‘Put him on trial’: pro-Kremlin loyalist turns on Putin in rare outburst

Putin at the Kremlin last week. Very few people in Russia have openly challenged the Russian president over the war on Ukraine. Photograph: Gavriil Grigorov/AP

For years, Ilya Remeslo was a reliable pro-Kremlin operator, going after critics of the regime and smearing independent journalists, bloggers and opposition politicians.

Then the 42-year-old lawyer abruptly turned on the country’s most powerful man. Late on Tuesday, Remeslo posted a manifesto to his 90,000 Telegram followers titled: “Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.”