Marina Ovsyannikova, a former Russian state television journalist who was accused of spreading fake news and protesting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine during a live broadcast has fled the country after being placed on a wanted list.

According to her lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, Marina Ovsyannikova is now “under the protection of a European state.” According to Sky News, her lawyer refused to comment further because “it may turn out to be a problem for her.”

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Who is Marina Ovsyannikova?

Marina Vladimirovna Ovsyannikova, born in 1978, is a Russian journalist who previously worked for Channel One Russia. She is 44 years old. 

She was born in the Ukrainian city of Odesa to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother. She lived in Grozny with her mother until the beginning of the Chechen War, when they relocated to Krasnodar. She used to swim and do artistic gymnastics as a kid. Her swimming team won the Krasnodar university championship competitions.

Since the early 2000s, she has worked for Russia’s main evening newscast Vremya on Channel One, later describing her role as “producing Kremlin propaganda.”

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Ovsyannikova attended Kuban State University before enrolling in the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). She was employed by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Corporation (VGTRK).

She has been a journalist for the “Kuban” TV channel (a regional subsidiary of VGTRK) since 1997, and is a favourite of its head Vladimir Runov, who is said to have helped her get into RANEPA.

She was hired for Channel One Russia’s main evening newscast Vremya in the early 2000s, thanks to the protection of her husband Igor Ovsyannikov, now a director in Russia Today. While working for Channel One, Ovsyannikova retroactively described herself as “having spent many years producing Kremlin propaganda.”

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On 14 March 2022, during a live broadcast of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the evening news programme Vremya, which had millions of viewers, she appeared behind the news anchor, Ekaterina Andreeva, carrying and shouting a poster that read “No War!! No War!!” in a mix of Russian and English.

Videos of Ovsyannikova’s protest went viral and received extensive international media coverage.

During one of his broadcasts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to Ovsyannikova. Ovsyannikova was given asylum or shelter at the French embassy by French President Emmanuel Macron. Her protest was labelled “hooliganism” by Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian government.

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Ovsyannikova and her two kids resided in New Moscow as of 2022. She is wed to RT television director Igor Ovsyannikov. As per reports, the pair had “just separated” in March 2022.

She is wanted by the Russian justice system as of early October 2022 after evading her pre-trial house arrest, her lawyer claims she fled to Europe.