this is bbc news. the headlines: officials in the eastern ukrainian city of kharkiv say air strikes have killed at least six civilians near a post office. the victims were receiving aid when the missiles hit. the city which is less than 25 miles from the russian border has faced relentless shelling and bombardment. western leaders meeting in brussels have promised to increase military aid to ukraine and send more troops to neighbouring countries in eastern europe. president biden and the european commission president, ursula von der leyen, said they were united against what they called russia's unjustified and unprovoked war. the us and other western countries have condemned the taliban's decision to shut girls�* secondary schools in afghanistan just hours after they reopened

for the first time in seven months. they said the decision harms the group's prospects for legitimacy and urged the hardline islamist movement to reconsider. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk with gabriel gatehouse. welcome to hardtalk. i'm gabriel gatehouse. my guest today is a former member of the russian parliament who's fighting in ukraine against russia. a man who's long said he wants to bring down vladimir putin but who was once on the russian government payroll. ilya ponomaryov has had his feet in many camps — among the russian elite, inside the popular opposition, and now with the ukrainian defence forces. so, what will be the repercussions of this war in ukraine and in russia, on the streets and in the kremlin?

ilya ponomaryov, welcome to hardtalk. hello, gabriel, thanks. thanks for having me here again. you're a political exile now, a russian in ukraine dressed in khaki. you said recently, "i chose ukraine because it's the best place "to bring down vladimir putin's regime." you'vejoined ukraine's territorial defence forces. what is your role in this? are you picking up a gun, or what? i want to stress that i am not fighting against russia, i'm fighting against putin

and against putinism. that's very much the same as anti—fascists during world war ii who were joining british, norwegian and soviet forces. they also were fighting against fascism. they were not fighting against their motherland because they came to hate germans. no, they hated fascists. and that's very much the same, what we are doing here. and territorial defence, yeah, that's like volunteers who are armed and who are fighting against the aggression, protecting the cities, and these volunteers, they usually have kalashnikovs or machine guns, sometimes slightly more heavier hardware, and some of those units have anti—tank missiles, as well. but there are two wars going on here. there's the physical war, the hot war. there's also the information war.

which of those are you fighting? i'm actually doing both because i have started fromjust, like, physical fight, because the very first day, we were very much afraid that vladimir putin was going to capture kyiv right away in the very first night. you know, i don't want to sound too pathetic, but, yeah, we were preparing to die but to defend the city. but later, it became clear that his blitzkrieg is wearing off and that he is not successful. and then we started to think about the changes in russia. and i think that by invading ukraine, vladimir putin has actually signed the death sentence for himself, not for ukrainians, but for himself, and now we need people who would execute it.

i want to get on to what may or may not happen to vladimir putin a bit later. but you used to be an mp in the russian duma. you represented the siberian city of novosibirsk. you're now in the strange position where you might potentially be fighting against the very people you represented. is that an uncomfortable position for you to be in? it is very uncomfortable a position because i am very much sorry for my compatriots and for many of my friends. you know, actually, the story is that the first russian general which was killed in action in ukraine, his name is andrei sukhovetsky. he was the deputy commander, the commander—in—chief of one of 14 armies, russian armies, which are now inside ukraine. and this guy is from novosibirsk, and he was actually campaigning for me. i know him quite well, he was supporting me when i was the member of the parliament. unfortunately in 2014, again,

being a military person, he decided that his duty was to follow the orders, and he became the division chief in crimea for airborne. then he was relocated to novorossiysk, which was also on the black sea. but then he got promoted to this deputy commander—in—chief, and perishedin ukraine. that's extraordinary. well, you've clearly decided your duties lie elsewhere. you wrote recently on facebook, "i, ilya vladimirovich ponomaryov, "offer $1 million to whoever brings vladimir putin dead "or alive to an international court." now, isn't that incitement to violence and exactly the kind of thing that gives putin an excuse to say that ukraine is an existential threat to russia? oh, come on. it's vladimir putin who is the existential threat

for ukraine, and to me personally. he is a war criminal. he is right now killing civilians in ukraine massively, and the death count is already in tens of thousands of civilians. he is not very much successful in killing ukrainian military, but he is extremely successful in killing ukrainian civilians. what i mean is it gives him an excuse to say that what he is doing isjustified. no, it's not an excuse. war criminals needs to be captured, and war criminals need to be exterminated. and war criminals have no nationality. war criminals are war criminals and nuremberg is something that awaits him ahead and somebody needs to facilitate it. and actually, the city of kharkiv, the first city that was besieged by vladimir putin, it's a sister city to nuremberg. it's a sister city to novosibirsk in russia, but it's also a sister city

to nuremberg in germany. and i think it's very symbolic. ukraine, the ukrainian armed forces have done a much betterjob than most people expected at holding back the russian advance. you said yourself, you expected in the early days that kyiv would be taken. but the reality is that russia has vastly superior manpower and firepower. and surely, the longer this goes on, the worse it'll be for ukrainians. you know, actually in terms of manpower, i would rather disagree with you because if we look at the numbers of russian army and the numbers of ukrainian army, then ukraine currently supersedes russia and definitely has way, way, way more experienced people. well, the russian armed forces comprises around 900,000 active duty soldiers. at the start of this conflict, that was eight times the size of the ukrainian army, which i think has grown now somewhat, but still many times larger.

well, the ukrainian army was 350 or something like that. then the ukrainian army had 400,000 in reserves, people with the experience in fighting in donbas, plus, additionally, this territorial defence that we were talking about from the very beginning, which has a capacity of up to one million, and right now, there are 200 active servicemen in — in this type of service. so, altogether, we get into the same 950, but the potential to grow it is even higher. are you saying you believe that ukraine could win this war militarily, and secure a russian defeat? yes, that's exactly what i am thinking. i think that, i will put it to be exact,

i think that there is no way russia can win this war militarily. that probably would be the most accurate statement, because russia, theoretically, can take over one or another city. russia can secure control over certain parts of ukrainian territory, but ukrainians would have unlimited support for partisan action, and they can last way longer, and it's their motherland and they're not going to go away. so if, as you say, the ukrainian armed forces are capable of winning this war, then why are you and other ukrainians, all the way up to president zelensky, asking for a no—fly zone? well, that's the most difficult parts for us. firstly, it's a huge humanitarian catastrophe which we are experiencing right now. and you saw what's going on in mariupol. you saw what's

going on in kharkiv. you saw what's going on in other cities right now. there are very active shellings of kyiv and that also, russian army, unfortunately, they are not targeting military objects as they claim. they target just plain civilian houses. and what they want to bring to the citizens is a plain terror. they are not trying to combat the military because there are no such targets in ukraine, so it's very well thought out. but, yes, so the first thing is humanitarian thing, but the second thing is also a military thing because ukrainians cannot assemble and start an offensive. because when you don't control the air, the offensive will have a devastating effect on the ukrainian military.

well, nato leaders have made it clear there will be no no—fly zone. president biden has said, "we will not fight a war against russia in ukraine. "direct confrontation between nato and russia "is world war iii." well, shame on you guys. well, he says it's world war iii. shame on you guys. world war iii is coming to your neighbourhood already, and if putin would be victorious in ukraine, you would have this world war iii. and i think that, gabriel, you, as a british person, should remember what prime minister churchill once said — that if you want to avoid it, you will have both the shame and the war. president zelensky has said, "i think that without negotiations, "we cannot end this war." he's also said, indicated, that he may be willing to concede some things for peace, including possibly nato membership, possibly recognising crimea as russian territory. what compromises do you think ukraine could make

in order to achieve peace? well, firstly, president zelensky is 100% right. whatever is the outcome of the war, the war would be ended with the peace talks. even world war ii ended with peace talks, but it was peace talk about the conditions of capitulation of a fascist germany. and that would be the same, what would be happening here. the recognition of crimea or recognition of the so—called people's republics is not on the table. yeah, i think that ukraine is very much likely to compromise on the nato membership because president zelensky many times repeated that since nato doesn't want us anyway, then, ok, so we can debate. but first step should be liberation of ukrainian territory in full,

including crimea and donbas. i want to move on to what may or may not be going on inside the kremlin. you know something of vladimir putin's inner circle, you worked for the government, you worked with vladislav surkov, a man who was once known as the author of putinism. what do you think is going on behind those walls? i think that right now, there is an active search of who is at fault for what's going on in ukraine. i think that firstly, obviously, the generals, they are a bit scared to report the truth, but they obviously know the truth. and if you attentively study the russian mediascape during the last weeks, you would see that for approximately 11 days, neither minister of defence shoigu

nor the chief of staff gerasimov, general gerasimov, are visible on the tv screen. i think shoigu just reappeared actually in the past couple of hours, but... he reappeared with a visit to the hospital. yes, because there were too many rumours, you know, why his wife disappeared. you said you think the generals know the truth — do you think vladimir putin knows the truth, or is he getting his news from unreliable sources? well, he's getting his news from generals. no, he's getting his news from generals. you know, i was among those who made the wrong prediction that there would be no war. i actually was saying this many times, and i didn't believe the american intelligence that the war is imminent. and the reason why i didn't believe in it because, for me, it was absolutely clear that this war would be suicidal foeradimir putin, and i know him quite well as a rational person.

so i thought that it's no way he would do it, but he has done it — why? because he had the wrong information. so you don't think he's turned into an irrational person? you think he was badly informed? yeah, i think he was. i think that it's very much because of the pandemic. he was sitting for a very long time in his bunker with a very limited circle of people whom he was communicating with. his most usual confidants were nikolai patrushev, the national security chief, and yuri kovalchuk. former kgb colleagues, yes. us intelligence has said they believe that putin has a tendency to double down when he feels cornered. so the americans have quite a delicate balance to tread here. fiona hill, a former adviser to donald trump, said, "putin is making it very clear that nuclear is on the table, and every time you think, no, he wouldn't, would he?

well, yes, he would." what do you think could be a so—called off ramp for vladimir putin, a way out? there is no way out already. there's just none, unfortunately. i don't see any because for any way out, he needs to be able to claim a victory in ukraine. and there is no way it's happening. that's why there is no way out and i think that the sooner the west would recognise that this regime needs to be overthrown and putin personally eliminated, the better it would be. we can do it, russians, ukrainians can do it, americans can do it, but it needs to be done. i want to get on to that in a minute. but first, let's talk a little bit about how we got here. in 2014, after a revolution in kyiv that overthrew a pro—russian president, russia annexed crimea. and you were the only member

of the russian duma, the parliament, to vote against that annexation — why? exactly because of what we see now, that's what i wrote. i said that historically, maybe crimea is russian. i may even admit that maybe a majority of crimeans wanted to be with russia, although right now it does not seem to be the case. but it doesn't matter. it was the annexation. it was no referendums, or nothing like this. and it would mean inevitable war between russia and ukraine, the closest neighbours, brothers, allies, whatever... which sounded at the time like a very prophetic, or looks from this vantage point, like a prophecy. but you also said at the time, "i think that crimea should be part of russia. i think it is russian land.

i think we should all be together, ukrainians and belarusians, and russians and many other countries which were once part of the ussr. we are one family, we have a common history." how is that vision different from that of vladimir putin? well, you see, the fact that we are related to each other. it doesn't mean that the people of ukraine or belarus, or russia has the right for self—determination. and what i was saying at that time is that if crimeans would run their legitimate referendum, made legitimate public and fair discussion of how they want to live, we should honour their opinion. like i would say the same thing about scotland or ireland, would be absolutely the same. but it has to be done through a civilised procedure.

and what actually happened in crimea was the opposite. it was firstly the annexation. the military was introduced to crimea, and then, under these rifles, under the guns, a so—called "referendum" has been conducted. no, that's not the procedure we are talking about. i'm just trying to get a sense of whether your views have changed in the intervening eight years. vladimir putin has said that russia is fighting a regime of fascists and neo—nazis in ukraine. i mean, that's clearly nonsense, and presumably you reject that, too. yes, absolutely. i never thought that. and my position was always that, yeah, we need to be friends. i am a leftist, i am an internationalist. i believe in the unions. i believe in the world without borders, where people can move freely, can talk freely, can work freely, can educate freely, can enjoy their life freely without any artificial restrictions like the borders, visas, and so on and so forth.

but again, this has to be done through the self—determination of people. they should decide. let me move on to what russians might, could, orshould do in these circumstances. in 2011—2012, you were among protesters on the streets of moscow. that was the last time there was a serious mobilisation, popular mobilisation against vladimir putin. what chances are there of such a movement happening again under the current circumstances? i think that unarmed movement is not so possible, because again, people are rational. they don't want to go to jailfor nothing. they want to do something which is reasonable. so there is obviously a certain circle of people who are not politicised, but who are dissidents, who want to express their moral position — and even such number of people

is pretty reasonable, as we saw the world protest against the war, despite all the new oppression laws that russian state duma has passed. that's right, but 14,000 people have been arrested. you know, there seems to be serious repressions going on. yeah, but that's exactly my point. and people don't see the point, why should they do it? so, they expressed their opinion once, and we know that these people exist. and we know that even according to the official polls, one third of the russian population is against this war. to my mind, it's way larger, because... but 60% are in favour, according to the last independent pollster. you wrote recently, you said, "i would be surprised if putin was still in the kremlin next year." under these circumstances, where does the challenge to him come from? i even wrote not that he would not be in the kremlin, i think that he would not be on this planet, that he would not be

alive next year. well, where do you think... what is the mechanism for his removal? i think right now, there would be a competition between four different forces. one is russian people, and i think that demand for the armed protest is rising, and it's quite possible that these demands would be met. but you're talking about civil war in russia. that's what putin started on 24 february. when he attacked ukraine, he started an imperialist war. as classics of russian revolution once said, after imperialist war, there would be a civil war. it's inevitable and that would happen. that's where we're targeting. you talk about bringing putin down. but there's one big question — who is going to replace him? there isn't anyone who's obvious. well, that's very much dependent on who would bring him down.

there's one question, if that would be russian people — it would be russian people, most likely, these armed protests would be predominantly leftist and nationalist. if there would be some coup, some palace coup, so to say, that most likely there will be liberals and there are people like mikhail khodorkovsky, for example, who are clearly betting on this scenario. but then, there could be a scenario ofjust plain straightforward military defeat by ukrainians, and then it would be ukrainian soldier. but also, i would not exclude that mr putin would wave with his nukes above his head. then, there would be american troopers. very briefly, ilya ponomaryov, six years ago on this programme, you compared russia to germany in the 1930s. today, what are your thoughts? hitler's germany,

stalin's russia? no, it's not stalin's russia. and frankly, it's not hitler's germany, but it's so close to it that, you know, to all practical senses, yes, it is hitler's germany. ilya ponomaryov, thank you for being on hardtalk. thanks for having me. hello there. there are some big changes in the weather pattern on the way, but notjust yet. on thursday, despite the haziness of the sunshine, temperatures reached 20 celsius in east yorkshire — the warmest place in the country. it's a few degrees cooler

than that in northern ireland and across scotland, where we did see more cloud. and we've still got a weak weather front draped in the northern isles, bringing some damp weather here. otherwise, it's high pressure that's dominating the weather. with that stagnant air and no mixing, we've continued to see some poor air quality and we're going to find some high levels of air pollution again across some eastern parts of england in particular on friday. underneath that high pressure with clear skies, though, we start the day on a chilly note, as we have done over the past few days. temperatures in rural areas won't be far away from freezing. there may be a few pockets of mist and fog to start the day across scotland and northern ireland but away from the northern isles, there'll be more sunshine on friday for scotland and northern ireland. plenty of sunshine for england and wales. the odd shower could pop up over the high ground in northern ireland, southern scotland, and northern england but essentially for most, it's a dry and largely sunny day and quite warm again for the time of year — 18, maybe 19 degrees for england and wales. the high pressure is still there across the uk for saturday.

there is that weather front that's moving its way down into the north sea and that is bringing with it some cloud — that'll be important for the second half of the weekend. could be some mist and low cloud affecting some north—western parts of the uk but otherwise, it's another dry and mostly sunny picture and those temperatures showing little change, really, on saturday. but on sunday, we are expecting some changes. still got the high pressure, but all that moisture, all that cloud that's in the north sea is going to be dragged into that area of high pressure for the second half of the weekend. a lot of uncertainty still about the extent of the cloud but it looks like for england and wales, there will be some cloud, at least for a while — quite low cloud, misty weather, too. where it sticks, it's going to be quite a bit cooler, but further north, across a good part of scotland and northern ireland, there's likely to be some more warm sunshine on the way. into next week, though, and this is where we see significant changes — not least because we'll start to see a northerly wind moving down, and that will really drop the temperatures. as the high recedes early next week, we've got the chance of seeing some rain and then, that northerly wind

arrives — it will be much colder by day, and also colder by night.

this is bbc news, i'm samantha simmonds with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. western leaders say they're united in standing up to russia's invasion of ukraine as nato agrees to move more forces to its eastern flank. putin is getting exactly the opposite of what he intended to have as a consequence of going into ukraine. with russia blocking humanitarian convoys in southern ukraine, officials warn thousands of trapped residents may soon be forcibly transferred to russia. the eu agrees a landmark new law to control the market dominance of big technology firms such as google and apple. a national outpouring of sadness in afghanistan after the taliban backtracks on reopening high schools

for girls. after controversy injamaica, the duke and duchess