Adeze Ojukwu

Russia’s counsellor to the United Nations(UN), in Geneva, Boris Bondarev resigned, Monday, over the war in Ukraine.

He is the most senior diplomat to defect since his country’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, according to an exclusive report by UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights organization based in Geneva.

https://devcomradar.org/russian-diplomat-at-un-resigns-over-ukraine-war/

“Never have I been so ashamed of my country,” wrote Boris Bondarev, in a statement shared with diplomats in Geneva.

“Boris Bondarev is a hero,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, who is currently participating in the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual gathering of human rights dissidents.

“We are now calling on all other Russian diplomats at the United Nations—and worldwide—to follow his moral example and resign,” the group said today, in a statement.

“Bondarev should be invited to speak in Davos this week,” said Neuer, “and the U.S., the UK and the EU should lead the free world in creating a program to encourage more Russian diplomats to follow and defect, by providing protection, financial security and resettlement for diplomats and their families.”

According to AP reports, 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 Monday morning at the Russian diplomatic mission.”

The diplomat, in an official statement, denounced what he described as the aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world.”

https://devcomradar.org/russian-diplomat-at-un-resigns-over-ukraine-war/