Moscow officials urge Vladimir Putin to relinquish power

More and more Russian officials are urging Vladimir Putin to get the Kremlin out of Hell Moscow suffered another series of humiliating defeats In Ukraine this weekend.

Just a day after inviting several municipal deputies in St. Petersburg, Putin’s home city, to the State Duma Russian leader on trial for treasonand colleagues in Moscow Join and claim He steps down because his views are “hopelessly outdated”.

The open letter to Putin from municipal deputies in the Russian capital’s Lomonosovsky district began with an apparent attempt to let him down, telling him that he had “good reforms” in his first term and a split second.

But then, the deputies said, “It went well.”

“The discourse used by you and your subordinates has been full of fanaticism and aggression for a long time, which finally returned our country to the era of the Cold War. Russia has again begun to feel fear and hatred, and we are once again threatening the whole world with nuclear weapons,” the letter stated.

In conclusion, the deputies said: “We ask you to relieve yourself of your position because your opinions and your model of governance is hopelessly outdated and hinders the development of Russia and its human potential.”

Although they made no mention of war against Ukraine, their call came just as Putin’s promiscuous “special military operation” suffered a stunning collapse, with thousands of Russian troops fleeing as the Ukrainian military launched a series of surprise counterattacks and recaptured nearly 400 square miles of land in a matter of days.

Even as Russian defense officials have sought to downplay the mass surrender as nothing more than a strategic maneuver, it is clearly not viewed that way even by many of Putin’s closest confidants.

The same Russian propagandists who spent the first six months of the war beating their chests over a supposed “inevitable victory” suddenly changed their tune. Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT who has repeatedly called for Moscow to mercilessly wipe out Ukraine, suddenly Spreading a sentimental screed On Twitter calls for unity between the two peoples.

“In this case, the best picture of the future is the general picture of the past. Our common past, the modern. When everyone was together, when there was Victory Day, when there was a parade, when both Russian and Ukrainian were taught,” she wrote, noting Nostalgia for when “great songs were sung in one language and another”.

Even the pro-Kremlin Telegram channels run by Russian military bloggers changed dramatically in tune as Ukraine claimed new victories on Saturday: They began publicly blowing up the military leadership — and Putin personally — for embarrassing failures.

“Stalin, as much as he was a vampire, never bowed to this and said how We lost nothing There are no problems,” Wrote One pro-Kremlin blogger. “For him, those who flee are cowards and ‘withdraw troops’ were panicked.”