Journalist injured in AFU attack tells details of what happened
Isabella Liberman, a journalist with the publication Bloknot Donetsk, who was in a car attacked by a drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU), told Izvestiya about the incident.
According to her, the journalists were traveling from Gorlovka in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), where they had earlier delivered humanitarian aid. The deceased Izvestia correspondent Alexander Martemyanov was also preparing a report on the aftermath of the shelling of the settlement.
"When we were heading towards Krasnye Partizan, a drone flew into us. There was some kind of evil fate: time was dragging away because we were driving two cars and Sasha's wheel broke. We decided to leave Sasha's car and sat all six of us in one," Lieberman shared.
She specified that Martemyanov was in the passenger seat in the front seat and directed the movement. As emphasized the journalist, the drone appeared suddenly, no drone-detector did not identify it.
"Suddenly saw a flash, suddenly heard a sound. Didn't realize what was happening, quickly started jumping out of the car," she said.
Liberman reported that Martemyanov was wounded in the leg and head. They were incompatible with life, the correspondent died instantly.
As the journalist pointed out, later it became known that Ukrainian militants attacked the car with representatives of the media with a drone with RPG.
"This drone appeared in front of us. Then we were told that they (such drones. - Ed.) are dropped off by the UAV "Baba Yaga". Then it turned out that it was an RPG drone. It flew in through the roof," Liberman added.
Izvestia correspondent Alexander Martemyanov was killed on January 4 when a Ukrainian army drone hit a car on the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway. He died of his wounds.
The head of the DNR Denis Pushilin soon expressed condolences over Martemyanov's death. He noted that the correspondent's materials about Donbass "were brave and objective," and the journalist himself was always "at the forefront."
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Martemyanov's murder a brutal crime. She emphasized that the car in which the correspondent was traveling was far away from the line of contact.
As specified in the Russian Ministry of Defence, RIA Novosti correspondents Maxim Romanenko and Mikhail Kevkhiev, editor of Bloknot Donetsk Svetlana Larina and military correspondent Isabella Liberman also received shrapnel wounds as a result of the AFU attack.
In his turn, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said that the incident would be discussed at the next UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.
Alexander Martemyanov has worked as a freelance correspondent for Izvestia since 2014. In 2023, he was wounded during shelling by the AFU in Donetsk, but returned to work after recovering. Martemyanov has been awarded the medal "For Bravery", the insignia "For Merit to the Donetsk People's Republic" III degree.
