The head of the Responsible Citizens volunteer group, Maryna Cherenkova, who was detained in Donetsk in late January, has been released, said Iryna Gerashchenko, a Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentarian and Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group which mediates the conflict in Donbas.

"A good SMS-text from the husband of volunteer Marya Cherenkova. She has been released and is being deported from Donetsk," Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page on Monday.

On January 30, 2016, Responsible Citizens member Enrique Menendez said on Facebook that the head of the group had been detained in Donetsk, presumably, by representatives of the state security ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). He said he contacted both the ministry and DPR police but received no information about Cherenkova's arrest.

Later Menendez noted that Cherenkova could have been arrested for collaboration with international organizations.