The US Senate on Wednesday (December 21st) confirmed the appointment of a Russian-speaking career diplomat as US ambassador to Moscow, in a context of heightened tensions with Russia since the launch of its offensive in Ukraine.
The Senate voted 93 votes in favor and 2 votes against in favor of the appointment of Lynne Tracy, current US ambassador to Armenia and former number two at the US Embassy in Moscow.
She is the first woman to take up this strategic position.
Lynne Tracy has also served in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.
She was also, from 2006 to 2009, the main American diplomat in the Pakistani city of Peshawar where she survived an attack by armed men against her official car.
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The confirmation vote took place before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Congress on his first trip abroad since the Russian invasion in February.
"
Even if Putin continues this brutal war, the United States needs an ambassador who can represent us in Moscow
," said Senator Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
Lynne Tracy "
has the courage to carry out her duties in the face of a hostile government and to represent America outside the walls of the Kremlin
," he told the Senate.
She will replace John Sullivan, who was appointed by Donald Trump and retired in September.
Russian-American relations are going through one of the worst crises in their history with the Kremlin's offensive in Ukraine, a country since then massively supported by the administration of Democratic American President Joe Biden with arms deliveries and financial aid .
But the two countries still maintained discreet channels, negotiating two exchanges of prisoners.