Article content

[np_storybar title=”Watch Russia Today presenter Abby Martin’s personal comments on Ukraine” link=”#1″]

[/np_storybar]

Criticism of Vladimir Putin’s actions came from an astonishing source Tuesday: from the bosom of RT, the state-sanctioned television station.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Watch a Russia Today presenter go massively off message — before her employers say they're sending her to Crimea Back to video

Californian-born presenter Abby Martin went massively off message with a personal comment after her newscast.

“Just because I work here, for RT, doesn’t mean I don’t have editorial independence and I can’t stress enough how strongly I am against any military intervention in sovereign nations’ affairs,” she said.

“What Russia did is wrong.” She went on to concede she didn’t know as “much as I should about Ukraine’s history and the cultural dynamics of the region, but I do know that military intervention is never the answer.”

Ms. Martin added she found coverage of the crisis disappointing from “all sides of the media spectrum.”

Response from her employers was immediate. Within hours of her outburst, they claimed she had been mislead by American media and promised re-education. Or, as the press release put it: “In her comment Ms. Martin also noted that she does not possess a deep knowledge of reality of the situation in Crimea. As such we’ll be sending her to Crimea to give her an opportunity to make up her own mind from the epicentre of the story.”