Russian Lawmaker Claims Putin of Breaking His Law with Ukraine.

• A Russian lawmaker has called for legal action against Putin because he called the Ukraine invasion a war.
• In March, Putin signed a law that made it illegal to declare an invasion a war.
• Putin had referred to the war publicly until Thursday as a “specially military operation”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the conflict in Ukraine as a “conflict of interest”. “war”On Thursday, Putin referred to the unprovoked invading force he launched in February as a “special army operation” for the first time. A Russian lawmaker now wants Putin to face legal action for the comment. He also wants prosecutors investigating the matter, claiming that the comment violates a law that Putin signed earlier in the year. 

“Our goal is not to spin this flywheel of a military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin said during a press conference Thursday. “This is what our goal is.”

Nikita Yuferev is a St. Petersburg-based lawmaker who said that this comment is inconsistent with a Putin-signed law that criminalized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was made illegal to spread the law. “false information”About the Russian military. This could lead to up to 15 year imprisonment.

“Vladimir Putin declared the war a conflict, but there was no decree to stop the special military operations and no war was declared,” Yuferev posted on social media. per the Moscow Times,“I sent an appeal the authorities so Putin could see justice for spreading fake information about the army.”

Putin critics have often been put behind bars or killed in violent ways. Putin’s most prominent critic Alexei Navalny almost died in 2020 after being poisoned in Siberia with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. After receiving treatment in Germany Navalny returned to Moscow in the beginning of 2021. He was immediately arrested and sentenced in prison for charges widely condemned as politically motivated. Navalny is still behind bars and continues to criticize Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

Ilya Yashin was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison by a Moscow court for spreading false information about Russia’s invasion. Yashin was an ally of Navalny, and a vocal critic of war. He had previously spoken on his YouTube channel about the atrocities committed against civilians in Bucha (a suburb of Kyiv).

Yevgeny Rosman, a former mayor for the Russian city Ekaterinburg was detained in August on charges of “discrediting”The Russian military. Roizman said that he was arrested after referring the Russian war in Ukraine to an “invasion”.

Putin has gone to great lengths to suppress criticism of the Russian government, and the war in Ukraine. 

Despite the risks of publicly opposing Russia’s leader and the ongoing invasion, Yuferev told ReutersHe was keen to draw attention the inconsistency and injustice of these laws. [Putin]Adopts and signs, but which he himself does not observe.”

Yuferev stated, “I think the more that we talk about it, the more people are going to doubt his honesty, infallibility and the less support they will have.”

Putin and other Russian officials did not call the Ukraine conflict a war, but instead used the phrase “special operation” to reduce the public’s concern about the invasion. In fact, Russia’s military conflict with Ukraine is the largest in Europe since World War II.