MOSCOW, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russian TV crew from REN-TV television channel came under fire in Donetsk, according to REN-TV official website.
“REN-TV reporters came under fire in Donetsk. One day before a ceasefire comes into effect, Ukrainian Army has shelled city center,” a statement on the website reads.
Press freedom in Ukraine has steadily deteriorated since Kiev launched military operation in southeastern Ukraine aimed at suppressing independence supporters. Journalists have been detained, kidnapped, tortured and killed.
On Wednesday morning, Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev announced that the agency’s photojournalist Andrei Stenin, who went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5, died about a month ago just outside Donetsk.
Stenin was the fourth Russian journalist killed in the Ukrainian conflict.
In June, a cameraman for Russia’s Channel-1 television station was fatally wounded in the stomach. Prior to that, a reporter and a sound engineer from Russia’s VGTRK media holding were killed in a mortar attack near Luhansk.
Ukraine's southeast has been under fire since mid-April. Over 2,600 people have been killed and more than 6,000 injured since Kiev launched its military operation.
Southeastern regions are currently in a state of humanitarian catastrophe, with citizens struggling without water and electricity.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he will order a ceasefire in the southeast of the country at 2 p.m. local time on September 5.
