A Russian court has denied a house arrest request from a Ukrainian teenager held in custody on terrorism-related charges.



The Krasnodar Regional Court on November 7 upheld a lower court's decision to keep Pavlo Hryb in pretrial detention until January 4.

Hryb, 19, went missing in late August after he traveled to Belarus to meet a woman he met online in what his relatives believe was a trap set by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

The FSB subsequently informed Kyiv that Hryb was held in a detention center in Russia on suspicion of abetting terrorism, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.



Hryb's father, Ihor Hryb, has said his son was openly critical of Russian interference in Ukraine on social media.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maryana Betsa protested Hryb's continued detention in a message on Twitter.

"There is no law in Russia... A human life does not mean anything [there]. We demand that Russia releases illegally detained Ukrainian P. Hryb," Betsa wrote.

Kyiv and Moscow have been locked in a standoff over Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 and its backing of separatists in a war that has killed more than 10,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

With reporting by censor.net.ua

