“I resigned on principle,” Owen told Wales Online. “I will very much miss the vast amount of very talented and kind colleagues and management who I had the pleasure of working with over many years.”

It is unclear if Owen’s resignation came in protest of Russia’s assault in Ukraine or the crippling European penalties on RT. He reportedly told his supervisors he was resigning Monday and bid farewell to his viewers when he signed off from his final broadcast later that day.

Recent events in Ukraine forced Owen and others at RT to navigate growing international rage against Russia. Prior to his resignation, he openly pondered whether Russian President Vladimir Putin “had a PR problem,” the BBC’s Huw Thomas reported.

As Owen recently reported on the network, European countries are also gearing up to turn up the heat on RT. The European Union recently banned RT and fellow Russian state news agency Sputnik as a repercussion for Russia’s brutality in Ukraine, citing concerns about the networks promoting disinformation. The United Kingdom is also poised to penalize RT. The country’s media regulator, Ofcom, is probing the network and considering suspending its broadcast license.

“Ofcom has today opened a further 12 investigations into the due impartiality of programmes on the RT news channel. This takes the total number of RT programmes under investigation to 27,” the agency said. “We are very concerned by the volume of programmes on RT that are raising potential issues under the Broadcasting Code.”

In another blow, RT also lost its slot on leading British broadcasting company Sky TV earlier this week as a result of international sanctions.

World governments are not the only ones distancing themselves from RT. U.S. comedian Dennis Miller and Canadian actor William Shatner are cutting ties with the network as well.

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RT was founded in 2005 and has been widely considered a propaganda arm of the Russian government. Owen moved to Russia and joined the network a year after its inception. He previously worked at British outlets BBC Wales and HTV Wales. In 2008, he became one of the first foreigners to receive Russia’s esteemed TEFI award for “News Anchor of the Year,” the Daily Mail reported.

Owen’s resignation is reminiscent of Liz Wahl’s resignation from RT in 2014. Wahl served as a correspondent for the outlet from 2011 until 2014 when she publicly resigned from the network. In her resignation speech, she leveled harsh criticism against Putin’s military action in Crimea and that she could no longer be part of a “network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin.”