Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has ordered the law enforcement authorities to immediately check all instances of reporters' detention, to probe all the circumstances and to release the journalists.

"Reporters are fulfilling their professional duties and end up in various situations by force of circumstance. I am asking to treat this with understanding and to assist journalists' work when possible," Yanukovych said when asked by Interfax.

At the same time, Yanukovych said he asked reporters "to take into account all the circumstances amid which they carry out their professional duties and the complexity of the process, which is happening."