MOSCOW, Russia – A Russian court sentenced former state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who burst into a news broadcast with a placard that read “Stop the war” and “They’re lying to you,” to eight and a half years in jail in absentia on Wednesday, October 4.
Ovsyannikova was found guilty of “spreading knowingly false information about the Russian Armed Forces.” according to a statement posted by the court on Telegram. Ovsyannikova, 45, fled Russia with her daughter for an unspecified European country a year ago after escaping from house arrest, according to her lawyer, saying she had no case to answer.
She had staged her original protest less than three weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, in what it called a “special military operation.”