 Good morning. I'm very happy to welcome you to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I'm Jeff Mankoff with the Russian Eurasia Program here, and it's my distinct pleasure and honor to welcome our guest today, Ilya Panamaryov, who is a member of the Russian Duma, an independent, a key opposition member from the city of Novosibirsk. He has a very interesting background. Before coming into politics, he actually studied physics as an entrepreneur, is a leading member of the opposition, he was the only member of the Duma to vote against the bill for the annexation of Crimea earlier this year, and despite his service in politics, he also remains very active in business. He founded successful high technology companies as an entrepreneur, works in the area of shale gas, was an advisor to the president of the Skolkova Foundation, and is actively engaged in the business community as well. But he has become most prominent as a member of the political opposition, been involved with a number of different political parties, again is one of the leading anti-Putin members of the Duma today, one of the few leading opposition figures who remains in political office at a time when, as we all know, the political scene in Russia has become more and more constricted at the highest levels, and yet since the onset of the economic crisis, the crisis in Ukraine, the wellsprings of opposition have begun moving again, and after many years of frozen stability at the top of Russian politics, suddenly we see a much more fluid political scene at least at the grassroots level, and Ilya is a figure who is intimately connected both with those opposition movements at the grassroots level but is also involved in high-level politics, and so for that reason he is a great person to have here in Washington to help explain what's going on in Russia. He's going to talk about the development of the Russian political scene, the role of the opposition, the crisis in Ukraine, and then what it means for the bigger picture of Russian politics and international security. He has a PowerPoint presentation, which you guys can watch on the screens here. It's going to go for about 45 minutes, I guess, and then we'll have a little conversation up here, and then I will open it up to you all. So please join me now in welcoming our guest, Ilya Pan-Mariov. Thank you very much. I indeed decided to sustain my image of entrepreneur and going with PowerPoint, which is not that common for Russian politicians to do. It still would be long and exhausting, but I hope it would be a little bit more entertaining with all the slides and pictures and everything, but you will be totally free to ask any kind of questions. I also would be presenting, not just as a politician, but as an advisor to newly established Free Russia Foundation, so I would try to be rather a little bit more analytical than political and will try to present kind of a little bit more balanced view on what's going on and try to explain from more or less neutral position and all about what's going on, but you are free to ask as tough questions as they could be. And the major point that I would try to prove is that what we are talking about in regards to Russia and what have started during the Ukrainian crisis is no longer something internal Russian problem. And it's not a problem which is relevant just to Russia or Eastern Europe and it's no longer a problem which is relevant just to Russia and Europe. We actually are witnessing the awakening of Russian there and it's not just awakened and came out of its tie-guys as Mr. Putin was proclaiming during recent Valdai forum, but it's preparing to mate with grizzlies across the world and to challenge egos, lions and all other kind of animals and to ignore it would present a significant challenge for the global politics and not just the local politics in Russia. So what we see now, we don't see it because it's not the first slide somehow. So as you see it's the technical things, they still emerge, yes, now it's working. So where we are right now? We have witnessed already 14 years of what is called Putin's stability. And we can make a brief analysis and say what was during these 13 years. Actually what emerged in Russia is a kind of Bonapartist regime as it was described in the 19th century and can be compared to the regime of Louis Bonaparte III of 19th century France. It is a populist regime and no doubt that Putin has a lot of grassroots popular support in the general population in Russia. It's empowered by large businesses and the Union of Large Businesses with Siliviki with a former KGB officers, military and other kind of security background. It has a very strong image because it's core value which is presented to the society is that we finally stopped the chaos of 90s and we present the image of stability and that you are safe and secure. And that's the most vulnerable point of this regime because as soon as this feeling of stability would vanish and it would vanish at one point inevitably then its core value will disappear as well. In terms of economy many people debate that Putin implemented kind of a leftist policy and is building a corporate government which I think is not exactly true because if we see it all the reforms that were implemented during the last 14 years they were fundamentally neoliberal kind reforms. They were badly administered and they were badly implemented and there were a lot of offsetting actions like creating state corporations for Putin's cronies and allocating funds for them and whatever that kind of spoils the general picture. But the fundamentals of the economic policies are still there and Russian government is still dominated by classical neoliberal economists and they say we do what we can do under current environment. They debate with Siliviki all the time but still their policies are pretty consistent. In fact they are combating with the slogan that was firstly introduced by the regime of Franco in Spain give everything to your friends and law to your enemies. That can be the slogan of the current Putin's regime but the law which is for everybody is largely liberal law. One of the very important features of that regime is that it has been sustained by ever rising salaries, pensions, subsidies, welfare so that people enjoy pretty steady development of their lifestyle and they feel that they can often compare Putin's regime to the regime of Brezhnev when maybe it is not prosperity, there is a lot of injustice, there are many people, many things to complain about but still we are safe, it's developing somewhere so that's why it's okay. The only major difference is that this growth of wealth is based on not industrialization which was happening during Soviet times but in reverse the industrialization of post-Soviet Russia and it's not linked with the increase of productivity of labor so it's in long term economically unsustainable and the downturn of that economic policies we saw in 2013 they happened before the Ukrainian crisis and its first sign was a deep crisis in the regional budgets which were over burdened with social obligations after Putin was back in power and received his third term. As a result we are witnessing growing split between regions and the center, Russian government is very centralized, all the major financial flows go into the center, it violates, directly violates the existing Russian legislation the way the budget is structured because according to the budget code the revenues are supposed to be split half and half between regions and the center, right now the division is somewhere 76 to the center and 24 to the regions in the consolidated budget but nobody can defend the position of regions. So it was absolutely no surprise that in 2013 from the period of stable growth which started in 1999 after the default it was under like relatively socialist government of Yevgeny Primakov, these growth virtually stopped, economists say that we went into the period of techflation which can be characterized by virtually zero growth of the economy and this year when the Crimea crisis started and the sanctions started it turned to be negative, this year we experienced 25% and that's the very modest and conservative estimate in drop of domestic investments. Such issues as poor quality government management are well known, third term of Putin was marked with ever-growing alienation of the middle class because President Medvedev tried to engage middle class, tried to install a kind of modernization policies, it tried to propose something to propose an agenda for this growing class of people, Putin has stopped all of that, he felt like middle class is somebody who confront them, confront him on the streets of Moscow and that's why it was seen as somebody to push away. And the final touch which was introduced again in the third term of President Putin is the campaign of nationalization of the elites. It's actually started from the law that I introduced with one of the leaders with United Russia, Sergei Zhelesnyak and that was part of the campaign to de-offerize Russian economy and make our oligarchs invest domestically and make our bureaucrats transparent and make them declare the foreign assets that they have but this law was immediately overtaken by United Russia by the ruling party and tweaked in the way so that no government bureaucrat can actually follow the law and it's now been used as an additional lever to ensure people's loyalty and to pressure them. So this stability is over in 2014 and there is very popular phrase that Mr. Putin likes to say please don't rock the boat. In 2014 he became the person who is rocking the boat and he is now rocking the boat with the Ukrainian crisis and what's going on in Crimea. Many people debate that it's a long planned strategy. I am fully convinced and have a lot of science for that that it was never planned. It was a totally spontaneous decision which was derived from this idea that the regime has to present itself as strong and victorious. That Putin needs to be Mr. Right, the person who always can prove his position, his words, everything and when Mr. Yanukovych was forced to run from the Ukraine that was visible contradiction to that statement and it was very bad example for Russian people that the revolution firstly can happen, that the revolution can defeat Putin and the revolution can be victorious. So at any cost it has to be proven that the revolution can never be successful and this explains very simple thing within the administration of the president during late February beginning of March when it was clear that something is being prepared for the Crimea and for Ukraine etc. Many people were saying okay Crimea we can really grab it but so let's make a referendum. A referendum would proclaim independence. Russia then would acknowledge this independence as we did with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Two more years, three more years another referendum and they might join Russia. In this situation West would most likely keep silent because you know who can say anything against the self determinations of free nations of Crimea. This is very similar processes that are happening like in Scotland and in Spain and in other parts of the world. It's no obvious violation of international law. Everything would be nice. No sanctions nor anything and the result would be achieved. But it was personally president who said no. We have to do it from the very beginning and he actually insisted on his position and if you were watching closely with what was going on in the Crimea you would have been noticed that originally the referendum was planned as a referendum for independence because the whole administration of the president was planning that scenario. But it was totally changed by a president and that was coming because he needed to prove that he is personally victorious. He needed to overshadow this defeat in Kiev and that's what he did. As the result we are right now in a vicious circle of endless mistakes. To cover that mistake with the Crimea we have to get engaged in eastern Ukraine. We cannot pull out because invasion in eastern Ukraine has to be sustained by a lot of propaganda. Now a lot of people would see Putin as a weak leader if he pulls out et cetera et cetera et cetera. So how to break this vicious circle is yet unknown even inside Russia. And we are in the situation when Putin is acting purely opportunistic. It's not driving the process. It's actually following its own propaganda which describes the picture in Russian Ukraine in a totally fictitious way. And of course we are witnessing a major split in the society. This phenomenon is not new. It started during the process on Balotnaya. But at that time there was a split. It was if you would a class split. There was a class of these entrepreneurs, creative class, middle class which was like separate. It was protesting against but it was a minority of the population against all the others. Right now this split goes into all circles of the society. It was in all circles of the society and in all political forces. There are people pro and against what's going on in Ukraine. No doubt that the majority supports the current policies. But still split exists virtually everywhere. And liberal opposition tends to support Maidan. And this is done basically on the grounds that enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that's like the major rationale which is going behind it. And patriotic opposition tends to be anti Maidan. And they say that the interest of Mother Russia has to prevail. And we might hate Putin personally. But if he restores a great country, if he resurrects our might, then it has to be supported. So to say this 85 famous 85% of Russians who now say that they approve Putin, they approve Putin's policies. They approve specifically what's going on in Ukraine. Because that's the major agenda in Russian politics so far. When they asked another question would you vote for Putin? It was just a recent poll which was announced today. It was around 50% who are ready to vote. Which is still very high for the third term. Actually it would be for the fourth term. But it's still 50% and not 85%. And significant portion, at least third of that 85% actually directly calling to have a new president by year 2018, despite the support the current policies. A little bit more about the popular ideas in Russian public opinion about Ukraine. Just to understand how we came to the situation just in one month when two brother nations, nations which are as close to each other as they might be, started to be at war with each other. So what Russians think? Okay, Crimea has never been Ukrainian. Crimea has always been Russian. It was given to Ukraine just because of logistical reasons by Khrushchev. So, you know, it's never been considered a Ukrainian territory. Majority there speaks Russian language. You know, if we would speak about technical minority that would be Crimean Tatars and not Ukrainians. So, you know, why is Ukrainian nobody understands? That's why it was acknowledged very easily by the majority of the population. Then people now say, okay, if we would not go into Crimea, which is, you remember, the Russian territory, then it would be the same war as in Donbass. Because people there were already prepared to fight against Maidan and of course it would be Ukrainian army and it would be a whole mess. It would be bloody. So actually Putin and us Russians were the peacemakers. Of course I think it's totally not the case. I think there would never be any kind of war neither in Crimea nor in Donbass, nor anywhere else if we would not have invaded into Crimea. But that's what people believe. And when they see right now what's going on in Donbass, this opinion is being reinforced and reinforced and reinforced. Another consideration which is always in the public opinion, okay, if we would not liberate Crimea, if we would not protect Crimea with our forces, then NATO military would be in Sebastopol, which is the city of Navy glory of Russian fleet. Which actually, you know, not for a very long time. We can see it's city also of Turkish glory, of Mongolian glory, of whoever else glory. But that again, that's a public perception. Which I also think it's totally relevant. It is the idea which is dropped by propaganda. But since nobody can neither support this with facts, nor overturn it with facts, that's why people tend to believe it because it's actually gives them the feeling that we are doing something right. Another idea which is very different in Russia than in Ukraine, that virtually no Russians would say that we are at war with Ukraine. We are not. Ukrainians think that Russia is at war with Ukraine. Russians don't think that we are at war with Ukraine. What Russians think that we are at war with America? And that would be said by the majority of the population. We are at war with America, maybe with Germany, but mainly with America, who has conquered Ukraine, installed its marionette government. And actually, what we need to do is we need to liberate our brother Ukrainians. We are actually continuing what was started during World War II and where we were betrayed by Gorbachev and his team when he actually gave away all the results of World War II. And Mr. Putin, being a security officer who served in Germany, understands all this, is actually reverting what Gorbachev has destroyed. That's again, it's not my position. That's what people tend to think. Then why Ukrainians are resisting them? Because of course, if you ask any person in Ukraine, do you want to be liberated? Even those who live in Donbass tend to say no. Even in Donbass they say, okay, we'll handle the situation by ourselves. What Russians say about this? You are zombified by American propaganda. Our media is telling the truth. Their media are zombifying people, so they need to be switched off. Nobody in Russia think that we are trying to conquer Ukraine. This is not something that is within public opinion. And that's also a very common misperception that a lot of analysts tend to think that we are protecting Russians in Ukraine. We are not. Our propaganda tells that we are protecting Ukrainians and not Russians. And Russians is just a reason. That's just an illustration that there is very limited tolerance towards Russian language that the Ukrainian government has been controlled by ultra-right nationalist that they are fascist and everything. But it's just to support the point that we are liberating Ukrainians. When people start to say about the troops in Ukraine and about the obvious victims, we have dead bodies coming back home, people say, maybe there are troops, but we shouldn't acknowledge it because it's a military secret. You remember, we need to liberate Ukrainians. And that's our mission in life, to liberate our brothers, to protect them. We are the great nation. So, of course, some sacrifice is required for it. And those who try to play on the sacrifice, who try to use these dead bodies, opposition, they are national traitors. They are acting against our national mission. They are supporting fascists in Kiev. And they shouldn't be supported within the country. And the same thing about this horrible tragedy with the Malaysian airplane, people tend to say, of course it's not us. We cannot down a civilian airplane. No, we are good. We are the liberators. We are the good guys in this conflict. So it can be anybody in that plane whatsoever. It could be the same plane which disappeared in Malaysia several months before that, which was kidnapped at that time, hijacked by CIA, and they transferred this plane to Ukraine. It's not coincidence that it's the same airline. Or it could have been Ukrainian fighters. The fact that they cannot fly that high to shoot down the plane, you know, they were like this and you know, they somehow catch it. You know, no rational arguments in this regard. So altogether, like everybody knows what people say. It's a common knowledge that West is the warmonger. It's U.S. who invaded Iraq. It's U.S. who invaded Libya. It's NATO which bombed Serbia. So it's a known fact that West is the warmonger and it's a known fact that we are the peacemaker. That wraps the picture all together. So going to the situation in Russia as it is, and I would speed up a little bit. So what's the current political landscape? There are four parliamentary parties in Russia. They all are standing on the anti-Maidan position and that's why I'm always referring, you know, on the position on the Ukraine because it's the main political differentiator right now in the Russian politics. The ruling party united Russia for sure supports all the Putin's policies. It's not even the party itself. It's more like a labor union of government bureaucrats. Others more like political parties. Communist party which controls approximately one-fifth of the national parliament, no doubt, is the opposition in terms of economy. Many people say, okay, now there is no opposition. It's not true. You know, the consensus on the question of Ukraine doesn't mean that there is no disagreement on the other issues. And for everyday Russian life at the end of the day, economy what matters. And United Russia stands on one position. Virtually all other parliamentary parties are standing on another position and still on virtually all legislation that has been introduced in Russian parliament in the economy domain. The vote has been split and usually it's been pushed right now by a very narrow majority dominated by United Russia. Another opposition party on which party list I was originally elected to the parliament is Fair Russia or it's called the Just Russia. So it's a social democratic political party. And before the whole thing with the Ukraine has started, it has been seen as the main voice of this middle class. No longer. It disconnected itself and most likely the party would not make it to the parliament after the next elections because of that. Virtually destroyed its popular base supporting these policies in Ukraine. And then there is national populist party which by some unknown reason are calling themselves liberal democrats. They are neither liberal nor democrats. But it's famous, Zhirinovsky which can be compared with Le Pen type politician in France. Then there is a set of non-parliamentary partisan group and I will enumerate several of them, mention several of them to show how they are aligned towards the policies in the Ukraine. So the main new liberal, right liberal political force is a party called RPR-Parnass. It's a republican party and it's heavily supporting Ukraine and criticizing Russian policies there. Then there is a new emerging nationalist party which is called National Democratic Party. And this is a party which is calling for greater Russia. So it would be more accurately described as an imperialist party. Of course being imperialists, they are very much against Maidan and supporting Putin's policies. Although in all other issues they are very much opposition minded and this party members were all on Balotnaya Square when those process were happening there. Not all nationalists support Putin's policies and Maidan. There are even nationalist groups which are fighting on the Ukrainian side against the separatists in Ukraine. Those are ethnical nationalists. And the rationale why they do so is because they see that we have to have ethnically clean Russia. We do not need to have an alliance with Ukrainians. It has to be ethnically clean Ukraine and it has to be ethnically clean Russia. So they actually help in Ukraine to resist the invasion that we see in Donbass. And one of the leaders of that faction of nationalists actually was arrested two months ago, Alexander Belov. I don't like him personally because this guy is like ultra-right leader and my political position is totally different but he was arrested obviously on the political charges. I received actually this morning a claim to support him and I promised that I would write a message to support him because his persecution is motivated that his followers are actually fighting in the Ukraine supporting Ukrainian troops. Then there is a very old, classical, more like left liberal, liberal political party, Jablokov, very much pro-Ukrainian. Civil platform, a party, relatively new party of our oligarch, Mr. Prokhorov, who resigned as the leader of the party but still he was the founder of that party. He resigned over the issue of Ukraine as well because he personally was against the invasion and the majority of the party was for what's going on right now. They are always the party, they are on anti-Maidan position. And finally, leftists, which have been represented by left front coalition. Leftists tend to be more neutral because they say both sides are on but they tend to be more like pro-Ukrainian than pro-Russian. At least they say that we shouldn't support Putin in any case in Ukraine. There is also a cloud of fake political parties, of course they act in consort and they support Putin altogether. We have two prominent individuals who are organizing movements around themselves. First is Alexei Navalny and has a movement which is called Party of Progress. It's more like populist nationalist, it's based around anti-corruption issues and economically it's neoliberal. They are standing on pro-Maidan position and the newest person who is active on Russian political scene is Mikhail Khadarkovsky with the Open Russia Movement. He tends to be moderately left liberal and also supports independence of Ukraine very much. Very important thing which many people ask is why after 20 years of reforms and introduction of democratic things, in Russia we are right now so rapidly went back to authoritarianism. I think that the main reason is lying in a very simple fact that elites have not changed from Soviet times. There was a certain generational changes in 1991, but there was a changes when former communist leaders were replaced with young Komsomol leaders which is not like a radical change. They are coming from the same descent and they behave in a very similar fashion. There was no restoration process in 1991 which many democrats of the first wave was calling for. And we obviously see right now that all our authorities, all government bodies, all the major corporations have been totally dominated by people of former KGB descent. So it's again part of the former elite. I would debate that what many people say that Russians are just generally used to authoritarianism and that's why they recreate those practices. I would actually say that Russia has very much predisposal against authoritarianism. Russians are very individualistic and again it's a popular myth that we are collective nation. We are not. We are skeptical about whatever government does usually. We always say that government should care about us, but we never support what it does. We always pretend to solve all the issues on ourselves. We are calling for the government but doing everything separately. In this sense I think that if we compare Christian nations I would say that Russians are way closer to Americans than to Europeans. Europeans tend to get organized in the labor unions and the civil movements and whatever Russians never do this. They prefer to solve the problems by themselves because they don't trust anyone. That doesn't make us the collective and easily manipulated nation. Then we are the nation with the strong mission which you now see unfortunately in Ukraine. We are the liberators and that also makes us very similar to Americans. We are ready to liberate people against their will and fight until the last soldier. For that we are ready to die and spill blood and that's what we regularly do. Then USSR again like America was a kind of melting pot. It's very hard to understand what is ethnic Russian. There was this phenomenon of Soviet people which is a very sophisticated combination of different ethnicities. Nobody can tell what is Russian cuisine. It's actually a combination of Ukrainian, Tatar, Mongolian, Caucasian, you know you name it cuisines and we can elaborate on this for a long time. Then we have a proof of concept. We lived for four years without a president. It was a situation of parliamentary democracy when Medvedev was in power. He was not ruling. It was a government who was ruling. So the concept is working and we can definitely reinstate the same approach in the future. Third major reason is that democratic and western generally values are very much compromised in the eyes of common people. It started with a privatization. All the democrats were calling for privatization and it turned to be a huge disaster. People don't see that it is fair. They see that the private property which was acquired during privatization process was stolen from them. That it was the result of something that whole Soviet people has built together. Now it's in the hands of a tiny minority. What's the benefit for the general population? It's been minuscule. To the contrary, entrepreneurs, not businessmen, Russians make difference in these two words. So entrepreneurs who created themselves from the scratch, like in high technology industries, even if they are very wealthy, they are not being treated as oligarchs. They are good people. They made their own career. They are self-made and people absolutely tolerate them. Then we have a very long period of media wars between different business groups. And they highlighted that whatever happens in public life, it's because of some private interest and not again because somebody is concerned about public good. One of the examples is Kolkovy initiative where I am participating, which I think is one of the most transparent and clean projects what Russian government has ever tried to implement, but nobody believes in it. And this project, which was targeted to develop modernization and creative class, middle class entrepreneurship, whatever became the symbol of corruption, which is kind of ridiculous that our symbol of corruption is not Rosneft, not Gazprom, you know, no state government, but Skolkova Foundation. Said but true, as one song says. And the last thing is that in our practice, immediate concerns has always prevailed over long term benefits. And it's not only approach of Russians, it's also approach of western business people which are coming to Russia. That's a common practice inside the country. And one of the best examples is presidential elections in 1996 when media made a pact so that we should prevent communists coming back to power and we should betray the rules of normal journalism. We should advocate for Yeltsin. We should not tell the truth, but we should actually engage ourselves voluntarily in the propaganda campaign. And the crackdown on the free media, which happened when Putin was back to his office, was largely, I think, the result of that approach and that decision. So the process movements that were emerging in the country regularly, and we have even during the last 20 years a big tradition of different process movements, they always were used against people's expectations and popular interest. Just several examples. Anti-bureaucratic process of United Democrats of 1989, 1991 actually resulted not in the social progress, but in the collapse of the Soviet Union, rise of nationalist movements in nationalist republic and dramatic turns into public policies which the majority of the participants have never anticipated and expected. The process against shock therapy, which were very massive in 1992, 1993, resulted in bloodshed in Moscow and resulted that parliamentary democracy that was originally instated by the constitution of Russian Federation was replaced by a new super-presidential constitution, which I think laid the foundation of Putin coming to power in year 2000. The process against the industrial crisis of 1997, 1998 and the process against privatization actually were inspired a lot because of the war between different oligarchs. And again, they were used to speed up the deindustrialization, resulted in loss of jobs for people against the interest, against the reasons why they actually protested. The process against monetization of privileges, the major reform of 2005, and in scale those process were way larger than what happened in Balotnaya in 2011, 2012. They went virtually unnoticeable by global media, despite in at least one-third of Russian regions, people literally seized the regional administration, they took governors as hostages, they were demanding changes, but as the result Putin's majority has been formed. He actually started his move towards welfare state at that very moment. And again, the result of those process were the opposite that people have demanded. The process against the election fraud of 2012, as you know, resulted in major changes in the political system, which we see right now, and a conservative turn in Russian politics rather than a liberal turn, what people were demanding. And we are now witnessing another wave of process against the war in Ukraine, but as you see the war is still ongoing, and the people who are participating in those process, they are rather compromised and be named as national traitors and whatever. We still have an ongoing process in Russia despite all the war and et cetera. Just we, of course, see political process against the war, and it's mainly happening in the capitals, but we also see a new wave of social process in the major cities. Just recently in Moscow there was a huge rally against the medical reform, so people are fighting for their rights when they see the actual reason for it. There are a lot of local process in the small towns and cities, and still there are technical tensions which are not going anywhere, and that's the fourth kind of process that's happening in Russia. What protesters usually demand? The unanimously supported demands is, number one, political reform, free elections primarily, second is freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It's the fight with the corruption and overwhelming government bureaucracy. It's the judicial reform, very important thing, which is what everybody demands leftist, nationalist, liberals, rural people, people in the capitals, everybody wants this. In the capitals that's been added with the demand to release political prisoners, in the countryside people just don't know what the political prisoners are, but in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, that's a very powerful demand, and recently it was complimented with the idea of peace in Ukraine. Many people understand differently what this piece should be, but still people want peace, they don't want to go to war. Majority also amend this with the constitutional reform and transition to parliamentary democracy, although there is no unanimous support for this notion, and many people demand minimal government, so in a sense those process, they tend to be more towards libertarian agenda than to classic strong government, social, democrat whatsoever. Many people demand illustration process, so that finally it would be disconnect between the elites of the past and the future governments of the country. Leftists always compliment those demands with two more, it's social and economic reforms and reverse of neoliberal practices of the last 20 years, and very important thing is to revise the result of privatization, and some voices like Mikhail Khadarkovsky actually start to support this idea that the results of privatization has to be revised, otherwise it would never be social peace in the society. In the sake of time, I would skip a little bit the situation of history, you can read the presentation later yourself, and I would go to international aspect. So what we see in 2014, and that's a totally new phenomena, is that we see new Russia, which plays a new role in the global arena. Russia is right now very actively building what I would call a conservative international. It can be very much compared to communist international of the Cold War, where my uncle was heavily involved in building one, as international secretary of the Politburo, but this is a conservative international, which is built with a totally different means. Russia once and is positioning itself at the one guard and the facilitator of coordination of all those ultra-right and to some degree, ultra-left groups in different countries, which are protesting against the current democratic system of the West. Putin, of course, knows famous saying of Vladimir Lenin. It was said about the newspaper that newspaper is not only for propaganda, but also for organization. And we have news channel, Russia Today, now called RT, which is not for propaganda, I think, it's for organization. And it has very distinct target audience, which is this five percent of ultra-right and five percent of ultra-left, which exist in virtually any country in the world. And that makes ten percent of a very loyal, very motivated and very active people. And you yourself see what the Tea Party is, but you don't see the virtual Tea Party, the virtual global Tea Party, which is being assembled through the means of Russia Today. Russia is spending more than a billion dollars per annum for this kind of purposes. And whether oil prices will drop or not drop, this billion will always have to spend. And it's known fact, which has been very much advertised by RT itself, but like all my side observations actually sustain this claim, is that RT has now more viewers than CNN. Many people even in U.S. watch this channel. And this channel is interesting. And that's why it creates a lot of traction, grassroots traction. Russia once again is on the market to directly influence foreign politicians. It pays money. In Europe it might be paid unofficially. In America it's even paid officially through official lobbying structures to support Russian position. And sometimes it becomes kind of high profile. For example, the overturn of Bulgarian government in 2013 was the result we always are afraid of orange revolutions. We had one orange revolution on our own, which we financed. And it was processed in 2013. Now the situation in Bulgaria is reverted through recent elections in summer this year, but it was a Russian-inspired rise in 2013. Russia was very actively involved in the Scotland referendum. It financed grassroots campaign for the independence of Scotland, obviously. It was all in our media. We were supporting people who want to claim their independence from United Kingdom. But we were doing grassroots campaign on the ground as well. Actually, the food sanctions that have been so widely debated, you know, why Putin did this, because it resulted in immediate raise of prices in our grocery stores. That's because the target audience for those food sanctions were agriculture workers globally, which are latching numbers. So it's a significant portion of voters. And that was used to he's calling us a fifth column. He wanted to create a fifth column of his own to influence western governments and to pressure them. Very well-known phenomena, which was firstly introduced by Putin, it never happened in the Soviet Union times. In the Soviet Union times, Russia was the most reliable supplier of energy, despite all the Cold War and whatever. Right now we are using supplies of natural gas as a political weapon, which I think is an extremely short-sighted approach. You see this debate about the South Stream, despite it being officially proclaimed as the project is closed. I don't think it's closed. I think that there are some sidetrack negotiations about it with the European Commission just yesterday. The person in charge from the European Commission was in Moscow negotiating the fate of the South Stream project. And Russia is paying a lot of money to compromise shale gas development both in U.S. and in Eastern Europe. The iconic movie, for example, for environmentalists, Gasland has been fully financed with gas prompts money here in U.S. A lot of environmentalists receive their funding through different Russia- originated channels. So both formal and informal lobbying here is full scale. Thirdly, Russia proclaims its turn towards East, which I think is, for many people, is overestimated. I think that it's more PR campaign rather than a serious move. All the indications about the conditions on the contract between Russia and China on the gas pipeline shows that, firstly, I am absolutely not sure that this pipeline would be ever built. Secondly, that the conditions for Russia is extremely unprofitable. And fourth phenomenon that we see after the Crimea campaign has started is a virtual collapse of post-Soviet integration. We can say that CIS project is dead right now. And even the project of Customs Union is under very serious question mark because, again, of these sanctions and imports and everything, there is debate with Nazarbayev, with Lukashenko, everybody is scared away, even Russia's closest allies now tend to keep a distance on what's going on. And what's the potential outcome? I think that we now facing Russia, unfortunately, now facing very high probability of Franco-style fascism coming in power in the coming years. It might be driven by those armed activists, which are right now fighting in Eastern Ukraine. They have been widely advertised within Russia as national heroes and they have been considered as such by many people. A significant part of Putin's own elites would support this because he instated those security guys who are genuinely towards that kind of behavior. They like approach of Pinochet or Likvan Yor, General Pack, and they somehow miss the point that all those examples, they were examples of uncorrupt regimes. They want to use the same practices, but for their own benefit and they would try to use whatever means possible to sustain it. So it would be a turn which would be driven by people who would claim that they are bigger Putinists than Putin itself. Many people in Russia criticize Putin to be too pro-Western. He is too controlled by Obama. That's what people say. And many of them might push the country towards more right-wing path. This kind of turn can be installed through a kind of elite, coup or treason or whatever. It can be a grassroots revolution, but it would in any case be disastrous for the country. Lower probability, but also a possibility, is a kind of liberal revolution. There is a significant portion of the elites which might support it. This portion of the elite is not as influential as those who would support the right-wing term, but still there is grassroots traction and elites traction for this. The lowest possibility, which I have been asked many times here in D.C., when Putin would replace Medvedev with Kudrin and we see a nice liberal government in Russia because somebody needs to clean up the economy no matter what was happening in 2014. My answer is never. I learned not to say never in my life everything of course can happen, but the probability I think is very close to zero. And one of the main reasons is that so many people actually expect this to happen and Putin never does what people expect him to do. So if there would be changes in the government, it would not be Kudrin in any case. And any kind of revolutionary scenarios, unfortunately, they carry significant risks that Russia can physically disintegrate. Coming to the last part of my presentation. So what are the conditions to change power in Russia? Very unlikely that it would happen through the elections. Again, it's a constitutional possibility. So I think we shouldn't rule it out. But I think that this outcome is very unlikely. Most likely it would be some kind of evolutionary process. It may be nonviolent. It may be violent. And I think that the violent scenario is more probable than nonviolent scenario, but both of them are possible. So for this to happen, actually what is needed is organized street process, which would create an initial push. And I think that whatever would happen would start through the organized street process. We didn't have one in 2012. We have a lot of masses coming on the streets, but they were unorganized. It was very spontaneous and this movement was amorphous. That's why it was doomed to fail from the very beginning. And all the attempts to organize them anyhow within the opposition, they all failed because of the internal contradictions within the opposition. It has to be a very appealing vision of the future. It has to be presented to Russians because actually right now the only person who possesses this vision is Putin. That might not be very appealing people to everyone, but at least there is a vision. Opposition does not have this vision. The vision of the opposition that will have free elections and they will sort things out. And people say, no, no, no, that's not going to happen. We never saw in our lives that things were changed through free elections. If they were changing through free elections, that were changes for worse rather than for good. And please tell us what you're going to do. And this is something that opposition was for a very long time restraining itself to do. It has to be a leader. And this leader has to be acceptable for the majority of the opposition forces. It has to be a kind of compromise between themselves. Otherwise no vision can be created and no organized process can actually happen. Of course it has to be access to some financial resources, although it's not the major constraint. It has to be some finances, but they shouldn't be very large. They just have to be enough to sustain the process because they take some resources. And in the bulk it can be raised crowdfunding tools, I believe. And of course it has to be part of the elites which it did they should support the changes and this revolution. For things to start it has to be a trigger event. It would not come gradually. It has to be like one time something after which people would be on the streets. If there would be this compromise with the elites, that would increase nonviolent path, chances for nonviolent path of the development. The smaller the compromise is, the more violent the changes would be. But from the other side compromise would limit the maneuver for the new government and would challenge the outcome of the potential reforms after the change of power. And the last thing to say about it is that many people say economic problems and that would bring people on the streets. No. I don't believe that. Economic problems are never bringing people on the streets by themselves. They create a good background for it but they never used as a trigger. They actually affect elites bigger than the general public. The elites are concerned because it's their businesses who have been ruined. And that makes elites think what should we do? General public unfortunately is used to chaos. And they are afraid that the changes would not be positive. That's why this economic pressure is by far not enough. The positive strategy that Russian opposition might have and this is something that has been discussed right now is to create most likely informal, not very public coalition of opposition forces specifically to achieve the change of power. And this is possible only when we have both system and non-system actors or both members of parliamentary parties and street movement as part of this coalition. A program needs to be developed. Again, without that we cannot get anywhere at all. And we have to use Duma campaign in 2016, our national parliamentary elections which are coming in fall 2016 to propagate these ideas to convince people to, if you will, better test regional leaders which would keep country from falling apart if changes would actually happen and which are capable and which are capable to deliver the message to the general public so it's no longer just a Moscow phenomenon. And these elections inevitably would energize the general audience, the general public, our constituency. And these elections might work as a trigger event although I think that the trigger event would not be the elections this time but something else. And what is also very important and this is something which has now been very visibly said by Khadarkovsky for example, is that we need to lay out the guarantees for some portions of the elites to go to minimize the potential bloodshed which might happen during the changes. And that's what Khadarkovsky was saying all the time, if the condition for peaceful changes would be personal security of Mr. Putin, we are ready to do this. It would not be pleasant for us, you know, a person who would say this would not be liked by the majority of his own followers but it's required to save lives of people. And I think that actually the time when it might happen would be 2017. So the last thing to say. What are western policies towards Russia and what west can do? I take sanctions as not very efficient tool and not very rightly structured tool as they were implemented. The economic downfall in Russia started before those sanctions have been implied. Of course they amplify the problems and they provide problems for financial liquidity for our banks and for large corporations because it's limited their access to debt financing. Of course this is true but they didn't trigger the economic downfall but they alienated a lot of Russian people because actually they were used as an excuse by Mr. Putin and his propaganda to say that whatever problems we have is because of west. And this just sustains his message that we are not fighting with Ukraine and we are not stupid, it's just the west which is trying to crush us and that helps to mobilize general public inside Russia. To the reverse personal sanctions could have been very efficient tool but they have been applied to a very limited circle of people like 100. And 100 people you can compensate and they were compensated. Some were compensated with a serious government appropriations and they are now being told these sanctions they are not for a very long time. You have lived another 2-3 years under those sanctions but you would earn a lot from the government. And people actually volunteering to be on the sanction list in Russia. Not so many people know but Russian parliament actually voted to have all members of Russian parliament be included. The majority of deputies voted for it but it was never done by the way even so that people volunteered for it. And one of the authors of that concept Mr. Sidyakin yesterday has been found in Antarctic as a member of American sponsored expedition to put Russian flag on some mountain in Antarctic. So it's not been seen as a very consistent thing. Those countries which exercise still real politic approach they actually do what I already mentioned as a sacrificing long term priorities over some immediate concerns. And they actually never calculate what are the profits and losses for these real politics. If Russia would switch off and get supplies to Europe completely tomorrow what would be the outcome? Nobody has this model. It might very well be so that over 2-3 years it would be more beneficial for European economy rather than disrupting. But nobody has the answer. So there are a lot of speculations and the speculations are coming just from pure political motivation within those countries. And real politic of course compromises a lot Western values in the eyes of Russians because that gives Putin a lot of floor to say about the double standards and everything. Another policy which has been discussed, the policy of containment actually increases the chances for fascists to come into power in Russia because that's exactly their message is that they're trying to contain us, we need to act and Putin is too weak so it reinforces their position and increases long term risks for the world politics. As we see right now we see a very defined circle of Putin's global allies which number one is large corporations which always advocating against any sanctions and against any coherent action against his regime. As European social democrats and labour unions they advocate for jobs which are linked to sales to Russia and they don't care about what's going in the country. And this is those ultra-right and ultra-left groups which are being assembled by RT. What America can do, what many people ask I think that the number one answer at this moment stay away. And that's because of very simple thing because whatever has been said and whatever has been done is actually compromises people who cooperate with it and has not been hurt by Russian audience. People just not prepared right now to hear truth and when this truth is being delivered through the channels which they think are the channels which are associated with a potential enemy that actually compromises the truth. So even the right moves actually achieve the opposite results. In the reverse America can do a lot of it on its own territory. Many social process and many social movements in Russia has started through internship programs when it was learning by doing concept when say our labour union activists were inside the FLCIO for example. Or when our political activists worked on the election campaigns on some local US elections and learned how to do crowdfunding, how to make volunteers, networks, whatever. Actually learned how the system works and so that you can retaliate about these notions about double standards and everything. Consistency. It's like simple thing to say very hard to implement but it's very very important to express values. That's actually one of the major power and we have a very precise battleground right now where those values might be demonstrated. That's a battle over the internet. Russia has a lot of new internet regulations which severely restricts internet freedom recently and unfortunately companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, whatever they try to maneuver. They are not expressing firm commitment to freedom of internet. They are worried about their businesses. Exactly same thing happens with Visa and MasterCard. Last week MasterCard has signed a side deal with Russian Central Bank to participate in the creation of national payment system. And that's what again once again would cite Lenin. That's what he said that capital will finance the same rope it would be hanging on. Right now it's those international payment systems which are financing the exact IT infrastructure which would be used to get rid of them. And that's again something which I treat very as a very inconsistent. The last thing is that Ukraine needs to be successful. That's as powerful a message as powerful it can get for Russians. That West is not about conquering Ukraine, is not about sucking the last blood of it, but it's about developing the nation. And something like Marshall's plan for that country is badly needed. Unfortunately I also think it's going to happen, but this is really what needs to be done. Right now what we see is that it's a nightmare without end. America provides some finances but in the amount which is not enough to do any sustainable reforms. Russia is doing exactly the same thing in eastern Ukraine. It's financing but not enough to change anything. Neither to conquer Kiev nor to pull out. So this brother nation of ours is going to suffer, suffer and suffer. And we see an area of instability which is actually co-financed both by Russia and the western nations. Which I think is very bad. To conclude my personal response I am advising a very lovely person who is sitting right there who founded Free Russia Foundation Natalia Budaeva. Natalia Budaeva was a chairman of Fire Riot in Russia. Was put into exile literally under guns two years ago. In 24 hours was deported from Russia. All of which was Russian citizen. Now lives under political asylum here. And Free Russia Foundation is a U.S.-based think tank and advocacy group which has a primary objective to provide an advice and information about what's going on in Russia here in D.C. and in New York for politicians, policy makers and media. But most importantly to organize and to engage Russian diaspora. All the processes in Ukraine were happening with a heavy assistance of Ukrainian diaspora in U.S. There is no such phenomenon as Russian diaspora in the U.S. And this is something that we really need to change. So this is the place where the vision of Russia after Putin might come from. Because those people carry the necessary experience, vision and knowledge. And at the end of the day this network also has to start engage itself to crowd fund what's going on back in our country and provide technological assistance. A lot of those people are entrepreneurs and that's our main constituency of this Free Russia Foundation. And this is something just totally new. Nobody have ever done this is to work with people who created the most successful startups here in Russia. And a lot of such companies which you even don't know that they are Russia originated because they are positioned as a U.S.-based startups. But they are run by Russians and they care about what's going on in the country. So we say that politicians including myself, they are just advisors, experts, community around but this foundation has been driven by the entrepreneurs and partners with the Ukrainian and other diaspora groups. I think we can make it and we will do it. Thank you very much. Alright, thanks. That was really comprehensive covered a lot of ground. Let me just kick it off a little bit by asking you a little bit about the opposition. You talked about the need for the opposition groups to come together and agree on not only a plan but also a vision for where Russia is going to go. Now this has been a problem that the opposition has had throughout the Putin period and even before. They are competing personalities. A lot of opposition politics is about individual personalities. Today it's Navalny and it's Prokhorov and it's Khatarkovsky. And I think you are totally right in saying that what the opposition needs to provide is an alternative vision. But in your presentation you didn't really sketch out what that vision would look like or what it would be. So I was hoping maybe to draw you out a little bit about what you think the opposition needs to present if the population against the status quo. Again I tried to touch this issue on one of the slides which are what are the demands of the opposition. Of course it's like a long story but I think that the core demand at least of this liberal part of the opposition of this Balotnaya process and whatever can be united under the notion of a minimum, minimal, reliable and transparent government. We say that we don't need as much institutions as they were created recently. As were created recently. But we need those who were created to work reliably and give people as much initiative as they can take. And to give as much power to local communities as they can bear. To reverse the taxation pyramid. To empower people themselves. To make the society self-governing. And with such a large country as Russia is, I don't believe in the centralized management. The centralized management is a new colonial type administration. And that was a kind of evolution that was happening in Russia in the last 25 years. Even Soviet Union was not that kind of metropolis and colonies. It was trying to develop the provinces. The modern Russia is only about developing Moscow. And sucking like really all the resources from the regions. And this is something that needs to be developed. And all our other branches of power. Which of course has to be separate and independent and balanced between each other. And not like now when the president decides everything actually we have like a czarist regime right now. Which was instated in that constitution of 1993. That's why I'm heavily advocating for the constitutional reform. So we need to empower people. And that's number one. Okay great. Let me ask you about Putin. You know you talked about his importance on the decision to proceed with the annexation of Crimea. And certainly here I think we have a very personalized view of Russian politics that you know Putin is the problem. But as you laid out in your presentation it's a lot more complicated than that. You know Putin you've met him. I'd be curious to get your assessment both of him as an individual but also of his importance to the system. You know you talked about people being more Putinist than Putin. So what role does he play? Is he really living in a kind of alternate reality the way that Angela Merkel talked about? Is he really exercising tight control over the system? And can the system change as long as he is there at the top? I think that it's not that Putin influenced in the system. I think that Putin is the system. I think that Putin is the only reliably working institution within the country. Unfortunately it's not a very transparent one. And something which is pretty hard to reform. I think that Putin in a sense is a brilliant guy, very smart manipulator and that's his main character. He is a former KGB officer and Soviet Union has a very high quality and a very consistent HR policies. Those who are capable of making strategic decisions, they were supposed to be rising on the ladder of the Communist Party. Those who can manipulate, listen, analyze and relay the information without touching it, they went to KGB. Those who are capable to fight but not capable of making any decisions at all went to military. And it was very consistent and that's what we see in Putin. He analyzes the information brilliantly. When you talk to him personally, he starts to feel from the first second that he is your best body, that he is your friend, he understands you totally and he reflects everything that you say very nicely, very well listening and everything. But he is a manipulator and he has no strategy whatsoever. He is very opportunistic in his approaches. He has the general ideas. Again, because he knows how to listen to people, so he understands Russian people in general. He understands what they expect to hear. Just one example, like for you to understand, I was participating in one meeting. It was in the framework of St. Petersburg Dialogue and it was like a small audience of people, Putin and Angela Merkel. And some of the Germans who was participating, it was at the highest of scandal with Pussy Riot. You know, there to rise his hand, shaking hands, Mr. Putin, what's about Pussy Riot? And Mr. Putin said, look, Angela, he is talking about those two ladies who actually hang the body of a Jew in our supermarket. He was referring to a performance which those two ladies who were like actual left kind of people, they were against nationalism, they were against anti-Semitism, they were for brotherhood of people, so it was like brotherhood. That's what they were expressing, that some people hate Jews and it was part of their performance and really they hanged like a body of some imaginary person with the title that it's a Jew which is hanged on, is that Angela? So they hanged Jew in Russian supermarket. What would you do to them in Germany? What can she say? And that's the end of the question and that's how person behaves. He always drives issues away from their essence into their form and flipping the agenda all the time and never no public appearances of his he allows dialogue. When you ask him question he answers and his answer is the last word. You never been able to engage him in any kind of dialogues even during government meetings. There are pre assigned roles when people converse, so it's very hard to retaliate. It's clear that he's read Russian society very well and I think the reason that support for his policies as you laid out is so high. I'm curious what you think might actually change that. What could happen that would lead this incredible level of support for Putin's policies to diminish? He's a person of luck and that's what many people say, he's lucky. So if we support him we are lucky as well. And he was always lucky with the world prices and what server. 2014 was a turning year for him. The first sign of his luck going away was that circle in the Olympic games which didn't open. That should be seen as a warning sign from God. He didn't listen. The way Crimea and the station went was virtually bloodless. So he's lucky again. Ukrainians didn't fight back. But with the Malaysian airplane which happened in the worst possible time for him with the drop of the world prices and that's what people start to say maybe God is turning away from him. And of course there's a certain inertia and that might sound funny for some of you but this is Russia's very superstitious and that's what people start to gossip about. With the Chinese called the mandate of heaven. Okay, we're going to open it up to questions. I'll call on people. Please wait for a microphone to come around. Identify yourself, keep it brief and please do ask a question. Okay, in the back row. Yes, thank you Mr. Panamidov. Mike Pesner, U.S. Senate staff, thank you very much. Wonderful presentation. Listening to you one is very hopeful for the future of Russia unfortunately listening to the substance of your presentation leaves you with less hope and related to this last question of what might change the support for Putin's policies during the Cold War a lot of the population especially the educated elites saw the West as an example to be emulated unfortunately over the last 20 years. Now this has begun to change where kind of the through inattention or through some of the Western policies what Putin has been selling to the Russian public has the ring of truth and I think part of that explains why his policies are so popular and what do you think can change because now we are I think on a path toward more confrontation and this only helps him to solidify his position so I don't see how that can turn around as a just time as you say the Russians are you know in many cases immune to economic suffering unfortunately what will change this? Thank you. I think that you actually answered your question yourself it is time and the time is running out and I think that we are witnessing right now the last years after this thing in Ukraine started before that I was actually anticipating that Putin would live successfully to his elections in 2018 and would be re-elected on the fourth or you can say fifth turn for another six years right now I have serious doubts about that because really what is changing is this feeling of security and that was his major selling point is stability security you know that he is the protector you know that he is a reliable person that he is a strong person that he is a victorious person you know as those things diminish and fade away you know I think that Putin would fade away as well. Okay next question front row wait for the microphone Thank you. Victoria Feindberg former Soviet citizen you mentioned that the provinces are getting lower and lower impact and you are from Novosibirsk which is a primary academic part of the provinces so my question is are the modern technologies social networks the internet are these technologies helping the provinces to get organized and to become more powerful and to provide a counter force to the central powers? The answer is of course yes we had a lot of different grassroots initiatives technological initiatives there are a lot of entrepreneurs who started different projects some of the projects were cloned western examples some were original there are a lot of things that were developed in Russia separately and our IT internet ecosystem is very vibrant and very well developed the main problem with it right now is not even this censorship and everything it's not like really seriously affecting Russian internet so far it's more like fears, expectations and everything but this year is a huge wave of emigration from Russia huge and it's primarily happening in this sector of high technology virtually all people whom I was dealing with during Medvedev's modernization and the projects that we were doing in regards to Skolkovo and with different venture capital firms and everything they virtually all of them are in Silicon Valley and those who are not in Silicon Valley are in Boston Novosibirsk actually probably is most strong remaining in place in the sense of the Siberians they are a little bit more like patriotic you might say somebody might say conservative in terms of they don't like to move that much they are more solid in their behavior so they tend to sit a little bit more in Novosibirsk but still a lot of companies are living and some of the projects are already shut down and I expect the number of new ones would also not grow in foreseeable in foreseeable future Putin is really, Putin is at the crusade with this entrepreneurial class or as we say startup class that's his main enemies identified as his major opponent within the country and if he would be Stalin he would be send them to Gulag but he is not Stalin he is way more weaker than that and he is trying to push them away so to make them go by themselves Okay, Andy Andy Kutchins director of the Russia Eurasia program let me just thank you very much for your exceedingly interesting presentation your colleague, Vladimir Milov was here last Thursday night for a private dinner and he knew you were coming here to speak and he said that it would be very, very interesting and he certainly did not disappoint in any way, so thank you very much my question has to do with the issue of sanctions and what the Kremlin is doing in the Donbas the economic reality has changed very dramatically for Russia over the past year although you are absolutely right of course the economic after the recovery from the global financial crisis the economic beginning of the economic downfall almost coincides with the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency in May of 2012 but he can't do anything about the oil price he can't take economic reform measures which are going to have an impact to alleviate the situation in the short term the one thing he does have some control over is what the Russians are doing in the Donbas to support the insurgents there and to come from under the sanctions the sanctions have emerged is a very large economic problem into 2015 and beyond do you think that he is going to take the measures just enough to convince the West to remove the economic sanctions in 2015 and just if I could add one very short question because last week Jill Doherty said I should ask you how you are managing to participate as a Duma member and to vote while you are outside of the country she said it is an interesting story thank you about the first part of your question Putin is the kind of person who never backs goes only forward he might go sideways but he never backs that's why I think he would play a lot of different games in eastern Ukraine I actually anticipate this or next there would be some mounting tensions in eastern Ukraine because the meeting of the Normandy format group failed and they need to bring more arguments to the table and they think that the arguments are only military force they don't see any other kind of arguments so they want to create a little bit more space and also they would mount pressure and they would pull back like they did already several times in Ukraine and we saw the day before yesterday again another tragedy when it was shelling of civilian bus and a lot of people were killed in south and done bus that's sign of that very process so I think that they said that sanctions as they are right now they are more beneficial for Putin you know even like imagine that like tomorrow US or Europe would say ok we will relax regime of sanctions a little bit would you imagine that these issues of financial liquidity for Russian banks would start to solve the answer is no it would take many more years to rebuild the trust recently mudi has downgraded Russian sovereign rating and standard and poor is supposed to do even further step next week to strip Russia of the investment rating the reverse in sanctions partial reverse in sanctions would not solve the issue the potential problems for Putin if he like makes a kind of compromise are bigger because he would be then criticized by those hardliners but the potential benefit is not there so I think that Putin himself is fully prepared sorry to have another two years at least of mounting pressure and tensions and this semi-hot war going on in Ukraine I think that he made his bet on toppling the Ukrainian government because of the social issues because he understands that the only thing that IMF can advise Ukrainian government is to cut on the social spending and that would create a lot of unrest within the country and you know I think that this is the ground they would play they need to showcase the the revolution would be would fail I think that's like the strategy if there is one and everything is prepared at any single moment to actually invade further and go towards the deaths and everything and all the ground work deaths is laid for that so they have different other cards that can be played so I think that despite like the formal condolences that were expressed by our leadership with the terrorist attack in France I think that this attack would be used by this Russian administration and by Russia today at large to mobilize people towards those radicals and to bring them to power he already directly financing and closed and official and confirmed that Russia is financing the pen in France and it would do more and it's financing similar movements in Hungary it's financing certain German politicians it finances certain Czech politicians it would continue and I think that West has to recognize one simple thing that this whole story is not about Russia or Ukraine this is a story about America and European Union and that's the point which I tried to make in my presentation that's the early stages of the development of the new international like it was during the Cold War and it's a real, it's a development of the situation here and I'm staying in the US not to my will cannot go back to Russia since August and I already started to fill a penetration of Russian security forces into the American society and I see people of influence who are disseminating certain information and trying to counteract with what we do in regards to Free Russia Foundation and with Shell Gas Projects and with other initiatives that I'm involved in they used the period of time when there was no like visible tensions and there was no counterintelligence counterintelligence efforts neither in US and especially not in European Union and that's what's happening and the last part of your question is how I vote, is we vote with cards, it's a special like cheap cards and I had mine with me in October managed to enter Belarus through the place that I know how to I met with my fellow friend and parliamentarian Mitry Gutkov and passed my card to him and he's now voting on my behalf and when things need to be signed they deliver to me by DHL and I sign things and send them backwards so I not just vote, I introduce legislation okay up here wait for the mic as entrepreneur I am parliamentarian and I will write hi how is the Putin administration planning on defending the Russian Far East from Chinese military aggression, thank you if I correctly understood your question you are concerned about that Far Eastern influence and whatever you know that was major concern for a lot of regional governors in that area and they always were waving alarm signs that there are 100 million of Chinese across the border and there is just 10 million of Russians on the northern side of the border and that would inevitably lead to consequences and China actually several times demonstrated it's no long-term friend to us it might be like a temporary ally but it's definitely not a strategic friend and one of the best examples is when we negotiated with them concession of part of Russian territory along the Amur river it's a relatively small piece of land but it's right across Habarovsk and Chinese immediately build almost already a million people city on this new acquired land right across of Habarovsk which is like 450-500,000 people and that happened over less than a decade and it was a showcase of might and this soft but still conquering of the territory that scared a lot of people away and that is something again that has been said many times by the Russian patriotic forces against Putin that Putin is too weak in this sense Putin is trying to basically again manipulate Chinese and engage them in a certain long-term relations through those pipelines gas, oil and whatever but this policy is to my mind totally unsustainable and just economically this cooperation right now it's not feasible the programs that were laid out by Russian government to develop the Far East they are not working because they are artificial they are not based on the substantial economic value of those regions that has yet to be developed and all the voices that were there for example Khadarkovsky who went to jail now 11 years ago one of the reasons which was like was one of speculations why it did happen is because he wanted to create a program of cooperation between Russia and China and the pipeline to China to that scene which was way more feasible than what has been implemented right now so the policies are inconsistent the threat is recognized but the answer is not yet there and moreover what has been done I think actually increases the possibility of conflict and increasing of influence of our neighbors in our forest regions okay we have about 10 minutes so I think I'm going to take a couple of questions together and then we'll turn the mic over back to Ilya so it's right here Hi Trudy Rubin from the Philadelphia Inquirer on this question of leadership and how alternative leadership could emerge first do you think that the dropping oil prices could create pressure within the elites against Putin and is that a possible avenue to new leadership and then Navalny and Khodorkovsky do they have a future as leaders of the opposition or are they just going to be crushed as would anybody from the regions who raised their head as a leader okay so oil prices Khodorkovsky and Navalny let's go back here Mitchell Pullman I've seen quite a few number of pieces on Putin or the current government's recruitment of young people from around Russia to work for the for the government as bureaucrats in Moscow essentially to create a whole new class of young bureaucrats that's loyal to him loyal to United Russia the question I have is as oil prices plunge and the government starts running short of money the likelihood of their continued loyalty when they're getting smaller paychecks if any as all if any paycheck at all okay so we that's it okay so yeah like yeah the general question about the oil prices of course that creates a fundamental challenge for the economy but firstly does not affect that much the elites you know direct effect because the oil industry to a large degree is consolidated in a very small circle of hands of people extremely close to Putin most of those companies they are formally government but they are not in fact government nationalization it's just you know one oligarch was replaced with another oligarch because I don't take Eger Sechin for example as a government employee he of course is an oligarch and he behaves like one he's the beneficiary of his company there would be issues for the budget for that part which is related with foreign imports because they are they are getting more expensive but they have a symmetrically devalued ruble so government is very proud that they will have no issues with delivering social obligations neither this nor next year because in terms of the ruble value you know they have enough rubles they don't even need to start printing more they just devalued it so they basically text everybody in the country by the devaluation of dollar and dollar has devalued twice as much from the last year in regards to social lifts and those young people again since there is no alternative of course you know there will be continued inflow of youngsters into pro-Putin organizations and especially that youngsters they will always radical so they are susceptible for this patriotic propaganda and they are not as attentive to economic issues being young and don't have family obligations and everything that's why Putin is trying to create a strong call there with youngsters but they also come into other political organizations as well there is a huge inflow of youngsters into radical left organizations there are huge inflow of youngsters into radical right organizations you know they are on the streets so they are getting more politicized the bad thing is that Putin administration corrupts a lot of youngsters that's what is bad and a lot of quality people are leaving Russia to US or to Europe that's what is bad but it's not happening because of oil prices it's not financial it's like existential it's more ethical concern within the country and the last thing is about leaders again if we are talking about the change of power through the revolutionary process it's pretty much irrelevant what general public thinks about those leaders it's important what the protesters and the elites think about those leaders I think that of course two more people two people that you mentioned Alexei and Mikhail they are most visible it doesn't mean that there could not be anybody else which might emerge during the active period of change of power and most likely there would be more who would emerge and we see several of the candidates for that Khadarkovsky is right now being seen as the only person who can be reasonable compromise for everybody it can be compromise for all opposition activist groups liberals leftists and the nationalists and for the significant part of the elites at the end of the day Khadarkovsky is the only person Putin can trust and Khadarkovsky is sending all the necessary messages to Putin both publicly and informally with Navalny the situation is more complex because Navalny cannot be trusted by the elites and for the opposition it's also it's not universally acceptable figure it has a very good popular appeal he is the most talented populist type politician but I think that his influence is somehow limited because of that do we have time to take a couple more questions now I'm being signaled that we're done so thank you all again for coming and please join me in thanking our guest thank you very much thank you very much thank you