Ukraine war: Lawyers search for journalist who protested on Russian TV

Marina Ovsyannikova – the Russian journalist who stormed the live TV news programme set to protest against the Russian war in Ukraine has been reported missing overnight. 

Ovsyannikova is an editor at the state-controlled news channel – Channel 1. She broke onto the set holding an anti-war sign which read: “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.” She was later detained. 

It is not known where she is right now. Her lawyers have been searching for her but are so far unable to locate her. 

One of her lawyers, Anastasia Kostanova spoke to the BBC. She said she had been trying to reach Ovsyannikova by phone but her calls went unanswered, adding she had “spent the whole night looking” for the missing journalist. 

“This means that they are hiding her from her lawyers and trying to deprive her of legal assistance and, apparently, they are trying to prepare the most stringent prosecution,” Ms Kostanova said.

Another lawyer, Pavel Chikov, posted on Twitter that he was unable find Ms Ovsyannikova.

“Marina Ovsyannikova has not yet been found. She has been imprisoned for more than 12 hours,” he said on Tuesday morning.

Ms Ovsyannikova was arrested by police following the introduction of a new law that bans calling Russia’s military action in Ukraine an “invasion” or spreading “fake news” about the conflict. 

The punishment can carry a potential sentence of up to 15 years behind bars. But Ovsyannikova was likely to be fined 30,000 to 60,000 roubles (£205 – £410) 

What happened? 

The event happened on live tv on Russia’s main nightly news programme. She said “No to war! Stop the war!” before the programme cut to a recorded news report. 

Before this situation, she had recorded a video in which she called the invasion of Ukraine a “crime” and said she was ashamed to work for Kremlin propaganda. 

“I’m ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies,” she explained. “We just silently watched this inhumane regime.”

She called on the Russian people to protest the war, saying that they are the only ones who could “stop the madness”. 

“Don’t be afraid of anything, they can’t imprison all of us,” she said.

Since her live outburst, she has received plenty of comments on Facebook thanking her for her actions. The Ukrainian president Zelensky also thanked her for “telling the truth.” 

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called her actions an act of hooliganism.

State-controlled TV

Russian TV news has long been controlled by the Kremlin and independent viewpoints are rare on all the major channels. 

State-controlled Russian media is referring to the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” and blame Ukraine as the aggressor – they describe Ukraine’s elected government as neo-Nazis. 

Several remaining independent media outlets in Russia have stopped broadcasting or publishing following pressure from the authorities.