Russia denies Sergey Kislyak is leaving US even as plans are made for send-off

The Russian foreign ministry has denied reports that its ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, is being recalled, even as plans for his departure are under way in Washington.

The US-Russia Business Council in Washington confirmed on Monday it was hosting a farewell dinner on July 11 for Kislyak, who has become a controversial figure for his contacts with senior members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US presidential election.

However, the Russian foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, posted a statement on Facebook saying it was up to Vladimir Putin to decide whether to recall Kislyak to Moscow and appoint a successor, and that the process would take many months from the time a decision was made.

“And if a decision is made to name a new ambassador to the United States … then Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak, who has worked in the United States for nine years, will go down in the history of bilateral relations as a person who did everything to develop them even in the most complicated circumstances,” Zakharova said.

Diplomats in Washington had been expecting Kislyak’s departure for some time. He had been tipped to take the top counter-terrorist job at the UN, but that was given to another Russian official, Vladimir Voronkov.

Instead it was reported on Sunday, first by BuzzFeed News, that Kislyak would be going to back to Moscow, at a time when he is a central figure in the investigations into Trump links to the Kremlin.

His contacts with Michael Flynn, the administration’s initial national security adviser, ultimately led Flynn to resign; and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, came under fire during recent Senate hearings for his own undisclosed meetings with the ambassador during the campaign.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, is also reported to have met Kislyak, during the transition in December, and discussed setting up a secret back channel to Moscow.

A former US ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, said in a tweet on Sunday: “As Ambassador Kislyak gets ready to leave … I wish him well. While in the USG [United States Government], I enjoyed working with him, even when we disagreed.”

In her Facebook statement, Zakharova took a swipe at McFaul, who she implied had the source of the reports of Kislyak’s recall. McFaul resigned as ambassador to Moscow in 2014 after only two years in the post, during which he was pilloried by pro-Kremlin media for meeting with opposition leaders. He has since been banned from entering Russia.

Zakharova claimed McFaul “fled Moscow in shame, having messed up not only all possible diplomatic tasks and protocol appearances and code words, but also the strange mission that the Obama administration gave him.”