US President Joe Biden on Tuesday appointed veteran diplomat Lynne Tracy as ambassador to Russia after current envoy John Sullivan retired.

Formerly the number two diplomat in the US Mission to Russia, Tracy is currently US Ambassador to Armenia and her appointment to the Moscow post is subject to US Senate approval.

She studied Russian at the University of Georgia and received her law degree from the University of Akron, Ohio in 1994.

After joining the State Department, she has served in missions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

She also served as the top US diplomat in Peshawar, Pakistan, from 2006 to 2009, where she survived an attack on her official car by gunmen.

From 2014 to 2017, Tracy was Deputy Head of Mission to Moscow.

Sullivan, 62, left Russia in early September after less than three years presiding over a mission that had been thinned out by turf deportations and then came under greater pressure after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Sullivan has already left Moscow; In early September, he suddenly left to care for his wife who was suffering from cancer, according to Politico.

His wife, attorney Grace Rodriguez, died Sept. 5, Politico reported.