Sergey Lavrov - Russia's talented diplomat

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends an international meeting on Syria in Kazakhstan on March 16. Photo: Reuters

As of 2018, Sergey Lavrov has been leading Russian diplomacy on the international stage for 14 years. One of his first diplomatic successes as foreign minister was to mark Russia's official return to great power status.

It was April 2004, the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that Russia used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council.

His other successes include: the European Security Treaty, the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty with the US, the simplification of the visa regime with the EU, a significant activation of Russia's policy in Asia, countering the US Missile Defense System...

On March 21, Foreign Minister Lavrov celebrated his 68th birthday and rumors say he is about to retire after years of dedicated service...

Talented diplomat

In the book "Personal Imprints on the International Negotiation Table" (Aspect Press, 2012), Russian political science professor Vasilenko Irina describes Mr. Sergey Lavrov's diplomatic style as belonging to the "innovator" model, alongside the "entrepreneur", "analyst" and "critic" models belonging to the "Constructive Negotiator" group.

The personality of the "innovator" is a harmonious combination of intuition, logic, extroversion and stubbornness. Historically, a similar style can be found in the famous diplomat Aleksander Gorchakov (1798 - 1883), who contributed to laying the foundations of the negotiating schools of Russian diplomacy.

American journalist Catherine Maddux said that people who had the opportunity to observe Mr. Lavrov at close range used two contrasting groups of adjectives to describe him: "intelligent, humorous, charming, intellectually strong"; but on the other hand, "heavy in criticism, contemptuous, determined, stubborn and cold".

Washington is so fed up with Mr Lavrov that an official under President George W. Bush called him a "bad guy" (Foreign Policy, April 2013). He repeatedly provoked and "fought" without any restraint with former US Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice.

Before being chosen by Mr. Putin as foreign minister, Mr. Lavrov served as Russia's ambassador to the United Nations for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004.

"He was the star of the Security Council during his time there," said Reuters's Evelyn Leopold, the UN bureau chief, about Lavrov.

According to journalist Colum Lynch of the magazineForeign Policy, Mr. Lavrov is the person who understands the legal language of the Security Council better than anyone.

Here's an interesting little fact: Mr. Lavrov is a heavy smoker, perhaps the only person at the United Nations who has dared to openly break Secretary General Kofi Annan's smoking ban. He also loves Scottish whisky.

Mr. Lavrov in an old photo with Mr. Putin. Photo: FP

There is another Sergey Lavrov

Serving as a front-line diplomat for President Putin during a sensitive and tense period in history, Foreign Minister Lavrov's personal views on major international issues involving Russia are a secret to the West.

In public, Mr. Lavrov has always emphasized the importance of Russia and its recovery from the depths of economic and political despair in the 1990s, when President Boris Yeltsin had little control over the young Russian government.

According to Angela Stent, a Russia expert at Georgetown University (USA), one thing is quite certain: Mr. Lavrov supports restoring Russia's position in the international arena in general, but no one knows whether he belongs to President Putin's inner or outer circle.

Foreign Minister Lavrov met with his counterpart Hillary Clinton in 2009. Mrs. Clinton gave him a button symbolizing the re-start of US-Russia relations. Photo: Reuters

American journalist Pete Heinlein, who worked at the UN for VOA and met Mr. Lavrov, said the Russian diplomat loved chess, both in real life and behind the scenes. Diplomacy was his second passion.

"When he was about to leave the UN, he invited us all to his house, everyone from the secretary general to all the permanent representatives... After the party was over and most of the people had left, he sat on a chair smoking a cigarette and started telling us about how diplomats interact with each other, about the normal relationships between them.

And you could tell right away that he had sympathy even for his most severe opponents. It was a beautiful moment when you could see a very real Sergey Lavrov" - journalist Heinlein recalled.

The oldest profession

In June 2017, Foreign Minister Lavrov visited the Kaliningrad region of Russia and met with students of the Baltic Federal University named after philosopher Immanuel Kant. Seeing a young and modern audience in front of him, Lavrov did not miss the opportunity to tease and impart some knowledge to the young people.

Since Soviet times, Russians have had a joke that the oldest profession on earth is prostitution. Mr Lavrov said he did not agree with this statement at all.

"I am ready to defend the view that calling that famous profession 'the oldest' is not correct. The oldest profession must be diplomacy, because first of all people have to negotiate with each other" - the foreign minister joked.

Aside from the humorous meaning, the serious lesson Mr. Lavrov sent to students was that humans have been developing diplomatic skills since the dawn of civilization.