Russian reporter critical of Ukraine war escapes to France

Russia’s Ekaterina Barabash, who has Ukrainian heritage and is an outspoken critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, speaks during a press conference at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) headquarters, on May 5, 2025 in Paris.
| Photo Credit: AP

A Russian reporter critical of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine said on Monday (May 5, 2025) she fled to France after Reporters Without Borders (RSF) smuggled her out of Russia.

“It was very difficult,” Ukrainian-born journalist Ekaterina Barabash, who faces up to 10 years in prison for criticising Moscow’s Army, told a news conference at the media watchdog’s headquarters in Paris.

Her journey lasted around two-and-a-half weeks, she said in English.

“I arrived three days ago,” she said, adding she was not at liberty to disclose all the details.

“I am going to ask for political asylum.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, authorities have launched thousands of cases against people accused of “discrediting” the Army.

Ms. Barabash, 64, was arrested in February on suspicion of spreading “false information” about the Russian armed forces in several posts she made on social media.

Russian authorities were alerted to her disappearance in April by an electronic monitoring system.

Barabash said she removed her bracelet when she fled.

“It’s somewhere in the Russian forest,” she said, smiling.

“I had been hiding for two weeks” during her escape, she said, adding that she crossed the border on her birthday on April 26.

“I knew that everything would be ok.”

‘Very relieved’

Ms. Barabash had written for several news outlets in Russia, including the Russian service of Radio France Internationale.

Ms. 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 whole cities to the ground”.

Days before her arrest, she wrote of her “hatred, hatred, hatred for those who started all this”.

“So many lives have been destroyed, so many families torn apart,” she wrote on Facebook.

“Over the years, the hatred has stopped burning, stopped suffocating me — it has hardened, grown stronger and burns with a steady flame that nothing can extinguish. I will die with it.”

Russia made it illegal to criticise the army and its military operations in Ukraine shortly after the war against Ukraine began.

Rights groups say authorities are using the law to wage an unprecedented crackdown on dissent.

Former Russian state television journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, who protested against the Ukraine conflict during a live broadcast, escaped Russia in 2022 after fleeing house arrest.

Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, helped smuggle her out of the country.

RSF director Thibault Bruttin said it became more difficult to help journalists escape Russia after the media watchdog smuggled out Ovsyannikova.

“We are very relieved,” he said. “It’s very dangerous.”