“[He] is no longer on our side; rather, he is working against us.” That was the Kremlin’s response on Tuesday to a Russian diplomat’s resignation over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine a day before.

Boris Bondarev, a counsellor in Russia’s representation to the United Nations office in Geneva since 2019, announced his resignation in an email on Monday, saying he had never felt “so embarrassed” of his country as on Feb. 24, the day the invasion began. Bondarev described Putin’s conflict as “not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but maybe the most significant criminal against the Russian people.” His declaration was the most public defiance of the Kremlin by a Russian diplomat or other government official since the war began.