New Russian Ambassador to New Zealand Stanislav Krans gave his debut interview to The Post in early June less than two months after his appointment in mid-April. His interlocutor was very hostile, even outright rude at times, but he kept his cool throughout. Krans began by declaring that his goal is to improve people-to-people ties and lamented that New Zealand’s sanctions on Russia destroyed their nearly $500 million bilateral trade as of 2022. Average people, he emphasized, are the ones who suffer.
Krans then responded to speculation that he wants to manipulate average folks into pressuring their government to change its policy towards Russia by declaring that “It is not a big deal for Russia to have relations with governments that do not want good relations with us. We call it mirror diplomacy. That means if someone does not like us, we will respond the same way.” This “mirror diplomacy”, he later explained, accounts for Russia’s travel ban on certain New Zealanders who backed sanctions against it.
He then condemned the government’s “cancel culture” for canceling Russian culture and the Russian language while blaming officials for following the UK’s lead vis-à-vis Russia for historical reasons. Krans also made the related point that European and American media narratives are dominant in New Zealand. For that reason, he’s working very hard to help New Zealanders better understand Russia, with the end goal being to improve tourism and educational exchanges for strengthening people-to-people ties.
Suffice to say, he also defended Russia’s special operation throughout the interview, which seemed to incense his interlocutor and trigger her into becoming even ruder than she already was as it went on. Why Krans’ interview is significant is because it highlights the political and media challenges that Russian diplomats face in officially designated unfriendly countries such as New Zealand. As he himself admitted, “we have no chance” to change their policies, and diplomats like him are disrespected during interviews.
All that they have any hope of doing is improving how members of civil society in their host countries perceive Russia with the aim of improving people-to-people ties and maybe one day unsanctioned trade. The receptiveness of their targeted audience varies by country, being practically non-existent among ethnic Balts in the Baltic States to being very much palpable in parts of the Balkans like Macedonia as recently confirmed by the new Russian Ambassador there, while New Zealand is more in the middle.
Krans will have achieved his mission if average New Zealanders come away from reading his interview questioning whether their government has told them the full story about the Ukrainian Conflict and consequently conducting their own independent research into it. He’d also probably be pleased if they realize just how much their national discourse is dominated by European and American narratives. Thus, media appearances by diplomats like him are of outsized importance, and he’s trying to lead the way.
Therein lies the relevance of Western “cancel culture”, however, since few outlets are brave enough to platform Russian diplomats due to not wanting to amplify their views and fear of being “canceled” themselves by anti-Russian “activists” for their (nowadays rare) act of (usually imperfect) journalism. The Post accordingly deserves credit for giving Krans the chance to introduce himself and his ideas to New Zealanders even though his interlocutor could have been much more professional during the interview.
