Five municipal lawmakers in St. Petersburg have been charged with “discrediting” the Russian army after they demanded that the Russian parliament charge Vladimir Putin with high treason for starting the war in Ukraine, lawmaker Nikita Yuferev said on Twitter.
He added that all the lawmakers had been released from the police station.
Photo: Yuferev / Twitter
Yuferev said that the police had filed charges against him and four more lawmakers: Dmitry Baltrukov, Dmitry Palyuga, Ivan Chebotar and Anna Kiseleva. “Our attorneys advised us not to disclose the details until the court hearing,” he added.
It was reported earlier that several municipal lawmakers in St. Petersburg had addressed the Russian State Duma with a request to accuse Vladimir Putin of high treason to remove him from office.
According to the lawmakers, “fighting units of the Russian army are being destroyed”, “young able-bodied citizens are becoming disabled”, “the Russian economy suffers” and “the NATO bloc is expanding east” as a result of the war. Putin’s decision to start the war in Ukraine “harms Russian security and its citizens”, the legislators said.
