PROFILE - Who is Russia's new ambassador to US?

MOSCOW

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that Alexander Darchiev, director of its North Atlantic Department, has been formally approved by the US for the position of Russian ambassador to Washington.

A day earlier, Darchiev, 64, led the Russian delegation in talks on the normalization of diplomatic relations held in Istanbul.

A former researcher specializing in North American studies and focusing on both Canada and the US, Darchiev comes from an academic background.

Darchiev graduated from the Faculty of History at Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1983. From 1983 to 1992, he was a postgraduate student, junior researcher, and researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1987, he defended his PhD thesis titled "Left-Liberal Forces in the Socio-Political Life of the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Fluent in English and French, Darchiev has been serving in the diplomatic corps since 1992. A significant part of his career, some 10 years, was spent in the US and Canada, where he held various positions, including adviser and minister-counselor at the Russian Embassy.

From Oct. 24, 2014, to Jan. 11, 2021, he served as Russia's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Canada.

He then returned to Moscow to assume the role of director of the North Atlantic Department, where he served until his recent appointment.

According to the ministry, Darchiev is expected to depart for the US in the near future.