Ilya Ponomarev was a member of the Russian Parliament from 2007 to 2016. Now he’s fighting Russia in Ukraine. He told the US broadcaster CNN how it came about.
A former member of the Russian parliament is fighting alongside Ukrainian troops against the invading Russians. “What else should I have done under these circumstances?” Ilya Ponomarev, who was a member of the opposition in the Russian State Duma from 2007 to 2016, explained his step. “As Putin’s forces advanced, we had to defend the country. We had to defend the capital. We had to, excuse me for saying this, defend the humanity of Europe.”
Ponomarev has lived in exile in Kyiv since 2016. In 2014, the critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin was the only one of 446 MPs in Moscow’s parliament to vote against Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. A few months later he was banished from Russia and his parliamentary immunity from prosecution was lifted.
Ponomarev believes that Russia is losing the war in Ukraine
He was warned he was on a Russian hit list, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to fight, Ponomarev told CNN. Many people in the United States, for example, would have suggested that he flee with his family, but he never thought of that. “I didn’t want to live a quiet life, I wanted to make a difference. And I wanted to fight against opportunism.”
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He doesn’t believe that Putin will win the war, even if the Kremlin boss might try to achieve an “imaginary victory.” “The reality is that he is losing the war. And I think that the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian people will not stop until Ukraine is truly free,” predicted Ponomarev. “And I think she will.”
What Ukraine needs most now is free airspace, the 46-year-old said. Otherwise the army could “continue the partisan war, the guerrilla war,” but it could not advance militarily because it would then be immediately attacked from the air. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also repeatedly called on NATO to set up a no-fly zone over the country to stop Russian airstrikes on both the military and civilians. Western powers, however, oppose this, fearing it could trigger an open conflict with Russia that could escalate into nuclear war.
During his time as a Duma deputy, Ponomarev had openly denounced corruption within the Russian government, and this had brought him into conflict with his colleagues and the Kremlin. In 2012, he was among the leaders of anti-government street protests that rocked Moscow ahead of Putin’s return to the presidency.
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Source: Stern
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