Seven lawmakers in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, have been summoned by the police after they demanded parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, charge President Vladimir Putin with high treason over his decision to launch the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
it’s not clear from the wording, so i’ll ask: is this coming from the left of putin (as in, it’s bad for ukraine to be invaded) or from the right (as in, it’s bad that russia is being embarrassed and therefore putin needs to be charged and replaced with someone more ultranationalist)? i know putin has received increasing criticism from people to his right whose objections are more that he’s failing than anything else.
Does Russia have a left with any sort of power?
if by “left” you mean socialist, then ostensibly. there’s the CPRF, which is the main opposition party–but they’re just as nationalist as most of the right-wing parties and socially conservative. if you mean “left” as in broadly left-of-center politics, then not really. most of the liberal parties have been crushed (and have the same caveat as CPRF does without transformational economic politics).
liberals aren’t left. But the Communist party’s leadership needs a major re-orient. The main of the party is quite radical and could easily become a truly dangerous opposition to the main party of the RF.