Lavrov Embarrassed Himself Before His Meeting With Modi

• 13.09.2026, 20:06

A Russian minister roughly shoved a Kremlin reporter.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rudely shoved aside a Kremlin reporter so he could greet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and shake his hand. The incident occurred the day before and quickly went viral on social media, according to Dialog.UA.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov roughly shoved aside a Kremlin journalist in order to greet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and shake his hand. The incident occurred the day before and quickly went viral on social media.

In the published video, Lavrov is running late for a meeting and, as he walks, pushes aside a member of the press who happened to be in his way. When his colleague made a remark, the minister responded with a phrase that itself became a source of ridicule.

“I’m not touching myself, I’m touching you,” Lavrov said.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to Lavrov. In 2018, he tripped and fell to his knees while walking onto the stage at the “Russia—Land of Opportunities” forum, after which he joked that he had tripped on a step, not “on the diplomatic front.” Over the years, the minister has also been caught on video using crude and profane language, including the infamous “morons, f…” at a press conference in 2015, as well as rudely advising journalists to “go talk to peacocks.”

This latest incident is particularly telling because it did not involve an opposition journalist, but rather a representative of the Kremlin-aligned press. The Russian minister has long been accused of rudeness and of displaying it in public.