Putin out.
That was the slogan at a protest
in Moscow in December. 2011.
The BBC called it
the biggest anti-government
rally there
since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Prior to the rally,
its organizer was a man
little known outside
certain Russian circles.
A blogger named Alexei Navalny.
He told reporters at the time
that Russia was ripe for revolution
and that Putin's party
was one of swindlers and thieves.
Over the next decade,
he became known worldwide
as a thorn in Putin's side.
He was always seemingly
being arrested
or investigated
or tried for one charge or another.
Charges, Navalny says,
were all trumped up.
But he was steadfast,
continuing to agitate the elite
as he agitated for democracy.
Then this happened
oh, those were Navalny's groans
after being poisoned
with a chemical nerve
agent called Novichok.
CNN and the investigative
group Bellingcat
found evidence
that an elite Russian spy team
that specialized in nerve agents
had been trailing Navalny for years.
Five months after he was attacked,
Navalny returned to his homeland,
having mostly recovered from the attack
and knowing
he faced prison time in Russia
for a prior conviction.
He was arrested on arrival
today in Navalny's
in a maximum security prison
where he is
in and out of solitary confinement,
has little contact with his lawyers
and can only communicate
with his family by letters,
many of which disappeared en route
to their intended recipient.
He is the subject
of an extraordinary documentary
from CNN films called Simply Navalny,
as awards season approaches.
The film has generated a ton of buzz,
and it will air on CNN on January 14th
at 9 p.m.
It's also available on HBO.
Max Navalny's brave daughter, Dasha,
joins me now exclusively.
Dasha Navalny here.
Welcome thank you so much for having me.
So first,
tell us,
what is the latest
on your father's condition?
He is,
I imagine, Russian prisons
are not that great.
Yes.
Well,
no one wants to be in the prison overall,
but Russian prisons take it to a whole
nother level.
My father is currently for three months
now he has been in solitary confinement
and the with me and it's a small cell,
six, seven by eight feet.
And it's can
it can be called a cage
for someone who is of his six foot
three height.
He only has one iron sole, which is so
to the floor
and all the personal possessions.
He's allowed to have a mug,
a toothbrush and one book
Currently, he has some bad
back problems
and he has been trying
to get in touch with doctors.
And he's been complaining a lot to the
prison guards and the prison situation.
But the prison doctor visited him once,
prescribed him with injections
that are not really helping him.
And they're not giving us
medicate the medication, name a diagnosis
or even refusing
to tell us
the name of the doctor
who is treating him
Everybody I have talked to
who has been through solitary
confinement says it is hell.
It is is the worst form of punishment.
And for three months,
you say he's been in.
Yes. Well,
people he's been
in solitary confinement nine times now.
And what they do to say
that, you know, he's
not in solitary confinement
for such a long time is they
put him in for a week, then take him out
for one day
and then say, well, now
you violated another rule.
So we're going to put you back
into solitary confinement
altogether for since August now.
So for
almost four months
now, he's been in solitary confinement.
There's this amazing moment
in the film, Navalny,
where your father is impersonating
the national security adviser to
to to Putin.
And he asks the people who
he thinks poisoned him,
whether they did, how they and the guy
starts explaining what he did.
Yes. Yeah.
But this one is just
an example of a milkshake.
Or they can discuss the move
opposite them, not the absurd subject,
but also a new movement
to more or less machine import.
Your system does not
put your mobile application on, doesn't.
It's just crucial
that talk to a
prosecutor, go over to certain or
seen or both Photoshop within a year
or more because there was no law
to deliver something that I thought was
what was the general
rule in Russia
and would seem framework
to approach for norms of procedure,
which nobody is now
you know, from a
as a dramatic moment in movie
it's it's amazing.
But you
how did you react when you're seeing
the government of Russia is now admitting
that they
were basically trying
to poison to kill your father.
Right well
the thing about
the Russian government
I would say Putin's government officials
is that they've been unlawfully
doing everything
they wanted for so long that
they their communists caught up to them.
And one of the people didn't
even think that it was a possibility
for not a government official
to be calling them
and asking them about this.
They didn't even think it was possible
for us to investigate the poisoning
and find out what really happened.
So I'm
I'm happy
that Kudryavtsev spoke out about it.
I mean, he didn't speak out about it,
but he had the accident.
Yes. Accidentally spilled everything.
But I'm
you know, it's
like like we said
in the movie,
it's scary
because he is probably now
in hiding or killed
because because of that conversation,
of course.
And you've dealt with this
your whole life.
Your mother was arrested
and you've had uncles who are in jail.
What is it like growing up?
I mean, I'm
thinking of you
as the Stanford undergraduate
and people at Stanford
are sitting around worrying about
what's the best app that
pizza or
how are they going to get the best offer
from Apple and
how are you able to maintain the ability
to be,
you know, fully at Stanford
while you have this whole other thing
going on in the back of your head?
It's
a strange situation.
I I'm definitely managing it more now
that I've grown up
because in middle school,
you know,
I was still trying to figure out
what I wanted to do with my life
while balancing
you know,
my dad
running for president
and my dad being arrested.
But
like I said,
before, having
this incredible support system
that's been around me
my entire life, you know,
my grandparents who are very supportive
of what my dad does,
my mom
who was just a champion
and so compassionate and incredible
and a father who
is not only a great politician but
an amazing, warm, smart dad.
It makes it easier.
I want to take you to that moment
where you
you realize after he has been arrested,
imprisoned,
they've attempted to poison him.
He's been in a coma.
He comes out of this
he decides to go back to Russia.
He must have realized that
what's going to happen
when he goes back to Russia is not
is not good.
He's going to get arrested possibly.
I mean, they've tried to kill him.
Just months earlier.
At that point, did you tell him, Dad,
don't go back.
You can't you know,
you're comfortably here in the West,
organize opposition
from Germany, from America,
from Stanford. Well,
of course, there was this little voice
in the back of my head
saying, you know,
cuff him to your hand and never let go.
He you want your dad being by your side.
But we never had a family conversation
of whether he going to go back.
It was always something that
we accepted as a family.
We knew that he would want to go back.
You know, he's a Russian politician.
We're a Russian family.
You can't do Russian politics
from abroad.
The last time I talked to him
was a year ago on New Year's.
They allowed him to have a five minute
phone call.
But you know how
you've probably seen
in spy movies whenever
there is a muffin sound,
you know that the phone call
is being taped.
And for some reason,
the prison administration, things
that we're going
to be talking about,
something secretive
during the phone calls on New Year's
so the whole phone call for 5 minutes,
it was just going back fourth. What's.
Hello? Hello?
Can you hear me?
Hello? Can you hear me?
And then just of the my things sound.
But I I'm happy that the attorneys
are getting to see him
I'm I'm definitely
that's
that's something
that's making me very happy
is that there's people who
you know, there to to see that
he is not doing terribly, terribly,
although his prison conditions
are far worse.
And getting worse by the day.
So I doubt very much
the Russian media
will air this interview.
But there are ways
that things get around.
If your father were to be watching,
what would you say to him?
Oh,
I would say that we're
there for him and that we're doing
everything we can possible to
get him out and change the regime and,
you know,
educate people
and that we're continuing the work
that he started a long time ago
and that he shouldn't give up.