MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th November, 2018) Kirill Vyshinsky, the head of RIA Novosti Ukraine portal, who has been detained in Ukraine for almost 200 days, suggested that his arrest had been planned and orchestrated by high-ranked political leaders of Ukraine.
"Everything was conceived and organized in Kiev on the level of the highest political leadership. It seems that they are currently in a deadlock [because the operation] did not work out 'quickly' so this needs to be somehow settled and they do not quite understand how [to resolve the situation]," Vyshinsky told the Ukraina.ru news outlet.
The journalist reiterated that the charges brought against him were "absurd" and called them lies lying beyond the legal domain. Vyshinsky said that he had repeatedly told this to the Ukrainian judges during the hearings on the prolongation of his pre-trial detention.
However, after Vyshinsky was detained in May, the court has repeatedly ruled that he must remain in custody as a preventative measure. In the most recent case on November 1, the court ruled that Vyshinsky must remain in jail until December 28.
"There can be no trust in the victory of the Ukrainian justice system given this trend, especially at the eve of the elections, when the anti-Russian hysteria is being fueled," the journalist lamented noting that Ukrainian lawmakers wanted to shut down two more Russian tv channels and the treason section of the Ukrainian Criminal Code had been widely used most recently.
Vyshinsky was arrested in Ukraine on May 16 on the charges of treason, and supporting the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine's embattled Donbas region. The journalist has suggested that his arrest was a part of the Ukrainian authorities' campaign to gain the support of voters ahead of the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The detention of Vyshinsky has prompted widespread criticism by journalists rights groups which said that such moves were unacceptable in a democratic society.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Vyshinsky's arrest was politically motivated, adding that the incident demonstrated an unprecedented and unacceptable policy of Ukrainian authorities targeting journalists who were just doing their jobs.
