kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — About 100 people gathered at a church in kyiv on Monday to honor two Ukrainian journalists who were killed when a Russian drone crashed into their car in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
Both war correspondent Olena Hubanova, 43, who worked under the pseudonym Alyona Gramova, and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin died on Thursday, October 23, when a Russian Lancet drone hit their vehicle in Kramatorsk, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the front line.
It was the latest deadly attack on journalists covering the war in Ukraine. Earlier this month, a French photojournalist, Antoni Lallican, and a Ukrainian journalist, Grigoriy Ivanchenko, were injured in a similar attack. Ivanchenko later had one of his legs amputated.
The trend underlines the expansion of the danger zone near the front line, where any movement can be detected by drones and quickly attacked. The growing range of weapons, which now extend more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the front line, has made reporting there increasingly dangerous. Drones, whose operators can often see their targets, have become deadly not only to soldiers but to civilians as well.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, at least 135 media workers have been killed, according to the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.
The deaths of Gramova and Karmazin were confirmed by their employer, the state channel FreeDom TV, and the leader of the Donetsk region.
“From the first days of the large-scale Russian invasion, they covered the events in the Donetsk region, telling the truth about enemy crimes, evacuations of civilians and the stories of our defenders,” regional governor Vadym Filashkin wrote on Telegram. “They were always among the first to reach the hottest places.”
In a statement, FreeDom said Gramova constantly worked in the most dangerous areas of the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, “telling the world the truth about how Russian forces are destroying her home Donetsk region.”
Gramova was born in Yenakiieve, a city in the Donetsk region that has been under Russian occupation since 2014.
Karmazin, 33, was originally from Kramatorsk and had been working as a cameraman for the same network since 2021. He is survived by his wife and son.