Representatives of the Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration have handed over Russian TV channel Zvezda correspondent Yevgeniy Davydov and sound engineer Nikita Konashenkov to Russian military aide Eduard Belashev.
The reporters were handed over in the Dnipropetrovsk administration with over 30 journalists present.
Zvezda reporters Yevgeny Davydov and Nikita Konashenkov were detained
by the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities in the Dnipropetrovsk
region on June 14. It emerged on June 15 that the journalists were being
held in a Justice Ministry building of the Dnipropetrovsk region. The
TV channel’s executives managed to place a call to one of them.
The journalists of the Zvezda channel arrived in Ukraine officially,
having shown their reporters’ IDs, and their business trip to Ukraine
ended on June 14.
This is a second detention of Zvezda reporters, which has occurred
recently. Zvezda crew members Andrei Sushenkov and Anton Malyshev were
detained on June 6 by National Guard subdivision near Bylbasovka, not
far from Slovyansk. Sushenkov managed to tell Zvezda producer on the
telephone that they were being checked at a post and that all documents
were taken from them, and after this contact with them was lost.
The Ukrainian National Guard said later that the Russian reporters
were detained on suspicion of gathering information about the blockpost
and were handed over to Ukrainian Security Service representatives in
order to clarify the circumstances and purposes why they were near the
blockpost. The journalists were handed over to Russian diplomats
overnight into June 9 and brought to Moscow with a special flight of the
Russian Defense Ministry.
