A veteran cameraman working for Russia’s Channel One was killed in eastern Ukraine when a bus carrying journalists and soldiers’ mothers was hit by gunfire, the station said yesterday.
Anatoly Klyan, 68, who had worked for the state channel for 40 years, was the fifth journalist to be killed since the fighting began in April between Ukrainian government troops and armed pro-Russia separatists.
Channel One said its crew was traveling late Sunday to a Ukrainian military base with mothers of conscripts hoping to bring their sons home when their bus came under attack near Avdiivka, a village just north of the city of Donetsk.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry blamed the attack on Ukrainian soldiers and demanded an objective investigation into the attack and for those responsible to be punished.
Video footage of the attack broadcast on Channel One showed Klyan continuing to film inside the bus even after he was shot in the stomach, stopping only when he grew weak and telling his colleagues “I can’t hold the camera any longer.” Other journalists helped him into a passing car to be taken to a nearby medical center, but the television station said doctors were unable to save him.
The bus driver also was hit in the head. He was filmed holding his left hand to his bloody, shaven head while continuing to drive with his right hand until it was safe to stop.
Channel One said the trip was organized by the rebel fighters and that the bus, whose driver was wearing camouflage, came under fire as it approached the military base.
Ukrainian conscripts serving in eastern Ukraine tend to be from the region, where the majority of the population is Russian-speaking.
