World Courant
Ilya Ponomarev was as soon as a member of the Russian parliament, an unruly liberal tolerated by the management. Right this moment he’s on a mission to assassinate Vladimir Putin and his aides.
“They need to be ended with an aspen stab by the center,” he wrote in his memoir Does Putin Need to Die?: The Story of How Russia Turns into a Democracy after Shedding to Ukraine.
Ponomarev has been exiled to Ukraine since 2016 and is the political head of the Legion of Freedom of Russia, a volunteer militia believed to incorporate round 1,600 Russian dissidents and defectors who use pinpricks to worsen Russian forces with the intention of day to march to Moscow.
(Al Jazeera)
To some, he’s a unusual, seductively believable determine. The 48-year-old compares himself to Charles de Gaulle, the French navy chief who led his nation’s resistance towards the Nazis from exile throughout World Conflict II and later turned president.
Who’s the person who allegedly gave Putin, the president who will run once more subsequent 12 months, nightmares?
Who’s Ponomarev?
A self-proclaimed “libertarian communist,” Ponomarev comes from an elite background; his mom as soon as served in parliament and his grandfather was a former Russian ambassador to Poland.
The Moscow-born physics graduate began out as a tech entrepreneur and transferred his abilities to the oil and fuel trade. In his 20s, he labored with Yukos Oil, then chaired by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch now exiled in London.
As he recounts in his e book, he later teamed up with a TV firm, nearly putting a enterprise take care of CNN, which was thwarted by Putin. His frustration was so nice that he determined to enter politics.
In 2007, on the age of 32, he joined the State Duma, elected on the premise of the destiny of A Simply Russia, a social democratic social gathering throughout the Kremlin-approved “systemic opposition.”
Nonetheless, Ponomarev caught his neck out and invoked the “crooks and thieves” label for the ruling social gathering, beforehand popularized by Alexey Navalny, the opposition chief who’s now behind bars.
In 2012, he and social gathering colleague Dmitry Gudkov performed a distinguished function within the ‘white ribbon’ avenue protests towards Putin, condemning the alleged manipulation of the 2011 parliamentary and 2012 presidential elections. The next 12 months he refused to assist a regulation banning ‘homosexual propaganda’.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, middle, will take part once more within the Russian elections in March (File: Pavel Bednyakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool/ Picture through AP)
Nonetheless, Ponomarev lastly crossed the Rubicon when he voted towards the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
He was captured on digital camera refusing to face and applaud when Putin referred to “nationwide traitors” in a key speech – a time period utilized by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf.
That picture was printed on large pro-government banners that additionally featured Navalny; Boris Nemtsov, who would later be murdered; and different dissidents with the phrases ‘Aliens amongst us’ emblazoned under.
In 2016 he went into exile in Ukraine.
For the reason that invasion of Russia started in early 2022, he has positioned himself as the general public face of pro-Ukrainian Russians, talking not solely on behalf of the Legion of Freedom of Russia (FRL) in Ukraine, but additionally for the Nationwide Republican Military (NRA), a secret community of partisans allegedly working in Russia.
Ponomarev additionally arrange a wartime Russian-language opposition TV channel, which he referred to as February Morning, referring to the beginning of the conflict. He used it as a platform to announce that the NRA was chargeable for the homicide final 12 months of Darya Dugina, the daughter of one in all Putin’s shut political allies, on the outskirts of Moscow. US intelligence blamed Ukrainian forces for the automobile bombing.
But he stays comparatively unknown inside Russia.
“Common Russians do not know a lot about what Ponomarev is doing proper now as a result of there may be heavy propaganda, and it isn’t in Putin’s curiosity to popularize him or promote him,” mentioned Natia Seskuria, an affiliate fellow on the Royal United Providers Institute, a London organisation. based mostly suppose tank.
What’s the Freedom of Russia Legion?
The FRL is one in all two Russian teams working in Ukraine to topple Putin’s authorities. The opposite is the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC). Though each pursue the identical aim, they’re ideologically completely different. The RVC is commanded by a identified Nazi near the native Azov Regiment, an ultra-nationalist volunteer navy unit.
Final Could, the FRL and the RVC shocked the world with their joint cross-border assaults on the western Russian area of Belgorod. It was the primary time that partisans entered Russia throughout the conflict in Ukraine. Footage of the assaults confirmed a Russian officer mendacity face down in a pool of blood subsequent to Russian passports at a border checkpoint within the city of Grayvoron.
Ponomarev mentioned Ukraine’s navy intelligence is supporting his coup.
This 12 months he claimed a job in a drone strike on the Kremlin, saying his group helped smuggle the units throughout the border. He has additionally steered he was concerned within the murders of conflict blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and pro-Kremlin novelist Zakhar Prilepin.
However many deal with his claims with skepticism.
‘He has no background in navy or covert operations. He’s utterly depending on the Ukrainians. Ukraine might be very joyful that he’s making an attempt to take credit score,” mentioned Roland Oliphant, senior overseas correspondent at The Telegraph, who reported from Moscow for a decade.
The FRL is ruled by the Congress of Folks’s Deputies, a type of shadow parliament that Ponomarev helped arrange. It’s based mostly in Poland and has members inside and outdoors Russia. It hopes that Putin’s authorities will collapse and is engaged on a transition plan and a brand new structure.
Congress leaders embody Mark Feygin, a former lawmaker and lawyer who represented the feminist, anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot. However the group lacks huge names, resembling Navalny and chess grandmaster and political activist Garry Kasparov, who should not eager on the FRL’s violent techniques.
Members of Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot sing a prayer towards then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 2012 (File: Sergey Ponomarev/AP Picture)
Ought to Putin be involved?
Ponomarev hopes to construct a drive that may march on Moscow. May he succeed the place Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin failed?
The late Russian mercenary chief, who led the assault on Ukraine however fell out with Russia’s navy leaders, staged a spectacular mutiny towards the Kremlin in June, taking management of Russia’s navy headquarters in Rostov-on-Don. He shortly broke down the rebellion and moved to Belarus earlier than dying in a mysterious aircraft crash two months later.
“Prigozhin’s power was that he had all these nationalist Russian credentials. He had led a drive in Ukraine. He was clearly in favor of the conflict. He was clearly not a nationwide traitor. I believe that is essential for the Russians,” Oliphant mentioned.
Stationed in enemy territory, Ponomarev has a little bit of a PR drawback.
As Oliphant famous, he lacks the elite assist to stage a coup, particularly throughout the safety companies.
“Is a type of guys from the FSB (Federal Safety Service) and FSO (Federal Safety Service) and a complete bunch of different companies going to stage a coup on behalf of this self-proclaimed liberal who has fled to Ukraine?”
In keeping with Seskuria, the Kremlin shortly buried the recollections of Prigozhin’s coup.
“Many issues have modified and the regime has develop into extra ruthless,” she mentioned. “The stakes are so excessive that I do not actually suppose Russians are prepared proper now to talk out or take to the streets and protest.”
Now on Russia’s terror listing, Ponomarev has made himself a extremely seen goal. Nevertheless it doesn’t seem like he’ll put his “aspen stake” into the center of the regime anytime quickly.
“Possibly he thinks he is driving into Moscow on the again of an American or Ukrainian tank,” Oliphant mentioned. “I believe that is the one manner he would get there, to be sincere.”
Who’s Ilya Ponomarev, the anti-war Russian apostate exiled in Ukraine? | Conflict information between Russia and Ukraine
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