RIA Melitopol journalist Anastasia Hlukhovska, who was taken prisoner by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in occupied Melitopol in August 2023, is in a pre-trial detention centre in Perm region (Russia). Heorhiy Levchenko, RIA Melitopol‘s Telegram channel administrator who was detained by Russian forces on the same day, was in a detention centre in occupied Mariupol (Donetsk oblast) at one point and has likely been taken to a prison in occupied Crimea. Other journalists detained in Melitopol are also in detention centres or prisons in Russia or the occupied part of Donetsk oblast, RIA Pivden reports.
Journalist Anastasia Hlukhovska is in a Perm detention centre
According to the news outlet, there had been no information on the whereabouts Anastasia Hlukhovska, who was on the RIA Melitopol team prior to the full-scale invasion, for over a year after her detention. In August 2023, the media outlet learned from a testimony by a woman who had been detained and held prisoner in the same cell as Anastasia that the journalist was in the industrial district of occupied Berdyansk.
Anastasia was later moved to the detention centre in Taganrog (Russia) where journalist Viktoria Roshchyna was tortured to death.
It was reported in late June 2025 that Anastasia was in a detention centre in Kyzel (Perm region, Russia). According to RIA Novosti, the Red Cross confirmed Anastasia Hlukhovska’s imprisonment. As per the reports, no charges have been brought against her.
RIA Melitopol channel administrator may be imprisoned in Crimea
Having detained RIA Melitopol channel administrator Heorhiy Levchenko in August 2023, the Russian forces first kept him prisoner in so-called “garages” and then in a temporary detention centre in occupied Melitopol, RIA Pivden reports.
He was later moved to a pre-trial detention centre in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk oblast. Heorhiy Levchenko likely have been moved to a prison in occupied Crimea since then. However, evidence of this can not be found at this time.
In March 2025, the Russian prosecutors in Zaporizhzhia oblast charged Heorhiy Levchenko with “high treason and public calls for extremism.” The Russian authorities claim that Levchenko, being “the administrator of a popular regional Telegram channel, used a chatbot to collect data on the movement and locations of Russian troops and the routes of military convoys in the region.” He is also accused of sharing data with “Ukrainian special services” and “making posts calling for the murder of law enforcers, members of election commissions and government bodies.”
Telegram channel administrators for Melitopol Is Ukraine are imprisoned in detention cenres in Russia
Melitopol Is Ukraine Telegram chat admin Yana Suvorova is in a pre-trial detention centre in Taganrog (Russia), according to RIA Novosti. As IMI has reported, citing Reporters Without Borders, Yana Suvorova is awaiting the ruling of a Russian court.
Her trial on charges of “terrorism apologia” and “espionage” is scheduled for 17 September in Rostov, Russia. She was initially imprisoned in occupied Melitopol and Mariupol and moved to a prison in occupied Donetsk in late July 2025, where she was held in appalling conditions with overcrowded cells and insufficient access to air and water. In mid-August 2025, her family learned that the woman was incarcerated in Russia, in Taganrog detention centre No. 2.
Vladyslav Hershon of the Telegram channel Melitopol Is Ukraine was first held in a Mariupol detention centre and is now awaiting trial in Rostov (Russia), according to Reporters Without Borders. People close to him have told Reporters Without Borders that the conditions of his detention were “horrible and inhumane.” His letters have been arriving less frequently since the move, with the latest one dated June 2025. His trial was postponed three times; most recently, it was moved from 13 August to 2 September without explanation.
As IMI reported earlier, Iryna Levchenko is held prisoner in occupied Donetsk. The retired journalist from Melitopol, who was detained by the occupation authorities off the street without explanation on 6 May 2022, is in a pre-trial detention centre in occupied Donetsk. There had been no news of Iryna’s fate for a long time. In July 2025, her sister received a letter where the journalist said that she was in a Donetsk detention centre but could be moved to Simferopol for trial. The reasons for her detention and the legal grounds for the persecution remain unclear. The journalist’s husband, Oleksandr Levchenko, was released a year after being detained.
In August 2023, Russian forces hacked the Telegram channel of the Ukrainian news outlet RIA Melitopol, which continuted to operate even after the occupation of Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia oblast), and the Telegram channel Melitopol Is Ukraine. They later detained journalists and administrators of the two Telegram channels. Two months after the Telegram channel administrators’ detention, on 29 October 2023, the Russian forces released a news story about them, alleging their involvement in terrorism. Russian propaganda outlets published the names of the detainees: Oleksandr Malyshev, Heorhiy Levchenko, Maksym Rupchov, Yana Suvorova, Mark Kaliush, Kostyantyn Zynovkin. RIA Melitopol journalist Anastasia Hlukhovska, who had remained in temporarily occupied Melitopol, was also recognized in the video. All the detainees are charged under several articles of the Russian Criminal Code: public calls for terrorism, high treason, espionage. They face 12 to 20 years in prison.
The international human rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reported on the whereabouts of five kidnapped Ukrainian journalists from Melitopol (Heorhiy Levchenko, Yana Suvorova, Vladyslav Hershon, Anastasia Hlukhovska, and Yevhen Ilchenko) in October 2024. The organization said that Russian forces had detained at least four journalists and Telegram channel authors on 20 August 2023. The final confirmation of the detentions came in October of the same year, when Russian TV channels released propaganda videos where the journalists were forced to make false confessions. No reports have been received about the imprisoned media workers since then, Reporters Without Borders says.
Mark Kaliush, a Melitopol Is Ukraine administrator who had been illegally imprisoned by Russian forces in 2023, returned to Ukraine as part of a prisoner swap on 24 August 2025. According to Reporters Without Borders, a Russian court exempted him from criminal responsibility and sent him for compulsory psychiatric treatment for “schizophrenia” (diagnosis cannot be confirmed). He was likely institutionalized in Ukraine’s occupied territory or in the Rostov region of Russia.
According to IMI, at least 26 Ukrainian civilians working in media and one journalist who enlisted in the Ukrainian Defense Forces remaindd imprisoned by Russia as of 24 August 2025.
