A live evening news programme on Russia’s state television channel has been interrupted by a person who walked into the studio holding a poster protesting against the war in Ukraine.
The moment was a risky protest in a country where independent media has been blocked or shuttered and it has become illegal to contradict the government’s narrative of the war.
An anchor was speaking during the newscast when a woman appeared on camera behind her holding a sign with “no war” scrawled in English across the top, with a message in Russian below calling on people not to believe Russian propaganda.
Within seconds, the news programme cut away to another scene.
Russia’s state TV regularly amplifies the government line that says troops entered Ukraine to save people from “neo-Nazis” and to defend Russians from a country that was preparing to attack. The invasion of Ukraine is being characterised in Russia as a “special military operation”.
An independent human rights group that monitors political arrests identified the woman as Marina Ovsyannikova. The group, OVD-Info, posted on its website that Ms Ovsyannikova, who identified herself as an employee of the station, was taken into police custody.
❗️Девушка, которая вышла в кадр во время прямого эфира программы «Время» на Первом канале с антивоенным плакатом — сотрудница канала Марина Овсянникова.
После появления в эфире ее задержали. Сейчас она, предположительно, находится в ОВД «Останкино» pic.twitter.com/Z4AesCs80jAdvertisement— ОВД-Инфо (@OvdInfo) March 14, 2022
Ms Ovsyannikova spoke out against the war in a video on OVD-Info’s website.
“What is going on now is a crime,” she said. “Russia is an aggressor country and Vladimir Putin is solely responsible for that aggression.”
Speaking in a video address early on Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ms Ovsyannikova.
People in Russia have limited access to information from outside their country.
Unfortunately, in recent years I have been working on Channel One, creating Kremlin propaganda and I am now very ashamed of it. I’m embarrassed for letting them tell lies from the TV screen. I'm ashamed that I allowed them to zombify Russian people.
— ОВД-Инфо (@OvdInfo) March 14, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed into law a measure that criminalises the spread of information that is considered by the Kremlin to be “fake” news.
Media outlets and individuals who publish information that deviates from Mr Putin’s narrative are being targeted.
There have been blocks imposed on the BBC, the US government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza.
Russia has also blocked social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
After she spent the night in police custody, Moscow’s Ostankino District Court ordered Ms Ovsyannikova to pay a fine of 30,000 roubles (about £207) on charges of organising unsanctioned actions.
