According to media reports, the deputy chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, is to become the new German ambassador to Russia. According to dpa information, the 56-year-old was in talks for the post. There was still no confirmation for a final decision on Tuesday. First, the online portal “The Pioneer” as well as “Spiegel” and “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported on the personnel.

Géza Andreas von Geyr is currently the ambassador in Moscow. Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine in February, the post has been considered particularly difficult. In response to the expulsion of 40 Russian diplomats from Germany in early April, Russia declared 40 German diplomats “undesirable persons”. According to dpa information, this corresponded to about a third of the German diplomatic corps in Russia.

Before his career in the FDP, Lambsdorff worked in the Foreign Service and for the Foreign Office from 1995. From 2000 to 2003 he worked in the press department of the German Embassy in Washington D.C., from 2003 to 2004 he worked in the Russia department of the Federal Foreign Office. Lambsdorff was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017, most recently as Vice President.