President Vladimir Putin of Russia has appointed career diplomat Vasily Nebenzya as ambassador to the UN, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
The anointment is coming five months after the unexpected death of predecessor Vitaly Churkin.
Nebenzya, 55, who had served as deputy foreign minister, will represent his country’s interests in New York at the UN Security Council, of which Russia is one of the five permanent member states.
Churkin, Russia’s previous UN ambassador had a career that spanned four decades.
He died in February at age 64, a day before his 65th birthday , after serving in the post for more than a decade.
Churkin’s tenure was marked by clashes with the West over conflicts in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, as well as an ephemeral reset in U.S.-Russian relations that disastrously unravelled over regime change in Russian ally Libya.(dpa/NAN)