Independent Russian news outlet TV Rain ended its final broadcast with the words “no to war” on Thursday.
The station was forced to shut down because of the Russian government’s crackdown on local media over unfavorable coverage of the war in Ukraine.
TV Rain had already been forced off television airwaves but continued operating a YouTube broadcast. Its staff signed off, saying “no to war,” before walking off the station’s set.
The network then broadcast Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, a nod to the 1991 coup attempt against the government of then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. As that coup was taking place, the ballet played repeatedly on television, an indication to viewers that something was wrong.
