Ukraine's deadliest year as an independent nation also claimed the lives of five journalists, more than any other year.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Dec. 23 that at least 60 journalists were killed globally in relation to their work in 2014, compared with 70 killed in 2013. The past three years are the most deadly period that the advocacy group has ever recorded.
“This is the most dangerous time to be a journalist we have ever seen,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director, according to a press release. “Historically, local journalists have always borne the brunt of the danger, and this is still the case. But the increased attacks on international journalists show that in the current environment, everyone is a target.”
The death toll includes five journalists killed in Ukraine amid revolution and war. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the five victims in Ukraine are:
Vyacheslav Veremiy, Vesti, Feb. 19, 2014, in Kyiv, Ukraine
Veremiy, 32, reporter for the Kiev-based daily newspaper Vesti, died at a Kiev hospital where he was treated for severe blood loss after being shot in the chest the day before, his employer reported. According to news reports, the journalist was assaulted by a group of armed and masked men whom he had reportedly filmed from a car at an intersection in downtown Kiev.
Vesti said the assailants stopped the taxi that Veremiy and Aleksei Lymarenko, his colleague at the news outlet, were taking home from work late on February 18. The assailants forced the journalists and the driver out of the vehicle and brutally attacked them with baseball bats. They also shot Veremiy in the chest.
Vesti, which carried out an independent probe into the attack, cited statements by the driver and Lymarenko in its report that stated Veremiy was targeted because he started filming the assailants from the taxi.
A local news website TSN published a video of the attack on Veremiy, which had been recorded by the witnesses. The footage showed several men beating Veremiy with baseball bats until he was able to escape and seek help from the passers-by.
Vesti reviewed videos taken at the scene and suggested that Vermiy was killed by a group of pro-government protesters, who are known locally as “titushki.”
Kiev police opened the probe into the killing.
Vesti reported that Veremiy had been injured while covering protests in Kiev in January. The journalist was wounded in his left eye and left arm when a stun grenade exploded near him, the reports said.
Andrei Mironov, Memorial, May 24, 2014, in Andreyevka, Ukraine
Mironov, 60, was killed outside the eastern city of Sloviansk after a mortar shell exploded in the ditch where he and Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli were hiding from an unexpected attack, regional and international press reported. A French photojournalist, William Roguelon, was also wounded in the attack, reports said.
Mironov, Rocchelli, and Roguelon were covering clashes in Sloviansk between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russia separatists at the time of the attack, according to news reports. Roguelon, who works for the French news agency Wostok Press, said they were traveling by car in the village of Andreyevka, outside Sloviansk when their car was attacked first by gunfire and then mortar shelling. Roguelon fled from the vehicle, while Rocchelli and Mironov took shelter in a nearby ditch, where they were killed by shrapnel, reports said.
Mironov, 60, was a well-known Russian human rights activist with the prominent human rights organization Memorial. Rocchelli was the founder of Cesura photo agency and contributed to various international publications including Newsweek magazine and Le Monde newspaper, reports said. According to the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian service, both journalists had documented human rights issues in conflict zones.
Igor Kornelyuk, VGTRK June 17, 2014, in Metallist, Ukraine
Kornelyuk, 37, correspondent for the Russian state-owned broadcaster VGTRK, died at a local hospital in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, from wounds he sustained in a mortar attack near the village of Metallist, Russian and international media reported.
Russian media reported that Kornelyuk and his VGTRK colleagues, sound engineer Anton Voloshin and cameraman Viktor Denisov, had traveled to Metallist to film local residents’ flight from the conflict area. Reports said that after the crew arrived at a separatists’ improvised checkpoint, they separated: Kornleyuk and Voloshin walked with a group of separatists, while Denisov stayed with the residents. The shelling began a few minutes later, severely wounding Kornleyuk and killing Voloshin, VGTRK said. Denisov was unharmed.
Separatists took Kornelyuk to a local hospital, where he was treated for his wounds, but he died during surgery.
The Russian service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty citing witnesses reported that none of the VGTRK crew members were wearing protective gear.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko issued a statement calling for a thorough investigation of the attack.
Anton Voloshin, VGTRK, June 24, 2014, in Metallist, Ukraine
Voloshin, 26, sound engineer for the Russian state-owned broadcaster VGTRK, died in a mortar attack near the village of Metallist, outside the eastern city of Lugansk, Russian and international media reported.
Russian media reported that Voloshin, and his VGTRK colleagues, journalist Igor Kornelyuk and cameraman Viktor Denisov, had traveled to the village to film local residents’ flight from the conflict area. Reports said that after the crew arrived at a separatists’ improvised checkpoint, they separated: Kornleyuk and Voloshin walked with a group of separatists, while Denisov stayed with the residents. The shelling began a few minutes later, severely wounding Kornleyuk and killing Voloshin, VGTRK said. Denisov was unharmed.
VGTRK first reported Voloshin as missing, but later said he died in the attack.
The Russian service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty citing witnesses reported that none of the VGTRK crew members were wearing protective gear.
Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko issued a statement calling for a thorough investigation of the attack.
Andrei Stenin, Rossiya Segodnya Aug. 6, 2014, in Snizhne, Ukraine
Stenin, 33, a photojournalist with Russian state-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya (previously RIA Novosti), was last heard from on August 5, 2014, when he was reporting on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including from the cities of Donetsk and Sloviansk, his newsroom reported.
Dmitry Steshin and Aleksandr Kots, journalists for the pro-Kremlin newspaperKomsomolskaya Pravda, went in search of Stenin and on August 22 published an article on their findings. The article, which was later removed from Komsomolskaya Pravda’swebsite but was available in Google cache, said the two journalists found a car, similar to the one in which Stenin was last seen, that had been burned and had three charred bodies inside with professional photo equipment in the trunk. The two reported that the car was found in a field near the town of Snizhne.
On September 3, Russian authorities and news outlets reported that Stenin had been killed in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine the day after he went missing.
In a statement released the same day, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Stenin was killed on August 6 during what they said was a Ukrainian army attack on a column of cars carrying refugees from the east and guarded by a group of pro-Russia separatists. The authorities did not support their allegations with any evidence, and did not say how they determined the source of fire or the date of Stenin’s death. The statement said DNA tests had confirmed that the body inside the car was Stenin’s. Investigators for the committee said separatists gave the photojournalist’s remains to Russian authorities on August 27.
The other two victims were not immediately identified.
The Investigative Committee and Rossiya Segodnya accused Ukrainian paratroopers with the 79th airborne brigade of killing Stenin during the alleged attack in August. Aleksandr Danilyuk, from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, denied the accusations, and told the BBC’s Russian service he had seen no evidence that proved Stenin was killed by Ukrainian soldiers.
Following the journalist’s disappearance, an official with Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, suggested in an interview with the Latvian radio station Baltkom that Stenin might have been detained in the conflict area by Ukraine’s security services. Gerashchenko later retracted his statement, telling Rossiya Segodnya that his words had been taken out of context.
In a statement, reported by Rossiya Segodnya, Gerashchenko said on September 3 that Ukrainian authorities did not have access to the separatist-controlled region where Stenin was believed to have been killed, and so were unable to conduct an investigation. “We cannot conduct a probe without access to the body,” Gerashchenko said.
