A Russian drone attacked a vehicle used by two foreign journalists, Spanish photographer Diego Herrera and Swedish journalist and writer Mustafa Can, in Sloviansk (Donetsk oblast) on 24 September, Volodymyr Kurinnyi, a producer for international media in Ukraine, reported in a Facebook post and confirmed in comments to the Institute of Mass Information.
The journalists were inside a nearby building at the moment of the strike, so they were unharmed.
However, the producer noted, all of the journalists’ cameras, laptops, and safety gear were destroyed in the fire.
In comments to the Institute of Mass Information, Diego Herrera said that their crew had been heading back after working in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. They stopped at a supermarket before leaving to buy some food for the road, and stayed there for around 5–10 minutes.
“We were about to leave the store when we heard a drone coming in. They fired at it, trying to shoot it down, but didn’t manage to do it in time. It was a fibre-optic drone. I didn’t see the actual strike, because I had taken cover,” Herrera said.
After the explosion, the journalist left the supermarket and saw that their car was on fire. He asked the shop staff for a fire extinguisher and walked over to the car.
Herrera opened the car door, but people around him urged him to step back, since the vehicle could explode.
“I didn’t listen, because I knew my equipment was in there — two Canon cameras,” the journalist said.
However, the fire extinguisher turned out to be empty, so they were unable to put out the fire.
“People were shouting, ‘Get away from there!’ Then the firefighters arrived and started putting it out. Nothing survived — no cameras, nothing. Everything burned down,” Herrera said.
He added that the journalists’ helmets and body armour were also destroyed in the fire.
The photographer also said that the vehicle had no “PRESS” labels on it.
