DISINFO: Navalny never presents evidence of corruption, on the contrary WikiLeaks is serious
SUMMARY
Assange and Snowden made Navalny old-fashioned, in the sense that the latter can no longer be considered so much of a whistleblower today, because Assange and Snowden have exposed documentary sources. They have made documentary archives that should not have been available to anybody wishing to consult them. It shocked a lot of people. At the start of WikiLeaks, there was pressure, academic journals rejecting articles that cited sources published by WikiLeaks. There was much more to the Holy of Holies of political power there than what Navalny did in Russia, who did not make any documents available. Navalny is making videos of things about which we have concordant bundles of presumptions, but no physical or documentary evidence of what he says.
In fact, Navalny is a whistleblower who begs us to take his word for it, but he’s not really a whistleblower anymore when compared to people who have genuinely exposed state secrets, like Assange and Snowden. Besides, Snowden did not return to the United States.
RESPONSE
Disinformation around Alexey Navalny claiming that he does make serious investigations and does not provide any evidence apart from his speech in his movies.
The FBK organisation (Foundation for Combating Corruption) is a Russian non-profit organisation based in Moscow established in 2011 by activist and politician Alexei Navalny. Its main goal is to investigate and to expose corruption cases among high-ranking Russian government officials. The films produced are very visible: "Chaika" reached 17 millions views, "Don't call him "Dimon"" reached 42 millions views and "Putin's palace. History of world's largest bribe" 107 millions view in less than 2 weeks. However, it is important to highlight that before being films with a very large audience, these projects were written investigations with documents to prove what is inferred. The link to the written investigation is usually provided just under the video. The most recent is here.
Of course, as always in cases where leaks are involved, the authenticity and source of the documents referred to is important. But the investigations do not contain only one document or only one source. Moreover, many elements are already known and published in specialised press. Only the presentation in a visual and synthetic form, in a movie, make it more accessible to a large public.
In contrast, Wikileaks doesn't provide large scale investigations.
Additionally, many sources of the investigation are open records or publication that anyone can consult and that are therefore authentic.
Read also related stories: Navalny’s investigation and film “Putin’s palace. History of world’s largest bribe” doesn’t contain anything new, Bellingcat is a Western weapon against Russia , Alexei Navalny is a depleted political project .
The EU has condemned the detention of Alexei Navalny and called for his immediate release.