(PatrioticPost.com)- More than six months into his invasion of Ukraine, a rising number of local Russian officials are demanding leader Vladimir Putin quit, signifying that an increasing number of locals are disapproving of the ongoing war.
The backlash coincides with Ukrainian military forces conducting a counteroffensive recently and retaking an area previously held by Russian military forces, forcing troops to retreat.
Officials from Moscow’s Lomonosovsky district council wrote a letter to Putin last week with municipal elections scheduled for Sunday. It said in part that the rhetoric that Putin and his subordinates are using had been riddled with intolerance and aggression for a long time, effectively throwing their country back into the Cold War era.
They claimed that Russia had once again begun to be feared and loathed, and they once again threatened the entire world with nuclear weapons. After that, they urged Putin to quit, citing that his beliefs are “hopelessly outmoded and obstruct the growth of Russia.”
The letter arrives just a few days after members of the town council in Smolninskoye called for Putin to be tried for treason. Last week, the proposal was brought up by Dmitry Palyuga, a council deputy in the district of Smolninskoye in St. Petersburg, which is Putin’s hometown.
According to a letter from the Smolninskoye council, most deputies voted in favor of Putin’s resignation over allegations of high treason for his invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in the deaths of Russian citizens and difficulties for the Russian economy.
It is a shocking display of opposition in a nation where Putin is rarely disparaged in public due to the Kremlin’s brutal crackdown on dissent. Legislation that makes it illegal to publish “false news” about the invasion of Ukraine has made criticizing the president since the start of the conflict risky.
As Moscow refers to the conflict there, the “special military operation” in Ukraine isn’t proceeding quite how the Kremlin had hoped. There is growing criticism among Russia’s war opponents as a result of Moscow’s defeats and Ukraine’s counteroffensive victories.
Despite the dangers, 84 more people have signed the petition since it was first published.
Before the petition was started, a group of elected officials from Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg went even farther and demanded in a letter to the Duma on September 7 that the president not only be removed from office but be put on trial for “treason.”
