Russian forces are kidnapping Ukrainian journalists, holding them hostage, and torturing them in captivity, nonprofit says



Joshua Zitser
Sat, March 26, 2022

Russian forces are kidnapping journalists and holding them hostage, according to Reporters Without Borders.

At least two journalists were tortured while in captivity, RSF said.

An editor says her 75-year-old father is a hostage as punishment for her criticism of Putin's invasion.

Russian forces are kidnapping Ukrainian journalists, holding them hostage, and torturing them, the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Friday, per NPR.

Journalists and their relatives are being abducted to prevent them from reporting the facts on the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, RSF added.

"By taking hostages, after bombing TV towers and shooting at cars marked 'Press,' the Russian authorities are demonstrating their determination to censor all reporting that contradicts their military propaganda," said Jeanne Cavelier, head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

"We strongly condemn these acts of intimidation and call on the Russian authorities to stop targeting journalists. They will have to answer for their actions before international courts," Cavelier continued.

At least 36 cases of civilian detentions in Ukraine have been verified by the UN, a spokesperson for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNOHR) told BBC News.

The targeted people are "mostly" journalists and those who have been "vocal about their pro-Ukrainian positions," the spokesperson said on Friday.

In the occupied city of Melitopol, where the mayor was kidnapped and then released, four journalists were detained and later released, according to Ukraine's National Union of Journalists, per BBC News.

In Melitopol, a journalist says her father is being held hostage to intimidate her into submission.

Svetlana Zalizetskaya, the editor of newspaper Golovna Gazeta Melitopola and the RIA-Melitopol news website, has accused Russian troops of abducting her 75-year-old father as punishment for her criticism of the Russian invasion.

Zalizetskaya was told that her dad would only be released if she turned herself in, she wrote on Facebook.

Another journalist, war photographer and documentarian Maks Levin, has been missing since March 13, The Daily Beast reported.

Levin's colleague Markiian Lyseiko wrote on Facebook that "it is assumed that he may have been injured or captured by Russian troops."

His phone has been offline since the morning of March 13, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"We are deeply concerned about the disappearance of Ukrainian journalist Maks Levin, and call on anyone with information on his whereabouts to come forward immediately," said CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator Gulnoza Said.

"Far too many journalists have gone missing while covering Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and all parties to the conflict should ensure that the press can work safely and without fear of abduction," Said continued.

Last week, the office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine accused Russian security and military forces of kidnapping a Ukrainian journalist covering the Russian offensive.

Journalist Victoria Roschyna was detained for 10 days and then released after she posted a video saying the Russians "saved her life," Insider previously reported. Her publisher claimed the video was a condition of her release.

In the Kherson region, RSF said that journalist Oleg Baturin was held and tortured for eight days and then released. An unnamed Radio France fixer was held for nine days, according to RSF, and was beaten with an iron bar and tortured with electricity.

A report by the Institute of Mass Information has accused Russia of committing 148 crimes against journalists and the media in Ukraine since the start of the invasion.