KNZ NEWS DESK
A Russian journalist has been killed in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, after Russian troops shelled a residential neighbourhood where she had been filming the damage from an earlier attack, according to her employer.
Oksana Baulina “died during a bombardment while carrying out an editorial assignment” in Kyiv’s Podil district, The Insider said on Wednesday.
The Russian investigative website, whose editorial offices are based in Latvia, said another civilian also died in the shelling.
Two other people who were with the Russian journalist were also wounded and admitted to hospital, it said.
The Insider said that Baulina had worked for the Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation until the organisation was designated “extremist” by the Russian authorities.
That prompted her to leave the country and continue reporting on corruption in Russia for The Insider, the news outlet said.
After Russia invaded Ukraine a month ago, Baulina filed several reports from Kyiv and Lviv in western Ukraine.
“The Insider expresses its deepest condolences to Oksana’s family and friends,” it said, adding that it will continue to cover the war in Ukraine, “including such Russian war crimes as indiscriminate shelling of residential areas killing civilians and journalists”.
Baulina’s colleagues took to social media to mourn her death.
Vladimir Milov, who worked with her at Navalny’s group, promised to avenge her.
“I will never forget her and to all those who are responsible for her death I promise that they won’t get away with (only) a trial and a verdict,” Milov said on Twitter.
Lyubov Sobol, another prominent member of Navalny’s team, wrote: “What an unbelievable horror.”
Sergiy Tomilenko, head of the Ukrainian journalists’ union, confirmed Baulina’s death in a statement on Facebook, saying she was reporting on the aftermath of a shelling when she was hit by fresh fire.
Earlier on Wednesday, Tomilenko’s group said a cameraman for a local television station in the besieged southern city of Mariupol had also died.
Other journalists killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine include a US videographer, a French-Irish cameraman and a Ukrainian producer.
