Media Reports Say John Tefft Will Be Next U.S. Ambassador to Russia

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 21, 2014) While the U.S. is yet to officially nominate its next ambassador to Moscow, the Russian media have widely reported that the likely candidate for the job, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft, would take up the position.

“John Tefft, Ukraine expert, appointed new U.S. ambassador to Russia,” ran a headline on the Argumenty i Fakty website on Monday morning.

The Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti also ran reports, saying that Tefft may get the job, but added that a decision regarding his appointment had yet to be made official.

Many of the reports also cite Kommersant, which did not explicitly say that Tefft’s nomination had been made official, but said that “The U.S. interests in Russia will be represented by John Tefft.”

The flurry of Russian media attention appeared to have been prompted by a report in The New York Times over the weekend that said the White House planned to nominate Tefft as part of a long-term policy of abandoning any attempts at closer ties with Moscow over the annexation of Crimea. Any candidate nominated for the role of U.S. ambassador by the president must then be confirmed by the Senate.

Tefft is a career diplomat who previously served as ambassador to Ukraine, Georgia and Lithuania – all of which are former Soviet republics that have drifted away from or openly defied Russia. Until recently , the White House had been wary that his resume may antagonize the Kremlin, aides said, but those fears faded after Russia’s recent interference in Ukraine.

The previous U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, left the post in February to return to a professorship at Stanford University, just a few weeks before Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.