Kiev deliberately targets journalists, law norms for protecting them — Russian diplomat

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

The Kiev regime intentionally targets Russian reporters and undermines legal protections for them, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS.

Commenting on a report saying that Anna Prokovyeva, a military correspondent with Channel One, was killed while performing her professional duty in the Belgorod Region, Zakharova said: "Otherwise, correspondents would die on a large scale in a disaster. And today, the terrorist Kiev regime is exactly this disaster that deliberately targets both reporters and those international law norms that should have protected them."

Earlier on Wednesday, Channel One said Prokofyeva, 35, was killed by an enemy mine in the bordering area of Belgorod. Cameraman Dmitry Volkov, who accompanied her, was injured.

On Monday, Izvestia correspondent Alexander Fedorchak, along with a cameraman and a driver for the Zvezda TV channel, Andrey Panov and Alexander Sirkeli, were killed in a Ukrainian shelling attack on the rural settlement of Mikhailovka in the Lugansk People’s Republic. Zvezda TV channel correspondent Nikita Goldin was also seriously wounded. Ukrainian forces targeted the car of the filming crew with HIMARS missiles.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal investigation.

In the meantime, Channel One said that its war reporter Anna Prokofyeva was killed while performing her professional duty in the Belgorod Region, while cameraman Dmitry Volkov, who accompanied her, was injured. 

"Anna Prokofyeva, a military correspondent for Channel One, was killed while performing her professional duty. It happened in the Belgorod Region on the border with Ukraine, where a film crew of Channel One was blown up by an enemy mine. Cameraman Dmitry Volkov, who was with Anna, was injured," a channel’s spokesperson said.

Prokofyeva graduated from the RUDN University with a degree in journalism and was fluent in Spanish. She worked in the Spanish-language desk of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency. She had been with Channel One since 2023, covering the zone of the special military operation.