A Russian news editor, Marina Ovsyannikova, is missing (Update: Now found, and reportedly being represented in court by human rights lawyer Anton Gashinsky.) in Russia as defense attorneys are reportedly looking for her after she interrupted a live broadcast on Russian state-run Channel One’s live broadcast on Monday and was reportedly detained. She held up a sign that read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” She had worked at the network previously. Now according to Meduza Editor Kevn Rothrock, she’s missing.
Nobody knows where Marina Ovsyannikova is. There are multiple human rights lawyers trying to offer their services to her, but the cops are brushing them off. Marina’s ex-husband, a Russia Today employee, is stonewalling everyone. It’s nearly 3am in Moscow. https://t.co/9UB6FF2Sui pic.twitter.com/hBWkHTsQ4y
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) March 14, 2022
While she was cut off by stock footage shortly after she appeared on the broadcast, she recorded a video before her appearance on TV, which has since gone viral. In it she can be seen apologizing for her work there and accusing the network of state propaganda. “Unfortunately, for the last few years I’ve been working for Channel One,” Ovsyannikova said in the prerecorded video released online. “I’ve been doing Kremlin propaganda and I’m very ashamed of it — that I let people lie from TV screens and allowed the Russian people to be zombified.” “We didn’t say anything in 2014 when it only just began. We didn’t protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We just silently watched this inhuman regime. Now the whole world has turned away from us, and ten generations of our descendants won’t wash off this fratricidal war,” Full Video Transcript:
Kevin Rothrock also reported that Ukrainian President Zelensky “personally and publicly thanked Marina Ovsyannikova for her brave protest today on Russian state TV. And he thanks all Russians laboring to speak the truth about the war.” Translating a video from Zelensky’s Telegram Channel.
According to OVD-Info, a NGO Russian human rights media project aimed at combating political persecution which monitors protests and provides legal assistance to those detained, a total of 14,911 people have been arrested in Russia following the invasion into Ukraine and beginning of the war.
