by the NSW Aid Russia Committee, requested, among other requests of aid and support, the posting of Australian diplomats to the Soviet Union. In May, 1942, Dr H.V. Evatt, the Australian Foreign Minister and Attorney General began backdoor negotiations in London with the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov for the establishment of formal relations between the two nations and the exchange of representatives. Despite this, there were no official bilateral relations between the Soviet Union and Australia until 1942, where the Labor government of John Curtin appointed William Slater as a diplomatic representative of Australia to the Soviet Union. On 2 January 1943, Australia opened the Australian Legation in Kuybyshev, the temporary seat of the Russian government due to the ongoing invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers. The legation then moved to Moscow on 12 August 1943. The legation was upgraded to the status of embassy on 16 February 1948. Expulsion (1954–1991) On 3 April 1954, Vladimir Petrov, the third secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Canberra defected at the end of his three-year appointment, fearing execution for his association with former head of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation assisted with his defection and Australia granted Petrov (and later his wife) political asylum in Australia. The Australian government refused to turn over Petrov to the Soviets, and in retaliation on 23 April the Soviet government severed diplomatic relations with the Australia, including closing the Australian Embassy in Moscow. The embassy was given "two or three days" to leave the Soviet Union and the forty-eight embassy staff and their families were forced to board overnight trains from Moscow to Helsinki, Finland. In this period, Australian diplomatic representation was provided by the United Kingdom's Embassy in Moscow. Relations between the Soviet Union and Australia were re-established on 13 March 1959 and the Australian Embassy in Moscow was reopened that year. The newly reopened Australian Embassy in Moscow was placed under chargé d'affaires, a temporary situation where the head of post of an embassy is not the official ambassador to the host nation and is instead only the Chief of Mission of the embassy itself. This situation was rectified by 29 July 1960 with the appointment of Sir John Keith Waller as the Australian ambassador to the Soviet Union. Relations between Australia and the Soviet Union were seen as stronger in this period