Lawyers for Marina Ovsyannikova, the woman who interrupted a live news broadcast on Russian state television on Monday, cannot locate her. Ovsyannikova was predictably detained after her protest, and may face 15 years in prison for “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces, but the fact that more than 12 hours after she was detained the human rights lawyers representing her don’t know where she is adds a troubling layer to the story.
In a video statement she recorded before her televised protest, Ovyannikova said, “What is happening now in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is the aggressor and this aggression is one the conscience of only one person, and that person is Vladimir Putin. My father is Ukrainian and my mother is Russian, and they were never enemies.”
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Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One, expressed regret for her years of work promoting Putin’s propaganda, saying, “Now I am very ashamed of this. I’m ashamed I told lies from the television. Ashamed that I let them zombify the Russian people.”
She continued, “We were silent in 2014 when this was first starting. We didn’t go out to protests when the Kremlin poisoned [Russian opposition leader Alexei] Navalny. We were just onlookers in this inhumane regime. And now the world has turned away from us and for ten future generations they won’t be able to wash away the shame of this fratricidal war.”
Ovsyannikova drew praise around the world, including personal thanks from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But there’s also international concern for her fate, with a representative of the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office saying the nation was “worried” for her after her “incredibly important” act.
There are important lessons to be taken from Ovsyannikova’s turn from dutiful propagandist to courageous protester, and Marcy Wheeler argues that some of those lessons are for prominent U.S. journalists. “She will almost certainly pay a stiff price for her speech, but she is also someone who did nothing, up till now, as Putin kept raising the price of speaking freely,” Wheeler writes.
”While Ovsyannikova’s protest will likely resonate for some time, I would hope that complicit journalists in countries where it’s not too late to defend democracy reflect seriously on Ovsyannikova’s shame. Even as Russia rains bombs down on Ukraine, journalists like Chuck Todd and Lester Holt invited Bill Barr onto their TV to tell lies about Russia’s attack on democracy in the United States, to tell lies about Trump’s extortion of Ukraine, to tell lies about his role in an attack on democracy. Like Ovsyannikova, Todd and Holt sit, comfortable, polished, and complicit, as Barr told lies that were a direct attack on democracy and rule of law.”
As Ovsyannikova said in the video she recorded, “It is in our power to stop this lunacy. Go to protests, don’t be scared, they can’t detain us all.” And for journalists, push back on the lies before it’s too late.
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