Stanislav Aseyev

Stanislav Volodymyrovych Aseyev is a Ukrainian writer, journalist and human-rights activist born in Donetsk on October 1, 1989. After Russian-backed armed groups took control of Donetsk in 2014, Aseyev remained in the city and continued reporting under the pseudonym Stanislav Vasin. He contributed to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Zerkalo Nedeli and other Ukrainian outlets, documenting everyday life in territory outside Kyiv’s control.

Aseyev disappeared on May 11, 2017. The self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” later acknowledged holding him and accused him of espionage. He spent part of his captivity in Izolyatsia, a former arts centre turned into a secret detention facility. After his release, Aseyev wrote extensively about torture and abuse there.

In 2019, the “DPR Supreme Court” convicted him under several provisions of its own criminal code, including espionage, organizing an extremist group, incitement to espionage and public calls for extremist activity and violation of the entity’s territorial integrity. He received 15 years in a strict-regime penal colony, a two-and-a-half-year ban on journalism and one year of restricted freedom.

These were provisions of the entity’s own criminal code, not of the Russian Criminal Code.

Amnesty International, CPJ, Human Rights Watch, PEN International, Reporters Without Borders, the OSCE and other organizations called for Aseyev’s release. On December 29, 2019, after 962 days in captivity, he was released in a major prisoner exchange.

He later founded the Justice Initiative Fund and continued documenting abuses associated with the Izolyatsia detention facility.