The Crimean office of Russia's Investigative Committee says it has launched an investigation into the apparent kidnapping of two Crimean Tatars.
In a statement on September 29, the committee said unknown men in military uniforms forced the two ethnic Tatars into a vehicle near the town of Bilohirsk on September 27.
The men's whereabouts remain unknown.
The probe has been officially launched after dozens of Crimean Tatars protested against the apparent kidnapping in the village of Sary-Su on September 29.
Pressure on Tatars, the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority group that largely opposed Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula in March, has piled in recent weeks.
In mid-September, Russian authorities seized the Crimean Tatar assembly, the Mejlis, and searched homes of leading members of the Tatar community.
