In a not-so-subtle act of trolling, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Alaska on the eve of the US–Russia summit wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with “CCCP”, the Russian initials for the USSR.
Once seen in western capitals as a pragmatic and skilled diplomat, the 75-year-old has in recent years mirrored the Kremlin’s radicalised politics, adopting an increasingly combative tone and resorting to trolling and mockery.
Lavrov’s choice of attire nods to the Kremlin’s long-running narrative: Putin has repeatedly claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people”, denying Ukraine’s legitimacy and territorial integrity while promoting a broader notion of unity with Russia.
Most of Russia’s veteran delegation to Alaska, including Lavrov, began their careers in the Soviet Union and have been accused by the Russian opposition of clinging to a Soviet imperialist mentality.
Under Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory, pro-Moscow authorities have dismantled monuments commemorating Ukrainian suffering under Soviet rule, including memorials to victims of Holodomor, the mass famine in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians.
The former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis quipped on X about Lavrov’s clothing choice: “‘Just give us half of Ukraine and we promise we will stop,’ says negotiator wearing USSR sweatshirt.”
Russian fashion bloggers on Telegram were quick to identify the $120 sweatshirt as the work of Selsovet, a Chelyabinsk-based brand that specialises in “Soviet heritage” clothing.
Lavrov’s antics were the latest in a string of Russian provocations leading up to the summit, aimed at unsettling Ukraine and its European allies. Earlier, the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita Simonyan, wrote that the Russian press corps flying to Alaska had been served chicken kyiv cutlets.
The menu choice was quickly seized upon by other Russian propagandists.
“Putin and Trump should turn Zelenskyy into a chicken kyiv. There’s no shortage of humour in the Kremlin,” wrote the pro-Kremlin commentator Sergei Markov.
after newsletter promotion
Russia’s state press, however, were in a less celebratory mood on arrival at their modest sleeping quarters in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, where the summit will take place.
With hotel space taken up by the influx of international media, Russian reporters were put up in the local ice hockey team’s stadium, which had been converted into a Covid hospital during the pandemic and fitted with army beds donated by the Red Cross.
“We are living in Spartan conditions,” one reporter is heard complaining in a clip posted on social media.
