A longtime advisor to President Vladimir Putin stepped down from his position and left the country amid Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, according to two insiders cited by Bloomberg.
Anatoly Chubais, Putin’s climate change envoy, quit in protest of the war in Ukraine. Considered one of the highest-profile departures yet, Chubais gave Putin his first Kremlin job in the 1990s and was an influential post-Soviet economic reformer who spearheaded Russia’s privatization drive.
Chubais was appointed as climate change envoy in 2020, resigning as head of the state technology firm RUSNANO.
Two sources told Russian media outlet RBC that Chubais went to Turkey and does not intend on returning to Russia.
Opposition from high-ranking Kremlin officials to the war in Ukraine has been rarely seen since Russia invaded. Putin previously said those who oppose him are “traitors and scum.”
Last week, Arkady Dvorkovic, a former senior advisor to former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, quit his role as chairman at the Skolkovo Foundation, a Russian nonprofit.
