Ukraine's human rights chief outlines scale of Russian crimes against media

Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said this during the conference-debate "Journalists matter: a call for the release of Ukrainian journalists detained by the Russian Federation", which took place during the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, UNIAN reports.

"We know that Russia has committed more than 600 crimes against Ukrainian journalists and the media in general in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. 82 media professionals have been killed. 34 journalists have been injured. 14 media professionals have gone missing. 25 journalists are illegally detained by the Russian Federation," Lubinets said, adding that the figures are not final.

The human rights chief noted that Russians illegally abduct journalists in the occupied territories and deliberately kill them, despite the appropriate markings on the clothes of war correspondents.

"When Russians see the inscription "press", this person becomes a target for Russian soldiers... There are many examples when journalists with this inscription "press" were killed by Russian snipers. Just because they had this inscription "press" on their clothes," he said.

Lubinets stressed that Ukraine calls on the international community to increase diplomatic and political pressure on Russia to release all Ukrainian journalists it is illegally detaining.

• On April 20, Ukrainian journalist and defender of Ukraine Andriy Topchiy was killed while performing a combat mission in Zaporizhzhia region near the village of Robotyne.
• In June, during the fighting near Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region, an employee of the Ukrainian News media outlet, a mechanized company commander and junior lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Petrakovskyi, did not return from a combat mission.