Russian Woman Who Protested against war on TV Labelled a Traitor
Russia’s state-owned Channel One network accused the producer who staged an on-air protest against the Ukraine invasion of colluding with the UK to betray her country.
Kirill Kleimyonov, head of Channel One’s news division, claimed in Monday on-air remarks that Marina Ovsyannikova had been in contact with the UK embassy before her protest, and that she “betrayed [her] country and all of us.”
“Marina Ovsyannikova spoke with the British embassy. Who of you has ever negotiated with a foreign embassy? Not with the visa center, but with the embassy, with its employee even if he, as they say, is in civilian clothes. I, for one, never did,” Kleimyonov said, without providing evidence for his claim.
“I mean to call a spade a spade, that’s all. An emotional outburst is one thing, but betrayal is quite another.”
“And when a person betrays her country and at the same time all of us people with whom she worked side by side for almost 20 years betrays in a cold, calculated way, for a firmly agreed bonus,” he said, again without providing evidence for his claim that she financially benefitted from the protest.
“Betrayal is always a personal choice, you can’t save a person from it, as you know. But it is imperative to call a spade a spade,” he said.
max seddon (@maxseddon) March 21, 2022
