Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is stubborn when it comes to defending Russia’s national interests and his “smoking rights”. As permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, Lavrov said “no” to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s efforts to ban smoking at the UN headquarters in New York. He added that Annan “does not own this building”. After becoming the Russian foreign minister in 2004, Lavrov had said “no” to the west’s plans on different occasions at the UN. And hence, the nickname: “Mr Nyet (Mr No)”.
Lavrov was born on March 21, 1950, in Moscow. His mother worked in the Soviet ministry of foreign trade. His father was an Armenian, but Lavrov never used his father’s surname—Kalantaryan—or learned Armenian. He is, however, fluent in five languages—English, Sinhalese, Dhivehi, French and Russian.
In a 2019 interview, Lavrov said that his original plan was to join an engineering physics institute. But his mother pointed him to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). On a Russian talk show, Lavrov revealed that he had wanted to study French and Arabic at MGIMO, but his name appeared on the list for Sinhalese. During his student years, Lavrov wrote the anthem for the elite institute.
He graduated in 1972 and was soon posted to the embassy in Sri Lanka. In 1976, he returned to Moscow, to the foreign ministry’s department of international economic organisations. In 1981, he went to New York as senior adviser to the Soviet mission at the UN. He returned to Moscow in 1988 as deputy head of the department of international economic relations. Lavrov remained at the foreign ministry when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
In 1994, he went back to New York as Russia’s permanent representative to the UN. He remained there for a decade and returned in 2004 as foreign minister in Vladimir Putin’s cabinet.
Lavrov is a fan of cigars, Scotch whisky and Italian suits. His hobbies include white-water rafting, playing the guitar and writing songs and poetry. Over the last 17 years, Lavrov has steered Russia’s diplomatic relations. And, he has successfully put Russia back at the high table of international decision-making. Russia watchers say that Lavrov is not just an executor of policies dictated to him by the Kremlin.
On February 14, he urged Putin to allow more time to solve the Ukraine crisis through diplomacy. But a week later, Putin escalated the situation by recognising the independence of Ukraine’s separatist regions. Diplomacy, however, remains the best option to prevent a disastrous war in the region and beyond—and Lavrov’s role is going to be crucial.