"Putin Must Go" () is a Russian website and public campaign organised for the collection of signatures to an open letter demanding the resignation of Vladimir Putin, who at the time was Prime Minister (currently President). The campaign was started on the Internet on 10 March 2010Гарри Каспаров: В интернет ОМОН не пришлешь Novaya Gazeta, No. 27 of 17 March 2010. by Russian opposition activists, including several Russian artists.
Contents of the petition The text of the petition, addressed to the "citizens of Russia", contains a sharply negative assessment of Vladimir Putin's activity. It says in part:
The petition lists Putin's failed reforms ("everything that could be ruined has been ruined") and alleged crimes, such as the Second Chechen War and the Russian apartment bombings.
The petition also criticises the late president Boris Yeltsin and the circle of his advisers and relatives ("the Family"), who promoted Putin to the presidency in order to guarantee their own security. The petition calls Dmitry Medvedev, the president at the time, "an obedient placeholder", "a modern Simeon Bekbulatovich".
The authors appeal to law enforcement and security agency officers not to stand against their nation and not to carry out criminal orders.
The actual author of the text was not named, but according to early sourcesОсобое мнение. Гость: Владимир Рыжков. [Echo Moskvy], 12 March 2010 it was a group headed by Garry Kasparov. Later Kasparov said about the work on the text of the petition:
The main part of the text was written by Andrei Piontkovsky. He mentioned his authorship during an interview with Radio Liberty on 7 June 2010:
Signatories At the time of the publication, the petition was signed by 34 prominent public figures of various ideological orientations: activists Yelena Bonner, Vladimir Bukovsky and Lev Ponomarev, politicians Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov, popular conspiracy theorist Yury Mukhin, economist Andrey Illarionov, writers Zakhar Prilepin and Victor Shenderovich, musician Mikhail Borzykin (Televizor), political thinker Geydar Dzhemal and others. Many of them are members of the opposition organisation, the National Assembly of the Russian Federation.
Opposition politicians Mikhail Kasyanov,РНДС. Вместе с гражданами! , 12 марта 2010 Vladimir Ryzhkov and Eduard LimonovЛимонов отказался подписывать обращение за отставку Путина. // Правда.ру, 11 марта 2010 have supported the campaign, even though they have not signed the petition.
Publication of the petition On 10 March 2010 the petition appeared in the online magazine Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal"ЕЖ" опубликовал обращение с призывом "Путин должен уйти!", его подписали уже более 350 человек. // NEWSru.com, 11 марта 2010 and the collecting of signatures started. On the same day the magazine's website was attacked by hackers."Ежедневный журнал" атакован . // Radio Liberty, 11 марта 2010"Первый Кавказский" об акции "Путин должен уйти", 11 March 2010 Later on 10 March the collecting of signatures was transferred to the specially created website PutinaVotstavku.ru (in January 2011 it was moved to PutinaVotstavku.org).Несистемная оппозиция требует демонтажа путинского режима. // Grani.ru, 10 March 2010 Also on 10 March the petition was re-published by the online publications Grani.ru and Kasparov.ru.Борис Немцов: Путин должен уйти. // Echo Moskvy, 11 March 2010 Then it was mentioned by several other liberal mass media, including the radio station Echo Moskvy and the news website Newsru.com.
During the first day of the campaign no e-mail confirmation was required by Ezhednevnyi Zhurnal. The site PutinaVotstavku did require a confirmation, but signatures were added automatically. This was used by ill-wishers, who left a large number of fake signatures, calling themselves Obama, Timoshenko, Medvedev, Putin etc. On 11 March these "signatures" were deleted and the process of adding new signatures began to be moderated.
Course of the campaign During the first month of the campaign the number of signatures grew at the average rate of about 1000 per day. In late summer the speed of signature collection dropped to about 2000 per month. In December 2010 it increased to about 4000. 16 March 2010: 10,000 27 March: 20,000 9 April: 30,000 28 April: 40,000 14 June: 50,000 1 October: 60,000 6 January 2011: 70,000 12 March: 70,000 6 June: 90,000 On 17 March the United Civil Front started to hold pickets in Moscow in support of the campaign. Since May 2010 several organisers of the campaign have held meetings with supporters in a number of Russian cities. On 23 October, 12 December 2010 and 19 February 2011 rallies were held in central Moscow for Putin's dismissal.
March 2010 On 15 March the site PutinaVotstavku started giving updates on the progress of the campaign. The first message said that the number of signatures could have been larger, if confirmations from the site had not been blocked by some popular e-mail services. However, the organisers expressed a belief that no counteraction would stop people and the appeal would be signed by millions of citizens.
Valeria Novodvorskaya's signature was added only a week later, after her two video-addresses to the organisers. In them she expressed her displeasure with the delay and supposed that organisers did want to include her and Konstantin Borovoy's signatures.
Konstantin Borovoy's signature was added only on 5 April. In his blog entry of 16 March the politician attributed this delay to the fact that he and Novodvorskaya were not allowed to join the Solidarity movement. He expressed a hope that it was a misunderstanding and asked Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov to settle the issue with the Solidarity membership.
Starting on 17 March, members of the United Civil Front held pickets in Moscow, some of them in dormitory districts, to collect signatures for the petition.
Paper signatures were also collected during the protest actions on 20 March 2010 (the "Day of Wrath"). In particular, members of Solidarity collected signatures at rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
On 22 March organisers announced the creation of two online communities for those who signed the petition—on LiveJournal (putinvotstavku.livejournal.com) and Twitter (twitter.com/putinavotstavku/). They also proposed to discuss the creation of a separate social network in which every signatory would automatically get an account.
On 26 March, during a press-conference organized by the site's editorial board, Garry Kasparov announced that the petition had been signed by about 30 thousand people—with 19 thousand having been approved by the moderators.
During that March the website developed rapidly with the creation of a campaign banner (with a counter), banners of media partners (Grani.ru, Novaya Gazeta, Kasparov.ru, etc.), links to campaign communities in social networks, as well as a form for filling in signatures offline. The sections News, Publications, Selected (signatures), Video and FAQ were added as well.
April 2010 In April the already-created sections of the site were being filled in. Also a Facebook group was added.
On 13 April the signatories received an e-mail message in which the organisers informed them about the creation of a social network. The message contained a web link to receive a newsletter and join the internet community, "Putin must go."
On 28 April the organisers announced that a third of the signatories had confirmed interest in joining the social network. They also discussed the plan to create groups of participants on the site and to also then visit cities in which a certain number of participants were located.
May 2010 At the May Day rally in Moscow Garry Kasparov declared that the campaign would go on until Putin leaves and Russia becomes free.
On 12 May the first meeting of signatories took place in Moscow, attended by about 70 people. Several leaders of Solidarnost, including Garry Kasparov, were also present.
Advertising of the site Putinavotstavku using Google was started and account numbers for donations were published on the main page of the site.
June 2010 On 14 June Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov presented their report, "Putin. Results. 10 years",English translation: chapters 1 and 2, chapter 3, chapter 4 which was published with a total print run of 1 million copies. On its last page it provided information about the "Putin must go" campaign. They were distributed the same day near Moscow's metro stations.
On 15 June the website of the report, as well as the personal websites of Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov, were subjected to DDoS attacks."Путина подытожили" – блогеры о новом докладе Немцова и Милова. // ЗакС.ру, 15 июня 2010, Accessed 30 June 2010
On 16 June the St. Petersburg police detained a truck with 100,000 copies of the report. On the next day secret service officers seized 100,000 more copies at the printing plant and blocked further printing. On 18 June in St. Petersburg five activists of the United Civil Front were detained, when they attempted to distribute the report to participants of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
On 25 June the authorities reported that extremism in the report had not been found, but activists could not get the report back, because the power of attorney had expired.
The UCF held "Putin must go" pickets in Moscow on 8 and 22 June.ОГФ провел пикет против Путина. 23 June 2010 During the picket on 22 June activists handed out texts of both the "Putin must go" petition and the "Putin. Results. 10 years" report. According to the head of the UCF Moscow branch, Lolita Tsaria, policemen tried to impede the distribution of materials.Милиционеры препятствуют раздаче брошюр в рамках акции ОГФ "Путин должен уйти" // Газета.ру. 22 июня 2010
The website "No to the mandarin", created with the support of the "Putin must go" campaign, appeared on the Internet. It contains signatures of citizens against the appointment of the Kaliningrad regional governor Georgy Boos for a second term and for general elections of governors and heads of municipalities.
July 2010 On 5 July it became known that Pavel Pakhayev, assistant head of the Altai Republic, threatened to murder the founder of an Altai newspaper Listok Sergei Mikhailov, because of the content of the newspaper and the fact that the counter of the campaign "Putin must go" had been placed on the newspaper website.Учредитель алтайской газеты "Листок" заявил об угрозах со стороны местного чиновника // Газета.ру. 5 июля 2010
On 6 July 100,000 brochures of the report "Putin. Results. 10 years" (out of the 300,000 that were seized) were returned to the opposition. On 8 July Boris Nemtsov presented the report in the town of Vladimir.
On 11 July in Novosibirsk, on 12 July in Tomsk and on 28 July in Nizhny Novgorod meetings took place of supporters of the campaign "Putin must go" with the executive director of the Solidarity movement Denis Bilunov.
A new subsection "Blogs" (in the section "Publications") appeared on the site of the campaign.
August 2010 In August the distribution of the report "Putin. Results. 10 Years" continued. About 1/3 of the published 400,000 copies were distributed by the end of the month.
September 2010 On 7 and 21 September United Civil Front held pickets in Moscow for Putin's dismissal.В Москве ОГФ 7 сентября проведёт пикет за отставку Путина. Статья из Каспаров.ру и видео акции
October 2010 15 October activists of the youth movement Oborona held a banner "Putin, go away!" on the fence of the White House in Moscow and on the roof of an auxiliary building next to it.
Committee of Five Demands and the rally of 23 October In the beginning of October activists of UCF, Solidarity and other opposition organisations created the Committee of Five Demands. The committee put forward the following demands:
Resignation of the government headed by Vladimir Putin. Dissolution of the two chambers of the Federal Assembly.