A lawmaker in St. Petersburg has filed a request with the prosecutors to investigate Russian President Vladimir Putin for using the word “war” to characterize the crisis in Ukraine. In doing so, the politician alleges that Putin violated one of the laws he enacted.
Since the beginning of this assault, Vladimir Putin has been calling it a “special military operation.” People risk being prosecuted if they refer to the conflict by its proper name because the legislation that he brought into effect in March includes provisions for hefty fines and jail sentences for disparaging or spreading “deliberately false information” about the armed services.
On Thursday, however, he spoke to the media in a manner that was different from what he usually did and said: “Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of armed combat, but, on the contrary, to terminate this war.”
Nikita Yuferev, an opposition councilor in the city where Vladimir Putin was born, stated that he was aware that his legal challenge would not go anywhere but that he had filed it nevertheless to expose the “mendacity” of the system.
“It’s important for me to do this to draw attention to the contradiction and the injustice of these laws that he (Putin) adopts and signs but which he doesn’t observe,” he told Reuters. “It’s important for me to do this to draw attention to the contradiction and the injustice of these laws that he (Putin) adopts and signs.”
“I believe that the more we talk about this, the more people will doubt his honesty and infallibility, and the less support he will have,” you said. “
Yuferev demanded in his challenge, which he submitted in the form of an open letter, that the prosecutor general and the minister of the interior “hold (Putin) responsible under the law for propagating bogus news regarding the operations of the Russian army.” Yuferev, who asked Reuters not to identify his location, stated that Putin critics who publicly declared the war a war have suffered severe sanctions. He asked Reuters not to disclose his location.
Ilya Yashin, a lawmaker who was part of the opposition, was sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison this month for spreading “false information” about the military. Alexei Gorinov, a local councilman who had also voiced opposition to the invasion, was given a seven-year sentence in July.
Yuferev stated that he had previously brought to the attention of authorities the use of the phrase “war” by other significant persons, such as Sergei Kiriyenko, the deputy head of the presidential administration, and Sergei Mironov, a key senator.
He reported that the police informed him that they had investigated the complaint against Kiriyenko and found that he had done nothing wrong. However, they declined to investigate the Mironov case.
Yuferev reported receiving hundreds of threatening texts after he made public the open letter he had written criticizing Putin. However, he stated that he had faith that the majority of Russians were aware of the situation that was taking place in Ukraine.
“A word that strikes terror into the hearts of Russians is “war.” Everyone has grandparents who were alive during World War II, and everyone has heard the phrase “Anything but war” at some point in their lives, “he remarked.
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