Natalia Poklonskaya Images

Natalia Vladimirovna Poklonskaya (Russian: Ната́лья Влади́мировна Покло́нская, IPA: (nɐˈtalʲjə pɐkˈlonskəjə), Ukrainian: Наталія Володимирівна Поклонська, born 18 March 1980) is the Prosecutor of the Republic of Crimea.

Internet popularity

Poklonskaya assumed the office of Prosecutor of Crimea on 11 March 2014, and held a press conference later that day. She soon caught attention on the Internet because of her perceived cuteness amongst Japanese internet users, after a video clip of the press conference by a local Crimean media outlet was re-uploaded by a Japanese poster onto YouTube; the clip quickly racked up more than 300,000 YouTube views within several days, despite featuring no translation. The video went viral in not only Japan, but also China, with coverage from national Chinese news outlets. She was noted to have been subject to widespread discussion on numerous online communities worldwide including Reddit, Weibo, and Vkontakte.

Following her press conference, an onslaught of anime-style moe fanart of Poklonskaya was created and uploaded to the internet, most notably on the popular Japanese artwork-sharing website Pixiv. This was reported by major Russian, as well as international media outlets, which in its turn contributed to its going viral worldwide.