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Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's comment on the latest attack on RIA Novosti journalists perpetrated by Kiev regime militants

17 October 2025 12:35
1718-17-10-2025

On October 16, in the Zaporozhye Region, Kiev regime militants once again attacked unarmed media personnel - this time, targeting a RIA Novosti film crew on an editorial assignment. A strike from an AFU drone carrying a deadly warhead killed frontline reporter Ivan Zuyev, who succumbed to numerous shrapnel wounds. His colleague, Yury Voitkevich, was gravely injured, urgently hospitalised, and is now receiving the necessary medical care.

We offer our sincere condolences, mourning together with the family, friends, and colleagues of Ivan Zuyev, who selflessly performed his professional duty until the final moment. We wish Yury Voitkevich a speedy and full recovery.

Dozens of accredited journalists and frontline reporters have been killed or injured due to the terrorist tactics of the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. For the Rossiya Segodnya media group, which includes the RIA Novosti agency, this is the third irreparable loss since the beginning of the conflict in Donbass. In 2014, they lost photojournalist Andrey Stenin, and in 2023, frontline reporter Rostislav Zhuravlev.

Deliberate attacks on civilians, a category that includes media workers under international law, have become routine practice for these Ukro-Banderite armed formations. Meanwhile, the relevant international organisations continue to turn a blind eye. Through their inaction, these organisations are, in effect, condoning the Zelensky regime's brutal crimes and consequently bear their own measure of responsibility for them. We demand that the relevant multilateral bodies - primarily the Director-General of UNESCO, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as other supranational human rights organisations - perform their duties in good faith. They must immediately condemn this latest atrocity committed by the Kiev regime militants and make every effort to prevent such attacks in the future.

We will persistently seek a proper legal assessment of this premeditated murder and other crimes against civilians committed by the Kiev junta from international bodies. Those responsible for the death of the Russian journalist will be identified and will face inevitable punishment.