Russian state-run newspaper Izvestia said one of its freelance journalists was killed in a drone strike near the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow accused Ukrainian forces of deliberately targeting Alexander Martemyanov. Ukraine did not comment.
Izvestia said the civilian vehicle carrying Martemyanov crashed while traveling on a highway in Russian-occupied territory.
Four other journalists were reportedly injured in the same attack.
“Ukrainian forces carried out a drone attack on a civilian vehicle carrying Izvestia freelance correspondent Alexander Martemyanov,” the news outlet reported on its Telegram channel.
“The vehicle was well away from the line of contact.”
The vehicle was returning from cover artillery fire in the Russian-occupied city of Horlivka when it was attacked, the Russian state-run RIA news agency reported.
Russian media reported that two male correspondents of Ria and two female reporters from local media outlet Bloknot Donetsk were also injured and received treatment at the hospital.
Martemyanov, who has worked at Izvestia since 2014, was injured in an attack on Ukraine’s Donetsk last year but returned to work after recovering, his newspaper said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the incident “deliberate murder.”
In a statement, she described the incident as “another brutal crime in a series of bloody atrocities” committed by the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The European Union blocked Russian media outlets, including Izvestia and Ria, in May. They said they “spread and support Russian propaganda and war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Before Martemyanov’s death, the International Union of Journalists said: At least 21 Ukrainian journalists killed This is after Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
