

32:25

in 2021, tired of the searches

32:28

and intimidation, she moved to Georgia.

32:31

Within a year, Russia had invaded Ukraine.

32:35

She felt she couldn't go back.

32:39

But this criminal war reinforced her

32:41

feeling of responsibility for her country and

32:44

paradoxically

32:46

changed her own sense of identity.

32:49

I always, before the war, I always

32:51

preferred to say that I'm from Russia,

32:53

that I'm not Russian. Because

32:56

I just didn't feel that nationality

32:58

was important. But since

33:00

the 24th of February, I

33:03

definitely started to identify more

33:05

as a Russian.

33:07

Now it's a thing that I cannot

33:09

live and a thing that I

33:11

need to work on for many years.

33:14

Cultivating a new sense of national identity

33:17

is central to Navalny's project.

33:19

And this is directly related to what's

33:21

happening on the front lines of the war.

33:26

Ukraine wishes to be a European nation

33:28

state. And Navalny

33:31

wants the same for Russia. Putin

33:34

can't allow either. But

33:37

the president's tactics appear to be

33:39

backfiring. We

33:41

know that the war has strengthened Ukraine's

33:43

sense of nationhood. And

33:46

now we're starting to see that opposition

33:48

to the war is also awakening a

33:50

new sense of national consciousness in Russia.

33:54

It is in Russia's national interest, Navalny said

33:56

in a recent statement, to stop the war, withdraw

33:59

troops from all over the world. of Ukraine's territory,

34:01

used Russian oil and gas revenues to pay compensation

34:04

to Ukraine and bring war criminals

34:06

to justice. Maria

34:10

is now studying at Harvard. In

34:12

a recent tweet, she wrote that she was

34:14

there to learn how to try war criminals

34:17

and restore peace. I

34:19

think it's quite clear that even if this

34:22

war ends, but the government

34:24

does not change on Russia, it can

34:27

start a new war.

34:31

That's why I just think that

34:34

our war in a way is

34:36

much longer than this one.

34:38

It is your war? Definitely.

34:42

Definitely.

34:49

And this war too is a fight for territory. Yes,

34:52

Putin wants to confine the version of Russia

34:54

that Maria and Navalny both envisage to

34:57

a remote prison cell.

34:59

It's a metaphor with precise physical

35:01

dimensions.

35:03

His cell is about six

35:06

square meters. You

35:08

can't properly move there because

35:10

it's tiny and for a man of his height,

35:13

it is like a concrete cage.

35:16

Alexei Navalny has mostly been in solitary

35:18

confinement since last summer at

35:20

penal colony IK 6, 250 kilometers east of Moscow.

35:26

His spokesperson, Kyra Yarmusch, described

35:29

it for us. There is only

35:32

iron stool inside that is nailed

35:34

to the floor, so you can't move it around. There

35:37

is a tiny window, but it doesn't open, of course.

35:40

There is no ventilation. There is no hot

35:42

water. And in the

35:44

morning at 5am you have to

35:47

give away your mattress and your bed is

35:49

tightened to the wall and you are prohibited from

35:51

lying on the floor. So you can only

35:53

stand or sit on this stool. This

35:57

is it.

35:57

Everything is designed with a prisoner's discomfort.

36:00

mind. Even the walls,

36:02

which are finished with a rough texture. This

36:05

is a special Gulag

36:07

invention actually, so

36:10

that it would be very uncomfortable

36:13

to lean on that wall and

36:15

you can't write anything on it.

36:18

Prohibited from making phone calls, Navalny

36:21

is given less than 35 minutes a day during which

36:24

to read legal documents and write letters.

36:28

The lights in his cell

36:29

are never switched off.

36:31

And he is banned from buying food in

36:33

the prison shop,

36:35

subsisting on whatever he is given

36:37

by the guards. In Russia it

36:39

means slowly dying

36:42

from hunger because it is definitely

36:45

insufficient to survive on this

36:47

type of food.

36:51

Being in this cell is definitely a

36:53

torture. It is physical torture

36:55

and psychological because

36:57

he is not allowed to do

37:00

anything there. Kira

37:02

says his health is failing and

37:04

that he is rapidly losing weight.

37:06

They called an ambulance to Alexei in

37:09

the prison. So I mean the guards decided

37:11

to call an ambulance and we all

37:13

understand that in Russian prison only

37:16

if you are in a critical condition they will

37:19

call you a doctor.

37:20

The state is now busy

37:22

working on a new case that would brand

37:24

Navalny an extremist. Charges

37:26

against him could carry 35 years in jail. But

37:33

Navalny's experience hasn't deterred

37:35

other opposition figures from following his

37:37

example and facing the consequences

37:40

for it. Ilya Yashin

37:42

is serving an eight and a half year jail term.

37:45

And while we were working on this episode

37:47

Vladimir Karmorza was sentenced

37:50

to 25 years.

37:51

Both are represented by Maria Aixment,

37:54

the lawyer from our previous episode.

37:57

By handing out sentences that hark

37:59

back

37:59

at the darkest Stalinist days,

38:02

Putin is telling his opponents

38:04

abundant hope.

38:06

By refusing to fear him, they

38:08

are delivering their verdict.

38:11

The 70-year-old president will not

38:13

live forever.

38:18

Prison exists in your mind,

38:21

Navalny says in one post.

38:26

And if you think carefully, I'm

38:28

not in prison, but

38:30

on a space voyage to

38:32

a wonderful new world. He

38:36

is a very strong and brave man, so

38:39

he remains very positive and

38:41

we can see it in his letters,

38:45

in his posts, something like that.

38:49

He believes in what he is doing,

38:51

so this keeps him going.

38:59

I try to help him to feel better in

39:01

the prison, to give him my support,

39:03

moral support. Shimon

39:07

Levin is a rabbi. He

39:09

was born and raised in Russia and spent several

39:12

years working in a Moscow synagogue before

39:14

moving to Israel, which is where

39:16

I met him earlier this year. He

39:19

and Alexei were introduced by Navalny's

39:21

chief of staff. And

39:24

we had a long conversation,

39:28

maybe four hours, five hours conversation

39:31

into the middle of the night. It

39:34

was very interesting, I had a lot of questions about

39:36

Jews and about Judaism.

39:38

Shimon and Navalny only

39:41

met in person that one time.

39:43

But they've been corresponding since Navalny's

39:45

incarceration.

39:48

Navalny, who is a practicing Christian,

39:50

has spent much of his time inside studying the Bible

39:53

and the Torah. And he's been

39:55

campaigning to be allowed a copy of the Quran.

39:59

He has drawn on Shimon's And Shimon's knowledge.

40:01

And Shimon has, in turn,

40:04

learned from the jailed politician.

40:08

If Russia maybe

40:13

have a better future than

40:15

he's the person who can make this

40:17

future much better, and

40:19

in my opinion it's very important if he

40:23

will

40:24

stay in life and I hope he will

40:26

be free, it will affect very

40:28

much the Russian and the old

40:31

world in history.

40:32

It's telling

40:33

that Navalny's story arc,

40:35

a hero who narrowly escapes death

40:38

and returns to challenge a naval emperor, resonates

40:41

with everything from Greek mythology to

40:43

Hamlet to Star Wars.

40:46

The politician

40:47

is on an epic journey of his own

40:49

design. To

40:52

religious men like Shimon, there

40:54

is an even more obvious reference. I

40:57

think what happens to Alexei Navalny, it's

41:00

very biblical history. I

41:02

think the story of the Torah, it's

41:05

people who didn't afraid

41:08

and who fought against the evil,

41:11

who fought against the lies,

41:14

and sometimes they

41:16

succeed, sometimes they didn't, but

41:19

they continued this fight.

41:22

The point with Navalny is that unlike

41:24

Putin, his story is designed to survive

41:27

contact with death.

41:29

Myths are hard to kill. Navalny

41:32

may or may not see his beautiful

41:35

Russia of the future. And

41:37

those who have left Russia don't know

41:39

whether there will ever be a place they can

41:41

call home again.

41:47

2000 years ago, Jews were

41:49

forced to leave Israel by the Roman

41:52

Empire. By the took the

41:54

identity with them, the

41:57

identity wasn't identity of land.

42:01

And today I think it's a similar

42:04

situation. When people live,

42:07

not only Jews, all the people, Russians,

42:09

Ukrainians, they can't take their

42:11

culture with them and to

42:13

develop this culture and this

42:16

identity in every

42:18

country in the world.

42:20

And I think it's very important. But

42:23

creating a culture outside a homeland doesn't

42:25

mean giving up on where you came from.

42:30

At the time of Passover, Jews

42:32

around the world repeat, Leshana,

42:35

Chabah, Veerushalayim. Next

42:38

year in Jerusalem. It's

42:41

a reminder of their life in exile,

42:44

but it's also an expression of hope.

42:50

Today I think it's important to people

42:52

who left Russia to create such

42:54

a similar thing to next year Moscow.

42:58

In which Moscow? Moscow

43:00

today, if I decide to go there,

43:03

it will be a very not pleasant place

43:05

for me.

43:07

Between those who have left and

43:09

those who remain, a version

43:12

of Moscow is being kept alive.

43:16

In this city, there are no spray-painted

43:18

letter Zs. No

43:21

FSB. No

43:23

political prisoners. And

43:26

there is no war. I

43:32

love Moscow and I love Russia. And

43:34

good Russia and good Moscow. And

43:38

I want to visit next year Moscow.