List of Russian municipal deputies calling for Putin’s resignation grows to nearly 50, local official says

Nearly 50 municipal deputies have now signed a petition demanding the resignation of President Vladimir Putin, 29 more than on Monday, according to one of those involved.

Ksenia Thorstrom, a municipal deputy of the Semenovsky District in Saint Petersburg, told CNN:

“Now we have 47 verified signatures. Their geography has expanded significantly.”
“My colleagues and I wanted to support the deputies from Smolninsky, who were recently summoned to the police and will soon have a trial,” Thorstrom said.

The petition says: “We, the municipal deputies of Russia, believe that the actions of its president Vladimir Putin are detrimental to Russia’s and its citizens’ future. We demand Vladimir Putin’s resignation from the post of the President of the Russian Federation.”

“We decided to make our appeal so short that there would be less reason to find any fault with it from the authorities and so that as many municipal deputies as possible would sign the petition,” Thorstrom said.
Last week, the deputies of the Smolninskoye municipality of St. Petersburg called on the State Duma of the Russian Federation to bring charges of treason against Putin in order to remove him from office due to the war in Ukraine. Now those deputies face charges of “discrediting” the Russian army, according to a tweet by one of them, Nikita Yuferev.

Municipal deputies are local officials with limited political influence. The petition follows Russia’s first regional and municipal elections since the start of the war, in which pro-Kremlin candidates were overwhelmingly successful.