Leonid volkov in lithuania, welcome to hardtalk. We need to begin, i think, by establishing what kind of contact you have with Alexei Navalny right now. Do you have any means of contacting him . Now the only way to contact him is that his lawyers, not even the relatives, but the lawyers are allowed to visit him two or three times a week and they dont enjoy privacy during those visits. So its like supervised contact, but still, we manage at least to pass some basic information about, like, whats going on. But to tell that alexei is now orchestrating the protests from his cell is a little bit too much. He actually isnt able to do it. But his political structure, the structure he has built that im now managing, is capable of, at least for some time, of keeping pace, of running forward, along with the directions we discussed with him when he left berlin for moscow a week ago. What kind of condition is he in . Because im mindful that he recovered from a Near Death Experience with the novich
Welcome to hardtalk, im stephen sackur. Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny is the most resilient opponent Vladimir Putin has everfaced. Navalny survived attempted assassination by novichok, returned to russia and is now orchestrating anti putin protests from his prison cell. My guest is navalny s Chief Of Staff leonid volkov. The Opposition Movement has supporters willing to take to the streets in hundreds of russian towns and cities, but do they have a strategy capable of forcing putin from power . Leonid volkov in lithuania, welcome to hardtalk. We need to begin, i think, by establishing what kind of contact you have with Alexei Navalny right now. Do you have any means of contacting him . Now the only way to contact him is that his lawyers, not even the relatives, but the lawyers are allowed to visit him two, three times a week and they dont enjoy privacy during those visits. So its like supervised contact. But still, we manage, at least, to pass some basic information about, l
The jury is in on leap years. They suck. The year 2020 was a leap year and it definitely sucked. But was it the worst year in history?
Nah, probably not. According to an article in Science Magazine, the âworst year to be aliveâ was in 536, or so claims medieval scholar Michael McCormick. It was, of course, a leap year.
There has been quite a bit of soul searching and even some research to qualify and quantify just how shitty the year 2020 has been. Pop historians who focus on contemporary issues (as well as goofy ideas on leap years) can be quick to say that anything in front of them qualifies as âthe worst,â âthe best,â âthe biggest,â and so on. But, thatâs pop history for you and it should be taken with a grain of salt.