On November 29, President-elect Joe Biden named Jen Psaki as his press secretary. While the announcement attracted some attention in the U.S., it was met with delight in Russia. After all, Psaki was once so widely vilified within the country that a pro-Kremlin TV channel dedicated a nightly comedy news spot to her.

The following day, Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent host on the state-owned TV channel Russia-1, welcomed her back, saying: “Psaki is a professional woman with a sense of humor, who, however, did not always understand that she was joking.”

As a career Democrat communications officer who has spent a considerable amount of time in Russia, Psaki has been a punching bag for Russia’s media for years, which painted her as a mouthpiece of American propaganda and a symbol of the Obama administration’s hardline approach to Moscow. After a few public gaffes — including mistakenly saying that Russia imports natural gas from Western Europe to Russia — a new phrase was coined: “The Great Psakiing,” meaning the egregious confusion of facts.

Despite Psaki’s awkward relationship with Russia, right-wing media outlets in the U.S. are now painting her as a communist-sympathizing, Kremlin-colluding pawn.