MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Western countries have turned the world majority away from themselves by silencing the murders of Russian journalists, and the recent UNESCO report on the matter turned out to be a world disgrace for them, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

The diplomat pointed out that the report by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity for 2022-2023, which sparked significant attention within the international community, failed to mention the numerous targeted killings of Russian journalists and military correspondents by the criminal Kiev regime.

"This disgraceful report, which we immediately labeled as a fake story even within international standards, acted like a detonator, a catalyst," she said. "The Russian Union of Journalists issued a special manifesto that can be signed by representatives of various organizations or countries to support our position, and some parties abroad have already begun signing it."

"I don't think the Western countries anticipated such a reaction. If they had foreseen the outcome and could rewind events, they would likely have included something about Russian journalists to avoid this global embarrassment and scandal," Zakharova added.

According to her, the West could not have anticipated the overwhelmingly negative response the report would provoke within the global community. "This is a case where the aggressive, malevolent NATO minority sought to worsen the situation but ended up ensnaring themselves, like a snake devouring its own tail," she remarked.

"Now they [Western countries] have realized that they can no longer remain silent on this issue," the diplomat concluded.

According to the document presented at the session, 162 media workers were killed worldwide between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2023, with 72 losing their lives in conflict zones. The report’s annex, which lists the corresponding cases, states that 14 media workers were killed in Ukraine in 2022-2023. Among them, only one Russian journalist, Rostislav Zhuravlyov, is mentioned. The UNESCO director-general expressed regret over his death in an official statement.