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In

St. Petersburg

, the hometown of Vladimir Putin, a trickle of councilors has surprised the country by turning to the Russian president to tell him, politely, that he is a traitor and incompetent and that he must leave or be impeached.

A

similar initiative has just emerged in

Moscow .

A group of Russian councilors from the

Smolninskoye

district of St. Petersburg intends to address the

State Duma

(lower house of the Russian Parliament) with a proposal to charge the president with high treason over the war in Ukraine.

"We are against killing Ukrainians. The pretext of demilitarizing Ukraine is nonsense, because it should not be our enemy. And the opposite has happened, that now it has more weapons. NATO is a defensive alliance,"

Dimitri Paliuga

explains to EL MUNDO , one of the dissenting councillors.

Leaning in a café in St. Petersburg, this 35-year-old programmer decided to get into politics when

Russia

annexed

Crimea

: "I want Russia to be a modern country, one that cares about its citizens, not about what the Americans do."

Just two days after the initiative was published, in Moscow they have replicated the idea with a similar message.

The

Council of Deputies of the

Lomonosovsky

municipal district

of Moscow has called on the Russian president to resign.

"Many Russians support us"

The small

revolt

began this week in St. Petersburg when a group of seven representatives of the district board, nominally composed of 20 councilors, took advantage of the absence of several members of the ruling

United Russia

party to surprise approve this initiative.

"It is a purely political step, we know that the Duma is a puppet and will not listen to us."

Paliuga is an independent councillor, close to the liberal

Yabloko

party .

Three more mayors abstained "out of fear," he says.

Paliuga assures that, after making the headlines, "many Russians" have written to him to say that they "fully support" him.

Paligua and his colleagues consider the decision to invade Ukraine "harmful to the security of Russia and its citizens."

After two days, the services accused them of "discrediting the authority."

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