ZCZC
BFF-29
UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT-COURT-MEDIA,LEAD
Ukraine court orders release of Russia journalist
KIEV, Aug 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Ukrainian court on Wednesday ordered the
release of a journalist working for Russian state media pending a trial for
“high treason”, his lawyer told AFP.
Kyrylo Vyshynsky, a journalist at Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency,
has been in custody for 15 months and his release on bail comes as Moscow and
Kiev discuss a possible prisoner swap.
Last month Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered exchanging
Vyshynsky for Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who is behind bars in a
Russian Arctic penal colony.
Ukraine’s SBU security service raided the Kiev offices of RIA Novosti last
year, saying the agency and its journalists had been “used as tools in a
hybrid war against Ukraine”.
Vyshynsky, a Ukrainian national who received a Russian passport in 2015,
was detained near his house in Kiev and accused of treason, a crime with a
15-year potential sentence.
The SBU accused Vyshynsky of travelling to Crimea in 2014 to carry out
“subversive” reporting to justify the peninsula’s annexation by Russia.
The 52-year-old was also accused of collaborating with Russian-backed
separatist groups in eastern Ukraine.
A conflict that broke out in the region following Russia’s annexation of
Crimea has cost some 13,000 lives and poisoned relations between Kiev and
Moscow.
BSS/AFP/RY/1545 hrs