odanny
Diamond Member
Imagine sacrificing all that you have, including where you live, for the radical action of telling the truth. Thankfully she made it to exile in France.
Her feet stuck in muddy soil on a pitch black October night, Marina Ovsyannikova stopped in despair. For four hours, she and her 11-year-old daughter had been trudging through plowed fields leading to Russia’s border, trying to escape the country.
With no phone signal, they had been navigating by the stars, diving to the ground when the headlights of border guards’ cars approached. They were lost.
“It was real hell,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said, recalling how she sat down in the mud and moaned, “Take me back to Moscow. I’d rather go to jail.”
And prison was a very real possibility for her if she did return.
Her antiwar protest a few months earlier had rattled the Kremlin and earned headlines around the world. In March of 2022, just a few weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had begun, she stormed a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched TV news program, holding up a sign reading: “They’re lying to you.”
She was able to access the program’s live studio because Ms. Ovsyannikova herself had long been a cog in Russia’s propaganda machine. For two decades, she had worked as a journalist at Channel 1, a state-run television station whose flagship news program parrots the Kremlin’s views.
“I was well aware that we were creating a parallel reality,” Ms. Ovsyannikova, 44, said of her time spent working for state media. “The war simply became a point of no return. It was no longer possible to keep quiet.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the state propaganda apparatus went into full swing, dismissing civilian casualties and portraying the attack as a fight against neo-Nazis.
But on her screens, Ms. Ovsyannikova saw clips from Western media showing villages flattened by Russian strikes and streams of desperate Ukrainian refugees, reminding her of her childhood in Chechnya.
This was the tipping point that compelled her to surrender her privileges for what she knew would be the persecuted life of a Russian protester.
“Staying and working for a criminal regime amounted to signing a pact with the devil. Your hands would be covered with Ukrainian blood,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said.
Back home, Ms. Ovsyannikova’s mother, “zombified by Kremlin propaganda,” wanted her in prison. Her son, 18, said she had “ruined our family life.” And her ex-husband, a top manager at the state-run channel Russia Today, was seeking custody of their two children.
Ms. Ovsyannikova returned to Moscow in July to deal with the custody case. But she couldn’t keep silent and protested again, outside the Kremlin, decrying the killing of children in Ukraine. This time, she was charged with the criminal offense of spreading false information about the country’s armed forces and placed under house arrest, awaiting a trial where she faced up to 10 years in prison.
“They were tightening the screws,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said. “My lawyer told me to flee.”
Her escape was coordinated by the French nongovernment organization Reporters Without Borders, with the assistance of a local network that helps dissidents leave the country. She fled with her daughter, Arisha, on a Friday night, when Russian security services are known to ease up.
Ms. Ovsyannikova got rid of her electronic tag with wire cutters and traveled within Russia for about two days, changing cars and guides in remote villages.
www.nytimes.com
Her feet stuck in muddy soil on a pitch black October night, Marina Ovsyannikova stopped in despair. For four hours, she and her 11-year-old daughter had been trudging through plowed fields leading to Russia’s border, trying to escape the country.
With no phone signal, they had been navigating by the stars, diving to the ground when the headlights of border guards’ cars approached. They were lost.
“It was real hell,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said, recalling how she sat down in the mud and moaned, “Take me back to Moscow. I’d rather go to jail.”
And prison was a very real possibility for her if she did return.
Her antiwar protest a few months earlier had rattled the Kremlin and earned headlines around the world. In March of 2022, just a few weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had begun, she stormed a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched TV news program, holding up a sign reading: “They’re lying to you.”
She was able to access the program’s live studio because Ms. Ovsyannikova herself had long been a cog in Russia’s propaganda machine. For two decades, she had worked as a journalist at Channel 1, a state-run television station whose flagship news program parrots the Kremlin’s views.
“I was well aware that we were creating a parallel reality,” Ms. Ovsyannikova, 44, said of her time spent working for state media. “The war simply became a point of no return. It was no longer possible to keep quiet.”
When Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the state propaganda apparatus went into full swing, dismissing civilian casualties and portraying the attack as a fight against neo-Nazis.
But on her screens, Ms. Ovsyannikova saw clips from Western media showing villages flattened by Russian strikes and streams of desperate Ukrainian refugees, reminding her of her childhood in Chechnya.
This was the tipping point that compelled her to surrender her privileges for what she knew would be the persecuted life of a Russian protester.
“Staying and working for a criminal regime amounted to signing a pact with the devil. Your hands would be covered with Ukrainian blood,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said.
Back home, Ms. Ovsyannikova’s mother, “zombified by Kremlin propaganda,” wanted her in prison. Her son, 18, said she had “ruined our family life.” And her ex-husband, a top manager at the state-run channel Russia Today, was seeking custody of their two children.
Ms. Ovsyannikova returned to Moscow in July to deal with the custody case. But she couldn’t keep silent and protested again, outside the Kremlin, decrying the killing of children in Ukraine. This time, she was charged with the criminal offense of spreading false information about the country’s armed forces and placed under house arrest, awaiting a trial where she faced up to 10 years in prison.
“They were tightening the screws,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said. “My lawyer told me to flee.”
Her escape was coordinated by the French nongovernment organization Reporters Without Borders, with the assistance of a local network that helps dissidents leave the country. She fled with her daughter, Arisha, on a Friday night, when Russian security services are known to ease up.
Ms. Ovsyannikova got rid of her electronic tag with wire cutters and traveled within Russia for about two days, changing cars and guides in remote villages.
Famed Antiwar Protester Was Once Cog in Russia’s Propaganda Machine
For 20 years, Marina Ovsyannikova worked for Russian state TV. What compelled her, shortly after Ukraine was invaded, to storm a live broadcast and tell viewers they were being lied to?
