When someone like Boris Bondarev, a Russian counselor to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland, slams the door on his employer, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and on his home country, it is only natural to wonder if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s system is showing cracks three months into the dictator’s disgraceful Ukraine adventure.
The answer, however, is “not really.” Despite the relative failure of the invasion so far, prominent defectors are remarkably few in number. The Russian establishment is not about to implode.
For most of the Putin-era breed of establishment figure, carrying on has more upside than defecting.
Bondarev, a
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