Russian journalist beaten by rebels 

MOSCOW – A correspondent for a Russian newspaper that has challenged the Kremlin’s narrative about the conflict in Ukraine says he was detained, struck in the face and deported by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Pavel Kanygin told RFE/RL that he was punched in the eye while handcuffed during an interrogation by a separatist representing the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). Mr. Kanygin was detained on June 16, a day after he covered a rare rally outside the separatist leadership’s offices by local citizens calling for an end to the war in eastern Ukraine and the removal of rebel rocket launchers protesters said were drawing government forces’ fire to civilian neighborhoods. Mr. Kanygin spoke to RFE/RL on June 17, after his return to Russia. He said that he was accused of illegal drug use, spying for Ukraine and the United States, and working on territory controlled by the separatists without accreditation. Novaya Gazeta quoted Mr. Kanygin as saying one of the separatist security officers who questioned him “pointed a pistol at me and said that if I moved, he would shoot me.” Mr. Kanygin said he was then asked which side he was on in the conflict between Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian government forces, which has killed more than 6,400 people since April 2014. “I said I am for peace. At that moment, he punched me in the eye,” he said. (RFE/RL’s Russian Service)