ADVERTISEMENTOutspoken Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash has said that “journalism no longer exists in Russia” as she arrived in Paris after making a perilous getaway from Moscow, where she faced a lengthy prison sentence for condemning the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
She had at one point been feared dead before reappearing in the French capital.
Media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which coordinated Barabash’s escape, explained that her flight from Russia involved her ripping off her electronic monitoring tag and travelling more than 2,800 kilometres “using clandestine routes” to avoid detection by authorities.
The 63-year-old journalist, who had been under house arrest, faced a 10-year sentence over her Facebook posts in 2022 and 2023 criticising Russia’s all-out war. RSF said she had been wanted by Russian authorities since 21 April, and her whereabouts had not been public until Monday.
Speaking at a press conference at RSF’s headquarters in Paris, Barabash said journalism was no longer possible in Russia. “There are no Russian journalists,” she said. “Journalism cannot exist under totalitarianism.”
The journalist, who was born in Ukraine and whose son and grandson live there, said the hardest part was leaving her 96-year-old mother behind in Russia –– but they had agreed that it was worth her freedom.
‘One of the RSF’s most perilous operations’
Barabash told AP that in her view, a Russian prison was “worse than death”.
“If you want to be a journalist, you have to (live in) exile,” she said. “If you want (to) stay in Russia as a journalist, you are not a journalist. That is it. It’s very simple.”
RSF ranks Russia 171st out of 180 countries in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
Barabash thanked the “many people” and the RSF team for helping her escape.
Thibaut Bruttin, Director General of RSF, labelled Barabash’s exodus “one of the most perilous operations” the organisation has been involved in since Russia cracked down on media freedoms in March 2022, in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine the previous month.
From the war’s outset, the media was banned from referring to it as such, with the Kremlin instead mandating the use of the term “special military operation”.
On multiple occasions, the RSF team had feared Barabash had been arrested, and once they even thought she “might be dead”, the organisation’s head said.
“It sends a clear message to the Kremlin: free voices that dare to speak the truth about the war in Ukraine cannot be silenced. It is a message to journalists in danger: there is a way out, and RSF stands by your side,” Bruttin said.
Why did Barabash face prison?
Russian authorities arrested the journalist upon her return from the Berlinale film festival in February.
ADVERTISEMENTShe was charged with spreading “fake news” about Russia’s military and branded a “foreign agent” over Facebook posts condemning Russian actions in Ukraine.
The journalist and film critic was put under house arrest before making her escape on 21 April.
More than 90 media outlets from Russia have fled to the European Union and nearby countries since the war began, according to RSF.
According to its latest annual report, while Europe remains the safest region for journalists, press freedoms are declining there too. Within the European Union, Estonia ranked the highest, while Greece was in last place.
ADVERTISEMENTAn investigation by the Forbidden Stories journalism network published last week found that Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna’s body was missing organs after she suffered Russian captivity and torture. She had been captured in the summer of 2023 near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Southern Ukraine.
In Russia, the crackdown on independent journalism continues: last month, four journalists in Russia were sentenced to more than five years in prison on charges of extremism over allegations they worked for the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption.
All four maintain their innocence and said they were being persecuted for carrying out their jobs as journalists. “Independent journalism is equated to extremism,” one of the defendants, Kostantin Gabov, said.
Additional sources • AP
