Russia’s elites have only two candidates to replace Putin: opposition leader reveals names

Russian opposition leader Ilya Ponomarev stated this in an interview on Espreso TV.

"The goal of the current elites and Putin's entourage - systemic liberals or security officials - is to preserve the system. They are very limited in terms of possible candidates, they cannot appoint just anyone - it has to be a procedure that preserves legitimacy and complies with the Constitution. The competition is between two people - Mishustin and Medvedev," he said.

Ponomarev added that there are no other candidates who can be legitimised through the current legislative procedures.

"All other alternatives are revolutionary. This is a conditional Prigozhin or a military man. Such a figure will appear suddenly. And the other scenario, I think we need to work on it, is a revolutionary scenario from the Ramstein coalition and Ukraine. This war can only be ended when the very position of the Russian president is abolished, and the state itself is completely rebuilt on new principles. The only force that can do this is Russian volunteers in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and they can do this at the end of the war," the opposition leader concluded.