Russia is shooting the truth about the invasion of Ukraine: losses among journalists in 20 days of war

Killed

On March 13 in Irpin, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary shot Amer­i­can reporter, doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Brent Renaud. Renaud togeth­er with Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­ph­er Juan Arredon­do that day were film­ing the evac­u­a­tion of peo­ple from Irpin across the destroyed bridge. Jour­nal­ists decid­ed to go deep into the city, near Romaniv bridge the dri­ver of green “Lada” offered to dri­ve them — they agreed. In Irpin, Renaud and Arredon­do were asked to stop near the “Yes­enin” res­i­den­tial com­plex which was com­plete­ly destroyed by Russ­ian shelling, to film it. At that moment, two Russ­ian ser­vice­men appeared near­by. They fired warn­ing shots, after which the dri­ver of the car react­ed and start­ed run­ning away with the jour­nal­ists. Then the Rus­sians opened fire on the defeat. Renaud was wound­ed in the neck and died on the spot. In Ukraine, he worked on a project on the glob­al refugee cri­sis for Time Stu­dios, the film and tele­vi­sion divi­sion of the com­pa­ny.

“We are shocked and sad­dened by the news of the death of Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist Brent Renaud in Ukraine. Such attacks are com­plete­ly unac­cept­able and are a vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al law, — Car­los Mar­tinez de la Ser­na, pro­gram direc­tor of the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists noticed. — Russ­ian troops in Ukraine must imme­di­ate­ly stop all vio­lence against jour­nal­ists and oth­er civil­ians, and the one who killed Renaud must be brought to jus­tice”.

In the evening of the same day, the may­or of Irpin Olek­san­dr Markushyn announced that the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary will no longer allow jour­nal­ists into the city: “As of today, we ban jour­nal­ists from enter­ing Irpin. In this way, we want to save the lives of both them and our defend­ers”.

Brent Renaud has repeat­ed­ly cov­ered hotspots in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya, as well as the refugee cri­sis in Africa. Brent has received numer­ous inter­na­tion­al awards for his col­lab­o­ra­tion with broth­er, Craige Renaud, on doc­u­men­taries, includ­ing Peabody, the Colum­bia DuPont Awards, and the Over­seas Press Club Award.

TV chan­nel Fox News cam­era­man Pierre Zakrzews­ki, the Irish­man, and Olek­san­dra Kuvshi­no­va, a Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist, were killed on March 14 in the vil­lage of Goren­ka, Kyiv oblast. The car in which they were trav­el­ing with the British cor­re­spon­dent of the TV chan­nel Ben­jamin Hall came under artillery fire from Russ­ian troops.

“Pierre was a mil­i­tary pho­tog­ra­ph­er in the war zone who cov­ered for Fox News almost all inter­na­tion­al news from Iraq to Afghanistan and Syr­ia dur­ing his long work here», – Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott noticed.

In addi­tion, not in the line of duty, but at the hands of the Russ­ian mil­i­tary three more Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ists were killed. Diler­bek Shakirov, a jour­nal­ist with the infor­ma­tion week­ly “Around You”, died on Feb­ru­ary 26 in the vil­lage of Zeleniv­ka, Kher­son oblast. The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine Iry­na Venedik­to­va report­ed that the man was shot from the car from the auto­mat­ic weapon by Russ­ian mil­i­tary. On March 1, dur­ing a rock­et attack by Russ­ian troops on a TV tow­er in Kyiv, the oper­a­tor of the Live TV chan­nel Yevhen Sakun, who was pass­ing by it at that time, was killed. On March 6 in fight near Myko­laiv, the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary jour­nal­ist Vic­tor Dudar, who was then a part of Armed forces of Ukraine, was killed.

Disappeared

On March 12, Oleg Batu­ryn, a jour­nal­ist of the Kher­son news­pa­per “Novyi Den” and the head of the pub­lic orga­ni­za­tion “Euro­pro­stir” which is engaged in jour­nal­is­tic inves­ti­ga­tions into life in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries and cor­rup­tion in the regions, dis­ap­peared in Kakhov­ka. Baturyn’s wife told the Ukrain­ian Insti­tute of Mass Media about this. Accord­ing to her, the man planned to meet with a friend near the bus sta­tion in Kakhov­ka: “At about 4:30 pm, Oleg went to a meet­ing, leav­ing his phone and doc­u­ments at home. He promised to return in 20 min­utes. But he did not return”. In local chat rooms, peo­ple report­ed that at about 4:50 p.m., Russ­ian sol­diers were spot­ted near the bus sta­tion. At that time, the Russ­ian troops did not have a per­ma­nent loca­tion in Kakhov­ka, but already occu­pied the neigh­bor­ing city — Nova Kakhov­ka. It is unknown at this time whether the Russ­ian mil­i­tary will be involved in the journalist’s dis­ap­pear­ance. It is still unknown where Oleg Batu­ryn is and in what con­di­tion.

Wounded

On Feb­ru­ary 26, jour­nal­ist Ste­fan Weichert and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Emil Fil­tenborg Mikkelsen came under fire in Okhtyr­ka, Sumy oblast. Their car marked “TV” on the glass was shot with­out warn­ing by a man in clothes with­out iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from a weapon “resem­bling an assault rifle”. Both jour­nal­ists were wound­ed. As Weichert lat­er tes­ti­fied, his col­league received a bul­let in each leg and two in the back, he him­self — one in the shoul­der. Accord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary infor­ma­tion, Russ­ian sabo­teurs were oper­at­ing near the Okhtyr­ka front line that day but as of now it is impos­si­ble to estab­lish who is behind the attack on jour­nal­ists.

It is worth not­ing that the Armed Forces of Ukraine ask the film crews to mark their com­pa­ny cars and bul­let­proof vests with the inscrip­tion “PRESS”, as the sign “TV” from afar may be sim­i­lar to the mark­ing of ene­my vehi­cles — “V”.

On Feb­ru­ary 28, near the vil­lage of Stoy­an­ka, Kyiv oblast, Russ­ian sabo­teurs fired on the cam­era crew of the British TV chan­nel “Sky News”. Cor­re­spon­dent Stu­art Ram­say was injured in the low­er back, cam­era­man Richie Mock­ler saved a bul­let­proof vest from two direct shots. Jour­nal­ists returned to Kyiv and at first thought they were being mis­tak­en­ly fired upon by Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary. The video shows them shout­ing loud­ly: “Stop!”, and “We are jour­nal­ists!”, how­ev­er, their cars were con­tin­ued to be shot. “The wind­shield cracked from the first shot. Cam­era­man Richie Mock­ler shrank in the front passenger’s legroom. Then we came under full attack. Bul­lets pierced the entire car, trac­ers, flash­es of bul­lets — wind­shield, plas­tic seats, steer­ing wheel and instru­ment pan­el shat­tered,” — lat­er reporters were telling. They man­aged to get out of the car and hide from the locals.

On March 6 near the vil­lage of Vodi­ano-Loryne of Myko­laiv oblast, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary wound­ed the Swiss jour­nal­ist Guil­laume Bri­quet. He received shrap­nel wounds to his face and fore­arms. Accord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dent, a few min­utes after cross­ing the Ukrain­ian check­point, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary fired at his car at close range which was clear­ly vis­i­ble “Press”. After Bri­quet stopped at the road­side, the Rus­sians approached him, called him, searched him, con­fis­cat­ed his pass­port, 3,000 euros in cash, per­son­al belong­ings, a hel­met, a lap­top and cam­era footage. When the jour­nal­ist was released, Bri­quet went to the hos­pi­tal in Kropy­vnyt­skyi, where he was treat­ed. “They were less than 50 meters from us. They clear­ly were fir­ing. If I hadn’t bent down, I would have been shot. I have been shot in con­flict zones before but I have nev­er seen any­thing like it. Jour­nal­ists who trav­el through this coun­try with­out expe­ri­ence of war are in mor­tal dan­ger», — Bri­quet quotes “Reporters sans fron­tières”, an inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tion.

The Ukrain­ian Radio Lib­er­ty cor­re­spon­dent Mar­i­an Kush­nir was wound­ed on March 11 in Baryshiv­ka, Kyiv oblast, as a result of a night­time mis­sile strike or an air strike by Russ­ian troops. The jour­nal­ist received a con­tu­sion, on a short video on social net­works it is vis­i­ble that from ears of the man there is a blood. The jour­nal­ist was giv­en med­ical care by mil­i­tary medics and he is now in a sat­is­fac­to­ry con­di­tion.

On March 13, in Irpin, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary fired on a car car­ry­ing Amer­i­can jour­nal­ists. Pho­to­jour­nal­ist Juan Arredon­do received a shrap­nel wound to the thigh, his col­league Brent Renaud died from a neck injury. Arredon­do was tak­en to the “Okhmat­dyt” hos­pi­tal in Kyiv where he was oper­at­ed on twice by sur­geons. Cur­rent­ly, his con­di­tion is sta­ble.

On March 14 in Kiev oblast, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary wound­ed British Fox News TV chan­nel cor­re­spon­dent Ben­jamin Hall. Accord­ing to the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of Ukraine Iry­na Venedik­to­va, he received a frag­men­tary frac­ture of both legs: “The jour­nal­ist is cur­rent­ly in inten­sive care under med­ical super­vi­sion. […] This man was not at the mil­i­tary facil­i­ty, which, accord­ing to Russ­ian offi­cials, they are con­stant­ly tar­get­ing. He was seri­ous­ly wound­ed while not being at the mil­i­tary facil­i­ty”. Sub­se­quent­ly, the Min­istry of Defense of Ukraine added that doc­tors were forced to par­tial­ly ampu­tate Hall’s leg.

Survived

On March 4, in Kalyniv­ka, Kyiv oblast, a car of Czech Vox­pot reporters Maj­da Slam­o­va and Vojtěch Boháč, marked as the “Press”, came under tar­get­ed shelling by Russ­ian mil­i­tary. They were accom­pa­nied by two unnamed Ukrain­ian col­leagues. All jour­nal­ists sur­vived but numer­ous shots from a Kalash­nikov rifle remained on the car door.

On March 6, in Irpin, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary fired on the car of the cam­era crew of the pan-Arab TV chan­nel Al-Ara­by TV, despite the fact that jour­nal­ists hung a white flag on it and had a “Press” sign. The cor­re­spon­dent Adnan Can Atay­turk­men and his fel­low cam­era­man Habip Demir­ci were forced to leave the car and hide in the homes of local res­i­dents.

On March 8, Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist of Hro­mad­sky Vic­to­ria Roshchi­na report­ed that she had come under fire from the Russ­ian mil­i­tary a few days ear­li­er on her way to Novose­liv­ka, Zapor­izhia oblast. Accord­ing to her, a col­umn of Russ­ian tanks was mov­ing towards them. When the dri­ver tried to turn around and go in the oppo­site direc­tion, the car was fired upon: “I ordered to stop, throw the car and lie down in the field. But the columns came at us and the res­cue was an aban­doned house, behind which they wait­ed for the pas­sage of Russ­ian equip­ment”. While the jour­nal­ist and the dri­ver were hid­ing from the shelling, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary stole a lap­top, a cam­era and a back­pack with per­son­al belong­ings from their car.

Information blockade 

The Russ­ian mil­i­tary is also sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly try­ing to iso­late Ukraini­ans in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries from the Ukrain­ian media and replace their broad­casts with Russ­ian state pro­pa­gan­da.

Almost every day there is infor­ma­tion from the Russ­ian-occu­pied regions about the con­stant pres­sure on local jour­nal­ists who are forced to retrans­mit Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da by threat­en­ing the lives and health of them and their rel­a­tives. In par­tic­u­lar, on March 13 the head of the Zapor­izhia oblast mil­i­tary admin­is­tra­tion Olek­san­dr Starukh described a sit­u­a­tion in occu­pied Berdian­sk: “The occu­piers rewrote the address­es of jour­nal­ists and their rel­a­tives. They are forced to work for Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da. They threat­en their chil­dren, par­ents and wives. They are try­ing to car­ry out ter­ror and total intim­i­da­tion”.

For the same pur­pose, the Russ­ian mil­i­tary has already fired on TV tow­ers in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Vinnyt­sia, Rivne, Lysy­chan­sk, Korosten, cap­tured them in Kher­son, Staro­bil­sk and Meli­topol, as well as a radio sta­tion in Berdian­sk.

On March 4, “Reporters With­out Bor­ders” filed a com­plaint with the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court regard­ing Russ­ian strikes on four (as of that time) radio and TV tow­ers in Ukraine, as a result of which at least 32 TV chan­nels and dozens of radio sta­tions could not broad­cast.

“The delib­er­ate bomb­ing of many media instal­la­tions, such as TV tow­ers, is a war crime and demon­strates the scale of Putin’s offen­sive against the right to news and infor­ma­tion, — Reporters With­out Bor­ders Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Christophe Deloire noticed. — These crimes are even more seri­ous because they are part of a plan, pol­i­cy and large-scale”.