On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Nuland was to step down from her post in the coming weeks.
"[Nuland] should have better used her knowledge of Russia for creation, but she used it to destroy our bilateral relations. In general, I believe that her contribution to undermining the trust between our countries was immense," Zakharova told a briefing.
At the same time, Nuland is not the only and the main reason for the deterioration of Russian-US relations, but she is "the face of everything that is happening now around Ukraine, in one way or another," the spokeswoman added.
Being of Eastern European descent, Nuland worked at the US embassy in Moscow in the 1990s. In November 2013, as a series of protests, dubbed Euromaidan, broke out in Ukraine, she arrived in Kiev to publicly support what eventually escalated into a coup, leading to the ouster of then-President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014.
Career Diplomat and Under Secretary for Management John Bass will serve as Acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs until Nuland’s replacement is confirmed.