MOSCOW, May 26. /ITAR-TASS/. The Federation Council has praised Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s role in freeing LifeNews journalists.

“Ramzan Kadyrov’s role in this issue (release of reporters of TV channel LifeNews) was just brilliant. It is not accidental the Russian president thanked him personally yesterday. Finally, Ramzan Akhmatovich played a remarkable role in this issue,” First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for International Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov told ITAR-TASS.

It was proposed at the committee meeting to consider awarding Kadyrov’s for his outstanding mediating role in the affair. “We will request the parliament upper house and the Federation Council speaker to award him within the powers that we have,” the first deputy chairman of the committee said after the meeting.

Ukrainian law enforcers detained LifeNews journalists Oleg Sidyakin and Marat Saichenko near the city of Kramatorsk in east Ukraine’s Donetsk Region. Deputy secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Viktoria Syumar accused reporters of abetting terrorism.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Presidential Council of Civil Society and Human Rights urged Ukrainian authorities to release the journalists. Both houses of Russian parliament have joined the appeals later.

Sidyakin and Saichenko were freed overnight to May 25. LifeNews reported that Ramzan Kadyrov’s representatives had been negotiating the release of journalists in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, for several days, but did not make them public for security reasons. The Chechen president provided an airplane which had stayed in Kiev for almost four days and was on a standby for a flight to Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, at any moment of time.