[captioning made possible by democracy now!] ♪♪ [music break] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! pres. biden: i have met with him . he is bright, he is tough, and i have found that he is a, as they say when we used to play ball, where the adversary. amy: president biden and russian president vladimir putin are meeting in geneva for a high

stakes summit between the world's two largest nuclear powers. >> i generally agree that there are some issues of mutual interest, regional conflicts and the environment, issues in which we can really work effectively. amy: we will spend the hour with russian-american journalist masha gessen, author of "surviving autocracy" and "the man without a face: the unlikely rise of vladimir putin." all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. president biden is meeting with russian president vladimir putin in a high-stakes summit in geneva right now for their first face-to-face meeting since biden took office. representatives for both leaders said they expect cybersecurity, nuclear stability, the climate crisis, syria, the iran nuclear

deal, afghanistan, ukraine, and the korean peninsula to be on the agenda, and possibly the case of alexei navalny. they will then give separate press conferences ahead of the --press conferences. ahead of the meeting, biden said the u.s. is not looking for confrontation with russia. we will get more as wspin the hour with masha gessen, award-winning author and staff writer at "the new yorker." israeli forces shot dead a palestinian woman in a town northeast of jerusalem earlier today. she was identified as 29-year-old mai afanah, a doctoral student. the israeli military claimed she attempted to ram her car into a group of soldiers. local media report no ambulance was sent to care for her after she was shot. the killing came the day after israel launched overnight air raids on gaza for the first time since a ceasefire with hamas was declared in may following a

brutal 11-day bombardment of the gaza strip. no casualties have been reported. the israeli military said its air raid came in response to fire balloons launched from the besieged gaza strip. earlier in the day, at least 17 palestinians were arrested as they protested the ultra-nationalist israeli march of the flags taking place in occupied east jerusalem. some participants chanted "death to arabs," and "may your village burn down." this is palestinian legal activist and protester farid al-atrash. >> they should stop the acts by entering a mosque in jerusalem, a capital of the palestinian state. we're telling jerusalem and residents that you're not alone. amy: new york and california, both once epicenters of the

pandemic, lifted most of their remaining restrictions as infections continue to fall and as over 70% of adults in both states have received at least one dose of a covid vaccine. individual businesses will still be able to decide whether to keep their own health measures in place. the senate has unanimously approved legislation that would make juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the united states, a federal holiday. the celebration dates back to the last days of the civil war when union soldiers landed in galveston, texas, june 19, 18 65, with news that the war had ended and slaves were free. the measure will have to pass the house before it can be enacted into law. lawmakers celebratedhe historic move, but some called for further action. democratic new york congressmember jamaal bowman tweeted, "the senate continues

to be behind the times. juneteenth has been a holiday for well over 100 years. let's bring the senate into modern times and get unanimous consent on abolishing the jim crow filibuster." in texas, republican governor greg abbott has signed a controversial bill into law that prohibits educators from teaching about the history and social impacts of systemic racism in the united states. it also bans teaching of the 1619 project, in which the creator was awarded a poet surprise. texas joins several other states, including arkansas and north carolina, that have passed legislation banning the teaching of critical race theory since the police murder of george floyd last year. teachers across the country have been processed -- protesting the enactment of such legislation, which i compare to jim crow laws. democratic house members cori

bush and bonnie watson coleman introduced a bill tuesday that would decriminalize all drug possession and put in place a "health centered approach." missouri congressmember bush said, "it's time to put wellness and compassion ahead of trauma and punishment." in somalia, at least 15 people were killed in a suicide bombing in the capital mogadishu. the attack reportedly targeted recruits at a somali army training camp. at least 20 others were wounded. al shabab later claimed responsibility for the attack. this comes as the pentagon is working on a proposal to deploy dozens of special forces trainers to somalia to help local officials combat al shabab. in january, former president trump withdrew some 700 troops from somalia. in hungary, human rights advocates are denouncing new anti-lgbtq legislation passed by lawmakers that bans media, advertisers, and other outlets from showing children any content that portrays gay,

lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people, and prohibits teaching about lgbtq issues at schools. the far-right party of hungarian prime minister viktor orban introduced the legislation, which was attached to a bill that more strictly penalizes child abuse. opponents of the legislation have compared it to russia's so-called gay propaganda law enacted in 2013. human rights watch said the law "is a cynical attack by the ruling party on the human dignity of lgbt people for political gain. by falsely associating harmful illegal behavior with lgbt people, authorities invite hostility and hatred against them, fueling homophobia and transphobia." after the largest expedition ever to the north pole, researchers say artic ice is receding faster than ever before and that we may have already passed the point of no return on global heating.

the expedition's leader, markus rex, presented the team's findings on tuesday. >> there are several sticking points in the climate system which lead to irreversible sudden changes. we have seen that we are on the verge of that point, which will lead to the disappearance of the ice. amy: back in the u.s., in minnesota, water and land defenders are continuing resistance actions against enbridge's line 3 pipeline. on tuesday, activists blockaded a semi-truck loaded with drilling equipment, laying on the ground and attaching themselves to the vehicle. at least 30 people were arrested tuesday. this came a day after a minnesota court upheld a state approval of the pipeline's expansion. the native-led group honor the earth said, "line 3 is a clear violation of human rights and cultural rights to live as

anishinaabe people promised in the 1855 treaty. president biden must stop line 3." to see our interview with the indigenous leader, go to democracynow.org. president biden named lina khan as chair of the federal trade commission after the senate confirmed her earlier in the day. khan is a prominent critic of big tech. she wrote a widely hailed paper on the failure of antitrust laws to reign in amazon while she was a law student at yale. senator elizabeth warren celebrated the news, tweeting, "with chair khan at the helm, we have a huge opportunity to make big, structural change by reviving antitrust enforcement and fighting monopolies that threaten our economy, our society, and our democracy." the biden administration announced new measures tuesday to combat domestic terrorism following a review of extremist threats and in light of the january 6 insurrection at the

u.s. capitol. the new approach includes hiring more analysts and prosecutors at the justice department and fbi, improving communications on possible threats between the federal government and local authorities, as well as with social media companies. attorney general merrick garland spoke tuesday after the white house plan was released. >> the two most lethal elements of the domestic violence extremist threat or racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and militia extremists. in the fbi's view, the top extremist violence threat comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocate for the superiority of the white race. amy: newly revealed emails show former president trump, his chief of staff, and other aides pushed the justice department to back his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. the house oversight committee released the documents tuesday,

which show trump and others began pressuring incoming acting attorney general jeffrey rosen just an hour before trump announced that william barr would be stepping down as attorney general. in immigration news, the los angeles times reports the biden administration is planning to expand a program that allows some central american children to reunite with their parents living in the united states. under the program first enacted by the obama administration, parents from guatemala, el salvador, and honduras who have legal residency or protected status in the united states, can apply for their children to be allowed into the country. this comes as the biden administration continues to detain thousands of unaccompanied refugee children. last week during a visit to guatemala, vice president kamala harris warned asylum seekers to not to come to the united states. janitors, maintenance, and

security workers around the u.s. and the world marked justice for janitors day tuesday and are holding actions all week to demand safety, fair pay, healthcare, immigration reform, and respect in the workplace. in miami, unionized workers have been on strike since last thursday over low wages, pay discrimination, and unfair labor practices. this is miami janitor walter osores. >> we need to work two or three jobs. right now i only sleep four or five hours to be able to support my family. it is unfair. we want a better quality of life and for them to invest in the s and future workers. amy: william vanden heuvel, a former diplomat, lawyer and adviser to robert f. kennedy, died tuesday in new york city from complications of pneumonia at the age of 91. vanden heuvel fought for civil rights, including during his time at the justice department from 1962 to 1964. he also advocated for better conditions for prisoners,

-- for incarcerated people, calling on the media to help shine a light on the failures of the criminal justice system. in 1972, he wrote, "the right to know in a democracy frequently depends on the demand to know by the media." he is survived by his wife, his two daughters, including katrina vanden heuvel, publisher and former editor of "the nation" magazine. and the goldman environmental prize announced its 2021 winners, recognizing grassroots activism across the world. vietnam's tai non nwenis combating illegal wildlife trade and poaching, kimiko hirata is a climate activist working to halt japan's use of coal, maida bilal led a blockade to cancel two proposed dams in protected areas of bosnia and herzegovina. here in the united states, sharon laveen activated her community in louisiana to stop a hazardous plastics plant from being built.

in peru, liz chicay chureye helped found the yaguas national park, which protects more than two million acres of amazon rainforest. and gloria mageeka-kamoto spearheaded a campaign which led the government of malawi to impose a ban on thin plastics, a type of single-use plastic. she spoke at tuesday's virtual award ceremony. >> many plastics are being regulated for use. but we are still drowning in plastics. you and me need to start making different choices, different decisions. we need to start refusing plastics and start reducing our part of the waste. amy: and those are some of the headlines this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report, the war and

peace report. when we come back, president biden and russian president vladimir putin our meeting in geneva for a high-stakes summit. we are spitting an hour with journalist masha gessen, author of "surviving autocracy" and "the man without a face: the unlikely rise of vladimir putin ." she will speak with us from georgia. stay with us. 6/16/21 6/16/21 democracy now! test ♪♪ [music break]

amy: everything is going according to the plan, by igor l ata. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report, the war and peace report. i am joined by nermeen shaikh. nermeen: hello around the world. amy: there is a closely watched summit between the world's two largest nuclear powers.

topics expected to be discussed include nuclear arms, cybersecurity, syria, the iranian nuclear deal, afghanistan, ukraine, the korean peninsula, putin's crackdown on dissent inside russia and the u.s. military presence near the russian border. biden and putin are expected to meet for four to five hours but do not plan to hold a joint news conference, as former president donald trump did with putin when they met three years ago in helsinki, finland. earlier this week, biden described putin as a worthy adversary. pres. biden: i am going to make it clear to president putin that there are areas where we can cooperate, if he chooses, and if he chooses not to cooperate and ask in a way that he has in the past relative to cybersecurity

and some other activities, then we will respond. we will respond in kind. there need not be -- we should decide where it is in our mutual interest and the interest of the world to cooperate. let's see if we can do that. in the areas where we do not agree, making clear what the red lines are. we have met with him. he is bright. he is tough. and i have found that he is a, as they say when you used to play ball, worthy adversary. amy: during a recent interview, russian president vladimir putin expressed hope the summit would focus in part on areas where the countries share mutual concerns. >> it seems to me the summit will help restore context and relations, provide dialogue, and

we can recommend action for areas of mutual interests. there are such interests. i generally agree that there are some issues of mutual interest, such as regional conflicts and stability. these are the issues in which we can really work effectively. amy: ahead of the summit, presidents biden and putin have faced calls to restart nuclear arms talks. this is beatrice fihn, head of the nobel peace prize winning ican, the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. >> -- 90% of the world's arsenals. these two individuals basically have the ability to end the world as we know it. unfortunately, we have seen a huge deterioration in the relationship between these two countries in the last 10 years, since obama and medvedev negotiated the new start treaty,

and things have not improved after that. lots of withdrawals from bilateral agreements, modernization and upgrades of nuclear programs, new missions, and an increase in the role of nuclear weapons. amy: to talk more about the biden-putin summit and other issues, we are joined by the russian-american journalist and writer masha gessen. masha is a staff writer at the "new yorker" and the award-winning author of numerous books, including "the man without a face: the unlikely rise of vladimir putin," "the future is history: how totalitarianm reclaimed russia," and most recently, "surviving autocracy," which has just come out in paperback. masha joins us from tbilisi, the capital of the nation of georgia. welcome back to democracy now!

talk about the significance of this summit, vladimir putin and joe biden meeting in geneva, switzerland. we are speaking as they have just sat down. masha: thank you, amy. good to be here. i thinkhis is an event that is more significant for vladimir putin. the very fact of the summit, the fact that biden called him a worthy adversary, that he is being treated as someone to sit down with and discuss the world, all of these are things that are incredibly valuable to putin. he accomplishes what he has come to geneva for by simply having a summit. biden is concerned in the sort

of standard american idiom with deliverables, with fighting areas of common -- finding areas of common interest, and he is alone in that, alone in the actually trying to negotiate in good faith. there are other significant stations between these two men. one is the legitimately elected president and state actor, the other is a dictator who shores up his power by murdering his opponents, jailing his opponents, and by rigging elections and dominating the media. he is not a legitimate president and not a good-faith negotiator. nermeen: masha, biden is the fifth u.s. president putin will be meeting, putin having been in power for over 20 years, the longest time that any leader, soviet or russian, has been in power since stalin. what do you think, and putin

said earlier that this is the worst point in u.s.-russian relations, do you think putin thinks anything substantive will come out of the summit which is beneficial for russia? masha: so it is a really good point, that he -- that biden is the fifth president putin is meeting with. i think that these two men have very different sort of experiences of having the summit. for biden, it is quite possibly the only summit he will ever have with vladimir putin. for putin, it is a meeting with a temporary occupant of an office in which there is turnover. it is a stop on a long and ongoing journey and i think a journey he perceives it very much, and i think quite

accurately, as t deterioration of american democracy. anhere is perhaps a pause in the deterioration of american democracy, and putin will have a talk with the person currently occupying a chair. these are perceptually very different things. what does putin want to get out of it that is even more just the fact of having it? you can see how sort of the normal mechanisms of participating in a summit have kicked in on the american side and have already given putin a lot of the things that he wants. biden is talking about areas of mutual interest. biden is sort of discussing the world, perhaps discussing the middle east with putin. this reaffirms putin, something incredibly important to him, which is that you cannot do things in the world without consulting russia.

this has been a central theme for his presidency and of his consolidation of power. he builds it othis nostalgia for the greatness of the soviet pire, of nostalgia for the superpower. and he spent a lot of the early decade in the office talking about the ways in which russia had been humiliated by the world and which russia is not consulted. a breaking point in that sort of story of humiliation came six years ago, 2015, when president obama and vice president joe biden cannot get congressional support for intervention in syria. putin stepped in, publish an op-ed in the "new york times" about american exceptionalism, and said i am going to help obama save face and i am going to take care of syrian chemical weapons. as a result, we have -- syrians

have a shored up assad regime, and it helped assad save his top biochemical weapons. it shows what happens when the u.s. enters into a kind of agreementn an area in which both interests assert mutual interest. so biden talking about that, talking in those terms, with that background, going into the summit, is a little hay moment for putin. right? one that comes after a very long time of deterioration of russian and american relations, both during the trump presidency and during the first months of the biden presidency. nermeen: masha, could you talk about what you think will be the mitchell point in interest -- the mutual point in interest, as biden indicated earlier this

week, saying he would be open to a reciprocal agreement on the extradition of cyber criminals. can you talk about the significance of that, and what other points of interest and agreement there may be between the two? masha: well, this is a really terrifying comment that biden, in the briefing a couple days ago, when he said that the united states is going to raise the issue of possible extradition of cyber criminals or people under indictment in the united states, and there are several dozen people under indictment in the united states for election interference, for hacking, and he said there is a possibility of mutual agreement there and that the united states would consider extract -- extraditing people o have committed crimes against russia. in my mind, i cod hear the collective gp of horror on the part of the hundreds, and there are hundreds, definitely

hundreds of russian dissidents living with trumped up charges ainst them in russia. and we know the putin regime is going to weaponize and has weaponized in the past extradition treaties, to try to return dissidents to russia. so i suspect that that comment was made thoughtlessly, but the fact that it was made thoughtlessly two days before the summit by the president of the united states shows that i think he is not terribly well-prepared for this meeting, in some respects, and i am afraid it shows that the united states does not really have the back of people who oppose the putin regime. amy: this is very interesting, this issue of cyber warfare being elevated to the

issue of nuclear warfare for the first time. and you have -- even biden has not exactly said it is the russian government who, for example, has been involved with the sabotaging of various major entities in the united states, but criminal entities, they say, sometimes that are in russia, but they have this ability to attack these private megacorporations that do not have the necessary protections. can you talk more about the power that the russian government has? because that is what biden is charging. while he is not saying it is the government, he is saying they have the power to crackdown on the criminal organizations within their country. and the russian push for years for a global peace treaty for cyberspace, what does that mean, something the u.s. has not

accepted? masha: well, the push for global cyber treaty is a push to create a seof laws that other countries would be bound by and russia would not. this is how law functions in russia, and there is no reason to expect that russia would have a different attitude toward the law, toward international law. he does not have a different attitude toward existing international law than it does to a law within its own borders. the law exists for putin to consolidate power. the courts exist for putin to consolidate power. the jail exists for putin's opponents. right? that is how the law sort of functions in putin's imagination.

now, as for whetherhese cyb entities are actual governmen agencies or not, russia practices a system of deniability, and this is far beyond cyber crime. the russian government, in some significant ways, is a sort of syndicate with a lot of freelancers. i think when we learn more about political murders in russia, we will find out that there is a lot of freelance activity going on there, as well. right? certainly, that is how russia has, on rare occasions, that ople who have actually killed politicians, such as a parliament member who was killed in 1998, an opposition politician shot to death in front of the criminal in 2015

mann the rare occasions tt someone has actually been prosecuted, it has always been a freelancer, the gunman, who will not disclose whohe original you ow, the person who made the original order, assassination order. so we're basically talking about a state that functions as a criminal syndicate. and that points to parts of its body and says, these are not government agencies. amy: i want to go to alexei navalny. a news conference after a nato summit in brussels, president biden was asked how u.s.-russia relations would be affected if kremlin critic alexei navalny were to die in detention. pres. biden: navalny's death would be another indication that

russia has little or no intentions of abiding by basic, fundamental human rights. it would be a tragedy. it would do nothing but hurt his relationships with the rest of the world, in my view, and with me. amy: russian president vladimir putin was asked on nbc news by keira simmons come aditi order alexian evolving'debt alexei navalny's assassination? this was putin's response. >> of course not. we do not have this kind of habit of assassinating anybody. that is one. number two, i want to ask you, did you order the assassination of the women who walked into the congress and was shot and killed by a policeman? do you know that 450 individuals were arrested after entering congress, and they did not go to

a single laptop? they came with political demands. 450 people have been detained, and they are looking at jail time, 15 to 25 years, and they came to the congress with political demands. isn't thatersecution of political opinions? amy: that is russian president vladimir putin speaking on nbc news. masha gessen, you have written a whole piece in "the new yorker" about alexei navalny and who he is and what is happening to him now in jail. but also, this equation that president putin is making with the insurrectionists that rioted at the capitol on january 6. masha: i have many pieces about alexei navalny from over the years. look, i think -- [inaudible]

they will look at that as, you know, at the moment, just incredible shame. i want to go back for second to the statement. a political statement, you know, it makes people whose lives are actually at risk in russia feel abandoned. let's think about this, biden says -- this is going to be another indication that russia has no intention of abiding by human rights rules.

another indication? like we need another indication. amy: masha, we're going to break because we want to reconnect with you. we are having a little trouble with your audio. we want to definitely get back to this question. masha gessen, award-winning russian-american journalist, staff writer at "the new yorker." she is in tip lisi, georgia. we will speak to them after the break. we're talking about the putin -biden summit taking place right now in geneva, switzerland. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. i am with nermeen. our guest is masha gessen, staff writer at "the new yorker," award-winning russian-american journalist, author of most recently "surviving autocracy," which is just out in paperback. they also wrote "the future of history: how totalitarianism reclaimed russia," as well as "the man without a face: the unlikely rise of vladimir putin." if you would like to sign up for our daily digest, you can go to democracynow.org or you can text the word democracynow, one word, to 66866. you will get our news headlines

and news alerts everyday. texting one word, democracynow, to 66866. you can watch, listen, and read transcripts using our ios and android apps. you can download them for free from the apple app store or google play store today. as we turn back to masha gessen, we are just fixing the sound. masha gessen is speaking to us from tbilisi, russia, and she's usually in new york as professor at bard, where they are a professor at bard college. i do want to play a clip of russia recalling its ambassador to the united states after president biden called president putin a killer during an interview on abc with george stephanopoulos. >> you know of vladimir putin.

do you think he is a killer? pres. biden: m-hmm, i do. >> what price will he pay? pres. biden: you will see shortly. amy: earlier this week, president biden was asked about president putin by cnn's jeff zell any. >> is it still your belief that he is a killer? pres. biden: [laughs] cannot answer the first question? i am laughing, too. well, look, he has made clear that -- the answer is, i believe he is, in the past, has essentially acknowledged that there are certain things that he would do or did do.

but look, when i was asked that question on the year, i answered honestly, but it is not much of a -- i do not think it matters a whole lot in terms of this next meeting we are about to have. amy: so that was president biden. we are going back right now to masha gessen. they are now joining us by telephone from tbilisi, georgia, award-winning russian-american journalist and author of many books. masha, you were talking about alexei navalny. you have written extensively about alexei navalny, the longtime nationalist, clearly, for many years, anti-immigrant, opposition leader in russia. and then if you can go to -- masha: that is really inaccurate. amy: why do you say that? masha: look, he is a

pro-democracy activist. he has made two -- videos. he has clarified his position repeatedly. i have absolutely no doubt that he is an internationalist. [inaudible] especially right now. he is in prison. -- just not right. [inaudible] we really need to be talking

about this person, pro-democracy, who survived an assassination attempt, and now they are attending to kill him slowly in prison. amy: and can you respond to president biden -- president putin clearly saying this is an issue of -- this is our own issue and not anything for the united states to intervene? masha: well, the vladimir putin is -- he is a man who ordered many assassinations. and we really have to think, as journalists, we are in a bind

because he is the president of russia. but what are we doing when we are speaking to an international audience, asking this man who we know is going to lie on camera, who we know is a killer -- there is ample evidence that a group of the russian secret police officers followed navalny for several years and attempted to poison him, poison tim, intended to kill him. furthermore, there is ample evidence of this very same group following other people around and has attempted to kill other people and has succeeded in the killing still other people. and we are putting this killer on national television with a journalist who is clearly unprepared to ask follow-up questions and setting him up to make false equivalencies and to

sort of bask in the light of tv cameras and a chance to assert once again that he has the power , among other things, the power to speak publicly about the man he ordered killed while that man is in prison. nermeen: masha, you have written -- go ahead. masha: i was just going to say that every dictator under the sun's is cracking down on opposition is a matter of their internal politics. the whole concept of human rights is based on this pretty utopian idea that people have basic rights that are guaranteed to them by the world and that cannot be violated by a dictator who they have the misfortune to share a motherland with.

amy: we are still having trouble with the audio, if you can explain the parallel of the insurrectionists in the killing of ashli babbitt at the capital ol on generator six. masha: this is classic "what aboutism." nobody is better at it than kgb agents. i think this is a propaganda trope where everything is equal to everything else. so he is talking about a politician who has been using peaceful tactics. the navalny movement is really an extraordinary movement pay -- based on truth telling and protest and nothing else. and he is comparing that to a violent, militant, armed insurrection in the u.s. capitol that we know -- again, this is

well-documented, that had violent aims, engaged in mergers frederick, and all of a sudden, everything is equal to everything. and then we spend 10, 15 minutes trying to dissect that propaganda trope and trying to find the kernel of truth in something that is designed to obscure truth. there is a reason why we should not be putting dictators on national television. nermeen: masha, you have been following navalny closely for many years, and you have written also about the conditions of his imprisonment. can you talk about what you know of the conditions under which he is being held, whether he has access to social media accounts, how he is communicating with the outside world, and the fact that earlier this year, as you wrote about, he went on hunger strike -- are there any prospects for

his release, and how is he doing? masha: so we do not know a whole lot about how navalny is doing. access to him is getting more and more difficult. the russian parliament hold special laws banning all lawyers from bringing any electronic devices, such as phones, to their meetings with their clients in prison, specifically to prevent navalny's lawyers fromaking pictures of him or making videos or taking dictation and giving him access to his social media. so he still gets some messages out. he can also sent letters through the official censored prison mail. his wife yesterday was just allowed to see him, illegally with russian law, which is

pretty awful. she has not yet been allowed to have a conjugal, so-called conjugal, three-day visit with him. she has only going out to have four-hour visits with him a couple of times which gets cut down to a couple of hours by the time everybody is searched. what we know about the conditions in which he is kept is, first of all, russian prisoners are kept in extremely poor conditions. their death rate in russian prison, even not during a pandemic, are extremely high. violence is extremely high. hygiene is very poor. food is extremely bad, in part because it is supplied sometimes by a coopany owned by putin's cook and closest ally, whom navalny helped expose.

so conditions for all prisoners are extremely poor. navalny's conditions are worse than those of any other prisoners, among other things because he is tortured with sleep deprivation. he was placed on a list, risk of prisoners considered escapist, so to make sure he is still there, he is awakened by the guards every hour during the night, and this has been going on for, what is it, 120 days that he has been in prison. he has also recently recovered from poisoning with a nerve agent which sent him into coma in august of last year. we do not know what the state of health is for somebody who has recovered from an attack with a chemical weapon, which is what that is. when navalny was feeling unwell in march, he asked for an

outside doctor, which is something that russian law guarantees him, but he was not given access to an outside doctor, which is why he went on hunger strike. he called off his hunger strike as his health deteriorated, and there have been some concessions. he did not get to see his doctor, but he did get to see a doctor. right now, we do not know a whole lot about the state of his health, but when he appeared in court a couple of days ago by video link, he looked absolutely awful. he looked skinny and gaunt, had bags under his eyes. he did not look like a person in the good health by any stretch of the imagination. nermeen: masha, i would like to turn to another issue which has to do with the pandemic, in the particular the pandemic now in russia, which has been reporting

among the highest number of caseloads a day and where, as a result of the levels of vaccine hesitancy, which is what we see here in the u.s., as well, but because of the levels of vaccine hesitancy inhe russia, moscow's mayor, much like in the u.s., is offering all kinds of incentives for people to get vaccinated. so could you talk about the high number of infections now in russia, the issue of vaccine hesitancy, and how the putin government has dealt with administering vaccines to the population? masha: so, i think there are two things at play, and this is fascinating. it would be amazing if we were not talking about human lives. the two things that play are a total lack of trust in the government. so even though russia was the first country in the world to have a vaccine, and it skipped

safety trials because the entire population is basically a population of test subjects and they went directly to making the vaccine available, but from all the available information, it is extremely effective. yet, russia has one of the lowest vaccination rates now in the world, certainly countries where the vaccines have been available for any significant amount of time. russia -- moscow has been in position for months now where the vaccine is available just for asking. there are no shortages yet, people are not taking the vaccine because they do not trust the government. but i think another reason they are not taking the vaccine is because of the general sort of culture of a lack of respect for human life. which is also a characteristic of this particular government. under putin, human life is

worthless. right, you can poison an opponent, you can poison somebody just because they seem to have insulted you personally. ere is the news that came out recently about an attempted assassination, and it points to putin probably taking personal revenge because that person wrote an insulting poem about him are several of them. so human life is just worthless to the authorities, it also becomes worthless to the people living in the country. and in a sense, it is a rational decision. if you are risking your life just by living in russia, not only because -- if you are a member of the opposition, but if you are just a russian subject because of the disregard for

public safety in every respect, why should you take the vaccine when any number of other things could kill you? it is not an entirely illogical sort of construction. and like -- unlike vaccine hesitancy in the united states, which is pure conspiracy thinking. in russia, there is rationality. in russia, my life is worthless, and i willrobably die of something else anyway. nobody cares it as a result, we see extremely low numbers of vaccinated people. and even today, the moscow mayor kind you mentioned incentives, he ordered that 60% of people in any service workplace be vaccinated, but we see how low -- 60% is not going to give anybody heard immunity, but that seems to be but he thinks he can realistically accomplish, and that is really depressing. amy: we just have about three

units, and we want to get to two issues. one, if you can briefly address the fact that you got covid, breakthrough covid, meaning you were vaccinated here in the united states, and then you got covid. you wrote this powerful piece in "the new yorker" called the mystery of breakthrough covid infections. then i would like you to end with talking about what you have in the forward of your paperback edition of your book, and that is the u.s. moving towards autocracy. masha: very quickly, i did get breakthrough covid, which is possible, extremely unlikely, but of course it is possible. we know that the vaccine is 95% effective to prevent infection, so some fraction of 1% of people who are fully vaccinated will get the infection. fortunately, because i was vaccinated, maybe because i was

vaccinated, i had a mild form of the disease, mostly sort of psychologically discombobulated because i thought i would not get it and i was still being quite faithful, but i still got it. but i'm obvious he much more interested in the subject of autocracy. i think many people are awake to this now, to this sense that we continue to live in an incredibly divided country where we have one party that is an anti-democratic party and another party that is trying to act as though we're sort of back to normal, and that is incredibly seductive, but unless we deal with what happened in the last four years, unless we deal with the recent we got donald trump in the first place, unless we reckon with the part

of the country that has some really crazy beliefs and with the divided reality that we inhabit as we think of ourselves as a we, then i think we are enjoying a very short respite from a slide toward autocracy. amy: we are going to talk more about your book, which is just out in paperback, called "surviving autocracy." masha gessen has been our guest. we're going to bring you a part two at democracynow.org. masha is speaking to us from tb ilisi, georgia. masha is a staff writing -- staff writer and award-winning american -- russian-american journalist and has written a number of books. that is it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or

mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] tñññvvvvvrrzozozozoñ?ñ

♪ hello and welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm katherine kocatherine kobay york. one called the other a killer. u.s. president joe biden and russian president vladimir putin is emerged from their summit in geneva putting on a good face.