Russia kills French photojournalist in Ukraine

French prosecutors announced on October 5 that they had opened a ‘war crimes’ investigation following the death of a French photojournalist on assignment in eastern Ukraine.  

According to Arab News via AFP, Antoni Lallican, a 37-year-old photojournalist, was with the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the front line in the Donbas region.

In the past three years, since 2022, it has been reported that at least 17 journalists have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Although these killings take place in Ukraine, it appears that Russia is the cause of these war crimes.  

In the same attack where Lallican was killed, a Ukrainian journalist, Georgiy Ivanchenko, was injured. The Ukrainian Military and the French President Emmanuel Macron blame Russia for these crimes.  

An investigation has been launched at the Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes, France’s anti-terror unit, PNAT explained.   

The strikes on war crimes in Ukraine have killed many, including a pregnant woman back in July this year, leaving 25 killed and a dozen injured. The attack, which targeted a Zaporizhzhia prison, killed 16 inmates. Since the prison did not house any Russian prisoners involved in the conflict, the strike appears to have been deliberate.

Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets labelled the prison strike as further proof of “war crimes.”

Lallican, the award-winning photojournalist whose work appeared in the French and International media, is the first journalist to be killed in a drone attack during Russia’s war against Ukraine, said the European and international federations of journalists (EFJ) . 

A “war crimes” charge, under PNAT’s mandate, covers “deliberate attacks on the life and physical or mental integrity of a person protected by international humanitarian law”.

The new Arab via AFP, Maghrebi.org