Russia is working hard to secure visas for foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and other officials to enter the U.S. as part of a delegation to the U.N. General Assembly. Numerous Russian officials and propaganda outlets are warning that the Biden administration may not approve his visa to attend the high-level gathering, which will take place in late September — in some cases “demanding” that Lavrov be allowed to enter the country.
According to state-owned news agency Sputnik, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, told the Rossiya 24 television station that his team had placed the request with the Biden administration. “Tomorrow I will have another visit to the State Department, where one of the central issues I intend to raise is this problem, the problem of full-scale, full-fledged participation of our minister and delegation at the upcoming September events in New York,” he reportedly said.
Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, said today, though, that Antonov was scheduled for no such meeting.
Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine more or less froze bilateral diplomatic initiatives between the U.S. and Russia. Washington has also worked to isolate Moscow at international organizations, successfully leading a push to boot Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council earlier this year.
Still, despite that and the passage of U.N. resolutions targeting Russia, it has not been totally isolated on the international stage, as countries such as India and Israel — which are aligned with the U.S. on certain issues — have taken a more middle-of-the-road approach to Russia, which they consider a strategic partner. China, meanwhile, has all but taken Russia’s side in the diplomatic sphere, promoting the Kremlin’s talking points and alleging that the U.S. and NATO provoked the invasion.
Russian president Vladimir Putin announced on August 8 that Lavrov would lead the country’s U.N. General Assembly delegation.
In comments on August 15, Lavrov’s foreign ministry publicly grappled with the possibility that Washington might not permit his delegation to enter U.S. airspace. Following the start of the invasion, the U.S. and dozens of other countries closed their airspace to Russian aircraft.
“Washington should refrain from provocative actions that could disrupt the participation of the head of the Russian delegation at the UN General Assembly,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, according to TASS, another Russian state-owned outlet. “All issues related to the Russian special flight are to be coordinated according to the established procedure through bilateral channels between the aviation authorities of Russia and the US.”
According to an earlier TASS report, on August 5, Lavrov even appealed directly to Secretary General Antonio Guterres, telling reporters that he sent the U.N. chief a letter to oblige him “to make the host country behave correctly.”
During the Rossiya 24 interview in which he discussed the visa issue, Antonov also reportedly said he wanted to raise the possibility of discussions with the U.S. about replacing the New START arms-control treaty with a new agreement. President Biden approved an unconditional five-year extension of New START soon after taking office.