Sept 13 (Reuters) - A group of St Petersburg local politicians who called for President Vladimir Putin to be sacked over the war in Ukraine faces the likely dissolution of their district council following a judge's ruling on Tuesday, one of the deputies said.
Nikita Yuferev said the judge decided that a series of past council meetings had been invalid, paving the way for it to be broken up by the regional governor.
Another council member, Dmitry Palyuga, said the same court then fined him 47,000 roubles ($780) for "discrediting" the authorities by calling for Putin's removal.
Four more members of the Smolninskoye local council are due to appear in court in the next two days.
I think the more successfully the Ukrainian army operates, the more such people will become," he said.
Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said the greater risk to the Kremlin lay not in the councillors' protest itself but in the danger of responding too harshly to it.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that critical points of view were tolerated, within the limits of the law. »
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