LONDON — A local journalist working for a French radio station in Ukraine was kidnapped and tortured by Russian soldiers earlier this month, according to the nonprofit group Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Nikita, 32, whose name has been changed for his safety, was held for nine days and subjected to electric shocks, beatings with an iron bar and mock executions, he told the group.
“Nikita has given us a chilling testimony confirming the intensity of the Russian army’s war crimes against journalists,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said in a statement. “Pass his testimony on to the ICC [International Criminal Court] Prosecution is the least we can do for this brave young fixer.”
In early March, Nikita told RSF that he and his team were on the scene when he learned the path to his family’s village was clear. He decided to try to evacuate them, and after he was done with the job, he borrowed his team’s car, clearly marked “Press,” and set off.
However, on the way to his hometown, he was ambushed. Several shots were fired at his car. He crashed into a tree, yelled that he was a civilian, and pulled himself out of the wrecked vehicle. Nikita told RSF that he was surrounded by soldiers who searched and beat him. He thought Russian forces believed he was actually a Ukrainian soldier acting as a scout.
According to his report, which CBS News cannot independently verify, the soldiers took Nikita to a nearby building and searched his phone, where they found information about his work as a journalist, including map routes and text about bulletproof vests. That made her more suspicious. They beat him with rifle butts, broke his teeth and executed him in a ditch next to a dead dog, firing a shot that grazed his head, he told the nonprofit group.
Investigations into possible war crimes by Russia in Ukraine are ongoing 04:38
Then the soldiers took Nikita to a camp, tied him to a tree, took off his shoes and repeatedly beat him. He said he lost consciousness several times before being taken to another location and interrogated, with a soldier shocking him with electric batons. He said there were other civilian prisoners around him who were also being tortured.
Russian forces put him and the other prisoners in a cellar full of water and left them there for two days. They were then moved to another house, where they were joined by a detained former officer.
Nikita was interrogated again, this time by people he assumed were Russian intelligence or security officials because of their clean clothes and polished boots. Then Nikita and the other prisoners were told that they would be released.
The next day they were driven into a forest an hour away and dropped off there. Nikita, fearing being executed, ran away but no shots were fired at him. Reaching a road, he encountered more Russian soldiers, but managed to escape in a car with other civilians.
“If you don’t take him with us, we’ll shoot him on the spot,” the soldiers reportedly told the civilians in the vehicle.
A number of journalists have been injured, captured or killed while working in Ukraine.
This month, award-winning American documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed and his colleague, photojournalist Juan Arrendondo, was injured. Two Fox News journalists, longtime cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and local producer Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, were killed, and Fox correspondent Benjamin Hall was seriously injured.
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On Tuesday Ukrainian outlet said Hromadske One of their journalists, Victoria Roshchyna, was released after being captured by Russian forces on Friday.
Another Ukrainian newspaper, The Kyiv Independent, said photojournalist Maks Levin is also missing.
Reporters Without Borders has filed two separate complaints with the International Criminal Court related to the war in Ukraine, one alleging deliberate attacks by Russian forces on journalists and another alleging Russian attacks on television infrastructure in Ukraine.
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