Russian TV on-air war protester accused of colluding with UK by her network

Head of Russia's state-owned Channel One network accused editor Marina Ovsyannikova, who staged on-air protest against Russian invasion of Ukraine, of colluding with the UK to betray Russia

Kirill Kleimyonov, head of Channel One's news division made the accusation in on-air remarks on Monday. Kleimyonov claimed that Ovsyannikova was in touch with UK embassy before she staged anti-war protest on air.

While working for Channel One television in Moscow, Marina Ovsyannikova barged onto the set of an evening newscast Monday, holding a poster reading "No War."

"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 as quoted by Business Insider.

"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.

After her on air protest, Ovsyannikova was detained, fined 30,000 rubles ($280), and then freed pending possible further prosecution, but has turned down a French offer of asylum.

On Sunday she described to US media her decision to protest as "spontaneous," but said a sense of deep dissatisfaction with her government had been building for years -- a feeling she said many of her colleagues shared.

"The propaganda on our state channels was becoming more and more distorted, and the pressure that has been applied in Russian politics could not leave us indifferent," she told ABC News program "This Week."

"When I spoke to my friends and colleagues, everyone until the last moment could not believe that such a thing could happen -- that this gruesome war could take place," she said from Moscow, speaking through an interpreter.

(With inputs from agencies)