When Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova stormed a live TV broadcast to denounce the war in Ukraine, she expected a backlash from Russia -- but not so much from the rest of the world, according to AFP.

Three months later, now living in exile, Ovsyannikova, 43, is afraid to return to Russia and her two children, 11 and 17, for fear of being thrown straight in jail.

But she is also facing an increasingly hostile response from Ukraine and the West, with critics accusing her of being a spy still embedded in the Russian propaganda machine.

"I'm in the middle of this information war," Ovsyannikova told AFP in Berlin, where she is giving a speech for the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society network.

"It's a really very hard situation for me. I had never expected such things after my protest."

Ovsyannikova, who was born to a Russian mother and a Ukrainian father in Odessa, was until March working as an editor at Russia's Channel One television.

Then, in a stunt that made headlines around the world, she barged onto the set of its flagship Vremya (Time) evening news holding a hand-made poster reading "No War" in English.

It was a highly unusual event in Russia where state media is strictly controlled.