MOSCOW, August 20 (RIA Novosti) - A Just Russia political party leader Sergei Mironov expressed his support for Andrei Stenin, an International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya photographer currently missing in Ukraine.
“I am joining the support expressed for Andrei Stenin. I demand the missing photojournalist of Rossiya Segodnya be found as soon as possible and set free!” Mironov said on his Facebook page.
“While working in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, Andrei faithfully carried out his professional duty – he showed the war the way it is. Apparently, someone did not like it. It is easy to guess who,” he added.
The party leader also said that he had sent a letter to Volodymyr Lytvyn, the head of the Ukrainian Committee on National Defense and Security, in which he asked the official to participate in finding and liberating Stenin.
“Death, harm or disappearance of a person is always dreadful. But threatening the life or freedom of a journalist is threatening the freedom of speech and democratic principles of the society. That is why our duty is to do everything we can to find and set Andrei free,” Mironov said in the letter.
Andrei Stenin had been working in eastern Ukraine and could not be reached since August 5. On August 12, aide to the Ukrainian interior minister Anton Herashchenko said that Stenin had been arrested by the Ukrainian Security Service on charges of assisting terrorists, adding later on that he did not really have any precise information on the case.
Moscow has asked Kiev to comment on Herashchenko’s statement, while his location still remains unknown. The photographer now appears on the Ukrainian militia’s missing persons list, according to Herashchenko.
Please support Andrei Stenin’s release by sharing the hashtag #FreeAndrew in social networks. Andrei is a professional war photographer reporting from the most dangerous war zones in the world. You can view Andrei’s pictures from Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya here and his most recent shots from eastern Ukraine here.
