They were seized by armed, masked men wearing military uniform from their home in Russian-occupied Mariupol in September. Neighbours ‘distinctly heard groans and cries’ as the masked men took Leonid and Tatyana away ‘in an unknown direction’, local Baptists said. Indications are that they were taken after they refused to allow their church building to be used for the referendum held to rubber stamp the annexation of the eastern Ukrainian territory by Russia.