Report: Vice Journalist Captured in Eastern Ukraine

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Photo from Simon Ostrovksy's Twitter.

Image: @SimonOstrovsky/Twitter

By Brian Ries2014-04-22 16:19:36 UTC

Vice journalist Simon Ostrovsky has been taken by militia in Eastern Ukraine, a Russian news outlet reports.

The reporter for Vice News, who has been filing a series of compelling video dispatches from Ukraine since early March, was "taken" in Sloviansk, the Russian media outlet gazeta.ru reports.

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.

Sloviansk's self-appointed mayor, Vachislav Ponomaryov, reportedly held a press conference where he called Ostrovsky's parents to assure them that their son was okay, the outlet reports. "Nobody abducted him, nobody is holding him hostage, he's with us now in at the SBU, preparing material and working," Ponomaryov reportedly said, raising the possibility that Ostrovsky is merely embedded with the militia.

Douglas Herbert, international affairs editor at news outlet France 24, confirms the news on Twitter.

Ponomaryov has, in the past, held journalists — most recently capturing Imra Krat and parading her before reporters in a blindfold.

Ostrovsky's last two tweets, sent April 21, are about the "mayor" threatening to remove an Associated Press journalist from a press conference.

"Sloviansk pro-Russia 'mayor' threatens to throw journalist out for "provocative" question about former mayor being held under guard," Ostrovsky tweeted. "Now he's not letting reporters leave the press conference: 'you'll go as you came in. In a group.' That's one way to guarantee coverage."

Mashable has reached out to Vice for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

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Topics: Media, russia, US & World, World