Russian climate envoy and personal advisor to President Vladimir Putin, Anatoly Chubais, has resigned and left the country on Wednesday, citing his opposition to the war in Ukraine.
Chubais is the highest-level official to break off from Moscow over the invasion.
Known as the architect of Russia’s 1990s privatization, Chubais gave Putin his first Kremlin job in the mid-1990s. He is also one of the few 1990s-era economic reformers who’d remained in Putin’s government and had maintained close ties with Western officials.
In Russia, the tardy progress in the battlefield in Ukraine and the heavy toll of Putin’s war machine has ignited questions about his military’s planning capability, his confidence in his top spies and loyal defense minister, and the quality of the intelligence that reaches him.
It also shows the pitfalls of Putin’s top-down governance, in which officials and military officers have little leeway to make their own decisions and adapt to developments in real time, reports New York Times.
The failures of Putin’s campaign are apparent in the striking number of senior military commanders believed to have been killed in the fighting. Ukraine says it has killed at least six Russian generals, while Russia acknowledges one of their deaths, along with that of the deputy commander of its Black Sea fleet. American officials say they cannot confirm the number of Russian troop deaths, but that Russia’s invasion plan appears to have been stymied by bad intelligence, adds the NYT.
As if responding to criticism, Putin has said repeatedly in his public comments about the war that it is going “according to plan.” “We can definitively say that nothing is going to plan,” countered a Russian military analyst. “It has been decades since the Soviet and Russian armies have seen such great losses in such a short period of time.”
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is departing for Brussels for talks with European leaders about Russia's invasion, carrying with him plans for more sanctions on Moscow that sources said include members of the Russian parliament.
He will also have talks with NATO leaders and visit Warsaw for consultations with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Two sources familiar with the situation said Biden and his team were developing plans to impose sanctions on members of the Russian parliament. The sanctions are expected to be announced on Thursday and will further turn the heat on Putin.
Biden has vowed not to engage in direct conflict with Russia but has pledged the United States will defend all NATO territory. He has ordered more US troops to NATO's eastern flank to reassure those edgy allies.
During his visit to Poland, Biden will visit US troops and meet with experts involved in the humanitarian response to helping hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who have fled their country and those who remain there.
