Russian media send appeals to UNESCO Director General on silence of Kiev's crimes

Russian media outlets, including Izvestia, have sent several letters of appeal to UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay with indignation over Ukraine 's silencing of crimes against Russian journalists.

"The Russian media express indignation at Azule's ignoring of the purposeful killings by the regime of [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky (term of office expired on May 20. - Ed.) of our correspondents," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

She specified that the information about the deaths of representatives of Russian media had been repeatedly brought to the organization's Secretariat. The Russian Foreign Ministry promised that assistance would be provided in this situation and the letters would be handed over to the addressee.

In addition, the journalists expressed indignation at the statistics given in the draft report on the safety of journalists and the problem of impunity in the period 2022-2023. It is specified that the document does not contain information about the dead representatives of domestic media.

Zakharova noted that domestic journalists call for a demarche before the leadership of UNESCO during the 34th session of the Intergovernmental Council of the International Program for the Development of Communications in Paris.

Earlier, on November 15, the deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, Andrey Klimov, said that the UN was inventing excuses for the lack of condemnation for the killings of Russian journalists by Ukraine.

Prior to that, on November 14, a representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Renaud de Villaine, said that the lack of reaction to Kiev's accusations of the killings of Russian journalists was due to the fact that Moscow had not provided access to confirm this information.

Ukrainian militants have attacked media representatives on more than one occasion. 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 officer was traveling in a car that came under attack by a drone of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

In addition, in June, News.ru correspondent Nikita Tsitsagi was killed in a drone attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donetsk People's Republic.

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