Russia: journalist given 8-year jail sentence after TV protest

Marina Ovsyannikova made international headlines last year when she burst into a live broadcast with a sign that read: ‘Stop the war’ and ‘They’re lying to you’.

Marina Ovsyannikova followed up her on-air protest with another outside the Kremlin where she called Vladimir Putin a fascist. Picture: AFP

A Former Russian state television journalist who made an on-screen protest against the war in Ukraine has been sentenced in absentia to eight-and-a-half years in prison.

Marina Ovsyannikova made international headlines last year when she burst into a live broadcast by Channel One, Russia’s main television station, with a sign that read: “Stop the war” and “They’re lying to you.”

She was fined for that protest but later charged with spreading “false information” about the actions of Russia’s army when she held up a sign opposite the Kremlin that called Putin and his soldiers fascists. “How many more children must die before you will stop?” the sign read.

Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova interrupts Russia’s most-watched evening news bulletin with an anti-war message: ‘How many more children must die before you will stop?’

Ovsyannikova, 45, fled to Europe with her daughter last year and is believed to be living in France. On the eve of the verdict by the court in the Basmanny district of Moscow, she called the charges against her “absurd and politically motivated” and said she would do the same thing again. “I don’t retract a single word,” she wrote on Telegram.

“Sometimes I ask myself – could I have remained silent? No, I couldn’t. To remain silent at the moment of aggression means to become an accomplice to the crime. Putin and his inner circle … committed treason and destroyed Russia’s future.”

Almost 20,000 people have been arrested at anti-war protests in Russia since Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine last year, according to the OVD-Info human rights group.

Marina Ovsyannikova stands inside a defendants' box during a court session over charges of ‘discrediting’ the Russian army, in Moscow, in August 2022. Picture: AFP

At least 127 people have been sent to prison because of their opposition to the war, while hundreds have been fined. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician who is also a British citizen, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April for treason and criticising the invasion. He had made an anti-war speech to the Arizona House of Representatives.

Kara-Murza, who has survived two poisonings, was sent to a penal colony in Omsk, Siberia, last month after a court in Moscow rejected his appeal. He was placed in an isolation cell.

Alexandra Skochilenko, an artist in St Petersburg, is facing up to ten years in prison after she was arrested last year for replacing price tags in supermarkets with anti-war messages.

Skochilenko said last week that prison officials had denied her food and water for 48 hours. Her trial will resume later this month.

Human rights activists have expressed concerns about the health of Igor Baryshnikov, 64, who in June was imprisoned for seven-and-a-half years for writing social media posts against the war. He was jailed despite needing an urgent operation to remove a tumour.