While Russia’s main evening news broadcast was on state-run channel one a woman interrupts by running onto the live set behind the new anchor with a sign reading ‘Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda, they’re lying to you’.
The newsreader ignored the intruder and continued presenting, the protester shouted ‘stop the war, no to war!’ and after a few seconds the broadcast cut to a pre-recorded video but the protester could still be heard.
Local activists have said her name is Maria Ovsyannikova and was an employee of the news channel. It’s understood she has been detained by the police shortly after and is being questioned.
She filmed a short video before her protest condemning the war and Vladimir Putin and apologised saying ‘I’ve been doing Kremlin propaganda and I’m very ashamed of it – that I let people lie from TV screens and allowed the Russian people to be zombified. Now the whole world has turned away from us, and ten generations of our descendants won’t wash off this fratricidal war,’ and urged people to take to the streets and join the protest saying ‘they can’t arrest all of us’.
The clip soon went viral with Russia expert and journalist Julia Loffe commenting:
‘This woman doubtless knew what doing this would mean for her – arrest and a long prison sentence – and did it anyway,’
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