Russian ambassador to UK Andrey Kelin reflected stark global picture
“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” That was how Winston Churchill famously described Russia (the Soviet Union as it then was), back in 1939.
To this day, I can’t think of a better way to describe the complications when trying to decipher Russia, its leadership and its motives. A conundrum reinforced to me yet again this past week during my first conversation with a senior Russian official since the country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Before Russia’s Crimean invasion and annexation in 2014, I had been a fairly frequent visitor to Russia and had witnessed its post-Soviet integration into the global system.
From G8 meetings in St Petersburg, to G20s in Moscow; from multiple St Petersburg Economic Forum attendances, to sitting in the palatial Kremlin with oil industry chiefs and the powerful Igor Sechin as my host; I had seen how Russia appeared to be on a Western economic trajectory.
And yet all that eroded swiftly after the Crimean invasion, which I witnessed firsthand from Kyiv, where I was reporting from in early 2014.
Spring forward 12 years and all that cooperation was gone. Russia, heavily sanctioned and ostracized by the West, was still at bloody loggerheads with the West in Ukraine and the distrust was as great as at any point in the Cold War that followed World War II.
So, my first conversation with a top Russian official in many years was always going to be a strange moment for me, having had the privilege of speaking to so many top Russian and Ukrainian leaders in my career.
My trip to the embassy
In fact, there was something quite surreal about the whole experience of my visit to the Russian Embassy in London to speak to Ambassador Andrey Kelin.
There were times when it felt like I was in some form of parallel reality, some kind of multiverse detached from the terrifying reality as I’ve understood it to date, of the current twin geopolitical crises engulfing Europe, the Middle East and potentially the world.
For a start, there was the setting for our conversation. My team and I were invited to the official residency of the Russian ambassador at 13 Kensington Palace Gardens, also known as Harrington House — without doubt, one of the most beautiful houses in one of the most beautiful streets in the most beautiful part of London.
Inside, I walked through a stunning wood-paneled atrium into an equally stunning main reception room known as the Golden Room. It was in this room that my team, mirrored by Russian Embassy counterparts, were setting up for our interview. Our four cameras were matched by the Russian team’s, creating an ‘eight camera shoot’ — a record for me by at least four cameras.
The Golden Room was adorned with stunning art by several Russian artists, with two beautiful seascapes by Ivan Aivazovsky front and center.
From the Golden Room, I was shown the adjoining Green Room and then the Winter Garden, an orangery where former British Prime Ministers Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan had all been…
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