You're reading: Ukrainian photo journalist killed in Donbas

Sergii Nikolaiev, senior photographer of Segodnya daily Ukrainian newspaper, died of wounds after a land mine exploded at the front line of Russia's war against Ukraine on Feb. 28.

The tragedy occurred in the village of Pisky located just 1.5 kilometers from Donetsk airport, which is now controlled by separatists.

“He was brought to the hospital of Krasnoarmiysk city alive, but the doctor said his wounds were fatal,” a source in Segodnia newspaper told the Kyiv Post without giving the name as he wasn’t authorized to work with the press. It was not immediately clear, whether Nikolayev worked in the east on assignment of Segodnia.

Nikolaiev, 43, was covering numerous conflict zones, including wars in Georgia, Libya, Syria and Somalia.

He has become the first Ukrainian journalist, who was killed in war in eastern Ukraine and the seventh one of the entire journalists’ death toll of this war. Five journalists from Russian and one from Italy were killed in this war last year, according to Ukrainian Institute of Mass Information.

“One more colleague killed in this damned war,” wrote on Facebook Volodymyr Shuvayev, a photo journalist with Agence-France Presse.