Russian climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has resigned 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 knits with Western officials.
Known as the architect of Russia’s 1990s privatizations, Chubais gave Putin his first Kremlin job in the mid-1990s and welcomed his rise to power in the beginning 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.
Chubais announced his resignation in a letter to colleagues and friends Tuesday, according to people who saw it.
