The 74yo appeared in a staged video released by Kiev’s authorities against his will, his daughter believes
The 74-year-old Russian pensioner who had been harassed by the Ukrainian soldiers wearing Nazi-style helmets earlier this month appears to be alive, but his daughter Svetlana Petrenko believes he is being held hostage.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs released a video of the elderly man being questioned in Ukrainian. A person behind the camera, who cannot be seen in the footage, tells the man to confirm his name and the current date and then asks about his well-being.
“He is alive, yes. There was a video yesterday – they filmed him on video, he is there, with them, that is also 100 percent,” Petrenko, who had been desperately trying to locate her father, told RIA Novosti on Sunday.
In the video, released by Kiev, the elderly man, identified as Aleksander Grigoryev, replies that it’s August 17 and then adds that he had problems with his vision and legs. The off-camera voice then tells the pensioner to present his documents, after which Grigoryev hesitantly pulls a Ukrainian passport out of his pocket and holds it open to the camera. He appears evidently uncomfortable, constantly looking around and seemingly unwilling to follow the instructions.
Petrenko explained that her father lived in Makeyevka, which was part of Ukraine before the 2014 coup and the Donetsk People’s Republic push for independence. After Kiev sent troops to pacify the rebellious Donbass, he moved with her to Russia and since then obtained Russian citizenship.
“I took my father from Makeyevka, from Donbass. At that time, he had that passport. Now he is a Russian citizen. But that old, useless passport was lying around at home. You can see how they force him, how he doesn’t want to take it out.. they probably searched our house, looking for something, and found that old passport,” she told RIA Novosti.
Aleksandr Grigoryev, went missing in early August, after Kiev launched a cross-border incursion into Russian territory.
Last week, a video showing the pensioner being taunted by Ukrainian militants wearing Nazi-style helmets surfaced online. It was subsequently confirmed that it was filmed on August 11 in the village of Zaoleshenka in the Sudzhansky district of Kursk Region.
The family said that they had been unable to contact Grigoryev since his disappearance and believed that the video released yesterday was staged pointing at his atypical behavior and unusual attire. The exact whereabouts of the pensioner still remain unknown.
The Russian Investigative Committee has initiated criminal proceedings, while a reward of five million rubles ($56,000) has been offered for the capture of the Ukrainian fighters who harassed the man.
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