“This is war”: Upon leaving Channel One, TV anchor Zhanna Agalakova called “hostages” her colleagues who stayed behind

TV anchor Zhanna Agalakova, who resigned from Russia's leading propaganda broadcaster Channel One (Perviy Kanal) after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, gave a press conference in Paris, reportsRadio France Internationale (RFI).

At a press conference held at the office of the NGO Reporters Without Borders, Agalakova spoke of the reasons behind her decision to leave state television, where she had worked for over twenty years.

“There was no question for me whether to continue. And there was no question of whether to call what was happening a 'peacekeeping operation.' This is war. Make no mistake: this is war,” Agalakova said. According to the former anchor, she handed in her resignation on March 3, upon return to Paris from Milan, where she and her husband, a cameraman for Channel One, had been making a report on Milan Fashion Week.

The anchorwoman admitted she had “made many compromises in her professional life,” “hiding her head in the sand like an ostrich.” According to Agalakova, in 2005 she asked to be transferred from her prestigious position as an anchorwoman to a position of a Paris correspondent — to do less propaganda.

Since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, however, she “could no longer avoid propaganda” and “had to look only for negative news” about the United States and then about France when she returned there, Agalakova said.

According to the anchorwoman, most of Channel One's employees are against propaganda, but “are unable” to give it up: “those who are against it have families, they have elderly parents who may need expensive medicine, they have children who go to music schools and sports clubs, they have mortgages to pay back — they are being held hostage. Agalakova added that Russians had to face economic hardships many times: during Soviet poverty, the 1998 default and the 2008-2009 financial crisis.