Viewers tuning into Russia‘s main evening news broadcast live on Monday night were briefly treated to the sight of something unscripted and which the Kremlin has desperately been trying to hide from them, an anti-war protest.
As newsreader Ekaterina Andreeva introduced a story on the program Vremya, or “Time,” which has aired for decades on the state-run Channel One Russia, another woman suddenly appeared behind her.
“Stop the war! No to war!” the woman shouted.
Clutching a cardboard sign that featured the Russian and Ukrainian flags, the woman made sure people watching at home could read the words imprinted on it: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to you.”
The camera then cut off as a prerecorded segment began airing.
The remarkable protest was the work of Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One who risked her job and her freedom to let Russians know the truth about the deadly havoc President Vladimir Putin is waging on their neighbors in Ukraine.
Russian human rights activist Pavel Chikov identified Ovsyannikova on Twitter and said his group would be funding her legal defense. Within minutes of her protest, she was already under arrest at the local police station.
Prior to her on-air protest, Ovsyannikova recorded a video. In it, she spoke out against the war and expressed her regret at having spread “Kremlin propaganda.”