Opposition politician Ilya Yashin was jailed for 8-1/2 years this month for spreading “misinformation” about the military. In July another local councillor, Aleksey Gorynov, was sentenced to seven years in prison for criticizing the invasion.
Yuferev said he had previously drawn the authorities’ attention to the use of the word “war” by other prominent figures, including deputy head of the presidential administration Sergei Kiriyenko and prominent lawmaker Sergei Mironov.
He said that the police told him that they investigated the complaint against Kiriyenko and found that he had done nothing wrong, and refused to look into the Mironov case.
After publishing the open letter about Putin, Yuferev said he had received hundreds of hate messages. But he said he believes most Russians understand what is really happening in Ukraine.
“War, in Russian society, is a frightening word. Everyone brought up by grandparents who lived through World War Two, everyone remembers the saying ‘anything but war’,” he said .