LifeNews journalists detained in Ukraine being kept at Kyiv’s security department
“Our journalists are being kept at the Kyiv branch of the Ukrainian Security Service. The country’s Security Service confirmed this to us. We asked to give the detainees an opportunity to call up parents and to say that they were alive, but a person on the line only snorted and said that this will be hardly possible,” Suleimanov said.
“A LifeNews lawyer went to the city of Kyiv (Ukraine’s capital) to agree with lawyers who will protect our journalists, because no one is aware of whether Kyiv’s intentions are serious,” he noted.
Ukrainian law enforcers detained Sidyakin and Saichenko near the city of Kramatorsk. Last time journalists came on the line in the afternoon on Sunday, May 18. On Monday, deputy secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council Viktoria Syumar accused detained Russian journalists of instigating terrorism in east Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
“All available instruments” are used for their release, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier in the day in comments on the situation of detained LifeNews journalists. “All necessary measures were taken by the Foreign Ministry using the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mechanisms, needed demarches were taken at bilateral level and public organisations were used through ombudsmen,” he said.