The photojournalist, Maks Levin, 40, was a prominent freelancer. His body was found in the Huta-Mezhyhirska village on Friday, according to the news website LB.ua, one media outlet where Maks Levin worked.
On Saturday, the Vyshhorod district prosecutor’s office said in a statement that based on preliminary information, Mr. Levin was shot by Russian armed forces with “small arms fire,” and that a criminal investigation into his death was underway. The colleague Mr. Levin had been traveling with, Oleksiy Chernyshov, has not been found.
IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: "This war is being incredibly tough to cover for media workers on the front line, who are suffering targeted attacks daily. Targeted attacks on journalists covering the war constitute war crimes that cannot go unpunished".
“Evidence of war crimes committed by the Russian occupiers is mounting,” said EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez. “There is no longer any doubt that journalists are being deliberately targeted. On the ground, journalists are now operating without distinctive signs so as not to be targeted. We once again call on the international community to set up a special tribunal to investigate these war crimes and prosecute the perpetrators.”
At least six other journalists have been killed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February:
- Yevheniy Sakun, an Ukrainian cameraman for LIVE TV killed on 1 March during a rockets attack on the TV tower in Kyiv;
- Ukrainian journalist Viktor Dedov died on 11 March in Mariupol after his flat was bombed;
- Brent Renaud, a US journalist shot dead in Irpin, on 13 March;
- Pierre Zakrzewski, Fox News camera operator, and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, killed on 14 March while reporting from Horenka.
- Russian journalist Oksana Baulina, killed after coming under Russian shelling with another civilian while she filmed destruction at a shopping centre in Podil district in Kyiv, on 23 March.
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