The only Russian parliament member to vote against the annexation of Crimea, now exiled from Russia, is maintaining his prediction that Vladimir Putin's days are numbered.
"Putin's power resides in his position as an alpha male, as the person who is invincible — 2022 was the year when this position started to wane," Ilya Ponomarev told Newsweek from Kyiv, Ukraine.
"My forecast still remains that he will not see his next birthday."
Putin will be 71 on Oct. 7, but Ponomarev is predicting Putin "will be killed" before then.
"My personal dream obviously is to see [Putin] in The Hague, but I don't think that he will make it," Ponomarev added, referring to the city that houses the U.N.'s International Court of Justice. "Those around him will not allow him to go to The Hague, because his testimony may actually be very harmful for them."
Ponomarev served nine years in the Russian State Duma, but he is exiled in Ukraine where he holds citizenship, according to the report.
He is leading an opposition movement to turn Russia into a democracy post-Putin, the First Congress of People's Deputies of Russia, which drafted a new constitution. He is also author of "Does Putin Have to Die?: The Story of How Russia Becomes a Democracy after Losing to Ukraine."
Ponomarev predicts Putin's struggles during the so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine will ultimately lead to his underlings turning on him, Newsweek reported.
Regime change in Russia can be done the easy way or the hard way, and Ponomarev prefers the latter, saying it might be a "velvet scenario of so-called system liberals which would convince [Putin] to step down and leave the floor to them and that they would negotiate with the West."
"Or it can be a more radical revolutionary scenario," Ponomarev told Newsweek. "I personally obviously put in my hopes with the latter rather than with the former.
"We are totally different from what kind of economic and social system should guide Russia," Ponomarev told Newsweek.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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