Russia, sergej lavrov | This is the Russian Foreign Minister: The Stone Face of Russia

Posted On: March 4, 2022

At 188 centimeters and 71 years old, Lavrov emerges as both a towering and at times threatening figure, often harsh and uncompromising in his comments and bitingly sarcastic towards his opponents.

He began his diplomatic career in Sri Lanka in 1972, and since then he has risen through the ranks quickly.

In the early 1990s, Lavrov held top positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, and from 1994 to 2004 he was the country’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Since then, he has been foreign minister and one of President Vladimir Putin’s most trusted people.

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Few doubt that Putin has both hands on the wheel of Russian foreign policy, but it is usually Lavrov who has to present and defend the policy, which he often does in a very direct and undiplomatic way.

Lavrov’s relations with the West have changed over the years from almost friendly to openly hostile. After the invasion of Ukraine, the most important were non-relationship issues.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on Putin and Lavrov and, among other things, froze any value they might have in Europe. Such punitive reactions to Russian leaders were previously unheard of.

More recently, Lavrov also lost the honorary doctorate he received in 2011 from Norway’s UiT Arctic University in Troms, but that probably doesn’t bother him too much.

No mercy

With 17 years as Russia’s foreign minister, Lavrov still has some way to go before hitting the record set by Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Union’s foreign minister for 28 years.

Gromyko is known in diplomatic circles as Njet – Mr No – and was the stone face of the Kremlin during the Cold War. Lavrov slowly but surely built a similar image.

Faced with criticism from Western leaders, he often fights ruthlessly, something British Foreign Secretary David Miliband learned after criticizing Lavrov in 2008.

– Who are you to take me to school, then it slams back from anything but diplomatic diplomats.

Insult

There is no doubt that Lavrov is a man Putin likes. Putin is also known to be very direct, and the two are similar in some ways.

Like Putin, Lavrov has often toyed with nostalgia and dreams of Russia’s past greatness, and he has portrayed the United States and Western countries as arrogant, haughty, traitorous, and eager to dominate the world.

He also repeatedly spoke disdainfully about European countries acting as docile henchmen when the United States tried to dissuade Russia.

After a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss last month, Lavrov described the conversation between them as “a conversation between deaf people”.

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, with a message to Norway read by the Russian Ambassador to Norway Teimuraz O. Ramishvili, at the Church Conference last month:

Disturbed

Lavrov now looks increasingly tired of meeting other leaders, and also makes no attempt to hide his annoyance at having to answer questions he considers stupid or provocative from journalists. His answers were often insulting, and he did not hesitate to mock his questioners.

When a CNN journalist in a recent video interview from Kyiv asked Lavrov if Russia intended to control the leadership in Ukraine, he was interrupted by one of Lavrov’s aides. However, as the reporter continued, it was refuted by the Russian Foreign Minister:

– He is rude. He is working in Ukraine now. He had been infected by rudeness.

Lavrov especially dislikes photographers and points it out clearly whenever he perceives a click on the camera cover as a nuisance.

During one press conference, he cursed for the microphone to open, clearly angry at the reporters and photographers in the hall. The incident later became a popular motif, printed on T-shirts destined for Kremlin supporters.

Already changed

Despite repeated rumors that Lavrov’s time as foreign minister is over, he still has and is currently one of the longest serving ministers under Putin. Lavrov also survived most of his foreign counterparts.

However, some of them, and journalists and others who knew Lavrov during his time as UN ambassador, have painted a completely different picture of him in recent years.

While in New York, he was much more sociable and informal and often smoked and exchanged news and jokes with reporters in the corridors of UN headquarters.

For many, it is also difficult to understand that Lavrov is currently writing poetry, playing guitar and singing songs with friends, and that he and other diplomats sometimes sketch during international events when Russia’s relations with the outside world are much better.

arrogant philosophy

Nowadays, it takes a long time to smile, and the once-friendly Russian diplomat seems increasingly introverted and irreconcilable.

With the European Union barring Russian aircraft in its airspace, Lavrov on Tuesday refused to fly to Geneva to attend a UN conference. It made him angry.

“EU countries are trying to avoid face-to-face open dialogue, which could help find political solutions to pressing international problems,” he said in a video speech at the conference.

“There has to be an end to the arrogant Western philosophy of self-supremacy, exclusivity and the total gratification of others,” Lavrov said.