Kremlin Plan to Bring Ukraine War Veterans into Duma will Further Degrade Russian Political Life, Reznik Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – Maksim Reznik, a former deputy of the St. Petersburg parliament and now a Russian opposition figure in emigration, says that the Kremlin wants veterans of Putin’s war in Ukraine to occupy 40 percent of the seats of the Duma after next year’s country-wide parliamentary elections.

            Reznik and his colleagues at the Anti-War Committee say that such an outcome would not only reward those who have behaved badly in an aggressive campaign but lead to the further degradation of the Russian political system which is already in a pathetic state (pointmedia.io/story/6909b95ce657f59b666dce46).

            As the result, the Russian Anti-War Committee plans to launch a campaign against the election of any and all veterans of the war in Ukraine to the Duma, an effort that parallels but is distinctly different from plans by the Foundation for the Struggle against Corruption that was founded by the late Aleksey Navalny to oppose United Russian Party candidates.

            It isn’t clear what impact these efforts will have but the introduction of hundred of veterans of the Ukraine war will mean that the Duma won’t have people with political experience and the Kremlin will be able to use the parliament as a tool to advance its goals without any risk that it will serve as a check and balance to executive power.

            While Reznik does not mention it, what Putin appears ready to try to do recalls Stalin’s orchestration of “the Lenin levy” at the time of the Bolshevik leader’s death, an action that brought in many workers and peasants who overwhelmed the politically skilled Old Bolsheviks and set the stage for the rise of Stalin’s untrammeled dictatorship.