Precis

It’s a story Hollywood couldn’t make up. An epic tale of power and brinkmanship, corruption and courage.

In this battle of the titans, two men fight about the future of the world’s largest country, Russia.

One is Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and avowed democrat.

The other is the ruthless strongman – President Vladimir Putin.

In this battle of the titans, Navalny has been poisoned, almost blinded, arrested and jailed. But this isn’t stopping him.

Six months ago, Putin’s fiercest opponent lay on his death bed in a German hospital, poisoned by a nerve agent, a substance made by the Soviet military.

Down but not out, Navalny recovered and on a crazy-brave mission, returned to Russia to keep fighting.

As Navalny was arrested and hauled off to prison, his team upped the stakes, releasing a film documenting the existence of a one and a half billion dollar palace which they say belongs to Putin.

As people across Russia rise up to protest against Putin and his excesses, Navalny’s inner circle are directing operations outside the country.

“The ultimate victory from us would be Russia without Vladimir Putin…because we understand that absolutely the majority of our problems…they come from him personally”, says Maria Pevchikh, who heads up Navalny’s investigations unit.

In this exclusive report, former Russia correspondent Eric Campbell speaks to Navalny’s key advisors to find out what motivates their leader and what their next steps will be.

And we hear from the ordinary people of Moscow who are braving freezing temperatures and police to voice their opposition.

Fade up from black. Episode teaser.

Music

00:00

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: It’s a fight to take down the world’s biggest strongman.

00:07

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  The ultimate victory for us would be Russia without Vladimir Putin.

00:12

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: And it’s led by the man who claims Putin tried to kill him. Alexei Navalny has flown back to a prison cell and branded President Putin the world’s biggest thief. Can Navalny defeat Putin? Can he even survive?

00:17

LEONID VOLKOV:  He’s in custody of that very people who to poison and kill him just less six months ago.

00:34

ARKADY OSTROVSKY:  Here is a guy of extraordinary courage. It’s absolutely the archetypal myth of a hero fighting a tyrant.

00:41

Title:
Poking the Bear
REPORTER: ERIC CAMPBELL

Music

00:50

Winter Moscow. Protestors on street
Super:
Moscow, Russia

00:57

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: In the depth of winter, Russia is stirring.

01:07

CROWD:  Freedom! Freedom!

01:10

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Since late January, protests have broken out across the country, sparked by the arrest of Alexei Navalny, who the Kremlin insists is a nobody. But thanks to this nobody, people are calling their president a thief.

01:15

CROWD:  Putin is a thief! Putin is a thief!... Freedom! Freedom!

01:32

NATASHA ROMI:  Now the crowd is to Mattroskaya Tishina.

01:46

Natasha at protest

That’s the prison where Alexei Navalny is now being held, yeah.

01:48

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Natasha Romi is a young Moscow lawyer who wouldn’t normally risk arrest. But she’s come out today to protest what she sees as a lawless regime.

01:53

NATASHA ROMI: We have a citizen who’s been poisoned, almost killed and then returned to his homeland and imprisoned. This is over all limits.

02:07

Riot police behind barricades

02:17

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The Kremlin has shut down the centre to try to stop people gathering, moving in thousands of riot police and troops.

02:20

NATASHA ROMI: All the downtown metro stations are closed. They keep closing them during the day, so we have to walk our way through, about two, three kilometres, I guess,

02:30

Natasha at protest

maybe five, I’m not sure. So already downtown there’s a huge concentration of police forces and they’re arresting people, they’re arresting protesters, but we’ll see how it’s going to go, I hope it’s all going to go peacefully, we’re not there to fight. Police force is moving toward downtown.

02:38

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: They constantly check for messages on how to evade roadblocks.

NATASHA ROMI:  There are no coordinators of protest because the majority of coordinators was arrested after last week’s protest.

03:04

CROWD:  Down with the Tsar! Down with the Tsar!

03:17

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: It’s as if the all-powerful Kremlin is frightened of its own people.

03:21

NATASHA ROMI: You can see how the power is getting scared. I think it’s not about Navalny exactly, it’s more about the Putin regime that has been present for the past 20 years, and it’s been enough.

03:29

Navalny on stage at rally. Campbell in crowd

03:45

NAVALNY:  Hello Astrakhan!

03:49

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Three years ago, I followed Alexei Navalny as he was building the infrastructure to challenge Putin. The lawyer and politician was setting up offices in 40 cities, staffed by passionate aides and volunteers.

03:54

NAVALNY:  Do you need a monarchy?

CROWD:  No!

04:08

ARKADY OSTROVSKY:  He’s a completely new type of politician in Russia. We’ve never seen anything like this.

04:12

NAVALNY: We have to change the power. We have to change the President to fight corruption. I promise to introduce a law to fight illegal enrichment, where an official will have to explain where they got money for that luxurious life.

04:19

ARKADY  OSTROVSKY:  Everything about him says, look, I’m just the same as you.  I’ve come from

04:39

Arkady 100%. Super:
Arkady Ostrovsky
Russia Editor, The Economist

the same background. I’m not even a Muscovite. I’m not part of this elite, I’m not part of this closed circle of insider deals.

04:44

Navalny on stage at rally

NAVALNY: I refuse to listen to this talk that we have to tighten our belts more. Do you want to tighten your belt?

CROWD:  No!

NAVALNY: I don’t. I'm going to the elections to unite people. I am travelling from town to town and saying, "Guys, stop putting up with it. How long are we going to wait?"

04:51

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: At the time, he wanted to run for President, but a trumped-up fraud charge and a suspended prison sentence meant he was barred from office.

05:16

Navalny and Campbell

Navalny told me it didn’t matter.

"The government says you can’t become a candidate until 2028. What can you do about that?"

NAVALNY: The government would prefer I never become a candidate at all, never campaign, never investigate corruption.  I am not interested in what the government thinks. I am going to these elections to change the government, to remove them from power.

05:25

Navalny amongst crowd

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny was clearly working on a long-term plan. At the time, I wondered if he’d survive long enough to complete it.

05:51

News story Navalny poisoning

NEWSREADER:  We’re getting reports that opposition politician Alexei Navalny is in a coma in a Siberian hospital with suspected poisoning.

06:02

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Last August, Navalny fell mortally ill while flying back from a tour of Siberia. Fearing the worst, his wife Yulia pleaded to evacuate him to a hospital outside Russia.

06:11

YULIA: The situation is outrageous. They won't give Alexei to us. We think it's obvious they’re hiding something from us. We demand they release Alexei from this hospital, so we can transport him to the hospital we trust.

06:27

Yulia followed by reporters

MARIA PEVCHIKH: We straightaway assumed that this would be poisoning, because I mean, what else?

06:44

Photo. Maria with Navalny

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: His close aide Maria Pevchikh suspected they were waiting for the poison to pass through his system.

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  We just knew for sure that if

06:51

Maria interview

that is the poisoning that no one is going to investigate it, we knew that Russian government, Russian State wouldn't investigate it for sure.

07:00

Photo. Maria behind camera

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Maria Pevchikh heads Navalny’s corruption investigations.

07:10

Hotel room video, collecting evidence

She and her team rushed to his hotel room to search for evidence.

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  We just asked to the hotel administration

07:16

to let us in, into his room, it hasn't been cleaned yet. And we just grabbed everything we could grab from his room. We took trash essentially from his room, packaged it, sealed. It tried to, you know, not touch it with our bare hands.

07:24

Ambulance, Germany

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: After intense international pressure, authorities finally allowed Navalny to be medivaced to Germany. Maria took the samples for testing.

07:40

Hotel room video

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  One of the bottles that I grabbed from his bedside table was later tested at the Bundeswehr lab, that's an army lab in Germany, and this is where they found a trace of Novichok, the chemical nerve agent.

07:52

Campbell at computer, video interview with Maria

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Now, the significance of Novichok, that to you meant the Kremlin must be responsible.

08:09

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  Absolutely. Novichok is essentially just, it's pretty much just Putin’s signature on this crime. It's very easy and very obvious that no one apart from the state has access to this sort of things. 

08:15

TV clip. Putin on poisoning

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Putin denied any involvement.

08:32

VLADIMIR PUTIN:  If the government truly wished to poison the person you are talking about, they would not have sent him for treatment to Germany, right? 

08:35

Clip. Navalny YouTube video

Music

08:46

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Navalny emerged from his coma determined to find the assassins and expose them on his popular YouTube channel.

08:50

NAVALNY: Hi. I’m Navalny. I know who wanted to kill me. I know where they live. I know where they work, their real names, their fake names. I have their photos.

08:57

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Working with the investigations group, Bellingcat, his team soon pointed the finger at the Russian security service, the FSB.

09:10

NAVALNY: We studied passenger lists of flights from Moscow to Novosibirsk on 13 and 14 August.

09:20

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: They identified the FSB agents who had been shadowing Navalny in Siberia.

09:25

Navalny trick phone call with FSB agent

Navalny set out to trick them into confessing.

09:31

NAVALNY: Hello, my name is Maxim Sergeevich Ustinov. I’m an assistant of Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev.

09:39

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Sitting alongside Maria Pevchikh, he called FSB team members, posing as a senior official debriefing the operation.

09:44

NAVALNY: What went wrong? What caused the total failure regarding Navalny in Tomsk? Please tell me your opinion, I’ll write it down.

09:54

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: To everyone’s amazement, one of the agents fell for it, discussing how they had applied the poison and removed the evidence.

10:04

NAVALNY:  First of all, where are his clothes? What happened to them?

AGENT: What clothes?

NAVALNY: Well, where are Navalny’s clothes?

10:12

AGENT Well … I last saw them in Omsk. We left them there. We went there and worked on them.  We cleaned and applied some solutions so that no traces could be found.

10:22

MARIA PEVCHIKH: He's the guy who's doing clean-up.

10:51

Maria interview

So he would go to the place where Alexei went to afterwards and just clean up.

10:55

Navalny trick phone call with FSB agent

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The agent even revealed where the poison had been placed.

11:00

NAVALNY: Well, what clothing did you focus on? What posed the most risk?

AGENT: The underpants.

NAVALNY: Underpants.

11:05

AGENT: We focused on the inner seams – at least they were the parts we treated.

MARIA PEVCHIKH: To be honest, that was the most

11:19

Maria interview

unbelievable day in my career.

11:26

Navalny trick phone call with FSB agent

AGENT: Sorry, I have a question. Is it okay we’re using a regular phone?

NAVALNY: We didn’t discuss anything special.

MARIA PEVCHIKH: It's sad and funny and good at the same time. Well, I mean, it's sad in terms of what level of, you know,

11:29

Maria interview

security services we really have in Russia and good in terms of fact, that, you know, it helped us to solve the crime, which to be honest, I barely hoped we would ever be able to solve.

11:44

Berlin

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Navalny was now safe in Berlin.

11:58

Photo. Navalny in hospital/Navalny and Yulia

He had survived the murder attempt and implicated Putin’s agents.  Then, astonishingly, he announced he was going back to Russia.

12:03

Navalny, Instagram video post

NAVALNY:  On January 17, I will return home on a Pobeda flight. Please welcome me!

12:14

Navalny on plane

Music

12:22

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Now the question everyone is asking is why did he

12:31

Campbell at computer, video interview with Maria

go back to Russia? Why did he leave the safety of Germany?

12:34

MARIA PEVCHIKH: You can't be a Russian politician and not live in Russia.  He had absolutely no hesitations about this. He made his decisions straightaway after – so while he was still at the hospital in Germany, he said he will come back and he came back.

12:37

Navalny on plane

MAN ON PLANE: Are you concerned you could be arrested on arrival?

12:53

NAVALNY:  Me, arrested?  Impossible.  I’m an innocent man.

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The Russian writer and commentator

12:57

Arkady on plane

Arkady Ostrovsky was on the plane to witness a moment of history.

ARKADY OSTROVSKY: It’s no ordinary flight. It’s part of that transformation of reality into myth.  Navalny’s strength is that he senses he’s riding a wave of history, and that wave cannot turn back.

13:04

Police arrest protestors

CROWD: Russia will be free!

13:25

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: In Moscow, supporters had gathered to greet him. The authorities had no intention of allowing a hero’s welcome.

13:32

Navalny at airport

At the last minute, the plane was diverted to a different Moscow airport.

13:49

Police detain Navalny. Hugs Yulia

Police detained him at immigration and took him straight to a police station where they set up a courtroom.

13:56

Navalny in court

NAVALNY: I see from the documents I’m going to be taken to Matrosskaya Tishina Prison. Don’t fear anything but your own fear. Goodbye.

14:08

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny was now at the mercy of Putin. But instead of buckling, he raised the stakes even higher.

14:22

YouTube video, Putin corruption

Music

14:31

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Two days after he flew in, his team released a YouTube video accusing Putin of gold medal corruption. They had deliberately waited until Navalny was back in Russia.

14:38

Navalny to camera

NAVALNY:  We don’t want the film’s main character to think that we fear him and that I would tell his worst secret while abroad. 

14:54

Drone shots. Putin’s Palace

Music

15:04

NAVALNY:  We present the most secret palace in Russia – Putin's Palace near Gelendzhik.

15:10

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Called Putin’s Palace, the film exposed how a palace costing USD1.5 billion had been secretly built on the Black Sea, allegedly for the president.

15:17

NAVALNY: A chateau, wineries, an oyster farm and endless luxury.

MARIA PEVCHIKH: We have investigated its history and how ownership changed, to prove that this palace has been built for Vladimir Putin by his friends, by the oligarchs, and the place is so expensive that it is

15:30

Maria interview

probably the biggest bribe ever given in the history of bribing.

15:55

Putin animation

Music

15:59

 GFX/Animation Palace tour

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The plans revealed a giant underground hockey stadium, a theatre and pole dancing room, even thousand-dollar toilet brushes.  They say much of it paid for with State money intended for health care.

16:07

NAVALNY:  We enter the personal casino of Vladimir Putin. It’s banned in the rest of the country but everything is allowed here.

16:22

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: And all this while ordinary Russians were struggling to make ends meet amidst coronavirus and a stagnant economy.

16:31

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  The main message of our investigation is that Putin is probably the richest person in the world. He uses a network a very sophisticated network of his old friends to hide all of this.

16:39

Navalny in video

NAVALNY:  Our future is in our hands. Don’t be silent. Don’t obey the greedy villains.

16:57

People looking at phones

Music

17:03

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Within weeks, the video had attracted 110 million views; watched by at least a quarter of the Russian population. Putin denied any connection to the palace.

17:08

Putin denies palace ownership

VLADIMIR PUTIN:  Nothing that is listed there as my property belongs to me or my close relatives, and never did.

17:19

Drone shots. Palace with GFX overlay

ARKADY OSTROVSKY:  What we know is this palace exists, right. It’s real. It’s been filmed. It’s protected by the FSB, Russian security services and the border guards. It’s a no fly zone. It’s linked financially to Putin’s cronies and his friends.

17:35

Arkady interview

If it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck it probably is the duck, right?

17:55

GFX Putin and cronies in picture frames

Music

17:59

Campbell at computer, video interview with Maria

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Now if what you’re saying is right, Putin can never live in this palace now, can he, thanks to you, because it would show it was his?

18:04

MARIA PEVCHIKH:  Yeah, he definitely cannot live there. And I think this is probably why he is most upset with us.

18:11

Riot police with protestors

Music

18:18

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Protests erupted in hundreds of towns and cities. The young lawyer Natasha Romi felt she had no choice but to join them.

18:25

Natasha, protest

NATASHA ROMI:  It’s about the Putin’s Palace that he built for himself in Gelendzhik. So lots of people got really angry about the amount of money that had been spent.

18:37

Protestor arrests

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter:  Police detained more than 11,000 demonstrators, then moved onto Navalny’s associates. Lyubov Sobol from his investigations team was grabbed in the street.  Scores of campaign staff were arrested. Many more went into hiding.

18:46

Anastasia playing piano

Even Navalny’s personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, found police storming in to search her apartment. She defiantly played piano, insisting she would not sign anything until she saw a lawyer.

ANASTASIA VASILYEVA:  You can applaud if you wish.

LEONID VOLKOV:  It more and more reminds of the

19:05

Volkov interview. Super:
Leonid Volkov
Navalny's chief of staff

Stalin-era criminal cases because very many people are put to trial simultaneously on quite ridiculous and made-up charges.  Vasilyeva was, I would say pretty, much collateral damage.

19:30

Drone shots. Vilnius

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny’s command centre is now outside Russia in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

19:46

Volkov on computer video call

Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Navalny’s key strategist, Leonid Volkov. But for now, he’s safe.

LEONID VOLKOV:  It’s actually quite a

19:56

Volkov interview

psychologically challenging thing that I’m enjoying freedom in a nice European city while your

20:08

Photo/Video. Supporters in detention centre

colleagues are there in detention centres or under house arrest.  It’s not so easy. I mean I’ve been detained like nine times and spent over four months in jails.

20:17

Police outside court. Navalny arrives at court

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: On February 2^nd, Navalny was brought to court for sentencing. The charges related to the old fraud conviction, which the State had used to stop him running for president. Absurdly, the court found Navalny had breached parole by not reporting to Russian police while recovering in Germany. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in a penal colony. Defiant as ever, Navalny made a love heart gesture to his wife before declaring his contempt for Putin, his speech recorded on a mobile phone.

20:29

Navalny speech from court. Mobile phone footage

NAVALNY: There was (Tsar) Alexander the Liberator and Yaroslav the Wise. Now we have Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner.

21:12

Russian news footage

Music

21:24

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The Kremlin has unleashed a media campaign to discredit Navalny and his team.

21:26

NEWSREADER:  The fact that he is ruining thousands of lives doesn’t bother him. And for what? The lie that benefits the West, not Russia.

21:34

NEWS COMMENTATOR:  It’s important to remember that the West is behind this project. We all remember well that he’s not just taking American money, but he is also a Nazi! He is just a Nazi.

21:47

Montage. Navalny videos

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny is a controversial figure. In the past, his declarations of support for democracy and rule of law have been mixed with hardcore appeals to nationalists. In this 2007 video he likened Chechen militants to cockroaches and suggested they be killed.

22:03

NAVALNY:  In this case, I recommend a pistol.

22:30

ARKADY OSTROVSKY:  I was shocked by that video, and we started off on a very bad note. I was, and still am, very critical about that period. 

22:37

Arkady interview

What earned my respect is actually how much he matured and evolved, how much he changes, how much he is capable of change.

22:45

Leonid interview

LEONID VOLKOV:  I’m pretty sure that Alexei Navalny would not do such a video, not in 2021, but even not in 2013 for instance when he was running for Mayor of Moscow. Not even probably in 2011 when we started to work together.

22:53

St. Basil's cathedral/Moscow GVs

Music

23:10

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: On February 5^th, Leonid Volkov called a halt to further street protests in the wake of mass arrests. The strategy now is to focus on defeating Putin’s candidates in the September parliamentary elections.

23:13

Leonid interview

LEONID VOLKOV:  We'll see the electoral campaign going full steam in Russia just in a couple of months.

23:30

Barricades stacked in street

The thing that we are discussing already for a very long time, targeted sanctions against Putin’s closest friends and allies –

23:35

Leonid interview

against his wallets, against actually Putin’s money.

23:45

Natasha at home with mother

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The pivot from winter street protests is welcome news for Natasha Romi –  sheltering from a minus 15 degree night in the apartment she shares with her mother and two cats.

23:48

Natasha interview at home

NATASHA ROMI:  I have this glimpse of hope that maybe in September elections, maybe something will go different than the usual pattern.  I have this belief, I have this hope. Because you see, the main thing is that the amount of people today who are against this regime is much higher than say five years ago. Now, this majority of people who were pro-Putin, they are against, they’re turning, you can hear the movement, you know.

24:03

Natasha's mother

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: But when her mother Mariam joins the discussion, it’s clear there’s a huge generational split. She’s appalled Natasha joined the protests.

24:33

Mother interview

MOTHER:  I can't stop her from leaving the house. She is an adult. If she was 7, I’d say - stay home.   You don’t change horses midstream, I think Putin’s not forever, but for now…

NATASHA:  For now we are stuck with him, yes.

MOTHER: Yes, for now. I don’t not see any real strong alternative to replace him.

24:46

Maybe it’s just me. However, I am confident that this individual (Navalny) is not an alternative.  NATASHA:  So we have two very different opinions.

MOTHER:  Natasha, I love you very much.

NATASHA:  I love you too. Thank you.

NATASHA ROMI:  Our parents and our older generation,

25:07

Natasha interview

yeah they’re right that we don’t know how bad it can be. But they don’t know how good it can be.

25:26

Navalny, Putin Palace video

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Navalny´s deeply personal attacks on Putin have left no room for retreat.  His team is locked into a fight to the end, a fight that could last for years. Leonid Volkov believes the best way to keep Navalny alive is to keep his struggle in the public eye.

LEONID VOLKOV:  When, as Kremlin hopes, the dust settles a little bit, it's so easy to stage something when a person's in prison.

25:34

Leonid interview

Like, okay, it was a conflict with a cellmate, or something like this. This is something that could unfortunately happen. So our task is not to let dust settle, not to let Navalny disappear from the radars of public opinion and awareness.

26:05

London. Winter GVs

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: From her base in London, Maria Pevchikh will continue producing investigative videos of Kremlin corruption.

MARIA PEVCHIKH: We are, of course, affected by the fact that Alexei has been put to prison. It's not nice.

26:27

Maria interview

It's not good. We prefer to work when he's around, but it's not going to stop us from doing what we're doing and it's not going to make our work less noticeable or less effective.

26:44

Music

26:55

Candle and light protest

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Before stopping the protests, Volkov engineered one last demonstration – people shining lights on Valentine’s Day to show love is stronger than fear.

27:06

CROWD:  Free political prisoners!

NATASHA ROMI:  I feel so inspired, and it's so empowering to see all those people and I think it was a great idea to let people face their neighbours.

27:22

You can see people from the same house, from the same building with you, who are sharing the same views. Honestly I'm speechless, I almost cried. It's very, very important to see those people close to you,

27:38

with those lights, you know, it's like Harry Potter magic.

27:55

Music

27:57

Snowy Moscow GVs

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: The streets of Moscow are now quiet. But the seeds of defiance have been sown as followers of the last true opposition leader prepare for the Russian spring.

28:04

Music

28:17

Credits [see below]

28:35

Back announce

ERIC CAMPBELL, Reporter: Next week, we look at Russia's neighbour Belarus, where people are also fighting to oust a dictator.

28:46

Out point

29:00