Ambassador from the Security Council

Deputy Nikolai Patrushev will represent the interests of Russia in Latvia

This week, Evgeny Lukyanov, an ambassador of Russia to Latvia, began to fulfill his duties in a row. Like his predecessor Alexander Veshnyakov, Lukyanov is not a career diplomat - before his appointment in Riga, he held the position of deputy secretary of the Security Council.

Many greeted the new ambassador with fears: firstly, he is considered a person of Putin’s team, and secondly, he is famous for rather sharp statements-for example, a promise of an “adequate, effective and cheap” response to any NATO strengthening in the East-that is, primarily on the territory of the Baltic states.

On Tuesday, Yevgeny Lukyanov, who arrived in Riga with his wife on the eve of the New Year, solemnly took office: he met with Latvia President Raymond Weyonis and handed him faithful letters. During the meeting, the president and the new ambassador converged that the relations of Russia and Latvia in recent years have experienced difficult times, but it was necessary to more actively develop industry cooperation - in the field of trade, transport and culture, as well as the fight against organized crime and illegal migration.

The latter is especially relevant for Latvia: according to official figures, each year several hundred refugees-mainly from Vietnam-are trying to cross the Russian-Latvian border to get into the European Union. Often, Russia refuses to accept such refugees that the border service is detained. It is this problem that Latvia explains the start of the construction of the fence on the border with Russia, the first 23 kilometers of which have already been erected.

In addition to industry cooperation, Raymond Weyonis and Evgeny Lukyanov agreed to resume the work of the Russian-Latvian intergovernmental commission-presumably, the meeting of the commission will be held in the first half of 2017.

The name of Evgeny Lukyanov as a probable successor Alexander Veshnyakov was first sounded at the end of last year and caused an ambiguous reaction in Latvian society. A few words about the biography of the new ambassador: received an education in the specialty “English language and literature”, worked for several years at the research institute as a translator, then, in the mid-80s, he received a position in the USSR Foreign Ministry, but six years later he went to work in the administration of the Hermitage Museum, and then in the banking sphere. Since 2006, he worked in the presidential envoy in the North-Western Federal District, since 2010-an assistant, and then Deputy Secretary of the Security Council.

As the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lukyanov was noted by sharp statements against the United States - “Exporter of Democracy”, which “brings a complete collapse to the existing world order” and NATO, which he promised a “effective and cheap answer”.

In this sense, Lukyanov is a much more tough figure than his predecessor of Veshnyakov, whom many in Latvia considered a compromise in the conditions of complex relations of Russia and Latvia. “Veshnyakov very professionally and conscientiously fulfilled the requirements that came from the Russian government,” the Lukyanov’s predecessor Latvian political scientist Ivar Iyabs appreciated. “He was such a hard worker: we had ambassadors who held on much more sharply than Veshnyaks.”

When the name Lukyanov was first sounded as the most probable option, the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Raymonds Jansons confirmed the media that the Foreign Ministry can take advantage of the veto's right. Theoretically, this is really possible: in order to get to work, the ambassador must receive the alleged stay of Agreman in the country, but the department has the right to refuse this. In practice, this happens extremely rarely: such a step is a sign of a deep crisis of bilateral relations and is perceived as extremely unfriendly.

Now, after the ambassador to the Veinatives of the Latvian politicians and political scientists, it remains to guess: what did Moscow want to say with this purpose? Political scientist Alexei Grigoryev believes that Lukyanov was chosen to “cause some kind of irritation”. Another Latvian political scientist Karlis Dauksts does not agree - he believes that Lukyanov’s obvious proximity to the Russian ruling elite is a positive signal.

“This increases the level of purpose,” says Dauksts. - Lukyanov was quite close to making a decision at the highest level in Russia. This is some kind of signal, it is not completely clear to me, but I think that increasing the level of representation is a positive sign. ”

Ivar Iyabs also believes that you should not immediately expect the worst from Evgeny Lukyanov. In any case, it was necessary to conduct a rotation: Veshnyakov has been in this position for eight years. Yes, if Veshnyakov was more likely an official (recall that before he was appointed by the ambassador he held the post of chairman of the CEC), then Lukyanov was rather a politician, but this is not necessarily bad. “I think that now the phase when we should give what Benefit of the Doubt is called - literally, the presumption of innocence - you should not look for a reason for confrontation from the very beginning,” Ivar Iyabs believes. “We must see how he will act.”