MOSCOW, April 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian journalist Yulia Pustoplesnova and cameraman Mikhail Pudovkin of LifeNews television channel have been deported from Ukraine and are now in Russia, safe and sound.

“Now I feel secure as I’m in Russia,” Pustoplesnova tweeted on LifeNews page about the incident that happened in Ukraine’s troubled eastern city of Donetsk on Friday.

Earlier, she managed to contact the editorial office and said that officers of the SBU (Ukraine’s Security Service) had driven her and the cameraman to the Ukrainian-Russian border checkpoint in the township of Uspensk.

“We were accomplishing the editor’s task — we were driving to record an interview,” the reporter said. “We stayed over the night at a cottage of a holiday centre on the outskirts of Donetsk. In the morning some armed men burst into the house. They were wearing balaclavas and had no insignia.”

“The cameraman was laid down with his face on the floor and Topaz [Ignat Kromsky, an anti-Maidan activist and the supposed interviewee] was forced to lie on the floor in an extremely tough manner,” Pustoplesnova said. “Our equipment and cell phones were taken away and then the SBU officers drove us out of the place explaining that our stay in the Ukrainian territory was threatening integrity and security of the country.”