Ilya Ponomarev: Who is the person who wants to form a guerrilla force to overthrow Putin? (original)

After the Moscow assassination, Ponomarev’s call to arms is now understood as a starting signal for the inner-Russian partisan struggle. In the appeal, Ponomaryov explains why he did not – like Navalny – go to prison or flee to the West. He consciously recalls the resistance against National Socialism: “The German anti-Nazi underground didn’t flee, they fought. The Poles didn’t flee either, but prepared the Warsaw Uprising. And even if fate would have it otherwise, they fought Anti-fascists like Willy Brandt. And that’s an example for me to follow.” The later German chancellor was active in the resistance from Norway during the Nazi era.

On social media, Ponomarev has many fans among Putin’s critics. In their eyes, the bomb attack in Moscow looks like the first spectacular act of armed resistance. Some already consider him the Che Guevara of the Russian resistance. However, there are doubts in Western intelligence circles whether the “National Republican Army” really already exists, or whether Ponomarev just wants to claim it. It is also possible that he is using Ukraine’s military aid to drive the war into Russia as a pin.

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Ponomaryov is very active in propaganda and runs a Russian-language television news channel called “February Morning” and an Internet news service “Rospartisan”. He reports on anti-government “partisan” activities in Russia, such as attacks on military recruitment centers. Instructions on how to make bombs are sometimes given.

In his youth, Ponomarev was a member of the Communist Party. He comes from a Soviet political dynasty, his mother Larisa Ponomarewa was a member of the Federation Council. His uncle Boris Ponomaryov was secretary for international relations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, his grandfather Nikolai Ponomaryov was the Soviet ambassador to Poland. The family comes from Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia. The young Ilja was already a successful start-up entrepreneur as a teenager, studied physics and economics and quickly made a career for himself at the oil company Yukos. By 30, he was a Russian digital generation star careerist, even becoming the national coordinator for the High-Tech Parks Task Force, a public-private project which should mobilize up to $6 billion to develop a network of small startup incubators. At the age of 32 he became a deputy in the Russian State Duma.

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Ponomaryov was one of those young Russians who believed ten or twenty years ago that Russia could embark on a democratic, liberal, digital future. Early on he advocated a consistent separation of powers, he criticized old power cliques and their corruption, organized protests against another term in office for Vladimir Putin and advanced to become a crosshead and regime critic in parliament. He suddenly became known in March 2014 when he found the courage to be the only member of the Duma to vote against the annexation of Crimea, which was universally acclaimed in Russia. The result – 445 yes votes, one no vote – made the world sit up and take notice: “Who is this one vote?” asked the “New York Times” and made the Putin critic from Siberia world famous on the one hand and the target of Putin’s revenge on the other. He became the object of a propaganda campaign, including a huge poster in central Moscow branding him a “traitor to the country”. Ponomarev fled first to the United States, then to Ukraine. Even then, he warned that Putin would not leave it at Crimea, but would eventually launch a war of aggression. “Unfortunately, I was right,” Ponomaryov said eight years later in a CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour.

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Ponomarev is now likely to become the target of Russian assassination attempts. He is already under the protection of Ukrainian security agencies after former Russian MP Denis Voronenkov was shot dead in Kyiv in 2017. Voronenkov was on his way to meet Ponomaryov when he was assassinated*. He too had criticized Russia’s annexation of Crimea as illegal. Ponomaryov is aware of his position and role in the midst of the escalation of violence and describes it thus: “The way to freedom leads only through purification through fire.”

Mark Sleboda suggested that Ilya Ponomarev was associated with the CIA and had made the rounds at neoconservative think tanks.

Related:

*West Blames Putin After Ukrainian Nationalist With Ukrainian Passport Kills Ukrainian Citizen in Kiev

Former Russian lawmaker Denis Voronenkov was shot and killed yesterday in central Kiev. Voronenkov, a fugitive who was wanted for widespread fraud, emigrated from Russia to Ukraine in October 2016. He received Ukrainian citizenship in December, having given up his status as a Russian citizen.

This can mean only one thing: Putin hired a Ukrainian nationalist who was a member of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist National Guard to assassinate Voronenkov. This is the actual theory being floated by Kiev right now

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Dnipropetrovsk? (It’s actually called “Dniepro” now.) Interesting. That’s the region that was formerly governed by Ukrainian oligarch/psychopath Ihor Kolomoyskyi. It’s also a well-known breeding ground for ultra-nationalist punitive battalions and criminals-for-hire. We’re sure that’s Putin’s fault, too.

Dugina case: Terrorist group supported by Kyiv claims responsibility for attack (original)

Alongside official denials, something else was heard from Kyiv at the same time: a kind of indirect confession by the so-called National Republican Army, made by Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian State Duma deputy who fled a criminal case for embezzlement** abroad and now opposes the Russian Intervention in the Ukraine war from Kyiv tries, as it is said, to recruit “investors in Ukraine”. Where any cash donations are actually invested becomes clear from the interview in which the commitment is announced.

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Simultaneously with the manifesto of the National Republican Corps, the announcement of a major action reached Ponomaryov. Darya Dugina was explicitly declared as the target of the action, but also Alexander Dugin himself, and their approximate location was the area around the Tradizia cultural festival – Odintsovo district near Moscow, the area around the city and the former Golitsino princely residence, Bolshie Vyazyomy settlement. The birthplace of former non-system opposition politician Alexei Navalny, a former comrade-in-arms of Ilya Ponomarev, is also not far from there.

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Meanwhile, the Russian domestic secret service FSB reported with a statement: In fact, the murder of Darja Dugina and the simultaneous attack on her father were prepared and committed by Ukrainian special services. Dugina’s killer is a Ukrainian citizen who fled to Estonia after the crime. There is no data on any links with the alleged terrorist group courted and celebrated by Ilya Ponomarev inside Russia. Not even whether they exist at all.

**New case against Skolkovo exec, cops question opposition MP’s $750,000 lecture fees