RUSSIAN Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova

22 March 2019

Texte: DR
Photos: ActionPress/PM Virot

Date: MARCH 22
RUSSIAN Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova during a press conference at the Geneva Press Club on the position of Russia on various topics
Zakharova was born to a family of diplomats. Her father, Vladimir Zakharov, moved the family to Beijing in 1981 when he was appointed to the Chinese capital’s Soviet embassy.[4] The family left Beijing in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and returned to Russia in 1993. Her mother, Irina, is an art historian who has worked at Moscow’s Pushkin Museum.[4] In 1998, Maria Zakharova graduated from the Faculty of International Journalism at MGIMO in the field of orientalism and journalism. Her pre-diploma apprenticeship was carried out at the Russian Embassy in Beijing.

On 10 August 2015, by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zakharova was appointed director of the Information and Press Department.[8] Zakharova became the first woman in the history of the department to hold this post

In 2017, Zakharova accused the European Union of hypocrisy over its different behaviour towards the separatist crises in Crimea and Catalonia, after hundreds were injured by Spanish security forces preventing Catalans from voting during the Catalan independence referendum, saying "I see and read what is happening in Catalonia. And Europe will say something to us about the referendum in Crimea and the protection of human right