MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti) – The authorities of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) suggest that the Ukrainian radical movement Right Sector may be implicated in the death of Rossiya Segodnya photojournalist Andrei Stenin, Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei (Russian News Service) reported Wednesday.
"When they detained Stenin and realized who he was, it became obvious that they could not hope to get ransom for him. They couldn’t let him go either, so there was no way for him to stay alive," DPR Security Minister Leonid Baranov said.
"They captured him, put in a car and shot or just blew him up. I’m 90 percent sure this is how it was … They got afraid when the whole situation [with the kidnapping] received wide response. Letting him go meant he would tell simply tell everything live, tell about what they do, how they lock people into captivity," Baranov said.
Right Sector and other organizations of radical nationalists in Ukraine became commercial in nature, capturing people and demanding a ransom for them, Baranov said.
Stenin went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5. Sources said that the Ukrainian military could have detained the journalist, but Kiev has never officially confirmed the information.
On August 9, Rossiya Segodnya filed a request with the Ukrainian Interior Ministry to take action to locate Stenin, with the ministry undertaking the case on August 11.
On August 12, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, said in an interview with Baltkom radio that security forces had arrested Stenin on charges of assisting terrorists. However, later Herashchenko claimed he was misinterpreted.
At the end of August, the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported that they found several bodies in one of the shot and burned cars along the Snizhne-Dmytrivka highway in eastern Ukraine. OSCE representatives claimed that Stenin could be one of the dead, but were unable to confirm it.
On Wednesday, the Russian Investigative Committee confirmed that Stenin was among those killed during an attack on a convoy of at least 10 vehicles carrying civilians in early August.
