‘No To War’: Entire Staff Of Liberal Russia TV Channel Resigns Live Over Ukraine Invasion. Watch Video

Ekho Moskvy radio station, another of Russia’s liberal media outlets, was also dissolved Thursday over its Ukraine coverage.

New Delhi: The entire staff of Russian television channel TV Rain (Dozhd) resigned on air Thursday, after declaring “no to war” in its final telecast. The decision came after authorities in Russia suspended operations of the channel over its coverage of the Ukraine invasion.

“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,” network’s CEO Natalia Sindeyeva, who is one of the founders of the channel, was quoted as saying in media reports.

Sindeyeva said “No to war” in the last telecast of the channel as all employees present in the studio staged a walkout. 

The video of the mass resignation was shared widely on social media.

After the staff exit, the viral video shows, the channel played the same 'Swan Lake' ballet video that was aired on state-run TV channels in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. 

Ekho Moskvy Radio Station Dissolved Too

Meanwhile, the Ekho Moskvy radio station, another of Russia’s liberal media outlets, was also dissolved Thursday over its Ukraine coverage.

“The Ekho Moskvy board of directors has decided by a majority of votes to liquidate the radio channel and the website of Ekho Moskvy,” Editor-in-Chief Alexei Venediktov was quoted as saying.

Venediktov had told news agency Reuters earlier this week that the radio station would not abandon its independent editorial line.

Earlier, TV Rain (Dozhd) was taken off the air by three television providers in 2014 after it aired reporting critical of Russian authorities and broadcast Ukraine’s anti-government protests.

The channel was known for its coverage of the massive street protests against President Vladimir Putin.  

“You have to call things by their names. Of course, this is censorship and pressure,” Natalia Sindeyeva had told Reuters then.

Ukraine had witnessed large-scale protests in November 2013 after the then government led by VIktor Yanukovych stalled a trade deal with the European Union in favour of boosting ties with Russia. The protests had succeeded in toppling the government, leading to Yanukovych fleeing the country. He has been in exile since, and Putin reportedly wants to bring him back to Ukraine and make him the president again.  

The Swan Lake Ballet Connection

Swan Lake, composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76, is one of the most popular ballets of all time. It, however, over the time became synonymous with any political upheaval in Russia.

As history goes, when Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982 after nearly twenty years in power, state-controlled television stations did not immediately announce the news of his death or who would be the new leader. They broadcast Swan Lake in full length, instead. 

According to different reports and accounts, the same happened when Brezhnev’s successor Yuri Andropov died in 1984, and Konstantin Chernenko in 1985. It was said the broadcasts meant to stall or block access to the news as the Soviet leadership settled on a succession plan. 

In August 1991 too, when an attempt was made to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev’s government, TV programmes were interrupted for days once again, and the viewers had to watch Swan Lake on a continuous loop, Stanford dance historian Janice Ross has written in her new book, ‘Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia’. 

For many Russians, especially those who lived in the erstwhile USSR, seeing Swan Lake on TV kind of signals a political upheaval.

Playing Swan Lake by TV Rain after the last broadcast and the staff resignation, hence, has a particular symbolic reference.