By Elena Teslova
MOSCOW (AA) - The special envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin resigned and left the country, a source close to the official told the Russian state-run TASS news agency on Wednesday.
This was the first time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine that a senior Russian official resigned from his post, allegedly in protest of the conflict.
The official, Anatoly Chubais, "resigned from the post of special representative and left the country," the source said.
Chubais, a Russian oligarch, was an influential member of President Boris Yeltsin's administration in the early 1990s.
He is responsible for the privatization of multiple state enterprises and was a key figure in introducing a market economy and private ownership in the country.
From 1998 to 2008, he headed the state-owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES.
Since December 2020, he worked as a presidential envoy for relations with international organizations.