Some politicians are scared of Putin and some are extremely apologetic, actually. And I feel very sorry for this because some people who are like my friends from the left flank, they praise Putin because they see him as the fighter against American imperialism, which he is not. You know, why would you select between American imperialism and Russian imperialism? To my mind, it's exactly the same thing.
Ilya PonomarevI think that we are right now - the society - is living in the Facebook era and the political system is still in the 19th century prior to the Industrial era. Why for God's sake do you need to be socially liberal and economically conservative? Or to be economically market-oriented but at the same time socially, extremely conservative? Why can't you be free in both dimensions?
Ilya PonomarevGenerally, Putin thinks of himself as Christian. I don't think he is, but he pretends to think that he is. In terms of his ideology he's more like Bush Jr. But he's less ideological. He's thinking more, 'How to stay in power?'
Ilya PonomarevWith Tatars, the situation is a little bit more complex. They are geographically very isolated so they need the rest of Russia. When they pump oil, they need pipelines to deliver it so they need those connections. We in Siberia don't need those connections. The only thing which actually sticks us together is the cultural similarities and the relatives that are on both sides of the Ural mountains.
Ilya PonomarevConservatives - they say, 'Oh, Putin is a real leader, he's a true man, he stays firm on his position, he's not like this weak Obama.' And also they are very much wrong. Because Putin is not a strong man; he is actually a man that put himself into a corner, and he's fighting and biting from that corner, being very weak.
Ilya PonomarevMy political tradition is on the left, but I think that more modern leftists, they sometimes get stuck with this vision of large government and social benefits and everything and that's against what is my position, because I think that the ultimate vision of Marx, Engels, and those people was to eliminate government entities and to give as much power to the people. And in modern standing that means direct democracy, that means all the power to the communities, it means gradually eliminating all government oppression on the society. And 100 years ago, leftists' major allies were labor unions.
Ilya Ponomarev