A top Russian TV journalist has dramatically quit and left the country in protest over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is reported.
Liliya Gildeyeva, 45, was a leading anchor on Gazprom-Media’s NTV channel for more than 15 years and had previously been praised by the Russian President.
She said she fled the country before submitting her resignation letter.
Liliya told blogger Ilya Varlamov: “At first I left, I was afraid they wouldn’t let me go, then I wrote my resignation letter.”
Ms Gildeyeva, a host of NTV’s main evening news show, Segodnya – meaning Today – has since been inundated with hate-filled messages, according to reports.
It is the latest example of a journalist breaking ranks despite the Kremlin tightening its grip on state media in a bid to limit the information available to citizens.
News editor Marina Ovsyannikova, who works for state network Channel One, last night burst onto the set of a live broadcast shouting: “Stop the war. No to war.”
She was brandishing a sign saying: “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”
Ms Ovsyannikova released a statement saying she was ashamed of working for the channel spreading “Kremlin propaganda” and said the war was a crime.
Ms Gildeyeva’s resignation will come as a major blow to the Putin regime’s attempts to control the media.
She was last year included in Putin’s official list of journalists praised for “achievements in developing mass media”.
And more than a decade earlier she was thanked by Putin for “information provision and active social activity to develop civil society in the Russian Federation”.
Ms Gildeyeva is married, and she and husband Rustam have two children, a son Danila, 20, and daughter Maya, 12.
Gazprom-Media recently closed down radio station Ekho Moscow which was seen as one of the last major editorially independent media outlets in Russia.