Russia denies the kidnapping of Melitopol journalist Anastasia Glukhovskaya, she is in Russian prisons without charges

The fate of Melitopol journalist Anastasia Glukhovskaya, kidnapped by the occupiers in August 2023, remains one of the most painful topics for the media community and the editorial staff of RIA Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Anastasia Glukhovskaya worked in the RIA-Melitopol team before the full-scale invasion. After two and a half years of captivity, she has not yet been officially charged. According to the latest data, Anastasia is being held in the pre-trial detention center of the city of Kizel, Perm Territory. It was in this prison that the chairman of Dniprorudny, Yevgeny Matveyev, and Ukrainian journalist Viktoriya Roshchina were tortured to death.

RIA-Pivden editor-in-chief Svetlana Zalizetskaya remembers Anastasia as an extremely productive and dedicated colleague.

Anastasia was detained in August 2023. A video later appeared on Russian Telegram channels: armed men in masks come to her apartment.

They conducted a search, handcuffed the girl and took her away in an unknown direction.

Nastya’s mother tried for a long time and in vain to find her daughter, sending letters to all authorities, but received only silence.

RIA Yuzhny later managed to talk to a former prisoner who was in the same hangar at the Ruslan Komplekt factory near Melitopol with Anastasia. She told about the horrific details of the prisoners’ detention.

At first, Anastasia was held in windowless basements on the outskirts of Melitopol, then transferred to Taganrog Pre-trial Detention Center No. 2, and then to the Perm Territory. Anastasia confessed to a cellmate that she was being interrogated with electric shocks. She often lay silent, not having the strength to get up. In Taganrog, prisoners were fed food with rat droppings and worms, and beaten with pipes. In the Kizel Pre-trial Detention Center, detention is practiced in a completely rubber cell without windows and a toilet, where people are kept naked. The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed the fact of Glukhovskaya’s imprisonment, but the Russian side has not responded to inquiries. Pauline Maufre, a representative of the organization Reporters Without Borders, notes that Anastasia is in the status of “incommunicado”: “This means that we do not know where she is and what her situation is. Russia has never officially confirmed the fact of her detention.” Moreover, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, in its official response to a journalist’s inquiry, cynically stated that “no procedural checks were conducted, no criminal cases were initiated, and she was not detained by investigators” regarding Glukhovskaya. Anastasia’s colleagues fear for her life. Her health was poor even before the kidnapping, and after two years of torture and inhumane conditions in “closed” prisons, the situation could be critical.