Do we like them?Do we like Sergey Lavrov?
Our score: 1 out of 10. A long run of his own harmful words, from defending an anti-gay law to Bucha claims fact-checkers rejected, with no real good found to set against it.
Lavrov was already Russia's foreign minister in 2013 and still holds the job in 2026, which makes him one of the longest-running faces of Moscow's diplomacy. The catch is that, per the Kyiv Independent, he has little say in the Ukraine talks now. Two Ukrainian officials and a US official told it that other channels, run by Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov and fund chief Kirill Dmitriev, do the real work.
The Kyiv Independent also ties his fall from the inner circle to his hardline public lines, which sometimes cut across the Kremlin's softer messaging, and to his part in the collapse of a planned Trump-Putin summit in Budapest in October 2025. One Ukrainian official put it bluntly: there is nothing to talk about with him. The Kremlin has denied he is out of favour.
The day after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, the US, Britain and the EU announced they would sanction both Putin and Lavrov, with the EU deciding on asset freezes. That put him personally on the Western sanctions lists for his role in the war's diplomacy. He is still under US sanctions, which is why his October trip to a US-hosted G20 meeting raised questions about waivers.
The most notorious moment came in May 2022, when Lavrov told Italian TV that Zelensky's Jewish background did not settle the Nazism question, adding: “I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood.” Israel's foreign minister called it unforgivable and outrageous, and Israel summoned Russia's ambassador. Israel's PM office said Putin apologised, though the Kremlin's account of the call did not mention one.
On the harm test he leaves a trail in his own words. In 2013 he rejected Dutch and EU criticism of Russia's gay propaganda ban, saying Russia had no commitment to allow such propaganda and warning against pushing values the majority does not share. A Moscow Times fact-check of his 2024 Tucker Carlson interview found his claim that Russia did not start the war false, and found his claim that the Bucha evidence was staged contradicted by witnesses, video and satellite imagery. In September 2026 he claimed “metastases of Nazism” in EU and NATO states, particularly Germany.
Lately he has kept up the same tone. In May 2026 he accused the US of trying to push Lukoil and Rosneft out of global markets, and in September he said Russia was ready to return to the understanding it says was reached at Anchorage. Rubio's account differs: he has said that Russia's approach had failed because it was unacceptable to Ukraine.