However, the producer says in an interview with the Guardian that he does not regret his act. “I won’t take back a single word,” she said on Wednesday.
The image circled social networks and Western television. On Monday, while the Russian Channel One channel is broadcasting its newspaper, producer Marina Ovsyannikova appears behind the presenter, holding a sign that reads “No to war.” As such, she urges Russians not to believe their government’s “propaganda” about invading Ukraine. Arrested immediately afterward, she was fined and then released on Tuesday, but with the possibility of criminal prosecution. In interviews with the Guardian and Reuters on Wednesday, she said she was now worried about her safety.
“I believe in what I have done, but now I understand the scale of the problems that I will have to face, and, of course, I am extremely concerned about my safety,” she told Reuters.
“I don’t regret what I did at all,” Marina Ovsyannikova told The Guardian by phone on Wednesday. “I will not take back a single word. It’s my opinion”.
In a pre-recorded video, the journalist said she was “ashamed” to work for a channel accused of spreading information dictated by the Kremlin.
“The country was going in the wrong direction”
This Wednesday, Marina Ovsyannikova claims that she has long been critical of the media, but the war in Ukraine “was the last straw” that decided her to “act.”
“First, they canceled the election of governors, then they began to ban independent media, then they poisoned [le leader de l’opposition Alexei] Bulk. My anger continued to grow. […] The country was moving in the wrong direction,” she said.
On Tuesday, a Russian court found Marina Ovsyannikova guilty of an “administrative offence” and sentenced her to a fine of 30,000 rubles, or about 250 euros at the current exchange rate. The decision, after which she said she felt “relieved” when she was threatened with up to 10 days in prison.