"He was a prosecutor, lawyer and judge"

Alexander Baunov - about the diplomatic career of Vitaly Churkin

On February 20, in New York, at the 65th year of his life, a regular representative of Russia at the UN Vitaliy Churkin died. Since the late 1970s, he was in the diplomatic service, and in the 1990s he became the personification of the new Russian diplomat-open and confident. In recent years, Churkin defended the actions of the Russian authorities - in relation to Ukraine, countries of Western Europe, the USA. At the request of Medusa about the role of Vitaliy Churkin, the editor -in -chief of the site of the Moscow Center of Carnegie Alexander Baunov discusses.

Ambassador to the UN is a specific position that differs from the one occupied by ambassadors in some countries. A classic ambassador is a lobby for the relations of his state with the state in which he is accredited. The main goal of a good ambassador is to preserve the world between the two states so that trade between them to grow, cultural and economic ties are strengthened. Even [German ambassador to the USSR Friedrich-Verner von der] Shulenburg fought for peace between the USSR and his Germany until June 1941. And the political leadership is already deciding with whom to strengthen the connections more, with whom less, and with whom to fight.

Ambassador to the UN - another job. Churkin was the speaker of the Russian Party in the world parliament, if we assume that the UN is the very world parliament in which decisions of world significance should be made.

Classic ambassadors are not very many, more in private circumstances, an ambassador to the UN - this, of course, a parliamentarian, and first of all the speaker and Churkin was a good speaker - here Russia lost a unique person.

In the 1990s-revolutionary for the Foreign Ministry-Vitaly Churkin was about 40 years old. Those who are older, then tried to quickly receive a high rank and retire, those who are younger, went to the private sector. As they run away from Trump in America, then they fled not so much from Yeltsin as in the private economy that appeared, where there was a huge demand for people with experience in international activities - in banks, oil companies. For a person of his age, then it was a serious choice.

Churkin made a choice in favor of the diplomatic service. Now he is perceived through the prism of Ukrainian conflict. So, we must recall that Churkin is a diplomat of the Yeltsin time, the times of getting into a west, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Russia.

Churkin worked equally well for Boris Yeltsin’s democratic Russia and for Russia, which later became more authoritarian. And he would work as well for Russia, which would decide to restore freedoms and relations with the West. In the 1990s, he was one of those who established a completely new type of communication with journalists-in English, alive, with direct answers to questions: there was nothing like that in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, only official statements and papers.

It is impossible to perceive it as a pawn of dictatorship, Churkin - not a recruit of the Ukrainian war, although during this time many are accustomed to perceive it in that quality when he defended the Russian position on the Boeing Malaysian, Crimea and Donbass.

But you need to understand that he worked on the site where the decision of the one hand behave in accordance with the ideals of humanity and humanity, not to lie and not manipulate the opinion of the international community does not mean that other parties will behave the same.

As once replied [spokesman for the President of the Russian Federation] Dmitry Peskov to the question of honesty: "The diplomat should not lie, but no one can force him to tell the whole truth." I think that Churkin was guided precisely by these ideas. But the problem is that he is not alone. If we want another UN, we need another world. How much he was accused of protecting the Russian position during the Georgian War, but it turned out to be much closer to the truth than then many seemed to be. This was confirmed by both independent international investigations and diplomatic dispatches that fell on Vikiliks.

The UN now is a place where imperfect people compete, who protect the far from ideal positions of their governments, sometimes some are more right than others - but no one puts their interests there below the universal principles. We lost a person who knew how to protect the Russian position well, convincingly performed and died, most likely, from a state of permanent stress. In recent years, work consisted of an endless series of conflict situations that had to be constantly prepared for. In fact, Vitaly Churkin all the time performed in an open court hearing, in which he was a prosecutor, a lawyer, and a judge, depending on the topic of discussion.

Recorded Sasha Sulim