Vladimir Putin aide Chubais quits over Ukraine war

A veteran envoy of President Vladimir Putin has resigned over the Ukraine war and left Russia with no intention to return, two sources said on Wednesday, the first senior official to break with the Kremlin since Putin launched his invasion a month ago.

The Kremlin confirmed that Anatoly Chubais had resigned of his own accord.

Chubais was one of the principal architects of Boris Yeltsin's economic reforms of the 1990s and was Putin's boss in the future president's first Kremlin job. He held senior business and political jobs under Putin, lately serving as Kremlin special envoy to international organisations. Chubais hung up the phone when contacted by Reuters. The sources did not say where he was.


Four weeks into a war that has driven a quarter of Ukraine's 44 million people from their homes, Russia has failed to capture a single major Ukrainian city, while Western sanctions have ostracised it from the world economy. After failing in what Western countries say was an attempt to seize Kyiv, Russian forces have taken heavy losses, been frozen in place for at least a week on most fronts and face supply problems and fierce resistance.