Mikhail Bogdanov (diplomat)

Mikhail Leonidovich Bogdanov (Михаил Леонидович Богданов; born 2 March 1952) is a Russian diplomat. He is Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia and Special Representative of the President of Russia for the Middle East. He is also Deputy Chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.

Biography
Mikhail Bogdanov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1974.

As student at MGIMO, he was the captain of the MGIMO basketball team of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and, later, he played professional basketball on the Lokomotiv (basketball club, Moscow).

In addition to his mother tongue Russian, Bogdanov is fluent in Arabic and English.

Mikhail Bogdanov worked in the Soviet embassies in South Yemen from 1974 to 1977, Lebanon from 1977 to 1980, Syria from 1983 to 1989, and Syria again from 1991 to 1994. He was Russian ambassador to Israel from 1997 to 2002, and ambassador to Egypt, and was concurrently Representative to the Arab League from 2005 to 2011. A 1994 leaked diplomatic cable written by Bogdanov revealed that the Russian diplomacy was completely clueless on the aftermath of the deadly accident of Bassel al-Assad.

Mikhail Bogdanov was appointed director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2005. He served as Deputy Foreign Minister since June 2011, Special Presidential envoy for the Middle East since 23 January 2012, and Special Presidential envoy for the Middle East and Africa since October 2014. In a November 2015 news conference, Mikhail Bogdanov declared that Russia did not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization, since it had not committed terrorist acts on Russian soil, and maintained a legitimate presence in the Lebanese government.

During the Syrian Civil War, he acted as an intermediary between the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition based in Turkey and allegedly was debriefed by Randa Kassis, who is a friend of Sergey Lavrov, after she had attended a speech by Donald Trump Jr., for the 2006 established Fabien Baussart associated think tank Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA) in the Louis XV Salon at the in Hotel Ritz Paris on 11 October 2016 after which she allegedly stated that she could serve as a back door communication link between the Trump presidency and Vladimir Putin.

Personal
He is married and has a son.

Awards

 * Orden of Friendship.png Order of Friendship
 * Orden of Honour.png Order of Honour