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Journalist interrupts live Russian state news broadcast to denounce invasion of Ukraine
Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One, stood behind a information anchor on air with a poster board signal written in English and Russian.
“Cease the conflict. Don’t imagine propaganda they inform you lies right here,” the signal reads. “Russians in opposition to conflict.”
The Kremlin on Tuesday described Ovsyannikova’s actions as “hooliganism,” a prison offense in Russia.
“The channel and people who are in cost are coping with it,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov advised reporters.
Buddies of Ovsyannikova advised OVD-Information, an unbiased human rights protest-monitoring group, she was on the Ostankino Police Division in Moscow, however her lawyer says he nonetheless doesn’t know her whereabouts.
Dmitry Zakhvatov advised CNN Tuesday he has been attempting to find her since her protest. Zakhvatov confirmed to CNN that Ovsyannikova is the lady seen on air holding the signal and that she is an editor for the channel.
“We did not discover her for now, however we’re persevering with to go looking,” Zakhvatov stated.
Russian state information company Tass reported that regulation enforcement officers had begun a preliminary investigation into the “public dissemination of intentionally false details about using the Russian Armed Forces.”
OVD-Information additionally obtained a video purportedly made by Ovsyannikova earlier than she interrupted the information broadcast.
“What is going on now in Ukraine is a criminal offense, and Russia is the aggressor nation, and the duty for this aggression lies on the conscience of just one particular person. This man is Vladimir Putin,” Ovsyannikova says within the video, noting that her father is Ukrainian, and her mom is Russian.
“Sadly, for the previous few years, I’ve been engaged on Channel One and doing Kremlin propaganda, and now I’m very ashamed of it,” she says within the video. “It is a disgrace that I allowed to talk lies from the TV screens, ashamed that I allowed to zombify Russian folks.”
“I’m ashamed that we stored silent in 2014, when all this was simply starting,” she says, a reference to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine that resulted within the annexation of Crimea. “We did not go to rallies when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny, we simply silently watched this anti-human regime and now the world has turned its again on us eternally, and one other ten generations of our descendants will be unable to clean away from the disgrace of this fraternal conflict.”
“We’re Russian folks, pondering and sensible, and it’s only in our energy to cease all this insanity,” she says. “Go to the rallies and don’t be afraid! They can not transplant us all!”
Movies of the interruption have been shortly posted on social media after it aired. CNN obtained the video from a stay feed of Russia Channel One VK’s profile.
Inside minutes, that stay feed was eliminated.
Correction: An earlier model of this report incorrectly recognized the Channel One editor. Her identify is Marina Ovsyannikova.