F-Bomb Fallout

After boisterously abusing UK foreign secretary David Miliband using colorful undiplomatic language the other day, it looks like Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov may be getting kicked up to vice premier. Medvedev apparently wants Lavrov out as the face of Russian diplomacy as he is the “living symbol of Russian-Western confrontation”, and steps are being taken to find his replacement:

Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily said that the informal working group on ‘moderate detente’ in relations with the West is headed by Deputy Chief of the Kremlin Staff Alexei Gromov.

He has been entrusted with damage control after the Caucasus war, which include steps easing access for foreign investors, releasing persons, considered by the West as “political detainees”.

Medvedev set up this group after the reaction of the US and EU on Moscow’s unilateral recognition of Georgia’s breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the daily claims.

Several candidates are under consideration to fill Lavrov’s job, including Gromov himself, who is a career diplomat deputed to the Kremlin in 1996, according to the daily.

Detente! What a short Cold War it’s been.