Dmytro Potekhin released

President Petro Poroshenko announced on Thursday, Sept 25 that Dmytro Potekhin, well-known journalist, blogger and civic activist has been released.  Potekhin was seized on Aug 7 at Donetsk railway station, accused of ‘spying’.  He was reported to have been moved to the basement of the Isolatsia Centre for cultural initiatives, seized earlier by the militants.  Potekhin is a well-known blogger for Ukrainska Pravda and director of the European Strategy Group.  There is no further information about Potekhin’s release. 

Telekritika reports that Poroshenko has also taken efforts to release Yehor Vorobyov, Espreso TV journalist under his personal control. Vorobyov was taken prisoner by Russian soldiers near Ilovaisk [Donetsk oblast] [See Russia’s Ilovaisk Treachery]

Other journalists held by the militants

Kharkiv journalist Roman Cheremsky from Ukrainsky Prostir and Valery Makeyev.  There has been no contact with them since the night from Aug 30-31.  They are believed to be held in the prison of the so-called ‘military command of the LPR’ in Rovenki [Luhansk oblast].

Yury Lelyavsky a Lviv freelance journalist reporting for ZIK was taken hostage by Kremlin-backed militants for a second time on Aug 25 in the Luhansk oblast.  He had been covering a mission of priests from different denominations who were heading to the front line and was seized together with two other people. He was reported later to be alive and held in the basement of the Luhansk regional administration. 

Serhiy Saladynsky, head of the Luhansk Eastern Ukraine Centre and chief editor of an Internet publication Politika 2.0, has not been seen or heard of since July 28.  There are very good grounds for assuming that he was abducted by Kremlin-backed militants from the self-proclaimed Luhansk people’s republic. Two weeks before his disappearance, armed men in camouflage gear burst into the Politika 2.0 office and seized computer, photographic and video equipment.

Oleksandr Bilokobylsky  As reported here, the journalist disappeared after setting off on Sept 13 from Kharkiv to take food and medicines to relatives in Luhansk.   On Sept 16 the journalist’s wife received a text message from an unknown number but signed with her husband’s name.  The message was that he was alive and well, but could not come back.

These are only the main journalists known to be held hostage. The number of people taken prisoner by the militants is very much larger