Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Russia’s best and brightest are fleeing Putin

Vladimir Putin with Anatoly Chubais, who has fled Russia (Getty images)

News that Putin’s climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has quit his position and left the country is no great surprise and, to many Russians, not that great a loss. However his departure is still significant as it illustrates a growing haemorrhage of the talents in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Those Russians with the resources and, above all, skills to make it abroad are fleeing while they can.

Chubais himself is still remembered by most Russians as one of the so-called ‘boys in pink shorts’ under former finance minister Yegor Gaidar. These men were responsible for implementing the ‘shock therapy’ transition to the market in the 1990s that left most Russians impoverished, while a handful became ultra-rich oligarchs.

Chubais, who is from St Petersburg, is also thought to have been behind fellow Peterburger Vladimir Putin getting a job in Moscow with the presidential property management agency when he lost his position as deputy mayor in 1996. This really gave Putin’s career the acceleration it needed to eventually take him to the presidency. Tatyana Yumasheva, daughter of former president Boris Yeltsin, claimed that Chubais later opposed the idea of making Putin prime minister and presidential heir-apparent in 1999, on practical political grounds – he didn’t think he would get parliamentary approval – rather than because he didn’t believe Putin was up to the job.

One estimate is that more than 200,000 Russians have fled so far

Whatever else one may say about him, Putin does reward loyalty, and he certainly seems to have regarded Chubais with favour. Between 1998-2008, Chubais headed the state-owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES. He was then appointed to head Rosnano, the Russian nanotechnology corporation, at a time when the Kremlin was prioritising this field of research. In 2020, he was dismissed following concerns about waste and a lack of progress. Despite this Putin found an honorific sinecure for Chubais, making him special presidential envoy for relations with international organisations relating to sustainable development.

Nonetheless, this liberal economist and successful business manager was clearly increasingly out of step with Putin as he became steadily more authoritarian and belligerent.

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