Dear friends and compatriots! I want to wish all of you a Happy New Year in 2012. It is not just one of those New Years when we traditionally wish each other happiness, good fortune, and success. It’s the kind of New Year when we will have the power to effect a great deal of change. We are living at a unique historical moment, one when we have the opportunity to determine our fates, the fate of our country, the fate of the entire world. People often get opportunities to achieve real change, but we too often thoughtlessly pass them up. I want us not to miss these opportunities in 2012.

Separately, I would like to wish a Happy New Year to my friends and comrades from the United Civil Front, Solidarity, and the National Assembly, those who have already spent many years defending the ideals of freedom and justice, fearlessly standing against all the power of the repressive apparatus of the Putin regime. I wish you courage and resilience, my friends! I believe that, joined together in 2012, we can end these twenty years of turmoil and lay down the foundation of a new, free Russia. A Russia where the words “this is our country” will become an opposition slogan and an element of pride for everyone who live here.

And, despite how traditional it is, I want to say again – I wish all of you good fortune, health, success, and happiness!

Why Vladimir Putin Is Immune to the American Reset
A Talk by Garry Kasparov
October 25, 2011
The Heritage Foundation

Thank you for inviting me to attend this important event here at the Heritage Foundation today. My thanks to Speaker Boehner and all the other participants for their interest and their comments.

For a little introduction of myself, there’s one fact from my biography that is always omitted. Many here might not be aware that I myself am from the Deep South, right next to Georgia.

Of course, I’m referring to the Deep South of the Soviet Union! That’s my hometown of Baku, Azerbaijan, where I was born in 1963, next to what is now the Republic of Georgia.

Of course much has changed since then. There are no more Communists in the Republic of Georgia – much like there are no more Democrats in the state of Georgia. And Georgia is as good a place as any to begin my talk on the Putin regime’s immunity to America’s attempts at a reset. Georgia is currently under great pressure from the US and others to allow Russia to join the World Trade Organization, despite two large pieces of Georgian sovereign territory being occupied by Russian forces.

Many in the media and even some governments refer to Abkhazia and South Ossetia as “disputed territories,” not occupied, ignoring the fact they were taken by military force. Often this is the same media that refers to parts of Palestine as “occupied” by Israel. Despite heavy pressure from Putin’s Russia, Georgia has remained staunchly pro-democratic and pro-western, and yet it appears that getting Russia into the WTO is of greater importance to this US administration that protecting the rights and territory of an ally.

Putin’s administration has been quick to boast of this success, celebrating how they kept Georgia and Ukraine out of NATO. WTO membership will be another feather in this cap. Putin is making no concessions on Georgia and so far, his belief that doing business with Russia will trump protecting Georgia seems well founded. Even when a series of terror bombings in Tbilisi were tied to Russian intelligence, Hillary Clinton only politely hinted at this atrocity, at least in public. This is just the sort of display of weakness, a fear of public confrontation, that feeds the sense of impunity that has empowered dictators throughout history. The American “reset” policy with Russia began right after the Russian-Georgian war, spitting on the deal negotiated by Sarkozy and giving a clear indication of the Obama administration’s priorities in the region.

I have no qualms about using that word, “dictator” when referring to Vladimir Putin, and nor should anyone else at this point. What has been clear to the Russian opposition for a decade should now be clear to any casual observer. Putin has no intention of ever giving up power. That Russia has these spectacles they call elections does not change anything. To make it clear, I have a picture here of a Russian polling station, updated again for the upcoming election.

You can see they keep updating the box on the left, while the one on the right never changes. Here in the US your elections have fixed rules and unpredictable results. In Russia we have unpredictable rules and fixed results!

No new political parties have been registered in Russia since 2004. Putin’s United Russia controls every step of the process: registration of parties, finances, campaigning, the media, and, of course, the counting. With every avenue of political opposition shut down, the regime has turned to closing off every form of public protest as well. In our marches, we are frequently outnumbered by riot police ten to one. Putin understands force, and makes an overwhelming show of force whenever he has the chance.

We are proud that all the force used in all of these protests was on the side of the police. We have been entirely peaceful, with not even a broken windows, no burned cars.

In Moscow and St. Petersburg in particular, the voice of the opposition is rarely if ever allowed at all in public. Last week, Medvedev spoke at the Moscow State University journalism department, the famous zhurfak. Except Medvedev did not speak to University students there. The 300 members of the audience had all been brought in from outside groups loyal to the Kremlin while the actual students were no allowed to attend. Three students, three brave girls, who did try to get into the event were detained. This sort of circus is very much along the lines of the return to Soviet methodologies mentioned by Speaker Boehner in his remarks. These policies are promoted both internally and externally.

And please don’t tell me about Putin’s supposed popularity in Russia as a way of diminishing his oppression of the Russian people. How do you know? Not long ago, Hosni Mubarak enjoyed 90% approval in last December’s elections. Qaddafi was probably near 100%! The high price of oil allows Putin to make payoffs and to increase the budget for internal security forces and propaganda, even while the economic infrastructure collapses. If you must do business with Putin’s Russia, that is business. But do not provide him with democratic credentials.

The systematic destruction of Russia’s nascent democracy by Putin has increased its pace in recent years. This acceleration took place as soon as Putin realized he would face no real opposition in the West, no matter how many journalists were killed, how many activists were jailed, how many times gas to Europe was shut off. Here in the West there is a tragic assumption that dictators follow the same political logic as exists in democracies. In return, Putin’s mentality has always been that democracy in the West is just another form of control, a successful model of keeping people in line. That is, he doesn’t believe it is really about the power of the people or representation, but that the object is to make people think they have a voice, which makes them easier to control.

And you know what? Putin now thinks he has been proven correct! Every time America and other western leaders betray their founding principles it confirms Putin’s belief that everything has a price, that everything is negotiable, that democracy and human rights are just chips on the table along with gas rights, trade treaties, and weapons agreements. Political freedom is for sale, just like the former German chancellor he hired to work for Gazprom, or the 10% of Facebook now owned by Russian oligarchs, or the New Jersey Nets.

Putin is happy to trade some small chips, things he doesn’t really care about, as long as he concedes nothing on the things that really matter to him and his allies. He gives you something in Afghanistan and maybe you do not complain about rigged elections. He gets what he wants, and he doesn’t have to worry about getting Congressional approval. (Not to give your administration any ideas.) Putin was a KGB lieutenant-colonel and you can view his regime’s history as a series of case files.

Most of you will be familiar with the famous cases of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his company Yukos. Eight years ago, on this very date, Yukos chairman Khodorkovsky was arrested and jailed. The richest man in Russia was sentenced to eight years, and would have been freed today had the Kremlin not decided to invent further charges against him in 2007, then this year finally sentencing him for another 12 years. In 2003 he was imprisoned for not paying taxes on the oil his company sold. This year, the charges were that he had stolen the oil he was arrested for not paying taxes on! Yukos was dismantled, its assets quickly sold off to Putin’s cronies, and the money cleaned with a western IPO. Now Exxon has been brought in to share the benefits in an Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft, the main protagonist in the looting of Yukos. And by the way, this troubling collusion of American companies does not end with oil. There are serious concerns that the Kremlin is pressuring Microsoft to hand over the encryption keys to their popular online communication service Skype. We in the opposition in Russia, and those resisting many other dictatorships around the world, rely on Skype for our only secure communications.

And you know Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen warlord who boasted of killing his first Russian soldier at the age of 15, now put in charge of the devastated region by Putin. Kadyrov’s agents have assassinated his enemies in other Russian cities as well as on foreign soil. It is hard to compare what Putin has done to the Russian Caucasus to anything else anywhere. He is not interested in attempting to better integrate these peoples, who are, after all, Russian citizens. Putin only wishes to ensure that the unrest does not affect the flow of money into the Kremlin.

And Operation: Reset, what a great KGB success! You thought it was an American plan, but that is why it has been so effective. You have been kept busy with working groups, summits, and other superficialities while Putin changes nothing. The most successful part of it has been Operation: Medvedev. It was a variation of the old Soviet game, letting the West think there is a chance of promoting moderates, of a rift in the hierarchy. Putin’s announcement that he would be reclaiming the presidency makes it clear it was always the trick many of us said it was, that Medvedev has never been anything more than a shadow.

But the US spent considerable time trying to strengthen the supposed Medvedev faction, dreaming about a split between Putin and Medvedev, fantasizing about liberal reform despite all evidence to the contrary. A very successful operation indeed.

The success of Putin’s Magnitsky operation is not yet guaranteed, and you here in this room have a say about its success or failure. The young Russian attorney, active against the Putin administration, died in police custody on November 16, 2009, just days before the one year he could be held without trial was due to expire. He had been tortured and denied visits and medical treatment. There was an impressively impassioned reaction to this horror both inside Russia and abroad. But two years later, we are seeing Russia’s success at watering down these responses on the international front.

There have been moves here to take steps that would actually have an impact on the Putin regime by banning visits from those officials complicit in the Magnitsky case, possibly extending it to the Yukos case as well. This is the sort of tough action that would actually have an impact on the vertical of power in Russia, as the low-level bureaucrats begin to feel that Putin might not be able to protect them and all the money they have stashed in the West. And this is the key. The Putin regime is best understood not in political terms, but in criminology terms. Not Kremlinology, criminology! The minions and the oligarchs are loyal to Putin because he is the capo di tutti capi and he offers them protection. They can commit any crimes they like in Russia, but as long as they stay loyal they can get rich and take their money to America, to London, wherever. This is why the possibility of a strong bill hitting such people caused such panic in the Kremlin. Top Putin fixer Vladislav Surkov even came here personally to threaten officials with reciprocity. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has promised Russia will make a ban list even longer than the Magnitsky list. Take these reactions as a good sign you are moving in the right direction!

Pushing back hard and setting a firm, even confrontational line, is the only message the Putin regime will respond to. They respect only strength. All this talk of engagement transforming Russia slowly has been disproven. 20 years ago it was expected that Russia would eventually embrace the manners of the West, but now it’s clear the opposite has happened. Countries dealing with Russia have conformed again and again to the corrupt practices institutionalized by Putin. As I said in my testimony on the Hill last June, the system is not corrupt; corruption IS the system. So if you are going to go after these guys, you have to use banks, not tanks. Hit them in their wallets, because that is what they care about.

Senate Bill 1039, titled the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act” would do exactly that, it is a bill that has the real teeth that Speaker Boehner referred to. Just one bureaucrat punished for his participation in crimes against human rights and the rule of law would have a huge ripple effect in Russia. Sadly, the State Department has attempted to preempt such tough action by issuing their own ‘secret’ list for a travel ban on select Russian officials. This should be seen for what it is, watering down a serious effort with a superficial one. The entire point must be to publicize the list, to name names, to confront the criminals and their crimes. Make it clear there are standards that will be defended. Resolution and openness are the best weapons against a mafia structure.

Jackson-Vanik is an obsolete structure, of course, but do not trivially discard it without putting something in its place that makes clear America’s commitment to human rights and its willingness to defend them. Senate 1039 is such a piece of legislation and I would urge everyone to make it a reality.

25 years ago, Ronald Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik and the last Soviet leader had an ambitious reset proposal. I remember this meeting well. Reagan refused the offer categorically, refused to make concessions to a system he understood to be evil, refused to compromise on principles where they mattered most.

How about this as a model for a reset with Putin’s Russia?

Stand up for your principles. Make a reset that supports the Russian people, not our oppressors. Make that distinction clear. As in 1987, resolve is required. You must never be afraid to confront dictators because strength is the only language they understand.

To remove a dangerous virus, a reset or a reboot is not enough. The entire system must be replaced, and that is what we hope to do. Thank you.

Question and Answer Session

- – -

Q: Thanks Garry for your presentation. I’m a Russian journalist here with TASS, my name is Andrei Sitov. I was listening to this and I thought – it’s a good speech. And what’s also good about it is it’s available in Russian. I mean, you can read all of this on the Internet in Russian. It’s available to the Russian public. The case has been made many times over the years. Yet, if and when we claim that the regime is not popular at all, it’s not true. If we claim that the opposition is more popular than the regime, it’s not true. So my question to you is about the democratic opposition. Why is it that the case that is made to the Russian public in their own language – why doesn’t it find the response that you’re probably hoping for? And you also said – and that’s my own answer to my question, in a way – when you finish your speech saying the entire system must be replaced – I think this is what the Russians are afraid of. That these guys want to come in again, do another revolution, uproot everything again, make life hard again. And they never showed that they can do better than even these guys. We did have a few moments when – you probably remember when – when [Former Prime Minister Sergei] Kiriyenko was appointed, they said -

A: I had nothing to do with Kiriyenko.

What?

I think the problem is, you know, I have nothing to do with Kiriyenko or anybody who was in power. I was never elected in any position through Russia. Never was a member of the parliament. And as for the availability of everything in Russian, can you tell the audience when the last time Garry Kasparov was interviewed by Russian television Channel One, Two, Three, or Four? Can you tell – you don’t know! Because your memory doesn’t go that far. Now, we are – I’m very happy – I remember when I was arrested in 2007. There was only one camera next to me, CNN. And of course I made comments during my arrest in English. Vladimir Putin paid attention to that, blaming me for complaining in English. I’m very happy to prove that my Russian is far superior to Putin, Medvedev, and all their cronies. Unfortunately, we cannot talk to them. Because they only participate in staged conferences as the one I mentioned. It was taken as a great shame even for many of Putin’s loyalists by detaining girls who wanted to – from the journalist faculty in Moscow State University – they just wanted to ask Medvedev a question which was not rehearsed. I don’t know how popular Mr. Putin is. I know in some regions his popularity goes to 109%, as we saw already in Chechnya or some other places where the rules of mathematics have been simply broken by the iron fist of Mr. Kadyrov or alike. I would be delighted to see the real results. The problem is, maybe you didn’t hear it – from 2004, no single political party, new party, was registered in Russia. Period. There were a number of attempts, not only by liberals, but also by the nationalists or by the left wing. No political party that is playing by Kremlin rules has a chance to go through the process of registration. So we have the same menu. It’s an old-fashioned Soviet menu and you should not be mistaken that there are seven parties instead of one, because they’re all part of the same puppet show. I think that Mr. Putin enjoys certain popularity in the country. There is no doubt about it. But in order to measure this, we have to make normal debates where we can talk about a number of things. For instance, I’d be happy to discuss – the fact is that one of the greatest records of my country during Putin’s rule was the number of billionaires on the Forbes list. And the speed with which Russian people, in fact, close friends of Mr. Putin, have been accumulating enormous wealth. For instance, Gennady Timchenko, known as a very close friend of Vladimir Putin since the late ’80s, he trades roughly 35-40% of the entire Russian oil even being a citizen of a foreign country. And there are many other interesting things that we would like to discuss. We just want to get this chance. Will the Russian democratic opposition, liberal forces, win the election? I don’t know. I think that what will happen in Russia if we have a free and fair election today – there will be a split parliament. Because Russians, they have no clear ideas about the future of our country. What they know is that they’ve been denied, constantly denied the voice to participate in the formation of their government. No doubt we will have maybe second round for the presidential elections, and one thing I’m confident – Mr. Putin, if he goes through the normal process of registration, probably will not survive his own test. Because he will be caught in lying in every statement that he’s making about his personal wealth, about his connections to other Russian oligarchs, and about certain dubious actions that he committed as being the leader of Russia for so long.

Q: I’m the spokesperson of the Confederation of Iranian Students. I have the honor of representing millions of young Iranian students who seek freedom and democracy in Iran and I just want to know if you have a message to those young people in Iran that are struggling for freedom and democracy today.

A: I have one message to people from Iran, Venezuela, and countries where dictators are prevailing temporarily. That while the dictators are working together – we can see Putin, Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and alike getting together and working frantically to extend their rules. We have to build relations to make sure that people who cherish freedom, they will be also having the chance to share the experience and work. And eventually I hope that Russia and Iran – not Putin and Ahmadinejad – will make friends in the future.

Q: Mr. Kasparov, a number of people have mentioned today that Mikhail Khodorkovsky is eight years in prison as of this very day. And you’ve been arrested at various times. Something that puzzles a lot of us – what is the mechanism, what is the formula by which the Putin regime decides who is going to be sitting in prison and who’s going to be allowed to speak and for how long? You’re speaking out here, what you’re saying is going to trouble some people in this regime. How do you know what happens when you go back home? What are the rules and how are they different from the Soviet era?

A: Now, as I pointed out, it’s no longer the Soviet Union. It’s more like in a very sophisticated mafia structure. And the success of a mafia boss depends very much on his ability to read the law enforcement officers. And Putin was very good in creating the psychological playground where he could outwit Western leaders. And I think that he understands that there are certain limits. And under no circumstance can he go into this open repressions, you know, Stalin-type, because unlike Stalin, he and his cronies – they keep money in the West. So that’s a trick that makes the whole equation very different. So when Western leaders keep asking the same questions – we don’t have any bargaining chips, how can we negotiate, because Putin has everything. Yes, he has gas, he has oil, he has aluminium, metals, timber – but the proceeds from these sales, they’re all in the western banks. And don’t tell me that FBI or MI-5 are not aware of all these bank accounts. If you want to get serious by pressing Putin and prevent him from selling nuclear technology to Iran or helping Chavez sell drugs to Mexico, hit them where they feel it. Just, you know, start investigating Abramovich. Or find out who is this mysterious third person in the infamous Hamburg company with Timchenko, a Swedish guy, and a certain name that is not known. So just start looking into what is really important for Putin. And just understand that Putin is always trying to find a silver lining. So he knows that there are certain cases where he must use force, and he does it. But at the end of the day, he doesn’t feel that it’s necessary to go all the way down to the very bottom by using brute force if it doesn’t bring results. I think he’s very good at measuring the balance. And the Khodorkovsky case was sort of a brilliant execution of his true intentions. And it sent a clear message to all our oligarchs: you should not pay taxes to the Russian treasury, you should deal with me. So that was the message. And they got it. So the Russian oligarchy is under full control, which was by the way was proven recently by the very short-lived political career of Mikhail Prokhorov. Who seemed to be an independent guy, because unlike many others he cashed in 2008 most of his fortune – I don’t know how much, but probably 80-90%, is elsewhere, not in Russia. Still, the moment not Putin, but Surkov just put pressure, Prokhorov was dissolved as a political entity. With all his billions of dollars, he knows that unless he plays by the rules, he might be in real trouble. So that’s what makes Putin unique. I mean, let’s give him credit. He’s very good in reading human psychology and creating an atmosphere where his plans can prevail.

Q: You mentioned Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two Georgian occupied territories. I understand there is not an easy answer to that question, but I was wondering if you could give us your opinion, how do you see the ways of resolving this problem.

A: Abkhazia and South Ossetia should not be probably viewed separately from the overall problems of the Soviet borders. Because we had many conflicts, one was just as close – Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, Azerbaijan – and many other places where the Stalin-created borders – because we know that was Stalin’s land mine operation, where he just created borders that caused the future effects of putting nations or nationalities, different ethnic groups, one against another. I think that any attempt to change the borders was and still is very dangerous, because there’s no end. So unless there is a consensus, using force to change the Soviet borders – which I have to admit, some of them were not just. And many of these borders were wrong. But I mean, you have to start – you cannot start from scratch. You have to avoid what’s happening in ex-Yugoslavia, for instance. Some nations may not be happy about that. But like in Crimea. I wasn’t sure why Crimea was part of Ukraine, because I feel myself a Russian citizen, but at the end of the day, it’s happened. So it’s like looking for a lesser evil. Any attempt to reconsider leads to bloodshed. So Putin’s action against Georgia and takeover of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – in my view, actually, was not a demonstration, as many believe, of imperial powers. I think it’s – and I spoke about it – after Putin gained – I don’t want to use the word bought, but gained – rights to organize the Winter Olympics in the south tropical resort of Sochi, the war against Georgia was inevitable. Because if you look at the map…the Olympic Village in Sochi is located about five miles away from the official border with Georgia, the Abkhazian border. So there was no chance that Putin could afford to have the Olympic games so close to the Georgian territory. So annexation of Abkhazia – which I believe was the main purpose, North Ossetia and South Ossetia was a good pretext to do that – but Abkhazia was the main target. And he succeeded in building a very nice piece of real estate. Because for Putin, Sochi is like St. Petersburg for Peter the Great. Those he chose a very warm city in a better climate. And also, Abkhazia has been serving as the supply for all the construction materials. Because quickly, Putin’s engineers recognized that it would not be possible to bring a hundred million tons of construction materials from the north, because the landscape of the region is such that you have to spend tons of money just building the roads. So Abkhazia is important both politically and as a material factor to secure Putin’s dream project, Sochi. So if you look at the relations between Putin and Georgia, Ukraine, Belorussia, it’s not a classical imperialist approach, because he wants businesses of his friends to be successful. So for him, the difference between Saakashvili and Lukashenko is almost the same. Both are very tall. And the classical case I think is Ukraine, because you couldn’t imagine a more pro-Russian government in Ukraine than Yanukovych, a more pro-Russian leader. But at the end of the day, Putin is pressing Yanukovych and his oligarchs to share the industries they control. And even Yanukovych is resisting, because they understand it’s not about friendship. Putin doesn’t care about friendship or the restoration of the Soviet Union. For him, Gazprom and Rosneft are far more important. So that’s why I think that in the years to come, I don’t think – I think Putin will not use force anymore, because the Sochi Olympiad is too close. But we can see that now another Russian oligarch of Georgian origin is trying to enter Georgian politics. So we may see other attempts of Putin to take over control of Georgia, same way he’s trying to take control of Ukraine and Belorussia. Business. Nothing personal.

Q: I wanted to mention that Kadyrov is mentioned in the Magnitsky Act. It’s not very well-known, partly because of the name of the act, and I also wanted to ask you about the effects of the extremism law on Russian civil society and religious communities.

A: It’s an excellent question, because when people in this town, or in the West, hear the word “extremism,” they think about terrorists, you know, blowing up trains, planes, creating havoc among peaceful civilians. No, in Russia, the so-called E-Department of Extremism in Russia, which we called “E-stapo,” is aimed only – and I have to emphasize, only – at curbing the activities of the political opposition. And you can’t come up with any fact of political opposition groups being involved in some kind of violent activities. This is what we succeeded in preventing in any form and shape. And these guys who are working in this E-Department, they’re not even hiding their agenda. All they’ve been doing, you know, they’re filming the activists, they’re collecting the materials, they’re trying to disrupt our peaceful activities. And we don’t see any results of this extremism law on the North Caucasus. On the regions like Dagestan or Chechnya or Ingushetia, where every day, literally every day, we have reports of people being killed. So it seems that these officers find it far more comfortable to operate in the environment of Moscow or St. Petersburg rather than trying to fight terrorism – not extremism, terrorism – in the forests and the hills of Dagestan or Ingushetia.

Q: I think that in some ways in Gorbachev’s period was very successful, because the Soviet Union collapsed. And if you have mafia and corruption as a system, do you have a positive program on how to struggle with mafia and not to destroy the state?

A: I mean, your question contains an assumption that there is a state. Actually, we don’t have the state in Russia as people used to know elsewhere. Because it’s privatized. So it’s every segment of the state is in charge of people who are appointed by Putin. Do you believe that Chechnya is a part of Russia? Can you tell me that the Russian law can be applied to Chechen territory? Do you have any kind of accountability of billions of dollars syphoned to Kadyrov from Moscow? No. The same happens with ministries. So do you believe that there is any accountability on the federal level or on the regional level, where bureaucrats are given rights to benefit from the ministries or entities they are given just for temporary use? It’s more like a feudal system, with the center and regions and dues being paid to the centralized power. I don’t have even to come up with any numbers, so the best number comes from – what is his name, Medvedev. It’s just – when you want to look at the corruption, official numbers presented by Medvedev about corruption in the system of state procurement, the state orders – $35 billion. That’s what Medvedev said a year ago. We all believe the numbers are much higher. When you look at the Transparency International report, the actual size of the corruption in Russia is way over the entire budget of my country. But even if we deal with the number 35 billion, any case, any criminal case, open against these people – because in Russia all the orders are made in electronic form. So if Medvedev says $35 billion was stolen, I guess – they’re people, they’re not ghosts from Mars, they’re real people who are stealing this money and buying whatever, penthouses in Miami or a soccer club in London. But nothing happens. That’s a clear demonstration there’s no state in Russia. Because state assumes there’s certain measures taken. If, technically, the head of the executive in the country is coming out with such a strong statement, some actions must follow. No. So that’s my conclusion. We do not have a state, and all we should do is start this cleansing operation. Do I believe that we can succeed and this process will bring Russia back to normal? I’m not sure. It might be too late. But every day we’re losing makes the end of the Russian state inevitable. I’ve been saying it for many years. The survival of the Putin regime means the end of my country. So that’s why dismantling the Putin regime – and let me emphasize what we said – dismantling, demontazh, po-russki – dismantling, not ruining, dismantling, it’s like a cattle-engineering process. It’s the only chance for Russia to survive. It might be too late, because we have problems on the east side, where China is gradually grabbing territories. The popular joke in Irkutsk, for instance – the Chinese are crossing our borders in small groups of one hundred thousand each. With the boiling temperature in the North Caucasus, I don’t know whether we can succeed. But we have to try. Because the continuation of this rule means that the country will be wiped out from the map.

The president’s supporters were hard pressed to maintain their illusions after September 24, when Medvedev announced that he would not be running in the 2011 presidential elections: the gauntlet would instead be passed back to Putin, now likely to remain in office until at least 2024. Some, like Arkady Dvorkovich, were vocal in their disappointment. Others continue to invest their faith in the president’s purported agenda of modernization. It is the latter that opposition leader Garry Kasparov confronts in this new op-ed.

Turning the Chessboard
By Garry Kasparov
October 7, 2011

After the public humiliation of Medvedev on September 24, one would think that even his most devout followers, the ones who tried in vain to find the reform-minded characteristics of a “liberating tsar” in the pale image of Putin’s shadow, had ought to have turned their backs on him. The first one to emerge from their stupor was Sergei Aleksashenko (naturally, the people with the most direct connections to money will react to the operative changes of a situation quicker than others), who decided to refute our image of Medvedev as a weak leader without any willpower. After that, Igor Jurgens told us unabashedly that, regardless of the apocalyptic predictions that he and Yevgeny Gontmakher have been eagerly feeding the Russian press over the course of the past year, life is not going to end after Putin’s return to the Kremlin. “We will continue modernization, because there’s no other option,” – with this phrase, one of the main ideologues of systemic Russian liberalism has once again confirmed that the members of the Institute of Contemporary Development saw the campaign in support of Medvedev as a purely tactical measure related to additional opportunities to influence the situation in the country. Whereas it is impossible for liberals of the court to have strategic differences with the Putin regime.

Today, Ekho Moskvy Editor-in-Chief Aleksei Venediktov also spoke to both the country and the world about Medvedev’s grandiose reforms that we have failed to notice, reforms that do no less than begin to dismantle the Gulag. Medvedev, it turns out, has begun deep reforms in the sphere of human and civil rights, a sphere that not Khrushchev, nor Gorbachev, nor Yeltsin were able to take a stab at. Nikita Sergeyevich, of course, did not have enough of Medvedev’s polish, and he had a proletarian disdain for bourgeois civil rights and freedoms, but it’s his name that’s associated with the release of millions of Gulag prisoners – and, by the way, the denouncement of the cult of personality (Stalin’s, not Putin’s).

Venediktov writes that “the time has come to flip the chessboard and try to see all of this from white’s point of view.” First of all, I don’t understand at all why the Kremlin government is a priori given the white pieces, and, moreover, chess analogies are unlikely to be appropriate when talking about the Putin regime. Chess has clear rules that are obligatory for both sides, and the Kremlin, as we known, are always free to change whatever rules don’t fit into their Procrustean bed of political expediency. In fact, Aleksei Alekseyevich, I would like to note that “flipping the chessboard” is a term from the movie Gentlemen of Fortune, where it became customary to wipe the pieces off the board and smash it over the head of one’s opponent. When talking about chess, we usually say that the board is “turned.” And so, having turned the board, we see the position from white’s side. I see the Yukos case; I see the deaths of Magnitsky and Aleksanyan; Taisiya Osipova, who is being bullied by jailers and prosecutors with impunity; I see a tightening of so-called anti-extremist legislation; there’s a monstrous growth of corruption alongside the total lawlessness of the security services, I see that; I see a political space that has been completely paved over – but deep reforms in our system of rights, excuse me, I don’t see. Obviously, I lack the proper qualifications…

In Russia, taking part in a demonstration that hasn’t been sanctioned by the government can cost citizens their right to work in federal agencies. Officially dubbed “unreliable” citizens, opposition activists and other political protesters are entered into special blacklists drawn up by law enforcement agencies for purposes that are not entirely understood. It was on such a blacklist that Vera Sizova, a retired resident of St. Petersburg, unexpectedly found herself – upon being told that she was banned from working for the 2010 Russian Census because of her son’s opposition activities.

Sizova first got the idea to work as a census-taker when she received a call from the Russian Federal State Statistical Service (Rosstat) asking about her son, Maksim Malyshev. “The commissioner for the census in the Kalininsky District of St. Petersburg, Elena Sviridkina, called,” explained Sizova. “She proposed that Maksim work for the census as a group leader. He had already worked for the 2002 census as a deputy group leader – he had experience. But Maksim is very busy with work, so I decided to ask for the job myself. They accepted me, inviting me to go through training and build up a team.”

Her first day of work was typical: Sizova was registered into her new position, given the necessary documents, and promised an employment contract. “But in the evening Sviridkina called me and said that I wasn’t going to get the contract because my son and I were on a list of people that the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Regional Main Department of Internal Affairs (GUVD) has compromising information about,” Sizova said.

Maksim Malyshev is the head of the St. Petersburg branch of the Left Front, a socialist opposition organization that holds a variety of sanctioned and unsanctioned anti-government protests. Their members are often arrested for participating in and organizing rallies such as the Day of Wrath, which is held monthly as a venue for Russians to voice their general grievances against local authorities. In its time, Garry Kasparov’s Other Russia opposition coalition included the Left Front within its ranks.

The news that her son’s opposition activity would bar her from working the census came as a shock to Sizova. She sent three inquiries to Rosstat demanding an explanation, and in the end got a response with a different reason altogether – that she had failed to take a pre-training test on time. The pensioner said that while this was true, it was because she was sick on testing day and in any case had been told by on-staff statisticians that “it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Sizova attempted to fight the decision in court. At the end of January 2011, she filed suit against the local Rosstat branch in St. Petersburg’s Petrogradsky Regional Court. “According to the Civil Code, you can see how they hired me; since I worked there for one day, they admitted that I was fit for that position,” Sizova explained the essence of her case.

The suit, however, was thrown out. During the hearing this past June, Elena Sviridkina again invoked the blacklist of unreliable citizens. “Before the beginning of the census, all branches of Rosstat were given an order to do checks on the census-takers against the GUVD databases – if there were issues with anyone, they wouldn’t be allowed to take part in the census,” Sviridkina said. “We checked Sizova – she turned out to be on the list. We don’t have the right to let her go out to people.” A copy of the blacklist for the Kalininsky District obtained by the Moskovsky Novosti newspaper did indeed include Sizova and her son on it, along with four other people.

The Petrogradsky Regional Court did not see the existence of such a list as particularly unreasonable. According to the court’s judicial ruling, checking lists of people with the police is not a violation of Vera Sizova’s rights, “since by its very nature it’s meant to protect an unlimited group of people who are going to give over personal information about themselves during the census.” Sizova has already appealed the decision in St. Petersburg City Court. “I’m prepared to go to the Supreme Court,” she insisted.

But Rosstat appears to be intent on holding its ground. “There is nothing surprising in that Rosstat would check out the backgrounds of the people who are going to collect citizens’ personal information, go to their house – no,” a source in the agency told Moskovsky Novosti, also confirming that the order to do the checks against the police database was indeed sent to all regional Rosstat branches. The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Regional GUVD did not deny the existence of the blacklist, either. “But I can only say anything about it to citizen Sizova, and at that, only in response to an inquiry,” said Vyacheslav Stepchenko, head of GUVD public relations.

Malyshev is puzzled as to why his mother should suffer from his own unapologetic adherence to oppositionist views, especially considering that they did nothing to prevent him from working for Rosstat in the past. “I took part in protests, but that didn’t bar me from working for the 2002 census. Now, clearly, the authorities have decided to secure themselves against unreliable persons, so that the public doesn’t get any information about violations,” Malyshev told Moskovsky Novosti.

A situation in which a mother has to answer for her son’s opposition activity is manifestly unlawful, says Anatoly Kucherena, representative of Russia’s federal Public Chamber commission on law enforcement agencies control and judicial-legal system reforms. “And in general – what does ‘compromising information’ mean? If the police have suspicions upon which to begin criminal proceedings, they should work to file that case. If there’s no basis to do so, then a person and their relatives have the right to live a normal life,” Kucherena said.

Director Pavel Chikov of the Agora human rights association believes that the blacklist itself is a gross violation of the presumption that one is innocent before proven guilty. “The state has the right to collect any sort of information about citizens, particularly if it’s negative, only when they are suspected of having committed a criminally punishable offense and only with the goal of investigating that particular crime. De-facto, the St. Petersburg police have introduced a state of emergency that limits the constitutional rights of city residents and punishes them with a blow to their rights, however it wants to, without a court or investigation,” Chikov told Moskovsky Novosti.

The European Court of Human Rights has already ruled that it is illegal for Russian law enforcement agencies to draw up blacklists of unreliable citizens – at the end of June 2011, the court declared a police transport database in the Volgo-Vyatsky region called “Watchdog Control” to be unlawful. The successful case was filed by Sergei Shimovolos of the Nizhny Novgorod Human Rights Society, who was arrested in 2007 under suspicion of “extremism” as a result of being included in the database.

A full transcript of the speech is printed below. The listed appendices were submitted to the committee along with Kasparov’s testimony.

Skip to the end for video footage of the question and answer session.

Appendix I: Individuals Responsible for Violating the Russian Federation’s International Commitments With Regard to the Rule of Law and Diplomatic Relations

Appendix II: Public Officials of the Russian Federation Involved in the Unlawful Prosecution of OAO NK YUKOS, its Executives, Employees and Persons linked to the Company

Appendix III: Acts of Terrorism and Sabotage Organized by Russian Special Services in Georgia in 2009‐2011

My thanks to the Committee and to Chairman Ros-Lehtinen for permitting me to testify here today. My name is Garry Kasparov. I was born in the Soviet Union in 1963 and currently live in Moscow. Until my retirement in 2005, I represented first the USSR and then Russia as the world chess champion. After I left the sport, I joined the pro-democracy movement in my country, motivated by the disturbing course change away from freedom that Russia was undergoing under President Vladimir Putin. I could not accept that my own children would grow up in a totalitarian state as I had. And to those who have suggested that I should leave Russia for my family’s convenience and safety, I say that it is my country, one I proudly represented around the world for decades, and so let the KGB leave, not me.

My current roles are chairman of the United Civil Front, a pro-democracy group, and co-chair of the Russian Solidarity Movement, an umbrella organization for those people and parties opposed to the one man, one party rule of Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. One of my first activities was the organization of the Other Russia Conference Moscow in 2006, the first serious attempts to unite the opposition to Putin’s crackdown on democratic institutions and individual rights. The Conference also attracted a wide range of supporters abroad, here including Senator John McCain, Secretary Madeleine Albright, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and your former chairman, my friend Tom Lantos, whose passion for human rights never failed to inspire.

More recently, I traveled across almost all of Russia to talk to and listen to my countrymen, which is the only way for most Russians to hear from a critic of the Putin regime, since we are banned from the mass media. My colleagues and I are dedicated to bringing individual freedom and the rule of law to Russia, and we know very well by now that this cannot happen as long as Putin is in power. We protest in the streets, we provide legal defense for those who are punished for standing up to the regime, and we try to let Russians know that they are not helpless and that they are not alone.

When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, we on the other side of the Wall felt far more hope than you can imagine. Yes, there was fear and confusion as well, but thanks to the courage of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and others who followed them, hundreds of millions of people had the opportunity to grasp the freedom that the western world takes for granted. It was a great moment in world history and those leaders who did not forget about us will in turn never be forgotten by us.

For those who do not follow events in Russia, that is often where the story ends. Communism was proved bankrupt, the Cold War ended, and Russia joined the free world. Unfortunately, that last item on the agenda was never quite completed. Russia under Boris Yeltsin quickly acquired many of the mechanisms of democracy and freedom, but the values and traditions that support them never had a chance to put down roots. Economic chaos, rampant corruption, and widespread violence left many Russians with the impression that these were the fruits of democracy. When former KGB lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Putin took control of the country in 2000, he and his cronies were very quick to exploit that impression, just as the Communists had done in the previous election against Yeltsin.

By the way, I refer to Russia’s state security apparatus as the KGB for the expediency of this more widely recognized acronym. Its name has been changed many times over the decades, but calling it the FSB, its current name, does not change its nature. I admit that I had some hopes that the rampant corruption of the last Yeltsin years would be reined in by this unknown but efficient KGB man Putin. I could have never imagined that in just a few years, a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, forefather of the KGB, that had been torn down by jubilant crowds over a decade earlier, would soon find its way back to the plaza, both figuratively and literally.

The new regime quickly began the process of dismantling the fragile new institutions of honest elections and a free media. Rivals and dissenters were purged from the political and business realms, power was tightly centralized in the executive, and the flow of federal money from the wealthy center to the rest of the country was reversed, creating what most resembles a feudal oligarchy. The Putin regime also contains elements of Mussolini’s corporate fascism, with giant private monopolies working together with the state. It’s really a combination of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The expenses are nationalized while profits are privatized.

One of the most common, and most ignorant, commentaries we of the opposition hear about the situation in Russia today is that we should be grateful, because things are better now than they were in the USSR. This is damning with very faint praise! Why go back to the 1970s to make comparisons? What about 1991? Or 1998? We had many problems then, yes, but we also had far more liberty and the potential to stay on a course to join the free world. Putin took that from us. We are also often told that Russians want a strong hand, a Tsar, and do not really want democracy. I reject completely this notion of a mysterious genetic tendency. Consider China and Taiwan, East and West Germany, and the two Koreas.

Putin’s economic miracle is another common myth. If you look at the numbers, the real economy was ready to boom in 2000 even with oil prices in the teens. Russia was recovering from the 1998 default and market reforms were taking effect despite the high corruption level. And yet now, even with oil back near $100, the outlook is still poor. The country is falling apart as the oligarchs steal the money faster than it can be pumped out of the ground. We are quickly becoming a resource-dependent petro-dictatorship. Putin and his gang are not Communists, or nationalists, or anything else. There is no ideology, only power and money.

But we have elections, yes, we do have elections. We go through the motions of voting and put on a show of campaigning and counting, all as if it really mattered – even though we all know it is all only for show. Putin is so secure in his power he did even bother changing the constitution to take another term. He simply put his shadow, Medvedev, in his chair temporarily, and continued business as usual. America and the rest of the free world prefer to go along with the charade, to allow Russia a place in the G-8 as if Russia were a real democracy. To those who say that Putin is popular, and that fake elections and suppression of dissent are irrelevant, I ask them, “how do you know?” Would you trust opinion polls in a police state? If he is so popular, why jail opposition activists, why blacklist so many rivals and so many topics from the media?

As for Medvedev, he is bait for a trap. For more than three years now, first as Putin’s hand-picked “candidate” and now as president, he has been making statements that give credulous Russians and willingly duped foreign officials false hope that he will lead a liberalization movement against Putin. But how can a man be in conflict with his shadow? For all his talk, Medvedev has done nothing to ease the oppression while doing much to make it worse. Laws have been passed that broadly define opposition members as extremists, even terrorists, and the list of political prisoners continues to grow longer. In theory, Dmitri Medvedev can create the Medvedev Era with one stroke of his pen, by signing an order to relieve Vladimir Putin from his post as prime minister. But as the popular joke in Russia goes, “There are two parties in Russia today. The Putin party and the Medvedev party. The problem is Medvedev doesn’t know which one he belongs to.”

A cynic may ask, “why does it matter to us if Russians do not have freedom of speech? We have enough problems now, why take a stand?” For decades, America led the fight to contain the spread of Communism. Not only because it threatened American interests, but because every president understood that being America meant standing up for American ideals worldwide. The USSR was not just a threat, it was, in Reagan’s typically blunt term, the evil empire, to be resisted on moral grounds. Its people were victims to be aided, not enemies to be destroyed.

When the wall fell, the free world celebrated and in so doing, let down its guard. Just as all the professional analysts were surprised by the collapse of the USSR, it seems today few are willing to admit Russia has slipped back into darkness. This is a terrible mistake, as the spread of the corruption of Putin’s corporate state is a serious threat to freedom worldwide. It only imitates capitalism, while in reality it is a state-run machine for looting national resources in Russia and the shareholders of companies abroad. Corruption, not oil or gas, has become Russia’s biggest export. The western appeasement crowd that keeps calling for engagement that will eventually transform Russia cannot see that it is the West, not Russia, that is being transformed by this contact.

Drawn by the lure of big profits, western presidents, prime ministers, and corporations have lined up to sacrifice their professed ideals in order to do business completely on the Kremlin’s terms. Transparency International ranks Russia as 154th of the 178 nations on their corruption index. On their list of the world’s twenty-two largest exporting nations, Russia scores by far the worst in evaluating its corporations’ readiness to pay bribes while doing business abroad. After over a decade of Putin and increasing economic engagement with the rest of the world, Russia’s rankings have gotten worse, not better. The neighboring nations most closely allied with Putin’s government have also dropped steadily in the corruption rankings. The problem inside Russia has become epidemic. According to estimates made by the leading Russian expert in corruption, Georgyi Satarov, the overall amount of bribes in the Russian economy skyrocketed from $33 billion to more than $400 billion per year during Putin’s rule.

Putin is also not above the old-fashioned use of force, as he demonstrated by invading neighboring Georgia and annexing its sovereign territory. Which, by the way, is still occupied by military force and where Putin continues to make threats. Kremlin provocations inside Georgia continue via a series of terrorist bombings that have been strongly linked to Russian intelligence officers operating from the annexed territory of Abkhazia. An official list of these state-sponsored terror attacks issued by the Georgian government is attached to my submitted testimony. The Kremlin has had no qualms blackmailing its neighbors and Europe over natural gas, at one point cutting supplies and causing shortages to half of the European Union during winter. Always looking for new sources of cash, the Kremlin continues to supply military and nuclear technology to belligerent states like Iran, Syria, and Venezuela. It is often said that the US needs Russia’s help in various regions, but it has been clear many times that the Kremlin’s only interest is self interest. Putin is delighted to help the United States stay stuck in Afghanistan and to stir up conflict in the region, as any incident drives up the price of oil, the money from which keeps the oligarchs in power.

Assuming there is the will to take action, what then is the way? Jackson-Vanik is an antique piece of legislation, but it is a potent symbol of the value America places on human rights and repealing it without replacing it with sends a terrible message. In this regard, the Senate Bill S1039 is superior to the House effort. The common refrain is that there is no leverage with the Kremlin, no power hard or soft that can loosen Putin’s grip on the levers of power or influence him to lifting some of the pressure on our rights. The principle refutation of this line exists because Russia today is not the Soviet Union. Putin’s closest allies, those who keep him in power, are not faceless gray Politburo members who aspire to nothing more than a nice house or car. Putin’s oligarchs own global companies, buy real estate in London, Biarritz, New York City. The money they have pilfered from Russia’s treasury goes to buy art, yachts, and American and British sports teams. In short, they wish to enjoy the spoils and this makes them vulnerable. Putin needs the West’s support because that is where they all keep their money.

They are vulnerable to limitations on banking, acquisitions and travel, leading to what I call the “Do not Fly, Do not Buy List.” Even the suggestion that their investments abroad might be investigated would cause shockwaves in the Kremlin power structure. So many of their assets come from shady deals and looted properties that if the West ceases to rubber-stamp their money-laundering operations they will cease to treat Putin as the all-powerful guarantor of their wealth. As the famous Washington saying goes, follow the money and you will get results.

This treatment of denying visas and investigating investments must not be reserved for Putin’s wealthy supporters. The entire Kremlin power structure, especially the judiciary, is made up of loyalists with no regard for the rule of law. Those who violate their oaths and betray the laws they should be upholding should not be granted immunity by the civilized world. The police and prosecutors who fabricate evidence, the judges who rubber-stamp the convictions, the officials who rig the elections, they can and must be held accountable. They are following orders from above, yes, but just because they will not pay for their crimes in Russia does not mean they should be treated as decent citizens when they leave the protection of the KGB police state. Senate Bill S1039 is a step in the right direction to achieve this. Unlike the House bill, which is directed only at those involved in the Magnitsky case, the Senate bill has a broad mandate to sanction those who violate democratic and human rights in Russia. Putin’s supporters and followers will know immediately that the free ride is over and that, at any time, they may be held responsible for their actions.

The creation of a new police state in Russia is not an anonymous, blameless crime. I have included with my submitted testimony lists we have compiled of the officials involved in numerous grave violations of Russian law and Russia’s international commitments. There are many precedents for taking action against such individuals. The members and leaders of the Cosa Nostra, the Italian mafia, were above the law in their native Sicily. But many were refused entry to the United States due to their criminal connections. Those who whitewash the murders of journalists and opposition members and those who carry out the repression of Putin’s Russia should be treated with equal scorn by the civilized world. These are not warlords or soldiers, they are bureaucrats who side with power because they want the easy life. If their lives become less easy, you will be surprised at how quickly things can turn.

The final argument is that Russia is too strong, that its oil and gas reserves make the Kremlin too powerful and influential to resist. This is similar to the theory that the US cannot stand up to China on Tibet or anything else because China holds so much American debt. But the Chinese are not fools. They know that the day after America defaults, the Chinese economy would explode to the moon. It’s economic mutually assured destruction, and the same principle is in effect with Russian resources. Russia cannot cease selling oil and gas to the West, despite the occasional threat. The pipelines are in place, the contracts are written, and the entire Kremlin oligarchy depends on the high profit margins to stay in power. Without the cash surplus that comes with $100 per barrel oil, the hollow state of the Russian economy would quickly be revealed.

Lastly, I would like to call attention the large sums of American money that go to Russian NGOs, roughly $70 million in the last year according to USAID’s website. The details about exactly where and to whom this money goes are still impossible to find. Because of the way business is done in Putin’s Russia, however, it is safe to assume that much, or even most, of the money goes to government officials and other middlemen. It has been remarkably difficult to uncover any information about these payments.

Publicly disclosing all these payments will also refute the Putin regime’s persistent argument that we of the democratic opposition are funded by the CIA or other so-called foreign provocateurs. Do not forget that the US is routinely portrayed as threat, not an ally, by the state-controlled media inside Russia.

I look forward to the day when a strong, independent, and economically and culturally vibrant Russia takes its place among the leading nations of the world as an equal partner. This can only happen when our people are free to choose their leaders and free to achieve their dreams. Our problems are for us to solve; we do not beg for help. What we ask is that America and the other leading nations of the free world live up to their own traditions and rhetoric. End the hypocrisy of treating Putin’s regime like a democratic ally. Stop treating the oligarchs who plunder our nation like legitimate businessmen. Stop allowing the agents of a police state to travel without restrictions or shame.

When I was growing up in the Soviet Union, in Baku, Azerbaijan, we were told America was the enemy. But most of us understood that there must be something good there if the government was so keen on keeping it from us. Generations of American leaders faced down nuclear annihilation to fight for the rights of those behind the Iron Curtain. Surely the threat of Putin’s Russia is nothing in comparison. From the Marshall Plan to Jackson-Vanik, the United States has listened, spoken, and acted. There is no longer a wall that needs to be torn down, but courage is still necessary to protect our most sacred values. I thank you again for inviting me here today and I wish you all the courage to act.

Question and Answer Session

Following the talk, Kasparov answered a variety of questions on Russia’s political horizons, the activities of and dangers facing the opposition today, the New START treaty, Ukrainian political disputes, and other issues. He argued that Russia is unlikely to see an Orange Revolution-style turn of events since the country lacks factors that allowed it to happen elsewhere: a legitimate opposition, a solid 20-25% of parliamentary seats, some free media, and the unwillingness of the regime to use force and spill blood. More likely, Kasparov went on, would be something akin to the events on Egypt’s Tahrir Square.

When asked about his opposition activities, Kasparov asserted that the reality of political repression in Russia severely stifles what any organization can actually do. Opposition politicians are effectively banned from television and people who might want to join a protest see demonstrators beaten in the streets and choose to stay home instead. Moreover, the fact that opposition groups are banned from elections in any case hinders any progressive political activity. Outreach work does go on, Kasparov said, and the internet remains a viable tool for organizing political dissent among Russian citizens.

Still, while political repression in Russia is not on the same scale as it was in Soviet times, the ruling regime exerts enough pressure on dissenters as to choke off what could otherwise be a much larger movement. “We don’t have the same kind of massive repressions as fifty years ago, but if you are part of the political opposition, you can lose your job, you can get kicked out of your university, you definitely will spend at least a few days in jail, you can be beaten up, and you are under constant pressure,” Kasparov said. “So as we speak, you know, I’m sure in many small cities in Russia, maybe even Moscow, people are being interrogated, harassed – it’s a constant pressure.”