Russian journalist avoids jail as she is sentenced for state TV anti-war protest

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Heroic protestor Marina Ovsyannikova, who yesterday interrupted Russia’s most-watched news show live on air to denounce the invasion of Ukraine, has miraculously avoided a jail sentence. 

Ovsyannikova, 43, was arrested shortly after her brave stunt, but was held for over 12 hours in an undisclosed location and her lawyers said earlier today they had not been allowed to see her.

There were fears the television editor would be held indefinitely, but she was eventually granted legal counsel and this afternoon was handed a 30,000 rouble fine for calling for ‘organising or holding a public event without filing a notice in the prescribed manner’ according to a statement given by the Ostankinsky District Court of Moscow.

The fine, which equates to a mere £210, comes as a major surprise to many commentators who harboured concerns that Ovsyannikova could face up to 15 years in prison for her live-on-air protest under a new Kremlin law which punishes ‘public dissemination of false information’ about the invasion of Ukraine. 

In her first interview following her sentencing, the television editor told the media that she had endured one of the hardest days of her life, and needed to rest before giving more comments.

‘I want to thank everyone for their support, friends and colleagues…

‘It’s been a really difficult day in my life. I’ve gone two days without sleep, more than 14 hours in custody, they didn’t allow me to contact those close to me or to receive any legal counsel… so I found myself in a really tough situation.

‘All further comments will come tomorrow, because today I really need to rest.’

Ovsyannikova’s release with nothing more than a small fine comes just hours after supporters of Putin called for her long-term imprisonment, with the director of broadcasting at RT imploring Russian authorities to jail the protestor for a decade.

Anton Krasovsky said: ‘My boss Margarita [Simonyan] once said ”we fire for treason and theft”. I’ll correct that – we’ll put you in jail for treason and theft. 

‘The bi*** should be jailed for ten years.’ 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the protest as ‘hooliganism’. 

In an exceptional show of bravery yesterday, Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of Channel One – the Kremlin’s leading news channel which has 250 million viewers worldwide – and interrupted famous newsreader Ekaterina Andreeva in protest against the war in Ukraine.

Her status as a senior television editor at the station meant she was able to get access to the broadcasting centre, and was not stopped by armed guards.

Her audacious stunt, in which she told viewers: ‘Stop the War! Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here!’ on a channel that in recent weeks has spewed anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western rhetoric, went viral and has been viewed millions of times. 

Associates of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have offered to pay Ovsyannikova’s fine and any penalties handed to other employees of Channel One who decide to stage similar protests. 

Meanwhile, the spokesman for Boris Johnson told reporters the British Prime Minister said: ‘I think this was an incredibly brave act by this producer.

‘The Prime Minister wants to pay tribute to all of those in Russia standing up to Putin’s campaign of violence.’

British Foreign Office minister James Cleverley added that protests in Russia were ‘incredibly important’ in terms of providing the Russian population with information.

He told BBC Breakfast today: ‘It shows a huge degree of bravery for those individuals to protest against what we know is an oppressive, authoritarian state, but it’s really important that the Russian people understand what is being done in their name.

‘They have been systematically lied to by Vladimir Putin and it’s really important they understand the truth of what’s going on.’

Ovsyannikova was arrested shortly after her stunt, which represents arguably the most graphic protest so far against Putin’s war in Russia at a time when almost all opposition media outlets have been closed.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he would discuss with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin offering protection for a Russian journalist facing a long prison sentence after she brandished the anti-war placard on live TV.

‘We will launch diplomatic efforts aiming to offer [her] protection – either at the embassy but also protection through asylum,’ said Macron.

‘I will have the chance at my next talks with President Putin to propose this solution in a very direct and concrete manner.’   

Olga Taranova, a former intern at the channel, explained how Ovsyannikova managed to interrupt the broadcast: ‘A policeman on duty is always by the presenter.

‘But during the broadcast, when there are reports from places, senior editors and makeup artists often come to the presenter.

‘There is almost no one more senior and trusted than Marina.

‘When I was an intern, Marina already was a respected writer for the evening news.’

RT head Margarita Simonyan – seen as the leading TV propagandist for Putin, nicknamed ‘Goebbels in a skirt’ by the Ukrainians – said of the incident on a separate channel: ‘This can happen with every editorial office.

‘We, editorial offices, do not have outdoor surveillance for our employees, do not bug their phones, and in general are not paramilitary organisations with regular lie detector checks, etc.

‘Marina Ovsyannikova is indeed the ex-wife of one of our directors.

‘They have been divorced for a long time and live different lives. Quite different, as it turns out.’ 

Peskov meanwhile told reporters: ‘As far as this lady is concerned, this is hooliganism.

‘The channel and those who are in charge are dealing with it,’ he added. ‘It’s not an issue on [the Kremlin] agenda.

‘There are certain departments that deal with this. The live broadcast of any TV channel and especially those who work there hold a special responsibility.’

But Ovsyannikova’s protest has already triggered a wave of resignations amid the top tiers of Russian media. 

Leading anchor Liliya Gildeyeva, 45, today handed in her resignation at Gazprom-Media’s NTV channel where she had worked since 2006.

‘At first I left, I was afraid they wouldn’t let me go, then I wrote my resignation letter,’ she told blogger Ilya Varlamov.

Gildeyeva flew into exile with her husband Rustam and two children before writing her resignation letter to avoid repercussions, it is understood. 

Vadim Glusker, NTV’s Brussels correspondent, has also been confirmed to have resigned by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

NTV told RIA Novosti that Glusker stopped working ‘in early March’ and that his decision was ‘to do with health reasons’.

Russian journalist Roman Super also reported that Zhanna Agalakova, Channel One’s correspondent in Paris, resigned today. Agalakova worked as a reporter in New York from 2013 until 2019, before reporting for Channel One across the EU.

Ovsyannikova herself recorded a video prior to her arrest to explain why she decided to protest.

The television editor has a Ukrainian father and said before her actions on Monday that she was ashamed to be peddling the Kremlin’s lies.

‘What’s happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility for this aggression lies with one man: Vladimir Putin.

‘My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian and they were never enemies. 

‘Unfortunately, for the last few years I’ve been working for Channel One. I’ve been doing Kremlin propaganda and I’m very ashamed of it – that I let people lie from TV screens and allowed the Russian people to be zombified.

‘We didn’t say anything in 2014 when it only just began. We didn’t protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We just silently watched this inhuman regime.

‘Now the whole world has turned away from us, and ten generations of our descendants won’t wash off this fratricidal war.’

Ovsyannikova’s protest has received international support, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally praised her show of defiance.

‘I am grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth. To those who fight disinformation and tell the truth, real facts to their friends and loved ones,. And I am personally grateful to the woman who entered the studio of Channel One with a poster against the war,’ Zelensky said in a Telegram video.

‘To those who are not afraid to protest – as long as your country has not completely closed itself off from the whole world, turning into a very large North Korea, you must fight. You must not lose your chance.’ 

Ovsyannikova was arrested by police working for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The reason for her arrest was put down to ‘public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, maintain international peace and security,’ the TASS news agency reported.

After the incident Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor-in-chief is Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, posted a screenshot of the moment Ovsyannikova went on air but blurred her anti-war message, possibly for fear of reprisal.

On March 4 Putin signed a law that effectively criminalizes public opposition to or non-state news coverage of the conflict.

It was seen as another way for the Kremlin to curb widespread dissent over the war and cope with crippling Western sanctions. 

Meanwhile, guests on one of the country’s most-popular state TV broadcasts last week risked the wrath of Putin to denounce the invasion as ‘worse’ than the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which helped bring down the Soviet Union.

Semyond Bagdasarov, an academic, used an appearance on Russia 1’s prime time talk show ‘An Evening with Vladimir Soloviev’ – a man referred to as Putin’s propagandist-in-chief – to call on the Russian president to end the attack, while warning allies like China and India could soon turn their backs on Moscow.

‘Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even worse? There are more people and they’re more advanced in their weapon handling’, he said, ‘We don’t need that. Enough already.’ 

He then added: ‘If this picture starts to transform into an absolute humanitarian disaster, even our close allies like China and India will be forced to distance themselves from us. ‘This public opinion, with which they’re saturating the entire world, can play out badly for us… Ending this operation will stabilise things within the country.’ 

Karen Shakhnazarov, a filmmaker and state pundit, also sought to bust the Kremlin’s narrative that it is conducting a limited ‘special operation’ in the Donbass region by referencing attacks on the capital of Kyiv – which is located hundreds of miles away.

‘I have a hard time imagining taking cities such as Kyiv. I can’t imagine how that would look,’ he said, even as Putin’s troops close in on the capital and launch attacks into the outskirts. 

Ovsyannikova’s arrest in the wake of her protest came as another experiment, designed to show how quickly the authorities in Russia are clamping down on free speech amid the war in Ukraine, was also caught on camera.

Footage emerged yesterday of a horde of policemen descending upon a young woman in Manezhnaya Square in Moscow and dragging her away just three seconds after she held up a small paper sign.

The sign itself bore no message in support of Ukraine or any other issue in defiance of the Kremlin and the will of Vladimir Putin.

Instead, the sign simply read ‘TWO WORDS’ – but even this was enough to trigger a stampede of policemen clad in full riot gear who removed her from view in the blink of an eye.

It comes as the Kremlin introduced a blanket ban on social media over the past week, throttling Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – as well as Western media and independent news sites – as it scrambles to control the narrative around its incursion into Ukraine.