Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have the full support of the Russian people when it comes to his war on Ukraine. That’s been very apparent since the beginning of the war, and many have spoken out against the former KGB leader since the first bullet was fired.

It would also appear that even those close to Putin do not support this war, and close advisors are packing it up and walking away.

According to Reuters, longtime advisor Anatoly Chubais has resigned from his post as the Kremlin’s special envoy and fled the country. While there have been others, he is the highest-profile person to do as Chubai has had a long storied history at the Kremlin. He once served as Boris Yeltsin’s chief of staff and would go on to be Putin’s special representative. In 2020 he was charged with “achieving goals of sustainable development.”

Chubais, 66, was one of Putin’s holdovers from the 1990s and one who had retained very close ties with Western officials according to Bloomberg, and was one of the men who brought Putin forward into power. As noted by Bloomberg, Putin recently vowed to root out western sympathizers from his government, possibly giving an explanation for Chubais’ sudden departure from both Putin’s inner circle and the country:

Known as the architect of Russia’s 1990s privatizations, Chubais gave Putin his first Kremlin job in the mid-1990s and initially welcomed his rise to power at the end of that decade. Under Putin, Chubais took top jobs at big state companies until the president named him envoy for sustainable development last year.

Since the war, the government has stepped up pressure on domestic critics of the invasion. Putin warned on March 16 that he would cleanse Russia of the “scum and traitors” he accuses of working covertly for the U.S. and its allies. Facing economic meltdown, the Russian leader accused the West of wanting to destroy Russia.

“Any people, and particularly the Russian people, will always be able to tell the patriots from the scum and traitors and spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said. “I am convinced that this natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to meet any challenge.”

Given Chubais connections to western leaders and his constant contact with them, he likely sensed trouble in the water and fled the country before he could be targeted.

While this is the highest of high-profile departures, it’s not the first high-profile person to suddenly find themselves on Putin’s bad side. As RedState previously reported, Putin had one of his top generals arrested and the reasoning still remains relatively hazy despite multiple reasons given.

So while there’s definitely unease and rejection over the war in Russia’s streets, it would appear that there’s brittle cohesion inside the Kremlin as well.