Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (Russian: Серге́й Ви́кторович Лавро́в, born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat who has been the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. His nomination to the Foreign Minister office were approved by two Russian presidents, in 2008 by Medvedev, and in 2012 by Putin.
Prior to that, Lavrov was a Soviet diplomat and Russia's ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. Lavrov speaks Russian, English, French and Sinhala.
Foreign Ministership
On 9 March 2004, President Vladimir Putin appointed Lavrov to the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs. He succeeded Igor Ivanov in the post.
Lavrov is regarded as continuing the style of his predecessor: a brilliant diplomat but a civil servant rather than a politician, Russia's foreign policy being largely determined by the President of the Russian Federation. A Russian foreign policy expert at London's Chatham House, has described him as "a tough, reliable, extremely sophisticated negotiator", but adds that "he's not part of Putin's inner sanctum" and that the toughening of Russian foreign policy has got very little to do with him.