Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Each Sunday this summer, we’re sharing an essay from the archives that provides a rare first-person account of history as it unfolded. This week, we’ve selected a 2022 essay by Boris Bondarev, who became the first Russian diplomat to publicly resign over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Writing just months after his resignation, Bondarev recounts waking up on February 24, 2022, seeing the news reports that the Russian air force was bombing Ukraine, and telling his wife: “That is the beginning of the end.” For him, “the invasion of Ukraine made it impossible to deny just how brutal and repressive Russia had become.”
But Bondarev had been grappling with the Kremlin’s mounting repression, corruption, and belligerence for 20 years, ever since he first joined the foreign ministry in 2002. He describes his initial disbelief—and then acceptance—upon hearing that Russia was responsible for the near-fatal poisoning of the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018: “Many Russians still deny that Moscow was responsible. I know it can be hard to process that your country is run by criminals who will kill for revenge.”
Even when Putin seemed to be preparing to invade Ukraine, Bondarev still didn’t believe that Russia’s leader would launch a full-fledged war. Bondarev’s time in the Russian government had taught him that Moscow did not have the military capability to overrun Ukraine: “Putin, I figured, must have known this, too—despite all the yes men who shielded him from the truth.” But Putin’s announcement of his “special military operation” in Ukraine made Bondarev’s decision to leave “ethically straightforward.” A few weeks later, he handed in his resignation. “At last, I was no longer complicit in a system that believed it had a divine right to subjugate its neighbor.
This audio version of the article is made available here as a courtesy to our YouTube audience.
"The Sources of Russian Misconduct" by Boris Bondarev
foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/sources-russia-misconduct-boris-bondarev
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Each Sunday this summer, we’re sharing an essay from the archives that provides a rare first-person account of history as it unfolded. This week, we’ve selected a 2022 essay by Boris Bondarev, who became the first Russian diplomat to publicly resign over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Writing just months after his resignation, Bondarev recounts waking up on February 24, 2022, seeing the news reports that the Russian air force was bombing Ukraine, and telling his wife: “That is the beginning of the end.” For him, “the invasion of Ukraine made it impossible to deny just how brutal and repressive Russia had become.”
But Bondarev had been grappling with the Kremlin’s mounting repression, corruption, and belligerence for 20 years, ever since he first joined the foreign ministry in 2002. He describes his initial disbelief—and then acceptance—upon hearing that Russia was responsible for the near-fatal poisoning of the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018: “Many Russians still deny that Moscow was responsible. I know it can be hard to process that your country is run by criminals who will kill for revenge.”
Even when Putin seemed to be preparing to invade Ukraine, Bondarev still didn’t believe that Russia’s leader would launch a full-fledged war. Bondarev’s time in the Russian government had taught him that Moscow did not have the military capability to overrun Ukraine: “Putin, I figured, must have known this, too—despite all the yes men who shielded him from the truth.” But Putin’s announcement of his “special military operation” in Ukraine made Bondarev’s decision to leave “ethically straightforward.” A few weeks later, he handed in his resignation. “At last, I was no longer complicit in a system that believed it had a divine right to subjugate its neighbor.
This audio version of the article is made available here as a courtesy to our YouTube audience.
"The Sources of Russian Misconduct" by Boris Bondarev
foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/sources-russia-misconduct-boris-bondarev
To receive Summer Reads in your inbox, please Subscribe here
foreignaffairs.com/subscribe
