Transcription
The President says that, like, everything is wonderful with us, everything is excellent, just a little more fighting in Donbas and then we will truly live. Citizens don't care about Donbas. Suddenly, for these great strategists, the issue of the internet became political issue number one, overshadowing even the issue of war. There should be no party, there should be no trade unions, there should be no public organizations. So, first the expectation that it will end soon, and then the passionate desire for it to end soon, became the mood of the majority. Your mood is your mood, it's a problem with your cortisol. And nothing more. You will swell up from it, but Putin will not lose weight from it. I see no reason. not a single reason, for people to become satisfied with anything. >> How has Russian society changed in 4 years of war? >> Now we are talking to you at an interesting moment, which may be called a turning point by a certain date. We cannot call it a turning point now, because we are inside it. Perhaps this phase will be replaced by some other phase, and then what seems important, significant, and a factor of change to us now will cease to seem so. But if, as they say, it goes as it is going, then future historians may say that, let me try to reconstruct what they might say. They might say that during 2025, the attitude of broad segments of Russian society towards the war, and then towards the status quo itself, towards the state of affairs, changed. What were these changes and what could have caused them, if this is indeed, let's say, a stable process? We still have some reason to call it stable, because, let's say, the majority that formed in the twenty-fifth year regarding the question of continuing the war or ending the war, the majority that is for ending it, for stopping hostilities, for moving to negotiations, and not continuing to fight. This majority is not only not falling apart, but it is rather growing. That is, it is a stable, b growing. This is already a rather long-term process. Now we can say that it is turning one year old, because, uh, in early twenty-fifth year and spring twenty-fifth year, high hopes, associated with the fact that the new American administration would somehow end the war in Russia's interests, were not justified. And this caused some kind of breakdown of the public optimism that existed before. The optimism consisted of this, it was a peculiar optimism, but it consisted of this: just a little more, just a little bit, the last battle is the hardest. The end is, as it were, visible, the way out is near, we started the war, we need to finish it, we need to fight it through. Well, and it seems like the war is going relatively successfully for Russia, and most importantly, what became the main thing by the twenty-fifth year, it will end soon. So, first the expectation that it will end soon, and then the passionate desire for it to end soon, became the mood of the majority. I think we can assert this, because a certain set of markers, both sociological and what we call anecdotal evidence, point to this. It is not some single parameter, like the president's rating or some single poll. It is precisely a set of data. For the twenty-fifth year, we saw an increase in the number of those who believe that the war is not going very well, not very successfully for Russia. Success is starting to fade, despite the fact that the state is actively narrowing the opportunities for citizens to obtain alternative information, and citizens predominantly, perhaps, should learn about the war from television. But there, as they complain, so to speak, the still-living militaristic bloggers, they talk little about the war. They somehow talk about Iran, then about some other foreign policy, then about the harvest, then about a festival. And the war is somewhere somewhere in the background, they are very upset that the hostilities, which continue to be extremely bloody for Russia, are completely not, so to speak, in the focus of state media, poorly understanding, these people generally understand the country they live in very poorly, and poorly understanding that this is precisely the reason. One cannot tell people that we are engaged in mass murder without any result, which can be formulated in any way, let alone show it. In conclusion. So, we have people who want it all to stop. It doesn't stop, and they don't like the war, but the bosses like it. The bosses, the very highest bosses, the president says that, like, everything is wonderful with us, everything is excellent, just a little more fighting in Donbas and then we will truly live. Since almost everything uncontrolled in Russia is blocked, social networks, media, YouTube, messengers, the authorities have seriously taken up VPNs. Since the beginning of the year, they have blocked more than 400 services, and the blocks have unfortunately become more effective. But this does not mean that there are no working VPN services left. For example, Blanck VPN is one of the first to adapt even to the harshest blocks. They have vast experience. The service has been helping to bypass censorship in Russia, China, and other authoritarian countries for 8 years. With BLN VPN, you will have access to the free internet with unlimited access, both in terms of the number of devices and traffic, and complete anonymity. BLN VPN offers 30 days to try the service. If you don't like something, the company will refund your money. You can pay for the subscription with Russian cards or cryptocurrency. And for any questions, for example, how to set up bypassing whitelists or installing VPN on a router, support will answer, which works 24/7. Go to the QR code on the screen or the link in the video description and install BL VPN. The link already has the promo code Freedom embedded, which will give a discount of up to 66% and a 30-day money-back guarantee. >> Citizens don't care about Donbas. We can state this quite definitively. The so-called new territories leave the old Russians absolutely indifferent. This was already evident in twenty-third year by the reaction to the initial capture of Kherson, then the abandonment of Kherson. Neither one nor the other interested citizens. Well, in a way, it interested them, if you look at Levada polls, what events of the past month do you remember. Well, some probably remembered, but it didn't particularly affect public sentiment. In general, consumer optimism, assessment of the economic situation of oneself, one's family, and the country as a whole, and dynamics. That's what's important. That is, people are asked: "How are you? How do you think the country's economy is doing? And how will it be in the next six months? Better, worse." The level of pessimism is growing quite actively. This is important, because remember where we started our review? The word status quo. Look, why is this important and why do I suspect that the current moment may later be called a turning point. Look, uh, in the consciousness of generalized Russians, as far as we can judge, there is the war, and there is, well, life itself, the state of affairs. The President is the embodiment, I would say, the idol of this status quo. Things as they are. What the late Gleb Olegovich Pavlovsky called the Putin majority was a majority satisfied with this status quo, with what is also called, more precisely, it is precisely called stability. This is stability. This is how we live, so we live. This is the first part, so to speak, of the Putin majority, the consensus of the Putin majority. Let's put it that way. The second part. Life is improving, getting better. So, money is increasing. If money is not increasing, then new services are appearing. Then, I don't know, if services don't appear, then a bike path has been laid. In general, some kind of progressive movement. Accordingly, if we are now truly seeing the disintegration of the Putin majority, and there are signs that point to this, then this, so to speak, this same view, this same mindset is turning completely the other way. The status quo is disliked, it is unstable, so, as it is disliked now, it was better than now, and it will be worse than now. That is, the dynamics are negative and have become worse compared to yesterday. By the same logic of the crow's flight. Whose personal merit is this? Vladimir Vladimirovich. Because everything happens by his, so to speak, consent, by his order. Again, what I am explaining to you now is not my opinion at the moment. This is my working hypothesis. I ask that this be recorded, because it is important. It is easy to paint harmonious poetic pictures of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but when they are too harmonious, we know that social reality is never so rounded, and it is never linear, never straight, never flat, never. If something can be said about it, then the exact opposite can also be said. That will also be true. But it seems to me, based on a number of the introductory data I mentioned, and a number of others that I do not mention, and here the public appearances of Victoria Bonya and Ivan Khlobystin are not a factor, but perhaps they are a marker. If these are bubbles on the surface that are inflating because some processes are happening beneath the surface, then this is also important. I repeat, all of this may turn out to be a phase. Citizens may get distracted by something else, or, so to speak, reconcile, or they will be silenced even more vigorously, and we will no longer hear these voices. Or, as has happened, I would say, regularly, when the popularity of the authorities decreases, some foreign policy adventure is undertaken to restore unity around the flag. Eighth year: Georgia, protests of the eleventh-twelfth years and Crimea. Accordingly, a decline, a systemic decline in ratings and all types of approval, and new civic activity that continued from the seventeenth year, reached its peak in the eighteenth-nineteenth years, continued during COVID. In twenty-first year, the rating was at an all-time low, then the war. The war and and again, so to speak, 80%. One could now drop some kind of nuclear bomb somewhere. We won't give anyone ideas, but as they say, the pattern, we have this pattern is quite regular. That is, if our observations and generalizations are correct, then this is an interesting moment. If indeed moods are spreading in society that director Gvarukhin formulated in his famous film: "It is impossible to live like this" or, more precisely: "We do not want to live like this." Here, I think, is this, so to speak, chronotope, this ratio between yesterday, today, and tomorrow, which was one and for a long time was one. There was this same pattern. It used to be worse than today, tomorrow will be better than today. Or, at least, generally the same as today. This is stability. Stability is good when you are satisfied with your position. Stability has nothing good in itself if your position is bad and unsatisfactory. Now it's the opposite. Pay attention, for example, to such, again, if we are talking about small details and statements. Peskov is asked by RBC about internet blocking, like, how long can this go on, how long will these torments continue? As the wife of Protopop Avvakum asked, Protopop Avvakum said: "Ah, well, of course, now is such a moment, security considerations are the most important. Citizens treat this with understanding. Note: no. No, citizens do not treat this with understanding. And dissatisfaction with these measures is spreading among those segments of the population who were not politicized at all or were loyalists. But then he says: "And when this moment, so to speak, passes, then of course, of course, the restrictions will be lifted, normalization will come." What is important here? What is important here are not promises of happiness on a carrot, on a whim, but the fixation of articulating the current moment as abnormal. It used to be normal, now it is abnormal. When it becomes normal again, it will be like before, not like now. How did internet blocking affect Russians? >> Look, since we are dealing with an authoritarian regime, in such a model there is no direct connection between public sentiment and political consequences. Or, more precisely, there are no tools, mechanisms, platforms that could convert sentiment into action, into political action. Why are they not there? Not that they haven't been born, they have been destroyed and are being consistently destroyed. What could such platforms be? Where does the transition, in the language of political science, from articulation of interests to aggregation of interests occur? Articulation of interests is their formulation, expression, complaint, even protest. But aggregation or agglomeration of interests is the formulation of a political proposal, a political program. Elmend, who formulated this two-stage theory, the two-stage theory, said that, you know, the articulation of interests is the business of elites, but elites of a broad circle, including media and intellectual elites, they should speak out, that is, say, here we have something wrong, we want this, and we don't want that. And the aggregation of interests is the business of elites of a narrower circle, namely, those who are engaged in political activity, parties, trade unions, public organizations, industry associations, and so on. If you pay attention, autocracies, at least until they fully mature, allow articulation. That is, you can complain, grumble, as they say, excellent, but the second phase should not happen. There should be no one left who could formulate this political proposal, this political program. Therefore, there should be no parties, no trade unions, no public organizations, no influential independent expert centers that can not just parrot the bosses and beautifully formulate what the bosses want to express, but offer something and at the same time be heard. In general, these structures should not just hope to be heard, because the boss is in a good mood, they should themselves be the power. But for them to be the power themselves, electoral democracy is needed. It is necessary that between what people want and what the bosses do, there is a direct connection. This direct connection can only be established through elections. Otherwise, it's impossible. When autocracies mature and reach their, so to speak, highest point of development, they also begin to stifle articulation. That is why, in fact, the internet is being closed down, because the internet provides a platform, and there should be no platforms, no platforms at all. You can say whatever you want at home in your kitchen. You understand, the autocracy, as it were, asks its citizens when they are dissatisfied. Well, you are dissatisfied, you don't love me, but what will you do to me? There is no answer to this question. I will not love you. Will you go protest? No. Will you go on strike? No. Will you vote against me? How will you vote against me? Everyone who is there, everyone is for me. Conversion into political action does not occur. Therefore, we say that, uh, so to speak, this dissatisfaction, which is indeed wider than ever before, is a factor of regime instability, because it has invaded people's everyday lives. And because of another important point, which relates specifically to authoritarian political dynamics. Look, in autocracies, citizens do not ask about their government. Is it right, is it humane, is it legal, does it benefit me? They ask only one thing: is it strong or is it weak? Will it hold on or will it falter? Therefore, when measures are taken that rob people, offend them, deprive them of their usual, citizens consider, without formulating it. Is this authority raging, or is this authority not coping? Is it showing ferocity here, or is everything slipping out of its hands? If it is showing ferocity, one must wait it out. One must not object, one will only make things worse for oneself, one will not change anything. But if it is not coping, then one can already, so to speak, complain. Internet blocking does not yet fall into the second category. The category of the clumsy authority broke it and did not achieve its goal. but it does not fully fall into the first either. We are at such a dangerous edge for the authorities, for the trained authorities. That is, it seems like these are strict security measures, but then you can't object to anything. On the other hand, these are some clumsy measures of security, and most importantly, not very successful. Therefore, on the one hand, we say that this dissatisfaction is not a factor of regime instability. On the other hand, we cannot say that it is not a political factor at all. No autocracy, no direct dictatorship, rules only by force. You can't stick a bayonet into every citizen's ass. You can't assign a policeman to everyone. They must agree that the power is power. This mysterious phenomenon is called legitimacy. One of the central concepts in political science and the most mystical in it. We explain it in many ways. Max Weber explained three types of legitimacy to us, he told us, but why some people give orders and others obey, we don't know. We call this a social instinct. And what is even more mysterious, why do they suddenly stop doing it at some point? Yesterday they did it, but today they don't. Again, then we will give you 100,000 explanations, but I, as an honest political scientist, must tell you, we actually don't know. Power is what it is believed to be and as long as it is believed to be. It's a matter of mood. One non-political scientist, but quite a pop author, formulated it through the lips of one of his heroes: "Power is a shadow on the wall." This also explains nothing to anyone. But honestly, I can't explain anything to anyone. Therefore, we and, so to speak, the writer Martin will agree that this is a very mysterious matter. So, public sentiment affects the machinery of power, affects the ruling bureaucracy, because the ruling bureaucracy is quite extensive, in terms of the number of people in it, and it is not completely isolated, not hermetically sealed, let's say. Although in a country with such a level of inequality as Russia, and we are a country with a record level of inequality, we recently stopped publishing data on the Gini index so as not to scare people. Apparently, Gini is the index of wealth inequality. But there is data that we may be among the first in the world or at least competing with India in this regard. But India is a democracy with peculiarities and very large, but still functioning, meaning elections there matter. So, despite this level of inequality, which, of course, contributes to the isolation of different social strata from each other, they live completely different lives. Nevertheless, this isolation is not hermetic, not absolute. And the Russian political model is extremely bureaucratized. From this it follows that there is a lot of bureaucracy here. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are involved in this business of ruling, formulating orders, executing orders. This is a lot of people. And some common, so to speak, column of air presses on all of them. For this reason, all sorts of statements like "tie the mare's tail" by people who have no relation to any administrations, nevertheless, can have significance, because they, as it were, show what is being said now. We have told many times, and those who are engaged in cognitive processes tell about this even more actively. And psychologists too, that people do not change their opinions under the influence of facts. You can't present a list of facts, and a person will say: "My God, what was I thinking, I was wrong, now I'll change my mind." But people change their opinions under the influence of other people. We want to be good, and being good means being approved by our group. Therefore, we monitor our group. Accordingly, when we hear that such people, as well as our neighbors, as well as our colleagues, all say: "Yes, like, how long can this go on, we have no strength left, we are tired of these prohibitions, today they banned one thing, tomorrow they will ban another." We begin to understand that, it turns out, one can speak like that, and that's how people think. And then our opinion, so-called opinion, some kind of bubbling that happens in our heads about the surrounding life, begins to change, often imperceptibly for ourselves. People who do not, so to speak, engage in intellectual activity professionally and, accordingly, do not carry out constant reflection, they do not notice at all that something has changed for them. Because they have always been like that. They think so. And and that's fine, and it's good, I'm not saying this to reproach them in their thoughtlessness, they don't have to have an opinion at all, no one is obliged to. This is not anyone's duty. And moreover, for an opinion to form, conditions are needed. These conditions are free public discussion. If it doesn't exist, then opinions cannot arise from anywhere. No one will give birth to them from within their skull, as Zeus gave birth to Athena. Therefore, when they start to bother people about this topic as well, don't bother them, they are deprived of the basic tools and platforms through which their opinion should even be able to be born. The new majority, if it is indeed forming, will include the majority. And within it there will be extremely diverse people who will agree on this main thing, which is so indefinite that I am trying to formulate it throughout our conversation. The feeling that it is wrong now. Then an interesting moment will come when these people cannot agree: "And how is it right? And what should be done?" That is, my assumption now is this. The formation of this new majority is happening, if it is happening on a negative basis, that is, on the basis of negation, not on the basis of striving for something, unless it is a striving to return to the normality that was the day before yesterday, but on negation. We don't want war, again, we can assert this, not that we don't want war. This new majority, again, I am talking about the majority that has actually formed, because it is visible on the issues, the one that wants to stop all this. Including there are different formulations by different sociological services without achieving. So, the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Ukraine. Chronicles ask in a very criminal, I would say, formulation. And here we see even when they ask about the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Ukraine, do you support this now, and do you support the president's decision, 42 for, 35 against. So here it's not 50 plus, but still more, even by such a formula, more than against, more for. One can ponder here what citizens mean by the territory of Ukraine, how they understand it. Does it include Crimea, does it not include Crimea, it doesn't matter. It's not important to us now, the trend is important to us. So, uh, a negative majority on the platform of negation. We want the war to end somehow, to dissolve, so that none of this exists. This is not an anti-war position, as humane people understand it. But this is this position is indeed, as it were, it is not anti-war, but it is anti-war, if you understand what I mean. We don't want prices to rise and constant new burdens and difficulties for self-employment of money. That is, money is becoming less, it is given less, and it is harder to earn. This means excise taxes, fees, tax increases, bringing small businesses that did not pay VAT before under taxation. This is, for example, difficulties, restrictions with patents, that is, some types of activities for which one could buy a patent. Now one cannot buy a patent. Well, and small things like changing the sign to Cyrillic at your own expense, and where will you get the money, it doesn't matter. What did the Latin alphabet bother you? It's unclear. But such a law was passed. And who passed it? Some, you know, idiotic State Dumas. >> You are still living with Russian cards and looking for loopholes to pay for your favorite apps, and when traveling abroad, you only use cash. But why tolerate these inconveniences if you can get a foreign card quickly, easily, and without leaving the country? The Skycards service will help with this. To apply, you only need a Russian passport or a foreign passport. The whole process takes a few days, and the plastic will arrive in any country. Skycards specialists will select a tariff specifically for your needs and open a card in a reliable CIS bank. If you need a card for trips and car or hotel rentals, one option: for subscriptions and services, another: cheaper. For living abroad or regular transfers, a third. And there is even a family tariff on the most favorable terms for you and for relatives or friends. The bank's application will be in Russian. The card can be linked to your phone and replenished at a favorable rate in Russian banks. And there are also privileges for travelers: insurance, fast track lounges at airports worldwide. Start the card application process with a minimum prepayment. Skycs guarantees that if something goes wrong, they will refund your money. Get a discount of 6,000 rubles or more on Skycards services with promo code Status or mention the promo code to the manager during a free consultation to immediately select the right tariff. Contacts, as usual, in the description. >> The fact that voters vote for these idiots, voters have forgotten, because they are not voters. Maybe, but this is very hypothetical, maybe closer to the elections, they will remember their function, that they have passive, I beg your pardon, active suffrage, that is, the right to vote. Passive suffrage is the right to be elected. It's too late to remember that. One can still think about the active one, but again, I don't see it as likely yet. So, uh, we want the war, so that we close our eyes, shut our eyes, and it's gone. We want food prices not to fluctuate so wildly and for them not to constantly come up with new fees and fines, and charges, and other things, and to let us breathe, and to let us earn ourselves, if we earn ourselves, or to index our salaries, pensions, and for this indexation to be higher than inflation, or to help us in some other way. And third, we don't want the internet to be blocked, for services to be ruined. We want to bring everything back. We want to be able to call a taxi. We want, you know, Instagram, and, well, all of this to be back. These three points seem to me to be the most consensual.
And here, indeed, we can see, uh, so to speak, how the lion will lie down with the lamb, even if temporarily, it will lie down. So, on the first point, we want the war to disappear somewhere. Citizens want it to just disappear. And militarists used to want to start fighting seriously. They announced mobilization, bombarded everyone with nuclear bombs, reached Kyiv and Warsaw, and so on. Now, judging by what we can observe in this environment, they are themselves no longer happy with their lives and write, for example, uh, uh, so, we must seize the opportunity and, as it were, so to speak, call it a day, as they say, stop where we are, because we are exhausting our resources. And there are talks, well, what can be read, again, this is already the military sphere, I don't understand anything in it, I'm just retelling what they themselves write, that in recent months Ukraine has advanced in its drone manufacturing in such a way that new mobilization will no longer make sense. New people at the front are just new corpses, killed by drones. They write directly: "It's too late, there was a moment when it was possible to mobilize 300-500,000." Where will they come from? Well, let's assume, and breaking through the Ukrainian front is now too late. Now this kill zone stands. No matter how many you send there, they will be killed there. That's all. Again, I cannot assess the technical literacy, fairness, and reasonableness of these descriptions. I am not talking about realities, but about moods, about, so to speak, perception, about understanding. The perception, it seems, is like this. Therefore, in the question, let's stop, and then not everyone sees this connection, but some do. If there is no war, there will be no such overspending, and the collar on the neck of any economic subject in Russia can be loosened a little. When they send me compilations of how many more enterprises, I don't know, the Rostov region announced losses for the end of 2025, and these are enterprises that I don't understand how they can be unprofitable, because they produce bread and sunflower oil. How can you be at a loss on bread and sunflower oil? And citizens stopped eating. How is that at all? Did they steal everything there? Did the FSB officers take everything from them? They paid into, so to speak, a black cash box so that there could be a bonus for contract soldiers regionally. And they spent all this on it, drank all the oil themselves. I don't know, again, I am just as much an economist as I am a military expert, so I am just reporting this fact. I have absolutely no explanation for it. We haven't heard about RZD's losses from anyone but the lazy, right? Yes. And I'm talking about them being forced to sell their building. I don't know, apparently, to replenish the budget. How does de-privatization happen with almost immediate subsequent sale. That is, the state does not nationalize assets, but immediately sells them. We see how property is confiscated from civil servants and judges. We see this too, so, well, besides the desire, so to speak, to punish corrupt officials, which is not even particularly articulated, nowhere is it said that this is some kind of campaign to cleanse the country, but it is clear that they really want money. If the war stops, there will be more money, some sanctions will be lifted, or, more precisely, the view on the sanctions regime will change if hostilities stop. Well, and in the third, everyone is united here. Everyone is united here. This is what I can say, looking from my professional perspective. The fatal moment will come when citizens, for example, realize that as long as Putin is there, they will not have the internet. There is Putin, there is no internet. No Putin, there is internet. If this connection arises in the public consciousness, then trouble. Again, this trouble will not be immediate for the reasons I have outlined. There is no tool for conversion, no mechanism for conversion. This is important, you understand? I repeat all this. Not because I like political theory, although I like political theory, but because it is important. If you don't have a mechanism for electoral rotation, then your mood is your mood, it's a problem with your cortisol. And nothing more. You will swell up from it, and Putin will not lose weight from it. But after a certain number of iterations, these moods penetrate the minds and souls and lungs of those who, in fact, make decisions, and they begin to hesitate. Again, I don't like publications based on anonymous sources, even if it's Bloomberg, but still, because when Bloomberg writes that some officials write to other, even more high-ranking officials, some reports and say: "Let's not, especially throttle the internet before the elections, otherwise the citizens will get angry." Why do they think so? Where do they know that citizens are dissatisfied with anything at all? Where do they know that? This is the penetration, the diffusion of public moods from bottom to top through the social and administrative pyramid. By the way, again, one of these Z-bloggers wrote, in my opinion, quite reasonably, I think so, that there will be no easing of Telegram blocking, and in this way they are trying to justify the impossibility of blocking it. If they wanted to kill it, they would have. Yes, if we had taken it on, you wouldn't have Telegram at all. We just decided to ease up because we are kind. In fact, they just can't. And they will present what is called in English "making a virtue of necessity." >> Are we expecting an increase in repression from the state? >> You know, I understand people's outrage at these events, but I must say again, as an observer and as a political scientist, that I see nothing new in them. Memorial was destroyed in 2021, and we must admire the resilience and, so to speak, the resilience of this structure. this organization, this community, that it has to be declared an international extremist organization in 2026 as well. A spoiler won't help either. And any rewriting of history, the use of history for political purposes did not start yesterday. This is part of the conservative turn that began in 2012. Simply, so to speak, the more the trouble, the more the trouble. Now it's possible to close and re-profile the Gulag Museum. You know, if we have started to indulge in memories of Stalinism, with all the conditionality of historical parallels, yes, I must say that when in the late 1940s the so-called Leningrad Affair began, the destruction and murder of the Leningrad Regional Committee with all their families and employees, part of this campaign was the closure of the Museum of the Siege. The Museum of the Siege was closed, exhibits were destroyed, the director was imprisoned. He was later released, survived. True, he died quite soon after. So, in this sense, the Soviet government and the post-Soviet government treat their historical myths freely. I am the master of my word, I gave it myself, I took it back myself. Yesterday it was like this, tomorrow it will be like that. And before that, we had, not in the sense of before the Museum of the Siege, but until today, we had various exhibitions "Russia My History" and propaganda trains that traveled around the country. And, so, uh, some attempts that suddenly manage the historical discourse, and Medinsky, who writes textbooks. So again, I'll say, this is all not news at all. Deputy Lugovoy, as always, is at the forefront of the process and ahead of the steam engine, saying that now all memorials to the victims of political repression need to be reviewed for whether they are promoting extremism. I was in Kazakhstan at the Museum of ALZHIR, the Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland. It is a large and impressive memorial, which includes, among other things, steles from all countries whose citizens or whose, so to speak, representatives of their peoples were in this camp. There are very many of them. From Japan, Korea to Georgia and Armenia. There is no one from Russia, but there is a paper certificate, some kind of letter from relatives with gratitude for preserving the memory of this camp. Naturally, most of the prisoners there were ethnic Russians. This is understandable because there are simply more of them. This is a question of historical memory. This did not start yesterday. I suggest they write, as they like to cling to other states, to somehow encourage anti-Russian sentiments in them. So, they should write to Kazakhstan, rather, so that this case is closed for me, because this is also extremism and compromises the Soviet government and denies the genocide of the Soviet people, which was carried out mainly by the Soviet government itself. >> Does the state's repression await us? >> Look, the machine creates work for itself. This is a general law of bureaucracy. It cannot stop, because it cannot say: "We have already completed all the work." The cat cannot catch all the mice. And the cat is not kicked out into the street, as in the famous Eastern parable. But we have a cat that invents these mice itself. The FSB fights enemies of its own invention. This magical service can afford to have no contact with reality at all. What is happening in reality is never their fault. It's not their fault that the Armed Forces entered Kursk, although they are in charge of border control. It's not their fault that the terrorist attack in Crocus happened, because they are supposed to be preventing terrorist attacks. They are never to blame for anything. Civilians are to blame. We will imprison the former governor of Kursk, we will punish someone else, we will catch some random people, cut off their ears, and then strangle them in pre-trial detention. And the FSB is never involved. The FSB is never to blame. Therefore, they will continue to engage in this imaginary struggle with imaginary, or rather, unfortunately, real, struggle against imaginary enemies. If the dynamics shown next month are lower than in the previous month, or, more precisely, negative dynamics of decline, will you be given an expanded budget for next year? Will you be given new staff positions? No. But we see, again, if Pavel Vladimirovich Chikov continued to speak out publicly in any way, but for our common good he went underground, he likes to say, when he spoke publicly, that there is a certain growth and development of new tools. For example, the article on state treason, before that there were other popular articles, say, discreditation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, dissemination of deliberately false information. These were popular articles, and then they switched to state treason, and then a plateau sets in. We are now in a plateau of sorts. When the next rise will be and what will be there, I don't know, so I won't repeat after Sergey Smirnov, it will definitely be worse. But this machine cannot roll back by itself. It can be slowed down by political leadership, if it exists, which is not certain, or by political changes, which are not yet happening. They themselves, so to speak, will not activate any brakes. What surprises might await us in the autumn elections? >> I am not sure that this can be called a particularly big surprise, although it is a rather curious political technology, I would say, combination of circumstances. The "New People" party is quite an artificial construct, just like all permitted parties in post-Soviet Russia. But how did they rise to second place by a combination of circumstances, which are partly man-made, partly objective? After, I think, around 2019, and certainly after 2021, the Presidential Administration's domestic policy bloc decided to punish the CPRF for their involvement in grassroots activity, cooperation with Navalny's structures in the regions, and generally for becoming too much beneficiaries of the protest sentiments that I mentioned and which have been manifesting themselves since 2017, when the Crimean consensus had already clearly begun to disintegrate. The CPRF, so to speak, in the eyes of the Presidential Administration, decided to ride these protest sentiments. And they went beyond their allotted electoral niche. Therefore, they decided to punish them and bring them down from second place, which they held in all post-Soviet elections, except for the case when they took first place, to third place. LDPR was supposed to appear in second place as a completely safe project, more entertainment than political. But something went wrong. What exactly? First, everything went extremely well. So, Rashkin and Los', all sorts of agreements with Zyuganov that he would calmly watch his party be dismantled, but in return his grandson would become the heir. Typical Soviet post-Soviet nomenklatura behavior. And this very lowering began to happen successfully. Well, and besides, if all, so to speak, parties support their president, then why, so to speak, buy a pathetic copy when you can vote for the shining originals. If you support all of this, support United Russia. Why do you need these, which are already indistinguishable from each other? That is, protestness itself left the CPRF, and various targeted administrative measures were taken to destroy its structures and the most prominent or dangerous leaders from the perspective of the Presidential Administration. By a happy coincidence for the party leader himself, they were also dangerous, so here they, so to speak, merged, they had common goals. But with the second place of LDPR, difficulties began to arise. Firstly, Vladimir Volfovich let them down and died. His successor was chosen for reasons of being completely systemic, harmless to anyone, capable of agreements, but they forgot to think about how they would present him to the voter. And presenting him to the voter is difficult. That is, it's not that it's impossible, but it's difficult. It's not that he can't say anything, it's hard for him to even stand upright. In general, it's not a gift, to put it mildly, not a gift. At the same time, all the difficulties in the daily lives of citizens, which we have already discussed, began to occur. And the New People party, which was created without any ideological platform, but with some stylistic wrapper, stylish, fashionable, youth-oriented, practically by chance got this inscription "Internet" on its banners. Because the internet is for these young city dwellers. Political strategists decided, let them love this, and they will have such an advanced, you see, party in turquoise tones. Suddenly, in fact, not suddenly, but suddenly for these great strategists, the issue of the internet became political issue number one, overshadowing even the issue of war. And as a result, we have one party that talks about what is important to people, namely, that restrictions and blocking are evil, and they must be gotten rid of. The question of who is for the war, who is against the war, who is for the president, who is against the president, paradoxically, has moved to the background. This is already last year's news. Moreover, the war has become unappealing, the president has not yet become unappealing. This is also important. All these drops in ratings from SOM, which are much talked about, are still within, as they say, within acceptable limits, I would not call this dynamic extraordinary. We have seen this before. Something else will happen, it will rise again. But the war has definitely become unappealing. And internet blocking is not just disliked, but causes active discontent. And here, there is a party that talks about it. Here, here are these random factors. Again, such Slutsky, such Zhirinovsky, who did not live to see the new elections, such Zyuganov, and such a political situation give us this effect. Will electoral strategists change their plans and decide that, well, let New People be in second place, or will they still be shown that this is somehow dangerous, who knows what they will think of themselves if they see real public support. This is a consideration that is, let's say, obvious for political history, political science, namely, that your so-called electoral rabbits, as they say in Bolivia, your pseudo-candidates, pseudo-parties, by filling themselves with real electoral support, morph into completely different animals. Yesterday he was a rabbit, and today he has gorged himself, and he is already, look, a lion. Not to mention that this ninth convocation of the State Duma, which will be elected in the autumn of 2026, is highly likely to be the people who will be present at the state funeral. And what will they think later? I will not tell you about the activation of dormant institutions here, although it is happening. And parliament is precisely such a dormant institution, a parliament in an autocracy, which, upon the disappearance of the autocrat, may begin to imagine something for itself or at least re-read the constitution and remember what powers it has that it has never used. Because why? And they lived well. And then suddenly. Yes. The example that is most often cited to illustrate this thesis is the Grand Fascist Council in Italy, which suddenly took and removed Mussolini from office, although before that it was specifically created to praise Mussolini and applaud him in every way. It happens like that. They didn't hang him. Let's clarify. It was not a turning point or decisive moment in his political career, but it was an important moment. But it showed that the regime, so to speak, begins to dismantle itself into elements. I am not saying that this will happen to us. I am saying that the next 5 years could be years of such, so to speak, transition. Therefore, I would assume that the previous plans will still be implemented. With the introduction of electronic voting, with the spread of electronic voting, the opportunity has already arisen to do without voters at all in determining election results. We could all see this in 2021, when 15 single-mandate candidates from United Russia became 15 single-mandate candidates from United Russia from Moscow. They all lost the real vote, and they were all shown online. Look, they, it turns out, won. The technical operator of the system, however, nationwide, not just for Moscow, is the FSB. Therefore, the FSB, as you understand, explains nothing to anyone and is accountable to no one. But the DEC is not spread throughout the country. Some voters will still have to be physically brought to the polling station. A high turnout scenario caused by public discontent does not seem likely to me, but I cannot rule it out. In our political space, everything that is physically possible is also politically possible. We have only one law, I don't know of any exceptions yet. The dead do not rise. Although there are different opinions on this too. But apart from this, everything else happens. High turnout, as we saw in the example of the elections in Hungary, destroys all previous forecasts. High turnout is high temperature in society. It can be beneficial, and thus the body burns out the virus that has settled in it. It can be a sign of illness, which then, for example, imagine a hypothetical situation, high turnout. So, 80% at 85% came, and voted, and this is the result of polarization. Some for one party, others for another. One won, the other lost. A civil war begins, because the losers do not accept this, and they are already sufficiently, so to speak, hyped up by their political activity. So it happens in different ways. Political scientists do not really like high turnout, super high turnout, but it happens. I don't see many opportunities for this in Russia. People are unaccustomed to voting. People are accustomed that their vote does not matter. They are not just accustomed because they were told this, they have seen it in repeated decades-long experiences. The traditions laid down by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin in the first Soviet universal elections of the Supreme Soviet in 1937-1938 are preserved up to ritual similarities. All this began to happen after the adoption of the 1936 constitution, the Stalinist constitution, when universal suffrage was returned to citizens, which did not exist before. Then the idea arose that voting is an act of loyalty, that the earlier you came, the better you showed your loyalty, that voting is a holiday, there should be food and music at the polling station. That you should come with your families. All this is still with us. Institutions are not always beneficial, but always resilient. That's why institutions are raised in the entire generation of Soviet and post-Soviet people who do not really understand what elections are. Although sometimes, as in 1989 in the Soviet Union or in 2011 in Russia, they wake up with the feeling that they can do something. This is also a dormant institution, the institution of elections, the institution of voting, even the institution of civic participation in elections, which can awaken, or may not awaken, forgive me, I have, so to speak, a typical expert conclusion for you. It may be yes, and it may be no. But if we draw this hypothetical picture again of high turnout in the presidential elections, or rather in the parliamentary elections, if they are seen by citizens as a kind of safe and unpunishable way to express all the grief and irritation with which their soul is overflowing. And if by September this grief and irritation accumulates further, and if the authorities behave as they are behaving, I see no reason, not a single reason, why people would become satisfied with anything at all from the authorities as a gift, there can only be an article of the criminal code. No other entertainment is offered anymore. This is both for spectacles and for bread. Therefore, they will not become happier by September, unless there is one way: to make everyone happy temporarily, to end the war, at least to stop it. No one will look into the reasons, and whoever looks will be cursed by their voters and neighbors. Who will say? What about Kherson? Where is Zaporizhzhia? Why did we leave there? Why did we leave here? Why did we give Crimea back to Ukraine? Well, okay, if this is not the case, then everything else will absolutely not interest anyone except individual perverts. Exactly the same, by the way, in this case, again, hypothetically, this case is no less hypothetical than super high turnout and overwhelming elections, keep in mind. But we must describe it, because it is not impossible. So, in that case, we will have a majority that will be in euphoria. Not always, for some time. And two marginal groups. One will say: "Why didn't we finish the war?" And the other will say: "And where are the reparations? This is not the right end to the war. There should be a different end to the war." Both of them will be completely misunderstood by approximately no one except each other. And their circle will narrow even more than it was before. Again, this is temporary. Then citizens will cease to be satisfied, because the war can be stopped, but its consequences cannot be excluded from the social space. They are numerous. But there will be euphoria, if, again, we describe hypothetical scenarios as in class, as we do with students, yes, describe probable scenarios, arrange them in order of probability. We stop the war in the summer, at the end of the summer. At the same time, we demobilize people very gradually, and first the mobilized, and then the contract soldiers, taking advantage of the fact that the presidential decree is still signed, and another is not signed. We keep the contract soldiers where they are, so that these unfortunate family men can hobble home on their remaining leg, and these hotheads will try not to let them go too much there while they are still mastering new territories. I think that they will try not to let them go there at all. And some shift of sanctions begins in conversations about them. Money increases a little, at least they stop squeezing the regions so much for these endless, again, bonuses for contract soldiers, multi-million dollar payments, this is only for the regions. I think that the situation of regional budgets, which some brave regional civil servants are already calling by the terrible word "default," is caused by the fact that they have simply squeezed everything possible out of them so that they themselves pay for this war of ours. Landsknechts. Let's do something like this, for example, in August. And in September, while this wave is still high and has not begun to subside, citizens will come to the polling stations, dancing and singing songs with bouquets of flowers for Stalin, as was written in reports on the elections of 1938, bringing flowers for Stalin. And they will vote out of gratitude. This is possible. Again, how probable this option seems to you, judge for yourself. I can only say that it is feasible. There is nothing physically impossible about it.