Being prepare so there will be one narrative of history, know that the british, the french, the americans, the chinese, fought against the nazis nazis and the japanese imperialism in world war ii, and you have people who are part of the establishment, like andre, the political scientist who was planted in new york as a representative of the institute for democracy and Something Else, the russian government funded operation, says, oh, but hitler was good until 1939. Until 1939, that included the nuremberg laws, the austria, czechoslovakia, and the so, you have the grandson of your colleague saying, oh, the aryan slavic tribes the narrative is becoming more and more racist, nazilike, justifying even hitler, which is inconceivable in this myth of fighting german fascism. Whats going on with that . The people whom you mentioned, they can justify whatever they have been told to justify. Who is telling them to justify that . I think we know their instinct. They just want to please the chief, and they actually when the chief says, youre going too much, please relax. This is like alexander proponov saying how wonderful stalin. Thats his position all the time, wellknown imperialist and trying to portray stalin as a he would not be doing that if he did not expect a pat on the back or maybe a spot on national television, maybe some advisory position a different story because he was doing this this is the in soviet times, now, his position is firm, dedicated to this idea, and he never switch sides and when he was in the opposition he was fighting in the Russian White house when it was shot with the tanks. In 19 3. In 1993 by yeltsin. So its now putins position, who matches the position that proupon november. What worries me is that sympathy, even with caveats toward the third russia is something that was inconceivable in russia until maybe three or five years ago, only people like alexander duggan, and other kremlin ideologists who articulating the idea of eurasian empire where in the 1980s, members of secret pronazi societies, secret orders that had ss background. So, are you concerned that the sympathy towards naziism is penetrating from the very margins of the russian political life, the russian march, where people were raising their arms in nazi absolute, to establishment figures like mr. Nikonev and mr. Let me explain here. I really do believe, and im very much concerned, about the fascist threat in russia, and that would seem as a long period of time, and even without all those public speeches, just by talking to your constituents back in rural areas and remote areas of russia, you would see that this National Dignitary which has been opposed during 20 years, plus economic associated with the west, and particularly with the actions of the United States in Building Democracy in russia and Privatization Campaign and whatever through prop banda propaganda or you think mistakes were made. Mistakes that were made because the way how was carried out privatization was actually programmed that is that those oligarchs exist and their position is highly more competitive than the position of real entrepreneurs, grassroots entrepreneurstheres very well involved Natural Resources. That all went from the privatization and privatization was carried out with a political rational behind. That was admitted many times that mostly live in boston. But the political intention was, as they said at the time i was part of those debates was to break at the back of the communist establishment and move on to a whole new elite. If you compare you know, russian proverb, with good intentions you go to hell. Its an american saying, very good. But. But coming back to the issue of fascism. If you look those guerrilla fighters active in the Eastern Ukraine pro russian. Yes, which are seen as military arm of putins administration, if you just come another their pains on the social network yo would you see the groups theyre part of. Russia without putin, russia 2. 0, they all are opposition groups, and they nationalist they are nationalists but against putin. Just that also had people from Russian National unity he is against putin. Duggan was always opposition to putin. Now he is not. Now he is not but thats not because they have changed theirs positions. Its because putin has changed its position. It was putin started to match expectations of those that is they dont want putin at the top of the government. They want they want already getting up there. One last question before we open for discussion. You had a fascinating presentation. Im sure there are lot of questions here and theres also cameras and people can send questions for through the internet. If there is a political change always a political change when there is a political change, a lot of people thing that in this town, some of them Russian Democratic immigrants think it will just be a beautiful, liberal democracy in russia, and all the evil will be punished and they will be the charge. Ill tell you the name of the person im quoting after this. And theyre saying, next year, next year, next year were going to have a change. In your estimate, ifwhen theres a change, just may take longer than we think. But when theres change, is it violent . Is it peaceful . Is it College Revolution like mr. Putin is afraid, or Something Else . And what are the powers that are capable of not just overthrowing the regime children we saw the tragic results in the october 1917 what are the powers that can really build russia that you wish, the russia that is open to the world, that attracts investment, that fosters innovation, and that has entrepreneurs and other people have freedom in such russia . I would start from the second part of your question. My russia is russia entrepreneurship. My russia is russia of personal initiative. My russia is a russia with a weak government and very strong grassroots selfgoverning institutions, with networks of communities, of my russia is the russia of intellect, open, and part of the Global Christian civilization and i do believe in, like global union, former christian nations of russia, europe, and the United States. Sound like tea party. You see in russia there is such a concept of it was initially referred as first rome is the rome, the second romees biz san teen, best san teen and the third is moscow. It should be as europe, u. S. , and russia. But this is like a long store. You asked technology include how changes occur. The liberal idea is extremely unpopular because it is associated with and with the corruption and i dont expect that in any circumstances, when the changes would occur, that the liberals, if it would be a fair process, would be able to come to power. But without the participation in the changes because the revolution happening in the capital and russian capital moscow is relatively pro liberal, so without their participation, the changes would not be possible because you cannot win moscow without participation of liberals. But if they are in charge, the rest of the regions would not fall. And we would see more violence scenario than in ukraine, most likely well see splits in the country and geographic splits. Yes, many regions and way more violent and disruptive than what is happened in ukraine. The coalition might work as the cools between liftists and liberals, and as the coalition between nationalists and liberals. So far, our liberals, despite the rhetoric that they are they are leaning more towards alliance with nations,. Because they believe that nations dont have solid economic agenda and they do believe that in case of such coalition it would be somebody like novalny as the political power and then there would be a new liberal people like prokorov as the top of the government. For the sake of the audience, economic liberal in russia, meaning new liberal jurick not socialist or social democrat u. S. Style, leftwick of Democratic Party for example. Thats not that kind of liberalism. No. In the u. S. Terms its more like neoconservative. And of course my position and what im trying to achieve and by the way the coalition between liberals and nations happens in ukraine and thats why you see what is going on there. Absolutely. My position is to achieve the coalition it will let and the liberals. That isolates nationists. Isolates nationists and thats what im trying to do as much as i can, and by the way, even kremlin thinks it would be safer for them if it simply would be a coalition with nations. Thats why they put to jail all my comradeses from the left front, and my fourth year aides as member of parliament, are under prosecution. And ten are either in jail already or up for political asylum in other countries. What about yourself . Is there a personal threat to you . Being an mpi im immune, but theyre now trying revoke my status, and over such a law which is personally targeting myself, and day before yesterday as i was flying in the airplane, mr. Muronov, the leader of my former party, was meeting mr. Putin about his permanent personal sanction to put this law into force. As i said in the grinning youre taking tremendous political risks. We respect them, re admire your principle stance on a number of these issues and at this point we have 11 minutes for q a. Maybe ill extend it a little bit. When you are asking a question, please introduce yourself and keep it to a question and please keep it short so other people can ask questions. Who would like to start . My name is kahan what for the mic. Your affiliation. I am from interning the summer here in washington, dc, and my question is, as you know, we know that the west did some sanctions on russia but still recently russia signed a very big oil deal with china gas. Gas deal with china and certain my Many Political economists are saying this is the dollar the petro dollar in particular. Do you think the sanction can still sustain itself given that it has a large natural gas and narl oil base and do you think that using this oil, having using this natural gas stockpile do you think can they challenge hegemony and sanctions. In the 1990s we have a thing in russia about the u. S. Youch pretends youre helping us, we pretend were doing reforms. So you pretend youre sanctioning us, we pretend were afraid. Not all sanctions. Those are sanctions against very narrow circle of people, most of them dont care about them at all. And with even taking their sanctions that has been taken, sanctions about certain personalities, it would be at least meaningful if they would be targeted not to the very people but to the middle layer of management to disrupt that loyalty, and they actually Russian Parliament even voted putin wanted to tie everybody, and the Russian Parliament voted asking for the sanctions to be imposed on the members of Russian Parliament but this never happened. And i actually think that the sanctions generally are not productive. What is productive is to enforce your own legislation against Money Laundering because what is happening is that people are stealing from Russian Federal budget and then moving these capital into invest enemy in western economies, mainly in european, but in u. S. Also. So, to enforce that part of legislation againstman laundering, against corruption, that would be very helpful and i was asking many times to put a special prosecutor in europe, special prosecutor in u. S. , maybe not exceptionally against russia but generally post soviet states. Corruption is an issue for all of them. For kazakhstan, ukraine, belarus, everybody. All emerging markets, not just russia or even europe. I agree but for a many emerging markets, doesnt perceive them is a part of the world as in russia. And if you are genuine in trying to help us create a democracy in the country, none of these type of help would be appreciated because thats not a doing harm to russian people, from the west dont make west seem as our enemy, but vice versa, it is positioning the life of our prosecutors. Search tor for the soldier money inch regards to in regard to it was very much advertised. I think that the price that was negotiated is a good price. And as much as the china buys, but the issue is that theyre buying gas from the eastern parts of the country which are infrastructurally disconnected from the western, siberian and central russia. So, that means that you cannot redistribute the production which goes now to europe and direct that to china. Its totally new gas fuels which are being developed in that part of the country, and thats good were developing them with jobs, taxes, you know, customs, its okay. The question is, what we are supposed to do with those while working for the western . And i think how we behaved in ukraine, it would result that it would be a political issue for europe to become independent from russian Natural Resources. During soviet union times, soviet union was an extremely reliable supplier of energy resources, and we never used that as a weapon, as a political tool. Right now we are doing that every single year. And the result is that well just lose the market, and that is very bad and that will result in many losses for russian economy. Thank you. If you want to read more on that i have a blog in the wall street journal on this particular issue. Youre welcome to google China Pipeline russia china gas deal and look it up. I am at bit more pessimistic about it. The price may be a good price today, taking into account dollar inflation we dont know the conditions and the chinese paying for the infrastructure, so the price is also theyre giving a longterm loan to build the pipeline. But its complicated and im not sure that because the terrain is so rick im not sure it will be a good price actually. Yes, please. I work with representative sessions, and if i understood you correctly part of the problem with the stuck tour of the russian government is the strong personality in the place of the president being putin right now. I also believe that he has a lot of support from the russian people currently. So what needs to happen for the russian people to see that either the constitution needs to be changed so that the president doesnt have that much power, or someone weaker is put in his place . Indeed, president putin has a lot of Popular Support, enjoys the highest Approval Rating during his whole 15 years in power, but the nature of the regime is very well described by karl marx in his book about the regime in france, 18th 18th premiere of Louis Bonapart and i highly encourage anybody who wants to understand russia to read that book. And the issue with the bon apart that was that half a year before the collapse and the revolution he enjoyed 70 of Popular Support and then started prussia campaign which was very unsuccessful for french, and then the revolution happened and he was forced to leave the country and go to your talking about the war of 1870 where france was destroyed. Yes. And that exactly the same situation. Thats why die believe that the issue of ukraine might turn out to be proshould campaign for president putin. Next question. You mentioned the russian militants fighting in Eastern Ukraine, and some i knows people in russia are suggesting that if or when they are ousted from ukraine, that the guerrilla war theyre starring to instigate there will move into russia. I agree but wouldnt use the wordspread in russia. They would good directly to moscow. And im all the time writing in all my public articles and saying in public that we are criticizing ukraine for nationalism, but number of nationalists in moscow even percentagewise, is more than in kiev. I dont know ten times, 100 times. So, you know, its not even two or three times. And then we will receive several thousands of wellarmed, experienced, and dedicated fighters which are coming back from the eastern parts of ukraine and whatever the outcome would be, whether russia would have to enter that part of Ukraine Military i mean use military force there they would be encouraged and be seen at victors and will come to moscow and dictate what we think is needed to be done, or russia would not intervene and then they would see putin as a traitor and come to moscow and start to dictate their position. And a lot of my friends from the new labral front of russian opposition dont really believe that is a big threat because for them, biggest enemy is mr. Putin. So, i very much afraid that they would see this as a most capable force which can remove mr. Putin , and we have a very great book in russia, wrote in 1960s by our a Science Fiction book, and they wrote that after a period of immediate counticracy always comes a period of fast fascism. Its hard to be a god. Okay,. Okay, burning question. Okay, forgive me if you already answered this question. Introduce yourself. Im justin reilly, an intern in washington, dc for the summer. I just like to ask, other than protecting russian citizens in ukraine and also abolishing fascist ideals in ukraine what other interests russia has in ukraine in restoring a legitimate government to the country. Thank you very much for that question. Mentioned that its for the minority of russian population we are protecting russians there. It was initial rhetoric. Specifically for crimea, because crimea is predominantly russian, but donetsk, theyre not that much russian, theyre half and half, and the more to the west of ukraine the less the russians are there, and even hard to pretend they second leg that was such a big deal to replace them. Thirdly that even the application of force with the snipers and whatever was happening in kiev does not stop the rebellious people by removing corrupt from their offices. This of course has to be overshadowed by some very bright groups from the russian government. That is why think the invasion of crimea was a very short living decision. It was taken immediately after what happened. It was not planned beforehand. It was pretty on the spot and with the eastern parts of ukraine i think putin is interested in instability in the ukraine because that would make Ukrainian Government either to resign and prove that h