New Russian ambassador to Canberra helped rebuild Moscow's reach under Vladimir Putin

A veteran Russian diplomat, with ties to President Vladimir Putin, has quietly returned to Canberra, decades after first serving here as a young Soviet envoy.

Exclusive: A Russian government insider who recently ran a unit that worked alongside Vladimir Putin’s intelligence agencies has returned to Canberra as Moscow’s new ambassador.

Mikhail Ivanovich Petrakov, 66, one of President Putin’s trusted diplomats, was formally received by the Governor-General in late September – more than thirty years after serving in Australia as a young Soviet envoy.

He has returned to the same city where he watched the Soviet Union decline – this time as the man who helped rebuild Moscow’s reach under President Putin.

His official resumé tells only some of the story, this masthead can reveal.

Mikhail Petrakov has returned to Canberra as Moscow’s new ambassador.

Between 2019 and 2021, Ambassador Petrakov ran Russia’s Crisis Management Centre – a foreign ministry department his own deputy minister described as a “specialised division” working, among others, with the FSB, the security agency once led by Putin himself.

A 2007 Russian government paper confirms the centre, which the deputy foreign minister said is tasked to counter “threats to the safety of Russian citizens, diplomatic missions and facilities abroad”, was created with its premier intelligence agencies.

“In June, the Government of the Russian Federation approved a concept for ensuring the security of Russian institutions abroad — developed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs jointly with the SVR, the FSB, and the Ministry of Defence.”

“Key elements of the security system are to include the creation of the MFA’s Situational-Crisis Center …”, the paper said.

Ambassador Petrakov welcomed by Australia Governor-General Sam Mostyn in September.

The FSB is Russia’s internal security service, the SVR its foreign intelligence agency, and within the Defence Ministry sits the GRU – the military intelligence directorate implicated in claims of international assassinations, sabotage and cyber attacks, which the Kremlin has always denied.

There is no suggestion that Ambassador Petrakov has been involved in these operations or that he has engaged in any wrongdoing.

In a 2023 interview marking the crisis centre’s tenth anniversary, deputy foreign minister Yevgeny Ivanov said the crisis centre “coordinates efforts” with the intelligence services, among other agencies, on foreign evacuations – a rare public nod to its enduring role in the Kremlin’s security apparatus.

Mikhail Petrakov with Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport to attend the 10th Brics Summit in 2018. Picture: Facebook

In 2021, Ambassador Petrakov was awarded one of Russia’s highest awards, the Order of Honour – the same medal once pinned to Vladimir Putin himself.

Another line on his resumé – “Ambassador-at-Large” – describes only his diplomatic designation, not his role.

From 2021 to 2025, Ambassador Petrakov served as President Putin’s “Special Presidential Representative for the Delimitation and Demarcation of the State Border of the Russian Federation with Adjacent CIS Countries” – the Kremlin’s chief negotiator in drawing Russia’s borders with its former Soviet neighbours.

Mikhail Petrakov was the head of the foreign ministry’s CIS Department from 2008 to 2012.

As head of the Foreign Ministry’s First CIS Department from 2008 to 2012, he helped steer Moscow’s diplomacy after the Georgia war, with Ukraine under its president Viktor Yanukovych and through the CIS Treaty on a Free Trade Area, a predecessor initiative to President Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union.

A doctrine he spoke of, known as “multi-speed integration,” encouraged ex-Soviet states to edge closer to Moscow at their own pace.

Ambassador Petrakov has also helped oversee regional cooperation in what the Kremlin called its geographic “sphere of privileged interests”.

His appointment comes after President Putin relieved his predecessor, Aleksey Pavlovsky, of his duties in April.
The Russian embassy was approached for comment.

Originally published as New Russian ambassador to Canberra helped rebuild Moscow's reach under Vladimir Putin