Marina Ovsyannikova, the journalist who interrupted the Russian news with an anti-war protest, returns to her maiden name, which is Ukrainian, as a sign of support for Kiev. “I am not ‘a good Russian’, I am Ukrainian. As a sign of support for Ukraine, I want to change my surname, Ovsyannikov, back to the original Tkachuk, ”she wrote about her on Facebook, proclaiming her intention to leave the surname of her Russian husband from whom she is separated.
Of a Ukrainian father and Russian mother, Ovsyannikova was briefly arrested in March in Russia after her sensational protest, which went around the world. She was fined and released and then emigrated to Germany, where she now works for the newspaper Die Welt. In Ukraine, however, the fact that she was released has given rise to many suspicions about the genuineness of her protest. In her post about her on Facebook, the journalist firmly denied that she was an agent of the Russian services of the FSB, declaring that she was released thanks to pressure from French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and American politicians.