MOSCOW, August 10 (RIA Novosti) – The International Information News Agency Rossiya Segodnya starts a campaign #freeAndrew to support its photographer Andrei Stenin, who went missing in the combat zone in Ukraine’s east, where government troops are conducting a special operation against independence supporters.
In Moscow, near RIA Novosti information agency headquarters next to metro station Park Kultury, as well as in Pushkin Square, the photos taken by Stenin will be distributed, with a call to support demands for his release in social networks. The campaign will begin at noon on Sunday local time (08:00 GMT). Volunteers are expected to hand out 5,000 photos.
In addition, at 5:00 p.m. local time (13:00 GMT) a set of photographs taken by Stenin in southeastern Ukraine will be put on display near RIA Novosti headquarters. A video address made by Andrei’s colleagues asking to free the photographer will be also uploaded on YouTube.
Andrei Stenin, who was working in Donetsk, Slaviansk and other eastern Ukrainian cities, went missing on August 5. Earlier on Friday, an informed source told RIA Novosti that the photographer was being held by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in the Zaporizhia Region in southern Ukraine. A spokesman for the local SBU office denied such reports.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday that Russia is taking all possible efforts in coordination with corresponding agencies to secure Stenin’s return.
Rossiya Segodnya Director-General Dmitry Kiselev on Friday called for the release of the agency’s photographer and emphasized the humanitarian nature of Stenin’s work.
On Saturday, Rossiya Segodnya submitted an application to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry with a request to take urgent measures to find Stenin. The office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media said on Friday that it was checking reports on Stenin’s disappearance. The Russian Embassy in Ukraine is looking into the circumstances of the incident. The American Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is also investigating the case.
