Moscow City Duma deputy Yevgeny Stupin was expelled from the Communist Party for his anti-war stance

The office of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation expelled the deputy of the Moscow City Duma, Yevgeny Stupin, from the party. As the MP himself explained, he was stripped of his party card for his anti-war stance and support for the opposition politician Ilya Yashin.

Specifically, Stupin was accused of signing the letter “Socialists and Communists Against War” on February 24, 2022, positively referring to Yashin’s criminal case of “falsifications” regarding the army, and voting against Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s report in the Moscow City Duma in 2022.

According to Stupin, the exception “actively lobbied” Yuri Afonin, first deputy party leader Gennady Zyuganov. Nikolai Zubrilin, head of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma, and former State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin, who was convicted of illegal hunting, also voted in favor. Only Tatyana Desyatova was against. Stupin has not yet been expelled from the faction.

He added that he did not intend to take part in the upcoming elections, as he considered them pointless from the point of view of electronic voting. At the same time, Stupin promised further assistance to those who are persecuted for political reasons: in particular, the former candidate for the State Duma, the mathematician Mikhail Lobanov, and Dmitry Ivanov and Alexei Gorinov, convicted in cases of “falsification” of the army.

In early March, Stupin and his colleague from the Moscow City Duma, Mikhail Timonov, asked for a review of the “unconstitutionality” of Article 207(1) of the Russian Federation. 3 of the Criminal Code on the public dissemination of “knowingly false information” about the Russian armed forces. They sent appeals to the president of the Supreme Court, Vyacheslav Lebedev, the speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, and the Ombudsman of Russia, Tatyana Moskalkova.

According to MEPs, the application of the article raises many questions, as “knowingly false information” is sometimes considered an opinion rather than a statement. They noticed it those accused in such cases face up to 10 years in prison “for words”, while criminals often receive lighter sentences for homicide. Timonov and Stupin also asked for a change to the Criminal Code, noting that the law is intended to “protect the rights of citizens, not be a baton to intimidate them.”