24 Facts About Lev Ponomaryov

Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomaryov is a Russian political and civil activist.

Lev Ponomaryov worked in the Theoretical and Experimental Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and simultaneously taught at MFTI in the general physics department.

In 1988, Lev Ponomaryov helped create the human rights organization Memorial.

In 1989, Lev Ponomaryov filled the place of academic Andrei Sakharov in the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union after he died suddenly from a heart attack.

Lev Ponomaryov took part in the Coordination Council of Moscow Union of Electors and in the initiative group for the creation of the Civil Action Committee.

From 1990 to 1993, Lev Ponomaryov was a People's Deputy of the Russian Federation; a member of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation; a member of the Committee on Mass Media relating to public organizations, mass movement of citizen and public opinion research; and a member of the political movement Democratic Russia and the deputies group Army Reform.

Lev Ponomaryov entered the Parliament only after the death of deputy Vasilii Seliunin.

From 1994 to 1996 Lev Ponomaryov was a deputy of the State Duma, a member of the committees for CIS Affairs and relations with nationalities.

In 1997, Lev Ponomaryov founded the Russian human rights society "For Human Rights", becoming its executive director and a member of the Council on Motion.

Also in 1997, Lev Ponomaryov was one of the founders of the "Hotline" and founded and is one of the most active members of the group Common Action.

Lev Ponomaryov has been a member of The Other Russia coalition since its foundation in 2006 and a member of its executive committee.

The court obliged Lev Ponomaryov to refute the unreliable information about Kalinin that he had made public.

Lev Ponomaryov actively defended the ex-owner of YUKOS Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the other persons sentenced for economical offences in the YUKOS case.

In 2009, together with other Solidarnost activists, Roman Dobrokhotov, Oleg Kozlovsky, Aleksander Rykline, Sergey Davidis, Mikhail Schneider, Vladimir Milov, Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov, Lev Ponomaryov took part in a series of individual pickets in front of Meschansky district court and held a slogan "Freedom to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev".

Lev Ponomaryov Ponomarev is a member of the United Democratic Movement "Solidarnost".

Lev Ponomaryov was sentenced to at least 25 days of detention in December 2018 in because of a Facebook post publicising an unauthorised rally that was to take place at Lubyanka square in Moscow on 28 October.

On 28 December 2020, Lev Ponomaryov was added to the list of media "foreign agents" by the Russian government alongside four other persons.

On 30 January 2022, during the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lev Ponomaryov led a public declaration published in Echo of Moscow opposing the Russian threat to further invade Ukraine.

On 22 March 2012, Komsomolskaya Pravda published transcripts of a YouTube video, purporting to show Lev Ponomaryov to be demanding money for civil organizations in the Russian Far East from an official working at the Embassy of Japan in Moscow, in return for promoting Japanese claims to the disputed Kuril Islands of Shikotan and Habomai.

Lev Ponomaryov stated that he had complained to the Prosecutor-General of Russia for invasion of his privacy and the Japanese had initiated contact with him over the islands.

Lev Ponomaryov admitted that human rights organisations got foreign funding, but stated it was necessary since the authorities had driven them into such a position.

Lev Ponomaryov claimed that the video had edited the portion where he said Nemtsov and Ryzhkov would go to blood, adding he was talking about the authorities who would go to blood if these people try to hold rallies.

Lev Ponomaryov has two daughters from his first marriage, Elena Liptser and Xenia.

Lev Ponomaryov was then married to Eugenia Ilyina with whom he has had two children, Anastasia and Fedor, born in 1984 and 1986, respectively.