Born on the 10th of January 1935 in the City of Gorky (Nizhny Novogrod), His Excellency graduated from the Moscow Institute of International Relations in 1959, and from the Diplomatic Academy in 1971. He holds Ph. D. in Philosophy, is a Doctor of Law and speaks fluently - in addition to his mother tongue - English, French, German, Swedish and Iceland.

From 1959 to 1975, Mr Rechetov worked in the Treaty of Law Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and also in the Soviet Embassies in Iceland and Denemark. He participated in the proceedings of the European Conference on Security and Cooperation in 1974 and 1975.

From 1975 to 1980, Mr Rechetov headed the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities Unit of the Human Rights Department of the United Nations Secretariat and worked as a secretary of the Sub Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. He worked in the Institute of State and Law of the USSR Academy of Sciencies from 1980 to 1986.

Mr Rechetov was the Deputy Director - later the Director - of the Department of International Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR from 1986 to 1992. He headed the USSR delegation at the 1991 CSCE Meetingon Human Dimensions in Copenhagen, attended the forty-seventh session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and a number of sessions of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. He is a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and, since 1992, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republik of Iceland.

Mr Rechetov is the author of more than 100 publications on international law, international responsibility, international crime and terrorism, humanitarian law, human rights, minority rights, prevention of racial discrimination, CSCE and Soviet and Russian legislation. He has lectured on international law in Belgium, USA, Great Britain, Sweden and Iceland.