It is now in France. Russian journalist and film critic Ekaterina Barabach was exfiltrated from her country to France by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), the NGO announces on Monday. She risked up to ten years in prison for denounced War in Ukraine.
“I fled, I had no choice. »» “Thank you all for your support,” said the 63 -year -old journalist at RSF headquarters in Paris. She said she had to resolve to leave her 96 -year -old mother to carry out her Russian flight. “I fled, I had no choice. Journalism no longer exists in Russia, ”she added, in words reported by RSF. She had been arrested by the Russian authorities on February 25, when she got off the plane, when she came back from Berlin (Germany).
“It is an immense relief and an immense pleasure of having healthy and saves among us in Paris,” added the director general of Reporters Without Borders, Thibaut Bruttin. “This is one of the most perilous operations we have carried out” since the start of the war, he explains, mentioning several moments when RSF believed that Ekaterina Barabach was going to be arrested. One day, the NGO even believed that it was dead. “Voices that dare to tell the truth about the war in Ukraine cannot be killed. »»
Wanted in Russia since April 21. The Russian federal prison service announced on April 21 that Ekaterina Barabach, 64, was placed on the list of people wanted. She had disappeared from her home on April 13, when she was under house arrest as part of an investigation for disseminating “false information” on the Russian army. This measure had been ordered by a Moscow court, the Russian capital, after its arrest at the end of February.
Virulent criticism against war. The journalist, born in Kharkiv under the USSR (current Ukraine), had virginized the offensive of Russia carried out with her Ukrainian neighbor since February 2022. “Then, bunch of bastards, you bombed (l’Ukraine)shaved whole cities, killed a hundred children, shot dead from peaceful people, maintained Marioupol under blockade, deprived millions of people of a normal life, forced to go abroad? “, She had indicated in a publication cited by the independent media Meduza.
In October 2022, RSF had already organized the escape of another Russian journalist, Marina Ovsiannikova. She incurred ten years in prison after having brandished an anti-war sign on state television.
