A woman burst onto the set of Channel One, Russia’s state TV flagship program, and started chanting “stop the war.” Her sign read, “No War. Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”
The protester was later identified as Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One. She was later arrested and found guilty for organizing an illegal protest, according to The Washington Post.
“Unfortunately, for the last few years I’ve been working for Channel One,” Ovsyannikova said in a video message. “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.”
- “We didn’t say anything in 2014 when it only just began. We didn’t protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We just silently watched this inhuman regime. Now the whole world has turned away from us, and 10 generations of our descendants won’t wash off this fratricidal war,” she continued.
She was arrested shortly after the incident and taken to a police station in Moscow, as the Kremlin deemed her actions “hooliganism.”
- Her charges were brought to a Moscow court, where Ovsyannikova was found guilty and fined 30,000 rubles, or approximately $280.
- After the court hearing, she told reporters that the interrogation lasted for more than 14 hours and she wasn’t allowed to contact anyone during that time, according to BBC News. She was also denied access to a lawyer.