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A Ukrainian journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was freed on Sunday after being detained by Russian authorities for more than four years in occupied Crimea, according to the media organisation.
Vladyslav Yesypenko was arrested and imprisoned on 10 March 2021 in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Yesypenko was charged with spying for Ukraine — a charge he denied — and a Russian-installed court in the territory sentenced him to six years imprisonment in February 2022, although his sentence was later reduced to five years.
As well as being denied by Yesypenko himself, RFE/RL and rights groups have said that the charges were fabricated. Yesypenko was also later charged with possessing explosives —which he also denied — although prosecutors later acknowledged that the grenade found in his car did not have his fingerprints on it.
Yesypenko, who is a dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen, testified during his trial that he had been tortured with electric shocks to elicit a false confession.
“For more than four years, Vlad was arbitrarily punished for a crime he did not commit. He paid too high of a price for reporting the truth about what was taking place inside Russia-occupied Crimea,” RFE/RL chief executive Stephen Capus said. He added that Yesypenko had been “tortured, physically and psychologically”.
Yesypenko was freed after RFE/RL correspondent Ihar Karnei was released from prison inBelarus following a visit from a senior US official. Karnei was arrested in 2023 and sentenced to three years in prison on “extremism” charges that he denied.
Capus thanked the US and Ukrainian governments for “working with us to ensure that Vlad’s unjust detention was not prolonged”. The Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak also thanked everyone who helped free Yesypenko.
Media freedom in Crimea has deteriorated since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea: according to Ukrainian human rights NGO ZMINA, 88% of media outlets active before 2014 had ceased operating by 2015.
According to PEN America, Yesypenko had been gathering footage for a report featuring Crimean residents talking about how their lives had changed in the years since Russia annexed the peninsula.
Authorities have also intensified their crackdown on dissent within Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022: in April, a Russian court convicted four journalists of “extremism” and sentenced them each to more than five years in prison.
All maintained their innocence and said they were being prosecuted for doing their jobs as journalists.
Additional sources • AP
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