Three Israeli citizens were arrested by Russian soldiers in the occupied Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday morning, local Ukrainian reports said. Israel’s Foreign Ministry began investigating the report but later on Monday were informed by the Israelis’ relatives that they had been released.

The three Israelis who were arrested were Mykhailo Kumok, owner of a publishing house and a former publisher of a local Ukrainian newspaper, his wife Vera, and their daughter Tatiana.

“Today, armed men came to the home of the journalists of MV-Holding – publisher Mykhailo Kumok, production editor Yevhenia Borian, journalists Yulia Olkhovska and Liubov Chaika – and took them in an unknown direction,” the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine Union wrote on its Telegram channel on Monday morning.

Hanna Medvid, the director of MV-Holding, confirmed the report and said that the Russians called her a week ago and asked her to be loyal and support them. She said that she did not agree to their request and left the meeting.

Later on Monday morning, Medvid reported that all three journalists were released but Kumok, the publisher, is in an “unknown location” with his daughter Tatiana, who has Israeli citizenship.

Tatiana, who lived in Israel in the past,  had uploaded a video of her mother surrounded by Israeli soldiers and reported that her father was taken by the Russians. Shortly later, she herself was arrested, friends reported.

The video she uploaded can be seen below:

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)