Russian TV editor who mocked Putin reveals amazing escape from Moscow

Russian TV editor who mocked Putin reveals her amazing escape from Moscow: Mother-of-two, 44, hid in seven vehicles and navigated by the stars as she walked through forest at night to flee after being arrested over anti-war protest

• Marina Ovsyannikova fled from house arrest with her 11-year-old daughter Trina
• She appeared in public in France for the first time since she fled last year

Heroic Russian TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova, who staged a live anti-war protest on state television, has revealed how she fled her homeland and walked across a muddy border through the night to safety in the West.

Ovsyannikova, 44, famously humiliated Vladimir Putin by barging onto the set of Russian state broadcaster Channel One’s flagship evening news program to hold up a sign saying: ‘They’re lying to you here’ and ‘Stop the War!’

The former editor at Channel One was told she faced up to ten years in jail and decided to flee from house arrest with her 11-year-old daughter Trina.

Appearing in public in France for the first time since she fled in October last year, she revealed her lawyer had told her: ‘Run, run from Russia – you only have a few days left before the trial. They will definitely put you in jail.’

Despite finding safety, Ovsyannikova said she still fears for her life following the deaths of other Russians abroad.

Ovsyannikova barging onto the set of Russian state broadcaster Channel One’s flagship evening news program to hold up a sign saying: ‘They’re lying to you here’ and ‘Stop the War!’, on March 15, 2022

Ovsyannikova said she was assisted in her escape by the France-based Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières; RSF), using seven different vehicles and walking across the border into a forest at night.

She said she chose Friday to Saturday night to escape because ‘this is a time when all the law enforcers are usually on leave, sitting at their dachas [country houses] with vodka and barbecues’ and she hoped they would not rush to look for her. 

She did not disclose the place she and her daughter made their escape.

‘We had two days to leave the territory of Russia,’ she said.

‘Thank God, it worked out. I can’t tell in which direction we left, but I can say that we changed seven cars in the process.’

Only when they were in the second car did she remember she had forgotten to scissor the electronic tag she had been ordered to wear by a Russian court, so potentially alerting the police to her flight.

‘At the moment we were running away [from home], there was such nervousness,’ she said.

Ovsyannikova described how one of the cars used to escape got stuck in the mud, forcing her to flee on foot without any form of satellite navigation.

‘We literally jumped out in a field. It was dark. We were running across a field, not seeing anything ahead of us.

‘We had to navigate by the stars and it was a real challenge,’ she told a press conference at the RSF headquarters in Paris.

Former Russian state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova and Reporters Without Borders Christophe Deloire attend a press conference in Paris, February 10, 2023

Ovsyannikova said she was assisted in her escape by the France-based Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières; RSF), using seven different vehicles and walking across the border into a forest at night.

Ovsyannikova (centre left) described how one of the cars used to escape got stuck in the mud, forcing her to flee on foot without any form of satellite navigation

She said they were constantly at risk of getting caught and dragged back to Moscow by the Russian authorities where she would have been publicly humiliated.

‘We were hiding from the lights of border guards and tractors that were circulating but we finally succeeded and reached the border.’ 

Part of the rescue team was waiting for her on the other side of the border.

‘It ended more or less well,’ she said at a press conference.

But the 44-year-old mother of two stressed that she had been reluctant to leave Russia.

‘It was still my country, even if war criminals have taken power, but they didn’t give me a choice – it was either prison or emigration,’ she said.

French President Emmanuel Macron offered Ovsyannikova asylum a day after her TV protest and she is now living between various safe houses in France with her daughter.

Ovsyannikova said: ‘I’m very grateful to France, a free country, to have welcomed me.’ 

Despite finding asylum in the West, she said she still fears for her life and has been warned about poisoning by Putin’s agents, or a car accident. 

‘Of course I fear for my life. Each time I speak to my friends in Russia, they say ‘What do you prefer – Novichok, pollonium or a car crash?” she said, referring to different assassination methods allegedly used by Russian security services.

The former editor at Channel One was told she faced up to ten years in jail and decided to flee from house arrest with her 11-year-old daughter Trina.

Ovsyannikova’s in her previous job as senior television editor at Russian state broadcaster Channel One

French President Emmanuel Macron offered Ovsyannikova asylum a day after her TV protest and she is now living between various safe houses in France with her daughter

Ovsyannikova said: ‘I’m very grateful to France, a free country, to have welcomed me.’

Ovsyannikova said she had faced a very difficult childhood – her family home in Chechnya destroyed during an earlier war there – and that this had motivated her to protest against the invasion of Ukraine.

‘I was right in the middle of the bubble of propaganda,’ she said. ‘I searched for a way to pierce this bubble.’

Ovsyannikova faced criticism from some quarters for having supported state propaganda for years before her protest.

She admitted she was knowingly complicit for years but buried her head in the sand, ‘taking refuge in daily life of friends and family’ and was only shaken into action by the ‘enormous shock’ of the war.

She moved to Germany after her initial protest on TV but returned after three months and held a one-woman protest near the Kremlin, holding a poster that read ‘Putin is a murderer’ which led to her arrest.

The head of RSF, Christophe Deloire, said she had contacted them shortly before deciding to run.

‘It was an extraordinary escape,’ he said. ‘Her evasion makes one think of the most famous escapes across the Berlin Wall.’

Ovsyannikova said she lives in the hope of one day seeing Russia’s leaders face a war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

‘I think this regime is living its last days but I don’t know how long this war and regime will last.’

‘But it must end with a total victory for Ukraine or there won’t be any future for Russia,’ she said. 

Marina Ovsyannikova is escorted by police before a court session over charges of ‘discrediting’ the Russian army, Moscow, August 11, 2022

Marina Ovsyannikova (left) and lawyer Anton Gashinsky (right) before the court session in Moscow, Russia, March 15, 2022

Heroic Russian TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova staged an anti-war protest on screen

She added: ‘I would like to express unlimited support to Ukraine’s people.

‘It’s almost a year that they have been fighting for their land, for our future, for the future of the entire civilised world.’

Ovsyannikova has since taken up an invitation to seek asylum in France that was personally issued by President Emmanuel Macron.

The journalist has also written a 200-page book about Putin’s propaganda media that will be released in both English and French.

Her son, 18, has remained in Moscow with her ex-husband, an employee of state propaganda broadcaster RT.

Just before she vanished, Ovsyannikova posted a video showing her ankle tag that she had to wear under home arrest.

She said: ‘Dear staff of the Federal Prison Service… Tag Putin with a bracelet like this.

‘It is him, and not me, who needs to be isolated from society and tried for genocide of the people of Ukraine.’

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