You're reading: Murdered journalist had wife, son

Vyacheslav Veremiy’s last story was published on the on the Feb. 18 morning that he was shot to death.

The 32-year-old Vesti journalist’s story was headlined “Pechersk blockade.” In it, Veremiy described how the inhabitants of residential buildings near the scene of the deadly Feb. 18 clashes were reacting to the gunshots and blasts.

“The citizens couldn’t call a doctor and complain about their houses shaking,” Veremiy wrote.

Veremiy was killed in Kyiv early on Feb. 18 on his way home at night in a taxi, another victim of Kyiv’s growing lawlessness. A group of unknown men in balaclavas shot him at the intersection of Volodymyrska and Velyka Zhytomyrska streets.

The mortally wounded journalist died a couple of hours later in a hospital emergency room.

According to Iryna Kasyanova, Veremiy’s colleague in Vesti, on midnight he and the newspaper’s IT specialist Oleksiy Lymarenko took a taxi to get home.  At around 1 a.m. the car approached the intersection of Volodymyrska and Velyka Zhytomyrska streets, and saw a group of men wearing helmets, balaclavas and camouflage attacking passing cars.

“They were armed with guns, grenades and bats,” Kasyanova told the Kyiv Post. “Some cars managed to break through these thugs. Unfortunately, our guys were not that lucky. The grenade hit the taxi and the car was immobilized.”

Veremiy, Lymarenko and a taxi driver were pulled out of the car and severely beaten. Lymarenko suffered a serious head injury. “Lymarenko called us and told what happened, but he knew nothing about Veremiy as the thugs dragged them away from each other,” she said.

Lymarenko refused to give any comments.

“Our newsroom went mad trying to find Veremiy. We called everywhere – police, ambulances, hospitals,” recalls Kasyanova.

At 3 a.m. after two hours of intense search the journalists found their colleague in the emergency hospital. They were told by doctors that Veremiy was not only shot in his heart, he also got many serious damages of internal organs.

“We understood that he had a little chance to survive, but we all hoped for a miracle,” says Kasyanova, barely holding in tears.

Veremiy died around 3 a.m. on Feb. 19. He had a wife and a four-year old son.

“I am shocked, I can’t believe he is gone,” says reporter Iryna Guk who used to work with him at Vesti.

“Slavko (Veremiy) was very kind and tactful. He knew how to smooth the rough edges and never had conflicts with anyone,” Kasyanova said. “Everybody in our newsroom loved him.”

Feb. 18 was the first working day for Veremiy after he had gone through a long medical treatment after his eye was injured on Jan. 20 during the clashes on Hrushevskoho Street.

“He did not have to go to work,” Kasyanova says, adding that another journalist had to work this day. “It’s a tragic coincidence. He should not have died so early.”

It does not appear that Veremiy was targeted for violence because of his profession. There evidently was no way that his assailants knew that he was a working journalist. As such, his death is part of the growing lawlessness on the streets in Ukraine as police and protesters continue with their violent clashes and politicians fail to resolve Ukraine’s three-month-old political criiss.

However, violence against journalists has been on the rise during the anti-government EuroMaidan demosntrations that began on Feb. 21.

“This is the first death of a journalist for a long period of time after the murders of Heorhiy Gongadze in 2000 and Vasyl Klimentyev in 2010,” says Oksana Romaniuk, executive director of the Mass Media Institute, a Kyiv-based media watchdog.

Romaniuk explained that journalists are not targeted, even during wars, but appear to be in Ukraine.

“On Feb. 18, when Berkut riot police cleaned up Kyiv streets using tear gas and stun grenades, 27 journalists were injured,” Romaniuk said, adding that a total of 167 Ukrainian journalists were wounded since anti-government protests started on Nov. 21.

“Regarding the level of violence against journalists, Ukraine is far behind Turkey and now is approaching that of Egypt,” Romaniuk added.

The International Federation of Journalists and the European Federation of Journalists condemned the Veremiy’s murder and countless injuries of other journalists during the latest violent outbreaks in Ukraine.

Vesti newspaper is a news outlet of unknown ownership. While most of the 370,000 copies that Vesti prints daily are distributed for free, the newspaper has no advertisers. Secret ownership, free distribution and some questionable reporting make many believe that the newspaper is controlled by  a person close to the government and president Yanukovych.

Veremiy worked in My City section of Vesti and wrote numerous stories about EuroMaidan and its impact on the life of Kyivans. His article from Dec. 27 about prostitutes leaving their usual spots at Okruzhna Road to seek clients on EuroMaidan was one of his more notable pieces of reporting on the crisis.

Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]