U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearing to be the subsequent ambassador to Russia within the Dirksen Senate Office Constructing on Capitol Hill on November 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Lynne Tracy as President Joe Biden’s nominee to be ambassador to Russia, hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was to provide a rare wartime address to a joint meeting of Congress.
Tracy, a profession diplomat and current ambassador to Armenia, will likely be the primary woman to function U.S. ambassador to Russia. It was not immediately clear when she is going to assume the post, because Russia must agree to just accept her.
“America needs an envoy to represent us in Moscow,” said Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noting that it was the three hundredth day of the Russian war on Ukraine as he urged support for Tracy.
Tracy was confirmed by an amazing 93-2. The 2 no votes got here from Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee.
Washington has been sending a gradual supply of weapons and economic assistance to Zelenskyy’s government as Ukraine fights Russian troops.
Biden announced Tracy’s nomination in September, weeks after the departure of John Sullivan, who had been appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump and was ambassador as Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine plunged relations to depths not seen because the Cold War.
A Russian speaker, Tracy served as deputy chief of mission in Moscow from 2014 to 2017.
Russia last week questioned Tracy’s suitability, suggesting she might feel more at home at a hardline think tank. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said remarks by Tracy within the media and to the foreign relations committee showed that she saw tighter sanctions against Moscow as the best way forward in bilateral relations. She said Tracy had also noted the necessity for contacts with the opposition and civil society.
Moscow has an envoy in Washington, Anatoly Antonov.
