It was only this month, after President Vladimir V. Putin invaded Ukraine, that Mr. Likin resigned as the longtime art director for Channel 1, the Russian state television network that is a major player in the Kremlin’s sprawling propaganda apparatus. He insisted that he was “not a politician,” but that the invasion meant he was now part of an operation with a “life-exterminating” agenda.

“In Russia, television is made for people who for one reason or another are too lazy to use alternative sources of information,” Mr. Likin said in a phone interview, reflecting on his audience. “These are simply people who lack education, or who lack the habit of analysis.”…

There have been at least four high-profile resignations at Russia’s state television channels, a crucial pillar of Mr. Putin’s dominance over the country’s domestic politics. Marina Ovsyannikova, the Channel 1 staff member who interrupted a live news broadcast last week to unfurl an antiwar poster that said, “They’re lying to you here,” offered the most striking act of protest. Others, like Mr. Likin, have gone more quietly, providing a glimpse of the ferment inside Mr. Putin’s system — and a reminder of the immense power of television in shaping how most Russians see the war.

“People are just depressed — clinically depressed,” Zhanna Agalakova, a Channel 1 correspondent who resigned this month, said of some of her colleagues left behind. “Many thinking people are sensing their own guilt. And there is no exit, you understand? Simply asking for forgiveness is not enough.”