‘I’ve Been Detained, Don’t Text Me’: How An RFE/RL Journalist Reported Undercover In Crimea

Artem Lysak, an Emmy-winning journalist, risked his freedom to report undercover from Russia-occupied Crimea — navigating FSB interrogations, surveillance fears, and the constant threat of arrest, all while documenting human rights abuses and life under annexation. From 2016 to 2020, he reported for RFE/RL’s Crimea.Realities project under the pseudonym Nazar Sytnyk.

Since Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014, Ukrainian journalists have faced intimidation and violence. By March 2015, they were only allowed to work with accreditation from Russia’s Foreign Ministry — which was rarely, if ever, granted. Despite the risks, Lysak continued to report on life under the occupation, often putting his own freedom on the line to do so.

“I had basic preparation,” Lysak says. “That meant cleaning up my social media — removing all photos from the Euromaidan [protests], anything with Ukrainian flags or Ukrainian soldiers. I deleted all chats. That was the first step. I even erased phone numbers, knowing that…or, for example, I saved our editors’ contacts under completely different names. If someone were to go through my phonebook, the phone would be completely cleaned out, of course.”

He created a cover story for himself to make sure his camera work didn’t raise suspicion or attract unwanted attention.

“I even created a YouTube channel and uploaded a few different videos. Some I just downloaded from the Internet and re-uploaded as if I were interested in historical landmarks. Some videos were actually mine. That was part of my cover. I even tried to promote the channel a bit to get some views. My story was that I was a blogger, a marketing copywriter working for an ad agency, but I loved Crimea—the air, the nature, blogging. I said I traveled there and could work remotely from time to time. That was the cover, and I stuck to it.”

Lysak’s family, close friends, and even many of his colleagues didn’t know what he was really doing.

“For example, my mom thought I was going to Poland for work. I even had an explanation for why I couldn’t call her — I’d say, ‘I’m in Poland, it’s hard to make calls here.’ For a long time, even most of my colleagues had no idea. Only my best friend and maybe a handful of others knew. It was psychologically difficult…First of all, you can’t share what you’re actually doing with anyone. Whenever someone asked me what I was up to, I’d just say, ‘I’m on a creative break,” Lysak told RFE/RL’s Dmytro Yevchyn.

Lysak filmed exclusive reports from the occupied Crimea, covering topics such the tourist season, pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the persecution of Crimean Tatars, the illegal construction of the Tavrida highway and the Kerch Bridge, and the oppression of the LGBT community. He also developed his own safety protocols for working in Crimea.

“I never stay in one city for more than three days…I carry a big backpack and constantly move around,” Lysak said. “Sometimes I get a feeling — maybe paranoid– that someone is following me. I just decide I need to relocate. I get on a bus in the evening and head to another place, just because I had that feeling. Like, you see someone on a bus, and then later that evening, you spot the same person on a waterfront in another city. And you start wondering: Am I imagining things? Is it a coincidence? Or is someone actually watching me?”

Once, while filming near the city of Kerch, Lysak was asked to leave his phone number with a local activist who said he had something important to share. The activist later called and suggested meeting up at the bus station — but never showed up.

“I’m standing there, and I already see them — two typical FSB guys. And I know right away. They say, ‘Good evening, FSB. Who are you? What are you doing here?’ I show them my Ukrainian passport. One of them says, ‘Please, take a seat in our car.’ And I reply, ‘I’ll walk with you, but I’m not getting in the car.’ They walk slightly ahead of me, and I try to stay a bit behind. I unlock my phone in my pocket, glance at the screen, and quickly message my editor: ‘I’ve been detained, don’t text me.’ That’s all I managed to send before deleting the chat.”

At the FSB office, Lysak was certain he was being interrogated by Russians — their accents and complete lack of knowledge about Crimean geography gave them away.

“One person questioned me. Then another came in and asked the same questions. Then a third did the same. By that point, they had already taken my phone,” he recalls. “At some point, one of the FSB agents walks in and asks, ‘Artem, do you have a brother?’ I thought, even though I’d scrubbed my contacts, and my brother definitely wasn’t listed in the phone, there was no point in lying — if they wanted to find out, they would. So I said, ‘Yes, I have a brother.’ Then he asked, ‘What about a sister?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t have a sister.’”

“Then he said something strange. He goes, ‘Well, someone claiming to be your sister just messaged you.’ Turns out, one of our editors I managed to contact had written pretending to be my sister, asking, ‘How are you?’”

At that moment, Lysak decided to tell the truth.

“That’s when I pulled out my Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ID—around the third hour, once the first lie had already come up. I said, ‘Guys, I also film for RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service as a freelancer. I travel around, this and that.’ They just said, ‘Got it.’”

Lysak’s rental apartment in Crimea was searched and his laptop and other equipment seized, but nothing illegal was found. Then, fate unexpectedly intervened. He was detained on February 23, Defender Of The Fatherland Day, a national holiday in Russia.

“I overheard them walking through the hallways, complaining that I ruined their plans for a trip to the sauna — with prostitutes, girls, and so on,” Lysak recalls. “They called their superior. The chief shows up, and he doesn’t know what to do. None of them do. They were all out-of-towners, Cossack types, and they realized this would mean a pile of reports and extra work.”

Apparently to avoid ruining their holiday, the FSB officers suggested Lysak record a video confession, claiming he had come to Crimea just to earn some money. After he recorded the video, they let him go. At 5 a.m., he boarded a bus and successfully crossed the administrative border from Russia-occupied Crimea back into mainland Ukraine.

After the ordeal, Lysak put his fieldwork on hold. He spent six months working in the office of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service in Kyiv before resuming his trips to Crimea. For about a year, he traveled back and forth, filming and producing stories for Crimea.Realities — until he was once again summoned for questioning by the FSB.

This time, Lysak was threatened with a trial. He was accused of working as a journalist illegally under the Russian law and failing to report that he was traveling to Crimea for work. Instead of waiting for his trial, he decided to take a risk, and managed to cross the border once again. After that, he never returned to Crimea.