Can Putin be forced to leave?

Most likely, the deputies of the State Duma will not fulfill the request of the Mundeps. Then why is this request necessary?

In a deputy request from the council of the municipality of Smolninskoye, it is said that Putin’s decision to start a war harms Russia’s security: young able-bodied citizens are dying in hostilities, the economy is suffering, the NATO bloc is expanding eastward, and Ukraine is receiving modern weapons, although the goal of the operation was declared “demilitarization”. The Council sees this as a sign of treason and grounds for resignation.

With their request, the Mundeps want to support voters who oppose the war. “Citizens have chosen us. And we have a lot of requests from them to declare our position and theirs. To go out and say something now is fraught with [consequences], so they ask us - and we, as a council, have found a way that is formally legally clean. One authority turned to another authority,” explains Mundep Dmitry Baltrukov.

The Smolninsky Council has not yet sent an appeal, but is going to do so in the near future. By law, the State Duma is obliged to respond to the request within 30 days. At the same time, the police have already paid attention to the document and have drawn up protocols for “discrediting” the Russian army against five Mundeps.

Suppose the State Duma seriously considered the request of the deputies. Can she really impeach Putin?

Theoretically yes. Article 93 of the Constitution describes the procedure by which deputies can start Putin's resignation.

To remove the president from office, the State Duma must accuse him of high treason or other serious crime. At least a third of the deputies must make a motion to indict, and two-thirds must vote in favor of it. A special commission is also being formed in the State Duma: its task is to prepare a conclusion for voting on how justified the accusations against the president are.

If the State Duma votes for the charges, the Supreme Court of Russia will have to confirm them. After that, the decision of the State Duma, the conclusion of its special commission, the conclusion of the Supreme Court and the transcript of the meeting of the State Duma at which the decision was made are sent to the Federation Council, which makes the final decision.

The upper house of parliament is asking the Constitutional Court to check whether the procedure for filing charges has been followed. If the court makes a positive decision, then the Federation Council is given three months (from the moment the State Duma brought charges) to vote on the resignation - as in the State Duma, this requires two-thirds of the votes. If the Federation Council does not make a decision within this period, this will mean that it has rejected the charges against the president.

Have the deputies ever tried to remove the president from office?

Repeatedly. They wanted to impeach Boris Yeltsin.

The deputies made their first attempts back in 1993, when the 1978 Constitution was in force in Russia. The procedure in it was softer: the president could be removed from office if he violated the Constitution, the laws of the Russian Federation or the oath given to him, and there was no need to bring criminal charges and confirm them in the Supreme Court. In addition, two bodies could come up with the initiative to resign at once: the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. In March 1993, it was the deputies of the Congress who accused Yeltsin of trying to strengthen his power with the help of an unconstitutional decree "on a special order of government." The impeachment attempt failed: there were not enough votes for him.

In the fall of 1993, the deputies again tried to remove Yeltsin from office. True, then this did not happen on their initiative: by his decree, the president violated the article of the Constitution, according to which his powers were to be automatically terminated, and the Presidium of the Supreme Council only stated this fact. This turned into a constitutional crisis and the shelling of the White House. Yeltsin remained in power.

In 1999, the State Duma tried to remove Yeltsin. The deputies wanted to bring accusations against the president of the collapse of the USSR, the dispersal of the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Council in 1993, the unleashing of a war in Chechnya, the collapse of the army and the genocide of the Russian people. But on all these points, it was not possible to gain the 300 necessary votes to continue the impeachment procedure.