Serbia’s Ambassador to Russia Lazanski Passes Away

Miroslav Lazanski, the Serbian ambassador to Russia, has suddenly died, Serbia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Lazanski was appointed ambassador to Moscow in June 2019. He had been an MP in parliament since June 2016, elected on the ruling Serbian Progressive Party's list as a non-party person.

Speaking on N1 Television before the 2016 election, Lazanski said that Aleksandar Vucic, then Serbian Prime Minister, now President, had not asked anything from him.

"Vucic did not ask for anything concrete, but considering my career, knowledge and connections and contacts that I have, he saw that I could help the state, the defence system and, in the end, him as well," Lazanski told N1.

Lazanski was a well-known military journalist and commentator since socialist Yugoslav times. Born in Karlovac in Croatia in 1950, he graduated from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.

He started his career at Polet magazine in Zagreb, and later wrote for Vjesnik, Danas and Start. From Zagreb, he also wrote for Politika ekspres and NIN weekly magazine.

He started to write for Politika in Belgrade in 1991, five years later he moved to Vecernje novosti and then in 2001 he returned back to Politika.

According to his biography on the embassy website, Lazanski "reported from the battlefields of Beirut, the Iraq-Iran war of 1982-1988, Afghanistan 1985-1989, the Desert Storm of 1991, Chechnya in 1996 and 1999, Zaire in 1997, Iraq in 2003, Yemen in 2010, Libya in 2011, Syria in three times, Somalia, from Crimea…".

He interviewed various senior military officials, including NATO Commanders-in-Chief in 1982 and 1990, three Soviet Marshals, the KGB Chief General Vladimir...