The Tragic and Pathetic Evolution of Sergey Lavrov
A loyal diplomat or a coward unable to stand up for what he really believes?
By invading Ukraine, annexing (at least on paper) its territory, and trying to colonize a sovereign nation, Russia has violated several paramount principles of the United Nations Charter. Similarly, Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine violate another core norm of the international system. The way Russian soldiers fight in Ukraine – slaughtering non-combatants, terrorizing civilians through drone attacks, destroying cultural sites, raping women, and kidnapping Ukrainian children – also violates many international laws and norms. Their methods of war are so outrageous that the International Criminal Court indicted Putin for kidnapping Ukrainian children – a crime against humanity.
So, there was something truly sad about seeing Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speak at the United Nations Security Council today. The fact that Russia, as it wages a brutal war in Ukraine, gets to chair the United Nations Security Council and Lavrov is accorded the honor to speak at the UNSC meeting underscores just how poorly the United Nations and the international order more broadly, functions today. If you violate the rules of a club where you are a member, there should be consequences. Suspension from the club is an obvious first step. Expulsion from the club should be an option too. However, the United Nations and the United Nations Security Council do not have such mechanisms built into the UN Charter. That is regrettable. Lavrov should not have been given an opportunity to propagate his lies about Russia's illegal and barbaric invasion of Ukraine on such a prestigious and international platform.
Lavrov himself is a mystery to me. During my five years of working in the Obama administration, I participated in many meetings with the Russian Foreign Minister. He is smart. He is a talented diplomat. He knows a lot about the world and the United States. I also met him a few times when he lived in New York, working as the Russian ambassador to the United Nations in the 1990s. He seemed to enjoy New York. He seemed very comfortable hobnobbing with the political and economic elites of the city. He sent his daughter to Columbia University in New York, not Moscow State University. In one of my last meetings with him, while serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Lavrov made a personal appeal to me to help the wife of a Russian oligarch obtain a visa to the United States. She wanted to give birth in the United States so that her child would automatically become an American citizen. I did not help.
Think about this hypocrisy for a moment. Today, Lavrov raged against the United States at the United Nations. These days, he makes untrue claims about the United States daily, claiming falsely that my country, for instance, is seeking to destroy Russian culture and traditions, or supporting Nazis in Ukraine. If we are so evil, why did Lavrov send his daughter to study in the United States instead of Russia? If we are so evil, why did he seek my help in securing a visa for his buddy's wife so that their child could become a citizen of the United States? Lavrov‘s hypocrisy is disgusting.
Maybe Lavrov thinks he has no choice. Good diplomats, after all, are supposed to carry out the policies of their presidents. After all, Lavrov served Russian President Boris Yeltsin, when Yeltsin was actively trying to integrate Russia into the West. Did believe in his work back then? Now, Lavrov implements the policies of a Russian leader who hates the West. Amazing.
I guess being a good Russian diplomat means that you cannot have any values or principles of your own. But it is one thing to support your government over minor issues even when you disagree, as I had to do from time to time while working for President Obama. (I wrote about those instances and how I dealt with them in From Cold War to Hot Peace: A U.S. Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.) It is quite different to support your government when your boss is violating the most sacred norms of the United Nations and the international system, while also doing great damage to the security and prosperity of your own country. I honestly wonder if Lavrov believes all the false statements that he now repeats almost daily, including those said today at the United Nations Security Council. He is too smart. He is too sophisticated. He is too knowledgeable. And such hypocrisy and cynicism make him an even more pathetic of a character compared to those true believers in Putin and his government today.
I first met Sergey Lavrov in 1990, when he was the head of the MFA's Office for International Organizations and I headed the Political/External section at Embassy Moscow. At that time, US-Soviet relations were friendly and getting friendlier. Accordingly, Lavrov was charming, well-informed, and helpful. I had gone over to MFA with a pro forma list of questions relating to the UN General Assembly, and I was struck by how affable Lavrov was. He had good reason to be: in fact, we had just achieved a major breakthrough in the relationship, when in August, 1990, the USSR and USA aligned themselves against Saddam Hussein and his invasion of Kuwait. Lavrov was in sync with the times.
Unfortunately, and despite the disintegration of the Soviet Union the following year and the formation of a democratic Russia, this cordiality was not to last. It was rarely present in our meetings with the security services, and grew steadily cooler with our more familiar MFA contacts. I think the October 1993 storming of the Russian White House was a turning point for many Russian officials, and I noticed a distinct coolness from many MFA types who had once been quite friendly. The advent of Putin in 2000 and the establishment of the KGB state accelerated this trend.
Despite his remarkably successful career, Lavrov has never been a Putin insider. He has been an expert implementer of decisions. These days, if Putin is hostile to the US, there is a contest among those who have no real power to outdo themselves in their anti-Americanism. Lavrov is one of those people. He adopts outrageous positions, but with a touch that is more sophisticated than many of Putin's other implementers.
Lavrov has been trapped in this position for so long, that I am sure it is second nature to him now. He has learned to enjoy it.
Perhaps he just doesn't fancy a short fall down a long elevator shaft. As you say, Putin's regime ignores most civilized norms. Mr. Lavrov (and his family) are undoubtedly at risk should he step out of line. The question that should be on everyone's mind (as it is surely on Putin's) is who among his inner circle has the opportunity to rid the world of him and when they will decide that the perils of doing so are less than those of not doing so. Such has been the calculus around tyrants since the Caesars and before. Let us hope the world survives to see its conclusion.