Marina Ovsyannikova: Russian TV protester fined and released
Watch: Journalist interrupts Russian TV news to protest against Ukraine invasion
A Russian woman has been fined £214 (30,000 roubles) after she interrupted a live news bulletin on state TV and denounced the invasion of Ukraine.
Marina Ovsyannikova, 44, an editor at Russian station Channel One, interrupted a broadcast on Monday evening.
She appeared on camera behind the presenter holding a sign with “No war” scrawled in English and a message in Russian below it, calling on people not to believe Moscow propaganda.
Ovsyannikova pleaded not guilty to organising an unauthorised public event when she appeared in court on Tuesday, the BBC reported.
She was fined and released by the Russian court after being found guilty.
Ovsyannikova faced up to 10 days in prison, a fine and community service for the administrative charge.
State investigators had been looking at whether she could be punished under a new law that carries jail terms of up to 15 years, Russia's TASS news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying.
The legislation adopted eight days after the invasion of Ukraine makes public actions aimed at discrediting Russia's army illegal and bans the spread of fake news or the "public dissemination of deliberately false information" about the use of Russia's armed forces.
Speaking in a video address early on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ovsyannikova’s actions.
British foreign office minister James Cleverly said the stunt, along with other demonstrations in Russia, was “really important” in arming those in Russia – where it has become illegal to contradict president Vladimir Putin’s narrative of the war.
He told BBC Breakfast: “It shows a huge degree of bravery for those individuals to protest against what we know is an oppressive, authoritarian state, but it’s really important that the Russian people understand what is being done in their name.
“They have been systematically lied to by Vladimir Putin and it’s really important they understand the truth of what’s going on.”
Read more: Russian drone ‘shot down after flying into NATO airspace’
People in Russia have limited access to information from outside their country.
Internally, 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 assault on Ukraine is being characterised in Russia as a “special military operation”, with any suggestion of a war being waged against Kyiv branded as “fake news” by the Kremlin.
Moscow has also blocked social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Almost 15,000 people have been detained across Russia during anti-war protests since 24 February, according to a tally kept by OVD-Info, an independent protest-monitoring group.
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.”
