The Office for investigating crimes connected with use of forbidden means and methods of warfare of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal investigation into the capture of Zvezda TV channel journalists Yevgeny Davydov and Nikita Konashenkovin Ukraine as containing signs of crimes under part 1 of article 356 of the RF Penal Code, part 3 of article 144, paragraph “a” of part 3 of article 126 (use of forbidden means and methods of warfare; obstruction to legal professional activity of journalists aggravated by violence; abduction).
According to investigators, Ukrainian military men, armed members of the so-called National Guard and Right Sector violated the Geneva Convention “On protection of civilians in time of war” and its additional protocols of 12.08.1949, when on 14 June 2014 acting deliberately, together and in concord as an organized group captured threatening with violence and at gunpoint Russian citizens not taking part in the armed conflict – journalists of the Zvezda Broadcast Company of the Russian Armed Forces Yevgeny Davydov and Nikita Konashenkov at the roadblock Donetsk-Dnepropetrovsk near the village of Pokrovskoye with the purpose to obstruct legal professional activity of the journalists. For two days the unarmed men were beaten and intimidated and demanded to make false statements on the events in Ukraine. It would have seemed that the abductors could not fall any lower, but acting like regular bandits and militants, members of the National Guard and Right Sector sank to banal extortion of 200 thousand U.S. dollars for the release of the journalists. The investigators already have the evidence of those facts and they have been filed in the case. Now we can imagine the financial state of the National Guard and those of their ilk, who are trying to make some bloody money by extortion from Russian citizens.
As a result of actions of the Zvezda TV channel administration, other Russian media networks, political and non-governmental organizations, the members of the Ukraine militia had to set the journalists free on 16 June 2014.
On one of these days the criminal case will be filed in a single lawsuit with another one opened under part 1 of article 356 of the RF Penal Code over use by Ukrainian Armed Forces, members of the National Guard and militants of the Right Sector of prohibited means and methods of warfare as the investigators have reasons to believe that same people were involved in all those crimes.
Another abduction of Russian journalists proves once more that militants of the National Guard and Right Sector know nothing about honor and dignity, not to speak of law compliance. In a ward, bandits are always bandits, no matter which country they act in. We are not going to enter into a discussion with bandits. Sooner or later, paraphrasing the Russian cinema classic, “a banding will be behind the bars”.
Head of Media Relations V.I. Markin
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