Anatoly Chubais Resigns And Flees Russia

A longtime Putin advisor has reportedly stepped down from his post and fled the country.

Anatoly Chubais left his job in Russia’s government over the country’s war in Ukraine.

He is the highest-ranking Kremlin official to break ties with Russia over the war, Bloomberg reported.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s high-ranking advisors has reportedly stepped down and left the country, according to Russian state media outlet TASS.

Anatoly Chubais, who served as Putin’s climate change envoy and gave Putin his first government job in the 90s, quit in protest over the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported.

Chubais is the highest-level Kremlin official to break ties with Russia over the war, according to Bloomberg.

The Russian oligarch has been an influential reformer in Russia’s government since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The move comes nearly a month after Putin launched a full-scale invasion against Ukraine, resulting in thousands of fatalities.

Chubais’s resignation comes after another official, Arkady Dvorkovich, who formerly served as former deputy prime minister under Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, resigned from his position as chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation last week and openly denounced the war against Ukraine.

“My thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians,” Dvorkovich said in an interview with Mother Jones. “Wars do not just kill priceless lives. Wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or destroy relationships and connections

During a televised speech last week, Putin lambasted citizens who don’t support Russia in Ukraine, according to Aljazeera.

Russians, he said, “will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a gnat that accidentally flew into their mouths.”

“I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country,” he added, according to the report.