Former Russian state television journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova, ageing 44-year-old fled house arrest and escaped Russia, her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov said on Monday.
Zakhvatov said that, “Marina Ovsyannikova was forced to escape Russia and is now safe, under the protection of a European nation.”
The former editor of Russian state TV’s flagship news program Vremya (Time) shot to fame across the world in March where she interrupted a live broadcast holding up a poster, which reads “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you her,” in the act of protest seen by over millions.
Whereas Ovsyannikova’s protest got her fired from her job & fined, she remained at liberty until the month of August, when she was placed under house detention for staging a solo anti-war protest around the Kremlin in which she held up a poster reading “Putin is a murderer. His soldiers are fascists.”
Ovsyannikova was later blamed for spreading “fake news” with the protest, a criminal offence in Russia punishable by up to 10(ten) years in jail.
Ovsyannikova fled house arrest with her 11-year-old daughter, who was ordered to live with ex-husband of Ovsyannikova, by a Moscow court on Monday. Disappearance of Ovsyannikova led to her being put on Moscow’s wanted list, with many subsequently speculating that she had left Russia.