Russia’s Drone Strike Kills Ukrainian Journalists Covering War Near Front Lines
Two journalists from Ukraine’s international broadcaster were killed in Kramatorsk on Wednesday after their vehicle was struck by a Russian Lancet loitering munition.
The Gaze reports this, referring to UATV Ukrainian.
43-year-old war correspondent Olena Hramova (Hubanova) and 33-year-old cameraman Yevhen Karmazin died when the drone hit their car at a gas station. A third team member, special correspondent Oleksandr Kolychiev, was wounded and taken to hospital for treatment.
Hramova, a native of Yenakiieve in the Donetsk region, had spent years reporting from the most dangerous front-line areas, documenting the devastation of her home region caused by Russian forces.
Originally trained as a finance specialist, she turned to journalism after Russia launched its aggression in 2014, saying that telling the world the truth about her homeland became her calling.
“For me, the war began in 2014,” Hramova once said in an interview. “Kramatorsk, where I lived, was under occupation for more than two months. I saw too much during that time. Back then, I wasn’t a journalist, just a citizen and later a volunteer. But I understood that my mission was to speak about what was happening.”
Since 2021, she had worked as a war correspondent for Ukraine’s state broadcasting network. In June 2023, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded her the Order of Princess Olga, 3rd Class, for her courage and dedication.
Her colleague Yevhen Karmazin was born in Kramatorsk and joined Ukraine’s international broadcasting channels as a cameraman in 2021. Friends and coworkers described him as a talented professional committed to showing the world the human side of war.
Ukraine’s international broadcaster expressed deep condolences to the victims’ families and condemned Russia’s continued attacks on civilians and media representatives in Ukraine.
The deaths of Hramova and Karmazin add to a growing list of Ukrainian and foreign journalists killed while covering Russia’s war, underscoring the grave dangers faced by media workers reporting from the front lines.
As The Gaze previously reported, since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the war has claimed the lives of 232 artists and 114 Ukrainian and foreign media workers.