SIMFEROPOL. Aug 27 (Interfax) - The two Crimean journalists who were detained by members of the radical Ukrainian organization Right Sector near Donetsk on August 24 have returned to Simferopol, an Interfax correspondent has reported.
Correspondent Yevgenia Korolyova and photojournalist Maxim Vasilenko, employees of the newspaper Krymsky Telegraf (Crimean Telegraph), have told journalists that not a single Ukrainian government official met with them during their detention, which lasted nearly two days.
"Only people from Right Sector," Korolyova said.
Armed people detained the two journalists during an ID check at a roadblock between Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya after finding an accreditation paper issued by the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) on them, Korolyova said.
"The people at the roadblock were aggressive, they hit me once," Vasilenko said.
The journalists also suggested that their detention could have been prompted by photos of a march of captured Ukrainian military servicemen organized in Donetsk on August 24, which were found in Vasilenko's camera.
"When they [the armed people at the roadblock who detained the journalists] saw these photos, they absolutely lost control of themselves," he said.
The journalists said all their belongings, including mobile phones, had been taken away from them, and Right Sector members put plastic bags on their heads before transporting them between different buildings at their base. "We spent the first night in a basement, together with captives [DPR fighters]. The conditions were similar to those in a prison cell: more than ten people in a room, men and women together, with the toilet in the same room," Vasilenko said.
The journalists admitted that their conditions were improved later, and Right Sector members freed them on Tuesday afternoon.