BACK STORY With DANA LEWIS

NAVALNY, POISON AND RUSSIA

August 24, 2020 Dana Lewis Season 2 Episode 2
BACK STORY With DANA LEWIS
NAVALNY, POISON AND RUSSIA
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The central opposition figure in Russia, Alexei Navalny is fighting for his life in a hospital in Germany. According to his family and advisors he was poisoned after drinking a cup of tea on Tomsk Russia, where he was campaigning against President Putin's political party in local upcoming elections. 

In this Back Story with Dana Lewis we talk to Bill Browder who has led a campaign against Russian corruption and talked nations including The U.S. and Britain into taking sanctions against Russia.   Browder say's no doubt the poisoning was sanctioned by Putin himself. 

And we also talk to Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia from The Royal United Services Institute in London, who says Putin has created a climate where murder and retribution by his loyalists is permissible.

  




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bill browder:

Alexei Navalny was poisoned. I believe the poison was administered by the FSB, the Russian secret police. And I believe that the order was, was given to poison him by Vladimir Putin.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. This is about Russia and an opposition figure who as we speak is in hospital fighting for his life. After an apparent poison, officially Russia says he wasn't poisoned, but the wife and spokesperson of Alexei Navalny says he was after drinking a cup of tea at an airport in comps. Nevalny was on a flight to Moscow after campaigning against Putin's Russia, United party owning the local officials. They're crooks. The airplane had to make an emergency landing at another city. They're a tug of war over the weekend between the Bellini's wife and local officials to let them be flowing out to a hospital in Germany. Finally, after a very public debate, Russia allowed Nevalny to leave in a coma

bill browder:

In very serious condition. He is recovering in Germany or joining me now is William Browder. He's an American born British financier and political activists. He is the CEO and cofounder of Hermitage capital management, the investor advisor to the Hermitage fund, which at one time was the largest foreign portfolio in Russia. And bill you've been banned from Russia. Uh, your company is rated for tax fraud. That was a long time ago. You were convicted in absentia and your lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky was jailed in Russia and died in prison. Um, you, you have had a long, long fight since then for, for some kind of justice in his case. Yeah. My story is a long and ugly one where, uh, I invested in Russia. I discovered corruption in the companies I invested in. I exposed the corruption and in retaliation, uh, they expelled me from the country, declared me a threat to national security rated my offices seized all of our documents. My lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky investigated discovered that that, that the reason for seizing the documents was to use those documents to perpetrate a$230 million tax rebate fraud, where the Russian authorities were stealing taxes,$230 million of taxes that we paid to the Russian government from the Russian government sort of gay expose the fraud. Uh, he was then arrested by the people he exposed, put in pretrial detention tortured for 358 days and murdered on November 16, 2009. That was 11 years ago. Since then, I've been on a full time mission to get justice for surrogate Magnitsky, which has led to a piece of legislation named after him called the Magnitsky act, which imposes visa, sanctions, and asset freezes on the people who killed Sergei Magnitsky and the people who perpetrate other gross human rights abuses around the world. This is a, um, the law was first passed in the United States in 2012. It was then globalized in 2016 to apply not just to Russians, but to people everywhere who did terrible things. It then went to Canada, Britain, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kosovo, and it's currently on deck to be put in place at the European union in Australia. It's something which Vladimir Putin has, has described as his single largest foreign policy priority to try to get rid of reason. He hates it so much is because he steals a lot of money. He kills a lot of people and he tries to keep that money safe abroad. And by having the Magnitsky act in place, it puts his money in the money of his cronies at risk

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Start with what's happening right now. One of the main opposition candidates in Russia, Alexei, Navalny, poisoned, it looks like, and he's fighting for his life in Germany who did it and why?

bill browder:

Well, I think it's pretty obvious. You know, everybody says, well, let's wait, let's reserve judgment. There's no proof, blah, blah, blah. But how, how many poisonings coming out of Russia have to happen before? We can finally say it's obvious who did it? I mean, uh, so, so I, I believe that, uh, uh, Alexia Novotny was poisoned. I believe the poison was administered by the FSB, the Russian secret police. And I believe that the order was, was given to poison him by Vladimir Putin

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Putin. I mean, Nevani when you take a look at some of his investigations, uh, and they have been very serious corruption allegations. I mean, he is covered so many people in touch, so many different, uh, people inside

bill browder:

Putin circle. That's true. However, Alexian have only is as such a high level in terms of his politics that, uh, nobody can touch him without the permission of Putin. Nobody would touch him without the permission of Putin, because if you did, uh, it would set off a political firestorm that Putin would bear the brunt of. And so Houdin would never allow that to happen. And everybody in Russia abides by these, this set of rules. So I don't believe that anyone other than Putin would have had the authority to do it. And why would they do it now? Well, this is a very, uh, pregnant moment in politics in this part of the world. Uh, you have the Belarus situation going on and all you have to do is turn on, turn on the Twitter or the internet, and look at the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who are standing up to the dictator Lucas Shanko right now, and Putin watches this and sees this and understands that this Bellaruse situation may be uncontainable. I personally think it is. I I've, I've never, it really looks to me like this thing is spiraling out of control for Lucas Shanko. And it's one thing, if you have a situation like that happening in a faraway country like Egypt or Tunisia, as far as letting recruiting is concerned, but it's another thing when it's Bellaruse, which is effectively a, uh, you know, wants to like a province of Russia. And if the Russian people see that the Belarusian people can get rid of their dictator, they're going to have a lot more confidence. So they could do the same thing in Russia. And if there was one person who is poised to lead, that movement is Alexei Navalny. And so there's a really clear, uh, timing and political motive for why Putin would have done this right now. And as we speak,

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

And a lot of demonstrations inside Russia, despite Putins and the Kremlins statement all the time that he's got 80% popularity, a lot of people think he's lost a ton of popularity during COVID-19 that the referendum was rushed through because they anticipated these kinds of demonstrations and unrest as the Russian economy is collapsing in there have been demonstrations, uh, in the far East, uh, kicked off because the arrest of a, of a governor there,

bill browder:

The it's a total myth that Vladimir Putin has 80% approval rating in a country like Russia, where you get arrested, you lose your job. You may even get killed for going against Vladimir Putin. Nobody is going to answer honestly, when they get called by an anonymous pollster to say, who do you support? I mean, the fact that that 20% of the people say they don't support Putin is the biggest, the only surprising thing to me about those fake polls. So, and, and you're absolutely right. You have a situation where the Russian people have given up free press free speech, the ability to elect their leader of choice. And they did all that stuff on this unwritten bargain, which was, if they give up all that stuff, they could enjoy a better standard of living. That was the deal that Putin had presented to them 20 years ago. But we're now in a situation where they given up all their freedoms and the economics have been stagnating and then recently collapsing. And so there's like nothing to be gained from Vladimir Putin. And at this point he's really in a, in a terrible and tough spot because it's not like he can just give up power, retire, enjoy is ill gotten gains and live a quiet life. Afterwards. He's killed people. A lot of people he's ruined the lives of many, many people he's stolen so much money. And if he were to lose power, he would have to pay the, he would have to bear the risk, the legal responsibility for that. And he understands that if he, if, if he were to lose power, he'd probably go to jail. He loses money and God knows maybe worse. And so he has no choice, but to try to hold it all together, as best as he can. And the one thing that scares him more than anything is when tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people all decide at once that they've had enough, because it's one thing to go out and in prison, all the opposition leaders, it's another thing to try to imprison everybody, which is just not possible

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Create this atmosphere if need be

bill browder:

It doesn't give the wink and the nod and say yes to the area

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

B or the gr you to carry out assassinations. Does he, at the very least create this atmosphere where political assassinations are thought to be in his interest and with his blessing. And I'm talking about, you know, the shooting of Boris Nimsoft, which took place within the view of the Kremlin and, and a political sky are going back a bit further, a journalist who was, would criticize Putin and what was going on in Chechnya. And she was shot outside her room.

bill browder:

There, there there's, there's always this sort of undercurrent of like allowing of, of, uh, of, of giving Putin the benefit of the doubt to say, he's created this environment and everyone's doing this terrible stuff. Uh, it's clear to me that Putin was responsible for Boris Nimsoft murder. He's responsible for the poisoning of Lexi Naomi, and he was responsible for many other terrible crimes that Russia has a lot of chaos, but there's no chaos when it comes to the ordering of these crimes. And these can only be done. The high, the big political crimes can only be done with Vladimir. Putin's not just blessing, but, um, personal involvement. I would imagine that he was following every step of the process in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and the subsequent, uh, crisis when he was hospitalized and trying to leave Russia

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Of president Donald Trump, then I'm often just kind of sidestepping the Russia issue, even inviting him in suggesting to Angela Merkel of Germany and France to invite him back into the[inaudible].

bill browder:

Well, I have my own personal experience with Donald Trump, as it relates to Putin after the Magnitsky act was passed, Putin has been trying to get me back to Russia, to effectively kill me. Like he has sort of gay Magnitsky had been sentenced twice to 18 years in Russian prison. And during the 2018 summit in Helsinki, Donald Trump had this private meeting with, um, with, uh, Vladimir Putin and at the press conference afterwards, one of the journalists asked Putin, are you going to hand over the 12 GRU officers that Robert Mueller wants for, um, interfering with the U S election and Putin said, uh, it's not so simple as that. We might very well hand them over if Donald Trump hands over bill Browder and the 11 American government officials were part of his criminal enterprise. And then the journalist

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

One of them, by the way, sorry to interrupt you. I want to hear all of it. But one of them was actually an ambassador Mike McFaul, who see, he suggested Trump suggested maybe there would be some kind of swamp,

bill browder:

I mean, unheard of well. So, so, so, so they ask Trump, they say, well, wait, what do you think about this? He said, I think it's a brilliant idea. And so they wanted to hand me over. They wanted to hand over, as you mentioned, Mike McFaul, the former us ambassador to Russia. They wanted him to hand over Kyle Parker, who is the chief of staff of the U S Helsinki commission who wrote the Magnitsky act. They wanted to hand over, uh, uh, special agent Todd Hyman from the department of Homeland security that was investigating Russian money laundering connected to the Magnitsky case in New York. It was absurd and it took, uh, it took the, um, it took Donald Trump four days to walk it back. And it was only after the Senate, uh, or was about to hold a vote in which they were going to vote 98 to zero, not to hand us over the Trump about 20 minutes before that issued a very unique statement saying, uh, or interesting as press, press secretaries issued a statement saying, now we've decided not to pursue this request at this time.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Bill, can you tell me, I mean, longterm, how do we engage or deal with Russia? Maybe engagement is not something that you favor, but I mean, you know, the individual sanctions, the sanctions against Putin's inner circle have resulted in what I mean, a very debatable result in terms of probably not containing Russia very well.

bill browder:

Well, you can, you've got to do it properly. You can't do it halfway. So first of all, the, uh, that the, the obvious conclusion that one needs to come to with a country like Russia is that they're a major nuclear power. And so you have to talk to them. So you can't cut off diplomatic relations. And for, for, for, not for, for Americans, but for Europeans, they're a major energy supplier. And so you can't just say, no, we can't do business with them because of the lights will go out in Europe. So those two things have to continue to happen. But at the same time, Russia is exporting, uh, assassinations in the UK. There was, they used polonium radioactive material on one person. They use Nova chalk, a chemical weapon on another set of people they're doing targeted assassinations all over Europe. They just did one in Berlin.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

We may have taken out bounties on soldiers in Afghanistan,

bill browder:

Indeed. They've, um, they've shot down passenger planes with innocent people on board. They've invaded countries, redrawn the border bombing hospitals and civilians in Syria. They're a major international menace. And so you can't let that go because if you do, then they'll continue to do it and do it in greater numbers and more places. And so you have to create a punishing consequence, which, which can't be cutting off diplomatic relations, and it can't be a stopping business. And so the obvious consequence for them is targeted individual sanctions. And this is particularly powerful in a country where a few thousand people have stolen all the resources of the country and keep all those resources in the West. And it's in my line. It's not debatable at all, how powerful these sanctions are. They hate them more than anything, and probably the most powerful, all the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia, where the sanctions of the seven Russian oligarchs, which took place in 2018, uh, shortly after the, um, uh, election hacking act was passed. And those seven oligarchs were close. Trustees of Putin effectively had their financial lives ruined. And, and if we wanted to really stop Russia in its tracks, they should expand that list and expand the list of other government officials who were targeted and sanctioned because all the, and we have huge leverage here because they keep all their money in the West and they care about their money

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Is one hope that you would have to wrap this up. What would the Nevalny attempted poisoning,

bill browder:

Attempted murder leaders too? Well, my, my main hope is that Alexei Navalny recovers a completely without any disabilities. And he can go on to, um, fulfill his democratic dream and the dream of the Russian people, which is to have a real democracy there. And then you, you believe that he may return stronger. Well, I think if he, if he see if he can survive this attempt, this, this assassination attempt, uh, I, I, I think it only, it only empowers him to do greater things and, and Putin, he's not a legitimate leader like Lucas Shanko and, and, um, I think it's, it's time for the Russian people to, uh, let him know that

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

I should have talked to you, you know, great background information

bill browder:

On what you believe has to happen. And, and, uh, probably, you know, you, you have succeeded, um,

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

So much change through the Magnitsky act. You must be very proud.

bill browder:

Thank you very much. Alright,

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Mark. Galeotti joins us now in London, he is a senior associate fellow at RUSI it's the Royal United services Institute. Uh, and it's a highly respected Institute. We often go there as journalists to talk to, to analysts and experts. Um, and he's also the author of a book, which I need to read, which is called. We need to talk about Putin, Mark. Let's talk about poop. Indeed. Alexina Valley, as we speak, uh, is in a hospital fighting for his life in Germany. Do you think he was poisoned and by whom?

mark galeotti RUSI:

Well, the first part's easy bit. Yes. It all seems almost certain that, that he was poisoned. And that certainly also what we're getting actually out of Germany this morning, by whom that's the tricky thing. We sometimes tend to think of Russia from a distance as being a totalitarianism, where everything comes down from the top and Putin signs off on everything. He's actually in many ways of raid lazy autocrat. Um, and he's created a system whereby he often doesn't give very, very specific and explicit guidance, but sets broad areas of interest and umpteen officials, oligarchs, and such like scurry around trying to please the boss. So what we don't know is whether or not this was actually chosen, our Kremlin initiated hit. And I suspect not for reasons we can talk about if you want, or whether rather it was precisely one of these other agencies, someone who had been burned by one of Alex[inaudible] his anticorruption investigations or feared he was going to be, or some local official who somehow thought that this is exactly what the Kremlin wanted. And he will be,

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

I find it, I find it hard to believe. And I think a lot of other people would too, that Alexa Nevani, who is the highest profile opposition figure in Russia, that if somebody was going to poison him, that that wouldn't have to be blessed by the Kremlin,

mark galeotti RUSI:

Except that, I mean, we have other examples of form. Um, when, uh, Boris Nemtsov, again, one of the very high profile opposition figures in Russia was, was killed literally a stone throw from the Kremlin, um, that does not seem to have been approved by Putin. In fact, it created a sort of quieter, a stir and a storm in Moscow, but by, it was actually initiated by an Amazon Cordero dictator of Chechnya, who incidentally is no fan of the maleness. There are other figures who genuinely seem to be able to act.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

So for people who don't follow Russia was the, the main opposition figure in Russia, extremely liberal. Uh, but at one point he was chosen to be the successor of Boris Yeltsin. And he was, uh, a deputy prime minister. And I knew him very well. He ran for mayor in Sochi at one point to try and get a political foothold again, fighting for independence. And he was also a supporter of Ukraine. So certainly he was thought to be a full of the Kremlin.

mark galeotti RUSI:

Exactly. So I think that it's often that people feel, they assume that this is what Putin would want. And in a way, the, the issue becomes not whether or not the Kremlin is innocent, but it's differently guilty. There are those hits, which clearly the Kremlin initiated. And there are those hits, which happen because the Kremlin has created a country in a system in which actually a whole variety of different agencies do use violence up to and including murder and can get away with it. And the state will still have their back.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

I want to read a paragraph from the, the editorial that you wrote for the Moscow times, because I think it's very well written in you're a great writer and it's very, it's very clear, but you can just tell me what you meant by at a state. That kills is a terrible thing, but it's red lines can generally be observed and it can ultimately be held to account. But a state that permits a whole range of actors and interest to kill with impunity is an even more uncomfortable thing. As the red lines may be invisible, intersecting and mobile. And the challenge of accountability is even greater. What do you mean by that?

mark galeotti RUSI:

What I mean is precisely that the real challenge for people in Russia who are trying to still use whatever space there is for opposition politics, for civil society, for bringing this elite, this thoroughly corrupt self-interested elite to account, they may think they know what is acceptable, and it may well be that it is acceptable today. But the point is because there are so many other individuals who in a way draw their own red lines. You never really know when you're stepping over that. Let me give you one example. I mean, I work on Russian gangsters and also the Russian intelligence service. And as a result, I've, I've, I've sat down with some deeply unpleasant people from time to time. One of the few people I have absolutely been warned off looking at carefully is a man by the name of your Guinea precaution. If someone's known as Putin chef, he was a chef who is a businessman who is behind, for example, the Wagner mercenary corporation that we've seen in, in Donbass, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere, but basically as well as he knew, sort of incidentally ran the troll factory of in fame from the last presidential elections in the States.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

So the troll factories that put out information and disinformation and were largely responsible for interfering in the American election of 2016.

mark galeotti RUSI:

Exactly. Now this is a guy who's basically, I mean, it's worth mentioning a guy with a criminal record, um, who's who hasn't done well, precisely by doing whatever business the Kremlin needs doing. So basically if you know, whatever it is, whether it's trolls or mercenaries or indeed setting up the kitchens to feed the army, he will do it in return for that though. He seems to have been given massive degrees of autonomy. I mean, he's been linked with the murder of Russian journalists who were looking into the activities of Wagner group in, in Africa. He's been linked with all kinds of activities and he's not unique in this. There are these figures within Russia who basically have set themselves up as almost we could think of as warlords. Now, if this was a medieval country, we'd have no trouble thinking them as warlords because they wear suits and everything else. We have trouble using the same vocabulary, but frankly, that's what they are. And this is the problem in Russia. There is a vicious and sometimes murderous state, but one which is actually in some ways relatively restrained. But then there are other figures who are unrestrained and even more vicious.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

It's interesting that when Salisbury occurred the poisoning of an ex Russian GRU, a spy and Salisbury, um, that somebody asked me on air, um, is it disturbing? The Putin would approve this. And I said, yes, but it's probably even more disturbing if he didn't, because that would tell you that the security services now we're operating off the leech. Do you think that that is occurring? Does Putin have control of the security services, the FSB, the GRU and others that are operating that may have carried out the poisoning of Nevani? If in fact he was poised,

mark galeotti RUSI:

I think the answer is that Putin has the level of control that he wants to have. In other words, I think he absolutely chooses to step back from something. I mean, if we take the salt poisoning, I do believe he would have signed off on it. I think anything that has a major international implication like that, such as, you know, a murder in the UK, I think that would have to cross his desk, even though it probably would be initiated by the other people, but they would just have to get the bosses. Okay. Something like this domestically, a Russian citizen in Russia. I think the honest answer is it could have crossed Putin's desk, but it doesn't necessarily need to have done. So I think he's willing to allow these people a lot of autonomy. And then if they mess up badly, he will punish them. If they succeed, he will reward them. But the whole nature of the Putin regime is that he wants these people desperately competing for his favor. I mean, that is the true currency of Russia is not the ruble. It's not the dollar it's Putin's favor. If you have that, you can do anything.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Why do you think now? I mean, why would they go after an event money now? Is it because of what's happening in Belarus and they fear that he is igniting potentially the same kind of fire?

mark galeotti RUSI:

Well, I'll give you two answers. One of them is it could be something that's very local and very conditional. I mean, we know that he was in Tomsk in Siberia, not just meeting local activists, but also engaging in one of his extinct CDC, forensic anticorruption investigations. So it might be that literally it was a local person, someone there who didn't want their grimy D deals being exposed and therefore felt he had to do something about it. So that's a possibility, but the other one is yes, you mentioned the others. We have this explosion of people power in Belarus. At the same time, there is a mood of dissatisfaction within Russia. We've we seen it in Kabarro on the Chinese border, where for weeks now they've been protesting the, um, arrest of their elected governor. Not because they like him particularly, but because it's an example of Moscow just simply reaching in because he doesn't like the candidate. I didn't know anything about a bottle of skis. It's not that unique or unusual a city. If it can happen in Kerberos, it can happen anywhere. We have local elections that are coming up in September and Nevada only in particular was championing this notion of what he called smart vote, which is essentially that people should be encouraged to vote for whichever candidate, whatever party they come from, who is most likely to displace the government's United Russia block. So it could be the, in that situation, Nevada only who after all has generally been very, very good at knowing just how to stay on the right side of the red line. Didn't notice that that line had shifted and that a new mood or concern has arisen. And they decided no. Nevada is just too charismatic, too popular. And his smart vote system is too potentially dangerous for us to continue to allow him to operate.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Do you think Navalny has been removed? I mean, let's say he recovers, you know, the question is, does a lot of these people never go back to Russia. And I would think that Alexei Navalny will try to go back because that's is raised on Dettra. I mean, he wants to campaign against the Kremlin and he has been fearless in doing so. And if he goes back, is he more empowered? Have they just created a kind of political opposition, martyr of sorts?

mark galeotti RUSI:

Well, that's an interesting question. Um, I mean of only himself when he's asked, you know, how come he's still alive, his answer is precisely, well, actually the Kremlin realizes that I'd be more dangerous to them dead than alive. Now we'll see. I mean, obviously depends how quite, how he recovers and, and what his mood is, but he has indeed shown himself to be indomitable in the past. And he's been arrested 13 times. His brother has been sent to prison to bring pressure to bear on him. It was almost blinded when they splashed antiseptic dye on his face. And this is his second time he's been poisoned if he returns. I think, I mean, it does give him that additional status and the particularly actually slightly fanciful. But, you know, if, if one looks at kind of Russian cultural mythology, there is something about the, um, the figure who is prepared to literally put his life and everything on the line. Now that that becomes a very sort of powerful, and we see it in Russian folklore, in Russian history. And, and today now I think the other elements of this is so far not only is anticorruption and sort of anti-government movement has been very novel, only focused, understandably. Um, this might actually create your opportunity for a new rising generational activists to really come into their own. And I think that's crucial because the thing that Nevada only has always lacked not been able to properly do is institutionalize his movement. Um, turn it from just simply being, you know, one guy, one guy with, with allies and supporters and a YouTube feed into a true national movement. This might help push things right over that edge point

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Fired on whoever thought they would carry this out

mark galeotti RUSI:

With the approval of the Kremlin. Absolutely. I mean, T T to be bombed. I think the, the lesson that we've seen from truly successful, awful authoritarian regimes is, you know, if you're going to do it, do it properly, don't take half measures. Um, and I think the, the notion that of only would, would be intimidated by this is of course wrong. The notion that his supporters are likely to be intimidated by this is likely to prove wrong. I do think that in this respect, it was a mistake.

Dana Lewis; Host Creator Back Story podcast:

Hey Mark, Galeotti thank you so much from the Royal United services Institute and the book that I'm going to read, and I know you will, too. We need to talk about poop. My picture. Thank you. The latest is, and the Valley will recover no details yet on what his longterm prognosis will be. And the heartbeat of the Russian political opposition movement is this unpredictable as Alexa in Nevada in his own health, will we ever know of Nevada? He was really poisoned. I think we will. These things have a habit of eventually coming out in Putin's Russia, that's backstory. I'm Dana Lewis, please. We need you to subscribe to the podcast and share the link we're growing. We need your support. Thanks for listening. And I'll talk to you soon.

mark galeotti RUSI:

[inaudible].

Bill Browder
Mark Galeotti