Donetsk rebels detain and beat journalist from Russian opposition paper

A special correspondent from one of Russia's leading liberal newspapers has been detained by pro-Russian separatist forces while reporting in Eastern Ukraine, beaten and deported back to Russia, apparently for possessing the business card of a Ukrainian colleague.

Pavel Kanygin, who works for Russia's pro-opposition paper Novaya Gazeta, had been sent to Ukraine to cover the conflict for the publication, even interviewing one of the two captured Russian soldiers in Kiev and covering the first anti-war rally on rebel-held territory. Russia maintains that it has sent no troops to Ukraine and that separatist efforts in the east are endorsed by the local population. Russian mainstream media coverage indicating otherwise is rare.

While in the rebel-held eastern parts of Donetsk, Kanygin was detained by rebel forces on unclear charges, handcuffed and hit in the head during an interrogation, he told Russia's independent TV channel Dozhd. He was detained while waiting for accreditation from the self-appointed government of the separatist parts.

"They led me inside a black van," Kanygin told the channel, describing how one of his captors held a pistol at him and told him to answer truthfully otherwise his interrogators would "not be responsible for [their] reaction".

The reporter was then asked whether he supported the separatists or the "Ukrop", a word used in a derogatory way to refer to Ukrainian fighters by Russian speakers, though some Ukrainians have opted to reclaim the word as a badge of resistance.

According to Kanygin he answered that he is for neither side but for peace, to which his interrogator responded by hitting him in the eye. Posting a photo of his injury after being handed to the Russian authorities by the Donetsk rebels, the reporter claimed they had held him for five hours and also accused him of being a spy for Ukraine's security services (SBU) and asked him if the US was paying him in drugs to spy on them.

Speaking to Dozhd, Kanygin said that the separatists accused him of working for practically "every spy and intelligence agency in the world", as well as of collecting information for Ukraine and the Ukrainian press. For these allegations the only evidence the interrogators put forward was the business card of a Ukrainian journalist which was on Kanygin's person at the time

After a mandatory urine test the interrogators asked Kanygin to admit to taking drugs and declared him "a user of almost every kind of narcotic".

The rebel captors then issued a document, according to Kanygin, claiming that he was in an incapacitated state and thus incapable of answering questions. The reporter was then handed over to the Russian authorities at the border without a copy of the document.

Kanygin is currently in Russia and has said that his priority is to find a new plaster for his head wound. He has not said whether he will return to Ukraine.