The main evening news programme on Russia’s state-run television was interrupted by a protester holding a poster against the war in Ukraine.
“NO WAR,” the sign read in English. Then, in Russian below: “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you.”
The rare rare anti-war protest on Channel One – behind the show’s anchor – was brief as the feed abruptly changed cameras.
Journalists at Meduza, an English-language independent Russian news outlet, identified the protester as Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the station. The mother of two has reportedly been arrested and, under a new law, could potentially face up to 15 years in prison.
The OVD-Info website, which monitors political arrests, posted a video in which Ovsyannikova identified herself as an employee of Channel One and spoke against the war.
“What is going on now is a crime,” she said. “Russia is an aggressor country and Vladimir Putin is solely responsible for that aggression.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve spent many of the last few years working for Channel One, doing Kremlin propaganda, and I’m deeply ashamed of this,” she said, according to a translation. “Ashamed that I allowed lies to come from the TV screen. Ashamed that I allowed the zombification of the Russian people.”
“We Russians are thinking and intelligent people,” she added. “It’s in our power alone to stop all this madness. Go protest. Don’t be afraid of anything. They can’t lock us all away.”
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the protester in his nightly video address.
“I am grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth. To those who fight disinformation and tell the truth, real facts to their friends and loved ones,” Zelenskyy said. “And personally to the woman who entered the studio of Channel One with a poster against the war.”
Kira Yarmysh, spokesperson for jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, wrote on Twitter: “Wow, that girl is cool.”
State television is the main source of news for many millions of Russians, and closely follows the Kremlin line that Russia was forced to act in Ukraine to demilitarise and “denazify” the country, and to defend Russian-speakers there against “genocide”.
Ukraine and most of the world have condemned that as a false pretext for an invasion of a democratic country.
Authorities have broken up anti-war protests. According to OVD-Info, a total of 14,911 people have been arrested.