LAVROV, S. V.

A career Soviet-then-Russian diplomat. Joined the Soviet Foreign Ministry in 1972; served as Russia's ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. Appointed Foreign Minister on 9 March 2004; has held the post continuously since — the longest-serving foreign minister of any major power and the second-longest-serving in modern Russian history.

Until 2022, Lavrov was widely regarded in international forums as the «professional» face of Russian foreign policy — fluent in English, French and Sinhala, known for caustic press conferences. Since the 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he has become the chief public defender of the war abroad. He is on the EU, UK, U.S., Canadian, Swiss and Australian sanctions lists — one of the few foreign ministers in the world to be personally sanctioned by Western governments.

Investigations by iStories (March 2022) documented assets attributable to Lavrov's long-term partner Svetlana Polyakova and her daughter Polina Kovaleva: a Kensington townhouse in London worth ≈ £4.4 mn (frozen by UK sanctions in 2022), a 530 m² estate in Kommunarka outside Moscow, and additional Moscow property. A Bellingcat × iStories analysis of flight records identified dozens of trips by Polyakova on Russian government aircraft (Special Flight Detachment «Russia») — to New York, Geneva, Bamako, the Kuril Islands — despite her holding no diplomatic post; an hour of Il-96 operation costs the state ≈ ₽8–12 mn. Lavrov's daughter from his first marriage, Yekaterina Vinokurova, co-founded the Smart Art consultancy in 2014, organising sales of Russian artists through Christie's and Sotheby's; her wealth is estimated above $50 mn USD and she holds Russian, British and Saint Kitts citizenship. She has been on EU, U.S. and UK sanctions lists since 2022.