Ukrainians gathered at a Kyiv church on Monday to mourn and honor two journalists who were killed by a Russian drone while reporting near the eastern frontlines.
War correspondent Olena Hubanova, who worked under the pseudonym Alyona Gramova, and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin were killed Thursday when a Russian Lancet drone slammed into their car in Kramatorsk, about 12 miles from the front line.
The duo are the latest journalists killed in the Ukraine war, with priest Viktor Zhyvchyk hailing them for their work during the side-by-side funeral service at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery.
“Defending the truth is one of the highest forms of love for one’s neighbor,” Zhyvchyk said. “In their effort to show the truth to the world, these journalists gave their lives.”
FreeDom, the state-funded station where Hubanova worked, said she was constantly working in the most dangerous areas in Donetsk, where the fighting remains the most intense as Russia continues its onslaught to try and conquer the oblast after nearly four years of war.
Despite the danger, the channel said the local correspondent was committed to “telling the world the truth about how Russian forces are destroying her native Donetsk region.”
Olha Mykhaliuk, a colleague who worked with Hubanova and Karmazin, was among those who attended the funeral with blue and yellow flowers, Ukraine’s colors.
“Attacks on journalists have become more frequent. The enemy sees it as a kind of victory,” Mykhaliuk said.
Donetsk region Gov. Vadym Filashkin, who confirmed the journalists’ death on Thursday, said they had been well-known in the oblast for their coverage of the carnage that has taken place for more than three years.
“Since the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, they covered events in the Donetsk region, telling the truth about enemy crimes, evacuations of civilians and the stories of our defenders,” Filashkin said in a statement.
“They were always among the first to arrive in the hottest spots,” he added.
Strikes on journalists covering the war have been common, with at least 135 media workers killed since Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky slammed the strike that killed Hubanova and Karmazin — which left another reporter injured — as an attempt to silence the truth of the ongoing siege in Donetsk.
“These are not accidents or mistakes, but a deliberate Russian strategy to silence all independent voices reporting about Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Moscow has yet to provide a statement over the strike on the journalists.
With Post wires
