Russian Foreign Ministry points to UNESCO's lack of response to the murders of Russian journalists

UNESCO has not reacted to Kiev's crimes against Russian journalists. This was stated in the Russian Foreign Ministry on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the establishment of UNESCO.

"The leadership of the secretariat continues to persistently ignore that the Ukronazis have unleashed a real hunt for journalists covering events on the front line. This year alone, war correspondents S.N. Eremin, V.A. Kozhin and N.N. Tsitsagi became victims of targeted attacks by the AFU, while A.S. Ivliev and E.E. Poddubny were seriously wounded," the ministry wrote in its Telegram channel.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also reported about the attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) on the editor-in-chief of the People's Daily, Yuliya Kuznetsova, on November 17. As a result of the targeted attack, she was killed and her colleague was injured.

"Despite the direct instruction of the organization's member states to "condemn murder and physical violence against journalists without distinction," UNESCO Director General O. Azule again chose not to notice these atrocities," the ministry added.

The ministry noted that Russia did not wait for a reaction from UNESCO to the last year's attack of the Kiev regime on the world heritage site "Moscow Kremlin", as well as to the strikes on cultural and educational institutions in Belgorod, Donetsk, Crimea, Kursk and Taganrog.

In addition, the Russian Foreign Ministry pointed to the silence of the organization in connection with the ongoing persecution of the Ukrainian authorities on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which manages part of the World Heritage Site - Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

Earlier, on November 18, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the murder of the editor-in-chief of the People's Daily, Yuliya Kuznetsova, by Ukrainian militants in Kursk Region was yet another evidence of the criminal nature of the regime of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (whose term of office expired on May 20).

Before that, on November 13, Zakharova said that UNESCO ignored the Kiev regime's crimes against Russian journalists. According to the diplomat, the draft report, including on the activities of journalists on the territory of Ukraine, has been submitted by the organization's director-general Audrey Azoulay and will be submitted to the intergovernmental council of the international program for the development of communication in Paris. However, the issue of the real situation with the safety of Russian journalists will not be considered, and this decision, in Zakharova's opinion, was taken deliberately. She also noted that many appeals and reports of crimes had been sent to Azoulay.

Ukrainian militants have repeatedly attacked media representatives. Thus, on June 16, News.ru correspondent Nikita Tsitsagi was killed in an attack by drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donetsk People's Republic.

In August, VGTRK military correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny was wounded in the Kursk region. That day he was covering the situation in the region. The military correspondent was traveling in a car that came under attack by an AFU drone.

Before that, on April 19, Semyon Eremin, a military correspondent of Izvestia, was killed in an FPV drone attack while filming a report in the SSO zone. The Russian Investigative Committee said that Eremin was killed as a result of a targeted attack by the AFU. The agency intends to identify all those involved in the journalist's death.