Veteran columnist and movie critic Ekaterina Barabash was spotted in Paris this week after quietly fleeing house arrest in Moscow, where she faced a possible 10-year jail sentence over social media posts denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Barabash, 63, fled the country in April, helped by Reporters Without Borders ( RSF). The business revealed that she removed her electronic surveillance label and traveled more than 2, 800 kilometers ( some 1, 700 kilometers ) via’ key’ routes to reach France. ” Her escape was one of the most perilous operations RSF has been involved in since Russia’s draconian laws of March 2022″, said the group’s director, Thibaut Bruttin, during a press conference with Barabash at RS F’s Paris headquarters. ” At one point, we thought she might be useless “.Barabash, who was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, had been arrested in February 2022 after returning from the Berlinale film festival. Russian authorities charged her with spreading “false information” about the martial and labeled her a “foreign agent” according to Facebook posts between 2022 and 2023 that criticized Russia’s war work. One article denounced the attack of Russian towns and the anguish inflicted on civilians. ” There is no culture in Russia… there is no politics … It’s only war”, she said in Paris. Barabash said the very idea of a” Russian columnist” not more made feeling. ” News can exist under totalitarianism”. ” So you ( expletive ) bombed the country, razed entire cities to the ground, killed a hundred children, shot civilians for no reason, blockaded Mariupol, deprived millions of people of a normal life and forced them to leave for foreign countries? All for the sake of companionship with Ukraine”? one of Barabash’s content read. Her escape course took her through several borders, and she spent two weeks in lying before arriving in France on April 26, her day. The most terrible element, she said, was leaving behind her 96-year-old family. ” I really understood that I’d always notice her”, Barabash said, adding they both decided that no seeing her while being completely was greater than a Soviet prison. Barabash’s son and grandson remain in the Russian capital, Kyiv. She hasn’t been able to see them since the war began, saying,” I have a Russian passport “.According to RSF, over 90 media companies have relocated to the EU and neighboring countries since the war began. Russia, ranks 171st out of 180 in RS F’s 2025 World Press Freedom Index. According to Barabash, “prison in Russia is worse than death.” At least 38 reporters are still imprisoned in Russia, and over 1,200 people have been charged with expressing anti-war opinions. According to the human rights organization OVD-Info, 389 of these are currently being held.
