Russian TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who in March protested Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine in a live broadcast, has been placed on the Interior Ministry's wanted list after she allegedly escaped from house arrest.
Mediazona website said on October 3 that Ovsyannikova's name appeared in the ministry's registry of wanted persons. The ministry said the journalists is wanted for a crime but did not specify the accusations.
Two days earlier, Ovsyannikova's former husband, Igor Ovsyannikov, said she escaped from house arrest along with their 11-year-old daughter, adding that their current whereabouts are unknown.
Ovsyannikova's lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, told Novaya gazeta.Europe at the time that he had no information about his client’s possible flight.
In August, a Moscow court placed Ovsyannikova under house arrest on a charge of distributing false information about Russia’s armed forces after police searched her apartment in the Russian capital.
Zakhvatov said then that Ovsyannikova may face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the charge.
Ovsyannikova gained international recognition on March 14 when she burst onto the set of Channel One's Vremya news program holding a poster reading: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They are lying to you” in Russian. She also shouted: "Stop the war. No to war."
Ukraine-born Ovsyannikova was a producer with Channel One at the time of her protest. She was later detained and fined 30,000 rubles ($490) by a court for calling for illegal protests.
Ovsyannikova resigned from Channel One and spent several months abroad, including in Ukraine, repeatedly expressing her condemnation of the war.
After her return to Moscow in July, a court on August 8 ordered Ovsyannikova to pay a fine of 40,000 rubles ($660) for her latest online posts protesting the war.
A law signed by Putin in March provides for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations.
