Page 56 - Buy Russia - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2017

56 Opinion
bne April 2017
Minister Sergey Lavrov during the official visit to Serbia. Photo: Golden Brown STOLYPIN:
We all need
to worry about
Russia’s incredible
shrinking foreign
ministry
Mark Galeotti of the Institute
of International Relations Prague
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, long a fix-
ture – indeed, legend – in global diplomacy, has been looking testy of late, and much less in command. Even in his recent first official meeting with new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, he was clearly taken aback when journal- ists were suddenly ushered out of the room. There are recur- ring rumours that he will step down this year after being in the post for 13 years, making him the most longstanding of all President Vladimir Putin’s ministers. He has reportedly tried to retire twice before; maybe third time is the charm.
Of course, such talk is common coin in Moscow, a city where the less transparent policymaking becomes, the more eager people are to claim an inside source. Nonetheless, it would be hard to blame him. Having been a figure to rival such dour Soviet foreign ministers as Vyacheslav Molotov and Sergei Gromyko, he is now reduced to a shadow of his old self.
Since Crimea, he has essentially been excluded from the inner circle setting foreign policy and is instead relegated
to the role of articulating and defending an increasingly untenable and incredible official line. The sight of him being openly mocked by his peers at the 2015 Munich Conference was in many ways the beginning of the end.
“Since Crimea, he has essentially been excluded from the inner circle setting foreign policy”
On specific issues and areas that have become of key inter-
est to the Kremlin, real authority has passed to “adhocrats”, figures made presidential plenipotentiaries regardless of their official role. Presidential aide Vladislav Surkov certainly plays a more powerful role over Ukraine for example, while Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev appears unofficial ‘minis- ter for the Balkans’. Once the nabob atop the elephant leading the parade, now Lavrov follows behind with bucket and spade to clean up the mess.
Much will depend on who succeeds him. The traditional approach would be to appoint a professional from within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID), and there are certainly serious and credible candidates. Some of the deputy minis- ters are perhaps a little too old but there is a strong bench of potential successors. Elevating any of them other than Oleg Syromolotov – the career Federal Security Service (FSB) general made deputy foreign minister for counter-terrorism cooperation as a reward for keeping the Sochi Winter Olym- pics safe – would suggest continuity. Even if the MID might no longer have as powerful a voice in the government, at least it would retain its role as a force often advocating mod- eration and cooperation behind the scenes, while justifying extremist and confrontation in the outside world.
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