The Embassy of the United States of America in Moscow is the

diplomatic mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually den ...

of the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

in the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. The current embassy compound is in the

Presnensky District Presnensky District (russian: Пре́сненский райо́н), commonly called Presnya (), is a district of Central Administrative Okrug of the federal city of Moscow, Russia. Population: The district is home to the Moscow Zoo, White ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, across the street from the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

and near the

Moscow Zoo The Moscow Zoo or Moskovsky Zoopark (russian: Московский зоопарк) is a zoo founded in 1864 by professor-biologists, K.F. Rulje, S.A. Usov and A.P. Bogdanov, from the Moscow State University. In 1919, the zoo was nationalized. In ...

. The New Office Building (NOB) building was opened on May 5, 2000. On January 16, 2018, the consular department was opened in the new building, and the reception of visitors began. The new

address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along ...

is Donetsk People's Republic Square 1 (''Ploshchad' Donetskoy Narodnoy Respubliki 1''), the name being changed in June 2022 in a simillar manner to the changing the addresses of the Russian Embassy in Prague and in

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

The former address was "Bolshoy Deviatinsky Pereulok No. 8". The west side of the embassy security parameter was also torn up to remove all barriers between the street and the embassy wall. As of June 2022, vinyl posters supporting the Russo-Ukraine War cover the construction fences.

Organization

The embassy consists of the following sections: * Political Section * Management Section *

Regional Security Office A Regional Security Office is the office at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate that oversees all functions of security. It is headed by a special agent of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) who has the title of Regional Security Officer (RSO). ...

* Economic Affairs Section * Public Affairs Section * Consular Section * Environment, Science, Technology, & Health Section * Law Enforcement Section In addition, representatives of several

U.S. federal agencies Legislative definitions of a federal Government agency, agency are varied, and even contradictory. The official ''United States Government Manual'' offers no definition. While the Administrative Procedure Act (United States), Administrative Proce ...

work in the embassy. There are no consulates in Russia.

Old Building

From 1934 to 1953 the embassy was located in the Mokhovaya House, 13

Mokhovaya Street Mokhovaya Street (russian: Моховая улица) is a one-way street in central Moscow, Russia, a part of Moscow's innermost ring road - Central Squares of Moscow. Between 1961 and 1990 it formed part of Karl Marx Avenue (Проспект ...

, near the Kremlin. In 1953 the embassy moved into the Existing Office Building (EOB) on

Novinskiy Boulevard Novinskiy Boulevard is a street in Presnenskiy and Arbat districts of Moscow. On June 3rd, 2020, 2 men from the Russian city of Barnaul, staged a picket in support of the George Floyd Protests, outside of the U.S Embassy building. They were brie ...

, which still remains a part of the embassy compound, although it is several miles away from the main embassy. During the period 1953–1976 the Soviets irradiated the US Embassy in Moscow with

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

s in the

Moscow Signal The Moscow Signal was a reported microwave transmission varying between 2.5 and 4 gigahertz, directed at the Embassy of the United States, Moscow from 1953 to 1976, resulting in an international incident. The US government eventually determined i ...

incident. In 1964,

covert listening device A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, or wiretapping is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and ...

s were discovered within the US Embassy in Moscow. On August 26, 1977, a fire erupted on the eighth floor of the embassy building. Although it was extinguished, a large amount of information was lost or stolen (several firefighters were in fact

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

personnel charged with removing sensitive material.)

New building

Bugging

Construction of a new chancery began in 1979, with planning having started ten years prior as part of the Cold War détente but delayed due to American dissatisfaction with the sites and conditions, with the Soviet Union being perceived to have gotten the upper hand in negotiations. As part of a 1972 agreement, most of the compound was built by Soviet workers. A team led by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect

Charles Bassett Charles Arthur Bassett II (December 30, 1931 – February 28, 1966), (Major, USAF), was an American electrical engineer and United States Air Force test pilot. He went to Ohio State University for two years and later graduated from Texas Tech ...

designed the new embassy, which was "self-contained", having residences, a school and a shopping center along with office space, and had a red brick exterior to "convey some American flavor". In 1985, the building's columns and walls were found to be riddled with listening devices to such an extent that

classified information Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to kn ...

had to be handled in the old embassy. Construction was halted and all Soviet workers were kicked out. Additionally, Soviet diplomats were not allowed to occupy their new chancery in Washington, D.C. in retaliation. The standoff was resolved in 1994 when American workers were allowed to partially dismantle and rebuild the chancery, replacing the top three floors with four completely new ones.

Construction completed in 2000

In May 2000 the construction of the new building was completed, and the new building was finally opened in June 2000 with classified business confined to the upper floors, while standard consular business is conducted in the insecure lower floors.New building of the US Embassy
. US Embassy in Moscow. Date of access: 20 June 2019. The perimeter of the entire complex is 1320 meters. In 2013, construction began on a new office building with a total area of 24,200 square meters.New US Consulate building opens in Moscow
. Moscow 24. Date of access: 20 June 2019.Heads of departments and representative offices of federal agencies at the US Embassy
. ''US Embassy and Consulates in the Russian Federation'' . Retrieved: 4 June 2022. On January 16, 2018, the consular department was opened in the new building, and the reception of visitors began.

Security and espionage

"The

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

is a global electronic vacuum cleaner, which monitors everything. Look at the top two floors of the new building of the U.S. Embassy—it's a huge antenna, which listens to the Moscow air." According to Igor Korotchenko in 2013, on a Russian television program. Korotchenko is editor of a magazine called ''

National Defense National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military attac ...

'' and a former specialist in Russia's military command.

Vedomosti ''Vedomosti'' ( rus, Ведомости, p=ˈvʲedəməsʲtʲɪ, ) is a Russian-language business daily newspaper published in Moscow. History ''Vedomosti'' was founded in 1999 as a joint venture between Dow Jones, who publishes ''The Wall ...

Newspaper, citing a source in the Russian special services, stated that the embassy is likely to host the local server of X-Keyscore , an Internet surveillance system.Vedomosti.ru
Where can a spy server be located in Moscow?
/ref> Secretary of State

Rex Tillerson Rex Wayne Tillerson (born March 23, 1952) is an American engineer and energy executive who served as the 69th U.S. secretary of state from February 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, under President Donald Trump. Prior to joining the Trump administ ...

hired Elite Security Holdings, a Russian company associated with Victor Budanov, a

general involved in counterintelligence who was a boss of Vladimir Putin, to guard all United States diplomatic missions in Russia, which are located in four cities, including the United States Embassy in Moscow, according to ''The New York Times'' on November 14, 2017.

New street name

On June 22, 2022, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the renaming of the street the Russian embassy in the US resides on, the US embassy in Moscow block and address was renamed Donetsk People's Republic Square, according to the press service of the Moscow Mayor's Office.The territory near the US Embassy in Moscow was renamed "DPR Square"
. ''Vedomosti'' . Retrieved: 22 June 2022 Subsequently, the Embassy's official website refused to utilize the new address for contact information and instead listed the official address as "U.S. Embassy Moscow 55,75566° N, 37,58028° E".US Embassy in Moscow
/ref>

Other properties

The embassy once oversaw two Consulates General in Russia:

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, c ...

and

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

. Today the website states: "Due to critically low staffing of the United States Mission to Russia, the U.S. Consulate General in Vladivostok and the U.S. Consulate General in Yekaterinburg remain in suspended status."US Embassies and consulates in Russia.
/ref> In addition to the buildings on Novinsky Boulevard / Bolshoy Devyatinsky Lane , the United States also owns, on a leasehold basis, the Vtorov's Mansion (the so-called Spaso House by the Americans after the engineer Spaso House). Since 1933 this has housed the ambassador's residence. Before August 1, 2017, the US also owned a dacha in Serebryany Bor and warehouses on Dorozhnaya Street. In 2017, their use was prohibited in response to the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the United States and sanctions.lenta.ru/news/2017/07/28/sklady/ Russia banned the US embassy from using the dacha in Serebryany BorThe ban on access of US diplomats to the dacha and warehouse in Moscow came into force
/ref>

Ambassadors

The position of

United States Ambassador to Russia The ambassador of the United States of America to the Russian Federation is the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Russian Federation. Since September 4, 2022, Elizabeth Rood is serving as the ...

was previously held by John Sullivan until his resignation on September 4, 2022.

References

External links

U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Russia
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United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

{{Authority control

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Soviet Union–United States relations Russia–United States relations