“Stop the war. Do not believe the propaganda that is being lied to you here,” the poster reads. “Russians against war,” reads the last line of the sign in English.
The woman who committed the daring act of defiance has been identified as Maria Ovsyannikova, an employee of Russia’s First Channel, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights group that monitors the protests. The content of the publication is under the strict control of the Russian government.
CNN cannot independently confirm that the woman holding the sign is Ovsyannikova, but photos on social media profiles bearing her name match the woman we see on screen.
Russian state news agency TASS confirmed OVD-Info’s report, citing a source, and added that she could face criminal charges.
Ovsyannikova’s friends told OVD-Info that she was at the Ostankino police station in Moscow, but her lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov later told CNN he could not find her.
“We haven’t found her yet, but we continue to search,” Zakhvatov said.
The protest comes nearly three weeks after Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine, sparking a humanitarian catastrophe in the country and triggering Europe’s biggest security crisis since the Cold War. Satellite images show extensive destruction from Russian bombardments throughout Ukraine, including the major cities of Kyiv and Mariupol. According to Ukrainian authorities, more than 2,500 civilians died in Mariupol alone. The United Nations estimates that more than 2.8 million residents have fled the country since the invasion began.
OVD-Info also received a video allegedly taken by Ovsyannikova before she interrupted the newscast.
“What is happening now in Ukraine is a crime, and Russia is an aggressor country, and only one person is responsible for this aggression. This man is Vladimir Putin,” Ovsyannikova says in the video, noting that her father is Ukrainian and her mother is Russian.
“Unfortunately, for the past few years I have been working on Channel One and doing Kremlin propaganda, and now I am very ashamed of it,” she says in the video. “It’s a shame that I allowed to tell a lie from the TV screens, it’s a shame that I allowed the Russian people to be zombified.”
“I am ashamed that we were silent in 2014, when all this was just beginning,” she says, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, which led to the annexation of Crimea. “We didn’t go to the rallies when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny, we just silently watched this inhumane regime, and now the world has turned its back on us forever, and ten more generations of our descendants will not be able to escape the shame of this fraternal war.”
“We are Russian people, thinking and smart, and it is only in our power to stop all this madness,” she says. “Go to the rallies and don’t be afraid! We can’t all be transplanted!”
The video of the interruption was quickly posted on social media after it went live. CNN obtained the video from the live broadcast of the profile of the First Channel of Russia in VK.
After a few minutes, this live broadcast was deleted.