'It Is Not Safe': Journalist On Vladimir Putin's 'Most Wanted' List Flees Russia

Former Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova fled Russia just hours after escaping house arrest, despite being on the Kremlin’s wanted list.

Ovsyannikova’s lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov confirmed on Tuesday the 44-year-old and her daughter are “under the protection of a European state,” but said providing more details “may turn out to be a problem” for the former Channel 1 editor, according to a report by Independent.

"They are fine. They are waiting until they can talk about it publicly, but for now, it is not safe,” added Zakhvatov.

On Oct. 5, Ovsyannikova posted a video on Telegram to defiantly confirm her escape, although at that time it was assumed she remained in Russia because her daughter was without a passport.

In the video, Ovsyannikova pleaded to the Federal Penitentiary Service that “It is [Russian President Vladimir Putin] who must be isolated from society not me, and he should be tried for the genocide of the people of Ukraine and for the fact that he destroys the male population of Russia en masse.”

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The Backdrop: Ovsyannikova was fined 30,000 roubles ($482.70) for disobeying protest laws after walking onto the set of a live Channel 1 TV broadcast with a sign that read “stop the war” and “they’re lying to you.”

Ovsyannikova then quit her job, according to a report, and was arrested in August during a solo protest across from the Kremlin on the Moskva River embankment, where she held a card that read, “Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists.”

Following her arrest, Ovsyannikova was put under a two-month house arrest order while awaiting trial but escaped on Sept. 30. If found guilty, Ovsyannikova was facing up to 10 years of imprisonment for the offense of discrediting Russia’s military.

“I consider myself completely innocent, and since our state refuses to comply with its own laws, I refuse to comply with the measure of restraint imposed on me as of 30 September 2022 and release myself from it,” Ovsyannikova said following her escape.

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