PARIS (AP) — Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash resurfaced in Paris Monday following a daring escape from Moscow last month after being put under house arrest and facing a 10-year prison sentence for posts condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Reporters Without Borders, also known by its French acronym RSF, said it helped Barabash orchestrate her adrenaline-packed getaway: The outspoken war critic tore off her electronic monitoring tag and “travelled over 2,800 kilometres (about 1739 miles) using clandestine routes” to evade surveillance.
“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 General Thibaut Bruttin during a press conference with Barabash at RSF’s headquarters in Paris. “At one point, we thought she might be dead.”
‘It’s only war’
Barabash, 63, vehemently condemned on Monday the lack of freedoms in Russia while detailing her escape.
“There is no culture in Russia… there is no politics… It’s only war,” she said, adding that those unwilling to submit to state censorshi p either lived in exile or were imprisoned.
Barabash said the very concept of a “Russian journalist” no longer made sense. “There are no Russian journalists,” she said. “Journalism cannot exist under totalitarianism.”
The Facebook posts that landed her in legal jeopardy were written between 2022 and 2023, lambasting Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
“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 post read.
Russian authorities arrested the veteran journalist and film critic, born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, upon her return from the Berlinale film festival in February. She was charged with spreading “fake news” about Russia’s military, and branded a “foreign agent.”
Barabash was then put under house arrest.
On April 21, she disappeared.
The getaway begins
Barabash said she crossed multiple borders, using covert channels coordinated by RSF, and spent two weeks in hiding and then she France on April 26, her birthday.
The hardest part was her inability to contact her 96-year-old mother, whom she had to leave behind.
“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 started because “I have a Russian passport,” she said.
Still, her spirits remained undefeated.
Brutin, RSF’s director, said during Barabash’s escape, “she sang George Brassens.”
Barabash thanked the “many people” and the RSF team for helping her gain freedom. “I don’t know their names,” she said.
Their identities were kept confidential for their protection.
A new life in France?
The former Radio France Internationale contributor, who later worked with independent outlet Republic, hopes to seek asylum and resume work with exiled Russian-language media. She does not yet have a French work permit, but RSF says she holds a six-month visa and is in the process of regularizing her status.
“Now I’m here and I think it will not be (an) easy way to begin (a) new life. I’m not very young. I’m young … but not very,” she said in a self-deprecating way.
The journalists’ exodus from Russia
Barabash joins a growing wave of Russian journalists in exile — more than 90 media outlets have fled to the European Union and neighboring countries since the war began, according to RSF, which ranks Russia 171st out of 180 countries in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index.
After the press conference, Barabash told The Associated Press that for her, 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.”
At least 38 journalists remain imprisoned in Russia, and independent reporting is functionally extinct inside the country, said the media freedom group.
Still, RSF’s Bruttin said: “Free voices that dare to speak the truth about the war in Ukraine cannot be silenced.”
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Associated Press journalists Jeffrey Schaeffer and Alex Turnbull in Paris and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, Britain, contributed to this report
