In an interview published Friday, a former member of Russia’s parliament expressed his desire to see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime thrown out of power.
Ilya Ponomarev, who served in Russia’s State Duma in the early 2010s, made the suggestion to The Moscow Times while discussing his issues with the Kremlin.
Ponomarev currently lives in exile in Ukraine, where he moved in 2016 after he was hit with embezzlement charges in his home country. He has said the charges were politically motivated. While in Kyiv, he reportedly serves as a spokesperson of the National Republican Army (NRA), a paramilitary group allegedly operating within Russia that aims to overthrow Putin.
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Even while working as a lawmaker in Russia, Ponomarev was seen as somewhat of an opposition figure. He was the only State Duma member not to vote in favor of Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda law,” and he also did not support Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Ponomarev told The Moscow Times that removing Putin’s regime from the Kremlin is the only way to enact effective change in Russia.
“As far as I see it, there are 20 percent of the Russian people who strongly support the war [in Ukraine], 20 who are strongly against it, and the rest are neutral. And this 60 percent are our people,” he said.
Ponomarev continued: “The way to unlock their potential is to capture the Kremlin. There is no other way.”
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin via email on Friday night for comment.
As for the current Russian leader, Ponomarev said, “Putin is not as strong as he looks.”
“He’s a rich man, but money doesn’t buy you friends who would fight and die for you,” he added. “It buys you business partners.”
The Moscow Times noted Ponomarev made a similar argument for a coup d’etat in his 2022 book, Does Putin Have to Die? The Story of How Russia Becomes a Democracy After Losing to Ukraine.
Ponomarev also once predicted while speaking to Newsweek that Putin would die in 2023.
“Putin’s power resides in his position as an alpha male, as the person who is invincible. 2022 was the year when this position started to wane. My forecast still remains that he will not see his next birthday,” Ponomarev told Newsweek in an interview published in January 2023.
His prediction did not come true, as Putin lived to turn 71 on October 7.
Ponomarev told The Moscow Times that while he actively supports an overthrow of Russia’s leadership in order to establish more democratic elections, he himself has no intentions of running for the presidency.
“I see myself as the mastermind behind the political transition,” he said. “If the person who designs the transition period then participates in the election, he has a temptation to put things in his favor, to win the elections. There is a conflict of interest.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.