<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Russia's diplomats were once a key part of President Putin's foreign policy strategy. But that has all changed.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the years leading up to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomats lost their authority, their role reduced to echoing the Kremlin's aggressive rhetoric.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">BBC Russian asks former diplomats, as well as ex-Kremlin and White House insiders, how Russian diplomacy broke down.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Short presentational grey line</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In October 2021, US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland went to a meeting at the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow. The man across the table was Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who Ms Nuland had known for decades and always got along with.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Rybakov's American counterparts saw him as a practical, calm negotiator - someone they could talk to even as the two countries' relationship frayed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This time, things were different.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Ryabkov read Moscow's official position from a piece of paper and resisted Ms Nuland's attempts to start a discussion. Ms Nuland was shocked, according to two people who discussed the incident with her.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She described Mr Ryabkov and one of his colleagues as "robots with papers", the people said (the State Department declined to comment on the incident).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And outside the negotiating room, Russian diplomats were using increasingly undiplomatic language.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We spit on Western sanctions."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Let me speak. Otherwise, you will really hear what Russian Grad missiles are capable of."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Morons" - preceded by an expletive.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These are all quotes from people in positions of authority at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in recent years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It might be hard to imagine now, but Mr Putin himself told the BBC back in 2000 that "Russia is ready to co-operate with Nato... right up to joining the alliance".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I cannot imagine my country isolated from Europe," he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back then, early in his presidency, Mr Putin was eager to build ties with the West, a former senior Kremlin official told the BBC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Russian diplomats were a key part of Mr Putin's team, helping resolve territorial disputes with China and Norway, leading talks on deeper co-operation with European countries, and ensuring a peaceful transition after a revolution in Georgia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But as Mr Putin became more powerful and experienced, he became increasingly convinced he had all the answers and that diplomats were unnecessary, says Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who is living in exile in Berlin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prigozhin and Putin: How a long friendship turned ugly</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first signal that a new Cold War was beginning came in 2007 with a speech Mr Putin made to the Munich Security Conference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a 30-minute diatribe, he accused Western countries of attempting to build a unipolar world. Russia's diplomats followed his lead. A year later, when Russia invaded Georgia, Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly swore at his UK counterpart, David Miliband, asking: "Who are you to lecture me?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Western officials still thought it was worth trying to work with Russia. In 2009, Mr Lavrov and the then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed a giant red "reset button" in relations, and the two countries seemed to be building co-operation - especially on security issues.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But it soon became obvious to US officials that their Russian counterparts were simply parroting Mr Putin's growing anti-Western views, says Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to former US President Barack Obama.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Rhodes recalls President Obama having breakfast with Mr Putin in 2009, accompanied by a folk orchestra. He says Mr Putin was more interested in presenting his view of the world than discussing co-operation and that the Russian leader blamed Mr Obama's predecessor, George W Bush, for betraying Russia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the Arab Spring, the US involvement in Libya, and the Russian street protests unfolded in 2011 and 2012, Mr Putin decided that diplomacy wouldn't get him anywhere, Mr Rhodes says.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"On certain issues - Ukraine in particular - I did not get the sense that [diplomats] had much influence at all," says Mr Rhodes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As an example, when Mr Lavrov, the foreign minister, was appointed nearly 20 years ago he had an "international perspective and his own position", a former senior Kremlin official told the BBC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Kremlin used to consult him even when it knew he might have a different view to Mr Putin, says Mr Gabuev.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But when troops were sent into Ukraine in 2022, Mr Lavrov only found out a few hours before the war began, according to a report in the Financial Times.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Putin was said to be more interested in expressing his world views to Obama in 2009 than discussing co-operation</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Andrei Kelin, Moscow's ambassador to the UK, rejects the idea that Russian diplomats have lost their influence. He has worked on relations with Western countries throughout his diplomatic career.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In an interview with the BBC, he refused to concede that either Moscow or individual diplomats bear any responsibility for the collapse of relations with the West.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We are not the ones doing the destroying," he said. "We have problems with the Kyiv regime. There is nothing we can do about it."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He says war in Ukraine is "a continuation of diplomacy by other means". BBC</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>