War in Ukraine: Russian journalist Marina Ovsiannikova is in France
Russian journalist Marina Ovsiannikova, and RSF leader Christophe Deloire, at a press conference this Friday, February 10, 2023 in Paris.
AP - Christophe Ena
Text by: RFI Follow
4 mins
Russian journalist Marina Ovsiannikova is now in France, after an "escape" "worthy of the Berlin Wall", according to the Reporter Without Borders organization which helped her flee.
Famous for having denounced the invasion of Ukraine live on television last March, brandishing a sign in the middle of the television news, she had left Russia last October.
After months of silence, she lifted a corner of the veil on the circumstances of her departure this Friday, February 10, at a press conference at RSF headquarters.
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Marina Ovsiannikova arrived in France with her daughter.
She explains that she didn't want to leave her country, but she had no choice.
It was that or jail, his lawyer was convinced.
Last March, after his gesture of defiance of power on the first Russian channel, Emmanuel Macron offered him consular protection.
She refused, citing her patriotism.
But the climate has deteriorated.
Today happy to be in France, Marina Ovsiannikova remains worried as an opponent of Vladimir Putin's regime.
"
Yes, I'm scared,
" she said.
Every time I talk to my friends in Russia, they ask me jokingly if I prefer novichok, polonium or a car accident.
I am not reassured, I take precautions.
Yes, I fear for my life.
I risked ten years in prison for announcing the exact number of children killed in Ukraine.
This is public data, found on the UN site, which is not blocked in Russia.
But despite my lawyer's best efforts to prove what I said was right, the courts said it was wrong.
And that's because in Russia, it's forbidden to talk about what happened, for example, in Boucha or Mariupol.
The judgment was to take place on October 9.
And my lawyer kept telling me:
Flee!
Flee!
They will inevitably put you in prison, you only have a few days to save your life, and that of your child, act!
“We tried not to waste time, every day counted.
”
For security reasons, we will not know which countries the journalist and her daughter went through.
Reporter Without Borders denies any help from Western intelligence services, but the escape was incredible: seven different cars, one of which got stuck in a road;
crossing a field in the middle of the night with the stars as landmarks;
to finally reach the border and leave Russian territory, where she leaves her son, who remained with her ex-husband, an executive of Russia Today, who had obtained custody of the children after their mother took a stand.
Marina Ovsiannikova, who had held up an anti-war sign on Russian television, disappeared on October 1 from her apartment in Moscow.
It reappears this morning at @RSF_inter headquarters in Paris.
A leak coordinated with RSF.
Operation code name: Evelyne.
pic.twitter.com/gHpDmey9KF
— Christophe Deloire (@cdeloire) February 10, 2023
Marina Ovsiannikova has chosen to express herself freely, but it is a rare gesture in Russia, she herself regrets it.
According to her, all of Russia now lives in a propaganda bubble, and people who manage to get access to outside information are afraid.
"
Obviously, some Russians understand what is happening, but they don't protest, they don't talk.
By fear.
Because of the internal security forces that have total control over the country.
Which are like an octopus that squeezes him in its tentacles.
As soon as you raise your head, these security forces come to stop the movement.
Even when I was at home, under house arrest, representatives of the internal services came to make me sign a paper, for me to commit never to support a demonstration, never to take to the streets.
»
The 44-year-old journalist, who worked nearly 20 years for major state broadcaster Pervy Kanal, describes a growing awareness of censorship and power checks.
“
I lived like the Russians, hiding my face, taking refuge in daily life, family, friends.
The channel was not a propaganda channel when I started working there.
It was a completely normal channel with a lot of information.
It started around 2009-2010, after the short war with Georgia.
It was then that the Kremlin realized that it had lost and started to turn the channel little by little into a propaganda tool, squeezing, giving us information frames full of conspiracy theories, lies and manipulation.
It is this whole propaganda machine that the journalist recounts in a book,
Between good and evil, how I finally opposed the propaganda of the Kremlin
.
The book was released in Germany this Friday.
It will soon be translated into French.
►Read again: Dissident journalist Marina Ovsiannikova has left Russia
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