Russian drone strikes German newspaper Die Welt team in eastern Ukraine, 3 wounded
German newspaper Die Welt's chief reporter Ibrahim Naber and his team came under a Russian Lancet drone attack while working in eastern Ukraine on Oct. 13, injuring him and two other crew members.
Naber said in an Oct. 28 Instagram post that his team had just finished interviewing a Ukrainian soldier with an air defense unit around 25-30 kilometers from the front line when the Lancet struck — killing the soldier he had just interviewed. Another soldier suffered a serious injury that led to a leg amputation, he added.
The reporting team was a few meters away from the three-man air defense crew, who were on duty to down Russian long-range drones flying toward Ukrainian cities, according to Naber.
"They saved many lives — before the attack hit them," Naber said.
The Russian drone attack on Naber's team comes as it becomes increasingly dangerous for journalists to work near the front in Ukraine, with Russia expanding its "kill zone" with its extensive stocks of drones that can fly deeper into the rear areas. In October, two Russian drone attacks have killed three journalists working in eastern Donetsk Oblast.
Asami Terajima
Ukrainian producer Ivan Zakharenko, who was working with Naber, received the most serious injury on the Die Welt team, with one of two pieces of shrapnel still lodged in his leg, according to Naber.
In an Instagram post, Zakharenko wrote that a shrapnel fragment lodged in Naber’s ear, and camera operator Viktor Lysenko, who was filming the attack, received a concussion. A video of the attack was included in an Oct. 27 Die Welt report.
Earlier on Oct. 23, Ukrainian journalist Olena Hramova and her cameraman, Yevhen Karmazin, working for Freedom TV, were killed by a Russian drone strike in Kramatorsk.
At the beginning of the month, French photojournalist Antoni Lallican was killed and Ukrainian photographer Heorhii Ivanchenko was severely injured in an Oct. 3 drone strike while working with the 4th Mechanized Brigade in Donetsk Oblast.
As of Oct. 9, Russia has killed at least 133 media workers in Ukraine, including those who had joined the military, and committed 848 crimes against journalists and media outlets, according to the Institute of Mass Information (IMI).
The Kyiv Independent news desk
