MOSCOW, June 16 (RIA Novosti) - Representatives of Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration have transferred the journalists of the Zvezda TV channel to Russian military aid Eduard Belashev, according to a statement published on the channel's website.
"The journalists have been transferred in Dnipropetrovsk Regional Administration building in the presence of more than 30 reporters," Zvezda said.
On June 14, the TV channel said that its correspondent Evgeny Davydov and sound engineer Nikita Konashenkov had been detained in Dnipropetrovsk, and were held in the Justice Ministry building. The journalists presented their official journalistic licenses. The channel addressed Ukraine's president, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and the Justice Ministry, demanding the immediate release of their staff members.
This is the second time Zvezda TV channel journalists get detained in Ukraine since the start of the conflict in the country. Previously, cameraman Andrei Sushenkov and sound engineer Anton Malyshev disappeared when they were heading to cover Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's inauguration. They were arrested on suspicion of monitoring the security forces at the roadblock and collecting information about it.
On May 8, Sushenkov and Malyshev were released and taken to Moscow. The Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal case into the detention of the journalists, who said they had nowhere to sleep, could not talk and received constant threats from the SBU officers.
