MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) – Former Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin is ready to travel to Ukraine to help assist in freeing Andrei Stenin, the International Information News Agency Rossiya Segodnya’s photographer.
“Upon receiving the first serious information that I can somehow influence the current situation, I will, naturally, respond as I have always done before. I only need for the conditions to allow my actions to have an impact,” Lukin told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
The official added that the journalists should be untouchable, as there are rules regarding the treatment of media workers during the military action.
Lukin had earlier participated in freeing the members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) military mission, who were captured in Slaviansk in April.
On Friday, an informed source told RIA Novosti that Stenin, who went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5, was held by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in the Zaporizhia Region in southern Ukraine. A spokesman for the local SBU office, however, denied such reports. Russia's Embassy to Ukraine is looking into the circumstances of the incident.
