Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. On January seventeen, twenty twenty one, Russian
Speaker 1: politician and opposition leader Alexander Navalni, better known as Alexey,
Speaker 1: was arrested on his re entry to Russia. This was
Speaker 1: his first visit back to Russia after being poisoned months
Speaker 1: before an attempted murder which journalists have linked to present
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin's intelligence services. A Russian judge ordered Navalni to
Speaker 1: spend more than two years in a Russian prison labor colony,
Speaker 1: and his arrests and imprisonment have set off some of
Speaker 1: the widest protests Russia has seen in years, not to
Speaker 1: mention a movement for sanctions in the West now, Navalni
Speaker 1: is a complex figure. He is portrayed in the West
Speaker 1: as a staunch advocate of democracy and press freedoms, and
Speaker 1: in many senses he is. Yet it's also true that
Speaker 1: in recent months there's been renewed scrutiny of some of
Speaker 1: his nationalist and even xenophobic public comments from about a
Speaker 1: decade ago. Amnesty International decided on the basis of those
Speaker 1: comments to remove his designation as prisoner of conscience, because
Speaker 1: they say you have to not only stand out for
Speaker 1: good ideas, but also not express hate to qualify. This
Speaker 1: is a complex and tricky issue, as is the question
Speaker 1: of what Navalny's return and the protests mean in Russia.
Speaker 1: To better understand it and to hear more about how
Speaker 1: the news is covered by the free Russian press today,
Speaker 1: to the extent that it still exists, we decided to
Speaker 1: interview one of Russia's leading journalists. Diana Kachalova is the
Speaker 1: editor in chief of the Saint Petersburg bureau of Novaya Gazetta,
Speaker 1: a Russian newspaper known for its investigative jurnalism. Three decades ago,
Speaker 1: she helps start the first post Soviet independent daily newspaper.
Speaker 1: She carries out her job in a country where independent
Speaker 1: investigative journalism carries real personal danger. She's here to talk
Speaker 1: with us about Navalni and also about the press and
Speaker 1: the meaning of protest for Putin's Russia. Thank you, Diana
Speaker 1: for being here. I want to begin with a question
Speaker 1: that may seem very obvious to you, but for American listeners,
Speaker 1: even those who listen to the news carefully is perhaps
Speaker 1: a little less clear, and that is why does Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin treat Alexey Nvalni as the kind of threat that
Speaker 1: he appears to be treating him as. Why not just
Speaker 1: let him come back to the country and more or
Speaker 1: less ignore him on his arrival in Russia. I think
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin believes that Russia is absolutely surrounded by enemies.
Speaker 1: And it's not that he just hates him because he
Speaker 1: doesn't believe naval No something he absolutely trusts in the
Speaker 1: papers which are put on his table every morning. You know,
Speaker 1: the guy does not use Internet. He trusts on the
Speaker 1: papers which his secretaries or someone is preparing for him
Speaker 1: and bringing. That's why, that's his picture of reality. And
Speaker 1: he absolutely believes that Russia is surrounded by enemies and
Speaker 1: that Navali is one of them and his foreign agent
Speaker 1: and paid by CIA and everything. If someone is attacking you,
Speaker 1: that's because he's an enemy and he wants to destroy
Speaker 1: him and his country. Let's imagine in his worldview Navali
Speaker 1: is a paid CI agent. Does Putting actually worry that
Speaker 1: his own support in the country is so weak that
Speaker 1: Navalni could gain substantial number of adherents on the ground.
Speaker 1: Is Putting so nervous about his own grip on power.
Speaker 1: You know, I cannot say what's in the head of Puttin.
Speaker 1: I can just tell you a few days ago we
Speaker 1: had in Saint Petersburg, the meeting with our governor of
Speaker 1: Saint Petersburg. It is much lower level of deureaucracy. But
Speaker 1: we were talking about the last riots which were in
Speaker 1: Saint Petersburg and in Moscow in the end of January
Speaker 1: beginning of February, where a lot of journalists were beaten
Speaker 1: and arrested. But his reaction was, maybe there were not
Speaker 1: the journalists, maybe there were just pretending to be a journalist.
Speaker 1: His reality and his picture of what's happening in his
Speaker 1: city is absolutely different from what's happening in the streets.
Speaker 1: And when I mentioned that police is beating journalists and
Speaker 1: you're telling this to the guy and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're wrong. And I think the problem is that this
Speaker 1: is partially Putin's fault, that he surrounded himself with the
Speaker 1: people who are not delivering him the right information. It's
Speaker 1: not like in Stalin times when the people were saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you know that Za doesn't know what really happens that
Speaker 1: everyone is in the prisons, everyone is tortured in Gulag,
Speaker 1: and Stalin does not know here is more or less
Speaker 1: the same situation because he doesn't understand it from my
Speaker 1: point of view, Can I ask Diana you refer just
Speaker 1: now to the events of January and February, the public
Speaker 1: response to Navali's return to the country and to his arrest.
Speaker 1: Can you say more about what you think really happened,
Speaker 1: and also about whether the people who were turning out
Speaker 1: there were doing so because they really actively support Navali
Speaker 1: or because they're frustrated with other aspects of Putin's government,
Speaker 1: or whether they're worried about underlying economic issues. What drew
Speaker 1: people into the streets, What was happening in Moscow, in
Speaker 1: Saint Peter's book was for a long time, because for
Speaker 1: a long time, since two thousand and eleven and twelve,
Speaker 1: when there were a lot of protests in Moscow and
Speaker 1: Saint Petersburg, nothing like this happened. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and there were much younger audience, and the
Speaker 1: reaction of the state was different from ten years ago.
Speaker 1: It was much more suppressive. It was much more police
Speaker 1: ross Guardia Amon you know, all this enforcement power and
Speaker 1: there were much ruder, there were much more people arrested.
Speaker 1: There was like the whole city I'm talking about, Saint
Speaker 1: Petersburg was paralyzed, absolutely paralyzed because they closed most of
Speaker 1: the streets. You cannot go even if you're going to
Speaker 1: the theater, cinema anywhere. And what was interesting, it was
Speaker 1: absolutely different atmosphere. I do remember the protests ten years
Speaker 1: ago and there was a lot of slogans, a lot
Speaker 1: of humans are a lot of jokes, but these times
Speaker 1: they were kind of almost gloomy atmosphere. And this time
Speaker 1: the people came on the streets to show even not
Speaker 1: to support navalny. They wanted to show that they sick,
Speaker 1: they're tide of this and they don't want to be
Speaker 1: treated like that. But the atmosphere was kind of on
Speaker 1: this protest were kind of gloomy because the people. It
Speaker 1: feels like the people did not have so much to
Speaker 1: say anymore. They were just walking and showing that they
Speaker 1: hear and they don't like what's going on seen from
Speaker 1: the outside. That's really fascinating and of course very sad
Speaker 1: as well. You know, a gloomy protest is one where
Speaker 1: the protesters don't have a realistic expectation that they can
Speaker 1: change the underlying state of affairs. And that implies that
Speaker 1: the government efforts to suppress the protests were effective, right
Speaker 1: that if they've communicated to ordinary people who are brave
Speaker 1: enough to go into the streets that you're just doing
Speaker 1: this symbolically, it has no chance of succeeding, then that
Speaker 1: would imply that from a purely machiavellian perspective of preserving
Speaker 1: his own power, Putin has handled this whole process with
Speaker 1: the return of Navali very successfully. Is that your interpretation?
Speaker 1: It was not necessary to be so cruel, It was
Speaker 1: no need in such a cruelty. But the whole goal
Speaker 1: of this was just to threaten the people who came,
Speaker 1: to threaten the people who were thinking maybe to come,
Speaker 1: and to send them the message don't move. If you'll
Speaker 1: not move, maybe you'll be more or less a key.
Speaker 1: And you know, a lot of people were afraid to come.
Speaker 1: You know, in Saint Petersburg, how many people came, ten
Speaker 1: twenteen or maybe twenty five thousand the most. The population
Speaker 1: of the city is fire million. In Moscow it was
Speaker 1: the same percent of the population. It's nothing, it's not
Speaker 1: so much, and if you'll ask the majority of people
Speaker 1: who were not there, maybe we are thinking that, you know,
Speaker 1: these protests are useful, but will not go ourselves. And
Speaker 1: what can these twenty thousand crowd with nothing, nor Rus nothing,
Speaker 1: what they can achieve just to show that they don't
Speaker 1: like it, and that's all They're helpless, We are helpless.
Speaker 1: What do you think and what do other Russians whom
Speaker 1: you speak to think about the possible effects of sanctions
Speaker 1: placed either on Puttin or on people around him in
Speaker 1: the past and also in the present in a consequence
Speaker 1: of the Navali imprisonment. Do those sanctions seem to you
Speaker 1: meaningful and do they send a message of support? And
Speaker 1: will they be likely to have any effect at all
Speaker 1: on the Putten regime or government? Or do you see
Speaker 1: them as rather too a little too late, or empty,
Speaker 1: emptily symbolic and unlikely to affect put You know, we're
Speaker 1: surrounded by sanctions since two thy fourteen, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: and they're more and more, and I think that people
Speaker 1: are just getting confused. I'm talking about ordinary people. They're
Speaker 1: just getting confused which sanctions will were and for what
Speaker 1: particular reason. People are a long time ago confusing who
Speaker 1: is sanctioning award and a message on TV is not
Speaker 1: that America or European Union are sanctioning particular people who
Speaker 1: are involved in naval in a case like you know,
Speaker 1: from investigative committee, from the police, the other you know,
Speaker 1: the people who are involved in this are all the time.
Speaker 1: On TV there is a send a message that these
Speaker 1: sanctions are against Russia, not against particular people, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people believe in this. You know, there are
Speaker 1: two audiences in Russia, like probably everywhere else. There is
Speaker 1: a TV audience which believes what first, second, and the
Speaker 1: third channel is saying, and then there is a Internet audience,
Speaker 1: which is more advanced. But I think a big majority
Speaker 1: of the population of Russia is using internet. But if
Speaker 1: you'll see how they're using they're not reading political news.
Speaker 1: They're finding the recipes for cooking, for meeting, for everything
Speaker 1: like this, to send each other flowers electronic one. They're
Speaker 1: not reading political news. That's why what they were told
Speaker 1: on TV they would believe. That raises a really fascinating
Speaker 1: and important question that I think we in the West
Speaker 1: don't have a good understanding of for the most part,
Speaker 1: including people who try to follow news about Russia. And
Speaker 1: that is what is the practical reality of press freedom
Speaker 1: in Russia today. I mean, we understand that Russia is
Speaker 1: ranked very low under Press Freedom Index. I looked it
Speaker 1: up and as of twenty twenty, it was one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty nine out of one hundred and seventy nine countries.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty low. But here you are. You your
Speaker 1: paper Novaya Gazetta, does publish I also read online. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is true that six of your
Speaker 1: journalists were murdered in the past twenty years. You'll tell
Speaker 1: me if that's correct or not. But what is the
Speaker 1: day to day way that you can think about what
Speaker 1: press coverage you're allowed to provide, what you're allowed to say,
Speaker 1: what will provoke consequences? How do you do your job
Speaker 1: every day? The number is correct now about how we're
Speaker 1: doing that's a pretty high threat. That's a that's a
Speaker 1: very high risk position that you're in. Your by definition,
Speaker 1: it extremely a brave person. I can start with a
Speaker 1: kind of joke. In the Soviet Union, and many many
Speaker 1: years ago, of course, the Soviet Union was accused that
Speaker 1: the Jews are treated very bad in Soviet Union. Yeah,
Speaker 1: That's why in every organization in a high rank because issues,
Speaker 1: there was at least one very important Jew. And for example,
Speaker 1: in a military in the headquarters of the army, there
Speaker 1: was General Dragoonski, the General Dragunski, And when anyone was
Speaker 1: trying to accuse Soviet Union on you know, treating the
Speaker 1: Jews bed and not allowing them to get some ceiling
Speaker 1: in their career and everything like this, they were saying, oh,
Speaker 1: what we have General Dragunski, what do you want. We're
Speaker 1: not treating Jews bad. You see how high he is ranked.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like this General Dragunski, nowagas yet exists
Speaker 1: as this General Dragunsky to say that what are you
Speaker 1: talking while there is no freedom? There's plenty of freedom
Speaker 1: we have that that that that the online they're published.
Speaker 1: The problem is that for a long time it was
Speaker 1: a popular number eighty six percent, eighty six percent of
Speaker 1: the population who is supporting Putin. I think now there's
Speaker 1: number is lower, but there was a lot of jokes
Speaker 1: about this, and it's still high means. But this eighty
Speaker 1: six percent, they don't read Novagaiata, they don't listen to
Speaker 1: Etho of Moscow. They are not on a Facebook. They
Speaker 1: even not in a telegram. They're in a social media
Speaker 1: called aDNA Klaisniki. Classmates. There is nothing about politics there.
Speaker 1: This is the majority of the population in Russia. And
Speaker 1: the problem of the media kind of like Novagaziata, we
Speaker 1: don't know how to talk with them. We are not
Speaker 1: reaching the biggest audience. We are talking with each other.
Speaker 1: You know, we can agree or not agree with the
Speaker 1: Navali as a politician, but he is amazing in propaganda,
Speaker 1: in delivering his message. The way how he's putting and
Speaker 1: how he's delivering this message is going out of this
Speaker 1: circle of elite liberal media. From my point of view,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest achievement of what Navalny is doing. That's
Speaker 1: really fascinating because if I'm understanding you correctly, what you're
Speaker 1: saying is that your paper and the other small number
Speaker 1: of papers are essentially what we would call in the
Speaker 1: United States tokens like General David Abramovich Dragunski, who was
Speaker 1: kind of you're saying, a token, the token Jew whom
Speaker 1: people could point to. I just looked him up. I
Speaker 1: see him with his twice awarded titled Hero of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, with his medals, so your tokens and therefore
Speaker 1: you can be tolerated because you're not seen as posing
Speaker 1: a very great threat because not that many people are
Speaker 1: listening to the stories that you're telling. But then, what
Speaker 1: made an Aviolei distinctive is that he's a skilled disseminator
Speaker 1: of information. So he takes a story that you've already covered,
Speaker 1: and what he did have the effect of getting people
Speaker 1: to look up and take notice who might not have
Speaker 1: taken notice previously, and that made him a threat. Do
Speaker 1: you ever worry that if you're if you started to
Speaker 1: reach a broader audience, then you wouldn't be useful tokens anymore,
Speaker 1: and then you would be in danger. Our slogan is
Speaker 1: we're writing about the facts which everyone else is silent about.
Speaker 1: And I think for a lot of people, we are
Speaker 1: the last hope. And I think we need to do
Speaker 1: the job we are doing daily we cannot not do it.
Speaker 1: One thing that might help me, at least to understand
Speaker 1: how you do it is when you're thinking about covering
Speaker 1: a given story, do you find yourself asking yourself, how
Speaker 1: will the government react to this? Or do you think
Speaker 1: to yourself, our paper is recognized as critical and so
Speaker 1: we can say whatever we want and we don't have
Speaker 1: to worry on a minute to minute basis that reporting
Speaker 1: the wrong story will land us in trouble. You know,
Speaker 1: if I'll be thinking every time before thinking about the story,
Speaker 1: how the government will react, probably will not publish anything.
Speaker 1: That's why. That's why I think the main concern is
Speaker 1: the story exclusive, is the story interesting? Is that they're
Speaker 1: raising a real serious topic what we are doing. They're
Speaker 1: very careful putting the words together, very careful, and I
Speaker 1: think in the last few years I'm spending more time
Speaker 1: sometime with our lawyer, reading and trying to find the
Speaker 1: ways how you want to deliver this information. But you
Speaker 1: know that after this you will be in court how
Speaker 1: to deliver it, that it will be not like immediate
Speaker 1: case for the court, And I think I spent more
Speaker 1: time with our lawyer than sometimes with our journalists discussing
Speaker 1: that we'll be right back. One of the aspects of
Speaker 1: the coverage of Navalni that has been confusing for lots
Speaker 1: of people watching from the outside is that his own
Speaker 1: politics are not necessarily the ones that people on the
Speaker 1: outside imagine that would be the politics of someone who's
Speaker 1: a critic of Putin, For example, Navalni seems to be
Speaker 1: a serious nationalist, and indeed, Amnesty International shocked and surprised
Speaker 1: a lot of people by withdrawing his status as a
Speaker 1: prisoner of conscience in their category on the ground that
Speaker 1: he had in the past said things in a nationalist
Speaker 1: vein that they considered to be offensive or discriminatory. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit first about the backstory here. What
Speaker 1: are Navali's political views and where do they fall with
Speaker 1: respect to mainstream Russian opinion on the question of nationalism.
Speaker 1: You know, Muslim, anti gastarbeiters, yet guest workers, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. You know, he was never saying, recid
Speaker 1: Le Ruski as I do remember Russia for Russians, but
Speaker 1: I think it was kind of like what the polites.
Speaker 1: You will not say such things in a polite society. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it was a long time ago. The people are changing.
Speaker 1: In the last few years. He never apologized for what
Speaker 1: he said. He never mentioned this fact, He never said
Speaker 1: that he was wrong. But in the last few years
Speaker 1: the way how he talks changed and he never was accused.
Speaker 1: In the last years in the same kind of saying.
Speaker 1: Did he do his own purpose just you can get
Speaker 1: in his brain right in what he thinks, but probably
Speaker 1: he understood that it's not the correct things to say.
Speaker 1: One of the main accusations of Naval Nay from Kremlin
Speaker 1: is that he doesn't have any suggestions how to lead
Speaker 1: country to the future. His program was published and he
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like something outrageous. It's kind of relatively democratic
Speaker 1: program of what he would like to do and how
Speaker 1: he would like to change this country, improving the situation
Speaker 1: in you know, in bureaucracy and all this corruption, because
Speaker 1: those sound like the issues that most people are most
Speaker 1: bothered by, That the government seems to be pretty corrupt
Speaker 1: and spending a lot of money on itself, and that
Speaker 1: that affects them on a daily basis. You know, this
Speaker 1: is unfortunately, I think that's not so much true that
Speaker 1: the people are thinking about the corruption on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: If you'll ask what they're bothered about, the corruption will
Speaker 1: be not the biggest priority in that What will the
Speaker 1: biggest priority be. What is your sense of what the
Speaker 1: biggest priority is? I think right now will be rising
Speaker 1: the prices of food, quality of medical the quality of
Speaker 1: life in general. The problem is the people understand these
Speaker 1: particular small problems are you know, for example, here is
Speaker 1: a very bad clinic, local clinic, yes, but why it's bad,
Speaker 1: why it's so poor, why there is no modern equipment there.
Speaker 1: They don't put it together with the fact that that's
Speaker 1: the because of the corruption, because this money was stolen
Speaker 1: from somewhere. The food prices they're growing like crazy. Even
Speaker 1: on TV they're saying that, you know, this is the
Speaker 1: third of the fourth time when putting is making the
Speaker 1: order to stop prices to grow. How you can tell
Speaker 1: the prices not to grow, but why they're growing, that's
Speaker 1: not the people sometime are putting together. You know, for
Speaker 1: a long time it was very funny to watch the
Speaker 1: Russian news because first news was about how everything is
Speaker 1: bad in Ukrainian. Then it was about how everything is
Speaker 1: bad in Europe. Then it was how everything is bad,
Speaker 1: sorry in the United States and somewhere else everywhere is bad.
Speaker 1: Then we're coming the news very modest, how it is
Speaker 1: good somewhere in Russia. The people, if you'll be telling
Speaker 1: them that everything is bad in America, they will believe
Speaker 1: you if you because they were never visited America. If
Speaker 1: you'll be telling them that everything is awful in Europe.
Speaker 1: They will believe you because they were never in Europe.
Speaker 1: But you cannot tell them all the time how good
Speaker 1: it's around them, because these they can check. Oh, they're
Speaker 1: telling me that it's great, and I see that's that's
Speaker 1: not good at all. Tyler, let me ask you a
Speaker 1: last question in light of that rather depressing picture that
Speaker 1: you've you've painted. If people are gradually coming to realize
Speaker 1: that things around them are crumbling, and if you can't
Speaker 1: hide that fact from them, what's the scenario that you
Speaker 1: see emerging in the next five years, in the next
Speaker 1: ten years, in the next twenty years in Russia with
Speaker 1: respect to the political structures. Do you see a world
Speaker 1: where over time people become sufficiently unhappy that they seek
Speaker 1: out either a different form of government or different leadership,
Speaker 1: or do you see the Putin regime being so robust
Speaker 1: through its suppression of speech and through its limitation on
Speaker 1: political action, that things could kind of continue along on
Speaker 1: this path going forward, as they after all did for
Speaker 1: a very long time under the Soviet Union. You know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately we don't have the immunization for dictatorship because we
Speaker 1: were living in a Soviet Union and the people were
Speaker 1: accustomed to be absolutely like conformists. And I think the
Speaker 1: conformism is the biggest safeguards for today's put in the
Speaker 1: regime because the people who survived like early nineties, when
Speaker 1: everything now you know what's going on. They're threatening all
Speaker 1: the time on TV. You want it to be like
Speaker 1: in nineties. In nineties it was really bad. There was
Speaker 1: problems with food, problems with any goods and everything like this.
Speaker 1: There was freedom, but there was no supplies. You want
Speaker 1: to be like in nineties, and the people are afraid
Speaker 1: to change something because they afraid that it will be worse.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm afraid that we'll have to live
Speaker 1: in what we are. I don't know how long, because
Speaker 1: I don't see any reason why it will change in
Speaker 1: the next two three or even maybe more use Right now,
Speaker 1: I don't see any possibilities for any changes. I hope
Speaker 1: I'll be wrong, Hopefully it will change sooner, because this
Speaker 1: tagnation is more and more feels like we're going back
Speaker 1: to what was at the end of seventies early eighties,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of it's kind of sad, kind of said,
Speaker 1: and I think it's kind of depressing because there was
Speaker 1: only months since there were all these protests in January,
Speaker 1: and the society is now already distracted and thinking about
Speaker 1: something else. It was a big I'll use the word
Speaker 1: right again, because it was big, like splash. And then
Speaker 1: the people got distracted and went back to their homes
Speaker 1: and went back to their problems, local ones. But Navalni.
Speaker 1: For Navali, the problem is he said his last speech.
Speaker 1: It was an excellent speech in a court. And now
Speaker 1: he will be quiet for two and a half years
Speaker 1: at least unless they will give him more for something else.
Speaker 1: And two and a half years it's a very long period.
Speaker 1: Ten years ago when there was Sergei ud Altsov, whom
Speaker 1: they put to prison, he was kind of on the
Speaker 1: same level of popularity as Navalni. They put him to
Speaker 1: prison for a few years, and in a few years
Speaker 1: everyone forgot about him. He is free now, but who
Speaker 1: remembers him. Who knows what will happen with Navalni two
Speaker 1: and a half years. I think we now need to
Speaker 1: talk not about him in particular, but about his legacy.
Speaker 1: He is alive and I hope he'll live a long
Speaker 1: and happy life, but he will be out of the
Speaker 1: political landscape for at least two and a half years,
Speaker 1: maybe even longer, and we need to understand how to
Speaker 1: keep this atmosphere and how to deliver the message which
Speaker 1: he was delivering kind of great to the people, that
Speaker 1: they will understand that the country need the changes. Fanna,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This is incredibly helpful and really
Speaker 1: really fascinating. I want to express my own admiration for
Speaker 1: the very hard work you're putting in every day at
Speaker 1: significant personal risk to get the news out. You know,
Speaker 1: we in the United States have had challenges to press
Speaker 1: and they're serious and need to be taken seriously, but
Speaker 1: they pale compared to what you're dealing with on a
Speaker 1: daily basis. I really want to thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, bye. I learned a huge amount from
Speaker 1: listening to Diana, and I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: my feelings over the course of our conversation alternated between
Speaker 1: feeling moved and impressed by her bravery, the bravery of
Speaker 1: her colleagues, and the bravery of people who went to
Speaker 1: the streets to protest the Putin regime, and feeling dejected
Speaker 1: and depressed about what Diana sees as the rather limited
Speaker 1: prospects for meaningful change in the near future. In Russia.
Speaker 1: Protests that arose after Navalny's revelations about one of Putin's
Speaker 1: palaces were the largest that we've seen in years, and
Speaker 1: they reflect, Diana thinks, real genuine public dissatisfaction with the
Speaker 1: way the government is doing its job and with the
Speaker 1: extent of corruption that exists in the government. At the
Speaker 1: same time, Diana was quick to add that most people
Speaker 1: in Russia don't spend their time thinking about systematic corruption.
Speaker 1: They think about the limitations and their quality of life
Speaker 1: and the problems in their economy, much like people do
Speaker 1: everywhere else in the world. Similarly, when it comes to
Speaker 1: the status of the press, I was moved and impressed
Speaker 1: by the way that Diana describes her role and that
Speaker 1: of her colleagues in reporting the truth and continuing to
Speaker 1: do so no matter what the consequences might be. Yet
Speaker 1: I was dispirited by her observation that most people in
Speaker 1: the public don't bother to listen to the news that
Speaker 1: she reports, and her own honest self assessment in which
Speaker 1: she had compared the status of the free Russian media
Speaker 1: to that of a token Russian Jewish general in the
Speaker 1: senior ranks of the Soviet military. My ultimate takeaway from
Speaker 1: the conversation is that those alternating feelings of being inspired
Speaker 1: and being depressed are what happens when you get the
Speaker 1: truth from somebody doing her job under very difficult circumstances. Clearly,
Speaker 1: Diana would not do what she does if she did
Speaker 1: not believe that it had a purpose and a goal,
Speaker 1: and that purpose and goal went beyond just telling the
Speaker 1: truth but also extended to making permanent change in Russia.
Speaker 1: Here's hoping that her aspirations are as accurate as her
Speaker 1: investigative reporting tries to be. Until the next time I
Speaker 1: speak to you, be careful, be safe, and be well.
Speaker 1: Deep background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Mo laboord our engineer is Martin Gonzalez, and
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