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It looks like a senior Russian minister may have fallen out of favour with Vladimir Putin after negatively affecting trade talks with the United States.
Veteran Kremlin foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was nowhere to be seen at a key Kremlin meeting last week, and he's now been left off Russia's delegation to the forthcoming G20 summit in South Africa.
The call to Trump
Echoes of Putin's displeasure with Lavrov have circulated after communications with the United States went south last month. Trump and Putin were planning to meet in Budapest at the end of October, but the summit was cancelled after a disagreement about Russia's conduct in Ukraine.
According to media reports, the meeting was cancelled after a call between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Multiple sources reported that Lavrov pushed Russia's maximalist strategies, and the Kremlin refused any change to their position. This call reportedly convinced the Trump administration that a summit would be ‘pointless,' leading to the cancellation of the meeting.
If accurate, it's easy to see how Lavrov could have fallen out of favour with Putin. If Putin felt as though he lost control over the situation, it could create serious tensions between the senior minister and his president.
‘Everything is fine'
Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin have been working diligently to dispel the rumours of fractures in their administration.
When asked on Monday, the Kremlin dismissed the reports, claiming they are “absolutely untrue” and that there is “no need to pay attention” because “everything is fine”.
Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said “Sergei [Lavrov] continues to work, and he is actively at work… When there are relevant public events, you will see the minister.”
A former official told media that “Putin wanted the meeting in Budapest, and it wasn't Lavrov's role to get in between,” and that Lavrov “mishandled” the conversation with Rubio, making “a diplomatic mess of things.”
Former diplomat Boris Bondarev also commented on the rumours:
“Putin has been very comfortable working with Lavrov all these years because Sergei [Lavrov] is a seasoned bureaucrat. He knows perfectly well that you should never say anything that does not coincide 100% with the president's position.”
He added that “if there is even the slightest chance Putin might not like it, he simply won't say it. The idea that Lavrov showed any unwillingness to negotiate, and that this somehow derailed the meeting, is improbable. There is no separate Lavrov line; only Putin's,”
Lavrov's piece
On Lavrov's side, comments from an interview originally made with Italy's Corriere della Sera paper recently surfaced, where the diplomat made his stance clear.
“We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level,”
He went on to say that Europe is “sabotaging all peacemaking efforts and are rejecting direct contacts with Moscow. They introduce new sanctions which boomerang on their economies even further. They're openly preparing for a new major European war against Russia.”
Lavrov, 75, was elected as Ambassador of Russia to the United Nations in 1974 and has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2004. Lavrov is one of the longest-serving top diplomats in the world.
