166: Ilya Zaslavsky on Alexei Navalny and Russian Political Dissent

With the death of Alexei Navalny, I called Ilya Zaslavsky, A Russian anti-Putin activist, and asked him to come on the show to give some perspective on what happened and its ramifications.

This show was a quick turnaround, so I apologize for the editing. I wanted to get it out to you as soon as possible. 

Also, a quick heads-up: FeedSpot just ranked One CA Podcast as one of their top 20 foreign policy podcasts. Check it out at:

https://podcasts.feedspot.com/foreign_policy_podcasts/

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail dot com

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Special thanks to the PilSkills Cheftain Channel for creating 11 hours of hip hop instrumentals for the sample. Found on YouTube at (+/-2:40:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgl9ZsT3jKs

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00:00:03    JACK GAINES
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Today, we have a special episode.

00:00:40    JACK GAINES
With the death of Alexei Navalny, I called Ilya Zaslavsky, a D .C.-based anti -Putin activist, and asked him to come on the show to give some perspective on what happened and its ramifications. This show is a quick turnaround. So I apologize for the editing, but I wanted to get it out to you as soon as possible. We've known each other for a couple of years now, right? Correct. And for this call, I just wanted to bring you on because of the whole Navalny announcement that he was killed, and it was right in the middle of the Munich Security Conference. It was right when his wife was about to speak, I believe.

00:01:14    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Absolutely, yes. She spoke yesterday and she said that maybe it would have been a better choice for her to go to her family, but... She understood that if Alexei was alive, he would be on this stage speaking against Putin. So that's why she did it.

00:01:29    JACK GAINES
Right. Yeah. And so have you been getting prompt a lot since the Navalny? Do you mind if I just call it a Navalny murder? Even though he was in prison, it was timed specifically for this Munich conference and to send a message to the West. Does that bother you if I call it a murder?

00:01:45    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
No, no, no. It is a murder and it should be called a murder. It's a deliberate assassination.

00:01:50    JACK GAINES
Okay. I try not to editorialize too much, but when something like this happens, it's so obvious that you just kind of have to name it. And I thought of you because you get pinged on these things a lot because of your work with anti -corruption and anti -cliptocracy. And I thought this is a great time to reach out and just get your opinion on what's going on and also talk about how this demonstrates how cliptocracy becomes an ongoing national security threat. Absolutely, it does.

00:02:17    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
And this grave concern has been going on since the beginning of Russian war against Ukraine in 2014, for others much earlier, since actually Putin's speech at Munich conference, I believe it was like 2007 or something, just before Russia attacked Georgia. And within Russian opposition, both within Russia and outside in the diaspora, there have been lots of divisions and lots of different thoughts. But I would say... There were people who were still hopeful to do changes within Russia. And Navalny was their flagman, was their leader, was their organizer. Many people considered him one of the best people who can unite, especially young people and young professionals. Right. Him and Barbouris Nemtsov. And that's why when Nemtsov was killed. There was so much discouragement and tragedy, but people were still hoping that we still got Navalny. And then there was another, I would say, streak of thought and activity that is, especially in the diaspora, where some activists and experts were not hopeful about things within Russia and didn't believe that much can be changed. But they saw a global security. threat coming out of Russia. Sure. Out of Russian corruption and plutocracy. And because they saw it spread in the near broad, that's how Russia used to call former Soviet Union states,

00:03:40    JACK GAINES
of Russian corruption and plutocracy.

00:03:49    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
but also in Eastern Europe, in Western Europe, and then in Africa, Southern America, and then in the West, in US, in Canada, in Japan, among G7 and NATO allies. And I belong to the second camp. I don't suggest that they are mutually incompatible, but I never believe that we can actually stop Putin's regime anytime soon. But I always warned since at least 2012 that this is absolutely unprecedented kleptocratic regime. It's worse than Soviet regime in some aspects. And the West is partly complacent in giving resources,

00:04:29    JACK GAINES
resources, money. You're talking about banking. especially intermediaries that help with hiding banking and buying commodities and just feeding this regime allowing it to trade globally in the way that it wants rather than forcing them to trade on the western governance standards and that this will have grave security implications this will this is not something happening in distant russia you know with poor russian people and i sympathize i'm not make sarcasm here but

00:04:30    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
money. You're talking about

00:04:36    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
and just feeding this regime allowing it to trade globally in the way that it wants rather than forcing them to trade on the western governance standards and that this will have grave security implications this will this is not something happening in distant russia you know with poor russian people and i sympathize i'm not make sarcasm here but It will not stay contained within Russia. So this is not some distant story. We in the West will pay a price. In 2012, it sounded freaky and then alarmist. After 2014, it gradually became, the acknowledgement sort of grew. But it still took years and years. And only full -scale attack on Ukraine actually made it mainstream. And now NATO is talking about long -term conflict with Russia. which Russia is forcing on NATO. And everyone is talking finally about defense spending and collective action and containment. So to bring this back to Navalny, Navalny showed the actual magnitude of this corruption. Someone calculated overall, he and his team, around 100 major investigations. And I mean, it depends how one counts, but... I think if you include all the small and little regional investigations and various findings they did on individuals, it will be much more. Like this investigation of Putin palaces and yachts, but also... That's right.

00:06:08    JACK GAINES
That's right. I remember that, the ones that were off the Black Sea, right?

00:06:11    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Yes, and it had millions of views. But what he showed isn't just the fancy and the scary part of corruption. What he showed is the systemic nature of it. And if we're talking about systemic nature, it is not contained within Russia. It is global. They're using global financial system and using lots of various partners, allies, and enablers, including in the West, to carry out what they do. And so that's the legacy of Navalny. For me, he not just mobilized people who wanted to do changes within Russia, but he also showed the international experts applications of This grant corruption for the rest of the world.

00:06:53    JACK GAINES
Then obviously Putin took him seriously because he went after him when he was living overseas and then he captured him when he was in the country. So does that mean that Putin is influenced or his government is influenced by the diaspora and how they think about Russia?

00:07:08    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
It's a great question. To be honest,

00:07:09    JACK GAINES
question. To

00:07:10    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
be honest, I'll be brief about this. I think Putin tolerated Navalny and actually tried to exploit his existence for his own political needs at the time. And his expediency and his needs fluctuated over time and changed significantly over time. I think he always hated the West and the U .S. in particular. Yeah, he blamed him for collapsing the Soviet Union. Yes, and he always had this revanchist kind of mind.

00:07:29    JACK GAINES
for collapsing

00:07:35    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
of mind. What we should not forget about him is that his cool nature is that he's a KGB recruiter.

00:07:40    JACK GAINES
a KGB recruiter. Right, so anytime you offer him an opportunity, he'll explore it to see if he can exploit it. or if it's worth cooperating with. But if it's not, then he'll go against it or undermine it.

00:07:53    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Exactly. He sort of reached the ceiling of globalization. He exploited it to the best of his ability, and then he got disappointed in it, that he couldn't manipulate it further. But while he was still doing it, he was consolidating power within Russia. And I think until maybe 2010, 2012, he was using... Navalny and other investigations from third parties to keep a leash on his own boyah. It's a story ancient as Russian history. Corrupt and tyrant czar keeping at bay his boyahs through third parties and forcing them to fight each other. He basically wanted to have compromise on everyone and some of that compromise to be publicized. But that led some people to... even accuse, you know, Navalny of being a Kremlin's project, which is nonsense, just insane. But I'm sure Navalny was always a genuine activist and a genuine anti -corruption fighter.

00:08:52    JACK GAINES
fighter. He was probably trying to play within the rules at some point to cooperate and still be the opposition. But when he just got to be too dichotic, he just said, that's it. I got to just go all the way with this.

00:09:05    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Exactly. I share the same opinion. Along that murky and bumpy road, Navalny did a lot of things. He removed all the cases that got in his hands, and he mobilized many young people, and he gave hope to many of them. But then the dire times started. Putin really decided to go full -scale against Ukraine, and I believe that's why he started to eliminate opponents physically. And openly.

00:09:36    JACK GAINES
openly. The chair flying contests out of all the windows in Moscow. Yes, and he did these constitutional amendments, which allowed him to basically stay for life and get reelected as many times as he wanted for rigged elections.

00:09:39    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Yes, and he did these constitutional amendments, which allowed him to basically stay for life and get reelected as many times as he wanted for rigged elections. I think very few people in Russian opposition or among Western policymakers understood the scale of Putin's intentions. He would actually go at the full scale war with Ukraine, but also with the West. What we're witnessing over the last two years is almost total disentanglement of Russia from Western globalization, from Western economic ties. Something that has been built since even Stalin times. The first gas deals were discussed even in the last years of Stalin and then Khrushchev and Brezhnev. He disentangled all of that, even like the most sacred to some of his KGB colleagues and party bosses. So he was preparing for many years for this attack. And Navalny was one of the people who meddled with this policy. And he had to be either squeezed out of the country or eliminated within the country. So they tried to poison him. And then when he returned back to Russia, not receiving the signal to shut up and to stay abroad, they immediately jailed him and they started to isolate him. And they still couldn't manage to do that. because Navalny managed to be vocal even from the prison. So what happened over the last half a year is a clear preparation for the murder because they moved him around the country and eventually put him in this very distant northern region where no one can reach it. They opened criminal cases on his lawyers. So they squeezed two out of his five lawyers out of the country and the three others are now in prison. And he got new lawyers. So he kept on kind of being resurgent in his protest and in his activism. So yeah, they decided to kill him. In any case, it was deliberate and it couldn't have been done without the protest direct order. And you know,

00:11:45    JACK GAINES
there's two things that come to mind. One, a friend of mine who is very familiar with Russia told me a story. He said, when you get to the point where you feel like you can't win, it's like you live in a neighborhood and you really hate the guy next door. And so you start talking to people who are arsonists and you just start passing out matches and say, just go burn something, just go burn something, whatever, just go burn stuff. And you may burn down your own house, but eventually they're going to burn down that guy's house and you'll be happy. And that's kind of the mindset is if I'm going down, everyone's burning down. And so, which is a very dire view of current conditions. But to me, it shows the willingness to take that risk of losing his money. He's willing to do that because he'd rather take new money out of Russia. He'll take more money out of the foreign campaigns where Wagner and other groups are running mines in Africa. He can get more money. He doesn't worry about the money. It's the power and the position that he worries about. The second thing that gets me is I don't see a transition plan.

00:12:11    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
that's kind

00:12:40    JACK GAINES
I don't see a transition plan. So he doesn't care. Once he passes, it just goes off a cliff. And that's a real worry to me about Russia is that since he's killing off anyone who may have power or authority. It's going to be a scramble for how to keep that nation from dissolving into a series of fiefdoms when he does pass. It's all legitimate concerns. I wouldn't get pessimistic about them,

00:13:06    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
I wouldn't get pessimistic about them, but obviously, at the same time, we need acknowledgement and action, not just stand on the side in awe and just be horrified and just try to appease or... or at least not touch this thing until it breaks,

00:13:22    JACK GAINES
it breaks, you know? Don't be a train wreck tourist and just sit there and watch them crash into it. Exactly. I mean, the same kind of feeling existed when USSR was collapsing.

00:13:29    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
feeling existed when USSR was collapsing. And now we know that some US presidents and policymakers were not even happy about USSR collapsing. They didn't know what would happen with, you know, nuclear arsenal and all this, not fiefdoms, but maybe like would Russia and Soviet Union break into many... Although it's claiming, you know, a nuke for himself. This didn't happen. And we shouldn't be too paranoid about this. At the same time, I also, it's not just about Putin. He did build a whole circle. And I'm afraid to say this, but I don't share the view of many within Russian opposition, including among Navalny team that, you know. Actually, there is no majority of Russians for Putin and that there is a significant minority or even majority of people against him. So my response to all of this, there is a way out, but it's difficult. It requires costs now, today. So first of all, we need to help Ukraine. They're the ones on the front lines actually fighting and sacrificing their blood and lives. Us not giving them just military equipment and money is just ridiculous.

00:14:47    JACK GAINES
Well, and it's bizarre. Every time we give away munitions, we refresh them with new stuff. So our stocks are always current. And it comes from U .S. manufactured weapons. So it doesn't make sense to me. Yes.

00:15:01    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
The issue became very partisan. And, you know, there are many meeks promoted that we give them free money, which they now, meaning Ukrainians, and they steal it. It's all bizarre because none of that happens. And there are some minor issues, you know, with procurement and various things, as would happen in any war with such scale. Just, you know, read Catch -22 or any book on any American war abroad or any war abroad.

00:15:32    JACK GAINES
But Zelensky has made sure that people, even with a hint of corruption, are thrown out. I mean, he's done a good job of trying to... assure his partners and allies okay exactly if there was one thing that i want you know your listeners to take away from this conversation is that uh we we americans we in the west our allies in nato we should understand we are at war with russia it's it's still a hybrid war most of it it's still a weird version of kind of cold war with new hybrid elements but it's actually in some places already hot

00:15:43    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
if there was one thing that i want you know your listeners to take away from this conversation is that uh we we americans we in the west our allies in nato we should understand we are at war with russia it's it's still a hybrid war most of it it's still a weird version of kind of cold war with new hybrid elements but it's actually in some places already hot And what you mentioned is Putin is different from Soviet leaders. Stalin was absolutely horrible, and he would also do poisonings abroad, but he never actually seriously contemplated of having an actual war with the West. He stopped in Berlin. He actually found a coexistence with the West.

00:16:35    JACK GAINES
the West. He had to learn that certain levels of trust and cooperation. I'm not saying that's it. He had to.

00:16:40    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
not saying

00:16:42    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
I'm not saying any good things about Stalin. He's as horrible as Hitler. But all I'm saying is that Putin may be more horrible than Stalin. That he is ready to do things that no Soviet leader was ready. I'm convinced they did assassinations on U .S. soil, like with Russia Today guy here in D .C. Listen, he was... killed under various strange circumstances on Dupun Circle. But they're putting nukes in outer space. They've been caught meddling in elections. They've been caught trying to upset New York Stock Exchange, various hacking attacks, which I'm sure if they were available to Soviet leaders, I don't think they would be doing this. Because at least people understood that the war can be triggered by accident. The only moment when we had that in history was Caribbean crisis. Yeah. But that was actually a lesson for both sides, including for the Soviets. They never again went to such a brink. Putin is going to such a brink all the time. His planes are attacking NATO planes. His ships are doing risky things all the time. But are they successful?

00:17:56    JACK GAINES
Define success. Are they able to pull off the risk? Did they gain the award? that the risk was attempting to achieve? I think partly they do in the sense that they keep on forcing NATO to be on the defense and try not to trigger Russians, and they keep on getting more space for their own abrasive activity.

00:18:07    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
they do in the sense that they keep on forcing NATO to be on the defense and try not to trigger Russians, and they keep on getting more space for their own abrasive activity. So they test the boundaries of impunity. That's what they're doing. And they're succeeding in that sense.

00:18:27    JACK GAINES
And then they're surprised when Norway and Sweden decide, okay, we're going to join NATO now. It's gotten too crazy. It doesn't seem like they really believe that anything's going to happen until something dies.

00:18:38    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Well, yes and no. I think in the sense that with Sweden and Finland, they already saw them not in their camp or not actually being neutral, not being neutral. But they do test. Article 5, they do want to see the limits of how much they can test Article 5.

00:19:01    JACK GAINES
Yeah, because that helps them to know where they can operate without creating a war.

00:19:05    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
They are doing lots of things in the Baltic countries. And I mean, that's been a dispute ever since 2014. Russia tried these hybrid methods of attack in the Baltics. And will NATO respond? Right. I mean, there was this great BBC film in UK where they had war games and they tested would like Britain join the war to save dog of pills. Right. In the Baltics. And unfortunately, the TV show showed that maybe not.

00:19:37    JACK GAINES
Maybe we won't be making this call.

00:19:40    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Yes. So and obviously, Russians are carefully monitoring all of this. Sure.

00:19:46    JACK GAINES
Sure.

00:19:46    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
reactions so my point in all of this we are in the new cold slash hot war slash a hybrid war uh it's for a long time it's we're just at the start of it and putin is getting more and more impunity it's definitely a signal to the west i'm not sure if it was just to the munich conference or in general but it's his signal To Biden, to everyone, I can kill my opponents, both on my soil and abroad. And he is relentless in Ukraine. They just conquered Avdivka, which is a big suburban city next to Donetsk, which was a stronghold for Ukraine for many years, but unfortunately they had to give up. And he's just on the, how you say it, ascendancy. So how will we respond? Will we... give money to our allies, step up our defense, do actual updated containment strategy of Russia as we did in the Cold War? Will we finally wake up to the fact that this leadership, it's not just Putin, his leadership, his whole country is mobilized in a hybrid war with us? Or will we just continue to wish for the best and continue in this wishful thinking that things can get back to business as usual?

00:21:08    JACK GAINES
I just did an opinion piece and I posted on LinkedIn. It was basically saying that not only is Russia fully mobilizing to win its war in Ukraine, but they're actually using a network, a global network to support it. They've got, you know, weapons coming in from China, North Korea, Iran, obviously. But they have, you know, they're doing trade to build support and finance. And I think they're also encouraging their partners and allies to create chaos wherever they can. I believe that Venezuela's threats with Guyana are encouraged by the Russians. And I think that Iran prompting Hamas to attack Israel was prompted by Russia and by Iran. I think that they are interconnected in this. I don't see the Houthi strikes as not tied to Ukraine. and through Hamas conflict. One, I see it as a way for Russia to try to get U .S. support diverted to other areas, either South America or the Middle East. Absolutely. But I also see it as a way to manage the ceiling for the conflict, because if your adversary is distributed, then you can kind of manage how much support Ukraine will get. And you can then build in more support for your side, which then your network is stronger than the defense network, and you can actually win the war. Absolutely. And previously, you mentioned arsonist in the neighborhood.

00:22:42    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
arsonist in the neighborhood. That's what the Kremlin is today. KGB rule, divide and rule, and create multiple fronts for the U .S. That's a playbook from Cold War. The U .S. cannot afford... to have two or three major wars going on and being engaged in. And I mean, in a way, U .S. engagement in Iraq allowed Putin to grow his base and to grow his economic base and to transform into dictatorship. That's also contributed. Yes. So now, yeah, I agree. They are instigating and supporting these various conflicts, either directly or indirectly, through their own allies. And yeah, Israel and Ukraine are facing the same enemies, Russia and Iran, which is astonishing how that is still not clearly understood in D .C., at least in some circles. But to return back to Navalny, you know, when he was arrested, President Biden said that if something happens with Navalny, if he's killed, then Russian leadership will face grave repercussions. So it's great that President Biden spoke on the occasion of Navalny's death and put the blame on Putin's shoulders. That's great. But now we need to see those repercussions. We need more sanctions. We need Navalny Act. We need clear aid to Ukraine. And we need propping up our allies and our own defense and being prepared for this global arsonist and killer. This country woke up too late to threat from Hitler and Japan. So let's not repeat that mistake with the new Hitler of our time.

00:24:27    JACK GAINES
That's a great wrap -up to that point. So what is it that you are up to? Because you live here in D .C., right? Yes, yes, correct. You've got your own efforts to reform the Russian way of living. Yes. You have a campaign that you're working on.

00:24:36    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
You've got your

00:24:43    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
i'll maybe give a very quick background to how i came to this and then to see what i do you can cut out anything i probably cut out half of my jokes because maybe it will explain um go ahead and and feel free to joke about bad humor i come from a mixed background my mom is from ukraine at the wet ukraine um it's she's from ukrainian jewish community in dnipro

00:24:50    JACK GAINES
probably cut out half of my jokes because maybe it will explain

00:24:54    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
go ahead and and feel free to joke about bad humor i

00:25:02    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
come from a mixed background my mom is from ukraine at the wet ukraine um it's she's from ukrainian jewish community in dnipro But she was raised in Moscow herself, and I was born in Moscow. So I'm a Russian -Ukrainian Jew raised in Moscow. But I also went to study in the U .S. as a school student for one year on the Freedom Support Act program. And then I was lucky to study for scholarships in Britain. And I got my high education in Russia and in Oxford, in liberal arts. In 2004, when I was done with studies, I was still hopeful about Russia, and I went back to work on climate change programs, projects with a Danish company in Moscow. And then I wanted to join a Western energy company. I applied to multiple. So I ended up working in TNKBB, which was a subsidiary of a Western company. And they were in bed with Putin. We did some many good things on climate change projects, introducing new standards for health, safety and environment. And it was good for Russia. It was good for the world. Oil and gas are still needed there, at least at that time. But none of those standards mattered to Russians, at least in the Kremlin. And they violently took over that company in 2008, 2009. And I was in the middle of that conflict. I was fabricated as a spy. by Russian security services and Russian oligarchs. And I saw firsthand how major Anglo -American company didn't respond to that attack. And that's what triggered my understanding that if Russians can do this thing to senior Western oil executives, they will do it to anyone and they will export this abroad. So I went through a short trial. I was tried in the same court as Magnitsky. Literally the same judge was trying us in 2009. It was a kangaroo court. And all my prosecutors and the judge are now on the Magnitsky list. So I was my dual citizen, a Russian -American. And for Russians, I was an American. So they trashed me on TV as a British spy, as an American spy, as a Ukrainian spy already in 2008. So eventually I managed to get out because the Russians got everything they wanted and they still were not in the open war. with with the west and so i got out of russia in 2010 and since then you know i've wrote multiple papers that wake up this will have grave security implications for the west this kind of regime will not stop this will have a spillover effect globally and then i moved to dc and i started fighting these oligarchs who i can see more agents of the kremlin they are the biggest difference with the soviet times now putin has these very powerful agents who present themselves as private businessmen, who can travel around the world absolutely legalized. In broad daylight, they can do various hybrid warfare activities on behalf of the Kremlin. And gain a profit on it. And make a profit on it, but also do the bidding for the Kremlin. They bring a salad bar of options for the Kremlin, and the Kremlin picks what they like. The co -opting people, getting political access, making political donations to parties, meddling in elections, buying strategic assets, censoring Western media, not just Russian. So I've seen it all. And I've been writing about several dozen of oligarchs and exposing them both privately in briefings to policymakers, but also publicly through various campaigns. And since 2014, I saw that Russians could turn this hybrid war into actual war. This is a long story, maybe for the rest of our lifetime, like Cold War wars, which lasted almost 80 years. So we might be for another 80 years or so with this regime in Russia. We have to contain it. We have to reduce resources available to them in a drastic way. We have to... stop any proliferation of any dual -use military equipment to them. I continue to expose oligarchs, who continue to operate freely in the West. Most of them are not sanctioned enough. But also, apart from oligarchs, I'm very concerned for the fate of Ukraine, because if Ukraine falls, then I have no doubt that we will have a much bigger war in Europe, and the U .S. will be involved in that war.

00:29:38    JACK GAINES
Yeah, they now have 600 ,000. military that has battle experience. Yes, and other aggressors and dictatorships are watching.

00:29:47    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
are watching.

00:29:48    JACK GAINES
If not cooperating somehow.

00:29:51    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Yes, maybe they're cooperating tacitly, but as soon as Russia wins in Ukraine, China, Iran, North Korea, they'll be encouraged to do many more horrible things. They will feel emboldened. Venezuela, you mentioned. They will feel emboldened. to take on allies of US. So we shouldn't allow ourselves to go that path. In a way, if I had to compare, war in Ukraine right now is like a war against Spain and the Czech Republic in 1930s.

00:30:27    JACK GAINES
Okay, so I need to go Google up the Spanish -Czech war.

00:30:31    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Well, basically, Hitler with Franco was testing his Luftwaffe and his armies. and his technology, and they crushed the Republic. And Franco and all fascists around the world at the time felt emboldened on the West, on the U .S. They had a weapons supplier to support their ambitions.

00:30:48    JACK GAINES
had a weapons supplier to support their ambitions.

00:30:51    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Exactly. So what I'm doing here, I'm trying to wake up policymakers and expert community and anyone interested in democracy that we are in grave danger. And this hybrid warfare that is already waged against the U .S. can turn hot and bigger if we don't act. And there are concrete ways how we can act. It's not just I'm being alarmist and saying, wake up. I'm saying, give money and equipment to Ukraine, step up our own defense, help our allies, ensure NATO has all contingency plans, but also just acknowledge the fact that we are no longer in peaceful time with Russia. And they're trying all sorts of new innovative ways inside this country through hacking, through co -optation, through access to political opinion makers and leaders. And oligarchs, they are not independent from the crime. And let's prevent all of that.

00:31:50    JACK GAINES
Is there anything that you want me to put on the web for you or share? Or do you have any last comments? Any last thoughts?

00:32:01    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Navalny's death should not just bring condolences and concern. It should bring concrete actions in the form of aid to Ukraine, Navalny Act, containment strategy, sanctions, much wider sanctions in areas that we discussed. That's the best outcome.

00:32:16    JACK GAINES
I appreciate you doing it to the last second. I'm sure you're getting pinged right and left by folks that want to talk or pull you into panels or want to bring you into testimony.

00:32:21    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
talk or

00:32:23    JACK GAINES
to bring you into testimony.

00:32:24    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
to bring you into testimony. I'm really glad we did this. I'll stay in touch. Let's continue.

00:32:32    JACK GAINES
All right. Well, thanks for your time.

00:32:34    ILYA ZASLAVSKY
Talk soon. Thanks for listening.

00:32:36    JACK GAINES
If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field. working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. 1CA Podcast.