Russia announced the appointment of a former deputy foreign minister as its ambassador to the UN on Thursday.
The Kremlin decree named Vasily Nebenzya as the permanent representative to UN headquarters in New York.
Nebenzya, 55, replaces Vitaly Churkin, who died of a heart attack in February, at the UN Security Council.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry website, Nebenzya joined the diplomatic service in 1983 after graduating from Moscow State Institute of International Relations and has previously served at the UN in New York and Geneva.
He became deputy foreign minister in 2013.