Marina Ovsyannikova: Journalist Who Decried Putin’s Ukraine Invasion On Live TV Flees Russia

Marina Ovsyannikova, a former Russian state TV journalist who protested against President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion during a live broadcast, has fled the country, her lawyers reportedly said.

The 44-year-old Ukrainian-born woman came under heavy scrutiny by Russian officials after she decried the conflict by flashing a poster that read “no war” during the live broadcast of Channel One in March.

Subsequently, she was fined 30,000 roubles (£460) for violating the protest laws and was sacked.

“Ovsyannikova and her daughter left Russia a few hours after departing from the address where she was under house arrest. They are in Europe now,” Ovsyannikova’s lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov told AFP.

“They are fine. They are waiting until they can talk about it publicly, but for now, it is not safe,” he added.

Since August, she was under house arrest after she again protested against the war in Ukraine in mid-July near Kremlin. She was the lone participant and had carried a poster that read “Putin is a murderer. His soldiers are fascists”.

After that, she was detained and was charged with a potential 10 years in prison for distributing information about the Russian armed forces deemed false by the government.

According to reports, Putin had added the journalist on a wanted list after she evaded house arrest with her daughter.

Marina Ovsyannikova later clarified on social media saying that she was innocent and hence decided not to comply with the order.

“I consider myself completely innocent, and since our state refuses to comply with its own laws, I refuse to comply with the measure of restraint imposed on me as of 30 September 2022 and release myself from it,” she said on her social media channels on October 5.