Simon Ostrovsky, a correspondent for Vice News who has been filing dispatches from Eastern Ukraine over the last several weeks has been detained there, the news organization confirmed on Twitter Tuesday afternoon:
The Interpreter published this translation of a report from Gazeta.RU about Ostrovsky’s situation:
The “People’s mayor” of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, said that the militia has taken the American journalist, Simon Ostrovsky, hostage, reports a correspondent for Gazeta.ru,Ponomarev announced this during a press conference at the House of Culture in Slavyansk.According to him, Ostrovsky has dual US and Israeli citizenship and works for the American publication, Vice.The press conference was briefly interrupted when the journalists’ parents rang Ponomarev, the leader of the Slavyansk militia, who gave assurances that their son was doing well.”Nobody abducted him, nobody is holding him hostage, he’s with us now in at the SBU, preparing material and working,” said Ponomarev.
Ostrovsky’s consistent Twitter activity from the region ended Monday during the press conference mentioned above with the two tweets below:
He has not sent any updates via Twitter since. The last report he filed for Vice News’ YouTube channel, posted on Sunday, covered the escalating conflict between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russia protesters.
Watch video below, via Vice News:
UPDATE (4/24/14, 12:50pm): Vice announced Thursday that Ostrovsky has been released:
“VICE News is delighted to confirm that our colleague and
friend Simon Ostrovsky has been safely released and is in good health. We would like to thank everyone for their support during this difficult time. Out of respect for Simon and his family’s privacy, we have no further statement at this time.”
[h/t Mashable]
[photo via screengrab]
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