It is a war. Half a year later, opponents and supporters of the Kremlin have lost their fear of the taboo word, of the expression that was forbidden to pronounce under penalty of fine or jail when talking about Ukraine. “It is a war, not a special operation. A general mobilization is needed”, warned the leader of the Communist Party, Guennadi Zyuganov, the great historical bastion of Vladimir Putin among the other parties loyal to the Russian president. The rapid advance of the Ukrainian troops in the last week has caused a stir in Russia, and the president’s entourage is trying to put out the fire unleashed in his ranks. Putin’s spokesman has even issued a warning: any criticism, whether it comes from opponents or ultranationalists, will be liable to be judged. At the moment, this week only the Saint Petersburg councilors who asked for the president’s dismissal will go through the court.
“The war and the special operation have different roots. You can stop the special operation, but you can’t stop the war even if you want to. This has two results: victory or defeat. To win in Donbas is the question of our historical survival. Everyone in this country should realistically assess what is happening,” Zyuganov told parliament on Tuesday. The politician, 78 years old and at the head of the communists since 1993, pronounced a term that the so-called laws against the discrediting of the Armed Forces prohibit. For example, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta – whose director, Dmitri Muratov, won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize – was forced to delete the news where it was said that what was happening in Ukraine was a war.
Faced with the commotion generated by such a forceful message, the Communist Party retracted, hours later, its leader’s statements. “[Ziugánov] he called to mobilize the economy and the political system, not to mobilize the country’s population,” his press secretary, Alexander Yushchenko, clarified in a later interview where he urged “severely punish those who spread provocations like this information.” Much of the Russian press had echoed the words of the communist leader.
The head of the Communist Party was key just a year ago, in September 2021, by stopping part of his formation when it revolted by denouncing that Putin’s party, United Russia, had stolen the parliamentary elections through the new electronic voting. The driver of the demonstrations in the capital, the leader of the communists in Moscow, Valeri Rashki, was removed shortly after by a murky incident of illegal hunting and alcohol at the wheel.
Demands for a general call-up are now coming even from Putin’s own party. “Without full mobilization, the creation of military foundations, including in the economy, we will not achieve the proper results [en Ucrania]. The fact is that society should be as united as possible and ready for victory,” Mikhail Sheremet, a member of the Security and Anti-Corruption Committee, also said on Tuesday.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
The Kremlin has warned that it will not tolerate internal escalation. “Regarding critical viewpoints, as long as they remain within the current legal framework, this is pluralism, but that line is very, very thin. You have to be very careful here, ”the spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitri Peskov, responded on Tuesday, when asked about the wave of criticism raised in recent days.
The spokesman denied that it is in the president’s plans to order a mobilization. “At the present time no, it is out of the question,” Peskov assured before the dust raised in the circles of power by the withdrawal of the territories recovered by kyiv. The Chechen president, Ramzán Kadírov, denounced that cities have been “given away”, and some responsible for the propaganda urged to “punish or execute” the commanders responsible for the disaster.
Judgment of opponents
The other part of the criticism, which in recent hours has managed to bring together 65 councilors from large Russian cities to call for Putin’s removal, comes from the political opposition. Banned in the national Parliament, this sector has managed to continue doing politics since the meetings of the municipal councils. His last big coup began on September 7 in the St. Petersburg district of Smolninskoye, when a group of councilors went to the Duma to consider removing Putin for his offensive on Ukraine. This Tuesday the trial was held against the first of the five, Dmitri Paliuga, under the accusation of having discredited the president. The court has sentenced him to pay a fine of 47,000 rubles, about 780 euros, which is – at least for now – a warning rather than a punitive measure.
The initiative of this group of councilors has been supported by more political colleagues from all over Russia, from the capital to the far east of the country. “We currently have 54 signatures. It is a relative success. I remember that at the beginning of the offensive we collected 200 signatures against it. The number has been reduced, people are afraid, but it is a good number, ”says Ksenia Torstrem, a politician from another district of Saint Petersburg and promoter of the gesture of support, by telephone. A few hours later, the adhesions had risen to 65.
“It is a way of showing our solidarity and that we are not afraid,” he emphasizes. Asked about Peskov’s claim that there is political pluralism in Russia, he laughs himself. “No, I’m not agree. It hasn’t existed for a long time. New elections have been held in Moscow and there is not a single independent councilor”, adds Torstrem before emphasizing: “Doing politics today is very difficult”. “At another level there is Alexéi Navalni, and he is in jail; Vladimir Kara-Murzá, also in jail. The one who has not left is in prison. Politics is not possible, only some activism, ”he laments on the other side of the headset.
At the moment, the councilors are subject to an administrative process that can lead to fines, as in the case of the one issued this Tuesday against Paliuga. “I hope that the court will not convict us because we did not do anything illegal. We convened a legal session and addressed the deputies following the procedures provided for by federal law,” one of them, Nikita Yuferev, told this newspaper. After having tried unsuccessfully to contact the Russian presidency for months to request the cessation of the offensive, his partner Dmitri Paliuga proposed using a resource as legal as going to the state Duma. Six days after doing it, he has been tried for it.
“We have not asked the federal deputies to do anything illegal, we only urge them to go to the Constitution and start a process provided for in it,” Yuferev adds by phone. Councilor since 2019, he explains that the intention of his letter is that Putin’s public “who has not thought about the consequences of the offensive” is aware that it has led to the accession of more countries to NATO and the rearmament of Ukraine.
“I don’t think that making an appeal to comply with the law means discrediting the Armed Forces, but we live in Russia and, if they want to punish us, none of our arguments will be valid for them,” adds Yuferev, who quotes a Russian saying: “No one is to safe from jail or poverty.” That is, no one is safe from evil.
The letter has come at the time of the clearest military advance of the Ukrainian forces. “It was casual, we did not expect any attack,” says the politician, despite everything. Before this initiative they had already undertaken others to demand peace. On the same February 24, the day the offensive began in Ukraine, they requested to call a demonstration and this was denied by the Saint Petersburg City Council. Then, on March 2, his council held a public street meeting where it approved sending a petition to Putin to end his military campaign. “We did not receive a response from the presidential administration,” denounced the councilman.
For now, the opposition will continue to be relegated to small gestures on the local scene. “Unfortunately, the current high-level Russian politics, the legislative power of the regions and the State Duma, is controlled by the authorities and does not allow anyone who can cause trouble to enter, much less talk about the mistakes of the special operation, that is why it is necessary to act from municipal politics, less controlled”, denounces Yuferev.
Follow all the international information in Facebook Y Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
#Putins #environment #demands #Kremlin #total #mobilization #war #Ukraine