The veteran Kremlin envoy resigned and left the country with no intention of returning, ostensibly to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anatoly Chubais, Putin’s special representative to international organizations since 2020, became the first senior official to step down since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine a month ago.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Wednesday that Chubais, 66, had resigned, adding that he did so of his own free will. But Chubais has yet to say why he resigned or where he plans to go after leaving Russia, and hung up when contacted by Reuters.
He was one of the main architects of Boris Yeltsin’s economic reforms in the 1990s, and many Russians accuse him of allowing a small group of tycoons to amass huge fortunes in the mass privatization of state assets, while millions of Russians were left in poverty among economic collapse and crisis.
In recent years, he has continued to call for economic reform and has been one of the most prominent liberals associated with the Russian government, holding high positions in business and politics under Putin.
In 2020, he was named special envoy for “achieving sustainable development goals,” days after stepping down as head of the state-owned technology company RUSNANO, which he has led since 2008.
His resignation comes after the Kremlin stepped up pressure on oligarchs who criticize the war in Ukraine, and Putin last week warned “scumbags” of traitors that the Russian people would “spit them out like a midge in their mouths.”
Kremlin veteran Anatoly Chubais (pictured right with Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2016) fled the country and left the country with no intention of returning, ostensibly to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anatoly Chubais, Putin’s special envoy to international organizations since 2020, is the first senior official to step down since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine a month ago (pictured front left, signing a contract with the CEO of German energy giant E.ON ). before Putin and the then Chancellor Angela Merkel)
Pro-Russian separatists patrol Donetsk in eastern Ukraine March 11 as civilians try to flee the city after sustained shelling.
A residential area, including a school, was destroyed after the shelling of a building in Kyiv on March 18.
US President Joe Biden is flying to Europe on Wednesday for an emergency NATO summit on Ukraine, where Russian troops are halted, cities are being bombed and the besieged port of Mariupol is on fire.
In a four-week war that drove a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes, Russia failed to capture a single major Ukrainian city and Western sanctions banished it from the global economy.
Failing in what Western countries say was an attempt to capture Kyiv and overthrow the government, Russian troops suffered heavy casualties, were stuck in place for at least a week on most fronts, and faced supply problems and fierce resistance.
They turned to siege tactics and bombardment of cities, resulting in massive destruction and the deaths of many civilians.
Moscow says its goal is to disarm its neighbor and that it is planning a “special military operation.” He denies targeting civilians.
Mariupol suffered the most, the southern port, completely surrounded by Russian troops, where hundreds of thousands of people took refuge from the first days of the war under constant shelling and without food, water and heat.
New satellite photos taken overnight by commercial firm Maxar showed massive destruction of what was once a city of 400,000 people, with plumes of smoke rising from burning residential buildings.
No journalist can report from Ukrainian-held parts of the city for more than a week, during which Ukrainian officials say Russia bombed a theater and an art school used as bomb shelters, burying hundreds of people alive. Russia denies any strikes on these buildings.
Heavily damaged and partially collapsed apartment buildings are visible in the city of Mariupol, which has been under near-constant Russian bombardment since early March and almost completely destroyed.
Heavily damaged apartment buildings are visible in Mariupol’s south as a local official said the city has been reduced to “the ashes of a dead earth” due to Russian bombing.
Smoke rises from the residential areas of Mariupol, which was almost completely razed to the ground by Russian troops in an attempt to take the city, which has been without water, food and electricity for almost a month.
This satellite image taken on Tuesday shows an industrial area in the center of Mariupol heavily bombed by Russian forces.
Heavily damaged buildings and apartment buildings are visible in a satellite image of Mariupol, where more than 100,000 people are said to still be in “hellscape” conditions.
Biden, who is scheduled to arrive in Brussels on Wednesday evening, will meet NATO and European leaders for an emergency summit at the Western military alliance’s headquarters.
The leaders are expected to impose further sanctions against Russia on Thursday. Sources said the US package would include measures against Russian MPs.
Biden will also visit Poland, which has hosted most of Ukraine’s more than 3.6 million refugees and has been a major route for Western arms supplies to Ukraine.
In a move to further isolate Moscow, Poland has announced the expulsion of 45 Russian diplomats accused of either undercover espionage or “association” with them.
In recent days, several other Eastern European countries have announced similar moves, although not on the same scale. Russia denied all accusations.
Despite its losses, Russia may still be hoping to make big gains on the battlefield, especially in the east, in territory including Mariupol, which Moscow is demanding Ukraine surrender to Russian-backed separatists.
In a daily intelligence report, the British Ministry of Defense said the entire battlefield in northern Ukraine, including the huge armored columns that once rained down on Kyiv, is now “static” and the invaders appear to be trying to reorganize.
But to the east, the Russians were trying to link up the troops at Mariupol with those near Kharkov in hopes of encircling the Ukrainian forces, and to the southwest they were bypassing the city of Nikolaev in an attempt to advance towards Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port.
Ukrainian officials reported sporadic shelling in other cities during the night, with two civilians killed in Mykolaiv Oblast, a bridge destroyed in Chernihiv Oblast, and residential buildings and a shopping center in two districts of Kyiv being shelled, with at least four people injured.
A soldier raises a Ukrainian flag in the recaptured town of Makarov, west of Kyiv, putting Russian troops in Bucha, Irpen and Borodianka at risk of being cut off.
Ukrainian soldiers inspect a Russian rocket launcher that was destroyed in the fighting in Makarov, west of Kyiv.
A Ukrainian soldier stands next to Russian armored vehicles captured during the fighting near Makarov, which is now back under Kyiv’s control.
Now there are counterattacks west of Kyiv, around Nikolaev and Kherson in the south, and towards Izyum in the east, as the Pentagon says Ukrainian generals “are able and willing to reclaim the territory.”