These days we often talk about the Middle East, but the situation in Russia is important. There are only a few voices that are still ready, and willing to speak, especially about the situation inside Russia. Aleksei Miniailo, recently wrote an article for Foreign Affairs magazine entitled - "Don't give up on a better Russia, an opposition activist in Moscow on how his country can change". Miniailo, who experienced a stay in a Moscow prison, also talks about Putin's relationship with Alexei Navalny and the opposition, the operation of Putin's propaganda, and what he says is the "Special Election Operation" that will take place on March 17 this year.

N1: You said no “give up on a better Russia”. Where is that better Russia and how can that better Russia emerge from the shadow of Putin's regime? Because just 48 hours or 72 hours ago, Russia marked 23 years since he came to power at the request of the late President Yeltsin.

MINIAILO: The thing is that now a better Russia exists. However, it has been suppressed and is under pressure from the Putin regime. When you think about what's good with Russia we see, for example, IT companies in the sphere of search engines like Yandex, which is one of the leading companies in the world in the sphere of artificial intelligence or like self-driving cars. They may not be as great as Silicon Valley, but they are still pretty good and very progressive. It is something that exists now and something that has long served the needs of ordinary Russians and the humanities for humanity as a whole. But the thing is autocracies corrupt everyone. Everything that people create for the needs of the people, for the benefit of people around the world, the authoritarians corrupt and use to strengthen their power, unfortunately. So Russia is right here, right now, just subjugated and corrupted by the Putin regime.

N1: His regime in the last two years shows a picture that confuses many outside Russia. Many, for example, considered Sergey Lavrov a decent diplomat and someone who represented Russia well on the international stage. And then we saw an onslaught of rhetoric that is not usual for diplomatic and political representatives from countries like Russia, with this denazification, Nazis, drugs, thugs, criminals, etc. How do people in Russia view what happened in the last two years?

MINIAILO: It is a very complex thing. If you ask me to say something about it, I would say that it cannot be summed up in two words. So, first, people are very disconnected from what's going on. The government tried very hard to get people to invest in this war, to get people to participate, to voluntarily go to the army, and to help the army by making things that could be sent to the front line. Not just weapons, but some simple things that ordinary people can make at home and send to the front lines because they are needed, like oil lamps for the trenches. They have failed in this; we see very little active participation in it. For example, if you think about it, imagine that you are a very pro-government citizen who believes that this war is a war against the Kyiv Nazi regime. What would you do as a young, capable person? You'd probably join the army and go protect democracy or the Slavic world from corrupt Nazis and so on. But what we see is that very few people do that. Now the situation is so dire that the Minister of Defense and regional governments are recruiting people for contract service. What they do to attract people is they give people up to $10,000 instantly just for signing a contract. Can you imagine? The average salary in Russia is about 500 dollars, and now they give up to 10,000 in one instalment just for signing the contract. It shows how few people are willing to serve in the military. So, we're seeing what we saw in the late Soviet era when the propaganda was all about how great communism was, and people at the grassroots level were just saying, blah, blah and stealing parts from factories. So,o we're seeing very similar things now. But, of course, there is always the danger that the government's efforts will finally pay off. And maybe turn the situation around in society. We don't see that now, but I wouldn't completely rule it out, unfortunately.