Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
No cause of death has been made public.
Alexander Darchiev, Russia’s ambassador to the US, has died at age 66, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.
The ministry said he “passed away suddenly” in a statement published on X and gave no cause of death.
“We have lost an outstanding diplomat, an experienced leader, a kind colleague and a mentor,” the ministry said in the statement.
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A veteran of the Washington file
Darchiev had taken up the ambassador’s post in March 2025, succeeding Anatoly Antonov.
According to Meduza, he joined the Soviet and then Russian foreign service in 1992, worked as minister-counselor at the Russian embassy in Washington from 2005 to 2010, and served as Russia’s ambassador to Canada from 2014 to 2021.
His appointment in Washington coincided with a reset in US-Russia contacts after President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Darchiev led the Russian delegation at the first Russia-US working talks in Istanbul in February 2025, according to Meduza, and later accompanied President Vladimir Putin to a summit with Trump in Alaska last year.
Abu Dhabi talks wrap without a territorial deal
The death was made public on the same day two days of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi between Russian and Ukrainian delegations closed without a breakthrough on territory.
Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said the parties had agreed in principle to a new large-scale prisoner exchange, with details to follow. Pushed on land, Medinsky told reporters that “every inch of our land will be returned to Russia.”
US special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who mediated the talks alongside Ukraine’s Rustem Umerov, said deep-seated distrust between the warring sides remained a major hurdle. Kushner and Witkoff planned to brief Putin in Moscow on Thursday before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ireland.
No word yet from the Kremlin or Washington
Neither the Kremlin nor US officials had commented on the circumstances of Darchiev’s death by the time the Russian Foreign Ministry’s announcement went out, and the ambassador’s post in Washington now sits vacant for the second time in two years.
