A 14-year-old was additionally killed within the assault that killed employees from Russia’s Izvestia newspaper and Zvezda TV channel.
A Ukrainian rocket assault killed six folks, together with three Russian state media employees, in japanese Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk area, in keeping with Russian information organisations and officers.
The assault on Monday killed struggle correspondent Alexander Fedorchak, a journalist from Russia’s essential pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper, in addition to a digicam operator, Andrei Panov, who labored for Russian tv channel Zvezda, and the channel’s driver, Alexander Sirkeli, the Moscow-appointed governor of the Luhansk area, Leonid Pasechnik, mentioned.
Pasechnik mentioned a 14-year-old baby was additionally killed within the assault within the area’s Kremina district.
Izvestia mentioned Fedorchak had entered the Luhansk area – most of which has been captured by invading Russian forces – after reporting from the Kupiansk space within the neighbouring Kharkiv area, one of many areas the place Russian forces have made advances in opposition to Ukraine’s troops in current months.
“Izvestia correspondent Alexander Fedorchak was killed within the zone of the particular navy operation,” the newspaper mentioned, utilizing Moscow’s time period for its struggle on Ukraine.
Russia’s state-controlled English-language RT outlet posted a picture of Fedorchak on social media, saying solely that the struggle correspondent’s “circumstances of loss of life” are “not clear but”.
Izvestia correspondent Alexander Fedorchak killed in SMO zone
His final report aired simply yesterday — he was working in Kharkov area, close to Kupyansk
Circumstances of loss of life not clear but pic.twitter.com/UJMLHPHLDf
— RT (@RT_com) March 24, 2025
Izvestia mentioned that its correspondent was killed “within the Kupiansk route” – a metropolis that has been underneath intense Russian assault and the place Russian forces have been advancing.
“His final report was broadcast actually the day earlier than,” Izvestia mentioned on its web site.
The Zvezda channel – which is sponsored by Moscow’s Ministry of Defence – later mentioned that its correspondent, Nikita Goldin, had additionally been critically wounded within the assault, which it described as a strike on a civilian car.
Ukrainian officers have but to touch upon the Russian claims that the journalists have been focused.
Russian information companies quoted safety sources as saying the assault had been carried out by superior HIMARS rockets, which have been equipped to Ukraine by the USA.
Alexander Miroshnik, an ambassador-at-large for the Russian Ministry of International Affairs, mentioned there was proof the journalists had been intentionally focused.
“Increasingly particulars are rising of the killing of those guys that time to the premeditated and terrorist nature of the strike on journalists and folks alongside them,” he wrote on Telegram.
Figures from the Nationwide Union of Journalists of Ukraine present that 18 Ukrainian and overseas reporters have been killed on task for the reason that begin of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
One other 10 journalists have been killed by bombs or shelling whereas not at work. Greater than 80 media staff have been killed whereas serving within the Ukrainian navy.
Alexander Martemyanov, a contract reporter working for Izvestia, was killed in Ukraine in January.
Combating has been significantly intense in Ukraine’s japanese Donbas space – made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk areas – the place Russian forces have targeting capturing extra territory from Ukraine after an preliminary drive failed to achieve the capital Kyiv within the early levels of the struggle.
