Zhanna Agalakova, until her resignation this month a journalist with Russia's state-controlled Channel One broadcaster, said on Tuesday she quit in protest at the war being waged by Russia in Ukraine.

Agalakova, a former Channel One newsreader who at the time of her resignation was the station's correspondent in Paris, told a news conference in the French capital: "When I spoke to my bosses, I said I cannot do this work anymore."

She said she believed Russian television was being used to pump out Kremlin propaganda, and that the authorities had for years been stifling independent media.