Dmytro Hyliuk, a journalist of the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, who was kidnapped by Russian soldiers in March 2022, is imprisoned in one of the penal colonies in the Vladimir region of Russia, writes the Ukrainska Pravda portal. Moscow denies imprisoning the Ukrainian.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the journalist is alive, Ukrainska Pravda reports. The organization emphasizes that it has evidence that a man was kidnapped in the Kiev region and taken to a colony in Russia.
RSF claims that Hyliuk left a penal colony in the city of Novozybkov near Russia’s border with Belarus and Ukraine in May 2023. He was imprisoned there without any legal grounds, the organization notes. The journalist was then taken to a prison in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.
RSF reports that in June Hyliuk wrote a message to his family: “I’m fine. I love you. Inform UNIAN that I’m in prison.” Russian authorities deny Hyliuka prison.
The NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights reported in March 2022 that the journalist was probably kidnapped on March 4 in the village of Kozarowicze in the Kiev region. According to the organization, the likely reason for the journalist’s detention is his conversation with Ukrainian military and law enforcement officials. On the eve of his disappearance, Huliuk wrote on Facebook that his village was under Russian occupation.