![]() ![]() ![]() The other question, of course, is how well the Kremlin can implement these laws, even if they are perfectly written. The Kremlin, of course, doesn’t say that this is because of Navalny’s work, but it’s hard to explain the coincidence any other way, given Navalny’s surging popularity. (Navalny just blogged about this today, praising Medvedev.) Amazingly, President Dmitry Medvedev has proposed a number of legislative projects, including reforming the law governing government tenders (a big part of Navalny’s work), and about improving the investment climate in Russia. JULIA IOFFE: This is another leitmotif in the questions I’m getting, and it’s a good one. QUESTION FROM HENRY: Have you noticed any change in government behavior since the social revolutions in the Middle East started? Is there a block of the populace that is clamoring for greater rights? He has gathered a team of volunteers who work for the Russian branches of the big four auditing companies-PwC, Ernst & Young, etc.-who advise him on how best to proceed. JULIA IOFFE: I should point out, by the way, that the person leading the PwC/DOJ charge is a very, very high-ranking manager at one of Russia’s biggest private financial institutions. Department of Justice to possible violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, vis a vis PwC, but has gotten no satisfying response. So far, PwC has stonewalled, saying they stand by their audits. Navalny and his supporters have written to PwC repeatedly, pointing out the massive accounting holes-which the Russian government itself has found-in Transneft’s accounts. Who are those auditors? American companies, like PricewaterhouseCoopers. They allege that, given the massive scale of the graft alleged in the building of Transneft’s Pacific pipeline-up to $4 billion-could not have gone unnoticed by Transneft’s auditors. One whole branch of Navalny’s followers is working on this. My sense is he is too much of a tactical thinker to make this mistake. Moreover, doing so would *severely* undermine Navalny’s position and political aspirations. JULIA IOFFE: Everyone in Russia seems to think so, but I haven’t seen any evidence of this. QUESTION FROM TR: Does Navalny get support from NGOs or from money in the States? ![]() JULIA IOFFE: Unfortunately, we only know what these guidelines are because each of them has a victim attached to it. The latter is what Russians refer to as taking bread out of a specific man’s mouth, and this is the most dangerous. JULIA IOFFE: Right now, there are some vague things journalists-both Russian and foreign-are wary of writing about: Ramzan Kadyrov, the reckless young president of Chechnya (this is what Anna Politkovskaya did), writing about Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s personal wealth and private life (one journalist who wrote about this was just beaten), trying to interview any of the fighters in the Caucasus (foreign journalists are routinely reprimanded for this), and exposing specific corruption. The problem is that one can guess at where the lines are, but one never knows for sure until that line has been crossed. Whenever you mention Navalny to someone in Russia, or acquainted with the way things work there, you get the same response: the man is playing with fire. JULIA IOFFE: I’m seeing a lot of questions on Alexey’s safety pop up, so I’m picking this one, as it really gets to the heart of the matter. QUESTION FROM SARAH FINE: I still can’t get a sense of how dangerous and corrupt Russian politics really is? Does this kind of dissent get crushed completely over time or is there a new space for his kind of work? The region, which is economically self-sufficient and far from Moscow, is much more independent minded than, say, Moscow, which is so close to-and dependent on -the Kremlin “machine.” Ekaterinburg, in the Sverdlovsk region, for example, is a thriving center of civil society. There are other, more local bloggers, however, who pursue similar goals. ![]() JULIA IOFFE: Navalny is certainly the most prominent when it comes to the national stage. ![]()
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