Russian state TV employee protests live against the war in Ukraine (video)

LONDON (Reuters) - An anti-war protester interrupted a live news bulletin on Russian state TV channel One on Monday, holding up a sign behind the studio presenter and shouting slogans denouncing the war in Ukraine.

The sign, in English and Russian, read: "NO WAR. Stop the war. Don't believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here." Another phrase, which appeared to say "Russians against the war," was partially obscured.

The extraordinary act of dissent occurred on the 19th day of the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 in what it calls a special military operation. 

"Stop the war. No to war," the protester could be heard shouting, while the anchor continued reading from her teleprompter. The protester could be seen and heard for several seconds before the channel switched to a different report to remove her from the screen.

"Wow, this girl is cool," wrote Kira Yarmysh, spokeswoman for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Twitter.

She posted a video of the incident, which quickly amassed over 2,6 million views.

PRO-KREMLIN CHANNEL

State television is the primary source of news for many millions of Russians and closely follows the Kremlin's line that Russia was forced to act in Ukraine to demilitarize and "denazify" the country and defend Russian speakers against "genocide." Ukraine and most of the world have condemned this as a false pretext for the invasion of a democratic country.

The woman was named by OVD-Info, an independent protest monitoring group, and by the head of the human rights group Agora, as Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee of the channel.

Pavel Chikov, head of Agora, said she was arrested and taken to a Moscow police station. The Tass news agency said she could face charges under a law for discrediting the armed forces, citing a law enforcement source.

The law, passed on March 4, makes public actions aimed at discrediting the Russian Army illegal and prohibits the dissemination of fake news or the "public disclosure of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." The crime carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

In a video recorded before the incident and posted online, a woman who appeared to be Ovsyannikova described herself as an employee of Channel One and said she was ashamed to have worked for years spreading Kremlin propaganda. She said her father was Ukrainian and her mother was Russian.

"What is happening now in Ukraine is a crime, and Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of only one man, and that man is Vladimir Putin," she said.

"Now the whole world has turned away from us, and the next 10 generations of our descendants will not wash away the shame of this fratricidal war," she said.

She urged the Russians to come out and demonstrate.

Authorities dispersed the anti-war protests. According to OVD-Info, which monitors the protests and provides legal assistance to those detained, a total of 14.911 people were arrested.