By Lidia Kelly
(Reuters) -Russia’s envoy to the U.S., a Kremlin hard-liner, was returning to Moscow on Saturday, state media reported, with the tip of his time period coming at a time of probably the most hostile relations between the 2 nations in many years.
“Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Ivanovich Antonov is concluding his Washington assignment and heading to Moscow,” TASS state information company cited the overseas ministry as saying.
The Siberia-born Antonov, 69, a profession diplomat, was seen as a hawk who was nonetheless able to putting compromises. Head of the Russian mission in Washington since 2017, he mentioned in July his project was coming to an finish.
There was no point out of who would substitute the envoy, thought-about a military-style negotiator. His stance on Russia’s conflict in Ukraine has proven stalwart help of President Vladimir Putin’s actions.
“It is obvious to us that the enemy will be defeated and victory will be Russia’s,” Antonov mentioned on Saturday in an unrelated publish on the Telegram messaging app, commenting on Russian forces capturing Ukraine’s mining city of Vuhledar.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a particular navy operation, accusing Washington and its NATO companions of waging a hybrid conflict in Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies say Moscow’s aggression is an unprovoked imperialistic try to seize land.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the most important confrontation between Moscow and the West because the 1962 Cuban missile disaster when the Soviet Union and U.S. got here near nuclear conflict.
Antonov, who served as deputy defence minister throughout a interval which coincided with Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014, was a topic of European sanctions when Putin named him Russia’s envoy to the U.S.
He graduated in 1978 from the principle diplomatic coaching floor of the Soviet Union, the Moscow State Institute of Worldwide Relations. Antonov spent the subsequent three many years climbing by the overseas ministry ranks, based on his biography on the embassy’s web site.
Earlier than shifting to Washington, he was referred to as a shrewd arms management negotiator who had headed Russian delegations to a variety of worldwide and strategic weapons talks.
In an August interview with TASS, Antonov mentioned Russia was prepared to think about a pact with Washington on arms management.
“My tactics for conducting negotiations are very simple: you and I need to take a piece of paper and write down what you want and what I want,” he mentioned.
“Take the two sheets of paper and try to find something in common there, even if it is minimal, but start from this when solving problems.”
