Journalist who protested war live on Russian state TV detained

Marina Ovsyannikova says she was approached by police while walking her dog

Marina Ovsyannikova was detained for three hours in Moscow on Sunday, according to social media posts (AFP via Getty Images)

A Russian editor who staged an on-air protest against the Ukraine war was detained by authorities over the weekend, posts on her social media accounts said.

Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted a state TV live news bulletin when she ran onto set holding a poster saying “stop the war” and “they are lying to you” earlier this year.

She was arrested and fined by a Russian court over the protest.

Posts on her social media channel said she had been taken into custody once again on Sunday.

“Marina has been detained,” a post on her Telegram channel said beneath images of two police officers leading her towards a white van.

Shortly after, the journalist posted images of herself and two dogs on her Facebook page.

“Went for a walk with the dogs, just stepped outside the gate, people in uniform approached me,” she wrote.

“Now I’m sitting in Krasnoselsky ministry of internal affairs,” referring to a police station in a Moscow district.

The editor interrupted a state TV broadcast shortly after the invasion of Ukraine started (YouTube/ Channel One)

Three hours later, Ms Ovsyannikova said she had been released.

“I’m home. Everything is okay,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “But now I know it’s always best to bring a suitcase and passport if you go out.”

Ms Ovsyannikova, staged the live TV protest in March - just a few weeks after Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine.

In a video before, the editor at the Kremlin-run Channel 1, explained why she wanted to demonstrate.

“Unfortunately, for the last few years I’ve been working for Channel 1. I’ve been doing Kremlin propaganda and I’m very ashamed of it – that I let people lie from TV screens and allowed the Russian people to be zombified,” she said.

Additional reporting by Reuters