Journalist of TV channel "112 Ukraina" has been found together with another two journalists

The journalist of the TV channel "112 Ukraina" Roman Hnatiuk, who went missing on August 1 in Donetska oblast, has made contact. Currently, he is in Dnipropetrovska oblast. This was reported by the TV channel "112 Ukraina". According to Hnatiuk, together with two colleagues, the journalist of a Serbian media outlet “Pecat” Serhiy Belous and freelancer from Antracyt (Luhanska oblast) Serhiy Boyko he passed the Russian and Ukrainian customs but at a checkpoint in Amvrosiyivka they were detained to establish their identities. They were not allowed to make phone calls. 

Masked men on a military car that looked like they were Ukrainian military took them to the territorial battalion ‘Kryvbas’ with faces covered with their own clothes. They were treated rudely and interrogated. Then they were taken to Mariupol to the Anti-Terrorist Operation HQ, where the treatment was normal. Then they were taken someplace else, Hnatiuk does not know where exactly, and thrown into a general population prison cell. The other four men in that cell were severly beaten.

 They had a conversation with a man from some intelligence agency; they believed it was the Security Service of Ukraine, so they gave requested testimonies. At night they were woken up and taken to a car, which took them to an unknown location. Hnatiuk was allowed to go first. In the middle of some field his captors told him to take off his pants and his underwear and to crawl on his belly. Then they made two shots in the air and left. Some time later, Hnatiuk managed to take off the cloth covering his eyes and untie his hands and went to a neighbouring village. From there, he made a phone call. His brother came over from Kyiv by car to pick him up.

Besides Hnatiuk, two other missing journalists were found – the journalist of a Serbian media outlet “Pecat” Serhiy Belous and freelancer Serhiy Boyko. Espresso.TV reports with reference to UNN that these journalists were in captivity of the terrorists of the so-called Donetska People’s Republic. According to the sources in the law enforcement agencies, on August 6 near Dniprodzerzhynsk (Dnipropetrovska oblast) representatives of DPR threw three journalists out of the car to the roadside. The three of them are alive and talking to law enforcement officers. One of them is a freelancer for the TV channel "112". According to UNN, the terrorists were throwing the journalists out of the cars in 5 km from each other. They took the captured journalists’ papers and equipment.

Currently, the details of the incident are being investigated.

For the context, on August 1 in Donetska oblast contact was lost with the reporter for the TV channel «112 Ukraina» Roman Hnatiuk, who was participating in live standups from the site of crash of the Malaysian passenger aircraft Boeing 777 and was accredited with a terrorist organization, the self-proclaimed «Donetsk People’s Republic». That same day, the disappearance of the Serbian correspondent Serhiy Belous was reported by the Serbian weekly ‘Pecat’. 

The press services of the National Guard and Anti-Terrorist Operation made a statement that they did not detain these journalists in Donbas region and had nothing to do with their abduction. The Anti-Terrorist Operation press officer Oleksiy Dmytrashkovsky informed that Roman Hnatiuk did not obtain accreditation in the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone and did not coordinate his route with the Ukrainian military.