Having kidnapped former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, the Russian forces demanded that he call prominent local journalist Serhiy Nikitenko and invite him to a meeting where the FSB would detain him.
Volodymyr Mykolayenko, who was recently released from Russian prison, shared this in an interview with the online news outlet MOST.
Despite the Kherson media having already reported on the former mayor’s abduction, which the Russians were aware of, they demanded that Mykolayenko call MOST editor Serhiy Nikitenko and volunteer Elika Markelia and ask to meet them.
“They had much interest in you; I think in their imagination you were supposed to be imprisoned alongside me,” said Volodymyr Mykolayenko.
He added that the proposals were coming from the Russians, but there was a man with them whom Mykolayenko understood to be a Kherson local.
“Because he was very knowledgeable in local affairs, in some little things that only a local would know. He was a short kind of man,” Mykolayenko described the local.
The people interrogating him wore face-covering masks.
The Russian forces kidnapped Volodymyr Mykolayenko in occupied Kherson on 18 April 2022. He was released from prison as late as 24 August 2025.
Russia’s lists of Ukrainian journalists
As IMI reported, the Russian troops had lists of local journalists when occupying Kherson oblast, as told by local investigative journalist Oleh Baturin.
“This repression machine involved collaborators. Namely, the Novaya Kakhovka Gauleiter, Volodymyr Leontiev, who still lives there and is now commenting left and right on the hydroelectric power plant. The hierarchy was as follows: the local Gauleiters at the bottom, the “DPR” paramilitaries who controlled these Gauleiters, the chief, military commandants, FSB officers, and the troops who were managing the process. These people are all responsible for the kidnappings,” said Baturin.
He noted that the names of these people are already known; in particular the names of those involved in his kidnapping.
Oleh Baturin is a journalist with the newspaper Novyi Den. The Russian forces kidnapped him in Kakhovka (Kherson oblast) on 12 March 2022 and let him go on 20 March; he was tortured while in captivity. The police have initiated proceedings into the alleged abduction of journalist Oleh Baturyn by Russian forces in Kherson oblast. The proceedings have been classified as violation of the laws and customs of war (Part 1, Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
