Russian news channel signs out saying ‘No To War,’ plays ‘Swan Lake’ as staff walks out

Watch the moment here:

Meanwhile TVRain, the last independent media outlet operating in Russia, has shut down — here’s the last few minutes of its broadcast, poorly Google Translated. It then cut to Swan Lake, which has particular relevance: https://t.co/XXtUHroZkt pic.twitter.com/Iq7HSal7FW

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 3, 2022

The channel then played Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’, referring to the panicked moment from August 1991 when Soviet TV stations showed the ballet instead of the live civil unrest breaking out in the country. Now, the moment has gone viral across social media platforms.

TV Rain goes out with a bang, broadcasting the Swan Lake performance that aired on Soviet TVs in 1991 during the attempted coup against Gorbachev. At a time when many wonder if those around Putin could stop this war in Ukraine and Russia’s plunge into isolation. https://t.co/ADFGVwxy8o

— Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) March 3, 2022

According to The New York Times, Russia’s telecommunications regulator had already blocked TV Rain earlier in the week. Some of the station’s employees have fled the country out of fear for their own safety, the report added. The moment happened when the news outlet delivered its final show, on YouTube.

The channel also announced Thursday that it would stop operating indefinitely under intense pressure from the Kremlin, Reuters reported. “We need strength to … understand how we can work from here. We really hope that we will return to broadcasting and continue our work,” Sindeeva said in the statement published on the channel’s website.

Earlier, it was reported that Russian media have been instructed to only publish information provided by official sources. Media houses have also been banned from using words like attack, invasion or war to describe the Ukraine crisis, said a Guardian report citing Latvian-based Russian news website Meduza.