Envoy Focuses on the Positive

WASHINGTON ?€” Russia's ambassador to the United States, Yury Ushakov, was host at an elegant soiree for some of Washington's most prominent people recently, just as the latest spy scandal between the two countries was exploding. "I felt sorry for him," said Robert Strauss, who was the guest of honor at the party at Ushakov's residence.

Despite the ample caviar, the whole suckling pigs and the Stoli vodka to help the A-list guests wash it all down, it was a slightly awkward affair. Strauss, who knew what everybody was gossiping about, brought up the matter of the once-secret American tunnel under the Russian Embassy that was suddenly all over the news.

"Tunnels and spies and this wonderful evening ?€” that's typical of our wonderful Russian-American relationship," said Strauss, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow.

Ushakov loosened up enough to joke about the tunneling operation, even as Russia was expressing its concern to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. "If we find it," Ushakov told a society reporter, "perhaps we can use it as a sauna."

The latest back and forth between the United States and Russia over espionage may harken back to the tense days of the Cold War, but even with the current precarious relationship it is clear that Russia's diplomatic style has evolved in recent years.

"Past Soviet ambassadors really didn't mingle much ?€” partly because they weren't invited," said Esther Coopersmith, a Washington socialite who has known every ambassador from Moscow since Anatoly Dobrynin, the legendary envoy who spent almost two decades representing the Soviets.

"Mr. Ushakov is so different from the others. He brought flowers to my house for Thanksgiving. He's involved in charity. He is sweet," Coopersmith added.

In an interview Friday, he came across as taciturn but friendly, a gracious host but a guarded one who admitted that he had a lot on his mind that he could not talk about.

Some of Washington's Russia experts, in and out of government, consider Ushakov less steeped in the issues than some past ambassadors were. "It may be extraordinary skill on his part, but no matter how volatile the situation being discussed, he seems to have nothing to say," said one U.S. official who has consulted with him.

Ushakov said over tea that he works long hours, partly because the time difference forces him to send cables to Moscow late at night.

When time allows, he spends an occasional weekend on Chesapeake Bay at a summer house owned by the Russians.

"I do like Washington life, but sometimes it's too much and you need something else," he said, adding that "only God and Mr. Putin" knew how long his assignment would last.

Because of the latest crisis, Ushakov said he had delayed a trip to Moscow in which he was going to visit his mother and his bosses.

One of his campaigns as ambassador is to open up Russia's imposing edifices in the United States to more Americans so they are not regarded, as he put it, "as spy nests."

"All of these spy stories are part of this relationship, but I think they are a minor part," he said. "Sometimes it's interesting to read about spies, but not very often and not always."

Ushakov is eager to change the subject, and he has had ample experience since arriving here in trying to block the front pages out of his mind when he steps out at night.

The welcoming party organized for Ushakov on his arrival in the United States in September 1999, came during the allegations of Russian money laundering. "I would like to tell you about Russians," he said. "Not all of them are criminals, not all of them are thugs and bandits."

The grand opening of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington later that year coincided with the detention of a Russian diplomat for eavesdropping on the State Department.

Then, Secretary of State Colin Powell told Ushakov on Wednesday that some of his colleagues who were suspected of spying had to go home. Moscow has retaliated in kind.

"It's a normal part of the job," Ushakov said of his "very polite" meeting with Powell. "It happens from time to time. You have to be a realist. It will also happen in the future."

But the tit for tat, so reminiscent of the Cold War, will not change the next big social gathering that Ushakov will hold ?€” a champagne supper next month to celebrate the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg.