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Russia's Long-time UN Ambassador Dies Suddenly

by Margaret Besheer

   UNITED NATIONS --

   Russia's long-time U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, died suddenly on
   Monday in New York, a day before he would have turned 65 years old.
   The Russian foreign ministry announced his death in a statement, giving
   no details on the circumstances. An operator at New York
   Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center confirmed he had been
   received at their emergency room.
   Fellow U.N. diplomats immediately took to social media to express their
   shock and sadness at his sudden passing.

   "Absolutely devastated to hear that my friend & colleague Vitaly
   Churkin has died," tweeted Britain's U.N. envoy Matthew Rycroft. "A
   diplomatic giant & wonderful character. RIP" he added.
   "Shocked to learn of the passing of our dear colleague Vitaly Churkin,"
   Sweden's U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog wrote. "He will be deeply missed.
   Deepest condolences to his family."

   The new U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley paid tribute to a
   "gracious colleague." "We did not always see things the same way, but
   he unquestionably advocated his country's positions with great skill.
   We send our prayers and heartfelt condolences to lift up his family and
   to the Russian people," she said in a statement.
   The President of the U.N. General Assembly, Peter Thomson, said in a
   statement that he was "greatly saddened" at the news and that "the
   Russian Federation and the United Nations have lost a true son and a
   great international intellect."
   Road to Diplomacy
   Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin was born in Moscow on February 21, 1952. As a
   young boy he appeared in at least three films -- two were about
   Vladimir Lenin.
   He later was a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International
   Relations and went on to earn a Ph.D degree in history from the USSR
   Diplomatic Academy.
   Churkin had a distinguished career as a Russian diplomat, joining the
   foreign ministry in 1974. He was his government's Special
   Representative to the talks on Former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and
   later served as ambassador to Belgium (1994-1998) and Canada
   (1998-2003).
   U.N. Posting
   In 2006, he presented his credentials to then-Secretary-General Kofi
   Annan and took up his post as U.N. ambassador, which he held until his
   death. In the more than a decade Churkin was envoy to the world body,
   he was widely respected by colleagues, even those whose governments had
   adversarial relationships with Moscow.
   In the past six years, his job grew more difficult as Moscow became
   more isolated due to its annexation of the Crimea and its support for
   the regime of Syria's Bashar al-Assad.
   He often clashed in the Security Council chamber with former U.S.
   Ambassador Samantha Power. At a heated council meeting in December on
   the situation in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, Power called out
   Moscow for denying and obfuscating facts and aiding and abetting
   attacks on civilians. Churkin retorted that she sounded like "Mother
   Theresa" for scolding Moscow and urged her to "remember the track
   record of your country."

   Churkin was known as a tough negotiator and a top-notch diplomat. Many
   expected he would be appointed foreign minister if Sergei Lavrov
   retired.
   Vitaly Churkin was married and had two adult children.