Update
Simon Ostrovsky was released from detention today, and both Vice News and his own Twitter confirm he is safe and well. Hopefully more details will emerge on exactly what happened over the past several day.s
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Slovyansk’s pro-separatist mayor Vyacheslav Ponomaryov continues to struggle with his narrative on captured US-Israeli reporter Simon Ostrovsky, insisting in the latest statement that he was detained for “destabilizing” reporting he was doing.
Ponomaryov insists Ostrovsky isn’t a “hostage,” however, but is rather a “guest” of the local government in Slovyansk, albeit apparently a non-voluntary one. He insisted Ostrovsky is being treated well.
Ostrovsky apparently wasn’t the only journalist captured at the time, though the others were apparently released pretty quickly. Ponomaryov insisted that the city government “only gave him a place of residence.”
Ostrovsky’s reporting and comments in the lead-up to his capture suggest he was not on very good terms with Slovyansk’s new protester government, saying the mayor complained about “provocative” questions about the former mayor being held under guard by the protesters.
I can't really see any purpose in detaining the guy. I can quite believe that he was lying his head off, but what now? When he gets released then he gets to lie about his treatment, he gets to make up claims about stuff he 'overheard', he gets to concoct a whole fantasy story about the presence of 'Russian special forces' amongst his captors and he gets plenty of publicity for his lies.
It seems like an own goal to me, unless they have some concrete evidence of espionage or something, they are going to have to let him go.
You identified a number of reasons why he won't be let go. In any case, he was very likely a provocateur and possibly even an operative, so I'm not going to feel sorry for the dual-citizen dude.
If any US or Israeli covert operators are captured in Ukraine and are exposed as such, I wonder what their fate will be? But then, I've just described most of the individuals posing as "Western Journalists", haven't I?
Not sure how familiar you are with this guy's work, but he's a reporter for Vice News, an outlet that's far from the mainstream BS being spewed by so many. He's been doing a very solid job of reporting the facts on the ground.
Just been to Vice News to check up on your claim about their 'solid' reporting, I call BS! its no different to run-of-the-mill US MSM. Here's a sample of the anti-Russian crap that they are spewing.
"Khodorkovsky's speech helps explain why Putin is so worried about the idea of elections in Ukraine, which are scheduled to be held on May 25. The Euromaidan protesters successfully toppled the pro-Russia Yanukovych’s police state—they faced down snipers, snatch squads, and baton charges and won.
But, as so often in Ukrainian history, the games played by the country's feckless politicians and Ukraine's big neighbor Russia have since pushed the revolutionaries' goals off the agenda."
Here is the link to the article it came from.
https://news.vice.com/articles/will-ukraine-be-st…
A guest is not "held"! What more is there to say?