Russia has arbitrarily arrested and deported at least 19 Ukrainian journalists to its territory or other occupied areas in Ukraine. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns this war crime and has filed its ninth complaint against Russia with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. To date, the complaints filed by RSF have triggered or contributed to fourteen investigations by the Prosecutor General’s office into crimes against journalists.

"Russian occupation forces are hunting down independent Ukrainian journalists, arresting and deporting them — sometimes to its own territory. As of today, 18 of these journalists remain in detention, and one is still missing. Being imprisoned by Russia means your life is at risk. Three years after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, RSF has filed its ninth complaint against Russia with the ICC and the Ukrainian judiciary to fight against the impunity of those responsible for these war crimes. The previous RSF complaints triggered or contributed to fourteen investigations by the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office into crimes against journalists — we now call on them to continue these vital efforts," stated Antoine Bernard, RSF Director of Advocacy and Assistance.

All of the 19 journalists currently detained by the Kremlin, were deported from their place of arrest to other occupied regions of Ukraine or the Russian Federation, where at least 14 of them are currently being held.

While Moscow refuses to confirm the locations of some of these reporters, RSF investigations have determined that several of these journalists were, at some point, taken to Russia. Among them is Dmytro Khyliuk, a journalist from the Ukrainian news agency Unian, who was arrested in March 2022 and deported to the Vladimir region in Russia, several hundred kilometres east of Moscow. Anastasia Hlukhovska, a journalist for local news website RIA-Melitopol, was arrested on 20 August 2023, in Melitopol, along with at least three of her colleagues, by Russian occupation forces. According to RSF information, after being detained in the Melitopol region of Ukraine, she was transferred to the Rostov region of Russia.

On February 20, RSF held a flash protest in Paris to demand the immediate, unconditional release of journalists imprisoned under inhumane conditions in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine; they are denied medical care, isolated and, in some cases, subject to forced labour. During the demonstration, RSF called on the Kremlin to communicate what happened to Victoria Roshchyna, a Ukrainian journalist who was announced to have died in detention in a letter sent by the Russian authorities to her family. Five months later, Moscow has refused to provide any explanation, and her body has yet to be returned.

Ukraine and Russia rank 61st and 162nd, respectively, out of 180 countries in the RSF 2024 World Press Freedom Index.