Luis Ayllón
The Spanish government will soon appoint the diplomat Ricardo Martínez as its new ambassador to Moscow, once the Russian authorities have given the go-ahead for the appointment, which was requested in mid-February, as The Diplomat has learned from reliable sources.
The Russian authorisation has come four months after the Council of Ministers agreed to initiate the request for permission, a fairly long time in normal diplomatic practice and which, in this case, is a clear response from Vladimir Putin’s government to the attitude adopted by Pedro Sánchez’s government when Russia requested authorisation to relieve its ambassador in Madrid.
At the end of October 2022, Spain gave its consent for the Russian Federation to appoint Yuri Klimenko – replacing Yuri Korchagin – as ambassador in our country, four months after having requested it in the last days of June. Furthermore, after his arrival in Madrid, the government decided that the presentation of his Letters of Credence to the King, instead of being made publicly, together with other ambassadors, and with the traditional and colourful ceremony in the Royal Palace, should take place in the Zarzuela Palace, in a meeting with the monarch, of which there is no graphic testimony.
Moscow has taken as long to grant the new Spanish ambassador the same amount of time as it took Spain to grant it to the Russian diplomatic representative, following the pattern it has been developing of responding in an equivalent manner to the decisions of the Spanish government. This was the case in May 2022, when following the invasion of Ukraine, Spain expelled 27 members of the Russian embassy in Madrid and Russia responded by expelling the same number of people from the Spanish diplomatic representation in Moscow. Moreover, in response to the Spanish government’s refusal to accredit several people that Russia wanted to include in its embassy, it refused to grant the visa to Antonio Ramos, who had been appointed consul general in Moscow.
As The Diplomat reported, the person chosen to head the Spanish mission in Russia is Ricardo Martínez, a veteran diplomat with good connections to the PSOE who has had time in recent months to get up to speed with both the Russian language and the complicated relations between the Spanish government and Russia.
Until last February, Martínez, a diplomat since 1986, was ambassador to Germany, where he spent five and a half years, after having held the consulates in Sao Paulo and Edinburgh, and having been, among other things, director general of Cooperation with Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe and director general of Casa África.
If he is appointed in the near future, his arrival in the Russian capital will practically coincide with that of the new ‘number two’, Javier Echeandía, who will replace Agustín Núñez as of 1 August.
As for Marcos Gómez, the current ambassador, who has been in the post for just under three years, his destination, as The Diplomat also reported, will be to occupy the post of Spain’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, an appointment that could also take place in the near future.
