WATCH: Woman interrupts Russian TV news broadcast, tells nation not to believe propaganda
A woman who interrupted a Russian TV news broadcast, with a sign telling nation not to believe propaganda coming from the Putin regime, has gone viral.
The incident occurred on the state-controlled broadcaster Channel One, during its flagship 9pm 'Time' news show.
The woman has since been identified as Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the station Channel One.
It is believed that she is now at a Russian police station.
While news anchor Yekaterina Andreyeva was reading out a news story relating to Belarus, Ms Ovsyannikova suddenly burst into view, holding up a hand-written poster.
The full text of the sign read: "Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here."
It was also signed in English: "Russians against war."
Ms Andreyeva tried to talk over Ms Ovsyannikova in an attempt to continue on as if nothing had happened, but Ms Andreyeva kept talking over, repeatedly saying in Russia: "Stop the war; no to war."
PRE-RECORDED MESSAGE
Prior to the incident, Ms Ovsyannikova also posted a pre-recorded video via the OVD-Info human rights group, in which she expressed her shame at working for Channel One and for her part in "spreading Kremlin propaganda."
According to the Guardian, a portion of her speech in the video was read out as follows: "We are just silently watching this anti-human regime... and now the whole world has turned away from us."
"The next 10 generations won’t be able to clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war.
"What is happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility of this aggression lies on the shoulders of only one person: Vladimir Putin," she added, and also called on Russians to join anti-war protests across the nation.
In the video, Ms Ovsyannikova also revealed that her own father is Ukrainian, while her mother is Russian.
The protest was welcomed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said he is "thankful to those Russians who don’t stop trying to deliver the truth, who are fighting against disinformation and tell real facts to their friends and families, and personally, to that woman who went in the studio of Channel One with an anti-war poster."
Commenters on social media have also pointed out that the necklace Ms Ovsyannikova was wearing in the pre-recorded video was likely a nod to the colours of the Ukrainian flag.