PARIS, June 30. /ITAR-TASS/. France calls for a detailed investigation into Sunday’s murder of Russian TV journalist in the Ukrainian embattled eastern Donetsk Region. A representative of the French Foreign Ministry said this on Monday.

Anatoly Klyan, 68, was among other journalists on a bus together with mothers of military conscripts on their way to a pro-Kiev military unit in the Donetsk Region to demand the off-duty release of their sons, when the vehicle came under gunfire. Klyan, who worked as a cameraman for Russia’s television Channel One, sustained a lethal gun wound in the abdomen and died upon his hospitalization.

“France repents the death of Russian journalist Anatoly Klyan killed in yesterday’s combat actions in the east of Ukraine,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “All the details of his death must be thoroughly investigated.”

“We express our condolences to the family and relatives and express our solidarity with Channel One,” the statement said. “This death added up to already lengthy list of the conflict’s casualties.”

“France honors the courage of journalists, who continue doing their job across the world despite all dangers,” the statement added.

Channel One, reported earlier that besides its filming crew on the attacked bus there were also journalists from Russia’s REN-TV and LifeNews television channels. Russia’s MIR-24 television channel reported that its filming crew was also among the others on the bus. Fortunately, none of them were wounded in the gunfire.

The bus driver was also reported to sustain a gun wound but he managed to drive away the bullet-ridden vehicle with civilians to a safe place.

 

Other cases of violence against journalists in Ukraine

Klyan’s murder is another case in a chain of lethal attacks on journalists in the ongoing combat operation, which Ukrainian authorities are conducting in southeast Ukraine.

Two journalists from Russian central television and radio broadcasting company VGTRK, special correspondent Igor Kornelyuk and sound engineer Anton Voloshin, were killed near the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk on June 17.

They came under mortar fire near a roadblock of militia as they were filming a TV report about people’s militias helping to evacuate refugees from the combat zone. Journalists bore clearly visible media insignia at the moment of the attack. According to eyewitnesses, a mortar shell exploded near the Russian filming crew. Sound engineer Voloshin died at the scene and Kornelyuk died later at a local hospital.

May 24, Italian photographer Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter Andrey Mironov were killed in mortar fire near the city of Sloviansk.

 

Ceasefire not observed

Hundreds of people have been killed, buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands have been forced to cross the border from Ukraine to Russia since April as a result of Kiev’s military operation against federalization supporters in Ukraine’s southeast involving armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation.

June 20, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared a week-long ceasefire in the country’s embattled southeast and on late Friday he announced a three-day extension of the ceasefire. However, there have been numerous reports that the truce has been violated.