10 Facts About Sergei Lavrov. This is the Russian Foreign Minister As We (Don't) Know Him

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is, along with President Vladimir Putin, the main face of military aggression in Ukraine. We have seen Lavrov's harsh attitude, also known as "Mr .NO" several times in the past, when he scolded journalists and allegedly insulted the British Foreign Secretary. He is a poetry lover, a passionate smoker and a fan of Frank Sinatra and the Beatles.

To the public, he presents as a family man, but his status as a faithful husband has clashed with the findings of Russian investigators. They claim that he keeps his mistress and takes her on foreign trips and to luxury hotels, all paid for by state money. He is very loyal to Putin, but Lavrov's former boss claims that if he had him behind his back at the moment, he would be careful.

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With Putin, they bond over sports, but disagree on smoking

Sergei Lavrov has been Russia's foreign minister since 2004. Before that, he worked as an ambassador to the UN. When UN Secretary - General Kofi Annan wanted to impose a smoking ban at the organisation's headquarters in 2003, Lavrov, as a passionate smoker, allegedly spoke out against him.

"The UN building is owned by all member states, while the Secretary-General is just a hired manager," he said in a 2003 statement to the BBC. On this point, he disagrees with President Vladimir Putin, who is an avid opponent of cigarettes.

However, the duo connects over their inclination to sports. Vladimir Putin has been training judo since his youth and acquired a black belt as an adult. He later devoted himself to Russian martial art called samba. The head of the foreign ministry Lavrov prefers football and rafting, writes The Independent. His favourite team is Football club Spartak Moscow.

Swearing at statesmen and journalists

As a professional diplomat, Lavrov should be able to keep his emotions in check, but there have been several cases in the past when he has failed. He allegedly used vulgar language in a 2008 telephone conversation with the then head of Britain's foreign ministry, David Miliband, while Miliband criticized him for Russia's attack on Georgia.

"Who the f**k you think you are to preach to me?" he told Miliband, according to The Telegraph. An unnamed official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent the information to the editorial office. Lavrov denied using vulgar language with his British colleague.

In 2015, like many other politicians before him, he forgot that he had a microphone on. He whispered "fu**ing jerks" during a press conference in Saudi Arabia, according to CNBC. His vulgar message has used as a meme, which you can now find printed on clothes. A year later, he called the journalists who filmed it "fue**ers", informed The Moscow Times.

In October 2016, he commented on the US presidential campaign in an interview with CNN. According to Lavrov, there are a number of "pu**ies" in its vicinity. However, he pointed out that English is not his native language, so he does not know if his statements are accurate. As a long-time diplomat working at the UN headquarters in New York, he had to realize that he could easily offend saying this.

The nickname “Mr. NO”

Andrei Gromyko was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1985. In the UN Security Council for the Soviet Union, he constantly used his right of veto, for which he earned the nickname Mr. Nyet - Mr. NO.

Sergei Lavrov, who inherited his nickname from Gromyk, continues in the footsteps of his negative attitudes towards the West, writes ABC News. At the moment, he is also opposed to proposals from Ukraine. For example, after a recent meeting with Lavrov, the head of the Ukrainian ministry said that the Russian foreign minister had refused to commit to the creation of a humanitarian corridor and did not agree to a ceasefire.

Nickname Mr. Nyet also describes Lavrov's statement to Britain in 2018 after the expulsion of Russian diplomats in the event of poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal. Britain blamed Russia for this. "We will never give up when given ultimatums, you cannot speak such a language with the Russian Federation," he said according to Radio France Internationale.

He proposed to make Ukraine a federal state

In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, Sergei Lavrov proposed that Ukraine become a neutral federation with autonomous regions. At the time, there were Russian troops stationed around Ukraine, and the head of the foreign ministry said they would not "cross the border" with Ukraine. Even so, they put pressure on Ukraine. However, the US said that Ukraine as a federal state would first and foremost have to be agreed to by its citizens.

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The Ukrainian foreign minister rejected this option and did not like the fact that Russia is giving them, a sovereign country, ultimatums, says France24. Ukraine’s sovereignty was recognized by Russia in December 1994, when they signed the Budapest Memorandum. In it, the United States, Britain, and Russia pledged that if Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal, the designated powers would respect Ukraine's territorial sovereignty.

Poet and a fan of Beatles

Sergei Lavrov currently acts as a tough man who defends the interests of the Kremlin at all costs, talks back to journalists and we would hardly find a smile on his face. However, when he served as an ambassador to the UN, he was different, according to Los Angeles Times. 

He allegedly had informal conversations with journalists and exchanged jokes with a cigarette in his hand in the corridors of the UN building. In private, he reportedly enjoys playing guitar and enjoys jazz, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, writes The Moscow Times. In the late 1980s and during the 1990s, he even wrote several poems, says Free Europe.

In 2015, three of his poems were published by the Russian website Russky Pioner. According to his daughter Ekaterina, he is a family man who, during his life in New York, has never missed a parent-teacher conference at school. He also taught his daughter to drive and was the first to read her dissertation.

Mistress on expensive business trips?

Sergei Lavrov has been married for years, but according to the findings of the team of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, he maintains an affair with his mistress Svetlana Polyakova, writes Daily Mail. These reports are thus in clear conflict with his status as a "family man".

According to Russian investigators, some government officials thought that Svetlana was the wife of the head of the foreign ministry. When giving contact information, her name was often written as Svetlana Lavrov.

The alleged mistress has been working at the ministry since 2014 and is said to have been with Lavrov on a number of expensive foreign trips, in luxury hotels and on the yacht of oligarch Oleg Deripask, who the US is investigating for money laundering and extortion.

He compared Trump and Kim Jong-un to kindergarteners

US President Donald Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un publicly exchanged relatively harsh messages in 2017. The Russian head of the foreign ministry used the quarrel between the two to his advantage, to "dig into" the pair a bit.

At the time, the United States and many other world leaders criticized the DPRK for missile tests, with Trump saying that Kim Jong-un was "a rocket man on a suicide mission." Donald Trump continued to threaten the destruction of the DPRK, to which the North Korean leader responded, that he was "mentally deranged."

Lavrov told the duo that it would be appropriate to cool their "hot heads" because they behave like "kindergarteners". "Together with China, we will continue to strive for a sensible approach, not an emotional one, such as when children in a kindergarten start fighting and no one can stop them," Lavrov quoted BBC. 

Putin’s loyal spokesman

Sergei Lavrov is one of President Vladimir Putin's most loyal people. The Independent states that Lavrov never took the position of Putin's competitor, thanks to which the president never tried to replace him..

In the current situation, he is also described as Putin's "spokesman", because in contact with Western countries he often interprets the demands of his president, and it seems as if he does not have his own opinion on the subject. According to the BBC he does not have much of a say.

He thus loyally interprets Russian misinformation about the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine, which testifies to his unwavering loyalty. Recently, according to Euronews he claimed that Russia did not even attack Ukraine, but was is actually going on is a "special operation". If he ever disagrees with Putin, he is probably very good at biting his tongue.

He can be dangerous, indicates his former boss

Sergei Lavrov stands behind President Vladimir Putin, as he once stood as a deputy behind the former Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Kozyrev recently backed Western sanctions against Putin and Lavrov, suggesting that Lavrov may still surprise us.

"Lavrov, rightfully sanctioned by the US and EU today, was my deputy in the 90s. Used to have my back. Today, I would watch my back if he was behind me" Kozyrev wrote on Twitter the day after the invasion of Ukraine began.

Lavrov, rightfully sanctioned by the US and EU today, was my deputy in the 90s. Used to have my back.

Today, I would watch my back if he was behind me. pic.twitter.com/a47XArhEYb

— Andrei V Kozyrev (@andreivkozyrev) February 25, 2022

After the invasion of Ukraine, he lost respect of the world

There is no doubt that Sergei Lavrov is an experienced diplomat who has enjoyed considerable respect for his position for a long time. However, the attack on Ukraine put most of the world's states and leaders in opposition of Vladimir Putin’s regime, whose foreign department is headed by Lavrov.

Few people take his statements full of war propaganda seriously, as evidenced by the reaction of delegates to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022. Lavrov tried to defend Russia's aggression in a recorded video they played in Geneva, by saying, that they could potentially discover nuclear weapons in Ukraine, informed The Moscow Times.

The paradox is that a few days ago, Belarus abolished its non-nuclear status, allowing nuclear weapons to be placed on its territory. The delegates were not interested in Lavrov's speech, so they left the hall en-masse in protest, only a small number of ambassadors remained.

This morning in the UN Human Rights Council more than 140 diplomats refused to listen to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s futile attempt to justify unacceptable military aggression. Watch them leave the Council Chamber. pic.twitter.com/Syox5sTvaD

— Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger (@tichy_e) March 1, 2022