assistance from its allies, and the future of that support is by no means guaranteed. so is momentum swinging decisively the kremlin�*s way? well, my guest, ilya ponomarev, is a former russian mp now fighting on ukraine's side and committed to the overthrow of vladimir putin. how significant is this russian resistance movement?

ilya ponomarev in washington, welcome to hardtalk. thanks for having me, stephen. it is a pleasure to have you on hardtalk. you're in washington, dc. 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? do you believe you have some role to play? we are communicating the position of the shadow russian parliament, the congress of people's deputies, which is actually calling for nato to stop putting restrictions on ukraine, how we can resist the aggression, because right now our hands are very much tied in terms of retaliatory attacks, in terms of attacks inside russian territory, in terms of targeting the leaders of this regime, the war criminals that are shooting children's hospitals and destroying civilians in ukraine.

yeah. you're responding there to what we have learned from kyiv in the last few hours about the latest missile strike on kyiv, which the ukrainians say hit a children's cancer hospital. you, i'm guessing, are not very hopeful about the reception you're going to get from nato leaders. just a few days ago, you said the west has so far responded, quote, "very negatively" to your group's activities and has refused to support attacks on russian soil. is anything going to change? i wouldn't say that the reaction is negative. i think that the reaction is rather neutral. they pretend to ignore what is actually happening. they pretend to ignore the growing russian resistance. they just don't want to do anything with it, because in all private

conversations, the key officials of united states government and european governments, they all say, "you guys are great. "you're doing the right thing. "but we will never say this in public. "we will stay aside and we will let the ukrainians make "the decisions because we don't want to take any responsibility "and any part of the regime change in russia. "it's too dangerous for us." let's just be clear about who you represent. you sit there in washington with your military fatigues on. but you're not a front—line fighter, are you? and you've just referred to your representative role with this so—called people's congress. are you a politician? are you some sort of military operator? how do you describe yourself? no, no, obviously i am a politician. when the large—scale invasion started in february 2022, i had little doubt but to take

a gun and go to defend kyiv. but that was short—living. after the danger was gone, i returned to my political position, and my role right now is to politically represent those who are in the front lines, primarily the legion freedom of russia and national republican army. we created a special political centre where i am the coordinator which speaks on their behalf with the international governments, with media and others. plus, additionally, there was the shadow russian parliament assembled in november 2022. that was the initiative of right now over 100 former russian mps of different levels and different regions and different political parties. we actually represent all of the political spectrum, from very moderate groups to very radical groups, from left to right, conservatives, liberals, everybody who are against this war, against putinism

and want to build the new russia. and we are working as this parliament and interacting with international governments as well as obviously with our constituents back home. yeah. so that's your emphasis on the politics. but you are also closely associated with two military groups. there's the freedom of russia legion, which, as i understand it, has a couple of thousand russian troops based in ukraine and ultimately woven into the ukrainian military effort. and then you're also associated with a group, the national resistance army, which is involved in covert operations inside russia with people, activists involved in a cell structure which, for very obvious reasons, is clandestine and which the russians simply term as terrorists and traitors. so which is more important to you right now, the politics or the military?

i think there is no distinction in the time of war. was mr churchill, during world war ii, make the difference? no. he was the leader of the whole nation, both the military part and the political part. but at the same time, i think the situation would be unhealthy if the politicians would be just right at the front lines. we need to support the groups, we need to organise them, we need to finance them. we need to recruit people to them. we need to advertise them. we need to explain them. but ourjob is to build the new russia, the new political order, the new statehood, because we think that russia federation would cease to exist. it would be a new russian republic, a new state of russia after putin has gone. and our objective is to make sure that what we have right now, the modern version of fascism, would never be resurrected on our territory. see, ijust wonder who you speak for.

we have spoken to many russian opponents of vladimir putin in recent years, thinking of people like mikhail khodorkovsky and garry kasparov outside of russia, and then, you know, in years gone by, interviews i've done with people like alexei navalny and vladimir kara—murza inside, who have been inside russia, and all of them have been committed to nonviolent civil resistance, pro—democratic civil resistance to the authoritarianism of vladimir putin. you're something entirely different. you seem to embrace violence. it's not violence. it is resistance. the violence was started by moscow. the violence was started by the kremlin. the violence was started when russian troops invaded ukrainian territory. since that time, more than half a million russians have died and who knows how many thousands of ukrainians? so the terrorist regime right

now is in moscow and we're the counterterrorist forces. but nobody can fight terrorists unarmed. nobody watching this interview could for one minute misunderstand why ukraine is fighting. it is a war of national self—defence as far as ukraine is concerned. but i keep coming back to the point that you're moscow—born, you are russian and to all intents and purposes to russia, notjust to the regime in moscow, but to the russian people, you are nothing but a traitor. you are taking money and taking weapons to kill compatriots, russian people serving in the russian military, and not even always serving in the russian military. steve, the other way round. yes, i am proudly moscow—born. i am representing siberia for a decade in the russian parliament, and i identify myself with siberia as my homeland. but we are saving russians.

we are not killing russians. the person who is killing russians is vladimir putin, is sergei shoigu, is mikhail mishustin and many other people from that government. the blood is on their hands, not on ours. we want to rescue our country. we want to stop the bloodshed. we want to remove the terrorists from power. that's what we are doing. somebody needs to do this. unfortunately, many other members of the russian opposition, and many of them are my very good friends, yes, they want to stay in the distance and wait until the time we win, and we'll make sure that there is a new government and then they will return and would join whatever new political structures would be created there. but somebody needs to do the job. somebody needs to oppress the resistance. let's talk about blood on the hands. you say the blood is on the hands of the kremlin and vladimir putin.

there's blood on your hands, too. you are closely associated with this group. i've called it the national resistance army, a covert group, group of cells, structures inside russia. they say that they are undertaking sabotage operations against oilfacilities, factories, rail lines, but they are also killing people. we know that they claimed responsibility for the assassination of darya dugina, the daughter of a leading ultranationalist ideologue inside russia, aleksandr dugin, also herself an advocate for putin. she was killed in a car bomb. vladlen tatarsky and zakhar prilepin also assassinated on russian soil by the group that you associate with. i canjust imagine you taking an interview with willy brandt or ernst thalmann or many other german antifascists and you say, "oh, the blood of nazis is on your hands." yes, the blood of nazis is on our hands.

and we are proud of that, because those people are killing innocent russians and innocent ukrainians. they're civilians. let's be clear. these people who were assassinated were not in uniform. they are civilians. the fact that they are not in uniform doesn't mean that they are civilians. every person who is assisting the war, who is financing the war, who is organising the war, who is recruiting people in the army, who is campaigning for the war, they all have blood on their hands, and by all international agreements, just look at the letter of the legal documents that were adopted by the international community, they are combatants. and any combatant is a target. aren't you just legitimising the kind of tactics that we've seen the putin government use in recent years, going back long before the 2022 full—on invasion of ukraine? we've seen murders on the streets of europe, indeed on the streets of ukraine where you live, which are strongly believed

to have been conducted by russian covert intelligence operators. by doing the same thing, you're simply playing into putin hands, are you not? that very much speaks to my position. you guys in great britain, you saw it and you experienced it first hand. my good friend alexander litvinenko was killed in the centre of london with using weapons of mass destruction with radioactive materials, which then polluted half of london. skripal in salisbury was assassinated using weapons of mass destruction and british citizens were affected and died because of that attack. and after that, you are saying that the blood is on my hand? it was the same dugina, it was the same tatarsky who was campaigning for those assassinations. i am cleaning up the planet out of all this scum, this nazi scum.

what do you think you've achieved? your forces, this so—called freedom of russia legion, last year briefly made an incursion into russia to belgorod region, and then was pretty rapidly removed. we've talked about the assassinations, we've talked about the sabotage attempts. we've even seen a drone flying into the kremlin, which you claim to be responsible for. but given the state of the war today, what have you really achieved? well, obviously we have a military aspect of our operations and these military aspects are very successful indeed. you mentioned some of the home front attacks, and i never claimed responsibility for any, because i am not the partisan which is on the russian soil. i am helping those who are organising those attacks. but it's them who are claiming the responsibility, who are not taking the responsibility. but besides this, like flashy things like the attack

on the kremlin�*s dome, there were very effective attacks on the oil refineries inside russia, which cost the russian military machine billions and billions of us dollars. and that's a very positive result. that obviously was done in correlation with ukrainian efforts, but still it was very much assisted by the russian resistance fighters back home. does it bother you that for all of your claims of impact and success, key figures in the russian opposition like dmitry gudkov say the russian opposition, this is a quote, "needs to agree "on non—aggression because the resulting conflicts "and scandals, if we do use violent tactics, "weaken us all"? dimi is my good friend, but he is mistaken. my position is simple, let the hundred flowers bloom. and who wants to work on the nonviolent front or do some human rights activities, you know, some humanitarian

programmes, let them do it. any action is better than inaction. but the victory would be brought by people who take arms in their hands and who are ready to come to moscow and oppress the police and take putin out and hang him on the streets of moscow. that's the only way how this war can be ended. you talk about taking putin out, and many times you've talked about your desire to see him assassinated. but isn't the truth... not assassinated. i want to see him prosecuted, i want to see him prosecuted and i want a fair sentence to be carried out. well, you've also said you'd like to see a wooden stake driven through his heart. that's not exactly prosecution, is it? that's just elimination. well, i think that he would most likely not survive to our trial, butjust recently on the recent session of congress, we actually

established this tribunal, which would work in cooperation with the icc and with ukrainian prosecution. but we are talking about free, transparent and very legal trial, so that everybody understands that we have justice. they would have the defence, we would have the true prosecution. it would be like a nuremberg process and it would be the sentence. last year we saw that rebellion led by yevgeny prigozhin. it was short—lived and it ended with retrenchment of the putin regime. we see that in recent months he's had senior generals arrested. he's had the deputy defence minister put on trial. opinion polls show that putin's popularity is still very high. it seems the elites still back him. the russian economy is still working. you, over the last several years, have predicted putin's demise at very regular intervals. every time you've been wrong. and i would put it to you that right now, putin looks as strong as he's looked at any point since the invasion in february 2022.

unfortunately, we, together with you guys, are not working hard enough. sometimes very reasonable and good papers are being adopted, decisions are made, but they are not implemented in real life. for example, sanctions policies, 80% of the measures that were adopted, they are being implemented, but the remaining 20 changing the situation to the opposite. and instead of stripping putin's regime of money and support from the financial elites, we're actually solidifying the support and increasing the inflows of cash for putin and for his army. that was happening during the last two years. if we would have acted otherwise like we decided, by the way, like it was written by the decisions of different international bodies where we participated, by the way, and helped to draft those papers, in this situation, there would be already no putin in kremlin. if there would be the decisions that were made on helping ukraine in terms of military carried out back in 2022, the war would end in 2022.

there would be no this war of attrition that we are experiencing right now. it would be over and way less people would have died if we would have been decisive and acting swiftly. and not right now. well, maybe one reason that western leaders don't share that view, and maybe one reason they are so, it seems, deeply wary of you and your approach, is that they worry that if vladimir putin is taken out, that actually what comes next in russia could be even more dangerous and even worse.

you have written a book, the story of how russia becomes a democracy after losing to ukraine. what on earth makes you think it would become a democracy? stephen, i'm afraid of the very same thing. and i many times said that, that's my worry as well. but what's the decision we are making based on those worries? putin is mortal. at one point in time, he would be gone. inevitably. he would just die. and then there would be a regime change. again, it would just happen. and we need to make sure whether we are taking a proactive approach, and we are trying to create something which would work to the benefit of all, for the west, for russians themselves, for ukraine, in terms of stopping the hostilities, in terms of dismantling the imperialism, in terms of letting the oppressed nations of russia be free, or we are just waiting for the things to

unfold like they are. but it would be the change not for better. but you just made a very important point. you made the point that one day putin will be gone. but this isn't about just vladimir putin, is it? it is about russia. it is about a deeply ingrained political culture, which many would say has a sense of imperial destiny, has a very strong sense of victimhood, and has a very strong tradition of authoritarian, centralised power. you target putin, but actually your problem is that this is about russia, not about putin. you know, you british guys, you know way better than me about traditions. your traditions are way stronger than the russian traditions. actually, our statehood is not that old. and the russian empire was essentially started by the peter the great.

so we are a way younger civilisation even than ukrainians are. but my deep belief that political systems are very fluid, and even looking at the history of the 20th century, look at germany. they flipped so many times with their political system. and by the way, before, it was a very monarchical and authoritarian political system, then it was democracy, then it was again authoritarianism and totalitarianism. and then it's a normal parliamentary, western—style democracy, that because the west took a proactive approach. it had to. it was forced to. you also tried to pacify the aggressor and to appease him. and we remember the munich betrayal and everything that happened. but at the end, you had to take the action. and i am afraid that if we are not act now, then we will have to

take the action anyway. you guys will have to take the action anyway, but it would cost you the blood of your people, of nato residents, nato country civilians, because poland and baltic states are next. right. we have to end in a moment. isn't the truth that as you sit there in washington preparing to lobby the nato member states as they meet for their summit, that the political tide is running against you? it's quite possible donald trump will very soon return to the white house. we see the rise of nationalist, populist movements across europe, which seem to be less inclined to support ukraine. the political mood among many of ukraine's erstwhile supporters is changing, and this idea that ukraine is going to win the argument to get into nato, to be given a pathway and a timeline, it seems it's not going to happen. look, it's you who have the option to sit and wait and think and make decisions and go in one direction or another direction. we have no such option.

we are fighting. it's our friends who are dying every day. it's our children who died after the missile attack on kyiv�*s hospital. it was my friends there in that building who died. and we need to take the action, because i see every moment, every minute, every hour that the blood is taking more and more. and we want to stop this and we will fight no matter what, whether we'll have the support or whether we will not have the support. and the only thing that we are asking is not tojoin ourfight, but let us do thejob, because it's right now nato countries which are restricting ukraine from vetting the operations back in the russian territory. it is you who are restraining ukraine to make ukrainian attacks in retaliation to all these crimes that are happening in kyiv. ilya ponomarev, ithank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk from washington. thank you.

hello. a fairly unsettled spell ofjuly weather is set to continue. more rain on the cards over the next few days. let's take a look at the expected accumulations. and you can see blue colours really across the map. so we're all going to see a little bit of rain between tuesday and thursday. this is probably the wettest spot. parts of eastern scotland, north—east england. we could see more than 60mm on top of the highest ground. so on tuesday a band of rain moves its way north. things are turning a little bit more humid towards the south. here's the low pressure that's drifting northwards through the overnight period

into tuesday as well. and we've got this warm front pushing north. so that's going to introduce a bit more of a southeasterly flow of air and bring in temperatures certainly a little bit warmer, a bit more of a muggy feel in the south compared to recent days. let's take a look at tuesday morning. then by about 9:00 that rain will mostly have been easing from southern england, but still some showers. big puddles for the south west of england, south wales too. that bulk of the rain is sitting across parts of northern england into northern ireland, southern scotland, central and northern parts of scotland. seeing some sunshine to start your tuesday morning. but this area of rain, it's a frontal system, continues its progress north. these easterly winds quite blustery, blowing in across north—east england and eastern scotland as well. so pretty wet if you're under that band of rain 15 or 16 degrees. but in the sunnier spells midlands perhaps getting up to around 21. few showers around across parts of southern and eastern england, so could be a little bit of light rain on tuesday at wimbledon, potentially on wednesday as well, but it won't be a washout. i think. any rain fairly showery in nature now moving

through into wednesday, then we've still got this band of rain overnight sitting across scotland, parts of northern ireland, still seeing some wet weather potentially as well. look at those overnight temperatures, most of us between about 12 to 15 degrees. so we've got that humid air more widely across the uk as we head into wednesday. but low pressure still driving things so still bringing outbreaks of rain for northern and eastern scotland, some of that quite slow moving. so rainfall totals really mounting up here, some showers too also into northern ireland, perhaps one or two into the northwest of england. further south you're more likely to have a bit of a drier day with some more sunshine, but not completely dry anywhere, i think. top temperatures in the sunshine in the south up to about 22, but still only 14 or 15 in the north towards the end of the week, then we've still got another area of low pressure. looks like it will affect parts of southern, perhaps south—eastern england, so it's a bit up and down over the next few days really, but temperatures perhaps a little bit warmer, at least for a time than they have been.

live from london. this is bbc news. the aftermath of russia's deadly air strike on kyiv. medical staff and emergency services look for survivors beneath the rubble of a childrens�* hospital. the war in ukraine is set to dominate talks as world leaders gather at this year's nato summit in washington.

but before he attends the summit, uk's new prime minister, sir keir starmer, meets with england's regional mayors at downing street. hello, i'm sally bundock. a very warm welcome to the programme. we start with ukraine. president zelensky says that russia must be held accountable for the massive and deadly bombardment of ukrainian cities, resulting in what he says is now 37 fatalities, including three children. this was the scene overnight in the capital kyiv, the main children's hospital has been largely destroyed with other facilities damaged including a maternity hospital and college. five cities across the country have been attacked.

but russia has denied targeting civilian infrastructure —