How long are the Kremlin’s arms? Is there any safe place in the world? Is nowadays Ukraine for political dissidents safer than the Western countries? What is the Russian opposition, and does it really exist? Who is the leader, if there is any? What could be a way for Russia in future? All answers are by Ilya Vladimirovich Ponomarev, Russian oppositionist living in Ukraine since 2016. He got wounded in a Shahed drone attack on Kyiv, a few days ago. What he thinks about just released Kremlins political prisoners? What is his way for Putin’s regime to collapse? Would he want to become next Russia president?
- Ponomarev about the drone attack on his house in Kyiv: “It’s not a coincidence that it was on the same day with the prisoners exchange. It helped Kremlin to balance the message: “we will kill everybody who would stand against us even outside Russia. We know how to find you”.
- „There will be never unity in the Russian opposition, alas. We should stop dreaming about this. It’s impossible. There are fundamentally different approaches and fundamentally different dreams” – Ponomarev says.
- About peace and the relations with Ukraine: “First of all, we need to punish the war criminals. We need to reconciliate with the rest of society who are supporting them, as they have nowhere to go, and will still be part of the nation. So, the reconciliation process needs to happen within the country, but then obviously there would be a process of curing the relationship with all neighbors and primarily with Ukrainians”.
- “Destroying Putin’s regime is only way. No negotiations” – says Ponomarev. “Look at the recent uprising in Belarus in 2020. It was just another example that in such a regime, like Putin’s regime, Lukashenko’s regime, non-violent way of peaceful reforms is simply not working. That is why I’m one of the Russian resistance fighters.
- Russian resistance movement – which is supported by Ponomarev – is responsible for acts of sabotage on Russia’s territory such as attacks on refineries, airports and military aircrafts.
- Russian resistance units are fighting since yesterday in the Russian Kursk region, which was unexpectedly attacked from the Ukrainian side.
Piotr Kaszuwara, Postpravda.Info: First of all, thank you very much for your time, because you just got wounded few days ago. How do you feel? How is your family?
Ilya Vladimirovich Ponomarev: It’s not as bad as it may look like. There was literally a lot of blood, but now it’s better. So, there are a lot of wounds, but they are quite minor. They missed. You know, it could be worse.
How is your family?
Everybody who was in the house was hurt, but alive, thank you. I don’t want to elaborate more in that direction because of security concerns.
So, tell me, do you really believe that this Shahed drones have been targeting you? Maybe it was just the accident, because there were over 80 drones in Ukrainian skies on that night. I was in Kyiv at that time as well. And this is actually a danger of living anywhere in Ukraine right now: you never know where the rocket or drone will hit.
Yes, you’re right, you never know their true objectives. But first of all, we shouldn’t confuse two different events. Because there were two nights of attacks, not one. During the first one, you absolutely correctly said, there were several dozen drones, almost 100 drones in Ukrainian skies, and at that time there were 3 drones that hit within 100 meters radius of my house. And still despite that it’s three drones and so close, we were thinking that it was an accident because, maybe they all were just passing by into a certain direction, a certain military object, and they were shut down by anti-missile defenses. And just because they were all heading in one direction, and they were hit from the same AMD, they also felt more or less in the same place. We could not believe at that moment that the Moscow guys were using such a heavyweight stuff for me personally.
But in the next night, there were just altogether like 7 drones attacking Ukraine, and one of them arrived after the air defense alarm was turned off. That’s why nobody was shooting at the drone. I woke up like one minute before its arrival (because of the noise its engine produced), so I can testify that there was no shooting at him. He just arrived at the place where he intended to arrive. The three other drones that came in yesterday, were all intercepted. And I think that was the reason why they didn’t hit the house, but they still produced certain damage to the house and the trees around, because they were powerful and felt not so far away.
So, it means that Kremlin knows where you live.
Oh yes. We had no illusion that they knew it and we even plus-minus know when they learned about my whereabouts. That was a warning from the security services quite a while ago. We were preparing for attack at any time, but to some type of ground attack. We had very good security and we were even thinking about the possibility of a drone attack, and we installed certain defenses against the drones, but just lightweight drones, like the ones that are being used at the front lines like Mavic types, you know, which can carry grenade or something. We obviously were not preparing for attack of a missile or heavyweight long-range drone as Shahed. It usually has been used against the power plants in Ukraine and the other objects of serious infrastructure. They’re very powerful. So, we didn’t think that they would waste this kind of heavy weight stuff for me.
This kind of drone may carry about 40 kilograms of explosives.
You’re experienced guy. You know it exactly. Yes, absolutely right. It is about 40 kilograms payload.
And it’s a lot. 40 kilograms can damage a whole building.
And that’s exactly what happened. Yes.
Why now?
Most of the people around me and in general here in Ukraine, tell me that it’s not a coincidence that it was on the same day with the grant exchange between Russia, United States, Germany, Slovenia and the other countries. That it helped Kremlin to balance the message that they release certain political prisoners, but still they say: “we will kill everybody who would stand against us. Even you are in the West, you should have no illusions that if you would do something real against us, we know how to find you”. There are more examples like this. In the past Siergiej Skripal for example, in Great Britain. He also was the guy who was exchanged, but later they attacked him because they thought that he was actively working against Kremlin’s interests.
But my personal feeling is that it is just a coincidence. I kind of know a little bit how this whole system in Kremlin works. I tend to think that somebody – maybe it was even Putin himself – looked at what happened to the Ismail Hanijja in Tehran. After successful attack by Israelis on the enemy of their state, maybe Putin said: “look, we have a lot of enemies of our own. Why aren’t we doing the same thing?”. And somebody could say: “Oh yes, we have certain ideas. Let’s try it”. And they tried. And so in my opinion, it was just a quick spontaneous decision to use drones.
The principal decision to attack me was made well beforehand. He already gave orders to attack me. Probably the most ultimate decision was made in March this year, according to the information we have. So far they failed, so they decided to try something new now, and somebody tried this new method of getting me.
I would like to move a little bit to the past because you had quite good and rich life in Russia. You have been working for big companies, you were a deputy to the Russian Parliament. You could have absolutely normal, good, maybe even amazing life. How often you think about it, that you maybe made a wrong decision somewhere? Would you like to change something in your past if you could?
Piotr, I have a great life now. In the great place of Kyiv with great people, with a lot of fun. And it’s a life of purpose. When I was living there, it was not like this. So, I have a way better life right now than I had at that time. So, I made the right decision. Yeah, it sometimes has its caveats and certain dangers, but no, that’s way better life than it was back there. Everybody decides for himself, everybody has its own coordinates, its own upbringing. We all have parents who teach us different things in our childhood. My parents taught me to live this way and I’m very thankful to them because I think it’s the right way.
Maybe you could change only one thing, like for example voting against annexation of Crimea. It was 445 to 1? What did it change? Except of all your life.
That’s the thing. It makes difference. If not that vote, then in fifty years from now, this annexation of Crimea would have been remembered like everybody stood for the war, all Russians unanimously. That all Russians are bad. But reality if different – there was dissent in the nation. And it doesn’t matter that it was just one person who dared to stand in public. There were several other friends of mine in parliament, who just couldn’t press the button. But they still were against this. There were millions of others across the country. But it takes the public statement to save the honor of the whole nation.
Many people who know Russia, who has been living in Russia, who are Russians, but they were against Putin, now they are very sad. For many years from the 1990s, we saw Russia changing. The direction we saw it was Russia developing a lot, we saw the minds of the Russians changing as well. When did you realize that the world that you knew doesn’t exist anymore?
I don’t know. Probably a lot of such insight and such revelations came to me when I already happened to be in Ukraine. Because there were a lot of perspectives in Ukraine which were different from what they were in Russia. And you should understand how interlaced the histories of these two nations are. And how interlaced is our culture and religion and relatives and everything. So, a lot of things that I found out in Ukraine could be a bit of a shock for ordinary Russian. Because certain historical figures, certain events which for me were the pillars of Russian history, of Russian civilization, of Russian way of life, here they had a different perspective. If you are looking at them from the proper angle – the true historical angle, which you can find in Ukraine – it changes quite a bit of your identity.
I was always involved in foreign politics. My family members in the past were involved in foreign politics a lot. My grandfather was Soviet ambassador in Poland. I have this DNA in me. So, I always understood that this world is very cynical. It’s a world of interests and not a world of values. But it does not mean we should not try to make it one.
I saw how many times even very reputable nations changed dramatically within themselves. The first example that comes to mind is Germany, which changed dramatically during 20th century several times. From a totally horrible state to a very nice and reputable nation. Even United States experienced a lot of very serious internal diseases, political diseases, and they did change quite a lot.
The same thing about Russia. It experienced different ups and downs, the moments of glory and despair and even crimes that the state committed against its own nation and against the others. We remember the inspiration that was during the revolution of 1917, to be destroyed by Stalinism, which oppressed the people of Russia. Poland knows best what was coming with it, like Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. And now it’s once again the same thing – the struggle for freedom of late 1980s was spoiled and turned into Putin’s ressentiment.
It’s a very bad disease, but it needs to be cured and the nation would still exist after that. Maybe the country will change its boundaries. Maybe there would be some nations which decide to split away from Russia like after the Soviet Union collapse. But majority of Russians would still be Russians. So, they need to be cured.
So, the dream is not over?
No, absolutely, it’s history. It is never over. It’s such a bad theory that was proposed by my good pal, Francis Fukuyama once. I really do not understand it. How can the man think that the history can be over? It would never be over. Every time, things would happen and always there would be good things and bad things. Unfortunately, like with every human being, like with every society, like with every nation.
And do you think that the good relations between Russia and Ukraine can come back, or you need to rebuild it completely? Because always when I meet Ukrainians who suffered from this war, they usually say: “no more relations with Russia ever”. The don’t want even more connections with the Russians.
Well, we obviously didn’t live after WWII, but I had my ancestors who did, and I read a lot of literature. What was the relationship between Russia and Germany during the War? We even had poems saying: “as you meet a German – kill him!”. And that was written in large letters everywhere. But as fascism was defeated, by the whole world, it got back to normal. It took some time, 20 years of hard work curing the German society.
It was formally over when Willy Brandt, Chancellor of Germany, former military fighting against Nazi Germany as part of Allied Forces, who came to Warsaw and stood on his knees. Which symbolized the end of this period of normalization. I think the same thing would happen with Russia. It would be a very painful process for Russians. Primarily, we need to punish the war criminals, no doubt. But later we will need to reconcile with the rest of society who were supporting them. They have nowhere to go, and they still will be part of Russia. But at the same time we will need to push forward the process of curing the relationship with all our neighbors and primarily with Ukrainians.
One thing which I think everybody needs to understand (and it is not so visible at this very moment) is when there would be a true rebuilding of Ukraine, who will be its main donor? It will be Russia. Because of reparations, peace obligations, whatever – it still would be Russia and there would be a lot of Russians coming to Ukraine to compensate for the accomplished crimes and to help to rebuild the country again. It’s inevitable. And I think it will work a lot towards this reconciliation and fixing the relationship. These scars would bleed for a very long time, but historically it would be a very short period, and things would get back to normal. Just we need, after punishing the originators of this war, not to forget this shame, but to make conclusions, and they have to be properly taught in the schools. The whole system, again, like in Germany, needs to be focused onto overcoming the consequences of the war and curing the society into normality.
And how important in this process could be the current Russian opposition? If there is any opposition in Russia. Because is it probably impossible to say that this is some kind of a unity.
There will be never unity in the Russian opposition. We should stop dreaming about this. It’s impossible. There are fundamentally different approaches and fundamentally different dreams. Yeah, the opposition is a carbon copy of the nation itself. With the same percentage of people who are imperialists, with the same percentage of autocrats, same percentage of crooks. They are not coming from Mars, they just happened to be in different circumstances in their lives. Some are true idealists, but some were simply rejected by the current political system and now are desperately trying to find another one, with another boss, another idol to pray. Some are simply desperate to find some source of income. Some cannot live without serving someone and are looking for a government to accept their service.
But there are the other members of the opposition which we prefer to call not the opposition, but the Resistance. These are people who are fighting at the front lines, these are people who are fighting in the home front – people who are spilling their blood and actually fighting Putinism and Putin with a lot of risk, instead of talking about it. There are people who are ready to sacrifice themselves to liberate not just the Russian nation, but all other nations who are oppressed by the Russian Federation.
So, people are different. You should never generalize, but you should support those whom you like, whom you share your beliefs with.
Let’s take the recent example with the political prisoners’ exchange, that happened on August 1st. I am extremely happy that several people whom I know well (and who I know are really committed enemies of Vladimir Putin) got released from prison. But what was their first saying? “Let’s relax sanctions pressure on Russia”. And that’s what was spread all across the world.
So, for Putin it’s a double win. He may say: “Great. So, I got the killers and there will be more murderers joining my ranks because they know that they would be rescued and that they would not be punished properly for what they have done. Plus, additionally, these people who are considered to be my enemies, now they would promote my own agenda in the world”.
I don’t want to blame Vladimir Kara-Murza and the others for saying what they are saying. They are coming from prison. They have their angle of view which was produced there. They spend most of recent years in prison. Obviously, it affected their view. But the damage is done for all of the resistance. Now in Ukraine it’s a new wave of haters who are saying that there are no “good Russians”. And it affects even us, people who are fighting.
The released prisoners will settle down and it is quite likely that they will change their position. But it illustrates how hard it is to build a coalition, how fragile it would be, and that this idea has not just an upside, but also downside for many. And that’s the reason it never materializes.
So I understand you don’t agree with Vladimir Kara-Murza who said that the Western sanctions shouldn’t be targeted at the ordinary Russians?
I think that we should increase the sanctions pressure on Russia as much as possible. Obviously, I don’t want sanctions to be targeted on ordinary Russians. That is wrong. They should be targeted on the regime. But you cannot target the regime without inflicting pain on ordinary Russians. It’s like when you treat cancer. You take chemistry treatment and it’s poisonous for the whole of your body. You are getting sick. You don’t feel well. All the cells in your body are affected negatively, but the most negative impact comes on cancerous ones, they eventually die, and you are getting cured.
The sanctions are the same thing. They are toxic for the whole country. They prevent the growth of the nation. They inflict a lot of internal pain and discomfort. But that’s the only way we can affect the leaders. Obviously, there is a way to hit them physically and that’s what I fully support. They are shooting at us with drones and missiles while we are not shooting back on them – Ukraine would love to, but the West prohibits, and that’s also a mistake. But sanctions still need to be inflated, not decreased. And that’s very important, if we want to win the war.
I think the rationale of the released prisoners was that they were still thinking like they’re talking to ordinary Russians back in Russia. But they were not being heard there. There are simply no tools of communication available for us in the West. As a maximum, it will be posted on Facebook or YouTube, both are currently restricted in Russia. But instead they would be heard by the Western politicians who are making decisions on sanctions. And believe me, they are heard a lot in Ukraine. In both cases, it will lead to very negative results, to the benefit of our enemies.
Some Western politicians saw Alexei Navalny as a new leader of Russia, of Russian opposition. But not many of them maybe know, that he didn’t oppose the annexation of Crimea, for example. You did.
I think this is the worst idea one can get: “let’s find the new good leader for Russia”. Firstly, it will be done by the Russians themselves. Russians will decide who is the good leader, and who’s not. But secondly – if somebody wants to help with the future government, let’s make sure there won’t be any more leaders. My personal preference – a collective leadership, a parliamentary republic, very competitive with the power fragmented. And that’s how we (as Congress of People’s Deputies of Russian Republic, the shadow Russian Parliament) design the future of the country.
We want to actually do everything to prevent having a president. Our approach is actually 180° different from this. We want to have many leaders that balance themselves. And that’s how sustainable power and sustainable peace could be built and achieved.
We shouldn’t look for a messiah. Instead picking up new idols we should support certain actions, certain strategy, certain vision. And who is ready to join that vision, that fight, undertake some action? That’s for Russians to decide.
So, you think it’s possible to divide power in Russia? Prof. Nikolai Karpitsky, a philosopher from Siberia who also had to escape from Russia in 2015, says that there is only one way for Russia to divide power. It’s to put more responsibility on the people in the regions, for example, and take it away from Moscow. Do you believe this is possible? This is a good way?
Yes, I share exactly the same view. I believe in the power of the local communities. That’s why I’m left-wing person. My ideal is self-governing local armed communities. Enabled with direct democracy. This is the way I think the government should be constructed. I understand there is a lot of time needed to achieve this idea. Nevertheless, we should do our best to distribute power to the municipalities and to the communities. I think that would be our first step. This is in our transition plan that was adopted by the Congress, its fundamental cornerstone. We were learning a lot how it was done in Poland after the transition, after the “round table” process. We took a lot from that example. In the new Russian Constitution – the same provisions: as much self-governing as possible, as minimal central state as possible. The true federalization.
Do you see yourself as a future President of Russia?
Definitely no, because as I just said, I see that there would be no future President of Russia. We’ll eliminate the position of the President. We will eliminate Presidency as the thing which actually makes Russia an autocracy, keeps it as a czardom. I would love to temporarily take the position of the Chairman of the transitional Parliament which actually finalizes the constitutional design of the new state and the basic set of laws, so the country can develop. And then I would rather focus on the judicial reform because I think that without proper rule of law, without working court system (starting from the Supreme Court and down), I don’t think that the country can develop. Never in our life in Russia there was a stable working judicial system.
But probably to change the presidential system you have to become a president. You have to find the president first who will change it.
No, no, vice versa. Why? It would be a miracle if you would find the person who will say: “OK, I’m the President, but I want to abolish the presidency”. Psychologically I can be such a person. But I don’t want to even create temptation. You know, we shouldn’t kill one dragon to produce another one. No. It will be a revolutionary process anyway, so we can start from the very beginning with the parliamentary system. It just needs to be properly designed.
Some people are making laughs at us saying: “you in your Congress of People’s Deputies, you just pretend to be a real parliamentary, you are cosplaying true lawmaking, you are passing the pieces of paper which you pretend to be the laws, but they are not the real legal acts. And they would never be such”. But they are mistaken.
People at the Congress are the experienced lawmakers, which were legitimately elected in the past in Russia and know how the parliament should work. We believe that the basic layout of the future Russian legal system needs to be prepared in advance, because later there would be no time. It would be a revolutionary process, with a lot of interests clashing. There would be a lot of struggles and deficit of time all the time. And that’s why the system that would be designed under such circumstances would be very flawed. That’s why it needs to be prepared in advance and that’s what we are doing now with the best experts, with international cooperation and observation and a lot of heated debates, that constitute a very thorough and very thoughtful process.
Mr. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mr. Garry Kasparov, do you see any cooperation with them or between you all?
We are keeping in touch. Khodorkovsky I can call personally a good friend. But our political interests are quite different – political strategies are different and there is obvious competition. Not from our side, but rather from their side. Everybody wants to be recognized by the West as the legitimate representatives of the Russians. But all Western politicians are asking why should we recognize you? What’s so different about you? You are so well known, you have so many viewers on YouTube… this is not enough. The legitimacy comes from the election results and from armed forces that are loyal to you.
So, we now have armed forces in Ukraine, and we have even more people at the home front. They are fighting. And we have legitimacy in Congress of People’s Deputies because it’s made of the people who were elected during the internationally recognized elections in Russia, when they were still present. Yes, it was a while ago, not fresh – as there were no real elections for quite a while. But at least there’s something and this is something that nobody else has. And that’s why it generates a lot of jealousy from our peer in the opposition.
However, we’re always saying: “join this effort and join this fight and help people who are at the front lines and let’s be equals who work on the common goal, on the common case. That’s not how it works usually in politics, unfortunately. And that’s why I say that the attempts to unite Russian opposition are totally futile.
Some experts, as fox example prof. Alexander Motyl from Rutgers University in the USA, they see a trouble in the Russian opposition movements, in general during the history. As he wrote in one of his articles, there is a common way with the cruelty. Every change, every revolution in Russia was bloody. So, in the place of cruel rulers comes some other cruel rulers.
He has his point, I would say. There is a Russian proverb saying that we, Russians, start slowly, but then we drive fast. And that is actually truthful statement and it’s very applicable to a political process. Russians tolerate the political abuse for a very long time because it’s a very large country and always there are different illusions and attempts to find a solution in a in a peaceful way. But when it’s not happening then it comes a huge wave of violence. And that’s unfortunately the direction where it goes to, at this very moment.
I always was a very peaceful politician, but it was quite clear to me that it was going in this direction a long time ago, and I had been warning about this for 20 years. I was a member of the parliamentary party and was running for Parliament, but I was speaking about the ever-growing chance that there would be no elections in the country afterwards, and that the political system would become fictitious. Like it happened eventually. I tried to use every opportunity to escape this fate. I tried but it didn’t work and now there is only one way: it is the revolutionary approach.
So, what can we do? You can either tolerate this regime, which is getting worse and worse, moving from authoritarianism to totalitarianism, and it’s now starting to threaten the world with nuclear arms. And I think that with full certainty, after any “ceasefire” in Ukraine, they would turn their attention to Poland and Lithuania. I think it’s absolutely inevitable. I think that Putin will try to confront NATO because that’s what his ultimate objective is – to destroy it. He is not about conquering more lands, but he is about destroying his enemies institutionally, installing his loyalists into power eventually there. This is what he wants to achieve.
Or, we better do something about the regime change and prevent all those horrors, rather than sit back and wait for the large war to knock at just another door.
What about Daria Dugina, the daughter of the Putin’s philosopher? You actually supported killing her.
There is a group in Russia called National Republican Army (it is still there, and it is still doing something, but sometimes a little bit less high profile, for different reasons, not taking the responsibility for many things because it does because we, the Resistance, have a lot of pushback from the West about it). They made the decision on what they want to do, to whom they want to do it and about methods, how they want to do it. Because we were acquainted for a while before that, and they asked me to be their international envoy and the speaker. To explain to the world what they are and their rationale and that they are not terrorists and would never turn to the methods of terror, but they would fight with all collaborators with Kremlin, the warmongers, people who are part of Putin’s war machine.
According to my knowledge, they were not targeting Daria Dugina exclusively. They wanted to hit both: Daria and her father. They were supposed to be in the same vehicle, but by some miracle, a father just changed cars shortly before that happened. They didn’t know about this, and the bomb went off.
But also, Daria Dugina was not an innocent lamb at all. She was a very high-profile operative. She was the person who took part in organizing mass killing of Azov Regiment fighters, which were held in captivity in Donetsk region. Several dozen guys died, and it was a war crime. Daria was campaigning for it. If someone is saying that she was just a lady, a journalist, that’s simply not true. She was as dirty as these generals who are pressing buttons and shooting missiles on Ukrainian civilians. She was a war criminal, and Putin decorated her with military awards.
You also support diversion and partisans burning mobilization points in Russia. Is this only to scare people to not go there or you see something deeper in it?
We prefer to call it “urban resistance”. In Slavic languages, “the partisan” means one thing, but in America it sounds wrong. That’s why you’re usually in calling it in English as resistance movement, “home front resistance”. It’s like French resistance movement was during World War 2, we were learning De Gaulle’s methods. In that time it was England who was supporting French resistance fighters. Military were making some organizational efforts in how to structure it. But then there were a lot of grassroots groups, very decentralized, in France, on the occupied territories, which were doing their job.
By scale Russian home front resistance is already larger than French Resistance, although we are lagging in terms of numbers at the main front. The objective is dual. First of all, there are just simply military targets, when our guys take part, for example, in coordinating and navigating the attacks on refineries. Because you need to have somebody on the ground to be able to make a precise hit, otherwise you would not hit the particular unit that is needed, and it would not be efficient. So that creates a lot of damage to Russian war economy. It’s obviously it’s not a catastrophe for Putin’s regime, but it’s painful. Altogether, during a series of strikes on the refineries, some 10% of Russian output of oil products was cut down, which is significant. Billions and billions of dollars there. There were also other types of attacks, for example, on military bases, when there were several expensive planes destroyed. Ukraine has no long-range missiles to be able to attack things on the Russian territory. The only way to make such an attack are those resistance people. Organizing acts of sabotage far away from the front lines.
But for me, besides military, political aspect is even more important. I think that the personal attacks on the key figures of the regime are even more important than the attack on the refineries. I remember the panic that was spreading within the Russian propaganda people after attacks on Dugins family, Tatarsky, Prilepin and others.
It’s too bad that we have downsized that activity because of the international pressure that Ukraine started to receive. Pity, because that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to communicate to Russian elites that they cannot sit back and pretend that it’s not their war. It is their war! They are financing it, they are organizing it, they are supporting it. They are the warmongers. So, either quit leave the country, start helping the resistance, start helping Ukraine and stop supporting Putin’s war. Or understand that you are the target, and you could be next.
One cannot say “I am just running some factory that produces steel for the shells, but I don’t care how the shells would be used. It’s not my decision who will shoot this shell, to which direction the missile will go or where the explosives would be used”. No. You are in charge. You are responsible and you should pay the consequences.
The flag on your background – it’s not just the accident you have it here, I think.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
What is this flag? Because some people might not know what it is. A small hint: we miss the red color.
Yes, it’s a Russian tricolor flag – but without the red. We consider it to be blood, and we kind of washed it out. That was at the beginning of the large-scale invasion in 2022 in February, when a modern Russian artist from Germany, in Berlin, produced this as an artistic gesture. But quickly it was accepted by all branches of Russian opposition. Very rare case when everybody liked it. Our media resources were the first to use it, it also became the official flag of Freedom of Russia Legion. And that was great – the Russian state officially recognizes it as the flag of Legion. Despite that, all of the Russian opposition, including those who reject violence, is using this flag.
By the coincidence it appeared to be almost the same as the flag of ancient city of Novgorod in Russia. which was our cradle of direct democracy. It was very often referred as the Northern Athens. It was the main opponent to Moscow’s centralized, oppressive state. It was eventually defeated by Ivan the Terrible. It was a big massacre in Novgorod. We are reverting to that origin, trying to build a truly democratic state, based on the rule of law.
And what is the mission of the National Republican Army? Is that all that you just explained in the last answer or there is something more?
It’s just one of the networks right now. There are other resistance groups. National Republican Army is more focused on personal attacks. The others are doing all the different things. The largest home-front network is the one which is associated directly with the Freedom of Russia Legion.
Do you think is the fight, the war, the only way for Putin’s regime to collapse?
I think there is no other option. There is no legitimate political activity inside Russia and the level of oppression is so high that people are simply afraid to stand up. They need to have a certain inspiration, a green light.
Obviously, it would not happen fast. We don’t need many thousands of armed men to enable this. Just some unrest has to start inside Russia, most likely within Kremlin’s inner circles. Then it is the job for the Legion “Freedom of Russia” and other Russian volunteer groups to come and neutralize the police oppression in Moscow. And then there would be a million people on the streets, which would make the difference and create the revolution. These three stages need to come one after another, and to me it is the most possible scenario of change.
Otherwise, the system would be preserved. We need to remove not just the personalities, but the political system altogether. It requires armed push; and to achieve success we need to grow the insufficient numbers of our troops that we have at the moment.
What I don’t believe in is the peaceful non-violent uprising. So many tries were made already, and they all failed, because they lacked an armed component. Energy of the millions wasted, many people went to jail. Look at the recent uprising in Belarus in 2020. It was just another example that in such a regime, like Putin’s regime, Lukashenko’s regime, non-violent way is simply not working. Even in way less oppressive Ukraine during Maidan revolution people were ready to use force – and used it.
Professor Nicolai Karpinski is saying that the Putin’s war against Ukraine is the necroimperialistic war. The war to kill as many people as is possible. What you just said it was that this war is to fight NATO. To make NATO countries weak. Some businessmen’s they say this is the war for the resources: mines, ports on the Black Sea maybe the key reason: lithium deposits in Ukraine. What do you think? What is the real reason?
It’s rather like a religious war to me. It’s like the war between Protestants and Catholics in the medieval Europe. It’s a clash of civilizational approaches. It is the clash between authoritarianism and democracy. It is the clash between so-called Eurasian and European views.
For Vladimir Putin Ukrainians are perceived as traitors. He says to Russians: “they’re the same as us but they decided to flip and choose Europe instead of us. So, they’re the traitors! And we need to kill all the traitors and rescue the souls of their kids which could be converted into our faith, into our beliefs”. And that’s why it’s so bloody. Because with the religious war, it’s irrelevant, it’s for the Lord to decide who was right or wrong, but the true believers shall kill as many infidels as possible, and that’s what’s happening here now.
Obviously, Putin’s whole inner circle and he himself, all are rather kleptocrats than imperialists. Imperialism to me is all about the control of the land. But I don’t think that Putin is very much interested in controlling Ukrainian land. He wants to control the imperial discourse – better within former Soviet Union sphere of influence, but at least within Slavic republics of the former USSR. He wants to control the ideology there. He wants everybody who lives at this area say: “you are the big boss, you are the leader, you are the Supreme command”. But that does not exactly mean control over the territory. To me he would be absolutely happy with having someone he controls at helm in Ukraine, as he has somebody in Belarus. Someone who can control the territory for him and deliver him business opportunities.
Yes, I do believe that he wants NATO to collapse because for him it’s a threat. More political, rather than military – an important nuance. He thinks that the West wants him to be replaced – I just wish he was right, but alas… I think that the leaders of the world would prefer him to stay where he is. I think that the West favors well-known evil and the stable situation and is more afraid of the changes than of him staying in power. But Putin is egocentric and does not believe in this. He thinks that the West has genuine objective of removing him from power. And that can be literally painful for him, could easily turn into a death sentence, so that’s why he is fighting.
So, where Putin will stop?
He would not stop. Putin can be stopped either with a bullet, or with a rope, or with a grave. He would not be stopped otherwise.
You don’t believe in any negotiations with Putin?
No. Well, you can always talk, and sometimes even achieve certain temporary results. Some people negotiated with Hitler about Czechoslovakia in Munich. And bought one year of shameful peace. But then the aggressor came back. The repetition of 1939 for Poland it’s not very far away if we are not stopping Putin now.
If we will buy five years for Ukraine maybe he will die. Then someone will replace him and the war will be over. No?
Well, maybe. And I think that’s more or less how many Western politicians are thinking: ‘let’s just buy some time and then it would be not our problem, but somebody else’s who will be by that time at power”. But you know, during war – time is not money, but blood and lives of people. We are fighting here, now, and one should not think, but just do his best here and now. And yes, tactically you can fool your enemy to get temporary relief, but then you should have a very clear plan of what you would do during this brake. And right now, there is no such a plan on the table.
If the world really wants such two-three years break, and Ukrainians would agree, I should advocate for one and only plan. I would say: “OK, you are taking the risk. But during these three years, the focus would be on rearmament (it would benefit economy short-term anyway) plus on doing everything humanely possible to remove Putin from office and destroying Putinism as a political system to prevent a new war”. If indeed all the resources and efforts would be driven in that direction, then I will be the last to object to a ceasefire.
Alas, so far it does not look like that. I am afraid that’s not something that would happen if ceasefire was reached. I am pretty certain that without the pre-agreed plan people would just forget about the problem, and they would wake up only when you would hear the explosions in Suwalki gap.
Don’t you feel maybe you are addicted to risk, after all these years of fighting?
There is a war. I think that many of my friends are at the front lines. They have no security there, and the enemy shoots at them every day, not from time to time, as in my case. More friends risk a lot at the home front. Their risk is even larger, because you never know when you may be seized and what kind of tortures you will be exposed to in prison.
Is it hard to be a Russian nowadays?
No. We don’t choose our nationality, our ethnicity. Everyone should just honestly do what he or she has to do and carry his cross. I have a lot of perks of being a normal Russian, I never hid my origin, and here in Ukraine people love me. I enjoy their support, but yeah, for many Russians nationality looks like a problem, many are ashamed of their passports. But maybe such people should ask themselves why they feel this way. Maybe they should just do something bold against the war, the committed atrocities, the inhumane political regime and prove that you could be Russian and not being ashamed of it.
So who are you? Who do you feel you are?
Resistance fighter from Russia.
Do you feel free?
Absolutely. Here in Ukraine, I’m perfectly free. Now I’m obviously not physically free, because of security threats, because of the war, because my house got destroyed recently, and it creates significant pressure. And I am very much sorry because I have to fight so much with my peers in the Russian opposition and with some Western politicians who don’t want to accept the truth and take the challenge to save their countries from the upcoming war. But OK, it’s a political process. I must convince people that my position is right. I feel that I am living in a historical process. Maneuvering between strong cross winds for my ship to sail.
Do you have your own shelter? Or did you lose it?
We have plenty. That’s the rule of the game.
But I mean like a mental shelter. Place where you can rest and just be yourself.
Mental shelter is with my dear ones and when I’m traveling. Even I’m doing it for work. I have no time for relaxation, I didn’t have vacations for a long time already – I feel it is unfair for my comrades at the time of war. But still, I am traveling a lot, meeting with different people, promoting the cause. Relaxation will come, but first we need to win and then we can go back to the little joys of life.
How do you sleep?
Like a log (laugh).
Are you afraid?
No (laugh). Well, I’m a normal person, I am cautious, I am rational, I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid. I know that I am at work. You know how the soldier feels, when the enemy is shooting at him? I know that the enemy is shooting at me too. I know that we have a lot of hazards around, but so what? This is, again, the rule of this game.
Do you believe in the individual or do you believe that the society is more important? Maybe, as Vladimir Mayakovsky said, the single person is nothing. Only society can survive.
Well, I am leftist. I do believe that there is a base which is a material life and rational interest, and then the superstructure is built on top of it. Politics, culture, customs, religion, even the way families are built – are all derivatives. And we need to make sure that the base is right. We need to make sure that society prospers, and the basic needs of an individual are satisfied. And then you can unlock the potential of every human being. You can’t develop the nation when your people are in despair.
If they are, they can do a lot of crazy things. Right now, people in Russia are coming to the front lines in Ukraine to fight because of money. Because they and their families are in misery and for them to take part in this fighting is their ticket to a normal life. Especially if they are killed, by the way. The worst for them is when they’re badly injured and lose some limb or otherwise disabled. Then they become a burden for the family. But their salaries when they’re fighting and the compensation when they’re dead is what would help their families to move away from misery, from poverty. And that’s unfortunately a huge motivation for them to fight and after we are in power, to prevent this madness from returning in future, we need to get people out of their misery.
Personal initiative means a lot to design a sustainable and fair system. The role of Founding Fathers in America was huge, but they could have achieved nothing if the society would not stand behind them. In our situation, like then, we need to design the system in a fashion that would benefit all. Otherwise, if there would be another 1991 and 1993 when there would be a small group of people (who will later be recognized as oligarchs) who designed the system in their personal favor (alas, with the support of the West). Then yes, these oligarchs would be well off somewhere on Cote d’Azur, but then there would be another war with our Motherland.
Maybe all these values are only an illusion? Maybe the world as we know is only an illusion? Maybe we just can’t change anything?
We can change everything. I believe in the Man, in Human Being. I believe in personal will. I believe that we all can change everything if we want. We can travel to the stars. We can change the world. If we want, we can change our bodies. We can do everything. It’s our will. Just this will need to be unlocked and it needs to be unlocked in the in the fair fashion, so that strong shall not oppress the weak.
Usually when people are talking about changing the world, they refer to the will of the minority which oppresses the majority. But the other extreme, when the majority suppresses all minorities is equally bad. Instead of creation of just another, horrible political prison, we will build the society, where individual initiative is encouraged and placed in the center of the national development, but the weak are protected, and the thousand flowers bloom.
