Staff resigns on live TV, Russian TV channel plays ballet to protest Kremlin order

Saying “no to war” in their final telecast, the staff of TV Rain – among Russia’s few independent television channels – resigned on live television after an order to suspend operations due to the organisation’s coverage of the Ukraine crisis, NDTV reported.

The channel issued a statement saying that it had suspended operations indefinitely. The channel telecasted Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake as a mark of protest. According to the Indian Express, the move was a reference to August 1991, when Soviet TV stations showed the ballet performance instead of the civil unrest that had broken out in the country.

On Thursday, the network’s CEO, Natalia Sindeyeva, wrote on social media, “We need strength to exhale and understand how to work further. We really hope that we will return to the air and continue our work,” Al Jazeera reported.

The moment has gone viral on social media with many people posting the mass resignation.

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian communication regulators have sought to control the media by banning the use of words such as ‘war’, ‘invasion’ and ‘occupation’. According to Al Jazeera, the Ekho Moskvy radio station, which was one of Russia’s last remaining liberal media outlets, also dissolved its board because of pressure over its coverage of the war.