A Russian journalist critical of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine said Monday that she fled to France after being assisted in escaping Russia by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“It was very difficult,” Ukrainian-born journalist Ekaterina Barabash, who faces up to 10 years in prison for criticising the Russian army, told a news conference at RSF headquarters in Paris.
Her escape took about two and a half weeks, she explained in English.
“I arrived three days ago,” Barabash said, adding that she couldn’t reveal all the details. “I’m going to apply for political asylum.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, authorities have opened thousands of cases against people accused of “discrediting” the military.
Barabash, 64, was arrested in February on suspicion of spreading “false information” about the Russian armed forces in several social media posts.
Russian authorities were alerted to her disappearance in April by an electronic surveillance device.
Barabash said she removed her ankle bracelet when she fled.
“It’s somewhere in a Russian forest,” she said, smiling.
“I had been hiding for two weeks,” she said, adding that she crossed the border on her birthday, April 26.
“I knew everything would be okay.”
Barabash worked as a film critic and had written for several media outlets in Russia, including the Russian service of Radio France International.
Barabash, who was born in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv when it was still part of the Soviet Union, has been an outspoken critic of Moscow’s military offensive against Ukraine.
In March 2022, she wrote on Facebook that Russia had “bombed the country” and “razed entire cities.”
Days before her arrest, she wrote about her “hate, hate, hate towards those who started all this.”
“So many lives destroyed, so many families torn apart,” Barbash wrote on Facebook.
“Over the years, hatred has ceased to burn, has ceased to suffocate me: it has hardened, grown stronger, and burns with a constant flame that nothing can extinguish. I will die with it.”
Russia made it illegal to criticise the military and its operations in Ukraine shortly after the invasion began. Rights groups say authorities are using the law to carry out an unprecedented crackdown on dissent.
Former Russian state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who protested against the conflict in Ukraine during a live broadcast, fled Russia in 2022 after escaping house arrest.
Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, helped smuggle her out of the country.
RSF director Thibault Bruttin said that after the organization helped Ovsyannikova escape, it is becoming more difficult to help journalists escape from Russia.
“We’re very relieved,” he said. “It’s very dangerous.”