Russian diplomat resigns in protest of war against Ukraine

May 23 (UPI) -- Twenty-year Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev publicly announced his exit from civil service Monday in a rare rebuke of the Russian government's ongoing attack on neighboring Ukraine.

Bondarev, who had served as a counselor at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, announced his resignation in a letter shared with Geneva colleagues and via Linkedin.

He is the most senior diplomat to leave his role since Russia's invasion began, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organization.

"For twenty years of my diplomatic career, I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24 of this year," he wrote, the Washington Post reported.

Feb. 24 marks Russian president Vladmir Putin's initial launch of attack on Ukraine.

"This aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world, is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia," he said, according to Al Arabiya.

He spoke of the "warmongering, lies and hatred" he felt was present within Russia's ministry of foreign affairs.

"I regret to admit that over all these twenty years the level of lies and unprofessionalism in the work of the Foreign Ministry has been increasing all the time," Bondarev wrote. "However, in recent years, this has become simply catastrophic."