Stanislav Aseyev: “The first month in detention was the hardest”
One of the few independent journalists to stay in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region after the separatist takeover, Stanislav Aseyev ended up being detained arbitrarily there for two and a half years. He described the experience in a video during a visit to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which campaigned for his release while he was held.
After his abduction by Russian-backed separatists on 2 June 2017, Stanislav Aseyev spent a month and a half being tortured in an isolated cellar. He was then transferred to Isolatsia, a former contemporary art centre converted into a secret concentration camp in Donetsk, the “capital” of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” and was forced to make public “confessions” on Russian TV.
Released during a prisoner exchange on 29 December 2019, he has related his traumatic experiences in a book published in French today (Editions Atlande). And he agreed to talk to us about his experiences in this video:
Russia is ranked 150th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2020 World Press Freedom Index. Ukraine is ranked 97th.
Russia
