Members of the Committee of Foreign Affairs (AFET) exchange views with representatives of the Russian political opposition and NGOs on the current political and socio-economic situation in Russia. Opening statements by videoconference by Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future; Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation; Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist and energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister for Energy; and Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery.

AFET - Exchange of views with representatives of the Russian political opposition and NGOs on the current political and socio-economic situation in Russia: opening statements by Alexei NAVALNY, Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Vladimir MILOV and Ilya YASHIN

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/9143109/I199325Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much for having me here. It's an honour for me to be part of this important conversation about the new strategy of communication with Russia.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, And I want to start, of course, with the words of appreciation to just say thank you, to say thank you very much to members of the European Parliament for the support they give to me and my family during these events recently happened with me. And it was it was very important, not just for me, but for all the Russian people, because as absolutely correctly, said the chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm definitely not the first one and unfortunately, I will not be the last one who poisoned or killed or treated in this way.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, And it is extremely important for Russian people to know that Europe and whole and the European Parliament will not keep silent or for such an events. As far as I understand now in the European Parliament, it's a big and very important discussion about new strategy, how we discuss and the ways with communication with Russia.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, And and I think it is time to develop a new strategy, not not just correct the old one, but really develop a new one, because we knew kind of new type of Russian government, a new type of Russian state, actually. Absolutely. New one. Compare what we have even two years ago. And I would say that basic of a new approach should be very clear, dividing two things Russian people who must be welcomed and treated very warmly from the European Union, from my perspective, and Russian state, who which is must be treated like a bunch of criminals who are temporarily took all of the power.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, And maybe it sounds radical, but, well, especially from my own personal point of view, I think it's a very fine defining what they are. They are bench of criminals, temporarily took over the power in our country. And let me be more specific about things I think should be applied for from European Union on the issue of sanctions, discussing all the time and issue of forthcoming election discussion all the time.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, So I'm focussing on these two things. And yes, it's true. I would say that forthcoming election in the State Duma is absolutely crucial event and the key moment of it, not even fabrication and falsification, but definitely waiting for it. It's kind of inevitable part of all the Russian election. But now, which is more important, it's the right to participate now on the panel with us two of my friends, Vladimir Milov, Ilya Yashin, who was not just kicked out from the recent election Moscow Mayor, Moscow City, Duma, they were imprisoned for their attempts to participate.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, So I would say and I ask the European Parliament and every European politician to treat a Russian forthcoming election election in a very simple way. If everyone is allowed to participate, we can discuss it further. But if some people are not allowed to participate, the results of such election will never be recognised. From my perspective, this is their point. No one for any discussion with any Russian officials on all levels.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, The second thing, I want to focus the issue of sanctions because it's discussion all the time. And so far I would say that the main approach of the European Parliament of European country is to sanction people who are technically do some some bad things, for example, or my issue, or some people who are literally responsible for poisoning or made some orders. They are they are sanctions.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, So but I would say that there is no sense to sanction colonels or generals or some people who have definitely not travelled a lot all over the world and definitely don't have a lot of estate of. Bank accounts in Europe are the main question we should ask ourselves, why are these people poisoning, killing and fabricating? And the answer is very, very simple money. So a European Union should target the money and Russian oligarchs, not just old oligarchs, but also new ones like this circle of Mr. Putin.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, They must be real targets of of sanction. And let me say, it's very straight until the most expensive yacht of Mr. Usmanov standing in Barcelona or in Monaco, no one in Russia or even in Kremlin, even they know treats European sanctions seriously. They just think that they are playing European Union because they are afraid of applying real sanction against real money. So now that have to be a focus.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, And believe me, that type of sanction would be absolutely welcome amongst 99 percent of population. So this sanction, they have to be very popular inside of Russia and they will just target Russian oligarchs. Just tell Mr. Usmanov, Mr. Abramovich, Mr. Rattenberg, etcetera, et cetera.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, Guys, you are acting against Russian people. You are acting against Europe. You are all of the time advocating that Europe is something something very bad. So please take your yachts and get them somewhere to the nice harbours of Belorussia Republic, something like this. And this one is this approach will be very effective and very welcome again from the Russian people.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, Last thing I want to mention very, very shortly, it's the issue of the European Court of Human Rights. This is another very fine and very easy way to to help Russian people, actually, because now at this moment we have, you know, big, huge backlog of decision of European court who are absolutely ignoring from Russian state.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, And there is no question of the, you know, freezing assets or kind of political decisions. This is very simple. If, for example, the particular officials or particular judges, they are not following the decision of European court, which is formal, also recognised by Russia, it's a nice way just to have reasons why not give them opportunities to go to Europe, travel all over the world, et cetera, et cetera.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Alexei NAVALNY, Founder of the Russian Foundation for the fight against corruption; Leader of the Party Russia of the Future, This is a very, very easy and very effective approach to this issue. And I can see that my my time is over and I will be happy to answer my question. Thank you very much for your attention.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Thank you very much, Mr.. Members of the Committee, above all, thank you for holding this important hearing and finding an opportunity to do so even in the unusual circumstances of this year. And thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. As you know, in 10 months time, Russia will be holding a parliamentary election.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Now, in a normal political situation, we would already be in a full campaign mode with parties and candidates across the political spectrum preparing for the contest, as happens in every country represented on this committee and in this parliament. Instead, one leading opponent of the current government, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, is dead, having been gunned down in front of the Kremlin in February of 2015.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, The organisers of his assassination have not been brought to justice. Another leading opponent, Alexei Navalny, whom you just heard from, was recently poisoned with a military grade nerve agent prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Thankfully, he survived, but the chances of him or his supporters being allowed to participate in September's parliamentary election are close to zero.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Mr. Navalny's party has received nine denials of registration from the Justice Ministry, a record even for today's Russia. And he himself has been prohibited from running for any election on any level in Russia on the basis of a Russian court conviction that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled to be arbitrary. The next time you hear from a Kremlin propaganda outlet from another Western Putin, fresh air that Vladimir Putin has wide public support in Russia.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Just ask the obvious question. If he really is so popular, why is he so afraid of a free election? In fact, we haven't had a free election in Russia in two decades and don't take my word for it. According to reports by observer missions from the OSCE and the Council of Europe, the gold standard of European election observation, the last Russian parliamentary election that was assessed to be competitive and Democratic was held in December of 1999.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, A whole generation of Russians has grown up not knowing what a real election looks like when you don't actually know the results ahead of time. For many years now, our parliament has been, in effect, a rubber stamp, not a place for discussion in the unforgettable words of its own speaker. But the right to free elections, fundamental as it is, is not the only right by far that Mr. Putin's regime is denying Russian citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Independent media outlets have been silenced or taken over by the state. NGOs and civil society groups have been blacklisted as foreign agents or undesirable organisations. Peaceful demonstrations are routinely dispersed by security forces and the participants are detained or arrested. In fact, imprisonment of political opponents is becoming a common tool in the Kremlin's toolbox.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, According to the Memorial Human Rights Centre, Russia's most respected human rights organisation. There are currently three hundred and twenty eight political prisoners in our country. This is a conservative estimate, as this number only includes those cases that have been studied by memorial and that correspond to the fairly strict Council of Europe definition of a political prisoner without no already rivals the late Soviet era.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, But imprisonment is not the worst that can await those who stand up against the system. As I already mentioned, in February of 2015, Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister and Mr Putin's most prominent political opponent, was gunned down literally in front of the Kremlin wall. This was the most high-Profile political assassination in the modern history of Russia.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, An officer in the Russian Interior Ministry subordinate to Kremlin backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, has been convicted for pulling the trigger. None of the organisers of masterminds have been identified or brought to justice, as the recent OSCE report on the Nemtsov case has concluded. The reason for this impunity is to be found not in the capabilities of Russian law enforcement agencies, but in a political will of the Russian government.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, After all, one does not investigate oneself. There was a growing sentiment in Russian society that we need change, that it's not OK for a European country in the 21st century to be ruled by an authoritarian kleptocracy. You can see the sentiment in the mass street protests like those in Moscow last year are those in Khabarovsk earlier this summer that are taking place despite the police brutality and the arrests.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, You can see that opposition victories in local elections and those rare cases where opposition candidates are actually allowed on the ballot, as happened this September in Siberian cities in Tomsk and Novosibirsk, you can see the recent collapse in public confidence in Vladimir Putin is reflected in opinion polls, slanted as they are in the context of an authoritarian.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, State with government control over the media, above all, you can see it in a young generation of Russians that is increasingly involved in civic and political life and that is increasingly rejecting what the present regime stands for. It is only for Russian citizens to bring political change to Russia and that change will come.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Contrary to what is being trumpeted by the Kremlin's propaganda, we do not ask or want or expect the European Union or any other foreign power to interfere with political developments in our country. What we do expect is that you stay true to your values, that you stop enabling those corrupt and abusive officials and oligarchs who want to steal from our people in Russia and then come and enjoy their loot in European Union countries by spending their holidays, sending their wives and their mistresses on shopping trips, buying up yachts and real estate properties and so on and so forth.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, This has been happening for far too long. It is heartening to see the European Commission finally moving ahead with enacting the Magnitsky style mechanism for targeted sanctions on corrupt officials and human rights abuses. And I want to take this opportunity to thank members of the European Parliament from all the main political groups who have pushed for years to make this happen.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, It is time to stop this hypocrisy whereby the people who abuse and attack and undermine the most basic norms of democracy and the rule of law in our country, then come to the EU and enjoy the benefits and the privileges and the opportunities that the same norms of democracy and rule of law in the EU. It is time to stop this hypocrisy. It is time to stop this enabling. And it's very heartening to see the Magnitsky mechanism finally moving forward in the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, It is also important that the European Union does not accept or legitimise the illegitimate power grab that Mr Putin is trying to achieve with his constitutional amendments passed this some under the cover of the pandemic, including the amendment that would allow him to violate presidential term limits. These amendments were enacted unlawfully in violation of Russian legislative procedures and in a sham plebiscite that flunked the most basic norms of Russian electoral legislation and of our commitments under the OSCE.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Indeed, you in the European Parliament said it most clearly when you stated in resolution 2020-277 RSP passed on the 17th of September. It's the same resolution that talks about the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. And it also states that the recent amendments to the Russian constitution have been, and I quote, illegally enacted and are incompatible with international standards and of quote, If Mr. Putin attempts to cling to power beyond 2024 in violation of the constitutional term limits.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, He will become as illegitimate as other dictators who have tried this trick before, from Hugo Chavez to Alexander Lukashenko and the European Union should respond accordingly with a clear policy of non-recognition. This month, we are marking the 30th anniversary of the OSCE Charter of Paris for a new Europe. In that document, nations spanning from Vancouver to Vladivostok have pledged to foster relations, founded on respect and cooperation, and declared respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms to be irrevocable.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, Vice President of the Free Russia Foundation, Both of these promises are still not fulfilled. I hope and trust that one day they will be, and I think it's in the interests of all of us on the European continent, you and the European Union and US and Russia, to work together to try to bring that day a little bit closer. I thank you very much once again for the opportunity to participate. And I look forward to any questions or comments from members of the committee.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist and energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a privilege to speak here to live and I will agree with my colleagues absolutely central question of modern day Russian politics is the total lack of legitimacy of the Russian government, of Vladimir Putin himself. It is very important to understand, because while Putin wants to promote his assertive foreign policy, are trying to portray things as though he has the solid backing of the Russian people at home, like anything from two thirds or nine to 90 percent of Russians support him.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, This is actually very much over for the last few years because we have seen an unprecedented economic crisis for several straight year. Real incomes of ordinary Russians have been declining or stagnating. We haven't seen anything like that in more than a quarter of a century. There is no prospects for economic growth. We are in an unprecedented international isolation and all the dictatorship.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, Like China, Iran and others continue to maintain good relations with Putin's regime. Obviously, Alexander Lukashenko as well, but he has problems with home, too. So all these problems keep mounting. And you saw many signs of that in the recent opinion polls. A lot of media outlets have reported that Putin's approval ratings and approval ratings of his ruling United Russia party has been plunging to historic, unprecedented lows.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, They have been suffering severe blows of the regional and local elections, which take place every year in Russia. And basically there's there's a lot of data which shows that Putin's popularity is right now in extremely low numbers. For instance, journalists put forward yesterday on YouTube a very good video. I strongly encourage you to watch when they roam around the streets of Moscow and approach people and ask them to sign a petition in support of the ruling party united Russia.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, I will not dare to quote what people are saying in response, but during like seven minute video, they barely found anyone who agreed to support Putin's party. This has a striking similarity with what happened in Belarus this summer, because during the presidential election campaign, there were also many videos like that. There is hardly any credible opinion polling in Belarus, but we saw many videos online where people have been approached by somebody with a camera and the mike asking, do they support Lukashenko or not? And you can see that there were very extremely low numbers of those who agreed to say yes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, Still, Lukashenko drew 80 percent support in his results at the August 9th elections. I think you can expect fairly similar approach from Vladimir Putin and his team because they understand that in real life, their public support has largely eroded over the past year. So what do they do? First and foremost, this is what Alexei Navalny has been speaking about. They continue to, like, completely ban any real opposition from participation.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, And that is a central question when we talk about the legitimacy of the Russian government, because, look, I think this question should be put forward absolutely in a black and white terms, no real participation of the opposition in elections, no legitimacy, no international recognition of the legitimacy of the Russian parliament or the Russian president, because in cases when we were really allowed to participate, there were a handful of small number of cases.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, One real opposition were allowed into the races. We actually won or shown it very decent, like 20, 30 percent supports parliamentary results for Alexei Navalny party, which was important to understand. I think Alexei didn't stress that his party was denied registration by the Russian Ministry of Justice nine times. And this case is now being considered by the European Court of Human Rights because this is totally illegitimate denial of participation.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, So they keep banning us from races right now. They are so politically afraid of losing the parliamentary elections next year. So they introduce a whole bunch of legislation trying to label any dissenter or even somebody remotely reminiscent of an opposition candidate is foreign agent officially for absolutely no reason, because they have been going along with this accusations of opposition being foreign agents of influence for years.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, And there has not been very one single proof of that. It is never been proven that the opposition is working as an agent of somebody but the Russian people from whom we have sufficient support. So I think when you discuss the future relations with Russia and Russian political developments, first and foremost, it's important to understand that Vladimir Putin is having once again towards a completely falsified and rigged parliamentary elections next year under probably similar technology that Lukashenko could do in the summer when they do not even pretend to count the votes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, They just announced a previously drawn up results. This is what Lukashenko did, and we expect Putin to do the same in twenty twenty one. So I think it's very important to brush off, you know, this power that Putin wants to portray for himself pursuing an aggressive, assertive foreign policy that although that he has a solid backing at home, he obviously does not. And I think the more this issue is brought up international.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, The more all of us, the free people in Europe, in Russia and across the world will be successful in changing the politics of Russia and moving towards from an authoritarian mafia dictatorship to a free state where governance is based on the free will of the Russian people, something we don't have at present. And I would reiterate what Alexei and Vladimir have said.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Vladimir MILOV, Politician, publicist, economist & energy expert; Former Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, Unfortunately, Europe keeps harbouring this corrupt folks who steal the money through mafia dictatorship from the Russian people and actually invest them in European real estate and yachts in whatever assets they have in the European Union. That's not good. We strongly urge you to stop encouraging this. Exports of corruption, stolen money from Russia to Europe. And I think there's a lot of European Union can do in this regard. I'll finish here. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, Colleagues, good afternoon, I am Ilya Yashin, I am the head of the municipal district in Moscow and I'm very glad that I can address you today at this meeting. And I join my colleagues and what they said. I would just like to draw your attention to the fact that Putin has been in power for 20 years. And it seems that during that time we have learnt one thing.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, Putin is absolutely convinced that politics is a dirty business and that all politicians are corrupt and that his guiding principle in forging relations with other countries. He believes that the world stage is dominated by a small number of big players with whom you can always reach backroom deals and carve up state spheres of influence

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, The only difference is that some politicians don't hide their cynicism, whereas others cover it up with a very nice window dressing and lofty sounding states. So amongst themselves, they all know how things are and they sort of say, oh, yes, yes, yes, we know you are just trying to cover it up. 

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And I'm absolutely sure that this belief or this Putin's belief that I've just described is very much encouraged by his cooperation with some European politicians, with the politicians in Italy, Germany, France, Hungary and some other European countries. Putin supports those Putin friendly politicians in those countries through media support.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And in return, they provide a stage, if you like, for his ideas in Europe. And Putin is engaged in some kind of a hybrid game. He is trying to encourage corruption amongst European politicians, that he is also using huge propaganda machine to manipulate European public opinion. I believe all that poses an enormous threat to European society

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And the main risk here, to my mind, is that sometimes European politicians believe that they can trade in their values in return for economic financial benefit. So they tend to ignore human rights violations and other problems in Russia in exchange for some very lucrative contracts, mostly linked to gas and oil. I believe that this is a path to nowhere because in fact, this will encourage erosion of the very the fundamentals of the European Union and it can be deadly, can be fatal.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, Well, I believe that all relations with Russia should be based on the on European fundamental European values, human rights, the rule of law and humanistic values. Well, it's obvious that Russians themselves will have to build up their democratic institutions. Neither Americans nor Europeans will ever do that job instead of Russians. The Russians themselves have to get their act together. 

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And of course, Russian politicians also should take their responsibility for that process. And we understand that very well. But I believe that the European opinion is very important to us because it's any interest from on the European part makes us feel safer because we understand that if Merkel or the Finnish prime minister or other politicians had not phoned Vladimir Putin after the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, nobody would have ever allowed the Alexei to leave Russia and in that case would not have the possibility to talk to Alexei today.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And we understand the role that European countries played in this whole affair. And Alexei mentioned it and I agree with him entirely while talking about broader issues. I believe that it's very important. To understand that Russia in Russia, some fundamental human rights are violated regularly and we're talking about very basic human rights, the ones that are enshrined in our Constitution

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And the key problem here is not allowing opposition politicians to take part in the elections unless he talks about it before. We cannot take part in the election. And the problem is not that the election results are rigged. No, the problem starts even earlier. We just deny we are denied access to the election. And I think that this is often overlooked wrongly. Well, as far as sanctions are concerned, I don't think I can really give you any recommendations here.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, I don't think that would be right. Is your own business how you would decide to sanction the Putin regime? But I would like to draw your attention to one important thing. What I believe that personal targeted sanctions against Putin and those and his allies are much, much more painful because sort of a catch all economic sanctions that are painful to everyone in Russia, to the Russian people.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And the authorities, of course, use that as a pretext to spread more propaganda, saying that, look, all those Western countries are very aggressive towards Russia and that's why, in fact, you're playing into the Russian hands. And in consequence, consequently, you are also keeping him in power. But when targeted personal sanctions are applied, then Putin's allies are hurt and they lose any opportunity to use their corrupt money in the West. 

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, And it prevents them from being Western consumers in Europe, for example. And they like, you know, playing that role very, very much. So personal. Targeted sanctions, in fact, can deal a blow to the personal prosperity of Putin's allies so that personal targeted sanctions that can encourage fragmentation amongst Kremlin elite

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, Amongst opposition politicians, we have a common attitude towards sanctions and in fact, you that Boris Nemtsov that was killed and Vladimir grandmother talks about it, he said it all very nicely, addressing the US Congress in the debate about the Jackson Vanik Amendment. He talked about abandoning that, abolishing that amendment and replacing it with the Magnitsky Act.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ilya YASHIN, Politician, Head of the Krasnoselsky Municipality, In other words, with personal targeted sanctions against specific individuals, those who are engaged in the violation of human rights. And Nemtsov said it like this, don't touch Russia and beat up the bastards. And I think that is a very succinct and very clear explanation of what needs to be done. Thank you.

AFET - Exchange of views with representatives of the Russian political opposition and NGOs on the current political and socio-economic situation in Russia: opening statements by Alexei NAVALNY, Vladimir KARA-MURZA, Vladimir MILOV and Ilya YASHIN

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