Rospartisan

Roman Popkov, aged 45, once helmed the radical National Bolshevik Party and stood out as a key opponent of Putin in Russia long before the conflict with Ukraine kicked off in February 2022.

He was at the forefront of numerous demonstrations against the government and has been imprisoned for his political endeavours, and has sent a chilling warning about Russia's future.

Currently, Popkov plays a pivotal role in Rospartisan - a collective of activists defying Putin by executing sabotage operations within Russia.

His group has faced allegations from Russian prosecutors of orchestrating the murder of pro-Kremlin mouthpiece Vladlen Tatarsky in Saint Petersburg the previous year.

The insurgent leader contended that despite the outward robustness of Putin's regime, it was in reality increasingly unstable.

He described a nation precariously held together by police force and bureaucratic pressure, lacking any effective political or social structures.

Popkov drew parallels with Russia's past, where totalitarian systems invariably imploded from within, and he foresaw Putin's rule meeting the same end.

"Revolution is already on our minds," he declared. "There is a need for revolution as a fundamental breakdown of the system, as a radical transformation."

"We've already had the long reign of Brezhnev. Brezhnev's so called stagnation and eventually the Afghan war, the mediocre bloody war. And in the end, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the ideology."

"I'm sure that this is the path Russia is on now. Putin's long reign of terror ends with an absolutely idiotic bloody war and there awaits a period of great turbulence and revolutionary change."

Popkov said whether or not another Russian civil war would follow, depended on the Kremlin and not on the rebels, adding: "If there is a collapse of the Russian Federation and wars on its ruins, it will be entirely the historical fault of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin."

Russia has been rocked by several brutal Islamist terror attacks, most notably the assault on the Crocus Music Hall in Moscow in March.

The attack was carried out by a branch of the Islamic State and killed more than 140 people. The Russian rebel leader ruled out any cooperation with Islamists in the fight to overthrow Putin's regime.

He said: "For us, the Islamists are not allies, so there is a colossal gap between us and them - an ideological abyss - they are the same enemies of freedom as Putin."

"We cannot have alliances with them, by definition - for us, this is also evil, also darkness."