The Courage of His Convictions

  Boris Bondarev via AP

 "I couldn't take it any longer. I should have done it at the start but not everyone is a hero."

"What's the point in our work when the Russian president is the only 'diplomat' in this country and he 'knows better'? All diplomats should have asked themselves that and maybe quit."

"For 20 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 February 24 of this year. The aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world, is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia."

Boris Bondarev, counsellor, Russian permanent mission, United Nations, Geneva

 

A graduate of the elite Moscow university specializing in the training of Russian diplomats, Boris Bondarev was employed at the Russian foreign ministry for twenty years, until he handed over his letter of resignation on Monday. As he did so, sharing his move on social media, he urged his diplomatic colleagues to do the same. He resigned his post in a furious denunciation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for assigning a criminal mission in the military invasion of Ukraine, to Russia.

This seasoned diplomat's very public resignation along with the heat of his condemnation of a president not known to take dissent or accusations of personal misconduct lightly, represents the first high-profile defection yet linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting high civilian death numbers alongside the wanton destruction of Ukraine's towns, villages and cities. He acted as he did, he said out of moral conviction, to take a stand against the Putin regime.

As he now becomes a pariah in Russian government circles, he insists he has no fear for his own safety. He was simply motivated by 'disgust' that his position as a diplomat was that of representing Russia abroad in view of the criminal nature of Russia's invasion of a neighbouring state. And nor did it sit well with him, that an article about "crimes against humanity" purportedly committed by the government of Ukraine within Ukraine's east, is the leading official propaganda posted on Russia's mission to the UN's website.

Former diplomat Bondarev's specialty was nuclear non-proliferation for most of the last ten years. He feels  horrified at this juncture by how superficially and carelessly Russian officialdom now raise the prospect of deploying nuclear weapons: "It really is chilling", he avows. A number of his professional acquaintances quietly left their positions at the ministry since the invasion began, Bondarev explained, in reflection of some Russian diplomats being privately appalled by the war brought to Ukraine.

 

A covered body is seen in a residential area near Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in the southern port city of Mariupol   REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

That the Russian Foreign Ministry issues supportive declarations for war crimes obvious in their nature to the outside world, Russian diplomats exonerate their military and their government as being embroiled in a war of necessity, to rid the geography of the presence of sinister and stability-threatening fascists in Ukraine. That President Putin is himself exercising the fascist in his role as Russian tyrant represents a misunderstanding by a West seeking to destabilize Russia and by extension, eastern Europe.

 

Sergey Lavrov, Russia's current minister of foreign affairs, at one time represented a role model for generations of Russian diplomats whose admiration of his skilled craft of diplomacy and outstanding good manners attracted emulation. Until a mysterious transformation took place, a "deplorable evolution to become a person who spurts out utter nonsense", said the former counsellor.

 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops has resulted in a wave of antiwar protests, sending thousands of Russian dissidents into exile. Among them some of Russia's best-known artists, singers and filmmakers who have spoken out publicly against their president's aggression and were then blacklisted or threatened with criminal charges which would lead to prison sentences. 

There is an undercurrent of speculation within Russian media, of senior figures in the government inclusive of liberal-leaning officials, such as the chief of the Central Bank, privately criticizing the invasion, none yet having taken a public stand. The former counsellor, who lives in Geneva. appears not to be concerned over the backlash he can expect should he return to Russia.

UN building in Geneva    AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File