Russia’s ambassador to US, Alexander Darchiev, dies at 66

Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Alexander Darchiev, has died at the age of 66, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The ministry said in a statement that he “passed away suddenly” on Wednesday, just a year and a half after being appointed to the US role. Darchiev was an “outstanding diplomat, an experienced leader and a kind colleague” and worked “in one of the most critical areas of Russian foreign policy”, the ministry said.

He was a specialist in Russia-US relations. He was appointed last March, shortly after US President Donald Trump returned to power, and several years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Darchiev was born into the family of a diplomat and minister-counsellor of the Russian Embassy in Hungary, Nikita Ivanovich Darchiev, according to the state-owned TASS news agency.

He first entered diplomatic service in 1992, becoming first secretary and head of the North America department in Russia’s Foreign Ministry. He served as an adviser to the Russian Embassy in the US in 1997 and later took the post of minister-counsellor from 2005 to 2010.