Oleksandr Kolychev, special correspondent with Freedom TV, was wounded in a Russian Lancet drone strike in Kramatorsk (Donetsk oblast) on 23 October. His colleagues, war reporter Alyona Hramova (Hubanova) and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin, were killed, Donetsk Oblast Military Administration chair Vadym Filashkin reported in a Facebook post.
“Since the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, they had been reporting on the situation in the region, telling the truth about the enemy’s crimes, the evacuation of civilians, the stories of our defenders. They worked in the hottest spots of Donetsk oblast, were always the first to arrive everywhere,” Filashkin said.
Freedom TV team later added that the incident also involved special correspondent Oleksandr Kolychev, who was taken to the hospital with injuries. At the moment of the strike, the journalists were in their car at a gas station.
Alyona Hramova worked in the hottest spots of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts constantly. She was a financier by education, but realised with the start of the Russian aggression that her calling was journalism.
The National Police reported the Lancet drone targeted a car today at a gas station at about 9:37 a.m. Three TV crew was recording the aftermath of an earlier shelling strike on the city at that moment. A man aged 33 and a woman aged 43 were fatally wounded. Another man, 47, was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and bone fractures. Police are documenting the impact of the attack.
The TV channel told IMI that the crew was driving a civilian car. The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office has launched a pre-trial investigation into a war crime (Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The channel reported that the crew had arrived to film a news story about the Russian strike at the gas station that took place the day before, on 22 October. Then they were supposed to go to film the aftermath of a Russian drone attack at a market in Kramatorsk.
Oleksandr Kolychev is now in serious condition in the hospital. He has suffered an explosive injury, multiple shrapnel wounds to the head and body, an open bone fracture, and burns.