New Delhi: Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova on Friday recounted her experience of fleeing Russia a week before she was due to face trial for criticising Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. In October last year, she took her young daughter and fled for the border.
"My lawyer said 'flee, flee - they're going to put you in prison'," she said at a press conference in Paris, as quoted by the BBC. Marina Ovsyannikova had disrupted Russia's flagship evening news broadcast on Channel One holding a placard that read, “Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda, they’re lying to you”.
Addressing the press conference, she said, “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. I’m very grateful to France, a free country, to have welcomed me”, The Guardian reported.
Marina Ovsyannikova was born in Odesa to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother. She grew up in the Chechen capital Grozny experiencing the impact of the first Chechen war.
She revealed she had a difficult childhood as her house was destroyed during the Russian operations in Chechen. "We fled with my family, with all the refugees, with no possessions, with nothing. I imagined the Ukrainian women having to live through that,” The Guardian quoted her as saying.
Still afraid for her life, she opined that Russian President Vladimir Putin is risking his leadership over the war in Ukraine.
"The people are living in this bubble of propaganda, but the ruling elite - those who have lost their planes, their yachts, their finances - they understand everything. As soon as a Ukrainian victory gets closer, I believe, the ruling establishment will present Putin with a big bill," she said, as per BBC.
Marina Ovsyannikova is reported to have left Moscow at the beginning of one weekend last year when she felt that the police would be less active. She said she changed vehicles seven times before approaching the border on foot.
"Our [last] vehicle got stuck in the mud and we had no mobile phone coverage - we tried to find our way by the stars. It was a very dangerous and stressful escape," the British broadcaster quoted her saying in its report.
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Director of Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) Christophe Deloire had sent a message to Marina the day after she went on TV with that anti-war sign: "I sent her a message saying: Do you need help? We are here for you."
In September, she sent a message to the organisation through an intermediary seeking their help to leave. Deloire recounted the difficulties of the situation mentioning that Marina's neighbours were Putin supporters who could call the police and she was wearing an electronic bracelet.
In Russia, Marina faces charges under Russian law that made it illegal to call the Russian war an "invasion". Russian state-controlled news organisations have been instead told to describe it as a "special military operation".