Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest in this interview recorded on the 8th of July is a Moscow-born entrepreneur who became MP for the Russian city of Novosibirsk before turning his flourishing career upside down by becoming an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin's increasingly repressive

authoritarian rule. In 2014, Ilya Ponomarev took his descent to a new level. He was the

only member of the Russian Duma to vote against the annexation of Crimea.

Just a short time later, when he was in the United States, his assets were frozen.

He was later charged with corruption and stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

So, Ponymarov made a new home for himself in Ukraine. And after the February 22 Russian invasion, he volunteered to fight for his

adopted country. Over the past two and a half years, he's become a key figure in the anti-Putin

resistance movement, both inside and outside Russia, backing two key organizations, the Freedom of Russia Legion,

of anti-Putin Russian soldiers based in Ukraine, and the National Republican Army,

a secretive network of partisans allegedly operating on Russian soil.

Ponomarev is an advocate of armed resistance, which must end, he says,

with the elimination of Putin himself. Now, his approach has put him at odds with some other members

of the anti-Putin Russian diaspora and has prompted concern amongst Western allies of Ukraine

who remain wary of being associated with attacks on Russian soil.

So with Putin seemingly determined to intensify his assault on Ukraine, just how significant is this

Russian resistance movement?

Lelya Panamaraf joins me now from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thanks for having me, Stephen.

It is a pleasure to have you on. You're in Washington, D.C. You are normally based in Ukraine.

I am very well aware that NATO leaders are about to meet in Washington at the NATO summit.

Why are you there? We are communicating the position of the shadow Russian parliament, Congress of People's

deputies, which is actually calling for NATO to stop putting restrictions on Ukraine, how we can

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