New footage appears to show a Ukrainian attack on a Russian state media team that Moscow-backed media said killed a Russian Defense Ministry press officer and wounded two others.
On Wednesday, Russian state media reported that Yevgeny Polovodov, a press officer with Russia’s Western group of forces, was killed by Ukrainian shelling near the Luhansk city of Kreminna.
He was part of a camera crew working for the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, a large Russian broadcaster, Russian officials said. The crew worked for Vesti Luhansk, a Ukraine-based arm of the organization.
“We convey our condolences to the family of the deceased Yevgeny Polovodov,” Vesti Luhansk said in a post to the Telegram messaging app.
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A video, shared by state outlet Russia-1 and widely circulated on social media, appears to show the crew under fire and evacuating through a wooded area. Vesti Luhansk also posted a shorter version of the footage to social media. Newsweek could not independently verify the footage.
Denis Shum, a cameraman, was wounded, and Artem Yundas, a correspondent with the team, sustained a concussion, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said in a statement. They both received medical assistance, state media reported.
Following the shelling, Ukrainian forces chased the Russian crew with unmanned aerial vehicles, Zakharova said.
“We demand that relevant international structures resolutely condemn and take appropriate measures to respond to the ongoing series of terrorist attacks by the Kyiv clique and its agents against representatives of the domestic media sphere,” Zakharova added.
Russia’s investigative committee has launched an investigation, the body said in a statement.
Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian military for comment.
Moscow has annexed Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, along with the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. However, it does not fully control the regions, and Kyiv has vowed to roll back the Kremlin’s grip on the territories. Kreminna sits east of the current front lines, in Russian-controlled territory, and the area east of the city has been a fighting hot spot.
There were no confirmed changes along the front line sweeping down from the east of the Kharkiv city of Kupiansk, past the Russian-held city of Svatove and down to Kreminna, the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Wednesday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that its Western group of forces “improved the situation along the front line” close to Kupiansk. Ukraine lost up to 20 fighters, one tank, and three armored combat vehicles in the area over the previous 24 hours, Moscow said.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s military reported little Russian activity around Kupiansk over the past day.
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