Russian journalist slain in east Ukraine

Russia’s media conglomerate Rossiya Segodnya has confirmed that one of its photojournalists, who went missing in eastern Ukraine in early August, has been killed.

“Our colleague, photojournalist Andrei Stenin has been killed. It turned out that he was not taken prisoner. It turned out, no one planned to swap him for any Ukrainian military personnel or accuse him of terrorist activities,” Rossiya Segodnya’s Director General Dmitry Kiselev said Wednesday.

“All of the announcements that we heard from the Ukrainians about Stenin’s fate were lies. He died one month ago in a car that he was in while fulfilling his journalistic duties. The vehicle came under fire and burned down on a highway near Donetsk,” he added, citing results of an examination by the Russian Investigative Committee.

Stenin went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5. Four days later, Rossiya Segodnya filed a request with the Ukrainian Interior Ministry to take action in order to locate him.

Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists were among the international organizations that had called on Ukrainian authorities to help find the Russian journalist.

Some believed Stenin was being held by Ukrainian security forces, but Kiev has never officially confirmed the information.

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have witnessed deadly clashes between pro-Moscow forces and the Ukrainian army since Kiev launched military operations to silence the pro-Russians there in mid-April.

Violence intensified in May after the two flashpoint regions of Donetsk and Luhansk held local referendums in which their residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Ukraine.

Western powers and the Kiev government accuse Moscow of having a hand in the crisis in eastern Ukraine, but the Kremlin denies the accusation.

MP/HJL/NN