A RUSSIAN TV journalist who protested Putin’s war live on air is suspected to have been poisoned in France after mysteriously falling ill while on the run from the tyrant leader.
Marina Ovsyannikova was dashed to hospital on Thursday after reportedly noticing a white substance at the door of her Paris apartment.
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The 45-year-old called emergency services when she suddenly felt unwell after opening the door.
She said she suspected she had been poisoned, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, as forensic police were sent to examine her home.
Christophe Deloire, director general of Reporters Without Borders [RSF], said he met Ovsyannikova after she fell ill outside her home.
Deloire, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, said the possibility Ovsyannikova had been poisoned had not been ruled out, though she was thankfully feeling better since the incident.
“We have opened an investigation,” a spokesperson for the Paris tribunal prosecutor’s office said by telephone,” he said.
“She said she had a malaise.
“All we have for the moment is what she said.”
RSF said its team has been ‘’at her side” since she made the emergency call – but no further details have been given following the incident.
The hero journalist made headlines last year after storming Russia’s top news show to denounce tyrant Putin’s Ukraine war.
She filmed a personal statement before running out onto a live news broadcast with a sign reading: “Stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they’re lying to you”.
The channel cut to a different report to remove her from the screen after several seconds of her being seen and heard.
In her pre-recorded clip, Ovsyannikova, whose dad is Ukrainian, said: “What is happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor.
“Responsibility for that aggression lies on the conscience of only one person. That person is Vladimir Putin.
“My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian, and they were never enemies.
“The necklace around my neck is a symbol that Russia must immediately stop this brother-killing war and our brother peoples can yet reconcile”.
She then went on to explain how she was “deeply ashamed” of working on Kremlin propaganda at Channel One for the past few years, and for “zombifying” Russian people.
“We were quiet in 2014 when all of this was just starting. We did not go out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny.
“We simply watched this inhumane regime. And now the entire world has turned away from us.
“And another ten generations of our descendants will not wash themselves clean of the shame of this brother-killing war.
“We are Russian people: thinking, and intelligent. It is only in our strength to stop all of this insanity.
“Come out to protect. Do not fear anything. They cannot jail us all.”
The mum-of-two was fined £460 for her brave protest but steadily continued her opposition to Putin’s evil war.
Following her courageous act, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ovsyannikova in a nightly video address.
He said: “I am grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth. To those who fight disinformation and tell the truth, real facts to their friends and loved ones.
“And personally to the woman who entered the studio of Channel One with a poster against the war.”
During a solo protest in Moscow at a later date, Ovsyannikova held up a poster that read: “Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists.
She was then arrested and thrown under house arrest in August – before she and her daughter made their escape in the middle of the night.
The RSF assisted the heroic protestor in her efforts to dodge a lengthy trial in Moscow and potentially a prison sentence – and ultimately helped her start a new life in Paris.
But earlier this month, a Moscow court sentenced Ovsyannikova to eight-and-a-half years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian army.
In 2022, Russia passed a law under which anyone it deems to have spread “false” information on the war in Ukraine can face up to 15 years in prison.
Lengthy prison sentences have been dished out to several top critics of the Kremlin, with many independent news sites blocked and journalists fleeing the country fearing prosecution.
One of the most prominent objectors behind bars in Russia is Putin’s foe Alexey Navalny, 47, who was already serving an 11-year sentence for fraud, contempt of court, and a parole violation, seen around the world as politically motivated.
But in August, his sentence was extended by a staggering 19 years on “bogus” terrorism charges.
He may now remain incarcerated until he is 71, as the Kremlin dictator reaches the age of 95.
Navalny spent five months in Germany recovering from a poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin — a claim Russian officials have always denied.
He was reportedly poisoned along with two Ukrainian diplomats during peace talks – being left with lost sight, peeling skin, constant painful tearing, and red eyes.
But despite the tyrant always denying everything, Putin is believed to use poison to spread terror amongst his enemies – often with the twisted hope of shocking them into silence rather than killing them.
And at the centre of Russia’s poison arsenal is the mysterious “Lab X” – a facility that houses Putin’s concoctions.
The lab – which has been operating for over one hundred years – was linked to the poisoning of Navalny.
Russia is believed to have finessed its chemical weapons arsenal during the Soviet era by carrying out tests on prisoners.
The goal was to find a chemical that was tasteless, odourless, and could not be detected post-mortem.
Test subjects were often plied with food or medications spiked with the chemicals – and they were closely monitored as they died or suffered.
The so-called Lab X is just one of many chemical labs believed to still be operating in Russia, with others including Lab 1 – known as The Cell – and the closed city Shikhany-1.
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