Russian journalists held by Ukraine’s security service

© RIA Novosti

10:31 16/06/2014

MOSCOW, June 16 (RAPSI) – The journalists from the Russian Zvezda TV channel, who were detained in Dnipropetrovsk, have been handed over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the TV channel said on its website on Sunday.

On Saturday night, Zvezda announced that its correspondent Yevgeny Davydov and sound engineer Nikita Konashenkov were detained in Dnipropetrovsk and held in the Justice Ministry building. The journalists entered Ukraine officially, showing their media IDs at the border. Their trip should have ended on Saturday. Zvezda channel management urged the Ukrainian president, the SBU and the Justice Ministry to immediately release the journalists.

This is the second time recently that journalists from the Defense Ministry’s Zvezda channel were detained in Ukraine. A week earlier, cameraman Andrei Sushenkov and sound engineer Anton Malyshev, who were on a business trip to cover the inauguration ceremony of new Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, were held on suspicion of espionage. They said upon their return to Russia that for two days they were held in a stuffy room, given very little to drink and were beaten. They were released and delivered to Moscow last Monday.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case into their detention.