A Russian TV journalist who shot to fame after staging an anti-war protest during a live broadcast has confirmed she has escaped house arrest over charges of spreading fake news.
In March, just weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, Marina Ovsyannikova staged a walk out in front of studio cameras during an evening news broadcast on the flagship Channel One, wielding a DIY-placard that read, “Stop the war” and “They’re lying to you”.
Despite receiving a hefty 30,000 rouble (£460) fine for her demonstration, the 44-year-old continued her oppostion to the war.
As part of a follow-up protest in the Russian capital, Moscow, she held up a poster which read: “Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists.”
Ovsyannikova was then arrested and placed under house arrest in August before an expected trial later this month. If convicted she faces 10 years in jail.
Her house arrest was due to last until 9 October, but addressing remarks made by her ex-husband last week that she had left the court-assigned property with her 11-year-old daughter, she today confirmed she had escaped.
“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,” Reuters reports she said on Telegram.
It is not clear where she is, or how she fled.
Russia passed new laws against discrediting or distributing “deliberately false information” about the armed forces in early March, days after invading Ukraine.
That meant people face a potential prison sentence of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military, in effect criminalising any public criticism of the war.
It comes as president Vladimir Putin signs a law formally annexing four partly Russian-controlled Ukrainian regions in defiance of international law.
