Russian TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova has reappeared in Paris after she was forced to flee her home country following a live anti-war protest last year.
The former TV editor for Russian state media broadcast Channel One has now recounted her harrowing escape to France after she protested the country's invasion of Ukraine during a live broadcast last year.
She describes how she never wanted to leave her home country, but she had no choice because she would otherwise end up in prison.
She said at a Paris press conference with the journalist organisation Reporters without Borders: “I didn’t want to emigrate until the very last moment.
“Russia is still my country, even if war criminals have power there. But I had no choice – it was either prison or exile.”
She was slapped with a was fine for ignoring protest laws and was forced to quit her job, but she continued speaking out against the war until she was charged with spreading false information for holding up a poster reading: “Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists."
If she is found guilty she may face over a decade in prison, so she and her 11-year-old daughter fled to France where French President Emmanuel Macron said he would give her asylum.
She describes the ordeal of fleeing Moscow, having to continually swap cars to cover her trail and crossing multiple borders of countries she said she cannot disclose.
She said: "We had to run out of the car and find our way on foot through fields in the dark night. It was difficult, we didn’t have any phone network, we had to work out where we were by the stars. It felt like an eternity, it was a real ordeal. We wandered for several hours before finding the road, hiding from passing vehicles and tractors … I was losing hope."
“I was thinking ‘Why did I do this? Maybe it would have been better to go to prison', but thankfully, we reached the border where people were waiting for us.”
She said she now fears she may be poisoned or assassinated.
"The more outspoken you are about your civil stance, the more scared the authorities are going to be, and they will have no idea what to do with you," Ukrainian-born Ms Ovsyannikova told he Telegraph.
It comes as Putin is expected to make a major speech ahead of the one year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, amid fears a fresh assault will be announced.
The Russian warmonger will give an address to the country's federal assembly on February 21 "on the current situation", according to a Kremlin spokesman.
