[7] Poklonskaya was born 18 March 1980 in the village of Mikhailovka, in the Voroshilovgrad Oblast of what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic;[8] later in 1990, her family moved to Yevpatoria in Crimea.

[9] Her parents are both retired, living in Crimea,[9] and both her grandfathers died during the Second World War, with only her grandmother surviving the German occupation.

Between 2010 and 2011, she was the deputy chief of a surveillance law enforcement unit of the Prosecutor's Office of Crimea which was responsible for dealing with organized crime.

[8] In 2011 in Simferopol, she acted as the state prosecutor in the high-profile trial of Ruvim Aronov, a former deputy of the Supreme Council of Crimea and a former manager of the Saki soccer club.

[12][13] Aronov was prosecuted for his leadership role in the Bashmaki gang, an organized crime group that emerged in Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Kyiv after the 1991 dissolution of the USSR.

Subsequently, the unidentified substance was removed from the body; after the poisoning, Poklonskaya filed a report, telling the manager that she would no longer be able to work on this matter.

Later, from December 2012 up until March 2014, she was a senior attorney of the 2nd division of the General Directorate of Internal Affairs involved in pre-trial investigation and public prosecution management supervision with oversight of law enforcement in criminal proceedings.

[8] On 25 February 2014, Poklonskaya handed in her resignation, in which she stated that she was "ashamed to live in the country where neo-fascists freely walk about the streets"[11] (a reference to radical Euromaidan activists).

[27][28] On 27 March, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika granted Poklonskaya the rank of Senior Counsellor of Justice.

[24][29] On 4 April, Poklonskaya gave the approval for the Russian FSB to begin an operation to arrest Yevgeniy Pomelov, the assistant attorney of Yalta, as part of a larger bribery case.

[37] Also in November 2014, Poklonskaya was rated as the sixteenth out of the hundred most promising politicians in Russia by the Institute for Social-Economic and Political Studies.

Considered a Saint by the Russian Orthodox Church, Nicholas II was accused in the film Matilda of having an affair with Mathilde Kschessinska.

Poklonskaya defended the Tsar and called on local prosecutors to determine whether the film was religiously insensitive, which caused a public outcry among politicians and cultural figures.

[48] After making a series of anti-war comments amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poklonskaya was dismissed as deputy chief of Rossotrudnichestvo.

[50] After being appointed advisor to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation in the summer of 2022, Poklonskaya completely stopped speaking on social networks - until October 2023.

The reason to break the silence was an attempt by scammers to deceive an American citizen, who was informed that the ex-deputy had been extradited to Ukraine and was asked for 100 thousand dollars for a ransom.

[62][63] Poklonskaya told the website Novorossia Today in March 2016 that she views her beauty as an asset: "My looks have never been an obstacle – I hope they deceive my enemies.

[69][11][70] In June 2017, Poklonskaya said in an interview that she was not married, although she noted that she previously “had a relationship with a man with whom we intended to formalize it,” but “it just so happened that we broke up.”[71] On 13 August 2018, a number of media reported that Poklonskaya married 47-year-old Ivan Nikolaevich Soloviev [ru], a veteran of law enforcement agencies, honoured lawyer of Russia, and head of the office of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia.

[76] In a video address to an international forum she said, "People are dying, houses and entire cities are destroyed leaving millions of refugees.

"[76] Also in April 2022, she had told a popular YouTube blogger that Ukraine's society has "changed" in the eight years since the beginning of the war in Donbas with pro-Russian separatists and that Ukrainians "would not greet Russia with flowers.

[76] After doing this she received an immediate response from Rossotrudnichestvo head Yevgeny Primakov who claimed that the letters Z and V are "symbols of the very liberation of Ukraine from the obvious evil of terrorists and bandits.

According to the declaration published on the website of the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Crimea, Poklonskaya has an apartment of 116.6 m2 in use, and her income for 2014 amounted to 1.926 million rubles.

[85]On 8 February 2018, the Book World publishing house published Poklonskaya’s book Devotion to Faith and Fatherland, dedicated to the events of 2013-2014: “My public speeches during the Crimean Spring, the life and achievements of the staff of the prosecutor’s office of the Republic of Crimea are the first criminal case against a Euromaidan activist in Kiev, who caused bodily harm to employees of the Berkut special forces unit, the reasons and grounds for the decision to recognize the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people as extremist and other decisions made in the position of the prosecutor of the republic.” The second part of the book is devoted to “activities to protect historical reality and human rights in the activities of cultural representatives.” The publication is supplied with photographs from Poklonskaya’s personal archive, taken in Kiev and other places.

A first-hand story,” where she told about a huge period of life and the events of March 2014: “The text itself is a story about my childhood and youth, professional development, service in the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, Kiev Maidan, moving to Crimea, national referendum, creation and formation the prosecutor's office of the Republic of Crimea, the election campaign for elections to the State Duma, the work and liquidation of the anti-corruption commission, criminal prosecution in Ukraine.

[87] In 2018, during an official visit to the Lugansk People's Republic, Poklonskaya starred in a small cameo role in the feature film Opolchenochka.

On her visit to the summer residence of Tsar Nicholas II, she played (among other pieces) Masquerade, a waltz by Soviet Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian.

[64] Following her appointment as Prosecutor General of Crimea on 11 March 2014, Poklonskaya was listed as a wanted criminal on the website of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs,[88] due to alleged involvement in conspiracy to overthrow constitutional order or seize state power.

[89] Poklonskaya's previous criticism of the opposition protests in Ukraine, and the "anti-constitutional coup"[19] led the Ukrainian government to launch a criminal case against her and strip her of the civil service rank of Counsellor of Justice.