According to the EFE news agency, Ilya Ponomarev, a former deputy of the Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian Federal Assembly), now lives in exile in Kiev.
In 2014, Ponomarev was the only member of parliament to vote against the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.
“This is a historic moment. For the first time in at least a decade, democratically elected representatives are meeting. We find it democratic and dynamic. People debate and debate. I hope these three days will be useful,” Ponomarev told EFE.
The meeting of Russian dissidents ends on Monday and will be attended by 51 representatives who previously held elected positions in the Russian administration.
“We will have several speeches and announcements that will shape the framework for the upcoming meetings,” explained Ponomarev.
Earlier, in an interview with EFE, Ponomarev explained that the idea of the conference was to offer Russians a democratic alternative to Putin’s regime.
Andriy Sidelnikov, an opposition party and human rights activist who is part of the Congress organization, described the meeting as the first step toward a new parliamentary republic in Russia.
“We are trying to take a big step in the future. For now, I don’t know what will happen next, because all the representatives participating in the meeting, either in person or ‘online’, are under pressure from the Russian security service,” said Sidelnikov.
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