Journalist Ksenia Sobchak sat down for a two-hour interview with pro-Kremlin blogger and informant Ilya Remeslo. He is known as someone who spent years fighting Alexei Navalny and was behind one of the criminal cases against the opposition leader. In mid-March, Remeslo unexpectedly published a post criticizing Vladimir Putin on his Telegram channel, and two days later ended up in a psychiatric hospital, where he spent a month. After his discharge, Remeslo told Sobchak about his hospitalization, his change of political position, his earnings while working for the Kremlin, his fight against Navalny, and his feelings about Navalny’s death. Meduza summarizes the key points of the interview.

How Remeslo ended up in a psychiatric clinic

On the evening of March 18, the blogger gave an interview to journalist Alexander Plushev, confirming that he had deliberately written a post criticizing Putin and had no intention of walking back his words. A few hours later, Remeslo said, an ambulance and police arrived at his home. “They said: your texts about Putin are stirring up society,” Remeslo said.

Remeslo dismissed the rumor that relatives had arranged his hospitalization to shield him from a possible criminal case. He declined to say who had called the ambulance, though he suggested that someone in his family may have played a role:

“One of my relatives was afraid that I faced very serious criminal liability. There were attempts to consult [with another doctor] about what to do — maybe to frame it as though I had ‘overheated.’ That may be partly why the ambulance showed up. […] But as far as I know, neither I nor any of my close relatives called it.”

Remeslo said he was hospitalized without his consent, examined multiple times, and made to take medication, but was never told his diagnosis. He described his stay as a difficult experience and characterized it as punishment for what he had said about Putin.

How much Remeslo earned working for Russia’s Presidential Administration

In his interview with Plushev before his hospitalization, Remeslo said he had worked for Russia’s Presidential Administration from the mid-2010s through the end of 2025. Speaking with Sobchak, he said he had earned an average of 700,000 rubles a month doing so. He described his work as “projects” aimed at fighting the opposition — about 70 percent targeting Navalny, the remaining 30 percent directed at other opposition figures.

Asked why he had stopped working for Russia’s Presidential Administration, Remeslo said he had simply lost the desire and had not been let go. On the contrary, he said, a new project had been in the works: he was to gather information on a certain Communist Party deputy in order to have him declared a “foreign agent,” a job that would have paid 10 million rubles. Remeslo said he turned it down.

He also walked Sobchak through the process by which Russian authorities designate people as “foreign agents”:

“There are different entry points. When there is very little material, they typically go to the Duma commission on countering foreign influence. They have their own ways of gathering material, they prepare a finding that the activities of such-and-such a person show signs of ‘foreign agent’ status, then they go to the Prosecutor General’s Office… The Justice Ministry steps in at the very last moment. Once the other agencies have signed off, the Justice Ministry is unlikely to refuse.”

Decisions on designating someone a “foreign agent” are made by Russia’s Presidential Administration together with the security bloc, Remeslo said — and this is “purely a matter of leadership’s discretion.”

Whether Remeslo feels guilty toward Navalny

Remeslo told Sobchak that he is not ashamed of most of his projects, since he fought the opposition through legal means. Among the episodes he does feel shame about, he named the criminal case alleging fraud involving donations to the Anti-Corruption Foundation. One of the victims in the case was a pensioner named Mikhail Kostenko, who had made a donation and then filed a claim against Navalny. At Navalny’s trial, Kostenko said he had no grievances against the politician and that Remeslo was behind the lawsuit.

In his interview with Sobchak, Remeslo confirmed that he had asked Kostenko to send a donation to the Anti-Corruption Foundation and paid him 50,000 rubles for doing so. Through that donation, Remeslo had hoped to gain access to the organization’s financial records and find violations in them. Neither he nor Kostenko had anticipated that the pensioner would end up as a victim in a criminal case, compelled to appear for interrogations and court hearings.

“Those idiots from the Investigative Committee decided to make him a victim. […] His reaction was intense. I realized things would go badly because he was not ready to testify in court. He botched his appearance. […] There’s a difference between making a bank transfer and being made a victim. He was scared to take part in a criminal case, and I understand him,” Remeslo said.

When asked whether he feels guilty for his role in the persecution of Navalny, Remeslo said:

“I feel very sorry for Navalny. No person deserves to die in the conditions in which he died. When I found out he was dead, I felt very strong emotions — I genuinely felt sorry for him. I kept hoping until the very end that they would get him out, exchange him, something. Yes, I feel guilty. But I did everything I could to prevent his return to Russia [after he was poisoned with Novichok in 2020]. When it became known that he was going to return, I suggested to Russia’s Presidential Administration that they frighten him off [with a criminal case]. […] I sincerely, through my contacts and connections, wrote to Navalny’s people telling them that Alexei should not come back — there would definitely be a trial and everything. I did everything I could to keep him from coming back here.”

What Remeslo plans to do next

Despite his sense of guilt toward Navalny, Remeslo refused to transfer to Navalny’s team the rights to the trademark “Beautiful Russia of the Future,” which he registered in his own name. “It was a fun bit of trolling. People failed to register the trademark for a phrase they use constantly. Their lawyers didn’t do a very good job, and I got there first. […] I’d rather use this trademark in my own work — I’ll be building a beautiful Russia of the future. And if anyone wants to join, I’m ready to welcome them,” he said.

Remeslo made clear that he has no intention of abandoning his criticism of Putin, has no protectors in power, and does not plan to leave the country. When Sobchak asked how he planned to engage in opposition activity in today’s Russia without ending up behind bars, he had no coherent answer — only his prediction that Putin’s power would collapse very soon.

“I am deeply convinced that within a year we will see very sweeping change. […] The collapse of the old system and the birth of a new one. It will be something like a palace coup. […] We will wake up in a different country. I know, from talking to various people in Russia’s Presidential Administration and the government, that they secretly hate Putin for taking everything from them, for the fact that they cannot enjoy their wealth, for [confiscation of assets by the Prosecutor General’s Office]. […] I’ve talked to security officials — they need stability, they’re sick of the war too,” Remeslo said.

When Sobchak asked what he would want to be called in the media two years from now, Remeslo answered: “Head of Russia’s opposition movement, Ilya Remeslo.”