The following is a list of the 16 persons and the details of each case.
April 23 – Sloviansk City Councilman Vadym Sukhonos was abducted by Kremlin-backed militants, reports TSN television channel, citing local media in the Donetsk Oblast. Sukhonos apparently was kidnapped for ideological reasons. In February, he quit the Party of Regions, the dominant party in eastern Ukraine, and is now a local independent lawmaker.
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April 22 – In Sloviansk, the bodies of two men were found near
the river Torets with signs of torture, according to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. One of them has been identified as Volodymyr
Rybak, a Horlivka city
councilman believed to have been kidnapped on April 17. He was found with a sandbag tied around his body and a slash across his stomach. He is believed to have drowned in the river while unconscious. According to the ministry’s reports, members of the pro-Russian separatist
group who seized the city’s security services building were involved in the alleged
torture and murder of the two men.
April 22 – Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk in
northern Donetsk Oblast confirmed that unidentified people in uniform had captured Vice News journalist Simon
Ostrovsky, an American, who was last seen early morning on April 22. Stella Khorosheva, a spokeswoman for the
pro-Russian militants in the eastern city told the Associated Press on Wednesday
that Ostrovsky was being held at the local branch of the Ukrainian Security Service that pro-Russian militiamen seized more than a week ago. Khorosheva told the news agency that Ostrovsky
is “fine” and is “suspected of bad activities” but refused
to explain. She added that the pro-Russian group is conducting an investigation
into Ostrovsky’s activities.
April 22 – Yevhen Hapych, a journalist from the Ivano Frankivsk Oblast town of Kolomyia in western Ukraine, was last contacted around 10 a.m. on April 22 while in Artemivsk, some 45 kilometers by car from besieged Sloviansk, reports news site Vikna. He has not been seen or heard from since, and is believed to have been captured by pro-Russian militia members. He had received a travel grant from Telekritika, a Kyiv-based media watchdog organization, to report in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. His work was to be published in various media.
April 22 –Yuriy Zahrebelny, prosecutor of Sloviansk, was reportedly kidnapped in his office at about 5:50 p.m. by a group of three armed and masked men, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said on April 23. They brought him by car in an unknown direction and released in some 40 minutes later. Zahrebelny refused to disclose the details of his interrogation, the police said.
April 22 – At about 11 a.m. several people in masks came into the office of Sloviansk medical forensics service and captured its head Mr. Yakymov, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry reported. The ministry did not disclose his first name. Yakymov was taken to the local SBU headquarters now occupied by pro-Russian separatists. At about 2 p.m.Yakymov was released and refused to comment on the details of his captivity. “He is very scared after that,” Stanislav Rechynsky, an Interior Ministry adviser said during a news briefing on April 23. “Apparently it was related to (Volodymyr) Rybak’s murder.”
April 21 – Kramatorsk chief of police, Interior Ministry Colonel Vitaliy Kolupai was kidnapped by Kremlin-backed terrorists, the Interior Ministry reported. The masked pro-Russian militants have apparently demanded weapons and arms in exchange for the police colonel’s release. The Interior Ministry accuses Russian military intelligence Colonel Igor Strelkov for commandeering the kidnapping. Ukraine Security Service has identified the Russian colonel as the chief coordinator in the slow-motion Russian invasion of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts by using a combination of Russian special forces and black operatives, a deeply-rooted network of spies and agent saboteurs who are Russians and Ukrainians, and the cooperation of local elements of law enforcement and government officials.
April 21 – Italian journalists Paul Gogo and Kossimo Attanasio, and Belarusian journalist Dmitry
Galko were kidnapped by separatists in Sloviansk while filming events
in the city. Later the journalists were released, but their reporting equipment, money and personal documents were confiscated.
April 20 – Irma Krat, 29, the editor-in-chief of Hidden Truth TV and the
leader of an all-female self-defense unit during the EuroMaidan Revolution that
ousted the former government and President Viktor Yanukovych, was captured
around 8 p.m. on Easter Sunday, Krat’s lawyer, Oleg Veremiyenko,
told the Kyiv Post. Krat was
“taken hostage,” Veremiyenko said, on suspicion of torturing and killing a
Berkut riot police officer. She is reportedly
being held in the Ukrainian State Security
Service building in Sloviansk. The day after her capture, the
pro-Russian separatist group holding her paraded her to meet the press,
during which time she confirmed she was being held but said that she had not
been harmed.
April 19 – Local media has
reported that Kremlin-backed separatists kidnapped the chief of police in Sloviansk,
Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Prokhorov, but officials are yet to officially confirm the abduction. Prokhorov’s whereabouts are unknown.
April 18 – Slavyansk Mayor Nelya Shtepa disappeared after she attempted to meet
with separatist leader Vyacheslav Ponomarev. Initially, Shtepa appeared to
support separatists before changing course and confirming her support for
authorities in Kyiv. On April 22 she appeared on
pro-Kremlin TV Life News saying that she is thankful to Putin. She is believed to be held inside one of the buildings occupied by the separatists in Sloviansk. They have said that she is fine and being fed well.
April 16 – Ukrainian journalist Serhiy
Lefter was kidnapped by
unknown persons while reporting on events in Sloviansk. Some reports have
indicated that Lefter is being held in the basement of the Ukrainian State Security
Service building in Sloviansk, but that information has not been confirmed. The
Donetsk department of Ministry of Internal Affairs said they have no witnesses
or facts regarding the Lefter’s case. Agnieszka Piasecka, a representative of Open Dialog Foundation, the
non-governmental organization he was working with when he was captured, told
the Kyiv Post that the foundation last had contact with him on April 15. After that, she said, “we could not reach
him but we thought it is a part of the connection problem regarding the anti-terrorist
operation in the east.” She later received “an alerting email” confirming
Lefter was being held captive “and is accused of espionage and cooperation with
Right Sector.”
April 13 – Artem Deynega, a Sloviansk resident, was kidnapped by unknown persons after he was
observed filming from the balcony of his family’s apartment. The apartment is
across the street from the Ukrainian State Security Service building in Sloviansk.
Deynega’s whereabouts are unknown.
[Editor’s note: This article was updated to include Kramatorsk chief of police Vitaliy Kolupai onto the list of those who Kremlin-backed terrorists have kidnapped as well as Slovyanks city councilman Vadym Sukhonos’s disappearance.]
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller, editor Mark Rachkevych and staff writer Oksana Grytsenko contributed reporting.
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