German media outlet Welt has hired as a correspondent a woman who made international headlines by bursting into a studio of Russian state TV, her then employer, to denounce the Ukraine war during a live news bulletin, its owner Axel Springer said on Monday.
Marina Ovsyannikova, 43, will report for the Welt newspaper as well as for Welt’s TV news channel, including from Ukraine and Russia, Springer said.
Thousands of Russians have been detained for taking to the streets to protest against the war but Ovsyannikova went further, holding up an anti-propaganda sign behind a studio presenter reading the news at prime time and shouting anti-war slogans.
Welt Group editor-in-chief Ulf Porschardt said in a statement by Springer that Ovsyannikova with her on-air protest “defended the most important journalistic ethics – despite the threat of state repression.”
“I am excited to be working with her,” he added.
Ovsyannikova had told Reuters last month that she was worried for her safety and hoped her protest would open Russians’ eyes to propaganda. She said she had no plans to leave Russia.
State TV is a vital platform for the Kremlin, which portrays the invasion as a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine.
Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked act of aggression.
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