Putin on brink as ‘majority’ of Kremlin elites ready to depose tyrant

Ukraine: Vladimir Putin’s position assessed by Richard Dearlove

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An “overwhelming majority” of Russian business elites and government officials are against the war in Ukraine and could be persuaded to change sides and topple Putin, a leading Kremlin opposition figure has told Express.co.uk. Ilya Ponomarev is a tech entrepreneur and former politician who served as an MP in Russia’s parliament for almost 10 years between 2007 and 2016. He has extensive contacts with both business and government elites inside Russia.

A strident critic of the war, he is currently living in Kyiv and has joined Ukraine’s territorial defence forces.

The former Vice President of the Yukos Oil company has been using his time in Ukraine to rally the democratic opposition to Putin’s regime and bring about its overthrow.

To that effect, he has helped to create the Congress of People’s Deputies – a transitional parliament consisting of 59 Russian politicians opposed to the Putin regime.

The Congress will hold its second session in Poland between February 20-23, as it develops plans for a Russian future without Putin.

However, Mr Ponomarev told Express.co.uk that any successful attempt to topple Putin would require the support of the Kremlin elites.

Through his contacts with those same elites, he is convinced that many could be persuaded to change sides, as anger grows over the Ukraine war.

He argued that one of the keys to their defection would be an easing of Western sanctions on their wealth and property.

Mr Ponomarev explained: “The overwhelming majority of both business elites and Federal government members oppose the war.

“There are plenty of people in the current Russian elites who are just waiting for the possibility to switch sides.

“They need to understand that we are not enemies.

“We need to convince them they need to be on the side of change, that they would benefit from change.

“And the key to making part of the elites work on our side, I think, is the sanctions policy.”

He continued: “Because sanctions are the source of pressure but there is no way out right now.

“So by applying the pressure you actually make people turn to Putin for protection, because they have no other place to go to.

“They are no longer welcome in the West; they can’t save their personal wealth and are forced to be contained within Russia and cooperate with Russian authorities.

“So that’s why we need to provide them with a policy which would actually allow them to switch sides, that would guarantee their personal safety and security in exchange for the defection from the current regime – for switching sides and start helping Ukraine and the Russian resistance – that is probably the key thing to achieve that objective.”

The former Russian MP argued that removing Putin was only one step to building a prosperous and democratic Russia.

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He insisted that the system that Putin has constructed over the years had to be destroyed entirely and acknowledged that the transitional period would be painful.

Mr Ponomarev said: “If the system is left as it is, then the situation will return.

“You would not cure the root of the problem because it is not personally Putin, it’s the system that exists in Russia.

“So the system needs to be broken and Russia has to undergo maybe a painful but important transformation as happened with Germany after WW2.

“Without this process, the situation would come back to what we see now after a certain period of time.”

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