MOSCOW, October 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Investigative Committee said Friday it has handed over to MIA (International Information Agency) Rossiya Segodnya a camera lens belonging to its photojournalist Andrei Stenin, who was killed in eastern Ukraine in August.
Along with the lens, Rossiya Segodnya received parts of the license plate from the car that Stenin was traveling in when he died.
"We understand how important the memory of your heroic colleague is, that's why the committee has decided to hand these objects over to you. I hope that they will be freely accessible, to remind everyone of the terrible tragedy that befell our journalists and have generally occurred in Ukraine. And maybe someday they could be displayed in a museum of journalism that could be created on the basis of MIA Rossiya Segodnya," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
Rossiya Segodnya's representative confirmed that the agency has received the objects.
"The lens was badly burned, it was found in a burnt out car in which the body of Andrei had been found earlier," the head of the agency's photo information department Alexander Shtol said.
International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya photojournalist Andrei Stenin is the fourth Russian journalist to lose their life covering the events in southeastern Ukraine, where the Kiev forces launched a military operation against independence supporters in mid-April.
Stenin went missing on August 5. On September 3, Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev said Russian investigators confirmed that Stenin died near the city of Donetsk a month earlier.
The photojournalist was in a car, traveling in a convoy of at least 10 vehicles carrying civilians and guarded by several members of self-defense forces, when it came under heavy fire from the Ukrainian military.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked Kiev to carry out a through investigation into Stenin's murder.
President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and other senior Russian politicians expressed their condolences over the loss of the journalist.
