France is ready to offer its “protection” to the Russian television employee who protested live against the war in Ukraine, either at the embassy or by granting her asylum, Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday, in claiming in Moscow “all clarity” on his situation. “We are going to take steps to offer protection, either at the embassy or in the asylum, to your colleague,” he told reporters, adding that he would have “the opportunity during (his) next meeting with President Putin to propose this solution in a direct way”.
Need Russian agreement
The French presidency wishes to offer him consular protection at its embassy in Moscow but needs the agreement of Russia, explained the Elysée. The environmental candidate for the presidency, Yannick Jadot, had previously asked on Twitter “the French embassy in Moscow to welcome Marina Ovsiannikova so that France grants her asylum”, while she “says risking 5 to 10 years in prison for his gesture of protest against the war in Ukraine”.
The woman burst into a newscast with a sign criticizing the military offensive in Ukraine, which could land her up to 15 years in prison under a new law, her lawyer told AFP on Tuesday. Daniel Berman. He does not know where his client is being held, who was immediately arrested.
“We are lying to you here”, said the employee
This 40-year-old, born in Odessa in Ukraine, burst into full live Monday evening on the set of one of the most watched television news in Russia, on the pro-Kremlin federal channel Pervy Kanal of which she is an employee. She appeared behind the presenter with a sign that read “No to war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They lie to you here”. This is an extremely rare scene in a country where information is strictly controlled, and all the more so since the beginning of the conflict.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called the protest an act of “hooliganism”. “The channel and those who have to take care of it, take care of it,” he commented. In a video recorded before taking action, Marina Ovsiannikova explained that her father is Ukrainian, her mother Russian, and that she no longer supports the dissemination of “lies” which “zombify” Russians. Since then, she has received tens of thousands of messages of support on her Facebook account.