La journaliste russe Marina Ovsiannikova, devenue une égérie antiguerre après son irruption pendant un journal télévisé pro-Kremlin pour dénoncer l’offensive en Ukraine, a refusé l’offre d’asile du président franis Emmanuel ne quitter » town.
• Read also: [EN DIRECT] The 21st day of the war in Ukraine: Here are the latest developments
• Read also: Several dead in Russian raid on Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, theater housing civilians bombed
• Read also: War in Ukraine: Putin a ‘war criminal’, says Biden
“I do not want to leave our country. I am patriot, and my son is more than that. We do not want to leave under any circumstances, we do not want to go anywhere,” she said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel broadcast on Wednesday evening.
Macron said on Tuesday he was ready to offer “consular protection” to Ms Ovsiannikova, either at the embassy or by granting her asylum.
The 43-year-old made a name for herself by broadcasting live Monday night during Russia’s most-watched newscast, on Pervy Kanal, where she is a producer, with a banner criticizing Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and denouncing the “propaganda” of the media it controls. Authority.
After her arrest, she was immediately sentenced to a small fine and released. However, she still faces a criminal trial punishable by long prison terms, under the provisions of a recently passed law to suppress any “false information” about the Russian military.
“It is a war against a brotherly people! No sane person would accept that,” explains the young woman, born in Odessa, Ukraine, to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother.
Mrs. Ovsiannikova believes that her ploy “was above all a peaceful act: it is in the interest of Russia and the world to put an end to this war as quickly as possible.”
I also wanted to show that the Russians are against this war as well, which not many people in the West understand. Most of the smart and educated here are against this war, she said.
She notes that she prepared her work on her own, without first speaking with her family or friends.
“Most people who work on national television understand very well what is going on. They know very well that they are doing something wrong. They are not convinced publicists, often anything but that!”, she adds.
“They always struggle internally between their work and their own moral compass (…) but colleagues have to feed their families, they know that in the current political climate, they will not find another job,” explains the journalist who says, “Saeed” that many Russian journalists of public channels have resigned in recent days to oppose restrictions on information.
