The Diplomat
The new Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Spain, Yuri Klimenko, arrived in Madrid on Monday 19th and presented his Copies of Letters of Credence 24 hours later at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Klimenko was received by the Ambassadors’ Introducer, María Sebastián de Erice, at the Ministry’s historic headquarters, the Palacio de Santa Cruz.
Born in 1959, Klimenko replaces Yuri Korchagin, who headed the Russian Embassy for the last ten years.
The new ambassador graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and entered the diplomatic career in 1981.
Since then, he has held various positions in the Russian Foreign Ministry and its diplomatic missions abroad.
Klimenko is already familiar with our country, since between 2000 and 2004 he was Minister-Counsellor of the Russian Embassy in Spain, and from 2012 to 2019 he headed the Russian Consulate General in Barcelona.
Between 2004 and 2012, he was deputy director of the First European Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, a post he returned to at the end of his stay in Barcelona and which he held until his appointment as ambassador. This is the department that deals with the affairs of Spain and other European countries.
