A veteran Russian diplomat to the U.N. Office at Geneva says he handed in his resignation before sending out a scathing letter to foreign colleagues inveighing against the “aggressive war unleashed” by President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
Boris Bondarev, 41, confirmed his resignation in a letter delivered yesterday at the Russian diplomatic mission after a diplomatic official passed on his English-language statement to The Associated Press.
“For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24 of this year,” he wrote, alluding to the date of Russia’s invasion.
Reached by phone, Bondarev – a diplomatic counselor who has focused on Russia’s role in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva after postings in places like Cambodia and Mongolia – confirmed he handed in his resignation in a letter addressed to Ambassador Gennady Gatilov.
A spokesman for the mission didn’t immediately respond to calls and a text message from the AP seeking comment.
