Facing the Long Arm of Kremlin Repression
In the stillness of a Paris newsroom, Ekaterina Barabash—once a familiar voice in Russia’s battered independent media—recounted the moment her life became a high-wire act between fear and freedom. After daring to criticize Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, Barabash was marked as an enemy by her homeland, not for any act of violence, but for the “crime” of chronicling and critiquing a government’s descent into authoritarian zeal. The weight of her story—the exhausted pause, the relief tinged with guilt for the loved ones left behind—offers chilling clarity into the realities that journalists face in Vladimir Putin’s Russia in 2025.
Barabash’s ordeal began on February 25, 2025, upon her return from the Berlinale film festival. Russian border officials interrogated her for hours. The next day, she was arrested at Moscow airport on charges of “disseminating false information”—a familiar legal cudgel wielded with impunity to silence those who report truth amid the fog of war. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who swiftly condemned the imprisonment, Barabash was then confined to house arrest and branded a “foreign agent.” This designation, justified on spurious grounds by the Ministry of Justice, allows the state to surveil, restrict, and discredit journalists—an institutionalized strategy to smother dissent.
What began as a crackdown in the days following the Ukraine invasion has metastasized into systematic terror for Russian journalists. As Harvard media studies scholar Emily Chan notes, “Since March 2022, Moscow’s draconian laws—with sentences of up to ten years—have turned every dissenting sentence into a potential prison term.” Russia now ranks 171st on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, surpassing only North Korea and Eritrea in its disdain for free expression.
Exile and the Human Toll of Truth
What does it take to leave everything behind—to abandon one’s homeland, one’s work, even one’s family—in the hope of simply being able to speak freely? For Barabash, the answer came in the agonizing decision to flee, leaving her 96-year-old mother in Russia. The wrenching cost of freedom is measured not just in miles, but in hearts ruptured by separation and fear.
In April, with the threat of a decade behind bars looming, Barabash tore off her electronic monitoring tag and embarked on a circuitous, 2,800-kilometer odyssey. Traveling through the underground networks painstakingly orchestrated by RSF, she vanished from Moscow on April 13, slipping through a country tightening its grip on critics. The Russian Federal Prison Service added her to their wanted list on April 21, marking her disappearance from house arrest as another act of defiance to be punished.
Finding herself in Paris, Barabash addressed reporters with a mixture of gratitude and lingering apprehension. “Thanks a lot for your support,” she whispered, her words underlining the fragility and resilience that define dissent in Russia today. The press conference, hosted by RSF, was more than a reunion—it was a testament to the lifeline extended by international advocacy groups, and a somber rejoinder to democratic complacency. At least 38 journalists remain imprisoned in Russia; thousands more are under criminal investigation for so-called acts of “discredit.”
“Her escape was one of the most perilous operations RSF has been involved in since Russia’s draconian laws of March 2022.”—Thibaut Bruttin, RSF Director General
Critics of Russia’s war are not limited to Barabash alone. In a powerful show of solidarity and courage, RSF has previously facilitated the escape of other journalists, including the well-known case of Marina Ovsiannikova in October 2022, who held up an anti-war protest on state TV—and similarly faced a decade in prison. The pattern is unmistakable: the state seeks to make examples of dissenters, extracting maximum personal and public cost to discourage even the faintest spark of independent thought.
Press Freedom and the Fight for Democracy
The fate of Barabash—together with those left behind—raises urgent questions on the global responsibility to defend journalistic freedom. The right to speak truth to power lies at the very heart of any functioning democracy. When authoritarian regimes criminalize truth-telling, it is not just journalists who suffer, but entire societies.
According to a recent Pew Research analysis, public trust in democratic institutions shrinks when a free press is under siege, as citizens lose avenues to challenge propaganda and corruption. In Russia, waves of media closures, exile, and repression have gutted independent reporting. The designation of “foreign agent”—once reserved for alleged spies—is now deployed with devastating frequency against nonprofits, media outlets, and even ordinary citizens.
Barabash’s own journey traces the arc of Russia’s collapse into repressive authoritarianism. Once a film critic contributing to Radio France Internationale and the independent Republic—both now targeted by state censors—she’s emblematic of a generation forced abroad by a government that sees free thought as sabotage. Yet, her arrival in France is a poignant reminder of the international networks working tirelessly to protect those imperiled by despotic regimes.
Some might wonder: Does exile achieve more than quiet survival? Or is it a seed for resistance? Barabash herself plans to apply for political asylum and resume independent journalism with exiled Russian-language media, determined to stand for what authoritarianism cannot suppress: the unyielding search for truth.
The world is watching. Who will answer the call to defend those who hold the powerful to account, when tyranny seeks to make even words a crime? The reminder is clear: safeguarding democracy abroad protects our own freedoms at home.
