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'No
chance to survive': Rossiya TV journalists Kornelyuk and Voloshin
killed in Ukraine shelling
RT,
18
June, 2014
Born
and raised in Ukraine, Igor Kornelyuk worked as a journalist for over
15 years. He went to Ukraine to cover bloodshed there, but never
returned home. His colleague sound engineer Anton Voloshin was killed
alongside him in Ukraine’s army shelling.
Igor
Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin both worked for Rossiya TV channel. They
are the first Russian journalists to have died while on professional
duty in Ukraine since the coup in Kiev and the beginning of civil
unrest in eastern regions.
There
were three of them: reporter Igor Kornelyuk, sound engineer Anton
Voloshin and cameraman Viktor Denisov, who miraculously survived the
shelling.
On
Tuesday, they were working on a report on Ukrainian refugees fleeing
the town of Metallist in Lugansk region in the east of the country.
Their story was expected to be aired in the evening news.
“So
we arrived there and took a look, and the guys did some filming. And
then they said, 'Let’s call on a checkpoint we visited yesterday,
the guys manning it are friendly, and we can get some good footage
there. So we went,'” a
taxi driver who accompanied the crew now recalls.
As
their car arrived at the scene, the crew got out of the vehicle to
explore and record some footage. Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin
were assisted by the self-defense forces, who were to guide them
closer to the fighting.
However
they had not gone far when a shell hit directly in the spot where
they were standing. Their taxi driver, who at that moment was waiting
by the car about 50 meters from them and witnessed the attack, says
they had no chance to survive.
“So
they all stood there, looking around. That’s when I heard a loud
whizz and then, two mortar hits. They impacted right in the middle of
that bunch of people. There was a bright flash… and the next thing
I know, one of the guys’ green T-shirt drops right next to me, with
his guts still inside it,” the
driver says nearly crying.
At
the time of two direct hits, “the
group consisted of 10 men,” LifeNews
correspondent at the scene told Rossiya 24 later. “Three
of them were journalists, seven were members of the militia.”
READ
MORE: ‘100%
aimed action’: Ukraine military shelled refugees, Russian
journalists, survivor recalls
Just
a couple of hours before Kornelyuk and Voloshin left to report on
their last story, Russian journalist Nikolay Varsegov of
Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper spoke with Igor as the two lived in
one hotel on the same floor with their doors right across from each
other.
“We
are going to Metallist, are you with us?” Varsegov
remembers Kornelyuk offering. But he stayed at the hotel, which may
have saved his life. Varsegov however immediately rushed to the scene
upon seeing the attack out of his window and hearing ambulances.
Kornelyuk
was still alive as he was lying on the surgery table. But the doctor
in the intensive care unit said he had no chance of surviving.
Medical
staff said the journalist's phone was ringing throughout the entire
trip. “I
answered the call,” the
paramedic said. “It
was his mother. I told her that he was wounded, but did not tell her
how severely.”
“She
asked me if I can pass on the phone to her son. I replied that he
suffered a contusion and could not talk. She started asking me how to
reach Lugansk and what medication is needed.”
Igor
Kornelyuk was 37-years-old. He was born in the Ukrainian city of
Zaporozhie. Kornelyuk who started his career with VGTRK in Yamal,
worked as a journalist outside the country, but he last returned
there on June 1 to cover events in south-eastern Ukraine. Kornelyuk
is survived by his wife and seven-year old daughter.
His
colleagues from Murmansk, in northern Russia called him a true
professional, for whom reporting was the main goal in life. His
motto, they say was to be at the center of news and events as they
unfolded.
“He
was rooting for work, work was the most important thing to him. When
he was offered to be a correspondent on a federal level, he
immediately accepted it. It is most likely that he went to Ukraine
not for money but because he was worried about the country. He was a
true patriot, in the best sense of the word,” his
former colleague Dmitry Visotsky told RIA Novosti.
RT
contributor Graham Phillips who himself was previously detained for
covering the news from Ukraine, said that he was “proud” of
his colleague, who was an inspiration and hero to “live
eternally.”
Sound engineer Anton Voloshin was first considered missing but his body was found later on Tuesday evening.
“The body, or – to be more precise – the remains have been found. They have been found right at the scene of a mortar attack in the community of Metallist,” according to a spokesman for the Lugansk People's Republic.
The
Russian investigation committee has started a criminal case into the
murder of the two journalists. When making the announcement Russian
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the“so-called
members of the National Guard and Ukrainian authorities first
abducted journalists and tortured them” and
now “switched
to killings.”
Russian
President Vladimir Putin and PM Dmitry Medvedev have expressed their
condolences to the families of the victims. The President of Ukraine
also followed suit, yet Washington pointed out that it does not yet
possess information confirming the deaths of Russian journalists, but
if confirmed “certainly
expresses condolences.”
Despite
the tragic incident Russian TV channels are not planning to remove
their crews from Ukraine.“Remaining
there reflects the need of our viewers,” Deputy
Chief of Russia's Channel 1 said, claiming the current Ukrainian
authorities would welcome Russian news crew departure, “because
it is very convenient to level to the ground of entire cities when no
one is there to tell about it.”
Fellow
journalists’ immediate reaction was a “willingness to go to
Ukraine and tell the truth about the events on the ground,” LifeNews
chief Ashot Gabrelyanov said, claiming that Ukrainian “fear
tactics” will
not deter Russian professional reporting
RT's
Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan pointed out that Ukraine's
conflict has the most difficult conditions for journalists in term of
covering the events. Expressing deep condolences to the families of
the victims, Simonyan said that Kiev's authorities aim to create
a “total
silence, so that no one can report on what is actually going on in
south-east where they are killing their own people.”
See also: ‘100% aimed action’: Ukraine military shelled refugees, Russian journalists, survivor recalls
Russian
journalists KILLED in East Ukraine: Western journalist are silent.
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