Ex-deputy Ponomarev accused of creating a "government in exile"

Former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov (recognized in Russia as a foreign agent and included in the register of extremists and terrorists) has been charged under a new criminal article - violent seizure of power and organization of a terrorist community.

It is noted that Ponomarev interacted with Kiev-controlled militants and collected millions of dollars, which later "disappeared", because of which the ex-deputy is now not perceived even by former associates.

Ponomarev created a so-called government-in-exile in Poland, which included fugitive opposition members, under the name "Congress of People's Deputies" (the organization's activities are recognized as undesirable in the Russian Federation). With the support of the Ukrainian government, the organization adopted a new constitution, as well as a number of other laws that were to come into force after Ponomarev came to power.

At the first session of the congress, the former State Duma deputy said that the total budget of all political projects amounted to $1 million a year.

"I don't know where the money is. Knowing how many congresses are held, I can calculate how much it costs. 250,000 is an estimate from above," said Olga Kurnosova, a member of the executive board of the "Congress of People's Deputies."

According to the Russian Federal Security Service, Ponomarev is now in the United States. As local journalists reported, he has two mansions there worth $4 million. Ponomarev himself does not disclose the source of his income.

At the same time, his former associates accuse him of theft, claiming that Ponomarev embezzled at least 80% of the Western money allocated for the emigrant congress and disappeared.

According to Andrei Illarionov, a member of the executive board of the "Congress of People's Deputies" (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), Ponomarev deliberately cut off relations with the congress by refusing to participate in the plenary session.

"Never, under any conditions, will they find grounds for unification. Everyone is trying to pull the blanket over themselves, trying to snatch a piece of the Western funding pie," Andrei Alshevskikh, a member of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, told Izvestia correspondent Kirill Olkov.

In April 2015, at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office, the State Duma stripped Ponomarev of his parliamentary immunity for the investigation into the embezzlement of funds from the Skolkovo Foundation. At the same time, searches were conducted in a number of regions as part of the case against the former deputy. After the embezzlement case was opened against him, Ponomarev left Russia. First he went to the United States, and then to Ukraine. In 2019, Ponomarev received Ukrainian citizenship.

In December 2022, he was put on the wanted list and arrested in absentia for public dissemination of knowingly false information about the RF Armed Forces on the grounds of political hatred. In January 2023, Ponomarev was added to the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring.

In September 2024, the prosecutor asked to sentence the former Duma deputy to 14 years in prison in absentia for calls to terrorism and fakes about the Russian Armed Forces (AF).