BISHKEK -- The Kyrgyz authorities have ordered pretrial detention for the director of the NEXT television channel over the airing of a controversial report in which an interviewee alleged the existence of an agreement between Bishkek and Moscow to send troops to Ukraine.
A Bishkek court ruled on March 5 that Taalai Duishembiev must remain in detention until at least May 3.
Duishembiev's lawyer, Timur Sultanov, vowed to appeal the ruling.
On March 3, the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said it had launched a probe against the TV channel for inciting ethnic hatred.
The report in question quoted the exiled former chief of the Committee for National Security (KNB) of neighboring Kazakhstan, Alnur Musaev, as saying that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had agreed to support Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by sending troops to help Russia.
There has been no evidence of Tajik or Kyrgyz troops fighting in Ukraine since the invasion was launched on February 24.
The station's owner, Ravshan Jeenbekov, has rejected the charge, insisting that the report quoted Musaev directly while giving other people's views on the issue as well.
The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry has rejected the report and has called on local media outlets to base their reporting on the ongoing war in Ukraine solely on official government statements.
On March 5, Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev, who met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow the same day, called Russia a strategic partner with "especially privileged ties based on mutual trust and understanding on bilateral level and in frames of integrational unions and international organizations."