U.S. President Joe Biden plans to nominate career diplomat Lynne Tracy as U.S. ambassador to Russia, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Tracy currently serves as U.S. ambassador to Armenia. The U.S. ambassador post in Russia has been vacant since Sept. 4, when envoy John Sullivan concluded his tenure there amid soaring bilateral tensions due to Moscow's war in Ukraine.
The State Department declined to comment on the news, which was first reported by CNN. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Tracy, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2017.
Before being sworn in as ambassador to Yerevan in 2019, she served as senior adviser for Russia affairs in the State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Rami Ayyub and Kanishka Singh; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)
