Frankly Marina Ovsyannikova seems hell-bent on provoking Putin to make of her the jailed martyr he is making of Alexei Navalny.
Marina Ovsyannikova, a former editor of the state-run Channel One network who denounced Moscow’s war on Ukraine during a live TV broadcast, faces criminal charges after Russia’s security services raided her home on Wednesday.
According to Dmitry Zakhvatov, a lawyer for human rights organization OVD-Info, who is assisting Ovsyannikova … faced a criminal investigation relating to charges of disseminating false information about the Russian army, under a new law adopted by the Kremlin after the war in Ukraine began.
(Politico, August 18, 2022)
Disappear or be disappeared
Truth be told, after she defied, indeed humiliated, Putin with that notorious anti-war stunt on his state TV, everyone thought he would have her disappeared. But when he let her off with just a slap on the wrist, everyone thought she would surely do the sensible thing, and disappear.
Apropos of which, French President Macron headed a list of prominent Europeans who immediately offered Ovsyannikova refuge. Sure enough, she seemed free and clear of Putin’s clutches when she accepted a job with the German daily newspaper Die Welt. But that only lasted three months.
Because there she was again just last month, following up that TV stunt with a one-woman protest in front of the Kremlin no less. She held a poster that read,
Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists!
Even during her court hearing this week for this “crime” against the state (because Putin himself is the state), she held a sign, while inside her cage, that read,
May the dead children haunt you in your dreams.
I mean, what’s a murdering fascist like Putin to do. The woman is clearly incorrigible.
Still, his irrepressible chauvinism is such that, instead of throwing her in jail, he has placed her under house arrest until October. She now faces 10 years in prison…
If jailing women works for MbS…
Which is why Ovsyannikova would be well-advised to use this “grace period” to get Europeans who reached out to her previously to help her flee Russia again, ASAP. Because only God knows what Putin will decide to do with her come October…
After all, he might see political benefit in jailing her the way his BFF Saudi Crown Prince MbS jailed women’s rights activist Salma al-Shebab for 34 years for merely tweeting about their grievances.
You’d think this draconian sentence would make MbS a skunk among Western leaders. Instead, they are rolling out the red carpet to welcome him back into the fold – even with Khashoggi’s blood stained on his hands. So…
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