Online to the point These are comments written by Nettavisen’s editor-in-chief.
Russian security forces have broken into and raided the home of Russian television editor Marina Ovsyannikova (43). The background is that she went on air on the TV channel Channel One with a poster to protest the war of aggression against Ukraine.
According to a lawyer in the human rights organization OVD-Info, the security forces kicked in the doors of her home, accusing her of spreading false information about the Russian armed forces.
The war in Ukraine is taboo in the Russian public, and so-called false information is therefore brutally punished.
It is an old lesson that the truth is the first casualty of a war, but the brutal suppression of opposition and opponents in Russia is still relatively unique in a developed country.
Here you can see the proceedings on Russian TV – and the video the reporter recorded beforehand:
When Ovsyannikova went on air with the war protest on March 14, she was arrested and isolated by the police. The next day she was fined by the court. The fact that the first reaction was so mild was probably due to French President Emmanuel Macron personally getting involved.
In July, the courageous reporter was again arrested and fined for a speech she gave in connection with the trial of the politician Ilya Yashin. In August, she received another fine for sharing posts against the war on Facebook.
Here you can read more: Marina Ovsyannikova, a former employee of Channel One, was searched
Dictatorship to war of aggression
For every day Russia continues its deadly war of aggression against Ukraine, the impression that the country has gone from being an emerging and modern democracy to a dictatorship that uses aggression as a method is reinforced.
With each passing day, the conflict deepens and a return to some form of normality in relations with Russia seems more and more unlikely.
The losers will be the Russian people, who will be hit hard financially by Western sanctions and who will be deprived of basic human rights such as freedom of expression and free elections.
Solidarity from Western media
With the action against Marina Ovsyannikova, Putin’s security forces are carrying out a new attack on democracy and free speech. After Ovsyannikova had to quit Channel One, she has been employed as a freelancer for Germany’s Die Welt.
– She is a symbol of Russians who live in cognitive dissonance – who know the Western world, but who live in a system that must collapse in order to create the freedom to live like in the West. So we think we should be open to people who decide not to be part of the system anymore, says Die Welt’s editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt to Politico.
The message she conveyed to millions of television viewers was: “Stop the war.” Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here.”
Since then, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war of aggression and every single day young Russian soldiers are sent home in coffins from a conflict that has sent relations between Russia and NATO back to the Cold War.
And the truth has become a crime.
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