MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. RIA Novosti war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev, who was killed in the Zaporozhye Region on Ukrainian shelling, was traveling in a civilian car, and therefore it was a "deliberate attack on civilians," Viktor Bondarev, chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, said on Wednesday.

"As a result of cluster munitions shelling with by the Ukrainian military, Rostislav Zhuravlev, a war correspondent for the RIA Novosti news agency, was killed. He was traveling with his colleagues in a civilian car from Vasilyevka to the village of Vladimirovka," Bondarev wrote on his Telegram channel.

"It is impossible to get wrong a target, mistaking a civilian vehicle for a military one. It was a deliberate attack on civilians. On the people who tell the shocking truth about the crimes of the Kiev regime and its army. On those who supported civilians in the regions in the area of the special military operation. On those who honorably were in the line of their journalistic duty covering the events on the frontline without fear," he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported that four Izvestia and RIA Novosti journalists suffered wounds on Saturday afternoon as a result of a Ukrainian cluster munitions strike on the Zaporozhye Region. RIA Novosti journalist Rostislav Zhuravlev died from his wounds during evacuation, the others journalists’ condition is stable.

The TASS correspondent who is working in the Zaporozhye Region reported that a total of nine journalists were filming then. They split into two groups that were doing their job separately from each other. Five people were in the group with Zhuravlev. The journalists from the second group were unharmed.

Vladimir Solovyov, chairman of the Union of Journalists of Russia, said that the Union was ready to help the family of the late war correspondent Zhuravlev and to file a request for the awarding him with the medal of courage.