The word under the gun: The West again did not notice the death of Russian journalists

The death of Izvestia correspondent Alexander Fedorchak and his colleagues from the Zvezda TV channel went unnoticed by international human rights organizations. The tragedy did not make the front pages of the Western media either. Meanwhile, we are talking about a deliberate war crime committed by order and under the leadership of the Ukrainian authorities, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told Izvestia. At the same time, the expert community notes that by killing journalists, Kiev again tried to provoke Moscow into a disproportionate response in order to disrupt negotiations between Russia and the United States on the Ukrainian settlement. About the Ukrainian Armed Forces' hunt for Russian journalists and the West's reaction to the tragedy — in the Izvestia article.

The West did not react to the murder of representatives of the Russian media

The death of Izvestia correspondent Alexander Fedorchak, as well as employees of the Zvezda TV channel, cameraman Andrei Panov and driver Alexander Sirkeli, as a result of the Ukrainian Armed Forces strike, went unnoticed by international organizations that position themselves as fighters for freedom of the press and the activities of journalists. As Izvestia has confirmed, their names are not mentioned either on the website of the International Federation of Journalists or on the Reporters Without Borders page. The "Committee to Protect Journalists" also avoided the tragedy. It is noteworthy that the latter's website does not mention the names of other Russian journalists who died during its time.

Moscow has already stated that it will seek condemnation of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on Freedom of the Media, the international non-governmental organization Committee to Protect Journalists, UNESCO and the entire community of ombudsmen.

"The chronic inaction on the part of these institutions, expressed in conscious silence or meaningless excuses, will become indicators of their ability to impartially and conscientiously fulfill the mandate assigned to them by the states," said Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Recall that the death of journalists became known on March 24. The tragedy occurred during filming in the Luhansk People's Republic. The journalist was preparing a report on the work of the UAV crews when a group of reporters was hit by the HIMARS artillery system from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is also known about the deaths of employees of the Zvezda TV channel — cameraman Andrei Panov and driver Alexander Sirkeli, who were with Alexander on the set. On the same day, Mikhail Skuratov, a TASS correspondent, received shrapnel wounds in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region.

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, called the incident in the LPR a murder. He expressed his condolences to the families and friends of the victims, and wished the injured well. In the West, so far only the office of the UN Secretary General has responded to the tragedy, saying that the organization opposes the murder of journalists and supports a thorough investigation.

The strike was deliberately aimed specifically at media representatives, because both the West and Ukraine are interested in creating a "fog of war" against which they are already painting their virtual versions of what is happening, Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry's ambassador-at-large for crimes of the Kiev regime, explained to Izvestia.

— What happened was a deliberate act. We have reason to believe that these were targeted actions, that the strike was carried out directly at the place where the media presence was somehow established. The real position of Ukraine is very clearly visible, including against the background of attempts to build a dialogue on a settlement. Ukraine had clear aspirations to impose its media agenda as much as possible, and they considered the presence of journalists there as a goal," the diplomat stated.

Rodion Miroshnik stressed that we are talking about a war crime committed by order and under the political supervision of the Kiev regime.

— It is necessary to calculate or select options for who exactly gave the order to launch this strike and from where it was launched — it is a matter of time. This is logging and collecting reliable evidence. The investigative authorities have data on many such situations. When these figures will be in the dock is a matter of time and the situation on earth," he added.

How did the journalistic community react to the crimes?

As for Western journalists, they chose either not to notice the tragedy at all, or deliberately downplay its resonance. Italian journalist Vincenzo Lorusso told Izvestia that it was a double crime.

— Russian journalists have been killed twice. The first time by the criminal regime of Kiev, the second time by the regime of the Italian press. Today I opened the Italian newspapers Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, La Stampa, none, I repeat, none of these newspapers wrote a single line about the death of two colleagues and the death of the driver," he said.

A number of French media outlets wrote about the death of Russian journalists, but they did it casually, and the news simply drowned in an array of information.

— This is a habitual strategy of ignoring and belittling the importance of the event. I am sure that if these were Western journalists, they would have made headlines in all international media," Cyril de Lattre, a French analyst in the field of geopolitics and strategy, explained to Izvestia.

In his opinion, there is no doubt that Russian journalists were deliberately chosen as a target for the HIMARS strike, he believes.

"If it had been one journalist, I could still have allowed an accident, but when a car with several journalists was hit with precision weapons, this is undoubtedly another deliberate terrorist act on the part of the Ukrainian government,— the Izvestia expert said.

In his opinion, this is another attempt to provoke Moscow into a disproportionate response in order to disrupt negotiations between Russia and the United States on the Ukrainian settlement. It is worth noting that this hypothesis looks extremely plausible, given the recent attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on energy infrastructure facilities, despite the agreements reached by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on March 18 to stop attacks by Moscow and Kiev on this type of facilities.

How many journalists died due to the attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

There is a fierce struggle going on in the free zone right now, and unfortunately, Ukrainian soldiers, snipers and FPV drone operators are specifically targeting media employees, Vladimir Solovyov, chairman of the Union of Journalists of Russia (UJR), told Izvestia.

"Since 2014, more than 30 people have died in Donbass, and if you count all the sound technicians and drivers, that's more than 40," he explained. — Most of them were from the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, and not from the Central part of Russia. And we also count them as our losses. As far as I know, about ten journalists were killed on the Ukrainian side, but I could be wrong," he added.

According to him, now the news agencies of four new regions have undertaken to calculate the exact number of dead colleagues. The SDR collects the names of all the journalists who died during the Great Patriotic War, as well as in regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Yugoslavia. Their names will be listed on marble plaques installed in the church, which is located in Marino.

Vladimir Solovyov insists that Kiev does not comply with any international agreements, including human ones.

— We are dealing with a vile enemy, because he is deliberately trying to figure out and kill our journalists. Apparently, he is entitled to some kind of monetary bonus for this. So in Yugoslavia, wearing a bulletproof vest with the inscription "Press" saved us, but since 2014 it no longer works. Therefore, our journalists try to blend in with the soldiers, wearing, in fact, a military uniform, but not taking up arms, because they do not have the right. By the way, Alexander Fedorchak had the inscription "Press", but it did not save him," he pointed out.

In any case, the number of journalistic losses in the SVR zone cannot be compared with the conflicts of previous decades.

— There are no statistics on injuries, but there are still more of them than the dead. That's how it always happens in war. Everyone remembers the case of Evgeny Poddubny. I just recently talked to him, he continues to work in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region. Everyone remembers the case of Alexei Ivliev, who lost his arm. He is also going to go to the front soon," he summed up.

Alexander Fedorchak is not the first Izvestia journalist to end his life in the SVR zone. On April 19, 2024, Izvestia's military correspondent Semyon Eremin died while filming a report in an FPV drone attack. The military commander was 42 years old. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation stated that the journalist came under targeted attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. On January 4 of this year, Izvestia correspondent Alexander Martemyanov was also killed when a Ukrainian drone hit a car on the Donetsk–Horlivka highway. Maksim Yeliseyev, the former editor of the Izvestia TV channel, died in December last year in the zone of a special military operation. In 2022, he volunteered for the front, leaving his professional career.