© file photoAleksandr Kadakin, Russian ambassador to India
Kadakin, who served for more than two decades as a Russian diplomat, had been the Russian ambassador to India since 2009. He also had served at the New Delhi post from 1999 to 2004.
He was Russia's ambassador to Nepal from 1993 to 1997 and the ambassador to Sweden from 2005 to 2009.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said "Russian diplomacy has lost one of its utmost professionals who selflessly devoted himself to promoting the interests of our country abroad."
The Russian foreign service has suffered several losses in its top echelon in recent weeks. Moscow's ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was assassinated on December 19 in Ankara. Andrei Malanin, Russia's top diplomat in Greece, was found dead on the floor of his Athens apartment of apparent natural causes on January 9.
Comment: Three Russian diplomats dead in just over a month's time. It does make one wonder if there is more to this, given at least one was assassination. See also: