The Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Andrey Kelin, reflected the gloomy global outlook

“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” This was how Winston Churchill described Russia (the Soviet Union as it was then), back in 1939.

To this day, I can’t think of a better way to describe the complications in trying to figure out Russia, its leadership, and its motives. An enigma that was reinforced for me once again last week during my first conversation with a senior Russian official since that country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Before Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, I visited Russia quite frequently and had witnessed its post-Soviet integration into the global system.

From the G8 meetings in St. Petersburg to the G20 meetings in Moscow; from multiple attendances at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum to sitting in the palatial Kremlin with oil industry bosses and the powerful Igor Sechin as host; He had seen how Russia seemed to be on a Western economic trajectory.

And yet, all of that was quickly eroded after the invasion of Crimea, which I witnessed firsthand from kyiv, where I was reporting in early 2014.

12 years passed and all that cooperation disappeared. Russia, heavily sanctioned and ostracized by the West, was still at bloody odds with the West in Ukraine and distrust was as great as at any time in the Cold War that followed World War II.

So my first conversation with a senior Russian official in many years was always going to be a strange moment for me, having had the privilege of speaking with so many senior Russian and Ukrainian leaders throughout my career.

In fact, there was something quite surreal about the whole experience of my visit to the Russian Embassy in London to speak with Ambassador Andrey Kelin.

There were moments when I felt like I was in some form of parallel reality, some kind of multiverse separate from the terrifying reality as I have understood it to date, of the current twin geopolitical crises engulfing Europe, the Middle East, and potentially the world.

To begin with, there was the scene of our conversation. My team and I were invited to the official residence of the Russian ambassador at 13 Kensington Palace Gardens, also known as Harrington House, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful houses on one of the most beautiful streets in the most beautiful part of London.

Inside, I walked through a stunning wood-paneled atrium to an equally impressive main reception room known as the Golden Room. It was in this room that my team, accompanied by their Russian embassy counterparts, was preparing for our interview. Our four cameras matched those of the Russian team, creating an “eight-camera shot,” a record for me with at least four cameras.

The Golden Room was adorned with stunning works of art by various Russian artists, with two beautiful seascapes by Ivan Aivazovsky front and center.

From the Gold Room, I was shown the adjoining Green Room and then the Winter Garden, a conservatory where former British Prime Ministers Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, whose images adorned the room, had entertained.

Looking out into the backyard, a pleasant young diplomat pointed to a small mound of grass. “That’s the old World War II air raid shelter where, according to legend, Ambassador Fedor Gusev and Churchill took shelter one night during a raid and took refuge in a well-stocked emergency cellar. Although that may just be a legend,” he said with a smile.

The surroundings, the impeccably polite young diplomats who catered to our every whim… in short, the Russians were being the perfect hosts, and yet I had to remind myself that these were representatives of the same government that was being ostracized and sanctioned by the West for inflicting the biggest conflict on European soil since the Second World War.

Representatives of President Vladimir Putin, who appears to be on a mission to rebuild a Soviet-era sphere of influence for Russia that has so far claimed hundreds of thousands of dead and possibly millions injured, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Minutes later, I sat down to interview Ambassador Kelin, a 68-year-old career diplomat who has been Moscow’s man in London since late 2019.

Like his attentive team, Kelin was polite and articulate. He answered every question I put to him directly, and yet I very quickly realized that every broader point of view he gave I had heard before, in one way or another, from Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and others, as to the roots of the conflict and how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European backers were barriers to some kind of peace agreement.

I responded and pointed out that it was Russia that invaded Crimea, that it was Russia that broke the 1994 Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, and that it was Russia’s maximalist demands that were the biggest obstacle to a peace agreement.

On every point, Kelin refuted my version of events and stuck to well-rehearsed lines blaming the EU, the West in general and NATO for entering Russia’s sphere of influence and creating the ingredients for the next 12 years of conflict.

Also regarding Iran, Kelin refused to accept that Iran’s pursuit of highly enriched uranium (to possibly build some form of nuclear weapon) was the root cause of the current conflict.

As to whether Russia was actively supporting Iran (former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov once said that Russia would not be “indifferent to its destiny”), Kelin refused to confirm any support, claiming that as a “civilian” he had no knowledge of the matter.

I can’t blame the ambassador for not answering any of my questions. He was a generous host, and yet I came away from our long interview with mixed feelings. From a journalistic point of view, it was a good day. I think both the journalist and the interviewee had a solid, direct and, I hope, respectful conversation about the most important issues of the day.

However, my hopes for a common understanding, for progress towards ending the bloody European conflict, did not arise after our meeting. I felt like little had changed after 12 damn years. The lack of understanding and common ground that could end the war did not seem to exist at all, despite the ambassador’s expressed hopes that the war would end this year.

Once again, Russia and the West spoke, but in completely different languages. To both of them, the other’s motives seemed to be mysteries, riddles, and riddles.