US envoy to Russia retiring amid war, disputes over detained Americans
WASHINGTON — The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, ended his tenure as America’s top diplomat in Moscow on Sunday after nearly three years, spanning the Trump and Biden administrations, and will retire from a lengthy career in government service.
His departure, which comes in the midst of an increasingly serious crisis over Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as disputes over detained Americans in Russia, had been expected this fall. But it was sped up due to family medical issue, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Ambassador Sullivan’s departure is planned and part of a normal diplomatic rotation,” the State Department said. “He has served a full tenure as U.S. ambassador to Russia, managing one of the most critical bilateral relationships in the world during unprecedented times.”
The department added: “The U.S. will continue to condemn unequivocally the Kremlin’s aggressive war against Ukraine.”
Elizabeth Rood, the deputy chief of mission to Russia, will be the top U.S. diplomat in Moscow until a successor nominated by President Joe Biden replaces
Sullivan.
Sullivan took the helm of the Moscow embassy at a particularly difficult time in U.S.-Russia relations, which have only grown worse. He struggled to hold together a diplomatic mission dramatically reduced in staff as Washington and Moscow carried out an increasingly severe series of tit-for-tat expulsions.
His four-decade public service career included postings in Republican administrations as deputy secretary of state and senior positions in the departments of Justice, Defense and Commerce.
Sullivan was State Department’s No. 2 official when he was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate with unusually strong bipartisan support to be ambassador to Russia in December 2019. Biden asked him to remain in the post after taking office in 2021.
Still, his time was not without controversy. Sullivan delivered the news to Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that Trump had lost confidence in her and that she was being recalled early from the post.
Sullivan told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he was given no other explanation for Yovanovitch’s removal and told her that he did not believe she had done anything to warrant her recall.