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Swedish journalists attacked by Russian drone in Ukraine

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A car of two Swedish news channel TV4 journalists came under an attack by a Russian drone in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, leaving them unharmed but injuring their local Ukrainian producer and two policemen, TV4 reported on Sept. 20.

The attack was said to have taken place at 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 19. Reporter Johan Fredriksson and photographer Daniel Zdolseks stepped out of their car just as a drone hit the back of their vehicle.

"This time we were lucky. A Russian attack drone crashed right into the back door of our car, fortunately, there was no one in the car," Fredriksson said.

While the two reporters escaped without wounds, their local producer, Oleksandr Pavlov, and two Ukrainian policemen accompanying the team reportedly suffered light injuries.

The car and the camera equipment have been destroyed, the journalists said.

Darina Levada, the chief police investigator in Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, told TV4 that the incident is being investigated as a war crime.

Not all journalists who came under Russian fire when reporting from Ukraine's battlefields have escaped unharmed. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said in June that 63 journalists from 14 countries, including Ukraine, have been killed since the start of the full-scale invasion.

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Martin Fornusek

Senior News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.

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The Kyiv Independent staff documented what it feels like to live and sleep in Kyiv, Ukraine, as Russia intensifies its drone and missile attacks on the city. Filmed over several weeks in June and July, our journalists take shelter in bathrooms, basements, and parking garages as explosions ring out overhead.

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