“There are lots of different flavours of opposition,” Ilya Ponomarev told The Brussels Times. “But as an organised force… The largest is the Russian volunteer force. [In Russia] there are just thinkers, philosophers, publicists, journalists, but they are not united. They don’t represent any force.”

On the political front, Ponomarev is an initiator of the Congress of People’s Deputies – a rival transitional government to the Russian Federal Assembly made up of seven anti-Putin former State Duma and Council members, former local deputies, and other activists.

“The Congress is a parliament, so it’s agnostic in terms of any political movements. Representatives of different political movements and organisations are inside Congress, but they are competing or even conflicting.” The quasi-parliament was branded “undesirable” by the Kremlin in April.

From acts of sabotage to political resistance, Ponomarev now dreams of armed resistance in Russia and hopes to one day play a part in an anti-Putin “march on Moscow”. There are two main Russian groups engaging in military operations against Russia: The Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), for which Ponomarev says he is the “official political representative”; and the polemic Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK).

Ponomarev complains that Russian liberals must take up the real fight in Russia, not in Brussels. He insists that the only credible opposition to Putin is from armed Russian groups and stresses that further incursions will be carried out on Russian territory. To this end, the former Russian deputy is now launching a recruitment campaign to encourage Russians to take up the fight. This includes recruiting from Russian already living in Europe.