'Worse than death': Journalist Ekaterina Barabash who fled house arrest in Russia resurfaces in Paris
and film critic
was spotted in Paris this week after secretly fleeing house arrest in Moscow, where she faced a potential 10-year prison sentence over social media posts condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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Barabash, 63, fled the country in April, helped by
(RSF). The organization revealed that she removed her electronic monitoring tag and traveled more than 2,800 kilometers (some 1,700 miles) via 'secret' 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 RSF's Paris headquarters.
'At one point, we thought she might be dead.'
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 military and labeled her a 'foreign agent' due to Facebook posts between 2022 and 2023 that criticized Russia's war efforts. One post denounced the bombing of Ukrainian cities and the suffering 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 concept of a 'Russian journalist' no longer made sense. 'Journalism cannot 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 friendship with Ukraine?' one of Barabash's posts read.
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Her escape route took her through multiple borders, and she spent two weeks in hiding before arriving in France on April 26, her birthday. The most painful part, she said, was leaving behind her 96-year-old mother. 'I just understood that I'd never see her,' Barabash said, adding they both decided that not seeing her while being free was better than a Russian prison.
Barabash's son and grandson remain in the Ukrainian 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 organizations have relocated to the EU and neighboring countries since the war began. Russia, ranks 171st out of 180 in RSF's 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
'Prison in Russia is worse than death,' Barabash told the Associated Press. 'If you want to stay a journalist, you must leave.'
At least 38 journalists remain imprisoned in Russia, and over 1,200 individuals have faced charges for expressing anti-war views. Of these, 389 are currently in custody, according to the human rights group OVD-Info.
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