Russian Foreign Ministry demands immediate release of Kirill Vyshinski
Moscow demands the immediate release of the head of the Ukrainian news portal RIA Novosti Kirill Vyshinski, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
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"We call on our international partners to pay close attention to the rise of authoritarianism in Ukraine, to the unscrupulous struggle against anyone with a different point of view. We expect that international human rights organizations and media organizations will not ignore the fate of Kirill Vyshinsky," the statement said.
Earlier, the court in the city of Kherson ruled to detain the leader of the portal for two months, excluding the possibility of a monetary deposit.
On Tuesday, May 15, Ukrainian law enforcement officers raided the office of RIA Novosti correspondents in Kiev, the search lasted for nearly 8 hours. Also on Tuesday, it was reported that in Kiev, the head of the RIA Novosti Ukraine news portal, journalist Kirill Vyshinski, was detained. Vyshinski is accused of supporting the self-proclaimed republics of the Donbass region and treason. Journalist Kirill Vyshinski could face a 15-year prison sentence. Ukrainian security forces also searched the apartment of RIA Novosti Ukraine correspondent Lyudmila Lysenko. In addition, the head of the RIA Novosti Ukraine representative office, Andrei Borodin, has been missing since Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, on the website of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko, among the photos seized during the search of the RIA Novosti Ukraine office in Kiev, there are also personal documents of Borodin.Director General of the Russian news agency "Rossiya Segodnya" (Sputnik), Dmitry Kiselev, stated that the Ukrainian authorities should immediately release journalist Vyshynski and stop the persecution of journalists. Editor-in-Chief of the Russian news agency "Rossiya Segodnya" (Sputnik) and the RT TV channel, Margarita Simonyan, said that the recent incident was Kiev's revenge for the Crimean bridge. She noted that the RIA Novosti Ukraine resource is not legally linked to the Russian news agency "Rossiya Segodnya", but is currently its media partner.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Kiev's actions against RIA Novosti Ukraine were unjustified arbitrary acts. The Russian Embassy sent a note of protest to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, demanding an end to the violence against journalists. The press secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, also announced that the Kremlin expects a strong reaction from international organizations condemning the actions of the Security Service of Ukraine.This is not the first arbitrariness on the part of the SBU in recent times. At the end of April, security forces detained Elena Odnovol, the head of the Crimean branch of the organization "Victory Day Volunteers", which helps veterans. She had come to Ukraine to visit relatives and even under the country's new law - banning the wearing of the Georgi ribbon - she had done nothing illegal. In addition, Elena was charged with treason.
