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Kiev Urges Damascus to Secure Reporter’s Release

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Kiev has urged Damascus to step up its effort to ensure the release of Ukrainian reporter Ankhar Kochneva, Ukrainian Foreign Minister spokesman Oleksandr Dikusarov said on Tuesday.

KIEV, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - Kiev has urged Damascus to step up its effort to ensure the release of Ukrainian reporter Ankhar Kochneva, Ukrainian Foreign Minister spokesman Oleksandr Dikusarov said on Tuesday.

“We are calling on the Syrian authorities to use more proactive and effective methods to secure the journalist’s release from captivity,” Dikusarov said.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Kochneva’s abductors threaten to kill her if their ransom demands are not met.

Kochneva, who was abducted in Syria in October, later surfaced in a YouTube video in which she admitted to working for Russian intelligence. She said she took part in Syrian army operations in Baba Amro, Zabadani, Aleppo and Idlib.

Kochneva, a citizen of Ukraine known as an expert on Syrian affairs and an outspoken supporter of President Bashar al-Assad, had been covering events in various parts of the conflict-torn Arab country freelancing for various media outlets.

The 40-year-old journalist went missing in early October as she traveled to the city of Homs.

On November 8, a video in which the kidnapped journalist pleads with the Russian and Ukrainian embassies and the Syrian government to fulfill the kidnappers’ demands was posted on the website of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

 

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