Envoy knew the damage meetings could cause

Sergey Kislyak is a seasoned diplomat who has been Russia’s ambassador to Washington for nine years. A stout, jowly man who speaks perfect English, he is known for his low-key approach, in contrast to the more combative style of Russia’s long-serving foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

Kislyak, 66, joined the Soviet foreign ministry in the late 1970s. During the turbulent Perestroika years he was a second secretary at the Soviet mission to the United Nations before moving to the Washington embassy. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he returned to desk jobs in the foreign ministry in Moscow.

He was appointed ambassador to Belgium in 1998, serving simultaneously as Russia’s envoy to Nato. Following a stint as deputy foreign minister, he became ambassador to Washington in 2008.

He has received several state decorations, including the Order of Friendship, awarded by President Boris Yeltsin for his contribution to the Shuttle-mir programme, in which Russia and the US cooperated in space.

An arms control specialist, Kislyak played a key role in negotiations over the New Start treaty to reduce nuclear weapons, signed between Russia and the US in 2010 after President Barack Obama attempted to ‘‘reset’’ relations with Moscow.

That thaw did not last long, ending definitively in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Kislyak kept out of the limelight then, but in a speech at Stanford University last November, he admitted that Russia and the US were ‘‘living through the worst point in our relations after the end of the Cold War’’.

It appears that Kislyak was working hard to investigate - and perhaps influence - the Trump team last year, likely well aware of the political fallout his meetings could cause on the US side.

Revelations about his multiple phone conversations with Michael Flynn led to President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser resigning only 24 days after he was appointed.

Now it appears that a second American heavyweight, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, could fall prey to contact with the ambassador.

Kislyak’s networking efforts prompted satire on social media yesterday. One Twitter user posted a picture of Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw writing one of her columns. The caption read: ‘‘I couldn’t help but wonder ... had the Russian ambassador been meeting with everybody except me?’’ - The Times