The Decision to Defect

Boris Bondarev worked as a Russian diplomat for 20 years. On the morning of February 24, when the Russian military started bombing Ukraine, he decided to step down from his post at Russia's permanent mission at the UN in Geneva. After getting his family to safety, he publicly resigned in May, making it clear he was leaving his job in protest of the war. 

In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, he writes about his reasons for publicly resigning—and what he learned after years of watching President Vladimir Putin’s regime up close. “The invasion of Ukraine made it impossible to deny just how brutal and repressive Russia had become,” he writes. 

In this episode, Foreign Affairs Deputy Editor Kate Brannen talks to Bondarev about the Russian military’s vulnerabilities, how his family reacted to his decision to leave, and what happens to Russia after Putin.