New US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy will aim to expand staff at the US Embassy in Moscow so it can improve performance including potentially resume visa issuance, US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said. “Her focus will be to provide leadership to the embassy to maintain this bilateral relationship in a period of extraordinarily heightened tensions and to work with the Russian government to improve staffing at the US Embassy platform, so that our embassy can perform basic functions, like potentially even visa issuance,” he said at a news conference. (https://tass.com/world/1559373) “We believe it’s in the interests of both our countries, in the United States and in Russia, to have fully effective, functioning missions in our respective countries, including the ability to provide visa services,” Price said.