Die Welt camera crew came under fire by a Russian Lancet drone while filming a news story about a Ukrainian air defense unit, the media outlet’s war correspondent Ibrahim Naber reported in a Facebook post.
He said that one of the three servicemen, Kostyantyn, was killed, and another one was severely wounded.
Producer Ivan has had surgery, and cameramen Viktor Lysenko and Ibrahim Naber received minor injuries.
“The strike occurred in the East of Ukraine, around 25–30 km from the front line. The journalists were only a few meters away from the [army] crew, having just finished an interview. They were clearly marked as media representatives on the footage,” Naber said.
He added that cameraman Viktor Lysenko captured the moment of the strike and the first minutes after the explosion on video. These shots were included in the report documenting the Russian attack.
Naber also announced a private fundraising campaign for Ihor, a Ukrainian soldier whose leg had to be amputated after the strike. The journalists had interviewed him less than 30 minutes before the explosion. Naber donated 1,000 euros to start the fundraiser and called on his followers to support the soldier.
As reported earlier, war reporter Alyona Hramova (Hubanova) and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin of the Ukrainian international channel Freedom TV were killed in a Russian Lancet drone strike in Kramatorsk (Donetsk oblast) on 23 October 2025. The journalists were filming the aftermath of an earlier Russian strike at a gas station. Special correspondent Oleksandr Kolychev was wounded in the strike. The police is investigating the murder and wounding of Freedom TV crew as a war crime.
The funeral for Alyona Hramova (Hubanova) and Yevhen Karmazin took place at the St. Michael Cathedral in Kyiv on 27 October.