[10][8][9] Ponomarev also endorsed acts of sabotage and arson in Russia,[11][12] and launched a Russian-language opposition television channel called February Morning (Russian: Утро Февраля, romanized: Utro Fevralya).

Ponomarev's duties during those four years included those of corporate CIO, and chief executive of Yukos' subsidiary company ARRAVA IMC, which specialized in advanced oilfield technologies and services.

From 2006 to 2007, Ponomarev served as the national coordinator for the "high-tech parks task force", a $6 billion private-public project to develop a network of small communities across the country to foster innovation and R&D activities.

He introduced and secured passage of legalization of limited liability partnerships in Russia, the Net Businesses Act, and tax breaks for technology companies.

[38] From 2012 to 2014, Ponomarev was involved in International Business Development, Commercialization and Technology Transfer for the Skolkovo Foundation, managing the project initiated by Pres.

In June 2012, Ponomarev made a speech in the Duma in which he called United Russia members "crooks and thieves", a phrase originally used by anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny.

[43] Together with several other civil activists, including Alyona Popova, Mitya Aleshkovsky, Danila Lindele and Maria Baronova, he organized a nationwide fundraising campaign which generated almost one million dollars in small donations to aid flood victims.

[44] In 2012, Ponomarev supported[45][46] the Internet Restriction Bill, with the stated purpose of fighting online child pornography and drug sales, introduced by fellow Just Russia parliamentarian Yelena Mizulina.

Critics compared the results to those of the Chinese Internet firewall:[47][48] a RosKomCenzura blocklist of censored pages, domain names, and IP addresses.

[54] In October 2012, the pro-government news channel NTV aired a documentary which accused Ponomarev's aide Leonid Razvozzhayev of arranging a meeting between a former opposition leader, the Left Front's Sergei Udaltsov, and Givi Targamadze, a Georgian official, for the purpose of overthrowing President Vladimir Putin.

[56] Razvozzhayev fled to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he applied for asylum from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but disappeared after leaving the office for lunch.

[55][57] A spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee claimed that Razvozzhayev had not been abducted, but had turned himself in freely and volunteered a confession of his conspiracy with Udaltsov and Lebedev to cause widespread rioting.

[3][2][59] Despite his criticism of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution as being driven by an alliance of neoliberals and nationalists, he justified his position in the Duma by saying that it was necessary to maintain friendly relations with the "brotherly Ukrainian nation" and avoid military confrontation, and argued that Russia's actions in Crimea would push Ukraine outside the traditional sphere of Russian influence and possibly provoke further expansion of NATO.

[63] In August 2014, while he was in California, federal bailiffs froze Ponomarev's bank accounts and announced that they would not allow him to return to Russia, due to an ongoing investigation.

[citation needed] However, later in 2015, the Moscow Bauman Court heard Ponomaryov's case in absentia and decided to arrest him, issuing an international warrant.

[73] After fellow former Russian MP Denis Voronenkov was shot and killed in Kyiv on 23 March 2017, Ponomarev was given personal protection by the Ukrainian Security Service.

He has gone so far as to support Kaja Kallas's call for Schengen Area states to cease issuing tourist visas to Russian nationals and restricting the movement to refugees who have fought the regime.

[79] In a June 2022 interview with Tim Sebastian of Deutsche Welle's Conflict Zone, Ponomarev maintained that Putin "wants to crush NATO, that's his strategic goal."

Ponomarev personally read a statement claiming responsibility for the attack from a hitherto-unknown group calling itself National Republican Army (NRA) (Russian: Национальная республиканская армия (НРА)).

[81][82][83][84][85] Russia's state-owned TASS news agency quoted the Federal Security Service claimed the assassin was a Ukrainian citizen named Natalya Vovk.

[86] Ponomarev told Meduza that his contacts deny that Vovk directly carried out the attack, while also leaving open the possibility that she had some other undisclosed role.

"[8][9] In an interview about the Russian NRA conducted by Jason Jay Smart [uk] for the Kyiv Post, Ponomarev acknowledged his support of the group while disavowing his own membership, and denied having direct foreknowledge of its actions.

He describes the group as having "a slight left-leaning orientation," and that it "embraces social justice, gets rid of oligarchs, and moves away from the new-liberalism approaches of Yeltsin and Putin."

[87] As of 21 August 2022[update], The Guardian and Associated Press articles concerning the death of Dugina and its aftermath state that the claim of a National Republican Army responsibility cannot be confirmed.

[8][9] Separately, Meduza managing editor Kevin Rothrock questioned Ponomarev's integrity, the existence of the NRA, and implied that both Dugin and Dugina were "civilians" who should not have been targeted.

[22] Sergey S. Radchenko, the Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Deutsche Welle he found the claim of responsibility and manifesto to both be "dodgy.

"[23] Citing the livestream of Yulia Latynina, Cathy Young mused on the possibility that Ponomarev is a "a grifter trying to sell a good story," but noted that the NRA manifesto's appeal to patriotism is not suggestive of black propaganda.

[96][26] His mother, Larisa Ponomareva, was an MP in the upper house of Russia's Parliament, the Federation Council, until September 2013, when she was forced to resign following her lone vote against the Dima Yakovlev Law.