MILAN (Reuters) – Anatoly Chubais, the former privatisation tsar of post-Soviet Russia who quit his post as a Kremlin special envoy due to the war in Ukraine, has been discharged from a hospital in Italy after treatment, an Italian daily reported.
Two sources close to Chubais, 67, told Reuters on Aug. 1 that he was in intensive care in Europe with a rare immune disorder.
According to the sources, Chubais believed he was suffering from Guillain–Barre syndrome, a disease caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system. Some media and opposition activists had speculated he could have been poisoned.
Results of toxicological tests were not yet available but Chubais responded to treatment “so doctors are certain” they were dealing with Guillain-Barre, Italian daily La Repubblica reported on its website.
“He feels better,” La Repubblica said, adding Chubais was discharged in the late morning of Saturday from Mater Olbia hospital on the island of Sardinia.
It said Chubais walked out of the hospital without assistance and left Frankfurt in Germany to spend time in a rehab clinic, according to the report.
The hospital did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Chubais, who once served as former Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s chief of staff, was President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for ties with international organisations before his resignation.
Reuters reported on March 23, almost a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, that Chubais had quit his post and left the country.
The most powerful of a group of Russian economists who sought to cement the transition to capitalism after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Chubais sold off some of Russia’s biggest industrial assets in the 1990s.
(Reporting by Federico Maccioni, editing)
