Another Russian journalist has gone missing in eastern Ukraine while covering the ongoing conflict there, Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper reported Friday.
Andrei Stenin's employer, the state-run news agency Rossiya Segodnya, said editors had been unable to reach him since Aug. 5.
Alexander Shtol, director of the agency's photo department, said Stenin was there on a photo assignment and was believed to have been with pro-Russian separatists before his disappearance.
"Unfortunately, we don't have any information. We tried to speak with representatives of the separatists but yesterday we were unable to contact them, even those located in Donetsk," Alexander Shtol said in comments carried by Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
State-run news agency RIA Novosti, part of the Rossiya Segodnya holding, cited an unidentified source in Donetsk as saying Stenin had been taken by Ukraine's security services.
"He was taken by Right Sector fighters from the Shakhtarsk battalion of Ukraine's national guard," the source said, referring to the ultranationalist group Right Sector. "Now, according to our information, he is at the SBU [Security Services office] in [the southeastern Ukrainian city of] Zaporozhye."
Stenin has worked as a photo correspondent for RIA Novosti since 2009. He covered conflicts in Egypt, Syria and other hotspots before being sent to cover fighting in eastern Ukraine.
His alleged abduction there puts him on a long list with other journalists from various countries who have been detained by both sides in the conflict.
At least five journalists have been killed in Ukraine in the last three months.?
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