Marina Ovsyannikova: “Change of surname in support of Ukraine”

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’m not ‘a good Russian’, I’m Ukrainian. As a sign of support for Ukraine I want to change my surname, Ovsyannikov, back to the original Tkachuk,” she wrote on Facebook, announcing her intention to leave her Russian husband’s surname. from which it is separated. Of a Ukrainian father and a 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 being an agent of the Russian FSB services, stating that she was released thanks to pressure from French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and American politicians.