Putin Adviser Resigns and Immediately Flees the Country
As if there was any doubt that Russia’s war with Ukraine was creating a rift in the nation’s political ecosystem, we now have tales of high level Kremlin officials essentially throwing their keys on the desk and hightailing it out of town.
Things feel desperate in Moscow right now, as Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine continues to falter and fail, forcing not only the rhetoric of the Kremlin to escalate, but also the terror being inflicted upon the innocent people of Kyiv and beyond.
The latest sign of trouble in Putin’s inner circle is a doozy.
Russian climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has stepped down and left the country, citing his opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the situation, becoming the highest-level official to break with the Kremlin over the invasion.
Chubais, 66, is one of the few 1990s-era economic reformers who’d remained in Putin’s government and had maintained close ties with Western officials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
His departure sounded a bit ominous.
Chubais announced his resignation in a letter to colleagues and friends Tuesday, according to people who saw it. Last week, he hinted at a darkened outlook, saying in a post on Facebook on the anniversary of the death of Yegor Gaidar that the fellow economic reformer “understood the strategic risks better than I did and I was wrong.”
Reading between the lines can be a bit dangerous in politics, but the mountain of evidence we have today seems to suggest that things are deteriorating at the Kremlin with a quickness.
