Alexei Navalny and His (Real Life) Hollywood Thriller (The Borscht Report #5)

 

Alexei Navalny knows who tried to kill him and he wants you to be entertained. 

On the face of it, this seems quite odd. Since his poisoning in August, Navalny has become undisputedly the most prominent figure in the Russian opposition and has used his already well developed social and alternative media presence to keep supporters, foreign observers, and enemies well appraised of his progress and actions. Like fellow anti-Putinist Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Navalny is an expert in using social media platforms, especially YouTube, to spread his message in a way that is friendly and accessible to young people and supporters, even those residing abroad. (A not insignificant thing, just considering the size of the Russian diaspora in places like London and New York, not to mention the many non-Russians who take an interest in seeing Putin thrown from power). And now, only months from what many suspected would be his deathbed, Navalny has returned to tell his tale and that of his would-be murderers. 

The actual tale of Navalny’s (somewhat) botched poisoning makes a fascinating story in itself, which is why I would encourage you to watch at least part of the video he released on his YouTube channel a week ago. What I want to talk about here is the less-discussed aspect of this new twist: the optics. 

If you’ve never seen one of Khodorkovsky’s videos, they are pretty cut and dry. 5-10 minute videos of him discussing various aspects of the Russian news, politics, and his own opposition activities. Lately, there has been a little fancy editing thrown in, but the vast majority of his content, generally released about every 3 days, sticks to that basic format. This is not to say that he isn’t doing well. The videos tend to garner between 100K and 900K views, with a few outliers at either end of that spectrum, and a majority without English subtitles available. Another version of his channel, with custom English subtitles, also exists, but typically doesn’t catch more than 100 to 1000 views per video. 

Navalny, on the other hand, has two channels: Навальный LIVE, a news-based channel on which he appears but which also has multiple other anchors, and Алексей Навальный, the content of which is almost always solo videos of Navalny, although short documentaries appear on occasion. On both channels, videos regularly have between 2 and 20 million views. 

Of course, part of the view disparity between Khodorkovsky and Navalny is in their relative domestic and international profiles, as well as the fickleness of the platform’s algorithm, but I think that the design of Navalny’s videos also plays a large part. Not only are Navalny’s tactics helpful in getting more attention on his anti-Putin crusade, but they may be a view for the Russian opposition at large into how they can catch more grassroots attention, and more foreign eyes, helpful in pushing legislature, like the Magnitsky Act, which can assist in their goals. 

Let’s take Navalny’s expose as a test case. Naturally, any talk of the attempt on his life attracts a lot of attention, especially considering the use of the agent in question, because it has popped up in so many other cases, and the generally short life span of Putin’s opponents. Just taking those factors into consideration, the whole thing could have been rather a somber production. Likewise, he could have taken the Khodorkovsky approach and presented a very straightforward report of the facts and figures in question, throwing a few pictures up on-screen and going through the timeline he and the journalists who broke most of the story have constructed. 

Instead, Navanly treats his experience as a Hollywood thriller. There are cuts to clips of James Bond movies, and little animations poke fun at the transparent falsehoods of Putin and his allies in the wake of the news about the FSB’s involvement breaking. He even invites his audience to “grab a pipe, or at least a cup of tea” and settle in for the experience of watching the 51-minute video. Throughout, the viewers are introduced to the players in question, and shown documents, interviews, recordings, maps, and all manner of other evidence, skillfully woven into the video with humorous edits and touching clips of Navalny interacting with his family, which was also under threat.

On its own, this doesn’t seem like a huge innovation. So the guy hires good editors and can spin a yarn, what’s the big deal? The big deal, as I see it, is engagement. Vladimir Putin is not in a good place right now, and Russia is full of disaffected young people, migrants (who also tend younger), and educated professionals, among others, who consume a lot of their daily news on the platforms that Navalny is targeting. The fancy editing and engaging tone encourage those people, who might otherwise ignore domestic politics as a lost cause or fall into Putin’s support because of the strength and relentless nature of the propaganda used there, to take another view of their country and opposition politics. Navalny came back from a murder attempt, a poisoning, and can joke about it. There is a risk inherent in going against Putin, but it is not an inevitable death sentence, and Russian politics are not set in stone. For the apolitical, it is a way to get drawn into the fray, because the content is so close in some ways to what they might watch for entertainment, and see the importance of picking a side. Foreign view, meanwhile, can be much bigger because of the expertly done English translation, and the appeal of such an interesting, well-presented story. 

An intriguing YouTube video or two (or two hundred) won’t end Vladimir Putin’s regime. But an opposition that understands the importance of wide media engagement, especially on platforms that it is harder for the government to police, and how to appeal to young people and sympathetic foreigners, is a more powerful force, especially when Putin’s own propaganda has become only become more transparent and (unintentionally) ridiculous as his reign drags on. 

So, if you’ve got 51 minutes to spare, grab your pipe and enjoy a tale that could come from the pen le Carré himself.

(The video has English subtitles. Just tick the little “CC” button on the right side of your screen. If that doesn’t come up, click the gearwheel, CC, and the English).

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  1. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Question on Putin:

    I have seen some rumors that Vladdy isn’t well, and is in early stage Parkinson’s.  This is going to be difficult to hide, if true, though it can be hidden for a while, depending on how it progresses (Parkinson’s ran through one branch of my family, I’m very familiar with it).  Have you heard anything similar, and if so how that will affect succession, Russian stability, or international relations?

    • #31
  2. HankRhody Freelance Philosopher Contributor
    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
    @HankRhody

    SkipSul (View Comment):
    This is going to be difficult to hide, if true

    Well Putin’s already in the habit of using body doubles, so that helps.

    • #32
  3. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Question on Putin:

    I have seen some rumors that Vladdy isn’t well, and is in early stage Parkinson’s. This is going to be difficult to hide, if true, though it can be hidden for a while, depending on how it progresses (Parkinson’s ran through one branch of my family, I’m very familiar with it). Have you heard anything similar, and if so how that will affect succession, Russian stability, or international relations?

    I’ve seen a lot about it in the British tabloid press, which obviously has reliability problems, especially The Sun. Valery Solovei is the one who originally claimed it, and he’s a Putin opponent, but I don’t think an LSE Master’s makes him qualified to judge anyone’s health.

    Everything I’ve seen from more reliable sources (British, Russian, and French) says that it’s nonsense, and a lot of what the tabloids were basing the judgment on (his strange way of walking, how he holds his hands, etc.) are observable from when he first came on the international scene, and some are KGB training holdovers. 

    However, that does not preclude the fact that Putin may be ill, or might become so in the future. He’s 68, and doesn’t exactly hold a low stress job. And there’s ample proof that a lot of how relatively young he looks is the result of plastic surgery. 

    If he were to become seriously ill, Russian politics is going to get real messy real fast. There are a lot of competing factions (political class, oligarchs, military, pro-democracy opposition, etc) and none of them has a clear majority support basis, so even if Putin appointed a successor from one of his allies, there’s no assurance that support would rally behind that person. Putin will hang onto power as long as he can, because his life span will be very short as a private citizen.

    • #33
  4. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    And now an observation:

    Russophiles can be found in the unlikeliest of places in American Orthodoxy, but there is a subset of Russophiles who have a particularly idiosyncratic attachment for the Tsar, and then the Putinophiles are a subset of that subgroup. 

    According to the tsarist Russophiles, Holy Russia had more than mere symbolic import for the fate of the world, and fall of Nicky is therefore seen as the demonic overthrow of the mystical guardianship of the faith that had been passed from emperor to emperor, from Constantine on.  Therefore, the fall of Nicky was (of course)….. a zionist plot, hatched between Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, the Rothschilds, Kaiser Wilhelm II, your aunt Mildred, and her cat.  Therefore, any US / Russian antagonism today is evidence of (you guessed it) zionist warmongers (and your aunt Mildred’s cat), because of course Russia and the US should be natural allies.  The only reason this is not so is lingering Cold War / zionist Russophobia and the military industrial complex who needs a cold war with Russia to justify its existence.  America’s fingerprints are all over the Ukrainian schism issue, because the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is, like Athenogoras before him, a CIA puppet and tool.

    Now in the Putinist sub-sub-group, Putin is (somehow) fitfully re-establishing the office of Tsar as a restoration of holy order, because look how he has protected Assad in Syria from the depredations of the Turks and the Islamists, and Assad protects the Orthodox in Syria.  These people take American tensions with Russia personally.

    The thing is, at least with Syria they’ve got a point.  The Iraq War was a disaster for Iraqi Christians.  Obama’s screwing around in Iraq and Syria, and failure to whack ISIS before it got going, was an even worse disaster.  Getting involved in the Syrian war put us in a pickle with regards to the Turkish seizure of key areas of northern Syria, and the ethnic cleansing of Christian communities there too.  That you can say in reply that yes, the US really messed up there, but that doesn’t excuse everything else, fails to even make a dent (try asking about the Georgian Orthodox and how they’ve fared thanks to Putin).

    • #34
  5. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Any mention of the Rolling Stones has me wanting to pull this out:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Keith Richards turned 77 last week, which honestly is something that’s got to be filed under either “miracles of modern science” or “magic.”

     

    • #35
  6. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    We once started the mother of April Fools post deaths with this one, at Keith’s expense:

    https://ricochet.com/418125/archives/breaking-keith-richards-is-dead/

    • #36
  7. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    We once started the mother of April Fools post deaths with this one, at Keith’s expense:

    https://ricochet.com/418125/archives/breaking-keith-richards-is-dead/

    That was fabulous! Thanks so much for the laugh. (And poor Charlie, he never gets the appreciation he deserves). 

    Some people on Twitter, when Keith’s name started trending, actually thought it was because he died, which is not a crazy assumption. Although sometimes it seems that he may outlast us all. 

    • #37
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    SkipSul (View Comment):
    a zionist plot, hatched between Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, the Rothschilds, Kaiser Wilhelm II, your aunt Mildred, and her cat.

    My Aunt Mildred never had a cat.

    • #38
  9. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    Arahant (View Comment):

    SkipSul (View Comment):
    a zionist plot, hatched between Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, the Rothschilds, Kaiser Wilhelm II, your aunt Mildred, and her cat.

    My Aunt Mildred never had a cat.

    That’s what she wanted you to think. Her and the Mossad cat.

    • #39
  10. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    SkipSul (View Comment):
    a zionist plot, hatched between Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, the Rothschilds, Kaiser Wilhelm II, your aunt Mildred, and her cat.

    My Aunt Mildred never had a cat.

    That’s what she wanted you to think. Her and the Mossad cat.

    It must have been disguised as her dog.

    • #40
  11. HankRhody Freelance Philosopher Contributor
    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
    @HankRhody

    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher (View Comment):

    Well I know now that I’ll be checking my fresh underpants for nerve agent.

    Update: Didn’t find any this morning, but I’m wearing them inside out just in case.

    • #41
  12. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    I’m 30 minutes into this video from early October in which Navalny and his wife are interviewed separately about the poisoning episode and his recovery. The interviewer is a young guy who does a good job of asking questions but not getting in the way of the answers. And the answers are not superficial. I find it fascinating.

    вДудь is a great channel in general. They do a lot of long form interviews prominent Russians in different fields, and almost always include subtitles. Vladimir Pozner, Basta, Khodorkovsky, and Sergei Guriev have all been on.

    You have created a monster, and it is sucking up all of my time when I should be doing other things. вДудь is indeed a great channel.  And I have learned that Dud does not always sit back and listen. He pressed Navalny pretty hard toward the end of that 2-hour interview on some of his campaign strategies and his funding, but it was all good.

    I watch with English subtitles, but don’t think I would enjoy it if I couldn’t follow the Russian somewhat.  When I watch Polish movies with English subtitles, for example, it just isn’t the same as watching Russian movies. Although I can understand some Polish words, it’s not enough to make it easy to follow or even to learn much of the language from it. It is a bit of fun to listen for Russian cognates, but that experience doesn’t draw me in like watching Navalny or Dud. 

    Watching a movie in a language of which I understand nothing at all is not good at all. For example, watching Repentance with English subtitles is no good for me unless I also have Russian voiceover, even though I know what’s going on from watching it every couple years.

    • #42
  13. KirkianWanderer Inactive
    KirkianWanderer
    @KirkianWanderer

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    KirkianWanderer (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    I’m 30 minutes into this video from early October in which Navalny and his wife are interviewed separately about the poisoning episode and his recovery. The interviewer is a young guy who does a good job of asking questions but not getting in the way of the answers. And the answers are not superficial. I find it fascinating.

    вДудь is a great channel in general. They do a lot of long form interviews prominent Russians in different fields, and almost always include subtitles. Vladimir Pozner, Basta, Khodorkovsky, and Sergei Guriev have all been on.

    You have created a monster, and it is sucking up all of my time when I should be doing other things. вДудь is indeed a great channel. And I have learned that Dud does not always sit back and listen. He pressed Navalny pretty hard toward the end of that 2-hour interview on some of his campaign strategies and his funding, but it was all good.

    I watch with English subtitles, but don’t think I would enjoy it if I couldn’t follow the Russian somewhat. When I watch Polish movies with English subtitles, for example, it just isn’t the same as watching Russian movies. Although I can understand some Polish words, it’s not enough to make it easy to follow or even to learn much of the language from it. It is a bit of fun to listen for Russian cognates, but that experience doesn’t draw me in like watching Navalny or Dud.

    Watching a movie in a language of which I understand nothing at all is not good at all. For example, watching Repentance with English subtitles is no good for me unless I also have Russian voiceover, even though I know what’s going on from watching it every couple years.

    Ah, I’m sorry. 

    I don’t always catch everything that they are saying, especially if someone has a particular accent, so the subtitles are super helpful. I think they also alleviate stress a bit, because you don’t have to try to auto translate perfectly in your head in time with the interview for the whole thing. 

    • #43
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