Crimea's Attorney General Natalia Poklonskaya Goes Viral In China And Japan

Natalia Poklonskaya is the newly minted attorney general of Crimea, taking office just a week ago. While Poklonskaya faces an increasingly violent standoff between Russian and Ukrainian troops on the peninsula and a political mess, Asian social media and state media has been focused on something entirely off topic: her looks.

The 33-year-old, blonde and poised Poklonskaya, who is part of the pro-Russian government of Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov, held a press conference on Wednesday, following the deadly shooting of a Ukrainian soldier by a Russia-backed Crimean "self-defense forces" member. The shooting in Simferopol, the Crimean capital, marked the first military death since Russian troops entered the autonomous region of Ukraine, which Russia has since officially seized. While the nature of her briefing was mostly about the investigation into the shooting, she also fielded media inquiries about her personal background and private life.

With many eyes turned to Ukraine, Poklonskaya’s face was plastered across international media, eventually reaching China and Japan, where she became an icon to many cartoonists and animators struck by her beauty. Since her debut as attorney general, a growing pile of Chinese and Japanese fan art has made the rounds on social media, mostly praising her beauty.

The Ukrainian lawyer seems to know that her beauty holds some power, and was quoted as saying, “as the idiom goes, ‘Beauty saves the world.’”

Here’s a look at some of the art floating around on the Internet that was inspired by Poklonskaya’s press briefing, compiled by RocketNews24:

In China, photos and comments about Poklonskaya have also blown up on the country’s popular microblog social media platform Weibo.

"Used properly, beauty is indeed a powerful weapon," one blogger wrote in a post about Poklonskaya. "Well, now we know the reason why Putin wants Crimea," another added.