A Russian journalist who was charged for her criticism of Moscow's war on Ukraine and ordered to remain under house arrest pending trial secretly fled the country for France.
Yekaterina Barabash, a film critic who had written critical messages to Facebook about the Russian invasion, appeared on May 5 at a Paris news conference organized by Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group known by its French acronym, RSF.
"Her escape was one of the most perilous operations RSF been involved in since Russia's draconian laws of March 2022," the group's director, Thibaut Bruttin, said during the conference with Barabash.
Barabash, a film critic who has worked for Radio France Internationale and been an occasional guest on RFE/RL's Russian Service programs, was arrested on February 25 after returning home from a film festival in Berlin.
She was charged with spreading fake news about the Russian military -- a draconian measure put into law after Moscow launched its all-out invasion in February 2022.
Russian officials issued an arrest warrant after police checked on Barabash at her Moscow apartment on April 13 and found her missing.
Barabash told the Paris news conference that she crossed multiple borders using secret channels arranged by activists and spent two weeks in hiding before reappearing in Paris.
She said she left behind her 96-year-old mother, whom she could not contact when she fled.
"I just understood that I'd never see her again," Barabash said.
She told the news conference there was no such thing as a "Russian journalist" inside the country anymore.
"There are no Russian journalists," she said. "Journalism cannot exist under totalitarianism."