Russian Journalists Detained in Ukraine Return to Crimea

SIMFEROPOL, August 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian journalists Yevgeniya Koroleva and Maxim Vasilenko, detained by Right Sector militants in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, returned to Crimea on Wednesday.

The two journalists from the Krymskiy Telegraf newspaper, Koroleva and Vasilenko, were welcomed by their colleagues from Crimean and federal mass media at the Simferopol Railway Station. Koroleva and Vasilenko said they were feeling well and recounted their detention.

“After representatives of Right Sector, who examined us at a roadblock saw a series of photos from the march of captives held in Donetsk on Ukraine’s independence day, they lost control. In addition they found the accreditations from the Donetsk People’s Republic, required for working on the territory of Donetsk,” Vasilenko, who also does freelance work for Rossiya Segodnya and Agence France-Presse, said.

According to Vasilenko, from the roadblock the journalists were taken by car to an unknown location. Later they found themselves in a Right Sector camp where plastic bags were put on their heads. The journalists spent the first 12 hours of their detention in a basement with other captives – 10 men and a woman.

Later the conditions of their detention improved. The journalists were moved to separate rooms and were allowed to talk with an “investigator” from Right Sector, while there was still no contact with any representatives from official law enforcement agencies. A day after they were detained, the journalists were freed.

This is not the first time the journalists working for Rossiya Segodnya have been detained in Ukraine. Russian photographer Andrei Stenin (#freeAndrew) went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5. Stenin’s current whereabouts are unknown. Some sources said that Ukrainian militants detained him, but Ukrainian officials have not confirmed this information.

Please support Andrei Stenin’s release by sharing the hashtag #FreeAndrew in social networks. Andrei is a professional war photographer reporting from the most dangerous war zones in the world. You can view Andrei’s pictures from Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya here and his most recent shots from eastern Ukraine here.