KIEV, May 21 — Ukrainian authorities confirmed today they were holding a British journalist who a Russian television channel said had gone missing while covering the rebellion in the east of the country.
A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s SBU security service told AFP that Graham Phillips, a freelancer working for Kremlin-funded channel RT, was being held but said he would be handed over to British authorities.
“Graham Phillips was detained in connection with the fact he was in areas that journalists are forbidden from during the anti-terrorist operation,” spokeswoman Marina Ostapenko said, using Kiev’s term for its offensive against pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.
“According to my information he has been brought to Kiev in order to be handed over the (British) consulate,” she said.
RT, previously known as Russia Today, said in a statement today that it had not heard from Phillips for 24 hours after he was detained by Ukrainian forces at a checkpoint in the southeastern city of Mariupol.
“Details of Phillips’s location and condition remain unknown,” the channel said, adding that it believed he had been taken to Kiev and handed over to the SBU.
In his conversation with the channel yesterday, Phillips said he was “being treated OK” but had been questioned about his activities in the country.
RT said it had tried but failed to contact Ukrainian security services and was in touch with the British consulates in both Russia and Ukraine.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said: “We are aware of the detention of a British national. We are in contact with the Ukrainian authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance.”
Amid an intense media war over the crisis in Ukraine, authorities in Kiev have denied entry to some Russian journalists trying to enter the country.
Two reporters of Russian website Life News were reportedly arrested by Ukrainian troops near the city of Kramatorsk, prompting a furious reaction from Moscow and demands they be immediately released.
The United States said yesterday that Ukrainian security services had claimed they were carrying anti-aircraft missiles and fake journalistic credentials.
Earlier in the crisis, rebel militias in eastern Ukraine detained a number of Ukrainian and Western journalists. — AFP
