MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian LifeNews television crew has been detained in Ukraine, the channel reported Friday.
"Unidentified people have detained the LifeNews journalist Yulia Shustraya and cameraman Mikhail Pudovkin in Donetsk,” the statement said, noting that some 30 masked people attacked the employees while they were on their way to interview Ukrainian activist Ignat Kromskiy.
The journalists were later able to establish contact with LifeNews, saying that the operation had been carried out by the Ukrainian Security Service.
"They took our equipment and telephones. Then we were taken to the car, and they drove us away. They said that our presence on the territory of Ukraine threatens its integrity and security," Shustraya told the channel. The journalists informed the channel that officers escorted them to the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Last week, LifeNews said one of their correspondents had gone missing in Mariupol, Donetsk region. During the storming of a police unit in Mariupol, the journalist Kristina Babaeva disappeared and could not be reached. She was later found in detention at a police station in Mariupol.