RT editor-in-chief resigns in protest at Ukraine invasion

The editor-in-chief of a state-owned Russian media outlet, which resigned last week in protest at President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, warns the world could be at risk of nuclear war.

Maria Baronova, the editor-in-chief of RT, resigned last week after publicly criticizing the invasion, telling her followers via encrypted news service Telegram: “Our grandfathers didn’t fight for it.”

The Moscow-based journalist fears that the bloody invasion of Ukraine won’t end there.

“The problem is, I know these people very well.” Baronova told Fox News Digital.

“They never send threats, they just kill, so there is such a thing [a] strange silence around me, but I genuinely believe we’re on the brink of nuclear war right now. I’m not exaggerating.”

Journalists in Russia who publicly criticize government policies risk their safety, but the situation is so dire that Baronova was motivated to speak out, she said.

“I have a son, I can’t go because his father doesn’t allow me to go with him, and that’s why I prefer to stay in Moscow … It seems like we’re either in North Korea or we’re going to be killed by a thermonuclear mushroom.” ‘ Baronova told Fox News Digital.

“I wouldn’t quit, and I wouldn’t lose my salary and my job, if I were sure we’d be alive for many years to come, but I really don’t know what’s going to happen to all of us next. ”

At the start of the invasion, Putin ordered his country’s nuclear weapons to be prepared for increased readiness, which he described as “aggressive statements” by Western adversaries.

Baronova said she doesn’t think Putin will resort to nuclear weapons. Instead, she fears that the Russian leader will trick the West into using unconventional weapons against her country.

“I suspect the western world will use it,” Baronova said. “It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Baronova told Fox News Digital she quit after a colleague at RT posted an Instagram message that read, “If you’re ashamed of being Russian now, don’t worry, you’re not Russian.”

She said she was “really concerned” by her colleagues’ willingness to spread government propaganda.

In response to the Instagram post, Baronova wrote: “If I have decided to be with Russia, it does not mean that I should walk in a totalitarian system, be silent or, for example, rejoice in the regime, which I do not want my country, is exported elsewhere.”

“And this regime will finally turn our life into an endless hell. What is there. Already filmed.”

Baronova said the Instagram post was the last straw that prompted her to leave RT.

“That was the moment I was like, ‘Okay, that’s it,'” she said.

The Kremlin has launched a crackdown on domestic and foreign news organizations whose journalists are based in Russia.

Reporters who do not follow the government line when covering Ukraine are not allowed to operate freely in the country.