A report approved Wednesday afternoon by the Smolensk regional council said the Russian leader’s decision to send troops to Ukraine had led to a staggering loss of life, an economic downturn and NATO expansion. “Putin’s actions pose a threat to Russia’s security,” said the report, which used the Kremlin term “special military operation” instead of “war.” “He must be removed.” Smolninsky is the neighborhood where Mr. Putin grew up, and St. Petersburg is where he began his political career.
“People are very worried”
Nikita Yuferev, one of seven city councilors who signed the petition, said he wanted to use his position to give a voice to anti-war Russians who were too afraid to speak out because of a recent storm of imprisonment for one. “People are very worried about what’s going on,” he told the Telegraph. “We decided to address a different audience, using the arguments we heard, so that maybe someone will think about it and see that the president’s stated goals (in Ukraine) have completely failed.” He pointed to one of the council’s arguments that President Putin was acting against his country’s interests by fueling NATO’s eastward expansion. Within just a few months of the invasion, Finland and Sweden, long basing their foreign policy on their neutral status, had applied to join NATO and been accepted.
A message of hope for anti-war Russians
Mr Yuferev sent an official petition to President Putin in August, calling on him to stop the war. An official response from the Kremlin said only that the military operation was ongoing. Mr Yuferev told the Telegraph that he and his colleagues do not hold out much hope that the powers that be will respond to their appeal, but hope it will send a message of hope to all anti-war Russians. “My inbox is full of messages of gratitude and support: it shows that it is wrong to think that everyone in Russia supports Putin and the special military operation,” he said, using the Kremlin’s term for the invasion. “This petition is for the world to see that there are many people who are against him and they are not alone.” Russia passed a war censorship law in the wake of the invasion that made the very use of the word “war” in connection with the invasion a crime. Thousands of people have been slapped with heavy fines for anti-war demonstrations and several hundred have been thrown in jail.
