Russia’s Investigative Committee has charged
a senior Ukrainian army officer with organizing the murder of a Russian TV
cameraman nearly four years ago.
MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. Russia’s Investigative Committee has
charged a senior Ukrainian army officer with organizing the murder of a Russian
TV cameraman nearly four years ago.
According to the IC’s spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, the incident in which TV cameraman Anatoly Klyan of Russia’s nationwide TV station, Channel 1, suffered lethal gunshot wounds, occurred between the town of Avdeyevka and the village of Spartak, in the Yasinovataya district of the Donetsk Region, in eastern Ukraine in the small hours of June 30. Klyan was among the journalists from both Russian and Ukrainian TV channels who were accompanying a group of women whose sons, despite being drafted into the Ukrainian army had refused to participate in the military crackdown in the country’s eastern regions, defying the controversial coup in Kiev months earlier. The group of soldiers’ mothers arrived for talks with the military unit’s commanders by bus. The accompanying reporters, Klyan among them, were in the same vehicle.
According to the IC’s spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, the incident in which TV cameraman Anatoly Klyan of Russia’s nationwide TV station, Channel 1, suffered lethal gunshot wounds, occurred between the town of Avdeyevka and the village of Spartak, in the Yasinovataya district of the Donetsk Region, in eastern Ukraine in the small hours of June 30. Klyan was among the journalists from both Russian and Ukrainian TV channels who were accompanying a group of women whose sons, despite being drafted into the Ukrainian army had refused to participate in the military crackdown in the country’s eastern regions, defying the controversial coup in Kiev months earlier. The group of soldiers’ mothers arrived for talks with the military unit’s commanders by bus. The accompanying reporters, Klyan among them, were in the same vehicle.
When the
bus stopped at the garrison’s gate, the unit’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel
Nikolai Malomen twice ordered his subordinates, armed with 7.62 mm Kalashnikov
assault rifles, to open fire, although he was well aware there were only
unarmed civilians inside. Lethally wounded, Klyan died in an ambulance van on
the way to hospital.
The
Investigative Committee’s special office for crimes related to the use of
illegal means and methods of warfare charged Lieutenant Colonel Malomen
"in absentia with masterminding the killing of a person in connection with
the latter’s professional activity," Petrenko said.
At the
moment of the incident Malomen was the commander of a battalion of the Donetsk
air defense regiment (military unit A-1428).
According
to the investigators, Malomen had armed a group of his subordinates and
supplied them with ammunition many hours before the June 29-30 overnight
incident and issued orders to shoot to kill without warning should they notice
any armed persons or civilians approach the garrison.
"The
investigators are continuing persistent efforts with the aim of identifying
other accomplices in this and other crimes committed by the Ukrainian military
against Russian citizens," Petrenko added.
Source: ITAR-TASS 27-02-2018
