Marina Ovsyannikova

What is happening in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is an aggressor country and the responsibility for this aggression rests on the conscience of only one person. That person is Vladimir Putin.

Marina Ovsyannikova [Марина Овсянникова] (born 19 June 1978) is a Russian journalist who was employed on the Channel One Russia TV channel from 2002. She worked for Russia's main evening newscast Vremya. In 2022, she interrupted a state-controlled Russian TV news broadcast to protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which made international news headlines. She was arrested, held without access to her lawyer, fined, and later released, and now lives in exile in France.

Quotes

TV appearance

• No War
  Остановите войну, не верьте пропаганде, здесь вам врут.
  [Stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, here you are being lied to.]
  Russians against war
  • Sign in Russian and English held up during her protest during a nationwide broadcast (14 March 2022)

Statement recorded before appearing on TV

My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian, and they've never been enemies. This necklace I'm wearing is a symbol of the fact that Russia must immediately end this fratricidal war and our fraternal peoples will still be able to reconcile.

The next 10 generations won't wash away the stain of this fratricidal war. We Russians are thinking and intelligent people. It's in our power alone to stop all this madness. Go protest. Don't be afraid of anything. They can't lock us all away.

• What is happening in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is an aggressor country and the responsibility for this aggression rests on the conscience of only one person. That person is Vladimir Putin. My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian, and they've never been enemies. This necklace I'm wearing is a symbol of the fact that Russia must immediately end this fratricidal war and our fraternal peoples will still be able to reconcile. Unfortunately, I've spent the last few years working for Channel One, doing Kremlin propaganda, and I'm very ashamed of this. Ashamed that I allowed lies to be broadcast from TV screens. Ashamed that I allowed others to zombify Russian people. We were silent in 2014 when all this started. We didn't protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We just silently watched this inhuman regime at work. And now the whole world has turned its back on us. And the next 10 generations won't wash away the stain of this fratricidal war. We Russians are thinking and intelligent people. It's in our power alone to stop all this madness. Go protest. Don't be afraid of anything. They can't lock us all away.
  • "‘I spread Kremlin propaganda’: Russian TV news protester's pre-recorded statement" Guardian video posted on YouTube (14 March 2022)]

Posting on Facebook

• Russia is mired in cynicism. On state TV channels from morning to evening they discuss whose rocket exploded at the Kramatorsk railway station, how the corpses in Bucha wiggled their fingers and got up ....
• The propaganda machine leads the Russian people away from the essence, clouds their minds and replaces concepts. Instead of words of condolence, it broadcasts about fakes. Instead of morality, it plunges society into chaos.
• The truth is that Russia is an aggressor country. Treacherously attacked an independent state at night. This means that the responsibility for today's explosion in Kramatorsk and for the war crimes in Bucha lies solely with her. And no one else. Ukrainians are defending their native land by all available means. So they will always be right.
• The main goal that unites all of humanity now is to stop this merciless war. Don't argue about what's fake and what's true. Just do not succumb to negative informational influence. Turn off the TV and remember the main thing..
  • Posting on Facebook (9 April 2022)

Between Good and Evil (2023)

• In the minds of Russians, there had to be an image that all Americans were L.G.B.T. supporters who killed Black people and abused adopted children from Russia.
  • Quoted in "Famed Antiwar Protester Was Once Cog in Russia’s Propaganda Machine" The New York Times (24 March 2023)