Analysis: Putin’s right-hand man made him look weak by alienating US – it may have cost him his seat at Kremlin’s top table
By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent
In Soviet times, Western observers would scrutinise video footage of state occasions, like military parades on Red Square, to try to learn more about the Kremlin’s hierarchy.
Who was positioned closest to the leader? What did the body language say? Which officials were in, and out, of favour?
In some ways, not much has changed.
The footage present-day Kremlinologists are currently poring over is from Wednesday’s landmark meeting of Russia’s Security Council, in which Vladimir Putin told his top officials to start drafting proposals for a possible nuclear weapons test.
It was an important moment. Not one you’d expect a trusted lieutenant to miss.
But Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s veteran foreign minister, was conspicuously absent – the only permanent member of the Council not present.
According to the Russian business daily, Kommersant, his absence was “coordinated”.
That episode alone would have been enough to raise eyebrows.
But coupled with the selection of a more junior official to lead the Russian delegation at the upcoming G20 summit (a role Lavrov has filled in recent years)? Well, that’s when questions get asked, namely: has Moscow’s top diplomat been sidelined?
The question has grown loud enough to force the Kremlin into a denial, but it’s done little to quell speculation that Lavrov has fallen out of favour.
No one’s bigger than Putin
Rumours of a rift have been mounting since Donald Trump called off a planned summit with Vladimir Putin in Budapest last month, following a phone call between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
According to the Financial Times, it was Lavrov’s uncompromising stance that prompted the White House to put the summit on ice.
Conversations I had with diplomatic sources here at the time revealed a belief that Lavrov had either dropped the ball or gone off-script. Whether it was by accident or by design, his diplomacy (or lack of it) torpedoed the summit and seemingly set back a US-Russia rapprochement.
That would’ve angered Putin, who is keen to engage with Washington, not only on Ukraine but on other issues like nuclear arms control.
More importantly, perhaps, it made the Russian president appear weak – unable to control his foreign minister. And Vladimir Putin is not a man who likes to be undermined.
Football fans will be familiar with Sir Alex Ferguson’s golden rule of management: never let a player grow bigger than the club.
Putin operates in a similar fashion. Loyalty is valued extremely highly.
Has Kremlin heavyweight thrown his last big punch?
If Lavrov has indeed been sidelined, it would be a very significant moment indeed. The 75-year-old has been the face of Russian diplomacy for more than two decades and effectively Putin’s right-hand man for most of the Kremlin leader’s rule.
Known for his abrasive style and acerbic putdowns, Lavrov has also been a vociferous cheerleader for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska, he arrived wearing a jumper emblazoned with the initials “CCCP”, the Russian letters for USSR. The apparent message: Ukraine still belongs to Moscow.
Watch from August: Key takeaways from Trump and Putin’s Alaska meeting
And in the melee that immediately followed the press statements by both presidents at the summit, I remember racing over to Lavrov as he was leaving and yelling a question to him through the line of security guards.
He didn’t even turn. Instead, he just shouted back: “Who are you?”
It was typical of a diplomatic heavyweight, who’s known for not pulling his punches.
But has that uncompromising approach finally taken its toll?