Moldovan suspected of torching RFE/RL correspondent's car in Lviv detained:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- Ukrainian police have detained a Moldovan national on suspicion of setting the car of RFE/RL correspondent Halyna Tereshchuk on fire in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv last month.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on February 6 that a Moldovan student from an unidentified school in Lviv had been detained as a suspect in the arson attack.
"We are working on finding out who prompted him do that. The safety of a journalist is a priority," Avakov wrote on Twitter.
Tereshchuk's car was set on fire and completely destroyed on the night of January 29.
Tereshchuk, who has worked for RFE/RL since 2000, said at the time that she suspected the attack was linked to her professional activities.
Deputy Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko told RFE/RL at the time of the attack that it might have been ordered by a third party.
The Ukrainian unit of rights group Freedom House condemned the torching of Tereshchuk's car, as well as that of Andriy Lukin, an activist in Zaporizhzhya, whose car was also set ablaze on January 29.
The group stated that "arson or other methods of destruction of vehicles and property are becoming increasingly used as a means to pressure active people in Ukraine."
It noted there were 11 cases last year of property belonging to activists being destroyed and "in almost all cases, the perpetrators were not found and punished."
Court in Crimea extends pretrial arrest for pro-Ukrainian activist:
By the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A court in Crimea has extended the pretrial detention of pro-Ukrainian activist Oleh Prykhodko.
Prykhodko's lawyer, Nazim Sheykhmambetov, told RFE/RL that the Kyiv district court in Crimea's capital, Simferopol, on February 5, rejected a motion to transfer his client to house arrest and prolonged his client's pretrial detention to April 10.
Sheykhmambetov said that he and his client learned during the hearing that Prykhodko is now additionally charged with plotting a terrorist attack at the Russian Consulate in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Sheykhmambetov added that he planned to appeal the court's decision.
Prykhodko was detained in October 2019 and charged with illegally fabricating handmade explosives with the intention to conduct a terrorist act.
In January, Prykhodko was informed that he was also charged with possession of an illegal explosive.
Prykhodko denies all the charges, calling them politically motivated.
Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries, after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.
Rights groups say that since then, Russia has moved aggressively to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.
This ends our live blogging for February 5. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.