Anatoly Chubais, executive director of OAO Rusnano, speaks during a session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 18, 2015. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Former high-level Russian official Anatoly Chubais is in a European hospital suffering from symptoms of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a neurological disease, according to prominent Russian journalist and TV personality Ksenia Sobchak.
Sobchak says she spoke with Chubais’ wife, who said that “her husband’s condition is unstable. He felt bad all of a sudden, he started to lose feeling in his arms and legs.”
Sobchak is the daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, former mayor of St. Petersburg and political mentor to Russian President Vladimir Putin. She was also a candidate for the Russian presidency in 2018. In recent years, she has been critical of Putin, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sobchak also directly quoted Chubais, saying of his condition: “I was hospitalized in one of the European clinics with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barr syndrome. Condition of moderate severity, stable.”
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare disorder in which the immune system damages the body’s nerves.
Chubais did not respond to a CNN request for comment, and it is unclear where he is currently in Europe.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the Kremlin does not have details about what happened to Chubais, but called the development “sad news.”
Some background: Chubais left his post as the Kremlin’s special envoy for the environment in March. Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the matter, said he left the country because of the war in Ukraine. Chubais did not respond to CNN’s request for comment at the time. In March, the Kremlin confirmed that Chubais had left his job. Chubais had been working in the environment since December 4, 2020, TASS said.
He rose to prominence as Boris Yeltsin’s finance minister in the 1990s. In the early days of Putin’s rise to power, Chubais was considered an opponent by the now president. Putin claimed in a series of interviews in 1999 that Chubais turned down the Kremlin job he was initially offered.
In recent years, Chubais continued to advocate economic reform and was one of the few remaining liberals associated with the Russian government.