Cape Town: An employee at Russian state TV's flagship news programme “Channel One” burst onto the set to interrupt the evening's news programme on Monday, shouting "stop the war".
According to the Guardian publication, Marina Ovsyannikova who is an editor at “Channel One” held a sign during the live broadcast which said: "Don't believe the propaganda... They're lying to you here", with another phrase saying "Russians against the war".
Despite the interruption, the news anchor continued to read the headlines before the channel had switched to a different segment.
Ovsyannikova later released a statement in a pre-recorded video on human rights group platform OVD-info to explain how she felt about the "Kremlin propaganda".
"Regrettably, for a number of years, I worked on Channel One and worked on Kremlin propaganda, I am very ashamed of this right now," said Ovsyannikova.
"Ashamed that I was allowed to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed the zombification of the Russian people.
"We were silent in 2014 when this was just beginning. We did not go out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned (opposition leader Alexei) Navalny," she said.
Ovsyannikova added that the next 10 generations wouldn’t be able to clean themselves from the shame of the war.
The former editor also called on fellow Russians to join the anti-war protests to end the conflict with Ukraine and urged them no to be afraid of anything as "they can't imprison us all".
Ovsyannikova was later arrested and could face time in prison for encouraging "civil unrest" and for spreading "fake news" under a Russian legislation that protects the Russian military.
IOL