Russian President Vladimir Putin has tapped Sergey Beseda, who reportedly fell out of favor with the Kremlin in the past, to help negotiate with the U.S. – Newsweek has rounded up what we know about him.
Why It Matters
Washington, Moscow and Kyiv are currently embroiled in negotiations about the Russia-Ukraine war and these are set to continue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday, when the focus will be on ensuring safe navigation in the Black Sea.
The Russian delegation for these talks will be led by Grigory Karasin, the chairman of the Federation Council committee on international affairs, and Beseda, an advisor to the Federal Security Service (FSB) director, Russian presidential aide for international affairs Yury Ushakov said.
“These are genuinely experienced negotiators who know international problems well,” he told journalists.
What To Know
Beseda is an intelligence officer who reportedly fell out with Putin over some faulty intelligence in the run-up to Moscow’s 2022 invasion, according to The Moscow Times.
Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov, a leading expert on the country’s security services, reported the fallout at the time, saying Beseda was placed under house arrest.
Soldatov claimed the FSB attempted to downplay Beseda’s arrest, “presenting it as a mere questioning of the powerful general.”
“But now I’ve learned from my sources that this ‘mere questioning’ didn’t save Beseda from a cell in Lefortovo Prison,” he wrote in an opinion piece for independent Russian publication The Moscow Times.
A former employee of the FSB and an acquaintance of Beseda told Important Stories that Beseda formally retired from his position of Fifth Service head due to his age and became a personal adviser to Alexander Bortnikov, FSB director.
Mark Galeotti, the author of Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, said at the time that he does not that Beseda was replaced “for his failures around the start of the Ukraine war.”
“He has reached the compulsory retirement age of 70 and although he could stay in post by presidential decree, where his failings come in is in that he doesn’t have the political capital to get that, even if he wants to,” Galeotti wrote.
“Besides, he is not out in the cold, but is appointed an adviser to the director of the FSB, a usual sinecure, Galeotti added, “Had the [government] wanted to signal displeasure, it would have foregone this courtesy.”
AP
What People Are Saying
Ushakov said about the current negotiations, after a call with U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Wednesday, “Mr. Waltz and I agreed that consultations on this account in a bilateral format will be held by experts appointed by the presidents. These consultations will take place in Riyadh on Monday, March 24. Head of the Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Grigory Karasin and advisor to the Federal Security Service director Sergei Beseda will participate in them on the Russian side.”
He added: “We discussed the arrangement of a meeting between expert groups of the two countries to start primarily with exploring prospects for possibly implementing the well-known initiative concerning the safety of navigation in the Black Sea.”
What Happens Next
Negotiations will continue on Monday, which Ushakov said he hopes “will be productive.”
