According to local authorities, reporters were deliberately targeted in Kherson
Vehicles seen queuing amid evacuation of civilians from Kherson, Russia on October 20, 2022. © Sputnik / Yevgeniy Biyatov
At least one journalist was killed and several others injured in an overnight Ukrainian strike on a crossing point over the Dnepr River in the city of Kherson, a senior official with Russia’s Civic Chamber said on Friday.
“We have 10 journalists alone injured, one died. Two relatives of the journalists were killed, another one is in a critical condition,” Aleksandr Malkevich told the broadcaster Rossiya 24.
Earlier, the deputy head of the Kherson Region administration, Kirill Stremousov, said the strike had killed four civilians. A further 13 were wounded, according to the local health service. Stremousov claimed that the Ukrainian military targeted “the journalists deliberately, to eliminate those who are covering the situation in Kherson Region.”
Multiple journalists with the local Tavria broadcaster were caught in the strike, including the channel’s director, Oleg Klokov, who was killed, according to Stremousov. Other reporters working with the channel, Konstantin Mochar and Vlada Lugovskaya, as well as Tavria cameraman Ruslan Voskresensky, suffered injuries of varying severity.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the attack. Ukrainian “nationalists” have targeted evacuating civilians with HIMARS “cluster munitions” to try and inflict heavier casualties on them, the Committee said in a statement, condemning the “blatant cynicism of the Kiev regime.”
According to local emergency services, the attack was carried out with the use of US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers. The Ukrainian troops fired at least 12 missiles at the river crossing near the Antonovsky Bridge, which had been damaged in previous repeated strikes, with 11 of the munitions intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses.
The attack came as Russia announced the relocation of civilians from the right bank of the Dnepr river in Kherson Region, citing the overall “tense” situation on the frontline, as well as intelligence on Kiev’s plans destroy the dam of a local hydroelectric power plant. Some 15,000 civilians have been relocated already, with a total of 60,000 planned to be evacuated.
