The 64th US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, aged 84 has died, her family announced in a statement.
Albright, who was the first woman in US history to serve as Secretary of State, died on Wednesday of cancer, her family said.
In a statement posted to her Twitter page, Albright’s family wrote that she died Wednesday “surrounded by family and friends.”
Albright, born Marie Jana Korbelova, migrated from Prague to the U.S. in 1948, rising in American politics before becoming the secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton in 1997.
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She was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honour, by President Barack Obama in 2012.
A statement from her family said: “We are heartbroken to announce that Dr Madeleine K. Albright, the 64th U.S. Secretary of State and the first woman to hold that position, passed away earlier today.
“The cause was cancer. She was surrounded by family and friends. We have lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend.”
It added: “Madeleine Albright, born Marie Jana Korbelova, was a native of Prague who came to the United States as a refugee in 1948 and rose to the heights of American policy-making.
“A tireless champion of democracy and human rights, she was at the time of her death a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, part of Dentons Global Advisors, chair of Albright Capital Management, president of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, chair of the National Democratic Institute, chair of the US Defense Policy Board, and an author.”
Her views on Russian President Putin invading Ukraine
Albright said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be making a “historic error” if he proceeds with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Mr. Putin’s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was ‘entirely created by Russia’ and effectively robbed from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview. Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion,” Albright wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.
“Should he do so, it will be a historic error,” the former top U.S. diplomat wrote.
Albright recounted her impressions of Putin as the first senior U.S. official to meet him after he became Russia’s president. She said she had noted at the time that he was “small and pale” and “so cold as to be almost reptilian.”
Flying back after their initial meeting, Albright said she wrote that Putin was “embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness,” referring to the fall and dissolution of the Soviet Union.”
She wrote that since their first meeting, Putin has become an authoritarian who “equates his own well-being with that of the nation.”
“He is sure that Americans mirror both his cynicism and his lust for power and that in a world where everyone lies, he is under no obligation to tell the truth,” she said. “Because he believes that the United States dominates its own region by force, he thinks Russia has the same right.”
Albright wrote that even if Western powers are able to stave off an all-out war, Putin would simply wait for another chance to “strike” and said the U.S. must “deny him that opportunity.”
“Although Mr. Putin will, in my experience, never admit to making a mistake, he has shown that he can be both patient and pragmatic,” she wrote.
“He also is surely conscious that the current confrontation has left him even more dependent on China; he knows that Russia cannot prosper without some ties to the West.”
