- There is one guy in Russia that Vladimir Putin, the president, fears more than anyone else. (indistinct chatter) He wears a lot of different hats. He's a political
activist, he's a YouTuber, he's kind of an internet troll. He's a lover of quality drone footage to help expose corruption, which like, come on, who doesn't love a good drone shot? (upbeat music playing) But his main objective is singular, it's very focused, it's to give the Russian people and all of us around the world, a peek behind the curtain to show how Russia really works. Exposing the web of
bribes, corruption, lies, and powerful men who really
control modern Russia. This important figure who is seeking to dismantle Russia's web of corruption is named Alexei Navalny. And just last week, he was sentenced to three years in jail as well as being nominated
for a Nobel Peace Prize after being secretly
poisoned on an airplane. (airplane whirling) The movement that he has created strikes at the heart of
Vladimir Putin's biggest fears and I wanna show you why. So let me introduce you to
the man Putin fears the most. - [Reporter] Alexei.
- [Reporter] Alexei. - [Reporter] Alexei.
- [Reporter] Alexei. - Russian opposition leader. - [Reporters] Alexei Navalny. (upbeat music) Okay, so let's rewind
to summer of last year. Alexei Navalny is in a
city in Eastern Russia, he's in a hotel room, about to head to the
airport to catch a flight. When he arrived to the airport, other passengers recognize him because he's kind of a big deal in Russia and they snap some photos with him. Then he gets on the flight, the flight takes off, it's a four hour flight from this city of Tomsk to Moscow where he's going. Everything's going normal for the first 30 minutes of this flight, but then Navalny starts to feel weird. A flight attendant offers him a bottle of water and he refuses, but soon this feeling weird
turns into severe pain. (airplane whirling) He runs to the laboratory looking for some reprieve. He's going in and out of consciousness, he may be going into a seizure, his heart is slowing down, his muscles are convulsing and seizing, no one has any idea what's happening. A nurse aboard steps up and
helps keep him conscious while the pilots reroute
for an emergency landing at a nearby city in Russia. The plane lands at the closest airport where medics sprint
onto the runway to help only for the medics to say, and I quote, this is not a case for us, he needs intensive care. Navalny is then rushed to a hospital but what happens inside this hospital is kind of mind blowing. (cameras flashing) When he gets to the hospital, they start running tests on him to see what's going on. But when the doctors come looking for the results of these blood tests, the lab technician hands them a blood test that says that Alexei
Navalny is totally fine, nothing out of the ordinary, maybe a little bit of
irritable bowel issues, but that's not what the doctor has seen. This man looks like he has been poisoned (airplane whirling) but the lab technician
didn't hand over any results that indicate that he was poisoned. Something is up. The doctors go ahead and
go with their instincts and treat him for poisoning because that is the symptoms
that they are seeing. They put them on a ventilator and they put him into a medically
induced coma to recover. Over the next few days, Alexei Navalny is in
the intensive care unit, in a coma, in this hospital. But the hospital starts to fill up, not just with doctors but Russian government officials who start barring people like his wife and his personal doctor
from entering the room. Navalny and his family do not
feel safe in this hospital. It's at this time that a German humanitarian
non-profit organization offers to charter a jet to fly him from this town
in Russia, out of Russia to be treated in Berlin. (upbeat music) Soon, he's on an airplane to Berlin where he arrives at a hospital and they run all of the
same poison blood tests that they did in Russia, but this time they find
that he was poisoned. This would have come up on the test they did in Russia, but somebody decided not to reveal that to the doctors. - Mr. Navalny remains in an induced coma at a Berlin hospital. - The German doctors are
seeing that the poison that was somehow administered
to Alexei Navalny is some crazy nerve poison that sends the victim
into a state of paralysis and gives nerve damage,
and inducing seizures, and making their heart slow down. It's a poison that was developed by Soviet scientists during the Cold War. (cameras flashing) And they used it to quietly attack people they wanted to get rid of, like spies or double agents. It's called Novichok, and
it is a brutal poison, and it was the poison that
was used on Alexei Navalny. - Tonight this incredible story, the most prominent
Russian opposition leader is in a coma on a ventilator. - Now there's a lot of
ways to poison someone. You can use ingredients
that anyone has access to. Novichok is something
that is developed and used only by the Russian
Military and Intelligence. In a sense, it's a signature, so Navalny goes back into
a medically induced coma in this hospital in Berlin where doctors are doing
their best to treat him and also investigate what happened. Soon, the world would know
exactly what happened. (recorder screeching) Okay, let's just pause for a second. Well, Alexei Navalny
is in a coma in Berlin because we need to ask
an important question which is, who is this guy, and why on earth is Soviet nerve poison being used against him? (bright upbeat music) For most of his adult life, Alexei Navalny has been
dedicated to one thing, which is a shining light on how Russia really
works behind the scenes. Not this or this, but how it really works. One thing you need to know about Russia is that the whole society, the government, the business structures, everything, is built on a giant
house of cards let's say. It's delicate, it's fragile, but it's the status quo and Putin is at the top. From there you have the
people closest to Putin's, the ones that have his ear, the rich Russian billionaires who control Russia's main industries like oil and gas, mining, telecoms, all the richest guys in Russia. These guys do favors for Putin and Putin does favors for
them in the political sphere. They scratch each other's back, and in doing so, they maintain control over everything that gets done in Russia. And this model repeats itself as it trickles down to
regional governments and then to town and city governments who all operate in the same manner, keeping the society stable through a culture of bribery,
secrecy, and intimidation. And it all happens in the name of keeping Putin secure in his position so that he can in turn keep his rich friends happy. The reason why Putin fears Alexei Navalny is because Navalny wants all Russians to see exactly how this works, to shine a light on it which could easily turn the
people against the system, to knock down this house of cards from the ground up, to stop putting up with a government that works for the rich corporate owners and not for the people. And if this happens, it's Vladimir Putin who has the longest hardest fall. Okay, but here's the
juiciest part of the story, and the part that got me
into this and that I love, which is that the tactics Navalny uses to do this shine a light
on the system thing, there's no better way to
describe it than saying, he's full on trolling Vladimir
Putin and his friends. (Alexei speaking Russian) He does this in a lot of ways, but what I love the most
are his well-produced internet explainer documentaries. (Alexei speaking Russian) He makes these long videos exposing the indulgent corruption of Russian billionaires who control the country. And he uses these visual
investigation techniques that are really stunning to
look at and really convincing. But there's also a good amount of snarky, poking fun in
every one of his videos like this deep dive into the corruption of
this Russian politician that starts with this goofy iPhone video of him awkwardly dancing at
like a wedding or something. (man speaking Russian) But it's not just all poking fun, these videos then go very deep and they reveal really useful
and compelling evidence that shows just how bad this situation is, just how in bed the government is with these rich billionaires, but always peppered with
a good amount of this. (upbeat music) He's like a viral internet sensation meets like, hardcore, journalists,
activists, video vlogger guy, he's just an interesting character, so what is Navalny? He's kind of a politician,
but he's more than that. His specific policy agenda has more, and it's honestly like not that noble, like he totally supported
the annexation of Crimea which is like totally off limits and a terrible thing that happened. And his electability as a
leader, isn't very likely but that's not really at
the heart of his mission. His mission isn't about being elected, it's about dismantling the current system, not to convince people to vote for him, but simply get people
to vote against Putin and the status quo. And here's why this scares the (beep) out of Vladimir Putin. Back to our house of cards, even though Putin is at
the top of this pyramid, it doesn't mean he's all powerful. He's not like a standard
totalitarian dictator who just has everyone under his thumb. He's only powerful because
he's in the good graces of all these super rich guys that own the massive companies of gas, telecoms, mining the
natural resources in Russia. If these guys turn on him, he's over. Putin, while powerful is simply one cog in the machine of keeping
these guys powerful and immune from laws and regulation. Putin isn't afraid that all these YouTube
videos are going to create legal issues for Putin and his friends, the courts in Russia
are just as influenced by this culture of
bribery and intimidation as everything else, he's not afraid of that. Instead, he's afraid that
the people might realize that their government is controlled by a bunch of billionaires and start demanding that
Russia be more transparent. (slow music playing) Some accountability for these rich dudes and the leaders that support them. And like I said, if that happens, these billionaires might be able to slip into the shadows and run away to some other country. But Putin will be the
public face of the person who's kept this arrangement together, he will be enemy number one, his fall will be the greatest that is why he's afraid. In a sense, he's painted
himself into a corner and he's past the point of no return. He must maintain the current system or he will face the wrath of his people. So far, the only person who has actually garnered that wrath is Alexei Navalny. - How corrupt do you think
is Mr. Vladimir Putin? - He's the basement of this corruption, he's personally involved in corruption and he's encouraging our
official for corruption. It's his wave of ruling country. - [Man] Vladimir Putin
made his first visit since Russia annexed Crimea- - Vladimir Putin cast his shadow across the boundary of Europe and Russia. - So Putin goes to greater
and greater lengths to ensure that he remains
popular among his people and show the billionaires that he's still the right guy to keep this system of corruption going. He does this in a few ways. The first way, he keeps popularity among his
people is my favorite, and it looks like this. (upbeat music) He stages these absurd photo ops where he's like surveying the land on a horse with no shirt, or playing hockey with a bunch of literal professional
hockey players from Russia, and he's actually better than all of them, and he scores eight goals in the course of this video, it's amazing. (upbeat music) And people actually buy this, they like to see their
leader like super powerful. And then secondly, he
keeps his people happy by actually leading the
country in ways people like. His approval rating remains quite high. But more and more, as Putin and his house of
cards feels threatened, Putin is resorting to more extreme means to keep this system secure. (man speaking Russian) Okay, so we got the backstory on Russia and Alexei Navalny, let's get back to Berlin, to the hospital, to the ICU where Alexei
Navalny is in a coma. (slow music playing) He finally comes out of this coma, and by then, the world has
looked into the details of him being poisoned on this airplane, and it becomes clear that this is the work of Russian government agents who snuck into his hotel
and laced his underwear with this lethal nerve poison. Alexei Navalny is big master
of trolling and pranking, and he immediately responds to this. Did he download some basic
call spoofing software that any of us could download? And he masks his number as a number coming from an
intelligence secure line, and he calls an intelligence agent who has COVID and is like ditched out in his house at 7:00 in the morning, and he's like delirious, and he goes on to pretend
that he is a leader and the intelligence agency has all this insider information, and he teases out a confession from this intelligence agent that indeed they were the ones behind this poisoning. (man speaking Russian) I'm not gonna play a bunch
of that phone call here but I'm gonna put a
link in the description and you need to go listen to it because it is insane to listen to. So, what's Navalny's next move? He's in Berlin, he almost got killed, he's now having to learn to walk again because the nerve poison
like really f'd him up, what does he do? He decides to do exactly
what he's always done. Instead of cower and stay abroad, he decides to return to Russia to face Putin head-on. Upon his return, he releases a documentary that is his most epic documentary yet, he was working on it
before he got poisoned. This one focuses entirely on Putin and his network of bribes, cronyism, and loads of amazing drone footage of Putin's lavish palace on the Black Sea. In true Navalny fashion, he makes it clear that he's
going to release the film after he returns to Moscow, because in his words, (Alexei speaking Russian) (upbeat music) The documentary becomes
one of the most instantly viral videos ever to appear
on the YouTube platform. It currently has 110 million views. My favorite part of this doc is when Navalny's team goes to
the shores of the Black Sea, they blow up this inflatable boat, and then they get a drone in the air and they fly over this giant palace on the shores of Black Sea. And then they do what I love, which is animation on top of drone footage to help expose a crazy story. They start to pick apart every aspect of this palace to get the original blueprints to show that there's a
hockey rink in the basement, there's a full casino, and all of this for the benefit of the
president of the country. But of course, it's not
owned by the president, it's owned by his buddies. Some rich billionaire
dude actually owns it but who actually benefits from it? Putin. It's like a symbol of
the whole Russian system in one drone shot, it's
freaking beautiful. No political leader should
have a palace like this. - [Reporter] Alexei Navalny who returned to Moscow for the first time since he was poisoned last summer. - Navalny lands in
Moscow, and what happens? He's immediately arrested. On what charges? Well, they claimed that
he was violating parole from some old fake set of charges brought against him years ago that were thrown out later, they were totally fake, and yet the Russian state continued to say that he
had to report for parole. Turns out he couldn't
report to parole offices because he was in a coma from being poisoned by
the Russian government, and yet he gets arrested. - [Reporter] He'd only been back on Russian soil a few minutes when Alexei Navalny was
told he was being detained, a kiss goodbye for his wife Yulia. - Russia's justice system has been a sham for a long time. This isn't new, but just
how blatant this is, how clearly faked all
of this is to silence a threat to the leader, that's a new law for Russia
and its justice system. (slow music plays) So Navalny is arrested and put on trial, the people take to the streets of Moscow and around the country. The police meet them with force arresting over a thousand protestors, and now arresting journalists. Here's a clip of Navalny's lawyer speaking openly to the media in the middle of Moscow, and out of nowhere, a group of policemen come detain her. (people murmuring) In broad daylight. While the protestors clashed with the police outside the courthouse, Navalny stands in a glasscage while a largely politically
motivated sham trial about parole violation takes place. His wife Yulia is in the
courtroom in the audience watching this all happen, they're making eye contact. And in the end, the system does what it's supposed to do, Navalny gets two years and
eight months of prison time. The house of cards stays stable for at least a little longer. (people protesting) This movement was never about Alexei Navalny or his politics, and it likely never will be, he will never be the leader of Russia. His role in all of this
is focused on one thing, showing the people how
their country really works, ripping away the curtain that veils how their government uses
the resources of the people and who it serves and who it doesn't. Doing so threatens the security of Vladimir Putin and his friends. Which is why the system is reacting, going to greater and greater lengths to muzzle Navalny and anyone like him. The question for me is,
how far will this go? How much is too much before the Russian people decide to take back their country? (slow music playing) (people protesting) (slow music playing) Thank you for watching this video, it is unfolding right now, and by the time you're watching this, there may be new information about this. I'm putting a bunch of
links in the description for some of the videos that I mentioned that you should go watch if you want to learn more. I now want to thank today's sponsor which is a thing I have used forever, which is Audible. Audible is a place that
used to just be audiobooks, and that's why I got into it like literally 10 years ago. Now, it is a place that has audiobooks but also tons of other audio
spoken word, just content. What I love about Audible is that you can sign up for this subscription and then basically you can
pick out one audiobook, no matter how much it costs, you get it for your subscription fee every month, and you get access to a bunch of other unlimited content, podcasts, audiobooks, all sorts of really amazing stuff all on the app. I really love Audible because it gets me learning so much. I will often listen to an audiobook while I'm working on a story so that I can get up to speed on the background of that story and become just more informed about the topics that I'm covering. The audiobook I'm listening to right now, well, I'm listening to a bunch actually but the one I'm really loving
is called "Fluent Forever." It is the psychology of language learning, I just did a language
learning class on bright trip and I'm like deep in the
science of language learning. It's an amazing listen,
I'm learning a ton. I also have loads of
Italian language audiobooks that I'm listening to. Like I'm listening to "Hunger
Games" in Italian right now, it's really nice learning to punch. Anyway, because you are watching this before Presidents' Day here in the United States, you are gonna get in on
one of the biggest sales of the year that Audible does. You can get a subscription to Audible for $9.95 a month for
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in on this killer deal that you don't wanna miss. So thank you all for being here, thank you all for watching, more videos to come, I'll see you in the next one. (slow music playing)
Navalny possibly being a nazi aside, this remark from the end of the video stood out to me:
I have a hard time imagining a country that is more disillusioned and cynical regarding its own government than Russia. Is there really some group out there who thinks Putin wasn't doing this and who would change their minds if they were shown slick drone footage?
The production quality on this is incredible, looks like a Netflix documentary. Subscribed!
One point from early on in the video: being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize means next to nothing. There are thousands of people who can nominate someone, so it could just be some random professor somewhere. That said, Navalny obviously has a much more serious case than you or I, but I just wanted to point out that you or I could actually get nominated if someone felt like it.
He repeatedly hits the point "Navalny is not going to b president" and it's a very smart. The only arguments anyone has against this guy is that he's nationalistic and probably racist. But he's fighting to take down Putin, not lead the country. Russia doesn't have another option. Ppl will mention the Socialist party getting votes in elections to claim that Navalny isn't good, somehow? U mean the elections controlled by Putin? What has the Socialist Party done that has stood up to him? What have they done to get rid of him? They're nothing in comparison to what Navalny did in literally just TWO videos to take down Putin. Navalny is good, and his work is good. His opinions r not, but he's not fighting for his opinions. He's fighting for Russia
Good overall description of a relatively complicated subject.
Ураааааа я как раз из России
Is it me? Find out at 11!
This is what a meal time video is supposed to be, a video that keeps your mind engaged while you eat.
That was solid. Will be sharing this - a very good way to catch people up that aren’t already following these events.