Casualties are the consequence of war. This is reality. Civilians, children, are caught in the rampage as much as soldiers, defenders and oppressors. Reporters, too, are sent into those fields and valleys, facing the same consequences. There is a demand to know though reality in war is malleable.
RAI Novosti war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev succumbed from injuries in the Ukraine conflict zone, noted the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) (July 24). According to a Russian Federation Defense Ministry statement he and other Russian reporters, including two working for newspaper Izvestia, were injured by cluster munitions applied by Ukrainian forces.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched an artillery strike on a group of journalists from the MITS Izvestia and RIA Novosti news agencies, who were preparing materials about the Ukrainian army’s artillery shelling with cluster munitions in populated areas of Zaporizhzhya Oblast,” This “assassination by cluster munitions” became the major talking point of official Russian media.
Mr. Zhuravlev may have come to southern Ukraine for other purposes, reports emerged. Stop Fake in 2014 published his photograph as a pro-Russian propagandist supporting separatists in Donesk, including the takeover of administrative buildings. He was awarded a medal and called for “revenge on Kyiv,” noted Detector Media (July 26). News agency RAI Novosti operates in harmony with other official outlets, including RT, formerly Russia Today. Only news outlets officially sanctioned by the government are allowed to function in the Russian Federation.
With the IFJ statement commingling the deaths of journalists in Ukraine with more partisan individuals, which was repeated by UNESCO, demands were made for “immediate” investigations. Several dozen Ukrainian media workers and outlets, including Interfax-Ukraine, Detector Media and Internews Ukraine, as the Mediarukh association voiced outrage, reported Swissinfo (July 25) and El Mundo (July 26). “Russian media and their employees who actively produce propaganda and participate in the Russian military aggression in Ukraine must be justly punished for their actions that led to the instigation of war and the mass destruction of Ukrainian citizens,” said the statement. “Propagandists are direct antagonists of journalists.”