Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting Russian citizenship.
Bartlett said she enjoys living in Russia and immersing herself in Russia's customs, traditions, culture, and language.
"The West is very unstable right now. I want to help convey the Russian perspective on events, including those in Ukraine, to international audiences,” the journalist told RIA Novosti news agency.
She also said that she no longer feels safe in her home country. According to Bartlett, when she returned to Canada after several years abroad, she was met by security service officers and held at the airport for several hours.
"They simply don’t like that I present an alternative point of view to Western audiences. Canadian state-run media CBC even tried to smear my name relying on data from the Mirotvorets database," she added.
Eva Bartlett was born in the United States but raised in Canada. She gained prominence as a journalist for her reporting on the civil war in Syria. She also covered events in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. In December 2022, she set out a hope that Russia would achieve the goals of its special military operation.