The journalist starred in a protest on one of the most popular television channels in Russia, with a “No to war” banner.
It is in our hands to take to the streets, not to be afraid. They can’t jail all of us.” Marina Ovsyannikova is blunt in the last video I posted on social networks of her, a statement of just over a minute against the war in Ukraine, one day before she was arrested in Russia.
This Russian journalist became known on Monday, when she burst into the middle of a Channel 1 news program Vremya (Time) , one of the most popular in the country and controlled by the Kremlin, holding a sign with a clearly visible message : “No to the war, stop the war , do not believe in the propaganda, they are lying to you
Channel 1 plays a crucial role in Kremlin media messages. It is the second most popular in Russia and millions of people watch the program in question.
Ovsyannikova appeared before a Russian court on Tuesday and will have to pay a fine of 30,000 rubles ($280) for “organizing a public event without authorization.”
An image of Ovsyannikova in court alongside lawyer Anton Gashinsky was widely circulated in the Russian media.
Channel 1 announced that it was conducting an internal audit of what had happened.
“In the live broadcast of the Vremya program, there was an incident with a stranger in the frame. An internal control is being carried out,” the channel’s press service said in a statement.
Vitaliy Shevchenko, a journalist for BBC Monitoring, a section that is responsible for covering the world’s media, comments that on Channel 1 “there is no place to deviate from the party line ” of Government.
Thus, Shevchenko points out, when Marina Ovsyannikova ran onto the set behind the prime-time news anchor, brandishing a sign reading “Stop the war!” “it was an unprecedented moment of dissent against the Kremlin that came into living rooms across the country.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov called the journalist’s actions ” hooliganism.”
A “goal-focused” and “sweet” woman
Marina Ovsyannikov ‘s protest to is extraordinary in more ways than one.
For starters, Channel 1 viewers aren’t even used to hearing the word “war” used to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The government has ordered the media to call it a “special military operation” launched to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine.
Furthermore, this protest was seen by Putin supporters, as most Russians use state television as their primary source for news rather than the increasingly depleted independent websites or social media.
Nearly 15,000 anti-war protesters have been arrested since the invasion began, according to the Ovd-info website. None of them have reached as many homes in Russia as Ovsyannikova did with just a few seconds on the air.
BBC spoke to two people who know Marina Ovsyannikova.
Zhdan Tikhonov worked at the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company and remembers Ovsyannikova as a student 25 years ago. Of that time, he says that “She was very focused on her goals. She couldn’t do much back then, but she wanted to accomplish things.”
“I could see that he wanted to achieve something, to grow in this profession (journalism),” he told the BBC. And he added: “I did not know his political position, but it is a fact that there are people with such views. I’m not surprised. People are different and have different opinions, they have the right to have different opinions.”
Another close person said that Marina is a “sweet and nice woman. I think any of her friends would say that.”
Hours disappeared after the protest
Before appearing in court, the lawyers of Ovsyannikova, editor of Channel 1, had denounced her disappearance after searching for her all night, without success.
Hours disappeared after the protest
Before appearing in court, the lawyers of Ovsyannikova, editor of Channel 1, had denounced her disappearance after searching for her all night, without success.
“The lawyers could not access her, ” lawyer Anastasia Kostanova told the BBC, and assured that at that time she did not answer her phone either . “This means that they are hiding her from her lawyers , trying to deprive her of legal assistance, and apparently trying to prepare the strictest prosecution.”
After her appearance with a banner on television, it was learned that Ovsyannikova recorded an appeal before going on air . In it, she called the war in Ukraine now a “crime” and referred to Russia as “an aggressor country” . In addition, she attributed the responsibility for what was happening to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
“My father is Ukrainian and my mother is Russian. And they have never been enemies ,” Ovsyannikova says in the video.
The journalist, who has two children, appears in the recording wearing a necklace with the colors of the Russian and Ukrainian flag to symbolize “that Russia must stop this fratricidal war immediately and that our sister nations have the opportunity to establish peace.”
In the video he assures that “unfortunately” he has been working in recent years on Channel 1, “in Kremlin propaganda.”
And she declared that she felt “very ashamed” for “having allowed lies to be told on television screens , for having allowed the Russian people to be zombified.”
In his plea he says that the beginning of everything was in 2014: “We kept quiet (…) We did not take to the streets when the Kremlin poisoned ( dissident Alexei) Navalny. We just silently watch this anti-human regime and now the whole world turns its back on us.”
On successive occasions he speaks of a “fratricidal war” and maintains that future generations “will not be able to cleanse the shame” that this has caused. In the final part he appealed to the Russian people, “intelligent and considerate” and called them to take to the streets.
Props to Ovsyannikova
From the moment Ovsyannikova’s identity became known, she received a large number of appreciative comments on her Facebook page in Ukrainian, Russian and English.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ovsyannikova: “I am grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth. To those who fight against misinformation and tell the truth, the real facts to their friends, family and relatives. And personally to the woman who entered the Channel 1 studio with a
Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov told the BBC’s Newshour television program that Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova’s protest was a “very brave and amazing act.” He also said that he fears for the journalist’s safety.
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