The group of Putin’s enemies has studied various regime change scenarios, including triggering a civil war in Russia, disarming and assassinating Putin, European media network Euractiv reported. “The main goal is the physical elimination of Putin,” said opposition activist Vyacheslav Malchev. Malchev, who fled Russia in 2017 after being labeled an extremist by the state, noted that a civil war in Russia would not be “as bloody as the war in Ukraine.” Another former Russian politician who was not named was quoted as saying that “the fight against terrorists requires terrorist methods.” Former Russian politicians and activists gathered in Poland over the weekend to talk about removing Vladimir Putin from power. Getty Images People with placards show solidarity with the Ukrainian people at a demonstration against the war in Ukraine and all wars on November 5, 2022, in Rome, Italy. Corbis via Getty Images The meeting in the town of Jablonna outside the Polish capital Warsaw at the weekend was said to have been arranged by Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia’s State Duma who claimed to have organized an underground resistance movement in recent months, Gazeta Wyborcza reported. Some participants in the meeting spoke out against a bloody coup, suggesting instead that 70-year-old Putin be captured alive and handed over to international courts to face war crimes charges for invading Ukraine. The rally in Poland comes as a chorus of discontent grows in Russia, with Putin’s conscripts, former allies and local politicians in Moscow and St. Petersburg publicly denouncing the war in Ukraine, despite the risk of heavy fines and jail time. The conflict, now in its ninth month, has proved disastrous for Russian forces, who have struggled to make significant territorial gains despite the formal annexation of four Ukrainian regions and continued attacks on the country’s vital infrastructure, such as power plants, in the hope to break. determination of the population. According to Ukrainian and Western accounts, which have not been confirmed by Russia, Moscow’s forces have suffered huge losses on the battlefield. Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Tuesday that more than 77,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since February 24. In his late-night speech on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian soldiers were dying by the hundreds every day in the hotly contested Donetsk region in the east. Fighting is raging in the Donetsk region and President Volodymyr Zeleslnky has said Russian troops are dying by the hundreds every day. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images “The ground in front of the Ukrainian positions is literally littered with the corpses of the occupiers,” he said. Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials have repeatedly dismissed the prospect of negotiations with Russia under Putin and said talks could only resume with his successor once the Kremlin relinquishes all Ukrainian territory. “Negotiation with Putin would mean giving up and we would never give him that gift,” Zelenskiy’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Tuesday. Dialogue will be possible only when Russian forces leave Ukrainian territory, Podolyak said. “We have no other choice. Russia has invaded us with mobile crematoria and half a million body bags. If we stop defending ourselves, we will cease to exist. Literally. Physically. We will continue to fight even if they stab us in the back,” he said. A group of Russian soldiers stand after being released in a prisoner exchange in Donetsk People’s Republic, eastern Ukraine. AP The remarks come days after US media reports said Washington had encouraged Kyiv to signal a willingness for talks. A source has confirmed that White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has held talks with Russian officials to avoid escalating the conflict, the Wall Street Journal first reported. The White House has not ruled out talks, but says it will not make diplomatic moves on Ukraine without Kiev’s involvement. “We reserve the right to speak directly to senior levels about matters of concern to the United States. This has happened in the last few months. Our talks focused only on … risk reduction and the US-Russia relationship,” White House spokeswoman Karin Jean-Pierre said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Moscow’s position that it is open to talks but that Kyiv rejects them. Moscow has repeatedly said it will not negotiate over territory it claims it has annexed from Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have been on the offensive in recent months as Russia regroups to defend the areas of Ukraine it still holds, having called up around 300,000 reservists in the past month. Russia is evacuating civilians from occupied territories, especially from southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, in an operation that Kyiv says involves forced deportations, a war crime. Moscow says it is leading people to safety. The next major battle is expected to be over a pocket of Russian-controlled land on the west bank of the Dnipro River that includes the city of Kherson, the only regional capital Russia has captured since its invasion in February. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday that Russia was preparing new fortified defense lines inside territory it controls “to prevent any rapid Ukrainian advance in the event of breakthroughs”. This includes installing concrete barriers known as “dragon’s teeth” to stop the tanks. With Post cables
