Two journalists found dead in Ukraine when Russian forces withdraw

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 14/04/2022

Among the dead found after Russian forces have withdrawn from previous occupied areas in Ukraine are two Ukrainian journalists. At least seven other journalists have been killed covering the war, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. “Roman Nezhyborets was discovered buried in the northern Ukrainian village of Yahidne, and Zoreslav Zamoysky was found in Bucha, where hundreds of civilians are believed to have died.

CPJ’s Gulnoza Said called on Ukrainian authorities to investigate whether the two journalists were killed in retaliation for their work.

Tatyana Zdor, director of the privately-owned TV broadcaster Dytynets in the nearby city of Chernihiv, told CPJ that Nezhyborets, a video technician/editor at Dytynets who was sheltered with his family in Yahidne, attempted to use a hidden phone. She told CPJ that Russian forces caught Nezhyborets calling his mother on March 5, and took him away from his family.

On April 6, after Russian forces withdrew from the city, Ukrainian volunteers found Nezhyborets’ body in a grave in Yahidne, with gunshot wounds to his knees and his hands tied, according to Zdor, Dytynets and a Facebook post by his sister. In a statement, Dytynets said the journalist was killed by “Russian occupiers.”

Local residents in Bucha found Zamoysky’s body on a street in the city in early April, according to statements by the Ukrainian National Union of Journalists (NUJU) and the Irpin city council.

Iryna Fedorov, founder of the news website Hromada Priirpinnya, told the NUJU that Zamoysky covered the activities of local authorities in the region around Bucha and the city of Irpin as a freelancer for his outlet and other local media groups.

Zamoysky regularly covered the war on his personal Facebook page, where he had about 1,000 followers. His last post was published on March 4.

Separately, on Monday, April 11, Iryna Kuksenkova, a correspondent for the Russian state broadcaster Channel One, was injured by shrapnel while reporting in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to statements by her employer and the Russian Investigative Committee.

Kuksenkova sustained injuries to her leg after coming under “enemy” fire, according to those sources, which said camera operator Dmitry Kachurin and sound engineer Nikita Sevastyanov were with her at the scene and escaped unharmed, CPJ reports.

Russian Investigative Committee head Aleksandr Bastrykin said that the reporting team was attacked by “members of Ukrainian nationalist formations” and said the committee would investigate the attack. Channel One’s reporters have embedded with Russian forces during the invasion of Ukraine.