Azad Safarov, producer with the UK TV channel Sky News, said that their crew’s car had been targeted at close range by an unknown shooter as they were filming a news story about the “Skelia” Assault Regiment No. 425 in March 2025. Safarov reported on this in a Facebook post on 25 June.
He said that the incident had occurred near Dobropillya. The crew arrived at the location in two cars. In compliance with safety regulations, one car carrying the driver and the press officer stayed by the regiment’s command and observation post (COP). First, the parties agreed that the vehicles would be hidden and the drivers would be allowed to wait in the bomb shelter at the headquarters.
However, Safarov said, the press officer went to the shelter alone, leaving the driver to wait in the car outside. At 23:30, an unknown person approached the car and opened fire.
“Somewhere around 23:30, someone approached and shot the car from the driver’s side at close range. Fortunately, the reporters’ car was armored. The driver was unharmed,” the producer wrote.
After the shooting, Safarov said, another soldier came out of the building, picked up the shell casings, and told the driver to “scram, or the other cars would get shot too.”
When the driver tried to explain that she was acting in agreement with the press officer, they started threating her. Azad Safarov added that when the driver was able to get to a safe place and contact the filming crew, they immediately left the location.
“We counted 12 bullet holes in the car. Twelve. We were very lucky that the car was armored. Yes, it was a filming session with the ‘Skelia’ Regiment No. 425. That ‘Skelia’. This has never happened to us in all these years,” Safarov stressed.
The journalist emphasised that the incident had occurred more than a year ago and the team had been trying to resolve the issue through official channels since then, without making the situation public.
According to Safarov, the regiment commander promised to see it through, but they have received no answers yet. Instead, the producer added, the commander “promised to gift the driver some ‘Skelia’ patches.”
The filming crew also submitted official queries to the specialised UAF press center and the General Staff, but there was no response.
Azad Safarov explained that Sky News deliberately abstained from sparking an international scandal because the news outlet was rooting for Ukraine and considered the attack an one-off misdeed by an individual soldier.
“Now, reading about ‘Skelia’ [i.e. the Babel news story “‘Skelia’ assault regiment performs well in combat and is well-supplied. And, eyewitnesses say, people get tortured and beaten to death there'”], I realise that there is no point in remaining silent. This is horrible,” Azad Safarov concluded.
After the release of Babel’s story, the “Skelia” command officially confirmed the death of 26 servicemembers in the unit, adding that 18 of these died of disease in hospitals, and blamed the enlistment centers system for sending them unfit and unmotivated conscripts.
Still, the unit’s command acknowledged there were criminal proceedings ongoing in the unit, including the detention of Junior Sergeant Anatoliy Kucher and the investigation into an incident where a soldier was fatally wounded after an attempt to leave without permission in the “pine tree case”. The regiment also effectively admitted to systematic internal problems, reporting that they had to involve the Military Ombudsman’s Office to amend procedures and correct violations that had been ongoing for the past few months.
Azad Safarov told the Institute of Mass Information journalist Valentyna Troyan that he would not comment further on the events described in his post.
Oleksiy Bratushchak, the spokesman for the “Skelia” Assault Regiment No. 425, said in a comment to IMI that we would have to submit an official query to learn the regiment’s position. After that, the command would decide how to respond to the reported information.