The Ukrainian war correspondent Olena Hubanova, known by her journalist pseudonym Alyona Hramova, and her colleague, cameraman Yevhen Karmazin, were killed on Thursday, October 23, following a drone strike while they were reporting in Kramatorsk, a city in the east of the country, about twenty kilometers from the front line.

The journalists were at a petrol station in Kramatorsk, city in Eastern Ukraine, to report on its previous day’s bombardment. Both Alyona Hramova and Yevhen Karmazin were reporters, covering the Russian war in the Donbas for the Ukrainian state-funded broadcaster Freedom TV. They were renowned within the Ukrainian journalistic community for their coverage of the war and the daily lives of civilians from close to the frontline.

According to initial reports from Ukrainian authorities, the  drone strike took place at 9:37 a.m. and was carried out by a Russian Lancet kamikaze drone, a remotely piloted aircraft equipped with a camera that can target precise positions. The drone struck the Freedom TV crew’s parked car. The journalists, who were near the car with their cameras, had left their protective equipment inside the vehicle.

Alyona Hramova, 43, and Yevhen Karmazin, 33, were killed instantly. Their colleague, Oleksandr Kolychev, was hit by drone shrapnel and suffered a compound fracture. He was taken to hospital. Ukrainian judicial officials announced that a preliminary investigation was being opened into war crimes.

“Two Ukrainian reporters – Alyona Hramova and Yevhen Karmazin – have been killed in a Russian drone attack in Kramatorsk. RSF expresses its condolences to their relatives. This attack comes 20 days after another Russian drone strike killed French photojournalist Antoni Lallican and seriously injured his colleague Georgiy Ivanchenko. Three dead and two injured in one month – RSF is alarmed by these drone attacks against media professionals. Journalists are not targets; they must be protected.

Second attack in a month 

French photojournalist Antoni Lallican was killed by a targeted drone strike while reporting about 20 km from the front line in the Donbas on 3 October. His Ukrainian colleague Georgiy Ivanchenko had a leg amputated. Sixteen journalists have been killed for covering the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched in 2022.