After the poster protest on TV
Russian TV journalist Ovsyannikova calls on compatriots to protest against the Ukraine war
Russian TV journalist Marina Ovzyannikova
© AFP
Journalist Marina Ovsyannikova held up a protest poster in the middle of a live newscast on Russian state television. Now she is demanding that opponents of Putin’s invasion must make her voice heard.
After her sensational protest action on Russian television, the journalist Marina Ovsyannikova called on her compatriots to also take a stand against the Ukraine invasion. “These are very dark and very difficult times and anyone who has a civic stance and wants that stance to be heard needs to make their voice heard,” Ovzyannikova said in an interview with US television network ABC on Sunday. “This is very important.”
The 43-year-old TV journalist stressed that it was not a question of Russia’s war, but of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s war. “The Russian people are really against the war, this is Putin’s war, not the war of the Russian people,” Ovzyannikova said.
Owzyannikova accuses TV stations of propaganda
The Russian journalist held a protest poster against war and lying propaganda into the camera during a live news broadcast on the Perwy Kanal channel on Monday evening. It read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. You’re being lied to here.”
On the US broadcaster ABC, she now said about her action that she wanted to do something with “more impact and that attracts more attention” than street protests against the Ukraine war, against which the Russian police are taking massive action.
“I could see what was really happening in Ukraine, and what my channel’s programs were showing was very different.” With her “spontaneously” launched protest, she wanted to unmask this “propaganda” by the Russian government and “perhaps encourage people to condemn the war,” said the journalist.
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Journalist wants to stay in Russia
Ovsyannikova was arrested after her protest and shortly afterwards sentenced to a fine of 30,000 rubles (around 250 euros). However, her lawyer said after the verdict that the journalist still faces criminal proceedings and a long prison sentence. France offered asylum to the 43-year-old mother. In an interview with “Spiegel”, however, Ovsyannikova assured that she wanted to stay in her home country, although she was now “enemy number one” there.
At the beginning of March, Putin signed a law providing for draconian prison sentences for “false information” about the Russian army. In addition, since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities have massively restricted access to online media and online networks.