Sergei Dolgov

Personal

Much of Dolgov's personal life is unknown. According to Amnesty International, Sergei had a wife named Olga Dolgova who expressed great concern for his safety and believed her husband at the time was being held at the military base A1978 in Zaporizhia.

Career

Sergei Dolgov was the chief editor of two Russian-language newspapers Vestnik Pryazovya (Translated: Azov Region Courier) and Khochu v SSSR (Translated: I want to go to the USSR), in Mariupol.

Disappearance and death

Dolgov was abducted from the Vestnik Pryazovya office on the afternoon of 18 June 2014 by six masked men in civilian dress with automatic weapons. The perpetrators took computers. They beat Dolgov and then took him away with his hands tied. Colleagues of Dolgov think his abduction was linked to his editing of Khochu v SSSR, which mainly published historical articles about the Soviet era and which was considered by some Ukrainian newspapers a "separatist" publication. His whereabouts and the identity and motive of his abductors remained unknown for five days.

Konstatin Dolgov, who is also a leader of the pro-separatist People's Front of Novorossiya movement, added that his namesake had been "tortured" by kidnappers, saying "the enhanced interrogation ended in the death of the journalist." According to employees of Vestnik Priazovya, Dolgov had been missing since mid-June when masked men armed with automatic rifles barged into their editorial offices in the eastern Ukrainian town of Mariupol and abducted Dolgov, tying up his hands with wire. Serhiy Spasitel, the head of the Mariupol regional branch of Ukraine's Security Service, said a few days later that Dolgov was alive and well, but that questions about his specific whereabouts should be addressed to Ukraine's Anti-Terror Center — the SBU agency in charge of combating the separatist movement in the country's east. Mariupol Prosecutor Serhiy Reznitsky also denied any knowledge of the supposed abduction, saying police and prosecutors "do not always know what is happening [at the Anti-Terror Center]"

Context

According to a timeline on The Guardian, at least eleven cases of intimidation to journalists were reported that resulted in detainment, expulsion, bomb threats, injury, attack, job suspension, and murder. The various parties to the Ukrainian conflict are waging an all-out information war that has been exacerbated by the approach of the 25 May presidential election. According to Reporters Without Borders, "the anti-Kiev rebels in eastern Ukraine have been targeting journalists since March. Now the Ukrainian authorities are behaving with growing hostility to journalists working for Russian media".

Three other examples of attacks and arrests happened in Mariupol(in the Donetsk region) in 2014. In May 2014, Graham Phillips, a British journalist who works for the Russian pro-government TV station Russia Today, was released on the evening of 21 May after being arrested the previous day by the National Guard at a border post on the outskirts of Mariupol, and being taken immediately to the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kiev for interrogation. Phillips said he was arrested for having a bulletproof vest. Vlad Alexandrovich was kidnapped in Mariupol, where he had been working for Anna News and Southeast Front, two news agencies allied with the pro-Russian rebels. He is said to have been the author of reports about the Ukrainian army actions in Mariupol on May 9. His abductors are thought to have been Ukrainian security officials. September 9, freelance photographer Maksim Voytenko was suspected of spying. September 15, he was arrested at a Ukrainian checkpoint in Mariupol, and was released after being questioned for seven hours.

Impact

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovic, stated that two Ukrainian journalists were abducted in the Donetsk region.An attack on the editorial office of the Pro Gorod newspaper in the city of Torez, Donetsk region, on June 26 was believed to have been related to the case. Mijatovic's statement, published by the OSCE, states that on June 28, an editor of the Druzhkovsky Rabochiy newspaper, Boris Yuzhik, was kidnapped in Donetsk just after a few days that Sergei had gone missing.

Reactions

Concerned about this situation, the Greek MEP Konstantinos Papadakis (Communist Party of Greece, or KKE) issued a statement on December 8, the request of the European Commission: his wife had complained that Dolgov was kidnapped in a "cleansing operation", held in the city of Mariupol by "nationalist" and "fascist" forces associated with the authorities in Kiev. However, the government of Ukraine refused to comment. Rumors circulated that the SBU’s head had confirmed that Dolgov was being held in Zaporishia. On March 5, after three months, European Commission representative Federica Mogherini responded:

"Freedom of the media is a key feature of democracy and any journalist must be able to carry out their work free from harassment and intimidation. The kidnapping of Sergei Dolgov (and presumed murder) is a felony and is totally unacceptable. The Ukrainian authorities must thoroughly investigate the case and bring those responsible to justice. The EU fully supports the position of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the media in regard to this case and will monitor the state of development of research, in close cooperation with the OSCE. The involvement of the authorities in cases of kidnappings of journalists is a serious claim to be proven with evidence."

Oleksandr Kofman, a pro-Moscow activist in eastern Ukraine, praised Dolgov saying, "He was a principled journalist who upheld a position that contradicted the view of the new Kiev government. Dolgov's murder is another crime for which the representatives of the Kiev administration will receive their due punishment sooner or later." Russian journalists who intervined in political issues had always been resolved by way of negotiation, confinement, or deportation but Sergei Dolgov was killed.