Bogdan Bitik was killed when the Italian reporter he worked with, Corrado Zunino of La Repubblica, was injured.
A Ukrainian journalist was killed on Wednesday while traveling with his Italian colleague to the city of Kherson.
Bogdan Bitik, who was interpreting for La Repubblica reporter Corrado Zunino, was “most likely shot by Russian snipers,” the Italian newspaper reported.
Zunino was shot in the shoulder and is now receiving medical treatment.
He told La Repubblica from a hospital bed that they had passed three Ukrainian checkpoints when they were suddenly hit.
“I heard a hiss and I saw Bogdan lying on the floor,” Zunino said.
‘He didn’t move. I crawled out of the line of fire. I ran until I passed a civilian car. I was full of blood. I had to be taken to Kherson Hospital.”
He added that he had tried calling Bitik, whom he described as “a good friend”, but got no answer.
“It’s unbearable,” he said.
According to Zunino, both men were wearing press vests when they were attacked near the destroyed Antonivskyi Bridge.
At least 15 media workers and journalists have died in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.
Sergiy Tomilenko, head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, said the attack was a “new war crime by the Russians” while calling on Italian groups and newspapers such as La Repubblica to do more to protect Ukrainian reporters.
This murder of Ukrainian journalist Bogdan Bitik and wounding of @corzunino is another war crime by the Russians. At the same time, we appeal to the Italian trade unions and to @repubblica with a call to guarantee the protection of the rights of the Ukrainian fixer @EFJEEUROPE pic.twitter.com/N2mjtfWYJI
— Sergiy Tomilenko (@Stommedia) April 27, 2023
“I’m fine. But I’m sad that I lost a friend,” Zunino said in an interview on the Breakfast Club show on Radio Capital.
“I went on five missions with Bogdan. I have known him since I first arrived in Ukraine. He had returned to Ukraine from Indonesia, where he has a wife and a son. I just spoke to his wife. They are all extraordinary, kind and generous people.”
It has not yet been possible to recover Bitik’s body, reported La Repubblica.
Ukrainian troops liberated Kherson in November 2022 after occupying the city in the first weeks of the war.
Since then, Russian troops, having retreated across the Dnipro River, have bombarded the region with regular artillery strikes, rockets, drone strikes and sniper fire.
In December 2022, two Italian reporters, Claudio Locatelli and Niccolò Celesti, accompanied by their interpreter, were attacked during a Russian attack in the Kherson region; they all survived, but Locatelli was injured.