In a column posted today, Vice News journalist Simon Ostrovsky recounts his traumatic experience of being abducted by pro-Russia gunmen in the eastern Ukrainan city of Sloviansk earlier this week. He said he was blindfolded, beaten, and left tied up in a damp cell for hours Monday night before being regularly interrogated for the next four days.
The militia accused Ostrovsky of working for the FBI, CIA, and an Ukrainian nationalist group. Ostrovsky said he was often beaten by the masked men: "When I was asleep on the floor, masked men came to wake me up and tell me how no one would miss me if I died, and then kicked me in the ribs as they left," he wrote.
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