It has been more than three weeks that separatists have been holding theater director Pavlo Yurov and cultural volunteer Denys Hryshchuk. The kidnappers have not made any demands but are calling the hostages “prisoners of war.” According to friends, family, and Ukrainian law enforcement, they are pleading that their case be publicized as widely as possible in an attempt to ensure the safety of the captives. Yurov and Hryshchuk arrived in Slovyansk on April 25, after spending several days in Donetsk. Contact with the artists has been lost. The only information is that they are being kept alive in the basement of the Security Services building. However, there is no documentary confirmation — their captors will not allow them to be photographed. 'We tried to negotiate with the separatists for at least a phone call, but they won’t even permit that,' said Denys Hryshchuk’s wife, Kateryna Yermolayeva.
Pavlo is from the Luhansk Oblast and Denys from Donetsk. When disturbances began in the East, according to a close friend, 'Pavlo was convinced that people were suffering there and that the people in Kyiv do not understand them and that it was important to try to find a common language with them. This is why he wanted to go home, to see everything with his own eyes. Everybody told him it was dangerous,' she said.
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