Councilors and district leaders lead the first major political protest against the president for the prolongation of the war and the damage it causes to Russia
The prolongation of the war and the feeling that it could be bogged down for a long time with no other means other than sending thousands of soldiers to the front and leading Russia to incessant wear and tear have exacerbated the spirits of almost a hundred politicians, who have demanded the resignation of its president, Vladimir Putin. It is an unprecedented gesture in which the signatories, mostly district councilors, risk harsh sentences. But they also represent the first public and coordinated reproaches against the head of the Kremlin, increased since this weekend after the apparent collapse of the front line in Ukraine, which has led a part of the leader’s orbit to request resignations in the high military command.
In a surprising rebellion, the deputies of the Smolnysky district, in Saint Petersburg, were the first to demand Putin’s departure on the 7th and even ask the Russian lower house –rather symbolically– to accuse him of treason as formula for his immediate dismissal. These have been followed by other groups of politicians from the districts of Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Kolpino. Yesterday they added about ninety accessions.
The motion will have a brief political journey. The president’s party, United Russia, dominates the Duma. Police have begun warning signatories that they face “legal charges” for “discrediting the government.” But the very proposal is undoubtedly hurtful to Putin, who grew up in Smolninsky and was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. The extent of the new rebellion is unknown. The powerful Kremlin security machine has so far managed to silence the other two earthquakes suffered by the credibility of the head of government since the beginning of the war, helped by the undoubted disaffection of a large percentage of the population with the Ukrainian conflict. Immediately after the invasion began, the protests against him took to the streets, but they ended almost as quickly as they had started, leaving a balance of 6,000 detainees. Nor have the opposition of a handful of oligarchs such as Mikhail Khodorovsky, Mikhail Fridman or Oleg Tinkov, and parliamentarians such as Vyacheslav Markahev or Mikhail Matveyev, generated any government crisis.
“We believe that the decision made by President Putin to start the special military operation is detrimental to the security of Russia and its citizens,” says the document presented in Smolninsky. “The rhetoric that you and your subordinates use is full of intolerance and aggressiveness. People fear and hate Russia again while we threaten the whole world with nuclear weapons, ”denounces a second statement from the elected members of the Lomonosovsky district, the second most active in this opposition. “Therefore, we ask that he be relieved of his duties, since his views and his model of government are hopelessly outdated,” he concludes.
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