Vladimir Putin has reportedly sent his top ally Sergei Lavrov into an exile after the president blamed him for angering the Trump administration.
This revelation comes as the veteran foreign minister, who has not been seen in public in recent days, is sidelined from key summits and meetings in Russia.
According to the Moscow Times, Lavrov upset US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a ‘disastrous’ phone call back in September.
Their conversation resulted in a meeting between Trump and Putin being put on hold despite the Russian president’s desire to get more backing from Washington.
Putin’s long ally also refused to engage in a peace process, resulting in him getting accused by some Kremlin officials of ‘sabotage’.
Shortly after the phone call, Russia was hit by massive US sanctions aimed at moving Putin to the negotiating table and bringing an end to Moscow’s brutal war on Ukraine.
As it is, an investigation may have begun into Lavrov as the Kremlin needs a scapegoat after Russia failed to secure international backing for its war in Ukraine, according to reports.
Lavrov has been Russia’s foreign minister for 21 years but he was frozen out of a top-level meeting of the Russian security council this week, and removed from representing Putin as head of the delegation at the G20 summit in South Africa.
