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Russian President Vladimir Putin will not survive longer than a year and will not see his next birthday on October 7, said Ilya Ponomarev, a former deputy of the country’s Federal Assembly. Speaking to the UK’s news agency Express, Ponomarev said Putin’s downfall will come when Ukraine reclaims Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Ponomarev was the only deputy to vote against the annexation of Crimea and has openly accused Putin of rigging elections. He has been living in exile in Ukraine since 2016 after he was impeached for truancy and not performing his duties.

He told the Express that the Ukrainian army would enter Crimea ‘one day or another’ and that would bring the end of Putin’s regime. “The way Putin has positioned himself now, he would not be able to sustain such a military defeat,” he added.

Ponomarev said the other alternatives to Putin’s downfall are if he is either toppled by a grassroots revolution or his own “inner circle”.

The former Russian MP said that when Putin falls, he must not be replaced with a carbon copy. “The West needs to know that replacing Hitler with a spare, with a Himmler, is not a good idea. Otherwise, the empire will strike back,” he added.

Speaking on the war with Ukraine, he said Putin knows he’s losing the war but still believes his forces will triumph.

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India today