Nobody wants a political prisoner, but a political emigrant is no problem.

I encourage all my colleagues to run for office themselves. But it has become extremely difficult in this system to become a prominent opposition politician. I no longer have any rivals to have a debate with. I need competition. And the people will soon tire of me. They say: Navalny, It's always just Navalny. We want to see someone new.

We should fulfill the Minsk Protocol. The main reason for the sanctions is that Russia broke a taboo: It triggered a war in Europe. Crimea is a problem, but the most painful part of the sanctions is tied to the war in the Donbas. As soon as Russia takes real steps to prevent shots from being fired there, this part of the sanctions will be lifted.

For 17 years, elections in Russia have followed the same pattern: Nobody criticizes Putin, nobody runs a real election campaign, the whole process takes place quietly over a period of two months. The Kremlin blocks every alternative to Putin. He doesn't want a candidate who will travel through the country and speak loudly about Russia's problems.

We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet.

Certain people have wanted to put me behind bars for a long time now. That's part of my work. If I were afraid, I couldn't do what I do.

Russia spends enormous, senseless amounts of money on the army and the police. We have one of the top rankings in the world when it comes to the number of police officers - but when it comes to the number of murders, we are also right at the top.