Russia has had no ambassador in London since at least July 2026, and the Kremlin seems in no hurry to name one. By one count, only 35 of its 58 diplomatic posts remain, and its intelligence stations are reportedly close to collapse. Yet Moscow is threatening Britain with "catastrophic consequences".
Aidar Aganin, a leading Arabist who reopened Russia's embassy in Tripoli, was the natural choice for Cairo. The post is instead going to a Turkologist who ran the Foreign Ministry's information security department, a field long tied to the FSB and SVR. Since Bogdanov left, security men have been taking over the Arab desks.
A former Russian diplomat leaves Russia over the war with a newborn son and ends up on twelve-hour factory shifts in Galilee. A smartwatch full of English words gets him into a doctoral program. Now he asks why Russians abroad still face their troubles alone, and proposes a way out.
In July 2025, Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia's deputy foreign minister for the Middle East and Africa, was abruptly dismissed. Shortly before, his closest aide had been sent to Lefortovo on charges of high treason. Now Bogdanov himself is reportedly a suspect, and his old department is being handed to outsiders.
Moscow invited the leaders of all 22 Arab League states to its first Russian-Arab summit, set for October 15, 2025. Five days before, the Kremlin announced a postponement. According to Bloomberg, only Syria's president and the Arab League's secretary-general had agreed to come. Why did Russia lose the Arab world?
Sergey Kozlov, Russia's ambassador to Saudi Arabia since 2017, organized the Russian side of the Riyadh talks with the United States. Earlier, as ambassador to Yemen, he pocketed his staff's pay, billed for receptions that never happened and took cuts from construction deals. Then he was promoted.
In 2017, near Sudan's Abu Hamad gold mine, Wagner mercenaries reportedly shot dead at least 73 protesters, including children. Prigozhin's firm mined gold with near-forced labor and mercury, helping Omar al-Bashir evade sanctions. Now Sudan lies in ruins after a civil war that has displaced 11 million people.