PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin yesterday named Mr Yevgeny Primakov, the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, as his new foreign minister.
Mr Primakov (66) replaces Mr Andrei Kozyrev, who resigned last week after enduring years of criticism of his pro western policies from Russia's nationalist and Communist opposition.
Mr Primakov is one of Russia's most experienced specialists in foreign affairs, and in the Soviet era he held a number of senior positions in the Communist Party and academic world. As President Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms led inexorably to the collapse of communism, Mr Primakov, far from abandoning the party, actually rose in 1989 to the post of a candidate (non voting) member of the party's ruling Politburo.
Mr Primakov's chief area of expertise is the Arab world, especially Egypt. He became a familiar face to western television viewers in 1990 and 1991 when he was Mr Gorbachev's special envoy to the Gulf, charged with the task of averting a war between the west and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
After the failed conservative Communist putsch of August 1991, Mr Gorbachev appointed Mr Primakov to run the foreign intelligence service of the former KGB. The fact that Mr Yeltsin kept Mr Primakov in this job after the demise of the Soviet Union suggests that he greatly valued his colleague's knowledge of the world and experience of intelligence matters.
Mr Yeltsin's staff said last week that Mr Kozyrev's departure would not result in any changes to Russia's foreign policy. Under Russia's constitution it is the president who plays the most important part in fashioning foreign policy, a factor that ought to make for continuity and stability.
However, Mr Primakov does not have quite the same clear cut, pro western profile as Mr Kozyrev. His appointment may therefore serve a useful purpose for Mr Yeltsin by soothing some of the critics of the president's foreign policy in the Russian parliament.
Mr Primakov can be expected to give loyal support to Mr Yeltsin's efforts to prevent the expansion of Nato into central and eastern Europe. He is also likely to continue Russia's policy of improving relations with China, one of the Kremlin's main diplomatic successes of recent years.
Mr Primakov has the unusual distinction of being born in a city, Kiev, that is now the capital of a foreign country, Ukraine.