Russian Ambassador to Portugal Oleg Belous has died in Lisbon at the age of 66, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"The Russian foreign ministry deeply regrets to announce that Russian Ambassador to Portugal Oleg Belous died suddenly in Lisbon on May 8, 2018," the ministry said.

Oleg Belous was born in 1951. After graduation from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, he joined the foreign ministry in 1973.

In 1996-1998, he was director of the ministry’s European cooperation department and was Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1998-2001.

In 2001-2013, he worked at director of the first European department and was appointed Russia’s ambassador to Portugal after that.