A day after causing a sensation in Russia by appearing on the live broadcast of the country’s main news program with a poster protesting the war in Ukraine, journalist Marina Ovsiannikova has already sat in the dock.
Editor of the program Vremia (Tempo), of the state-owned Canal Um, Marina shouted for an end to the conflict and held up a poster with phrases such as “don’t believe the propaganda” and “here everyone lies”, in addition to “no to war”, in English. and Russian.
She was not framed for the crime, defined by law last week, of spreading false information about the “special military operation”, as the Kremlin calls the war, and the Russian Armed Forces.
For that, he could get up to 10 days in jail, not the 15 years that the most draconian interpretation of the law allows. But she was eventually fined 30,000 rubles (R$1,430). There were international protests against the possible punishment of the journalist, who even received support from the United Nations, and this could have been a burden. But her quickness of judgment was meant to serve as an example.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesman criticized Marina, saying she had committed an act of vandalism. But he praised Channel One for its “technical and unbiased coverage”. Before being arrested, shortly after the episode on Monday night (14), the publisher had posted on social media a manifesto against the war, against the broadcaster and against President Vladimir Putin.
The atmosphere among journalists in the country is terrible. Also on Tuesday, the anchor Lilia Gildeeva, who had been at the head of the show Hoje, on the free TV channel NTV, announced that she had fled Russia for 16 years.
She resigned from an unknown country, according to the RBC newspaper. NTV was the first channel to be intervened by the government of Vladimir Putin, in 2001, when it was taken from a rival Kremlin oligarch and bought by state-owned gas company Gazprom.
Gildeeva hardly looked like an opponent. She has twice received a commendation from Putin for her work. She said she left the country for fear of being prevented from doing so in the future, although she did not elaborate on the obvious reason, the war in Ukraine.
The two episodes give somber tones to the Russian media situation. Since the beginning of the war, official bans and restrictions were gradually imposed on vehicles that reported the conflict calling it by name. Classic vehicles of post-Soviet democratization, such as Radio Eco in Moscow, and more modern symbols of possible independence in Russia, such as TV Chuva, had to close their doors.
There is only one de facto independent newspaper, the Novaia Gazeta run by the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize holder Dmitri Muratov. He has announced that he will not cover the war as it is under military censorship, but has reported on the indirect effects of the conflict on Russian society. Muratov adopts a free editorial line, but he has a lot of traffic in the Kremlin and in the Russian elite.
Reporters from TV channels and newspapers aligned with the Kremlin have constantly complained about the new conditions, fearing that they would be framed by the harsh law of war. Foreign vehicles have suspended their operation in the country, but some, like the British BBC, have resumed operation.
Reports abound from journalists, political scientists and military analysts who are leaving the country for nearby nations such as Latvia and Georgia to wait for greater clarity on what will happen to Russia — the risk of a hardening of the Putin regime is seen as real, especially if he wins a military victory.
A somewhat unsettling signal emerged on Tuesday, with the Telegram channels of Omon, the dreaded Russian riot police, opening up “job opportunities across Moscow”. Salaries range from the equivalent of R$2,600 to R$4,700, not exactly brilliant for the high standard of living in the Russian capital.
Every day, social media is flooded with videos of people hinting at protesting or giving interviews near Red Square, the heart of Moscow, and being arrested by police or Omon people. According to the NGO monitoring state violence OVD-Info, since the beginning of the war around 15,000 protesters have been detained — with some exceptions, they were released after being registered at the police station.
Still, activists linked to Alexei Navalni continue to encourage protests. The opposition leader, who was arrested last year, faces a new trial on the 22nd, in which he could face 13 years in prison on charges he says are false of embezzling money.
“We had one country until Wednesday, February 23. We went to sleep and woke up in another,” said Mikhail, a political scientist who took refuge in Riga, the Latvian capital, and asked not to have his last name published. “Now it’s time to wait. I was young when the Soviet Union ended in 1991, and I didn’t think I would ever see anything like it again, in terms of the impact on the country,” said the 49-year-old.
