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Russia’s anti-Putin politicians to meet in Poland in November: report

20.10.2022 23:00
Russian politicians opposed to President Vladimir Putin, including former lawmakers, are set to gather near the Polish capital Warsaw next month to plan taking control of Russia after the Kremlin leader’s fall, according to reports on Thursday.
Russian politicians opposed to President Vladimir Putin, including former lawmakers, are set to gather near the Polish capital Warsaw next month to plan taking control of Russia after the Kremlin leaders fall, according to reports on Thursday.
Russian politicians opposed to President Vladimir Putin, including former lawmakers, are set to gather near the Polish capital Warsaw next month to plan taking control of Russia after the Kremlin leader’s fall, according to reports on Thursday. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The conference is scheduled to take place between November 4 and 7 in the village of Jabłonna, the dorzeczy.pl website reported.

Russia's anti-Putin opposition to gather in Poland

More than 50 people are expected to attend the get-together, including former parliamentarians who sat in the State Duma (lower house) before Putin’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014, dorzeczy.pl said.

Also in attendance will be ex-officials in Russia’s central and local administration, former members of the Federation Council (upper house), as well as Russian opposition activists and social campaigners who condemn Putin’s regime and oppose the war against Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Ukrainian provinces, according to Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper.

“We are launching the process of creating alternative organs of power that will be able to take the reins of the country after Putin,” one of the organisers of the Jabłonna conference told Rzeczpospolita

Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities

The initiative comes as Russia continues to target civilian facilities and critical infrastructure across Ukraine with air, missile, and “kamikaze” drone strikes, news outlets reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Tuesday that Russian strikes had destroyed 30 percent of his country's power stations since October 10. 

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said in its latest analysis of the war in Ukraine that Russia's "likely attempt to demoralise Ukrainian civilians" was “unlikely to succeed.” 

The Ukrainian government on Thursday placed restrictions on electricity usage around the country, for the first time since Russia's invasion, following the barrage of attacks on power stations as winter approaches, the euronews.com website reported.

“The enemy can strike our cities, but it cannot break us,” Zelensky said in an address to the nation on Monday. “We’ll succeed….Victory is ours,” he vowed, as cited by dorzeczy.pl. 

Ukrainian troops advance toward Kherson City

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces on Thursday continued their counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region; a day earlier, Russian-installed occupation authorities began "evacuating" civilians from the regional capital Kherson City, ahead of an expected Ukrainian attempt to retake the city, according to euronews.com.

Thursday is day 239 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

(pm/gs)

Source: dorzeczy.pl, rp.pl, understandingwar.org, euronews.com