I’m in Moscow for a few days, where the weather is miserable and the mood is worse. The stock market has lost 50% of its value since May, much of it since the Russian invasion of Georgia, which raised the political risk premium for Russian securities.
I happened to be here at the same time as the Valdai Group, an annual collection of some of the top Russia-watchers from around the world, who come here at the invitation of the government, to meet the Russian political elite. It’s arranged by Novosti, the state news agency. Yesterday the experts met with Putin, this morning they met with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, and as I write they are meeting with Dmitri Medvedev, in the plush surroundings of GUM, the luxury department store next to Red Square. Why they’re meeting there I don’t know – perhaps Medvedev wants to show how rich and glamorous the new Russia is.
A friend of mine at Novosti let me in to the meeting with Lavrov this morning, on the strict understanding I didn’t directly report any of his comments, as all Valdai meetings are supposedly off-record, though I saw the Times’ diplomatic correspondent feverishly phoning in a story right after the meeting.
Anyway, a couple of interesting perceptions I came away with, which I think I can share without breaking my promise. Firstly, the title of Lavrov’s presentation was: ‘The World Geo-Political Revolution at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Russia’s role’. It made me laugh, because it was so grandiose. And yet it is also typically Russian – Russia has always been annoyed by the feeling it is young and immature compared to the West, and has always dreamt of in fact being in the vanguard, rather than bringing up the rear, and playing some sort of Messianic and revolutionary role in world affairs.
This is what Dostoevsky thought Russia’s role would be – the spiritual saviour of the world via Orthodox Christianity. This Messianism channelled itself easily into Bolshevism, and Russians took immense pride in the idea they were the vanguard of humanity, leading it towards a world geo-political revolution. And now, I guess, they are taking pride in the thought that they are leading a new geo-political revolution, from a unipolar to a multipolar world. Lavrov spoke about how many non-Western countries had expressed their support for Russia’s actions in Georgia, and even expressed nostalgia for the USSR, when the world was a balance of powers rather than unipolar.
The other thing that came up is Russia’s relationship with the UK. Lavrov mentioned an article he had seen, it was on the Telegraph’s blog, which quoted sources in the FCO saying Lavrov had held a very bad-tempered conversation with Miliband in which Miliband had been ‘forced to endure a four-letter-word tirade’. Apparently Lavrov had said ‘who are you to f- lecture me?’ and then asked Miliband whether he had the first idea of Russian history.
Lavrov denied such swearing took place, and said he had ordered the transcript of the conversation to be posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website. I almost wish the story was true and he had told our uppity foreign secretary where to effing go. But you can tell clearly enough what he thinks of Miliband from his response to Miliband’s article in The Times here.
Lavrov must be getting tired of his private conversations with foreign ministers ending up in the press – another conversation with Condoleeza Rice ended up being made public in the UN Security Council, much to Russia’s chagrin.
Meanwhile, Miliband’s tough stance towards Russia just keeps getting tougher. Apparently, he cancelled the scheduled visit of some bag-pipers, who were going to play in a military parade on Red Square to celebrate Moscow Day. That’ll show them.
