The first foreign minister of independent Ukraine, Anatoly Zlenko, has died at the age of 82. This was announced on March 1 by the former Ukrainian ambassador to the EU, diplomat Konstantin Eliseev.
No cause of death has been reported.
“With inexpressible pain I received the tragic news that the first head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of independent Ukraine, my teacher and diplomatic father Anatoly Maksimovich Zlenko, has passed away! All that I have achieved in diplomacy is thanks to his school of diplomacy. Sincere condolences to the Zlenko family, ”Eliseev wrote on Twitter.
Anatoly Zlenko was born on June 2, 1938. Graduated from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, after which he began his career in the diplomatic service in 1967. Since 1983, he was the Permanent Representative of the Ukrainian SSR to UNESCO, in 1989-1990 – the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Zlenko twice served as head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry – from 1990 to 1994 and from 2000 to 2003. From 1994 to 1997, he was Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN, and then Ambassador to France and Portugal.