“Putin has to be put on trial and hanged. But only in accordance with the law,” former Vice President at Gazprombank Igor Volobuev said to the Telegraph.

These are the words the Russian bank executive said after leaving Moscow and deciding to take up arms with the Ukrainian forces against his very own country. Vice President of the state-owned Gazprombank Igor Volobuev has fled Russia in a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine.

Volobuev, 50, who held a senior position at Gazprombank, claimed that he had Ukrainian roots and family living in Ukraine, which is why he was forced to choose sides in a conflict that sees Russians and Ukrainians fighting and living on both sides of the border between the two countries.

“On the first day of the war, my phone burst. I was born and graduated from school in Okhtyrka. My father, younger brother, and friends live there,” Volobuev said in an interview with liga.net.