Lavrov Is Not Involved
- The Sieve of Socrates Telegram Channel
- 22.01.2026, 15:18
Will a Russian minister be sent to resign?
Russia's practical foreign policy is increasingly slipping out of the weakening hands of longtime minister Lavrov. The World Economic Summit in Davos has raised the media and political profile of Putin's special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev. He's a month into his tenure and is eager to show results on the U.S. track. The success of Dmitriev, who obviously wants further career advancement in the Foreign Ministry, demoralizes Lavrov. He himself does not have much to boast about. This is evident from his statements at the press conference about the work of the Foreign Ministry in 2025.
The expert community as a whole does not feel sorry for the long-lived minister, who was clearly useful in the old, pre-war times, but is dysfunctional now. He is both representative and effective, inferior to Dmitriev, who is 25 years younger than him! Deprived of real levers of control, Lavrov looks more and more like a grumpy commentator, which in itself belittles him and the government position he holds.
One of Lavrov's striking statements was a jab at London. He calls for Britain to be stripped of the prefix "Great Britain" and thus deprive it of the global ambitions inherent in the "ruler of the seas." Lavrov complains that this is the only example of the country's self-aggrandizement, although earlier there was also the Great Jamahiriya in Libya, which the Russians themselves despicably leaked with the help of Medvedev and Putin, and then wiped away crocodile tears. Wonderfully, but Lavrov forgot about the "Grand Duchy of Luxembourg," and age does not spare him.
The first three weeks of 2026 impressed Lavrov more than the whole of 2025. Apparently, by such an ingenious trick, the idle minister wanted to divert the public's attention. Actually, instead of listing "successes" Lavrov's speech was more memorable for its consideration of the current geopolitical situation in the world.
Russia was concerned about the lightning-fast removal of Maduro from the post of president of Venezuela, and the new version of the Monroe Doctrine for the XXI century announced by Trump, according to which the entire Western Hemisphere is a security zone of the United States. Accordingly, Moscow is happy about Trump's demands to hand over control over Greenland, because according to Lavrov, such a plot leads to a split in the Western camp and creates conflict within NATO. Greenland is situationally favorable for the Russian Federation, as parallels with Crimea are drawn. But here we should make it clear: first, Trump is not going to take the island from Denmark by force, as Putin did with Crimea in 2014; second, the U.S. thinks in terms of the defense of the entire Euro-Atlantic community, because they do not want to allow China and Russia to strengthen their positions in the Arctic.
While Moscow is bogged down in the war against Ukraine, the U.S. is getting closer to controlling the most important sea trade route in the north of the planet. Thus, Putin's clique has no special reason to be happy about Greenland. After all, the Taimyr is clearly visible from Greenland!
Lavrov praises and ingratiates himself with Trump, who is not beholden to the UN and international law. At the same time he denounces Europe allegedly preparing a war with Russia, especially criticizing the policy of remilitarization of Germany from Merz. The Japanese, who are thinking of nuclearizing the country, are also looking in the same direction.
Moscow stimulated the processes of chaos in the world in 2014, and now it wants to slip away by supporting Trump's revisionist ideas, including the "Peace Council," even though they are dangerous to it. Lavrov hopes that Russia will be able to get away with playing on the world's fault lines. But as the history of Iran, where the regime is on the verge of collapse, shows, such games do not bode well.
Lavrov seems to be getting more and more firmly entrenched in the idea that he will be replaced as soon as spring 2026. Therefore, he offered no special strategy, shifting all responsibility for foreign policy to Putin.
Telegram channel "Sieve of Socrates".