MOSCOW, June 20 /ITAR-TASS/. The colleagues and next-of-kin of Igor Kornelyuk, a special correspondent of the VGTRK (All-Russia Television and Radio Network), who was killed on June 17 in mortar shelling near Lugansk. will pay their last respects to him. The ceremony is to begin at noon at the "Special Correspondent" studio on Pravda Street in Moscow. The journalist will then be buried at the Troyekurovo Cemetery.

VGTRK special correspondent Igor Kornelyuk, together with cameraman Viktor Denisov and sound engineer Anton Voloshin, were caught by a mortar shelling near a checkpoint of Volunteer Corps members. They were filming sequences showing how people's self-defence fighters wer leading a group of refugees out of the danger zone. All these journalists wore "Media" identification badges. Eyewitnesss reported that a mortar shell burst near the filming team. Sound engineer Anton Voloshin died on the spot and Kornelyuk died later in a local hospital. Cameraman Denisov was not hurt in the mortar shelling because he was at some distance away from the filming team.

A funeral ceremony for Anton Voloshin will be held laters: his remains have been turned over to experts for a genetic examination, which was requested by his parents in view of the circumstances of the tragic death.