A Russian journalist who protested against the Ukraine war live on air has been rushed to hospital in France after a suspected poisoning.
Marina Ovsyannikova, 45, called emergency services yesterday and was hospitalised after unexpectedly falling ill as she left her Paris apartment and said she suspected she was poisoned.
Police were examining her apartment and an investigation was underway.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which helped Marina Ovsyannikova flee Russia and settle in France, said its team has been at her side since she sought medical attention.
The group, known also by its French acronym RSF, did not have additional knowledge about what occurred.
Marina Ovsyannikova, who worked at Russian state television Channel One, drew international attention in March 2022 after appearing behind the anchor of an evening news broadcast with a sign that said: ‘Stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.’
She was charged with disparaging the Russian military and fined 30,000 rubles (£253).
She later staged a demonstration near the Kremlin in July 2022 and was detained and put under house arrest before fleeing to France with her daughter.
Earlier this month, a Moscow court sentenced her to eight and a half years in jail in absentia for spreading false information about the Russian army.
It was the latest example of a Russian crackdown on dissent that has intensified since Russia invaded Ukraine almost 20 months ago.
The scale of the crackdown has been unprecedented in post-Soviet Russia.
Russia is a personalist tyranny, controlled by a single person. Vladimir Putin can’t stand protesters and is so tragic that he has to get even with the people who have offended him, and with Putin’s known venomous personality, understandably people will fear the worst.
I guess we’ve come to expect Vladimir Putin to eliminate his fellow Russians because it’s become the new normal now.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 