The following is a list of the 55 persons and details of the cases:
May 2 (Missing) — Mykola Yakubovysch, a Donetsk activist and one of the leaders of the local pro-Ukrainian self-defense, was kidnapped in the center of the city of Donetsk, according to Novosti Donbassa. His whereabouts are unknown.
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May 2 (Released) – Three groups of Western journalists from a number of news outlets were briefly detained by pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine, according to Novosti Donbassa. Mike Giglio from American BuzzFeed and his translator Olena Glazunova were taken from a checkpoint en route to Sloviansk by pro-Russian militants, blindfolded, held at seized police building for three hours and released, says Mike Giglio’s on his Twitter. Americans reporters for CBS Clarissa Ward, Erin Lyall, Andy Srevenson, Geoff Mabberley and a team with Britain’s SkyNews Stuart Ramsay, Barnaby Green and their translators Oleg Malko and Oleksandr Pustovit were detained at rebel-held check-points and released after couple hours.
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April 30 – (Still being held) — Artem Popyk, head of the local Svoboda organization, was kidnapped from his home in Kostiantynivka, according to Svoboda’s member Ihor Slvgorodsky.
April 29 – (Still being held) — A members of district election commission Krasnoarmiysk from the right-wing Svoboda party, Yaroslav Malanchuk, was kidnapped in Kostiantynivka, according to lawmaker from Svoboda party Yuriy Syrotyuk.
April 29 – (Two still held) — Four police officers, including head of the criminal investigation department Vitaliy Benko, Head of the department for combating drug trafficking Oleg Zaitsev, two operational servicemen Andriy Redko and Volodymyr Mischenko, were kidnapped in Kramatorsk by pro-Russian militants after they refused to take separatist’s side, according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s press office. They were transported to the regional SBU headquarters in Sloviansk. On May 2, two of them, Redko and Mischenko, were released.
April 28 – (Dead) — In Sloviansk, the body of an unknown man was found at the same site near the river Torets, where the bodies of Horlivka Town Council deputy Volodymyr Rybak and Kyiv Polytechnic Institute student Yuriy Popravko were found earlier.
April 26 – (Three still held) — Major Serhiy Potiomsky, Captain Eugeniy Verinsky, Lieutenant Colonel Rostyslav Kyjashko from SBU’s high-ranking Alpha Group were kidnapped in Kramatorsk, while they were on their way to Horlivka. SBU confirmed its officers were kidnapped. Kremlin-backed militants took hostages to Sloviansk, where they were interviewed by Russian journalists. On the video, immediately published on the Internet, SBU officers were answering questions while seating with their pants off, hands tied, blindfolded and showing signs of having been beaten. According to the SBU’s statement, the group was kidnapped while performing a task to arrest a Russian citizen suspected of killing Horlivka city council member Volodymyr Rybak. Rybak was kidnapped on April 17, five days later his body was found near the river Torets in Sloviansk with signs of torture.
April 26 – (Still being held) — A Lviv journalist and freelance correspondent for the local ZiK TV-channel Yuriy Leliavsky was captured by pro-Russian militants in Sloviansk during a shooting, according to program director of Telekritika website Viktor Galkin. Leliavsky was taken to the building of the local city council.
April 26 – (Missing) — Serhiy Shapoval, a journalist for the Volyn Post, has being missing since April 26 when he decided to head to Sloviansk from Kharkiv, where he was reporting on the local protests. A communication with him was lost at 3 p.m. April 26 and at 9 p.m. same day telephone connection was lost, according to the Telekritika website.
April 25 – (Two still held) — Recognized theatre director Pavlo Yurov and art curator Denys Gryschuk were kidnapped in Sloviansk. According to the LB.ua website, citing the friends of the kidnapped men, they were on their way from Donetsk to Kyiv via Sloviansk when they stopped answering phone calls. A self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk Viacheslav Ponomaryov later confirmed holding them hostage.
April 25 – (Twelve still held) — Eight members of a military monitoring mission were abducted on April 25 and are held hostage in Sloviansk by pro-Russian separatist forces. Both OSCE representatives and “people’s mayor” of Sloviansk confirmed they were held hostage. The group of OSCE monitors, including four Germans, a Swede, a Pole, a Dane, and a Czech, were traveling by bus from Kramatorsk to Sloviansk in Donetsk Oblast and were accompanied by five Ukrainian soldiers. Pro-Russian militants showed the documents of some of them, including John Christensen (Denmark), Krzysztof Kobelski (Poland), Axel Schneider (Germany). On April 27 a Swede OSCE officer, major Thomas Johannson, who suffers from diabetes, was freed.
April 25 – (Released) — Yevhen Hapych, a journalist from the Ivano Frankivsk Oblast town of Kolomyia in western Ukraine, who on April 22 was kidnapped with his brother Hennadiy in Donetsk Oblast, were released and made it home on April 25. Hapych 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 23 – (Still being held) — Sloviansk City Council member 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.
April 22 – (Two killed) — 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. The second men has been identified as a 19-year-old Kyiv Polytechnic Institute student Yuriy Popravko. According to Popravko’s mother, Yaroslava Popravko, cited by Liga.net, on April 16 her son visited his girlfriend in Kharkiv. There was no further contact with him after that.
April 22 – (Released) — 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. Ostrovsky was released three days later.
April 22 – (Released) — 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 – (Released) — 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 – (Still being held) — Kramatorsk chief of police, Interior Ministry Colonel Vitaliy Kolupaiwas 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 – (Released) — 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 – (Still being held) — 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 – (Whereabouts unknown) — 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 – (Released) — Sloviansk 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 Russian President Vladimir 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. On April 30, Shtepa resigned.
April 16 – (Still being held) — 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 the Interior Ministry 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 – (Still being held) — Artem Deynega, a Sloviansk resident, was kidnapped by pro-Russian militants after he was observed filming from the balcony of his family’s apartment. The apartment is across the street from the Ukrainian Security Service building in Sloviansk.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller, editor Mark Rachkevych, staff writers Oksana Grytsenko and Oksana Mamchenkova contributed reporting.
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