It’s been a tough couple of months for Marina Ovsyannikova.
The Russian state TV journalist burst onto a night newscast in March holding up a banner towards her nation’s actions in Ukraine, telling the channel’s tens of millions of viewers that state TV was mendacity to them.
She has no job, she resides off the cash she made out of promoting her automotive and she or he is in the midst of a fierce custody battle together with her ex-husband who works on the Kremlin’s English language channel, Russia Today.
It is an assault from all sides.
“My mum supports Putin, my son has been brainwashed by his father plus I’m being criticised by the supporters of the special military operation who troll me,” she says.
“Part of the opposition troll me too. They name me a former propagandist. Plus, even the Ukrainians are talking out towards me as a result of they imagine all these fakes and conspiracy theories.
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“They believe that the broadcast wasn’t live and that I’m working for the FSB.”
The FSB concept, that Maria is working for Russia’s secret companies, has a lifetime of its personal throughout Russian and Ukrainian social media.
She has continued to protest Russia’s actions in Ukraine, however up to now has bought away comparatively unscathed, with simply fines on administrative fees.
Despite the actual fact she stood exterior the Kremlin two weeks in the past with a banner calling Vladimir Putin a assassin, she has but to face any comeback for it. Others haven’t bought off so frivolously.
“It’s a complete lie! How can I be an agent? I’m a normal Russian woman who expressed her position as a citizen and they are trying to discredit me from every side.
“It’s good for the Kremlin to spread all kinds of conspiracy theories so that people don’t believe me. That’s the main point – I’m a ‘fake’ and they shouldn’t believe me.”
Ovsyannikova left for Germany shortly after her look on state TV. She was provided a job with the German each day Die Welt however that is come to an finish and she or he returned to Russia when her ex-husband sued for custody of their two kids.
“My daughter called me every day asking, ‘when are you coming back, Mummy?’ I want to see you’. My husband, who’s working for the Kremlin, he was turning them against me. I realised that I’m losing contact with them and if I didn’t return, I would simply lose my children.
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“Besides, each voice that speaks out towards the conflict from inside Russia is far stronger than if an individual protests from overseas.”
She says her decision to stay with state TV as long as she did was borne from the necessity of having to look after two children after a painful divorce.
But she had hoped that more former colleagues would follow her example and quit.
“After seeing what occurred to me, most of them realised that they might turn into enemies to everybody and that’s the reason they lay low, they like to not stick their heads out or to ask any ethical questions.
“They are just quietly sitting there, working for the money.”
They don’t love her both. Outside the courtroom, the primary query she will get is hostile.
“What does it feel like to betray your motherland?”
Ovsyannikova cuts a lonely determine. But it is the cross she has to bear, and she or he says she would not remorse what she’s carried out.
“I’m holding up, because within me I know that I’m right. I have this strong core and I’m not giving up.”
Source: information.sky.com”