Anatoly Chubais resigned due to disagreement with the war and left

Anatoly Chubais left the post of special representative of the President of Russia for sustainable development. He left the country in protest over the special operation in Ukraine.

This, with reference to Bloombergaccording to the Russian service air force. Sources of the agency report that in explaining his resignation, Chubais referred to his disagreement with the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine. If the information is confirmed, he will become the highest level official who left his high post and broke with the Kremlin because of the invasion. The event was also reported by the source of the agency. Reuters.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, did not comment on the situation in response to a question from the agency. He later told the publication “Vedomosti”that Chubais resigned of his own free will, but left, did not leave – this is his personal business. “The brother of Anatoly Chubais, Igor Chubais, answered the same question briefly:” I can’t say, I don’t know.

“Yes, it’s true. Anatoly Borisovich is leaving this post,” said TASS a source from the environment of Chubais. Another source close to Chubais also told the agency that he left Russia: “He resigned as special envoy and left the country.”

Like many other members of the elite, Chubais has never openly shown his condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine. The only exception, perhaps, was Arkady Dvorkovich, former Deputy Prime Minister and head of the FIDE World Chess Federation, as well as billionaire Mikhail Fridman. The former decided to step down as chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation after being attacked for his anti-war stance.

On Yegor Gaidar’s birthday, March 19, Chubais wrote in his post:

“In our discussions about Russia’s future, I didn’t always agree with him. But it seems that Gaidar understood the strategic risks better than I did, and I was wrong.”

Bloomberg recalls that it was Chubais who, in the mid-1990s, gave Vladimir Putin his first position in the Kremlin and then welcomed his rise to power. The agency calls Chubais, 66, the architect of Russia’s privatization. He is one of the few economic reformers of the 1990s left in Putin’s government. He held senior positions in large state corporations – RAO “UES of Russia” and “Rosnano”, and in December last year, the President of Russia unexpectedly appointed him as his special representative for relations with international organizations to achieve sustainable development.

Two acquaintances of Chubais told RBC that the politician, together with his wife, director Avdotya Smirnova, left for Istanbul. An acquaintance of Smirnova confirmed to the publication that she was in Istanbul. The Kommersant publication writes that on March 22, Chubais was also seen in the Turkish city. One of RBC’s sources said that Chubais “was going to return.”

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov was categorical, he believes that Anatoly Chubais should not have been let out of the country:

“It is reported that Chubais quit his job and left Russia. If so, then that’s where he’s at. Although, by and large, they released him in vain: he should have been tried here!

And the head of the board of directors of AFK Sistema, billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov, said that Chubais recently told him about plans to leave Russia, writes “Gazeta.ru”:

“Unfortunately, yes, Chubais left Russia. I don’t know exactly where he went. Because it’s private. Journalists can write whatever they want: Armenia, Turkey, Emirates. Yes, you can write anything! But no one knows where a person might be today.”

Chubais himself does not comment on the situation. For journalists Forbes managed to get through to him on the phone. Hearing the question of whether he really left Russia, he did not answer and hung up, the newspaper writes. He also responded to a call from a Reuters correspondent.

Bloomberg writes that after the start of the special operation, the Russian authorities increased pressure on critics of the invasion. On March 16, Putin spoke at a meeting with the government about the “self-purification of society”, branding “traitors” from the “fifth column”.

At the beginning of this month, new provisions of the legislation came into force in Russia: criminal and administrative responsibility is assigned to critics of the invasion and participants in anti-war actions.

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