A leading Russian rebel has told the Express that victory in Ukraine can only be achieved by overthrowing Vladimir Putin and his totalitarian regime.
Ilya Ponomarev is a former Russian MP and veteran politician, who was the only Duma deputy to vote against Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Like many Russian opposition activists, he has had to flee his native land and is now residing in Ukraine, where he is helping organise the anti-Putin resistance.
He is a political spokesman for both the Legion of Free Russia – a battalion of Russians fighting for Ukraine – and a network of partisans calling themselves the National Republican Army (NRA).
The former Russian MP also helped set up the Congress of People’s Deputies – a shadow parliament consisting of over 100 former politicians – and is a member of its executive council.
“The victory is impossible without removing Putin from power and dismantling Putinism as a political system,” he explained.
“Restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine is not the ultimate victory if Putin is still in power. That’s the position that we are trying to communicate and things are moving because more and more people start to realise that – the question is that they realise it in private off the record but they are not ready to speak about this in public.”
Ponomarev says Ukraine fully backs the agenda of the Russian rebels, but is constrained in its support due to its fears of antagonising the West and jeopardising its military aid.
“We don’t want Americans to publicly support the regime change in Russia. We want the Western allies to stop obstructing Ukraine from moving in that direction,” he said.
“Because we can do a lot more things with Ukraine in developing home front resistance and our troops at the front, you know, and stuff like that.