Anatoly Wasserman: 'Navalny has reached the limit of political usefulness, but he is good for a sacred sacrifice'

“A lot of unexpected things are happening, and the president wants to reflect this in his message”

Mr Wasserman, are you going to run for the State Duma?

If nothing unexpected happens, I probably will. But it's still a long time hence — about three months, and a lot of things can happen in that time.

Do you think that the union of Prilepin's For Truth and Semigin's Patriots of Russia with A Just Russia is a strengthening of the old parliamentary party, or vice versa, a dilution of the electorate?

I believe this is a strengthening, because all three united parties have similar views, a similar programme. As long as these parties were divided, it turned out that they were pulling out almost the same electorate from each other.

But there is already an active internal party struggle going.

The internal party struggle of leaders is a problem of leaders themselves. The main thing is that the programme of the parties is quite similar and it is possible and necessary to develop a single programme on this basis.

In your opinion, how much will the next composition of the parliament change?

You can never accurately predict, and I generally try not to predict the results of what I participate in.

Not to mention anything else, the president's message should be delivered before the parties begin to formulate their election platforms, so that they can express their attitude to the message in them

Many people are waiting for President Putin's message to the Federal Assembly, hoping for some new initiatives from the authorities, but it is constantly being postponed (before the publication of the interview, the possible date of the message became known — April 22). What do you think, why, and whether there will be something really important?

The message is postponed, obviously, because events change very quickly. Well, who could expect a “war of vaccines” a couple of months ago not only from the West against us, but also within the West. But it is where this is going. In particular, the fact that Johnson & Johnson has completed the development of its own vaccine and is now clearing the place for it in the market plays a significant role in the attacks on AstraZeneca. A lot of unexpected things are happening, and accordingly, the president, of course, wants to reflect in the message not only these events themselves, but also his position on these and many other similar things.

But I think he won't put it off indefinitely. Not to mention anything else, the president's message should be delivered before the parties begin to formulate their election platforms, so that they can express their attitude to the message in them. Well, for example, I have no doubt that the People's Freedom Party (PARNAS) will include in its election programme a complete denial of all the key points of the presidential address. It is clear why — it is quite difficult to find people who would be more separate from the people and people's freedom than the leaders of PARNAS. For example, United Russia, most likely, will include almost all the key provisions of the message in its election programme.

I think that the message will appear somewhere within a month, it is no longer possible to postpone further, because it is necessary to launch pre-election events.

The goal is quite obvious — to ensure that a significant part of the leadership of the Russian Federation is afraid of the upcoming next sanctions

“They want to write off Biden not only for the crimes that have already been committed, but also for those that are being prepared”

What is your reaction to the “exchange of pleasantries” between Presidents Biden and Putin? It seems that never in the history of public policy has there been such a thing as a leader of a superpower calling another leader of a power “a murderer”.

It is quite clear that this is not an accidental slip-up by Biden. If it was a slip-up — it would have been cut out: the interview was recorded, not live. Therefore, this is a coordinated programme of the entire leadership of the Democratic Party. The goal is quite obvious — to ensure that a significant part of the leadership of the Russian Federation is afraid of the upcoming next sanctions. It is clear that by declaring the president a hired killer (a killer is not every killer, but a hired one), the Democratic Party made it clear that it is ready to commit any crimes aimed at our country. Fortunately, the Anglo-Saxons have already shown that they treat Russians, even those who join their side, exclusively as cannon fodder or dinner meat. Therefore, it is very unlikely that any significant part of the country's top leadership will want to defect to their side.

Was Putin's response worthy?

The answer was very elegant. On the one hand, this seems to be a good wish, but on the other hand, it is a hint of Biden's well-known madness. Madness in a purely clinical sense: Alzheimer's disease is, to put it mildly, not a joy. By the way, Reagan fell ill with Alzheimer's after leaving office and managed to address the nation with a very touching statement that this misfortune developed in him, that it was clear that he would soon not be able to consciously communicate with people, while he could — he thanked for for everything that they all did together when he was president.

Unfortunately, those who appointed Biden president, of course, will not allow him to say this. Why do I say “those who appointed”? Because it is obvious that the results of the vote were blatantly rigged in those cities and states where the Democratic Party led. When the activists of the Democratic Party do not allow Republican activists closer than 5 or even 10 metres to the tables where the ballots were being counted, when the activists of the Democratic Party generally expel the activists of the Republican Party from the polling stations and curtain the windows so that it was not visible how the counting was going, it is clear that it is rigged. Biden can't be called a president-elect — only an appointee. So, those who appointed Biden as president will not allow him to admit that he is no longer in his right mind and not in a firm memory simply because it is necessary to write off not only the crimes already committed, but also many of the upcoming ones.

So our president has gracefully shown that Biden's words cannot be taken seriously. But again, these are not the words of Biden personally, this is a coordinated position of the entire leadership of the US Democratic Party.

It is better to let Navalny be declared poisoned abroad than to send someone who can really kill him to the ambulance hospital. This can be expected from these figures

“It is safe for Navalny in the zone”

How do you see the fate of Navalny — he will be jailed until the end of the term?

I really hope that he will not try to seek parole, because he is safe in the zone. But outside the zone, the technology of sacred sacrifice was developed many centuries ago — this is when they kill their own people to blame the enemy. For example, the famous “Heavenly Hundred Heroes” in Kiev on February 18, 2014, was shot from buildings occupied by militants of several Nazi and anti-state organisations. Funnily enough, after winning, they cut down the trees where the bullets hit, so that it was impossible to prove their guilt on these trees. But they forgot that the shooting was shown in a live broadcast and the traces of the bullets recorded by this broadcast clearly show where the shooting was coming from. This is, of course, a very funny attempt to cover your tracks, but an attempt by unsuitable means.

Or another example — when Boris Nemtsov was killed, in fact, just to move the traditional opposition march from the outskirts of Moscow to the centre. Back in early 2012, I pointed out that of all the opposition activists of that time, Nemtsov was the most suitable for the role of a sacred victim. So when he was killed, a lot of people rushed to me for comments: how could you predict this? I replied that my article clearly stated why he was suitable for this role.

So, Navalny has reached the limit of his political usefulness, the mass riots he organises involve almost exclusively not just the half-witted, but minors, and these riots no longer cause anything but laughter. But he is still suitable as a sacred sacrifice. What do you think, for nothing so easily they allowed to take him to Berlin for treatment? No, it was generally clear that they would announce that he had been poisoned, although it was unexpected that they named Novichok, invented, by the way, by the writers of a British spy television series six months before the Skripal case.

It is better Navalny to be declared poisoned abroad than to send someone who can really kill him to the ambulance hospital. This can be expected from these figures. Therefore, I hope that Navalny will serve out his entire term, and during this time the situation in the Russian alleged opposition will change so much that it will no longer make sense for it to kill him.

The goal of the Russian Federation is to avoid being declared an aggressor. We will, of course, provide various types of support to the People's Republics of Donbass, but behind the scenes, without advertising it

Why do you say “alleged opposition”?

Because the opposition is primarily a position. The meaning of the opposition is to choose positions that are different from the position of the government and from these positions to propose a programme that is different from the programme of the government. If the whole programme is reduced to the formula, as it was said in the KVN of perestroika times, “Party, let me steer” (this was a hint to the song “The Party is our helmsman”), then this, sorry, is not a position, and therefore not the opposition. These are just people trying to seize power for themselves, and given that there are many people in this opposition who have already been in power and have already proved their professional incompetence, there is no doubt that these people, having seized power, will steal more and do less than those who are in power now.

“Ukraine's goal is to provoke Russia's intervention in the internal Ukrainian civil conflict”

Now the conflict in the Donbass is escalating, can something serious happen there in the near future?

I've recently had a TV comment on this issue, where I said that the goal of Ukraine is to provoke direct intervention of the Russian Federation in the internal Ukrainian civil conflict and thereby declare it an aggressor. Well, then they can not stand on ceremony with the aggressor: they can directly prohibit the Europeans from using the second stage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. By the way, I think that the name 'Nord Stream 2' is a major mistake of our PR specialists, it is the second stage of the same gas pipeline and there is not the slightest sense to give it a separate name. If this position had been taken from the very beginning, it would have been much more difficult for the Americans to intrigue against this gas pipeline. It will be possible to demand that the countries that are now buying our weapons give up this — how can one buy weapons from an aggressor? You can only buy from the United States of America, which almost every year after the end of the Second World War undertook aggression against someone.

So, the goal of the Russian Federation is to avoid being declared an aggressor. We will, of course, provide various types of support to the People's Republics of Donbass, but behind the scenes, without advertising it. And if we still have to intervene in this conflict, we will only intervene if someone else intervenes on the side of Ukraine. In the meantime, the balance of forces of the Donbass People's Republics and the Kiev anti-people's republic is such that Kiev has very little chance of winning.