A diplomat at Russia’s United Nations mission in Geneva has resigned in protest at President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, becoming the first envoy to publicly criticize the war.
“Putin has become both a war criminal and a dictator,” Boris Bondarev, 41, who was involved in disarmarment work at the mission, said in a phone interview Monday. “I can’t work with colleagues who seriously talk about launching nuclear strikes on the suburbs of Washington to scare the Americans into surrendering. These conversations have become more and more frequent.”
While some Russian officials, such as the Kremlin’s climate envoy Anatoly Chubais, quietly left their positions following the start of the war, Bondarev posted a resignation statement in English and Russian on Facebook, saying he’d “never been so ashamed of my country as on February 24” when Putin announced the invasion. With the war in its 89th day, he said he’d waited until now to leave his post because he’d wanted to ensure his family’s safety.
The Russian mission in Geneva declined to comment.
With Russia cracking down on protests at home and criminalizing criticism of its military’s actions in Ukraine, there have been few signs of division within the ranks of officials even as the Russian army has been accused of committing war crimes against civilians.
Thousands of Russian troops have been killed and the invasion has suffered repeated setbacks since the military failed in a bid to seize Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, amid fierce Ukrainian resistance backed by weapons supplied by its US and European allies.
The decision to go to war was “based on incorrect assumptions,” said Bondarev, who said he’d served in the Foreign Ministry for 20 years. “It was believed there would be no Western intervention and that we would defeat Ukraine in a few days.”