It began with Putin’s re-election in 2012.
After a period as Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin again assumed the role of the country’s president. While other deputies agreed in silence, one politician spoke out against Putin.
Elga Ponomarev, who at that time was a member of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Federal Assembly, chose not only to participate in demonstrations against re-election. He chose to lead them.
When Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea two years later, Ponomarev was the only member of parliament to openly and vocally criticize the annexation. In the end he was expelled from the State Duma for his anti-Kremlin activism, and he chose to leave the country.
Putin’s allegations can only be silenced violently
Now, in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the former great politician claims that there is only one way out. The 47-year-old lives in exile in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and now says he leads the National Republican Army (NRA), a controversial Russian militia actively working to oust Putin.
According to Ponomarev, physical violence is inevitable.
– Our general goal is a complete change of the system in Russia, says Ponomarev to the European Multilingual Radio euronews.
If we want to manage this, we must crush the entire system, so that it has no chance of rebuilding itself. This can only happen through the use of violence, because Putin’s men will undoubtedly resist, says the prominent former politician.
(The case is still under the picture).
Ponomarev led the demonstrations against Putin’s re-election in 2012. Two years later, he was arrested, and has since lived in exile in Ukraine. Photo: Ivan Sekretarev/AP/NTB
Claims killing Russian politician’s daughter
According to Ponomarev, the Russian militia has been operating in secret for a long time, claiming, among other things, to be behind the assassination of the daughter of the Russian politician Daria Dugina, who was killed in a car bomb explosion on August 20.
And US intelligence released earlier in October and claimed to have evidence that Ukraine was behind the 29-year-old’s murder. According to them, the Ukrainian government officials are the leaders behind planning and “ordering” the attack on the car bomb that killed Dugina. The New York Times.
Daria Dugina was the daughter of the prominent Russian far-right politician and theorist Alexander Gilevich Dugin, who, among other things, helped found the National Bolshevik Party. The daughter, whose father shares a pro-Putin position, was a journalist and wrote under the pseudonym Daria Platonova. It supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and claimed that the alleged genocides revealed in Ukraine were orchestrated. She visited Donetsk and occupied Mariupol two months before her murder.
The Ukrainian authorities have not claimed responsibility for the assassination, which Ponomarev and his militia claim to be behind. But whether the militia even existed is something that experts often doubt.
(The case is still under the picture).
Russian politician Alexander Dugin stands next to the coffin of his 29-year-old daughter Daria. She was killed in August. Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters/NTP
Is the NRA a specter of war?
According to Ponomarev, the secret militia consists of from 500 to 1000 members, and he claims that they cooperate closely with the Ukrainian authorities by obtaining information from the cells they have in Russia, as well as obtaining information from the Ukrainian side.
One of the main goals is to tear the Russian elite apart and turn them against each other. One of the most important measures will be to turn the oligarchy against the government. As long as the oligarchs feel that their money is the safest in Putin’s port, they will not leave his side. That is why Ponomarev wants to make standing with Putin a “mortal danger to the Russian elite.”
– They may not like the war now going on, but they do nothing for fear of losing their strength. We have to do something about it, says Ponomarev.
However, experts believe that the NRA may be nothing more than propaganda and fantasy.
– I’m not convinced that the NRA exists. We have seen small attacks against infrastructure and other strategic targets in Russia, but they do not appear to be organized. This makes me think that the NRA does not exist and is just a fantasy, says Russian expert Sergei Radchenko at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
(The case is still under the picture).
Pictured is Ilya Ponomarev during a demonstration in Moscow in 2012. He claimed that former President Dmitry Medvedev was Russia’s hope. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP / NTB
“Ghost of Kyiv”
This is not the first time that the specter of resistance has surfaced in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. During the first weeks of the war, a fighter pilot nicknamed “Ghost from Kyiv” appeared. The Ukrainian pilot is said to have destroyed Kiev’s airspace and shot down at least six Russian planes during the first day of the war.
But the “ghost from Kyiv” may not exist. It is not uncommon for such ghosts to appear in war, sometimes to reassure the civilian population, and other times to motivate the fighting forces.
During the Vietnam War, “Colonel Tomb” appeared, a pilot who allegedly shot down 13 American planes. According to legend, he was killed in the war on May 10, 1972, but his identity has never been confirmed and it is not known if he actually existed.
In the same period, the Chinese “Lei Feng” appeared. The soldier became the main character in a major Chinese propaganda campaign asking people to “follow Li Feng’s example”. Li was portrayed as an idealistic citizen who was selfless and devoted to state leader Mao Zedong. Today, Lei’s production is pure propaganda.
During the First World War, legends arose about British soldiers who claimed to have received help from unexpected sides, from characters who did not believe they were real people. The legend has been called the “Angels of Mons” and was first mentioned in The Evening News on September 29, 1914, and was later republished in a number of newspapers. British soldiers claimed that human figures came to their aid when German soldiers were gaining the upper hand during the Battle of Mons.
The Kyiv Ghost and the secret Russian militia may be the latest additions to the list of non-existent war figures. Where the ghost has served as a mobilizing force for the Ukrainian people, the NRA militia may emerge as a deterrent to the Russian elite, who are well aware that one of them recently lost his daughter in an attack the militia claims is behind.
Video: Russian critic Putin lives in fear:
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