One of Russian leader Vladimir Putin's top advisors has resigned their position and fled the country in protest of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Anatoly Chubais, Putin's climate envoy, has become the highest-ranking Russian official thus far to oppose the war publicly.
As Bloomberg reports:
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.
Known as the architect of Russia's 1990s privatizations, Chubais gave Putin his first Kremlin job in the mid-1990s and initially welcomed his rise to power at the end of that decade. Under Putin, Chubais took top jobs at big state companies until the president named him envoy for sustainable development last year.
Since the war, the government has stepped up pressure on domestic critics of the invasion. Putin warned on March 16 that he would cleanse Russia of the “scum and traitors” he accuses of working covertly for the U.S. and its allies. Facing economic meltdown, the Russian leader accused the West of wanting to destroy Russia.
Interestingly, Russian media is reporting on Chubais' escape. He is reportedly in Turkey.
While his defection may not mean much for the situation on the ground in Ukraine, it is a major embarrassment for an increasingly isolated Russian government.
There's also a distinct possibility that Putin will order a hit on Chubais as Western intelligence agencies suspect him of doing to other dissidents.
And as the reported “architect of Russia's post-Soviet economic reforms,” Chubais is the most prominent Russian dissident since the fall of the USSR.
Meanwhile, with Putin's armies brought to a halt outside Ukraine's most populous cities, U.S. officials, including the president, fear the Kremlin may resort to using chemical weapons against civilians.
WATCH:
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NATO and the United States need to send Putin aka “Little Hitler” an ultimatum that if he continues to bob civilian positions or uses hyperbaric bombs, or resorts to chemical or biologic or nuclear agents, they will consider this an act of war, and intervene with all means available. I do not know how anybody can not do something to stop this tragic loss of life.