WASHINGTON: The Russian editor who protested Moscow's invasion of Ukraine during a state TV news broadcast called yesterday for other Russians to speak out against the "gruesome war." 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." She was subsequently detained, fined 30,000 rubles ($280), and then freed pending possible further prosecution, but has turned down a French offer of asylum. Yesterday 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.

"As soon as the war began, I could not sleep, I could not eat. I came to work, and after a week of coverage of this situation, the atmosphere on (Channel One) was so unpleasant that I realized I could not go back there." Ovsyannikova said she considered joining a protest in a public square, but saw that protesters were being arrested and faced jail time.

"I decided that maybe I could do something else, something more meaningful... and I could show to the rest of the world that Russians are against the war, and I could show to the Russian people that this is just propaganda." She said she hoped to "maybe stimulate some people to speak up against the war." The sign she held up behind a news reader said: "Stop the war. Don't believe propaganda. They are lying to you here." Ovsyannikova, who has resigned her job, told France 24 television on Thursday that her protest had "broken the life of our family," with her young son particularly anxious. "But we need to put an end to this fratricidal war."

Meanwhile,   a shell exploded outside an apartment block in Kyiv, wounding five people, the mayor said yesterday, the latest bombardment as Russian forces try to encircle the Ukranian capital. The ten-storey building in northwestern Sviatoshyn district was badly damaged, with all the windows blown out and scorch marks from a fire that broke out, AFP journalists at the scene said. Firefighters led an elderly woman and a disorientated man with facial injuries to an ambulance. Two burned-out cars lay in the debris-covered courtyard, which also houses a playground.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that "the enemy's airstrikes" had wounded five people, two of whom were taken to hospital. "It was lucky" that there were not more casualties, Sviatlana Vodolaga, a spokeswoman for the state emergency service told AFP, adding that six people were rescued from the block. A kindergarten was also damaged but was empty at the time. The boom of shelling and rocket fire could be heard in the distance from the scene, which is only a few kilometres from the frontline commuter town of Irpin.

"My sister was on the balcony when it happened, she was nearly killed," said Anna, 30, a resident of the block who asked to be identified by her first name. "Please NATO, close the skies. I hate Putin," she added referring to Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Kyiv has been hit by a series of isolated strikes on apartment blocks over the past week, killing at least seven people in total and leaving one building in flames. Russia's advance on Kyiv has largely stalled. Moscow's forces engage in sporadic fighting to the northwest and east but have barely moved for two weeks. - AFP