Updated on 10:56 a.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 5 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a decree to award the late Rossiya Segodnya photographer Andrei Stenin with an Order of Bravery posthumously, the Kremlin said on its website.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a decree to award for bravery and heroism shown during professional commitments and has awarded the Order of Bravery to Andrei [Stenin], a special photo correspondent from the Federal International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya," the Kremlin said in a statement.
A mourning ceremony in the news agency’s press center in Moscow is to be held from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. to pay last respects to the photojournalist. Later on, Stenin will be buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow at a plot not far from journalists Igor Kornelyuk, Anton Voloshin and Anatoly Klyan, who were also killed in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev announced that, according to information from the Russian Investigative Committee, Stenin, who went missing in Ukraine in early August, died about a month ago near Donetsk when the car he was traveling in while on an editorial assignment was shot at and torched on a highway just outside the city.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the attack was carried out by Ukrainian forces on a column of refugees guarded by several eastern Ukraine independence supporters. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has denied any involvement of Kiev’s militants in the tragedy.
President Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and other Russian officials have expressed their condolences over Stenin’s death.
Stenin could not be reached since August 5. Sources suggested that the Ukrainian military might have detained the journalist, but Kiev has never officially confirmed the allegations. Events in support of the journalist were held around the world while his fate remained unknown, with several international organizations expressing their support for the photographer.
