Kirill Vyshinskiy, bureau chief of RIA Novosti news agency in Ukraine, listens to lawyer in a court room in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, May 17, 2018. The Ukrainian prosecution has accused Kirill Vyshinsky of high treason at the Kherson City Court's hearing on Thursday. (AP Photo/Victor Platov)
May 17, 2018 - 8:20 AM
MOSCOW - A Ukrainian court has ordered a Russian journalist jailed for two months pending investigation on treason charges.
Kirill Vyshinskiy, the head of the Ukrainian office of Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, has been in custody since his detention Tuesday by Ukraine's security agency SBU. The move followed SBU raids of the Kyiv offices of RIA Novosti and RT television.
The agency says the Russian state-funded media outlets are being "used as tools in a hybrid war against Ukraine."
The court in Kherson in southern Ukraine ruled Thursday to keep Vyshinskiy in jail for 60 days.
Russia has strongly protested Vyshinskiy's arrest as an attack on media freedom. The Council of Europe said it is "concerned about the implications that repeated detentions of journalists may have for the situation with media freedom in Ukraine."
News from © The Associated Press, 2018