Zakharova says US State Department starts campaign against her 'in earnest'

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Friday that the US State Department started an information campaign against her "in earnest."

In a post on Telegram, Zakharova claimed that the US foreign service sent some notes to the Russian opposition for dissemination.

"The instructions were sent out for implementation to foreign agents like (TV channel) Dozhd and (Russian opposition politician Alexey) Navalny supporters: before, they were saying Zakharova was good, but now she has become bad."

As proof, she attached a screenshot of a Telegram post by the US State Department, with two identical notes in Russian, that read: "the Kremlin says Ukraine doesn't want peace but it's (Russian President Vladimir) Putin who continues war," accompanied by her photo from a speech signed in red letters "lie" and a photo of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed in blue letters "true."

"Thanks for the popularization: 'Russian hackers' did not hack the website and resources of the State Department, but my photo appeared there anyway," she said.