RFE/RL freelance correspondent Polina Efimova has been detained in the Russian city of Taganrog as she was talking to refugees from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which is under siege by Russian armed forces.
Efimova’s colleagues told the Novaya gazeta newspaper that she was detained when interviewing refugees from Mariupol in a bus near the Sports Palace in Taganrog on March 23.
According to her colleagues, police detained Efimova after she said that she did not have documents with her to prove that she was a journalist.
Mariupol, which had a population of 400,000 before the war, has been reduced to rubble, with thousands of civilians dead and many more seeking a route out of the city to safety amid constant bombardment by Russian forces.
For the past two weeks, Russia has attempted to encircle Mariupol, an important port on the Sea of Azov and the most contentious battleground in the war so far.
