Yes, you're right. They're very closely monitoring our activities, and the one way we can tell if we're making progress is how forceful their response is. In response to the law--the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act of 2010--the foreign ministry of Russia came out with a very strong statement that this is a very base act, that this is going back to the Cold War, that they're not happy with it at all, and various other types of things.
First, that says one thing: that the 60 officials who tortured and killed Magnitsky now have official support from the Russian government. That's the first thing it says to me.
The second thing it says to me is that we've touched a nerve. If it's become an official policy, it means that other people who do other bad things are truly worried about what the consequences of this will be. Of the 60 people on the list, the most senior person is a deputy prosecutor and a deputy interior minister, but if you have the foreign minister saying he's concerned, then obviously other people within the Russian government are very concerned.
On one hand, I'm happy to see that we've touched a nerve; on the other hand, I hope that a forceful reaction from Russia doesn't scare some of the European parliamentarians I'm talking to, because in Europe there is much more possibility of reaction in terms of trade, gas exports, and other things.
In terms of my own situation, the Russians will do everything possible to threaten me and discredit me. They will do everything they can think of to try to make this not happen. This is a very big stain on Russia's reputation.
My strategy is very simple. I'm hoping that sooner or later the stain on their reputation will become greater than the desire to protect the people who killed Sergei Magnitsky, and they will finally arrest them. Until then, I'm going to carry on doing this with you and with your colleagues in other parliaments in other countries, because this is the only way that we're ever going to make anything change.