Marina Ovsyannikova: Protesting journalist says Russians zombified by propaganda

A Russian journalist who interrupted a live TV news program to protest the war in Ukraine says Russians are “zombified” by propaganda.

Speaking to the BBC, Marina Ovsyannikova said Russians should stop listening to state media coverage.

“I understand that it is very difficult … to find alternative information, but you have to try to find it,” he said.

Ms. Ovsyannikova, the editor of the state-controlled Channel 1, was detained after her protest on Monday.

He ran to the set of one of Russia’s most-watched news programs, Vremya, holding a sign that read: “No war, stop the war, don’t believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.”

She could also be heard repeating the words “no war, stop the war”.

“I was aware that if I was going to protest in [Moscow’s] central square, they would arrest me like everyone else, put me in a police van and put me on trial,” Ms. Ovsyannikova said on Thursday.

“Half the poster was in Russian, half the poster was in English. I really wanted to show the Western audience that some Russians are against the war,” he said.

“I feel, of course, that I have a certain responsibility. I was a common cog in the propaganda machine. Until the last moment I didn’t think too much about it,” he said.

Ms. Ovsyannikova also responded to various allegations in the Russian media about her motivation for organizing the protest. “There are a lot of conspiracy theories about me,” she said.

“That’s why I had to explain to the world what really happened, the fact that I’m just a normal Russian woman, but I couldn’t stay on the sidelines.”

Before his protest, he recorded a video in which he said he was ashamed to work for what he called Kremlin propaganda.

The journalist said she was detained and questioned by police for 14 hours and fined 30,000 rubles ($280; £210) for the video. Authorities were convinced that she had been acting on behalf of someone else, she said.

“Nobody believed that it was my personal decision,” he said. “They suggested it could be a conflict at work, relatives who were angry about Ukraine, or that he was doing it for Western special services.”

“They couldn’t believe that I had so many objections to the government that I couldn’t keep quiet.”

Russian state television news has long been controlled by the Kremlin and independent viewpoints are rare on all major channels.

It is also unusual for employees of state-controlled news organizations to express an opinion that differs from the Kremlin’s official position.

But since the war in Ukraine began, several journalists have resigned from the main Russian TV channels: Zhanna Agalakova from Channel 1 and Lilia Gildeyeva and Vadim Glusker from NTV.

Russian state-controlled media refer to the war as a “special military operation” and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, describing Ukraine’s elected government as neo-Nazis.