When Donald Trump delivered his first foreign policy speech of the 2016 campaign at a Washington hotel last April, a special foreign guest was in attendance: Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to Washington. 
 
 Before the speech, the soft-spoken Russian envoy and other foreign ambassadors mingled at a backstage reception also attended by Trump and future Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to an account written by one of the event’s hosts. 
 
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 Afterward, Kislyak sat near the front and listened as Trump bashed the Washington foreign policy status quo and repeated his controversial call for a new dawn in U.S.-Russian relations. “I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia—from a position of strength only—is possible, absolutely possible,” Trump said in a ballroom at the Mayflower Hotel. “Some say the Russians won’t be reasonable. I intend to find out.” 
 
 After the speech, Kislyak, who is tall and heavyset, headed for the door swiftly—pausing to cautiously answer a question from POLITICO on his way out. Trump “made some intriguing points, but we need to understand what is meant in the implementation,” he said. 
 
 That was typical for the 66-year-old Kislyak, a career diplomat and fluent English speaker who has been Moscow’s man in Washington since 2008. Kislyak keeps a low public profile: He mostly shuns television appearances, rarely speaks to American reporters and does not tweet. 
 
 But there’s no avoiding the spotlight now. Kislyak has become Washington’s most dangerous diplomat, with one top Trump official already sacked and another now in the hot seat over conversations with the Russian envoy. 
 
 Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned last month after he gave inaccurate accounts to White House officials—including Vice President Mike Pence—and to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak in December. Sessions recused himself Thursday from investigations involving Russian hacking and other interference in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf after reports that he failed to disclose meetings he had with the Russian envoy last July and September, when he was a Trump campaign adviser. 
 
 It is not clear whether Sessions or Trump spoke at any length to Kislyak at Trump’s foreign policy speech in April, hosted by the Center for the National Interest. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that Trump had greeted the Russian “warmly.” In his Thursday news conference announcing his recusal from Justice Department investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, Sessions said he could not remember any other meetings with Kislyak beyond the two he has acknowleged. 
 
 A Sessions aide told POLITICO that a staffer accompanying the senator that day remembered "talking to several specific ambassadors and other guests in the holding room,” but not Kislyak. The aide said the staffer "does not believe he would have met Sessions at that point,” but also acknowledged it was possible and the staffer did not see it. The aide did not convey Sessions’s own memory of the event. 
 
 The White House declined to comment on whether Trump had interacted with Kislyak at the Mayflower Hotel. But the White House did confirm a Thursday report that Kislyak held a previously undisclosed meeting with Flynn and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at Trump Tower in December. 
 
 People who know Kislyak describe him as intelligent but an unyielding advocate for the Kremlin line—much the character described by Sessions on Thursday when he recalled a September meeting with Kislyak in his Senate office. 
 
 “I thought he was pretty much of an old-style Soviet-type ambassador,” Sessions said at his news conference announcing the decision to recuse himself. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment about whether Sessions had interacted with Kislyak at the April event. 
 
 After some initial small talk, Sessions said, “somehow the subject of Ukraine came up.” He added that the conversation turned “testy” after Kislyak seemed to portray the conflict there as Ukraine’s fault. Sessions said that in Kislyak’s view, “Russia had done nothing wrong … and everyone else was wrong.” 
 
 The Obama administration and Western European governments overwhelmingly believe Russia to be the aggressor in Ukraine. 
 
 Some U.S. officials believe Kislyak to be more than a stubborn advocate for Russia’s foreign policy: On Tuesday, the Kremlin’s top spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, denounced as “fake news” a CNN report that cited unnamed U.S. officials alleging that Kislyak is an intelligence officer who recruits and runs spies. 
 
 A think tank expert who speaks regularly with Kislyak cast doubt on that claim, while saying that Kislyak is a highly trusted emissary who is regularly called back to Moscow on short notice for meetings. 
 
 “I have had no indication” that Kislyak is a spy, said Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. He added that it’s possible U.S. officials consider any Russian official now in the U.S. to be an intelligence operative “by default." 
 
 An engineer by training, Kislyak came to the U.S. in the early 1980s to work for the Soviet mission at the United Nations in New York City, and then at the Russian Embassy in Washington. He returned to Moscow to serve in the foreign ministry on scientific cooperation and arms control issues. After a stint as Russia’s ambassador to Belgium and to the NATO alliance, Kislyak was named ambassador to Washington by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, assuming his post in July 2008. 
 
 He arrived at a contentious moment in U.S.-Russia relations, just before Russia’s invasion of the neighboring republic of Georgia led to soaring tensions with Washington. But things now are even worse, he told an audience at Stanford Business School in November. 
 
 “We are living through the worst point in our relations after the end of the Cold War,” Kislyak said. “You’ve re-entered a policy of containing Russia … You’ve tried to contain Russia through economic pressure and through sanctions.” 
 
 He added that the U.S. has waged what he called “a huge propaganda campaign against Russia.” 
 
 But Kislyak also says better relations between Moscow and Washington are possible: “In the Cold War, there were irreconcilable ideological differences,” he said at Stanford, adding that that is no longer the case. 
 
 In pursuit of a thaw, Kislyak often travels beyond Washington to promote his country’s business beyond Washington. Inside the Beltway, he hosts and attends regular cultural events. They include regular “jazz diplomacy” nights co-hosted by American University’s Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History—one recent installment featured performances by Wynton Marsalis and the Russian jazz star Igor Butman—at which Kislyak calls for better understanding of Russian culture in the U.S. 
 
 “Stereotypes have to change in the heart,” he said in October. 
 
 At Russia’s fortress-like Embassy on Wisconsin Avenue, north of Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, Kislyak also hosts parties for fellow diplomats, Russia specialists and other Washingtonians with personal or business ties to Russia. (Though elegant, those functions may also reveal hints of Russia’s economic malaise: At one recent event, bartenders served Kirkland vodka—the brand sold by the bulk-discount retailer Costco.) 
 
 The Russian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment. 
 
 When he’s not socializing, Kislyak generally toes the Kremlin’s tough line on U.S. policies. “He can be very charming, and he can be very tough,” Rojansky said. “He never backs down from intellectual combat. I’ve seen him debate a dozen rounds back and forth.” 
 
 Even so, two days after Trump’s election, Kislyak sounded hopeful about the prospects for a friendlier dialogue with his Washington counterparts. 
 
 “I still believe that there will be enough wisdom not only in your country but in ours to focus on what unites us,” Kislyak said in November. "Because we can do things together.” 
 
 Whether Kislyak still believes that, now that he is at the center of the biggest story of Russian intrigue since the Cold War, remains unclear. 
 
 Shane Goldmacher and Josh Gerstein contributed to this report. ||||| FILE- In this Sept. 6, 2013, file photo, Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S. speaks with reporters at the Center for the National Interest in Washington. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE- In this Sept. 6, 2013, file photo, Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S. speaks with reporters at the Center for the National Interest in Washington. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration's back-to-back controversies over its Russian ties now have at least one thing in common: Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 
 
 Moscow's top diplomat in the U.S. has become the Kevin Bacon of the Trump White House's Russia imbroglio. A Washington fixture with a sprawling network, he has emerged as the central figure in the investigations into Trump advisers' connections with Russia. In a matter of weeks, contact with Kislyak led to the firing of a top adviser to the president and, on Thursday, prompted calls for the attorney general to resign. 
 
 Separately, a White House official confirmed Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn met with Kislyak at Trump Tower in December for what the official called a brief courtesy meeting. Flynn was pushed out of the White House last month after officials said he misled Vice President Mike Pence about whether he and the ambassador had discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia in a phone call. 
 
 At issue Thursday were two meetings between Sessions and Kislyak — one in July and another in September, at the height of concern over Russia's involvement in hacking of Democratic officials' emails accounts. Intelligence officials have since concluded Moscow ordered the hacks to tilt the election toward Trump. In his confirmation hearing, the Alabama Republican denied having contact with any Russian officials, neglecting to mention the meetings with Kislyak, which were first reported by the Washington Post. 
 
 The Russian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Although the White House dismissed the revelation as part of a political witch hunt, Sessions' former colleagues took the omission seriously. At the urging of some in his own party, Sessions recused himself from the Department of Justice's investigation. Still, Democrats called for him to step down. 
 
 Observers note Kislyak is a somewhat unlikely figure to cause controversy. Over the course of a long diplomatic career, he's led the life of a somewhat typical global envoy — making himself a reliable presence on the circuit of receptions, teas and forums that make up the calendar of any ambassador. 
 
 Kislyak, who was appointed to his post in 2008, is regularly spotted walking around town, heading to and from meetings. Early in his tenure, he often opened the doors of the Russian Embassy, hosting dinners for foreign policy professionals, Pentagon officials, journalists and Capitol Hill staffers. 
 
 Those who have attended the events describe him as a gracious and amiable diplomat, although perhaps not as polished — nor as confrontational — as his more famous boss, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 
 
 In 2015, when Kislyak invited a group of Washington-based journalists, including one from the Associated Press, to the Russian Embassy for tea, he used the meeting to push warmer relations between the two nations — despite the conflict over Russia's seizure of Crimea and the crisis in Ukraine. 
 
 Kislyak framed U.S.-Russian relations as salvageable and hoped specifically to combat what he considered cartoonish, anti-Russian depictions of his government in the American press. 
 
 At a press conference where he recused himself from the investigation into the Trump campaign's ties with Russia, Sessions said he discussed a number of things with Kislyak, including counterterrorism. He said the meeting became confrontational when the discussion turned to Ukraine. 
 
 Kislyak, 66, has bounced between the United States and Russia for most of his long career. 
 
 His first foreign posting was to New York where he worked at the Soviet delegation at the United Nations in the early 1980s. He spent the following years as the first secretary and then councilor at the Soviet Embassy in Washington before returning to Moscow in 1989, where he took a succession of senior jobs at the Foreign Ministry. 
 
 He did a stint as Russian ambassador to Belgium and simultaneously served as Moscow's envoy at NATO. He then returned to Moscow to serve as a deputy foreign minister, overseeing relations with the United States and arms control issues before being sent to Washington. 
 
 Kislyak's contacts have sparked questions about his role or involvement in the hacking, questions that are difficult to answer. 
 
 The U.S. and Russia, along with many other countries, have made it a practice to separate their top diplomats from espionage activities, although it is not uncommon for an intelligence agent to operate under the cover of a senior-level diplomat. Foreign diplomats to the United States likely expect that their activities will be monitored by U.S. authorities in the same manner that American diplomats are monitored in countries like Russia. 
 
 Russian ambassadors most likely are aware of the intelligence agents operating under diplomatic cover, but are not believed to part of the security services themselves. 
 
 Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday ridiculed the claims of Kislyak's involvement in espionage as "total disinformation" and part of efforts to sway public opinion. 
 
 "I'll open a military secret for you: It's the diplomats' jobs to have contacts in the country they are posted to," she said sarcastically. "It's their obligation to meet with officials and members of the political establishment." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Isachenkov reported from Moscow. Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper and Matthew Lee contributed to this report. ||||| (CNN) Sergey Kislyak is the diplomat's diplomat -- an envoy of extensive experience whose career spans the Soviet era and that of the Russian Federation. 
 
 On his third extended posting to the United States, Kislyak finds himself at the heart of a political firestorm in Washington, his encounters with associates of President Donald Trump under close scrutiny. 
 
 First, his dealings with Trump's short-lived National Security Adviser Mike Flynn led to Flynn being fired for failing to be entirely up front about them; now, two meetings with Attorney General Jeff Sessions are causing heat for the Trump administration. 
 
 So who is Kislyak, and what is his role in the controversy? 
 
 'Effective and experienced' 
 
 The former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said recently that Kislyak had held "all the most important jobs in the Foreign Ministry -- except one." Describing him as "effective and experienced," McFaul added: "You're never confused about what country he's representing." 
 
 Speaking at a Stanford university event with Kislyak in November, McFaul also recalled "the fantastic lunches at his residence" in Washington. 
 
 Sergey Kislyak (left) met twice with Jeff Sessions in 2016 before he was appointed Attorney General in the Trump administration. 
 
 Current and former US intelligence officials have described Kislyak as a top spy and recruiter of spies, a notion that Russian officials have dismissed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said that "nobody has heard a single statement from US intelligence agencies' representatives regarding our ambassador," and attacked the "depersonalized assumptions of the media that are constantly trying to blow this situation out of proportion." 
 
 Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova added sarcastically: "I'll reveal a top secret — diplomats do work, and their job is to establish contacts with people." 
 
 Kislyak, 66, trained as an engineer in Moscow and then attended the Soviet Union's Academy of Foreign Trade before joining the Foreign Ministry in 1977, at the height of the Cold War. 
 
 His first tour of duty as an envoy to the US was between 1985 and 1989, at the height of then-President Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to open up and reform the Soviet Union. 
 
 Former US diplomats say Kislyak's forte was arms control -- a specialism he pursued after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was Russia's ambassador to NATO between 1998 and 2003. As Deputy Foreign Minister a decade ago, he led the Russian side in talks with the US on extending and amending arms control agreements, and showed a detailed grasp of the technicalities, according to experts in the field. 
 
 Posting to Washington 
 
 Kislyak has been Ambassador in Washington for nine years -- an unusually long spell. He arrived shortly before President Obama was elected. And in the early days of his Administration, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with the 'reset' button -- designed to herald a fresh start in relations. But for much of the time since, relations have at best been lukewarm and have frequently been worse, especially after Vladimir Putin became President for a second time in 2012. 
 
 Kislyak was ambassador when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrorv with a 'reset' button. 
 
 In public, Kislyak has been a candid commentator on relations between Moscow and Washington, saying in November that "we are living through the worst time in our relationship" even though the ideological divide of the Cold War was long gone. 
 
 There were -- he said -- more things to unite than to divide Russia and the US: the struggle against terrorism, religious intolerance, climate change. But arguments over Ukraine, NATO's expansion into the Baltic states and the imposition of sanctions over Crimea had led to a situation in which "we have learned to live without you and you have learned to live without us." 
 
 'Collateral damage' 
 
 Kislyak was in the audience at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington last April when then-candidate Donald Trump made his first major foreign policy speech, saying: "I believe an easing of tensions, and improved relations with Russia—from a position of strength only—is possible, absolutely possible." 
 
 Kislyak keeps up a regular schedule of public appearances and speaking engagements across the US. In October, he told the Detroit Economic Club that Russia had become an unexpected and unneeded factor in the US election campaign. 
 
 "We have become collateral damage in the fight between the two parties here," he said. ||||| Putin’s man in Washington is usually far from view. Now he’s at the center of a storm that brought down a key Trump ally and threatens another 
 
 He has become a lightning rod for suspicions about Donald Trump’s ties with Russia, inadvertently bringing down one of the president’s closest allies and now threatening another. 
 
 
 
 Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Vladimir Putin’s man in Washington, is usually far from view inside an imposing white marbled embassy on the third highest hill in the city – a location that prompted fears the Soviets would be able to intercept communications – but now finds himself in the spotlight. 
 
 Jeff Sessions recuses himself from Russia inquiry amid calls for resignation Read more 
 
 Kislyak’s conversations with the former national security adviser Michael Flynn led to Flynn being forced to quit on 13 February for giving a misleading account to the vice-president, Mike Pence, about his contacts with the ambassador. Kislyak’s two meetings with Jeff Sessions caused the attorney general on Thursday to recuse himself from investigations into whether Russia meddled in the US elections; Sessions is now facing calls to resign. 
 
 The second blow came just when Trump was on a high after a relatively well received first address to Congress, indicating that Russia is a cloud over his presidency that will only darken rather than dissipate. 
 
 “Kislyak was acting strategically to engage individuals the Russian government thought could be key allies in the incoming US administration,” said Alina Polyakova, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center in Washington. “What is surprising is how successful they’ve been: Sessions is the second person after Flynn revealed to have had meetings they tried to cover up, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more to come.” 
 
 Kislyak, 66, trained as an engineer in Moscow, attended the Soviet Union’s Academy of Foreign Trade and joined the foreign ministry in 1977. His first spell as an envoy to the US was between 1985 and 1989, just as Mikhail Gorbachev was pursuing perestroika and glasnost. His focus was arms control. 
 
 Steven Pifer, a former US state department official who is now director of the arms control and non-proliferation initiative at the Brookings Institution, a thinktank in Washington, recalled: “He was working to enhance US-Soviet relations and trying to make progress on arms control. I did not detect, as I did with some Soviet diplomats, a visceral dislike of the US. 
 
 “He’s intelligent. He speaks very good English. He can show a sense of humour. At the same time, he can also represent his country even when he has a bad brief to represent, for example over the military intervention in Ukraine. He’s loyal to Russia. I imagine he’s had some interaction with Putin but didn’t come from his inner circle of intelligence and St Petersburg.” 
 
 Kislyak was ambassador to Nato from 1998, then a deputy foreign minister from 2003. In 2008, he was appointed ambassador to the US, not long before the election of Barack Obama. Last December, Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 of Kislyak’s colleagues. 
 
 In a rare press conference last year, Kislyak said: “We were able to end the cold war, but most probably we weren’t able to build post-cold war peace.” 
 
 Some US reports allege that Kislyak is a top recruiter for Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency, a claim that Moscow dismisses as American paranoia. Pifer, who was ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, replied: “That strikes me as pretty odd. Everything I’ve seen, he’s been a Russian diplomat.” 
 
 But Polyakova disagreed: “It’s certainly possible. During the Soviet days the embassy was known to serve that function.” 
 
 She added: “As an envoy for the country he represents, Kislyak is very shrewd. From another perspective, he’s quite manipulative and nefarious in some ways.” 
 
 Those that have dealt with Kislyak, who is married with one adult daughter, say he is a soft-spoken man whose abundant charm gives way to firmness in defending Russia on American soil. 
 
 The Pentagon’s former chief Russia policy official, Evelyn Farkas, said she respected him as “active, informed and smart”.. When confronted on a policy dispute, Kislyak is a gentleman but “he won’t budge”. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sergey Kislyak (bottom center) waits to hear Donald Trump speak during a joint session of Congress this week. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Loquacious and quick with a story, Kislyak seeks to fit in the mould of long-serving Russian and Soviet envoys like Anatoly Dobrynin, who observed and helped shape Washington-Moscow relations for a quarter of a century. 
 
 
 
 Kislyak is said to keep one of the best chefs in Washington’s diplomatic community. He is quick to show pride in his Ukrainian heritage by offering guests and interlocutors pepper-infused vodka to wash down the modern Russian cuisine at the embassy. He has connected Russian ballet companies to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and hosted concerts at the embassy. 
 
 Sessions, at his abruptly called press conference on Thursday, recalled telling Kislyak that he had gone to Russia with a church group in 1991. “He said he was not a believer himself but he was glad to have church people come there,” Sessions told reporters. “I thought he was pretty much of an old-style Soviet-type ambassador.” 
 
 Mike Pence used his AOL email for state business as governor – and was hacked Read more 
 
 Kislyak was present at Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. The president did not mention Russia once. But it did not take long for the issue to dog his administration once again. 
 
 Trump rose to power outside the traditional Washington political networks. As much as that endeared the businessman to his supporters, it made him an unknown quantity to a diplomatic community that cannot afford to be unfamiliar with a contender for the US presidency. 
 
 Sessions, however, had been a US senator for over 20 years. As the only senator to endorse Trump early in 2016, he represented a familiar channel for diplomats to learn more about a candidate pledging to overturn the traditional pro-western, anti-Russian tilts in US foreign affairs. 
 
 Typically, when foreign ambassadors meet with senators in solitary engagements, it is to discuss a parochial issue – a trade relationship with a business partner in a senator’s home state, for instance – or to make an introduction to a high-ranking foreign official. Sessions, in in his press conference, said he met with Kislyak in his Senate office with staffers present, and “somehow the subject of the Ukraine came up”. 
 
 Meeting Kislyak one-on-one, Farkas said, “tells me it’s likely because [Sessions was] advising Trump”. Such discussions are, “generally, considered a bit risky” by presidential campaigns, she continued, though not illegal. 
 
 Michael McFaul, US ambassador to Russia between 2012 and 2014, tweeted: “Let’s not be naive folks. Kislyak obviously was meeting Sessions because of his role in Trump world. That’s his job.” 
 
 Additional reporting by Alec Luhn in Moscow
– As Attorney General Jeff Sessions remains mired in controversy about his contact with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, more info is emerging about the man NBC News refers to as "the shadowy apparatchik at the center of Trump's Russia crisis." Kislyak, who has held his post since 2008, was the same Russian official who spoke with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—leading to the latter's resignation—and the same one at least two other Trump advisers have admitted to chatting with, per USA Today. More on the 66-year-old Kislyak, who NBC notes has kept a "remarkably low profile" in more than 40 years of service to his country: The Washington Post calls him "quiet, careful, rumpled and portly," and says he "shows up everywhere and tries to talk to everyone." He is not, however, thought to be especially close to Vladimir Putin. Kislyak was even in attendance on Tuesday at President Trump's address to Congress, per the Guardian. Its profile notes that he trained as an engineer and first worked as an envoy in the 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev. The AP tries to reconcile Kislyak's new reputation as the "Kevin Bacon of the Trump White House's Russia imbroglio" with his old one as an under-the-radar diplomat who would be the last person observers would think was involved in controversy. Politico offers a look at "Washington's most dangerous diplomat," noting that Kislyak was front and center at a Trump foreign policy speech last April in which Trump called for an easing of US-Russia relations. And in November, Kislyak accused America of carrying out a "huge propaganda campaign against Russia." A story at CNN takes a look at another accusation often thrown Kislyak's way by US intelligence officials: that he's a Russian spy who tries to recruit others. Not everyone agrees with that assessment, per ABC News, which cites ex-US ambassadors and analysts who take issue with the espionage claims. "If he's a spy, then all ambassadors are spies," one former US diplomat says. One thing he's exceptional at: networking, says the New York Times, revealing details of "over-the-top" dinners he likes to throw for guests at his Beaux Arts mansion in Washington and his ability to entertain, but "always with a political objective," per a former US ambassador to Russia.