A famous Russian actor who spoke at Putin’s pro-war rally got called out by his daughter on CNN

• Russian actor Vladimir Mashkova spoke at Putin’s pro-war rally after Russia invaded Ukraine.
• His daughter Masha, also an actor, went on CNN to criticize him.
• She told the network that it  “breaks my heart” that her father supports the war.

The daughter of a famous Russian actor criticized his support for the invasion of Ukraine in an interview with CNN.

Masha Mashkova called out her father, Vladimir Mashkova, who has appeared in Western movies like “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” as well as Russian films.

He spoke at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pro-war rally in Moscow on Friday, where Putin offered a long justification for attacking Ukraine and sought to rally popular support.

Masha Mashkova, who is also an actor and lives in the US, told CNN of the war: “What’s happening right now is just unthinkable … and the fact that so many Russian people, including my dad, believe that this violence is somehow justified — it breaks my heart.”

“It’s nothing compared to what Ukrainian people experience now, dying.”

CNN anchor Erin Burnett asked Mashkova if she could believe that millions of Russian people do not know what is happening in Ukraine due to censorship and media control there.

Mashkova responded: “I talked on the phone with my dad yesterday and now I do believe that unfortunately, yes.”

Information about the war in Russia is dominated by the official narrative that Ukraine is run by fascists, who are blamed for any atrocities there.

Its officials insist that Russian troops are not targeting civilians and that the war effort is going well, claims contradicted by all evidence available from independent sources in Ukraine.

Reporters in Russia can be punished with as much as 15 years in prison for defying the official narrative, under a newly-passed law which helped shut down the last independent media in the country.

As Insider’s Mia Jankowicz reported, some Ukrainians have found the Russian account of the war so powerful that they are unable to convince their own relatives in the country that they are under attack.

Mashkova said that in her conversation with her father: “He asked me to come back to Russia immediately, to take my daughters with me, to be a good Russian, to ask for forgiveness for betrayal, and to be Russian people, with my people, to help fight Ukrainian Nazis.”