Yury Filatov

Yury Anatoliyevich Filatov (Russian: Юрий Анатольевич Филатов; born 9 December 1957) is a Russian diplomat. He has served as the ambassador to Chile between 2005 and 2011, director of the State Protocol Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2011 and 2017, and as the incumbent Russian ambassador to Ireland since 2017.

Early career Filatov was born on 9 December 1957, and graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1979. His first assignment, from 1979 until 1981, was to the Soviet embassy in Washington. He returned there for a second posting between 1985 and 1989, and for a third time after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, between 1994 and 1999. He had by this time moved from working for the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to its Russian successor. He was deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs's North America Department between 2000 and 2002, and then Minister-Counselor of the Russian embassy in Canada from 2002 until 2005.

On 3 June 2005, Filatov was appointed ambassador of Russia to Chile, a post he held until 8 June 2011. On his return to Russia he became head of the ministry's State Protocol Department. He held this position until his appointment on 26 July 2017 to be ambassador to Ireland. The ambassador appeared on Claire Byrne Live and said that Ireland should put its own interests first, not those of another country and also said:

"The only thing I know for sure, from the onset of the whole incident on 4 March in Salisbury – the British Government has moved away from dealing with that in a responsible manner. So, they preferred to wage a propaganda campaign, unprecedented, surely."

Russo-Ukrainian crisis

On 2 February 2022, Mr Filatov explained to an Oireachtas committee that there was an "almost daily drumbeat of so-called imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine" and stated there were no facts to support the invasion "fantasy". He said "The most pressing issue facing Russia, Europe and beyond is the threat to Russian national security resulting from the eastward expansion of NATO" and this "is unacceptable behaviour and has to be dealt with". He dismissed the suggestion that stationing Russian troops around borders with Ukraine was an act of aggression or that Russia planned on invading Ukraine at that time. On 25 February 2022 Mr Filatov was questioned during an interview by David McCullagh on RTÉ News: Six One TV show, in which he claimed that the war was started by the Ukrainian government.

On 29 March 2022 Mr Filatov was summoned to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and told of a decision to expel four senior diplomats from the Russian embassy, not including himself though. Mr Filatov did not object to this.

Family and personal life Filatov has held the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary since 2014. He was awarded the Order of Friendship in 2023, and the Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" second class in 2013. In addition to his native Russian, Filatov speaks English and Spanish. He is widower, with a son and a daughter.