Crimean weekly loses touch with two reporters working in eastern Ukraine
SIMFEROPOL. Aug 25 (Interfax) - Two reporters of the Krymsky Telegraf weekly, both of them working in the zone of the military operation in eastern Ukraine, have been out of contact since Sunday evening, the weekly's editors said.
Correspondent Yevgenia Korolyova and photographer Maxim Vasilenko were forced to get off a bus near Donetsk by members of the radical Ukrainian organization, Right Sector. Both were returning to Donetsk after fulfilling editors' assignments.
"Yevgenia was allowed to make a telephone call, but what she said suggests that someone was near, controlling her every word. She could not say at what checkpoint she had been detained," the weekly said.
It said the journalist answered in the negative when asked whether her life was at risk and she confirmed that she and her colleague had been detained in connection with their profession.
"Yevgenia said that their mobile phones could be seized," the weekly said in a press release.
Korolyova and Vasilenko had previously visited the military operation zone and returned to Crimea without incident.
Krymsky Telegraf Editor Maria Volkonskaya told Interfax that the journalists called and said they had been detained at 10:33 p.m. on Sunday.
"They have been out of touch since then. Their mobile phones are switched off," she said, adding that the reporters' families have not been able to get in touch with them either.
