A Russian journalist from the Ria Novosti news agency, Rostislav Jouravlev, was killed in a Ukrainian bombardment in the Zaporizhia region of southern Ukraine on Saturday, the Russian army said in a statement. “Units of the Ukrainian armed forces launched an artillery attack against a group of journalists”, “injuring four journalists more or less seriously”, according to the Russian army.
“During the evacuation, Rostislav Jouravlev […] died from his injuries, following an explosion of submunitions,” she added.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the attack a “heinous crime”, holding the West “responsible” alongside Kiev and promising “a response” to those responsible for the attack.
“Everything indicates that the attack on the group of journalists was not carried out by chance,” Russian diplomacy said in a statement. “We are under no illusions that the relevant international organizations will prefer, as before in such cases, to turn a blind eye to this heinous crime,” she added.
According to the ministry, “journalists were gathering material for a report on the bombardment by Kiev regime militants of settlements in the Zaporizhia region with cluster munitions banned in many countries around the world.”
“The perpetrators of the brutal massacre of the Russian journalist will inevitably receive the punishment they deserve,” said the same source, assuring that “those who provided cluster munitions to their proteges in Kiev will also share the full measure of responsibility”.
The state of health of the other three injured journalists is “stable”, according to the Russian army, which indicated that “they were quickly evacuated to the medical facilities” of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
According to Rotislav Zhuravlev’s employer, the Ria Novosti news agency, “the shelling took place near the village of Pyatikhatky”, in the Zaporizhia region (south).
The Moscow-installed regional governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, also confirmed the journalist’s death on Telegram, expressing “(his) deepest condolences to family and friends”.
At the same time, a Ukrainian cameraman, Yevguen Chylko, shooting with a Deutsche Welle team a report 23 kilometers from the front line on the Ukrainian side, was injured “by shrapnel from Russian sub-munitions”, the television channel said.
During these shootings, a Ukrainian soldier was killed “and others were seriously injured”, she added in a press release. Two other members of the channel’s team, a journalist and a security adviser, escaped unscathed. They were reporting on a Ukrainian army training center “near Druzhkivka” in Donbass, Donetsk Oblast.