President Vladimir Putin replaced Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Tuesday with another career diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, who has represented Russia at the United Nations for the past 10 years.
Lavrov, 53, best remembered for challenging U.S. policy on Iraq and the UN policy on no-smoking, is not expected to have any tangible impact on Russia's foreign policy, which is set by the Kremlin.
Ivanov, 58, who had headed the Foreign Ministry since September 1998, will take over the Security Council from Vladimir Rushailo.
Other than this change of guard, Putin left in place the heads of the other ministries that traditionally report directly to him, which in addition to the Foreign Ministry are the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry.
All these ministries remained intact, even though the total number of ministries was reduced from 30 to 17. The only change was to the Defense Ministry, which was given supervision over the defense component of the disbanded Nuclear Power Ministry.
There was no news Tuesday as to whether Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev, Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergei Lebedev and Federal Guard Service chief Yevgeny Murov would keep their jobs, but all are trusted Putin loyalists and there is little doubt that they will stay on.
In his first interview after his appointment, Lavrov told Channel One television that he will be guided foremost by Russia's national interests. He praised Putin for leading Russian society to a consensus on what these interests are, which he said considerably eases the work of Russian diplomats.
Lavrov said his time at the United Nations allowed him to gain sufficient knowledge of all key international issues. "I know ... these problems through the prism of the UN and I hope it will help me in my work."
Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said "nothing has really changed" in the foreign policy and so-called power bloc of the new government.
Even the replacement of Ivanov with Lavrov was seen as a sign of stability.
"My sense is that Sergei Lavrov is similar to Igor Ivanov," said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "He is a career professional who will be running the Foreign Ministry but not taking initiative in Russian foreign policy, as it is President Putin who is the director of that policy and he needs a professional to manage the administrative side of Russian foreign policy."
Upon his graduation from the prestigious Moscow State University of International Relations in 1972, Lavrov accepted a rather unprestigious assignment in the Soviet Embassy in Sri Lanka. After completing this tour of duty, he was transferred to the ministry's department on international organizations and kept this beat for years to come.
Lavrov did his first stint at UN headquarters in New York in 1981-88 before returning to the ministry's seat on Smolenskaya Ploshchad. He left for New York again in 1994 to serve as Russia's envoy to the world body.
For the next decade, Lavrov fulfilled orders from Moscow and pushed the Kremlin's agenda with varying degrees of success during crises over the bombings of Serbia, Kosovo and, finally, Iraq.
It is during the Iraq crisis that Lavrov may have caught the attention of Putin, who addressed the General Assembly and used the UN Security Council to push Russia's stance, Safranchuk said.
Lavrov has come up with at least one initiative of his own, his assault last September on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's smoking ban. In a front-page interview with Izvestia, Lavrov, a heavy smoker, said Annan did not have the authority to stop diplomats from smoking.
"This building belongs to all members of the United Nations," he said. "The secretary-general is just a hired manager."
Annan was quick to congratulate Lavrov on Tuesday, saying he had "learned to appreciate both his wisdom and his wit and considers him a friend," Reuters reported.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also congratulated both Lavrov and Ivanov on their new jobs.
Given his service at UN headquarters and work in the ministry's department for international organizations, Lavrov may be a bit more enthusiastic, if not more active, about working with the United Nations. For this reason, U.S. policy makers may see his appointment as a positive sign.
Kuchins, however, said he reads Lavrov's appointment as neutral for U.S.-Russia relations, given that it is Putin who formulates Russia's policy toward the United States.
Igor Ivanov's re-location to the Security Council, however, may have more of an impact. Kuchins and Safranchuk said they would expect him to elevate the status and role of the advisory body, whose main function since Sergei Ivanov left it in 2001 for the post of defense minister has been to provide a sinecure for ousted ministers.
Rushailo, a former interior minister, did little to maintain the Security Council's reputation as a coordinator of security and defense policies. Under Igor Ivanov, the council could be expected to coordinate the activities of agencies involved in foreign policy and international security, similar to what the U.S. National Security Council does, Kuchins said.
Another new face in the Cabinet is Rashid Nurgaliyev, the new interior minister, who has served as acting minister since Boris Gryzlov left for the State Duma in December.
Nurgaliyev, 46, entered the KGB's directorate for Karelia in 1981 and served in the agency's domestic security branches for 17 years before taking a job in the presidential administration's audit department in 1998.
He worked there alongside Patrushev, and returned to the KGB's main successor, the FSB, in 1999 shortly after Patrushev became deputy director. Putin appointed Nurgaliyev first deputy interior minister in 2002.
Lavrov, 53, best remembered for challenging U.S. policy on Iraq and the UN policy on no-smoking, is not expected to have any tangible impact on Russia's foreign policy, which is set by the Kremlin.
Ivanov, 58, who had headed the Foreign Ministry since September 1998, will take over the Security Council from Vladimir Rushailo.
Other than this change of guard, Putin left in place the heads of the other ministries that traditionally report directly to him, which in addition to the Foreign Ministry are the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry.
All these ministries remained intact, even though the total number of ministries was reduced from 30 to 17. The only change was to the Defense Ministry, which was given supervision over the defense component of the disbanded Nuclear Power Ministry.
There was no news Tuesday as to whether Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev, Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergei Lebedev and Federal Guard Service chief Yevgeny Murov would keep their jobs, but all are trusted Putin loyalists and there is little doubt that they will stay on.
In his first interview after his appointment, Lavrov told Channel One television that he will be guided foremost by Russia's national interests. He praised Putin for leading Russian society to a consensus on what these interests are, which he said considerably eases the work of Russian diplomats.
Lavrov said his time at the United Nations allowed him to gain sufficient knowledge of all key international issues. "I know ... these problems through the prism of the UN and I hope it will help me in my work."
Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said "nothing has really changed" in the foreign policy and so-called power bloc of the new government.
Even the replacement of Ivanov with Lavrov was seen as a sign of stability.
"My sense is that Sergei Lavrov is similar to Igor Ivanov," said Andrew Kuchins, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "He is a career professional who will be running the Foreign Ministry but not taking initiative in Russian foreign policy, as it is President Putin who is the director of that policy and he needs a professional to manage the administrative side of Russian foreign policy."
Upon his graduation from the prestigious Moscow State University of International Relations in 1972, Lavrov accepted a rather unprestigious assignment in the Soviet Embassy in Sri Lanka. After completing this tour of duty, he was transferred to the ministry's department on international organizations and kept this beat for years to come.
Lavrov did his first stint at UN headquarters in New York in 1981-88 before returning to the ministry's seat on Smolenskaya Ploshchad. He left for New York again in 1994 to serve as Russia's envoy to the world body.
For the next decade, Lavrov fulfilled orders from Moscow and pushed the Kremlin's agenda with varying degrees of success during crises over the bombings of Serbia, Kosovo and, finally, Iraq.
It is during the Iraq crisis that Lavrov may have caught the attention of Putin, who addressed the General Assembly and used the UN Security Council to push Russia's stance, Safranchuk said.
Lavrov has come up with at least one initiative of his own, his assault last September on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's smoking ban. In a front-page interview with Izvestia, Lavrov, a heavy smoker, said Annan did not have the authority to stop diplomats from smoking.
"This building belongs to all members of the United Nations," he said. "The secretary-general is just a hired manager."
Annan was quick to congratulate Lavrov on Tuesday, saying he had "learned to appreciate both his wisdom and his wit and considers him a friend," Reuters reported.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also congratulated both Lavrov and Ivanov on their new jobs.
Given his service at UN headquarters and work in the ministry's department for international organizations, Lavrov may be a bit more enthusiastic, if not more active, about working with the United Nations. For this reason, U.S. policy makers may see his appointment as a positive sign.
Kuchins, however, said he reads Lavrov's appointment as neutral for U.S.-Russia relations, given that it is Putin who formulates Russia's policy toward the United States.
Igor Ivanov's re-location to the Security Council, however, may have more of an impact. Kuchins and Safranchuk said they would expect him to elevate the status and role of the advisory body, whose main function since Sergei Ivanov left it in 2001 for the post of defense minister has been to provide a sinecure for ousted ministers.
Rushailo, a former interior minister, did little to maintain the Security Council's reputation as a coordinator of security and defense policies. Under Igor Ivanov, the council could be expected to coordinate the activities of agencies involved in foreign policy and international security, similar to what the U.S. National Security Council does, Kuchins said.
Another new face in the Cabinet is Rashid Nurgaliyev, the new interior minister, who has served as acting minister since Boris Gryzlov left for the State Duma in December.
Nurgaliyev, 46, entered the KGB's directorate for Karelia in 1981 and served in the agency's domestic security branches for 17 years before taking a job in the presidential administration's audit department in 1998.
He worked there alongside Patrushev, and returned to the KGB's main successor, the FSB, in 1999 shortly after Patrushev became deputy director. Putin appointed Nurgaliyev first deputy interior minister in 2002.