Story highlights
VGTRK correspondent Igor Kornelyuk was killed in mortar shelling Tuesday
Kornelyuk was covering the crisis in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk
The crew's sound engineer is missing
Media watchdog: Death shows that "not enough is being done to protect journalists" in Ukraine
A Russian television reporter was killed Tuesday while covering the crisis in Ukraine, according to state-run media.
Igor Kornelyuk, a correspondent with Russia’s state-run VGTRK, came under mortar fire along with his crew near the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a regional security bloc.
Kornelyuk later died at a Luhansk hospital, said ITAR-Tass, a Russian government news agency.
“This death is yet another horrid reminder that not enough is being done to protect journalists who risk their lives reporting from conflict zones in Ukraine,” said Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE’s representative on freedom of the media.
Mijatovic also said the crew’s sound engineer, Anton Voloshin, is missing.
Much of the conflict has been centered in Luhansk. On Monday, hundreds of pro-Russian militants carried out a coordinated assault on a border guard base there. Five of those militants were killed in the attack, said Oleg Slobodyan, the spokesman for the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service. Seven people were also killed Monday in a separate attack at a Luhansk government building, health officials said.
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