Tue 13 September 2022:
On Monday, more than 40 local elected officials from across Russia signed a two-sentence petition that concluded, “We demand Vladimir Putin’s resignation from the post of President of the Russian Federation!” New York Times reported.
The petition, which was initiated by opponents of the Ukraine invasion, had no practical effect and was largely ignored by Russia’s state-controlled media. Despite the Kremlin’s extraordinary crackdown on dissent, Ukraine’s counteroffensive successes have emboldened Putin’s opponents.
“There is now hope that Ukraine will end this war,” said Ksenia Torstrem, a member of a municipal council in St. Petersburg who helped organize the petition and called Ukrainian advances an “inspiring factor” for it. “We decided we needed to put pressure on from all sides.”
With outrage growing over Russia’s humiliating withdrawal of troops from more than 1,000 square miles of northeastern Ukraine, one senior lawmaker said in an interview that the war effort needed a “urgent adjustment.”
6 months later, Russian invasion of Ukraine#Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar https://t.co/jfeaV0RA2Y
— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) September 12, 2022
The leader of a pro-Putin party, Sergei Mironov, praised the strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure targets Sunday night that left parts of the country without power, but complained that they “should have been carried out two to three months ago.”
“Many have the hope that something will finally break,” Ivan I. Kurilla, a historian at the European University at St. Petersburg and a critic of Putin, said in a phone interview. “We are probably wrong, it’s probably not yet time, but since everyone has been waiting for half a year for something to crack, this hope is very strong.”
That was the message sent by Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman ruler of the southern Russian region of Chechnya. He posted a rambling voice message to his Telegram account over the weekend and warned that if the military did not change its strategy “today or tomorrow,” he would be forced “to speak to the Defense Ministry’s leadership and the country’s leadership to explain to them the real situation on the ground.”
Zatulin, the senior lawmaker, said that many in Russia believed that “Putin was wrongly informed and doesn’t know everything, that he was deluded.”
“The president himself maintains his authority and is the foundation of stability at this moment,” Zatulin said.
But, he cautioned, “it’s clear that any system has its limits.”
The Kremlin’s response to such challenges is often bureaucratic but quietly devastating for those with the courage to stand up to the dictator.
Councillors in Smolninskoye, a district of St Petersburg, who called for Vladimir Putin to be charged with treason and forced out of office last week were summoned for police interrogations.
They could face fines or even jail under draconian laws which punish criticism of the armed forces and the Russian authorities.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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