RIA Pivden office damaged by Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia

The office of the relocated Melitopol media outlet RIA Pivden (RIA Melitopol) was partially destroyed due by the Russian missile strike on Zaporizhzhia on April 6, around 6 AM. The office was located in the Melitopol IDP assistance center "Same Tut", reports RIA Pivden (RIA Melitopol) on their Telegram channel.

The aid center now has shattered windows, a damaged ceiling, and broken equipment and furniture in the rooms where classes for children were given.

As RIA Pivden chief editor Svitlana Zalizetska told the regional IMI representative in the Zaporizhzhia oblast, they are currently taking inventory of the damage caused by the attack.

"Some of the equipment was damaged. Now we're collecting what is left. Checking its condition," the editor said.

Before the full-scale invasion RIA Melitopol was the largest website in the Zaporizhzhia oblast audience-wise. After the start of the full-scale war and the Russian occupation of Melitopol, the team and the chief editor, Svitlana Zalizetska, faced persecution. As the IMI wrote, in March 2022, the Russian troops took Zalizetska's father hostage and demanded to meet the journalist as a condition for her father's release.

In October 2023, the IMI reported that the Russians were holding the administrators of the Zaporizhzhia Telegram channels RIA Melitopol and "Melitopol is Ukraine" captive for two months on charges of terrorism. The media workers were detained in August 2023. On the night of August 21, 2023, the Russians hacked the Telegram channel of the Ukrainian media outlet RIA Melitopol, which was working even as Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia oblast) was occupied.

Ukrinform correspondent Olha Zvonaryova and TSN reporter Kira Oves were wounded by shelling in Zaporizhzhia on April 5.

As the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko wrote on his Telegram channel, both journalists came under a double tap strike while working at a shelling site.

"The enemy cynically strikes again just when the police, emergency workers, medics, and journalists arrive. At the moment when our units are trying to rescue the victims," Ihor Klymenko wrote.

On April 5, the Russians struck Zaporizhzhia twice. The attack killed three people and injured 19.