Vyacheslav Yevgenevich Kovalenko (Russian: Вячеслав Евгеньевич Коваленко) (born 27 March 1946)[1] is a career diplomat and a former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Armenia.[2] He served as ambassador to Georgia until the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Georgia and Russia in the wake of the August 2008 war.[3]
Kovalenko graduated from the Institute of Oriental Languages at Moscow State University in 1972, and went on to work in various diplomatic posts in the central offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and abroad.
In 2004, Kovalenko was appointed as Director of the Second Department of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,[1] and was appointed as Ambassador of Russia to Georgia on 11 July 2006.[4] On 29 August 2008, Georgia ordered all Russian diplomats to leave the country.[5] Kovalenko left Tbilisi on 30 September with 22 Russian diplomats on a flight to Moscow.[6]
Kovalenko speaks Russian, Arabic, Belarusian and French.[1]