With a protest poster and loud shouts, an opponent of the war on Russian state television caused the main evening news program to be interrupted. During the live broadcast on Monday at 9:00 p.m. Moscow time (7:00 p.m. CET), the woman suddenly jumped into the picture behind news anchor Yekaterina Andreeva, holding a sign that read “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They lie to you” high. She shouted out loud several times: “No to the war, no to the war, no to the war!” Then the transmission of the transmitter Rossiya 1 broke off and pictures from a hospital were shown.
According to consistent reports, the woman is said to be Marina Ovsyannikova, who works as an editor for the station. The woman was then taken to a police station in Moscow, reports the Russian-language website „The Insider“. In a statement, the first Russian television channel only spoke of an “incident” during the “Vremya” program and announced an internal review.
“I am ashamed”
The woman had previously announced the protest on social media. In a video shared widely in the evening, she reportedly said: “What is happening in Ukraine right now is a crime. Russia is the aggressor.” The entire responsibility for this aggression rests with one person: Vladimir Putin. “My father is Ukrainian, my mother Russian. They were never enemies,” the woman said.
“Unfortunately, I have been working at Rossiya 1 for the past few years and promoting Kremlin propaganda, and I am very ashamed of that. I am ashamed for allowing lies to be told on TV screens, for allowing Russian people to be zombified,” the woman in the video continued. “We were silent when it all started in 2014. We didn’t come out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We continued to watch this inhumane regime calmly. Now the whole world is turning its back on us. Ten generations of our descendants will not be able to wash away the shame of this civil war.”
The video excerpt immediately spread on social networks. Above all, Russian oppositionists praised the woman for her courage. “What courage really means,” wrote pianist Igor Levit on Twitter. In Russia, the media is forbidden from calling the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war” or an “invasion.” Instead, there is official talk of a “military special operation”.