Putin appoints veteran reformer Chubais an international envoy

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed veteran reformer Anatoly Chubais as his special representative for ties with international organisations, the Kremlin said on Friday, Swiss Info reports.

The announcement comes just days after Chubais, a 65-year-old architect of Russian post-communist reforms in the 1990s and a former leader of a liberal opposition party, resigned as the head of state technology firm RUSNANO which he had run since 2008.

Chubais will represent Putin in "achieving goals of sustainable development", the presidential decree on his appointment said.

The agenda on sustainable development is a United Nations plan to fight poverty and inequality, adopted by its member states in 2015.