A Ukrainian journalist is released from Russian custody in occupied Crimea
Yesypenko was arrested and jailed on March 10, 2021, in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, on suspicion of gathering intelligence for Ukraine, a charge he denied.
In February 2022, a Russian-installed court in Crimea sentenced the dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen to six years on espionage charges that he, his employer and rights groups said were fabricated. Months later, he was also charged with possessing explosives — a claim he denies. Prosecutors later acknowledged the grenade found in his car did not bear his fingerprints.
The top Moscow-controlled court in Crimea later reduced Yesypenko's sentence to five years. During his trial, he testified that he was tortured with electric shocks to extract 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, adding that Yesypenko had been 'tortured, physically and psychologically.'
Capus thanked the U.S. and Ukrainian governments for 'working with us to ensure that Vlad's unjust detention was not prolonged.'
In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak thanked everyone who helped secure Yesypenko's release.
He was freed shortly after longtime RFE/RL correspondent Ihar Karnei was released from prison in Belarus, following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Ukraine war briefing: Drones hit Russian electronic warfare plant and disrupt railway and air travel
Ukraine's drone forces were on the attack against Russian strategic targets on Saturday and into Sunday. Drones hit the Signal radio and electronic warfare equipment plant in the Stavropol region, an official from Ukraine's SBU security service told Reuters. Two facilities at the Signal plant in the city of Stavropol, about 540km (335 miles) from the Ukrainian border, were damaged. Videos online showed an explosion and a large column of dark smoke rising into the sky. The plant was one of Russia's leading producers of electronic warfare equipment, including radar, radio navigation equipment, and remote control radio equipment, the official said. 'Each such attack stops production processes and reduces the enemy's military potential. This work will continue.' Russia's civil aviation authority said it again had to shut down an airport as Ukrainian drones attacked. Rosaviatsia said it suspended flights soon after midnight on Sunday at the airport serving the city of Volgograd, which is the administrative centre of the broader Volgograd region. Ukrainian drones also hit a railway power supply in the Volgograd region, the administration of the region in Russia's south said on Sunday. Air raid alerts were introduced in several other regions in Russia's west and south, warning of Ukrainian drone attacks, according to posts by regional officials. Drones again targeted Moscow, said the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, and an industrial facility in the Penza oblast south-east of the capital, according to the region's governor, Oleg Melnichenko. In the Rostov region, officials said Ukrainian drones killed two people. Ukraine's regions of Dnipro in the south and Sumy in the north-east came under combined rocket and drone attack into Saturday, local officials reported. The head of the Dnipro regional administration, Serhii Lysak, said at least two people died and five were wounded. In the city of Dnipro, a multi-storey building and business were damaged and outside the city a fire engulfed a shopping centre. In Sumy, the military administration said three people were injured. Russian drones hit a central square in Sumy city, and damaged the building of the regional administration. Kharkiv sustained an intense aerial bombardment with Ukraine's state emergency service reporting six people were hurt, including four rescuers wounded in a 'double tap' where a second attack targeted emergency workers trying to help the victims of the first. According to Ukraine's air force, Russia launched 208 drones and 27 missiles overnight into Saturday. It said according to preliminary data, air defences and electronic warfare took down or intercepted 183 drones and 17 missiles, but hits from 10 missiles and 25 drones were recorded in nine locations. Russia's defence ministry claimed its forces had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine: Zelenyi Hai in the Donetsk region and Maliivka just inside the Dnipropetrovsk region. The Ukrainian military's general staff mentioned Zelenyi Hai as one of several frontline areas that had come under Russian attack 11 times over the past 24 hours. It said Maliivka was one of several villages where 10 Russian attacks had been halted. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had identified Pokrovsk as an area requiring 'special attention' due to constant attack. A military spokesperson, Viktor Trehubov, told national television that Russian forces were attacking Pokrovsk in 'a small torrent … that simply does not stop'. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had recorded 'successful actions' in Sumy. The Reuters news agency, which reported on the developments, could not independently confirm battlefield accounts from either side. Russia's defence ministry on Saturday claimed that it struck military facilities in Ukraine that 'manufacture components for missile weapons, as well as produce ammunition and explosives'. The claim could not be independently verified. Zelenskyy posted that that 'there can be absolutely no silence in response to such strikes, and Ukrainian long-range drones ensure this. Russian military enterprises, Russian logistics, Russian airports must feel that the Russian war has real consequences for them.' An Indian firm that shipped $1.4m worth of an explosive compound with military uses to Russia said on Saturday that it complies with Indian rules and the substance was for civilian industrial purposes. A Reuters investigation found that HMX, also called octogen, was sent to two Russian explosives manufacturers despite the threat of international sanctions. Ukraine's drones have attacked the factory of one of the Russian companies after security services linked it to Russia's military. The Indian company involved emailed Reuters saying its shipment was 'for industrial activity and it's a civil explosive'. The US government has identified HMX as 'critical for Russia's war effort'. It is widely used in missile and torpedo warheads, rocket motors, exploding projectiles and plastic-bonded explosives for advanced military systems, according to the Pentagon's Defense Technical Information Center and related defense research programmes. The compound also has some limited civilian applications in mining and other industrial activities.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Incredible moment hero dashes in front of train just in time to save man who collapsed on track
Heart-stopping footage has been released of a hero pedestrian dramatically saving a man's life after he collapsed in front of an oncoming train. The clip shows the onlooker sprinting towards the train track in the Russian city of Derbent, before incredibly pulling the seemingly unconscious man to safety moments before the train sped through. It is unclear what made the man tumble, but extreme heat in the area suggests it was a stifling day in Russia 's southernmost city. The brave onlooker, who had been standing on the opposite side of the track, quickly realized what had happened and instinctively sought to save him. Sprinting over the track as the train hurtled towards him, the courageous pedestrian saved the man's life by pulling his body to safety, keeping a tight grip on him as the vehicle steamed past with its bulky carriages. Russian tabloid newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, is now leading a push to find the lifesaver. They said: 'The hero is being sought so that he can be honored.'
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Ukrainian drones target St Petersburg as Putin attends scaled-down Navy Day
MOSCOW, July 27 (Reuters) - Ukrainian drones targeted St. Petersburg on Sunday, Russian authorities said, forcing the airport to close for five hours as Vladimir Putin marked Russia's Navy Day in the city, despite the earlier cancellation of its naval parade due to security concerns. St. Petersburg usually holds a large-scale, televised navy parade on Navy Day, which features a flotilla of warships and military vessels sailing down the Neva River and is attended by Putin. Last year, Russia suspected a Ukrainian plan to attack the city's parade, according to state television. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Sunday that this year's parade had been cancelled for security reasons, following first reports of its cancellation in early July. Putin arrived at the city's historic naval headquarters on Sunday by patrol speed boat, from where he followed drills involving more than 150 vessels and 15,000 military personnel in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and Baltic and Caspian Seas. "Today we are marking this holiday in a working setting, we are inspecting the combat readiness of the fleet," Putin said in a video address. The Russian Defence Ministry said air defence units downed a total of 291 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones on Sunday, below a record 524 drones downed in attacks on May 7, ahead of Russia's Victory Day parade on May 9. Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region surrounding St. Petersburg, said that over ten drones were downed over the area, and falling debris injured a woman. At 0840 GMT on Sunday Drozdenko said that the attack was repelled. St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport was closed during the attack, with 57 flights delayed and 22 diverted to other airports, according to a statement. Pulkovo resumed operations later on Sunday. Russian blogger Alexander Yunashev, part of an official group of reporters travelling with Peskov, said Peskov had told him their flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg had been delayed by the drone attack for 2 hours on Sunday.
