After a new protest action against the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, a court in Moscow has sentenced the journalist Marina Ovsyannikova to another fine. The former employee of the state television station Pervy Kanal had to pay 50,000 rubles (806 euros) for damaging the reputation of the Russian army.
This was reported by the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti on Thursday. Ovsjannikova had referred to the “freedom of speech” in court. She had already had to pay several fines.
This time it was specifically about an anti-war protest on the sidelines of a court hearing against the Russian opposition figure Ilya Yashin, who is a proven critic of the Kremlin and is now in prison.
Ovzyannikova, who, as an employee of state television, reported positively on Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin for years, had previously posted photos on social networks of herself standing with a protest poster within sight of the Kremlin. “Putin is a murderer,” read the poster, and “His soldiers are fascists.”
The Russian state television employee showed a protest poster against the war in a live broadcast in March. It read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. Here you will be lied to”.