Irussian journalist Marina Ovsiannikova, who became an anti-war muse after appearing on a pro-Kremlin television newscast to denounce the offensive in Ukraine, on Wednesday March 16 refused French President Emmanuel Macron’s offer of asylum because she did not ” does not want to leave his country. “I don’t want to leave our country. I am a patriot, my son is even more so. We don’t want to leave under any circumstances, we don’t want to go anywhere,” she said in an interview with the German magazine. Der Spiegel broadcast Wednesday evening. Emmanuel Macron said he was ready on Tuesday to offer “consular protection” to Marina Ovsiannikova, either at the embassy or by granting her asylum.
The 43-year-old woman made a name for herself by bursting live Monday night during Russia’s most-watched newscast, on the Pervy Kanal channel, where she is a producer, with a sign criticizing Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and denouncing the “propaganda” of the media controlled by the power.
After being arrested, she was immediately sentenced to a simple fine and released. However, she still faces criminal prosecution punishable by heavy prison terms, under the terms of a recent law cracking down on any “false information” about the Russian army.
“I wanted to show that the Russians are also against this war”
“It’s a war against a brotherly people!” No sane person can accept it,” says the young woman born in Odessa, Ukraine, to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother. Marina Ovsiannikova believes that her coup “was above all a pacifist action: it is in the interest of Russia and the world to put an end to this war as quickly as possible”. “I wanted to show that the Russians are against this war too, which a lot of people in the West don’t understand. The majority of intelligent and educated people here oppose this war,” she said.
She indicates that she prepared her action alone, without having first spoken to her family or friends. “Most people who work for national television understand very well what is going on. They know only too well that they are doing something wrong. They are not convinced propagandists, often anything but that! she adds.
“They are constantly struggling internally between their work and their own moral compass. […]. But the colleagues have to feed their families, they know that in the current political climate, they will not find another job”, specifies the journalist, who says she is “happy” that several Russian journalists from public channels have resigned in recent days to oppose restrictions on information.
