Artem Lisak, an Emmy-winning journalist, risked his freedom to report undercover from Russian-occupied Crimea – enduring FSB interrogations, fear of surveillance, 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 Crimean Reality project under the pseudonym Nazar Sitnik.
Since Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, Ukrainian journalists have faced intimidation and violence. Since March 2015, they have been allowed to work only with accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry – which has rarely, if ever, been granted. Despite the risks, Lisak has continued to report on life under occupation, often risking his freedom to do so.
"I did the basic preparations," says Lisak. "That meant cleaning up my social media accounts – removing all the photos from Euromaidan (the protests), anything with Ukrainian flags or Ukrainian soldiers. I deleted all the chats. That was the first step. I even deleted phone numbers, knowing that... or, for example, I saved our editors' contacts under completely different names. If someone had gone through my phone book, the phone book would have been completely cleaned out."
He concocted a story to ensure he didn't arouse suspicion or attract unwanted attention while filming on camera.
"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 was interested in historical sites. Some of the videos were actually mine. That was part of my story. I even tried to promote the channel a little to get some views. My story was that I was a blogger working for an advertising agency, but that I loved Crimea – the air, the nature, blogging. I stated that I loved going there and that I could work remotely from time to time. That was my story that I stuck to."
Lisak's family, close friends, and even many of his colleagues didn't know what he really did.
"For example, my mom thought I had gone to work in Poland. I also had an explanation for why I couldn't call her – I would say: 'I'm in Poland, it's hard to call from here'. For a long time, even most of my colleagues had no idea. Only my best friend and maybe a few others knew. It was mentally difficult... Whenever someone asked me what I was doing, I would just say: 'I'm on a creative break,'" Lisak told RFE/RL.
Lisak filmed exclusive reports from occupied Crimea, covering topics such as 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 devised his own security protocols for working in Crimea.
"I would never stay in one city for more than three days... I would carry a big backpack and I was always moving," Lisak said. "Sometimes I would have a feeling - maybe paranoid - that someone was following me. I would just decide I had to move. I would get on a bus in the evening and go to another place, just because I had that feeling. Like, you see someone on the bus, and then later that evening, you notice the same person on the beach in another city. And you start to wonder: Am I imagining it? Is it a coincidence? Or is someone really following me?"
Once, while filming near the city of Kerch, Lisak 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 at a bus stop, but he never showed up.
"I'm standing there and I can 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, get in our car.' And I answer: 'I'll go with you, but I won't get in the car.' They're a little ahead of me, and I try to stay a little behind. I unlock my phone in my pocket, glance at the screen and send a short message to the editor: 'I'm under arrest, don't text me.' That's all I managed to send before I deleted the chat."
At the FSB office, Lisak was convinced that he was being interrogated by Russians – their accent and complete ignorance of the geography of Crimea gave them away.
"One of them questioned me. Then another one came in and asked the same question. Then a third one did the same. By then they had already taken my phone," he recalls. "At some point, one of the FSB agents came in and asked: 'Artem, do you have a brother?' I thought, even though I'd checked my contacts, and my brother was definitely not in my phone, there was no point in lying – they'll find out if they want. So I said, 'Yes, I have a brother.' Then he asked, 'What about my sister?' I said, 'No, I don't have a sister.'"
"Then he said something strange. He says, 'Well, someone claiming to be your sister just sent you a message.' It turns out that the editor I was able to contact wrote pretending to be my sister, 'How are you?'"
At that moment, Lisak decided to tell the truth.
"Then I pulled out my Radio Free Europe ID card – around three o'clock, when the first lie had already come out. I said, 'Guys, I also film for the RFE/RL Ukrainian Service as a freelancer. I travel around, this and that.' They just said, 'Got it.'"
Lisak's rented apartment in Crimea was searched, and his laptop and other equipment were 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 heard them walking in the hallways, complaining that I had ruined their plans to go to the sauna – with prostitutes, girls and so on," Lisak recalls. "They called their superior. The chief showed up, and he didn't know what to do. None of them knew. They were all out of town, Cossack types, and they realized that it would mean a lot of reports and extra work."
FSB officers, apparently not wanting to ruin their holiday, suggested that Lisak record a video confession, in which he claims he came to Crimea only to earn some money. After recording the video, they released it. At five in the morning, he boarded a bus and managed to cross the administrative border from Russian-occupied Crimea back into the rest of Ukraine.
After that ordeal, Lisak stopped working in the field. He spent six months working in the Kiev office of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service before resuming his travels around Crimea. He went back and forth for about a year, filming and producing stories for Crimean Realities – until the FSB summoned him again for questioning.
This time, Lisak faced trial. He was accused of working illegally as a journalist under Russian law and of failing to report that he was traveling to Crimea for work. Rather than wait for the trial, he decided to take a chance and managed to cross the border once again. After that, he never returned to Crimea.
Bonus video:
