Maria Zakharova facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Maria Zakharova
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Мария Захарова
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Zakharova in 2016
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| Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation | |
| Assumed office 10 August 2015 |
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| President | Vladimir Putin |
| Preceded by | Alexander Lukashevich |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova
24 December 1975 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Spouse |
Andrei Makarov
(m. 2005) |
| Children | 1 |
| Alma mater | Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) |
Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova (Russian: Мария Владимировна Захарова, IPA: [mɐˈrʲijə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə zɐˈxarəvə]; born 24 December 1975) is a Russian politician who serves as the director of the information and press department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. She has been the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation since 2015.
She has a degree of Candidate in Historical Sciences, the Russian equivalent of a PhD.
Contents
Early life and education
Zakharova was born to a family of diplomats on 24 December 1975. Her father, Vladimir Zakharov, moved the family to Beijing in 1981 when he was appointed to the Soviet embassy there. The family left Beijing for Moscow in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union had collapsed. Her mother, Irina Zakharova, is an art historian who has worked at Moscow's Pushkin Museum.
In 1998, Maria Zakharova graduated from the Faculty of International Journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in the field of orientalism and journalism. Her pre-diploma apprenticeship was carried out at the Russian Embassy in Beijing.
Early career
From 2003 to 2005 and from 2008 to 2011, she worked at the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. From 2005 to 2008, she was the press secretary of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations in New York City.
From 2011 to 10 August 2015, Zakharova was the Deputy Head of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Her duties included organizing and conducting briefings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, the organization of work of official Ministry accounts in social networks and information support of foreign visits of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Zakharova is known for her participation in political talk shows on Russian television and for contributing commentary on sensitive political issues on social media. She is one of the most quoted Russian diplomats. She often opposed Jen Psaki (the official representative of the US State Department before 31 March 2015).
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Press Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
On 10 August 2015, by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zakharova was appointed director of the Information and Press Department. Zakharova became the first woman to hold this post. In 2016, she was chosen as one of BBC's 100 Women.
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 rights".
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In June 2019, Reuters reported that Zakharova "offered a tribute to those who died on the western front of World War II and said Moscow appreciated the Allied war effort", adding "It should of course not be exaggerated. And especially not at the same time as diminishing the Soviet Union's titanic efforts, without which this victory simply would not have happened". Zakharova stated, "As historians note, the Normandy landing did not have a decisive impact on the outcome of World War II and the Great Patriotic War. It had already been pre-determined as a result of the Red Army's victories, mainly at Stalingrad (in late 1942) and Kursk (in mid-1943). There was a wish to wait for the maximum weakening of Germany's military power from its enormous losses in the east, while reducing losses in the west."
In 2021, Zakharova criticised a NATO military exercise called Defender-Europe 21, one of the largest NATO-led military exercises in Europe in decades, which began in March 2021. It included "nearly simultaneous operations across more than 30 training areas" in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries. She claimed that by conducting these exercises, NATO is gathering a "strike fist" near Russia's borders.
On 20 August 2024, she condemned the Verkhovna Rada's vote to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), accusing Ukraine of trying to "destroy true Orthodoxy."
Personal life
On 7 November 2005, Zakharova married Andrei Makarov at the Russian Consulate in New York City. The couple have a daughter, Maryana, born in August 2010.
See also
In Spanish: María Zajárova para niños
