MOSCOW, July 01. /ITAR-TASS/. Solemn ceremony of paying last respects to Channel One’s cameraman Anatoly Klyan, who died of wounds in the Donetsk region of Ukraine late night Sunday, will be held at Studio No. 1 of the Ostankino Broadcasting Center in Moscow Wednesday, July 2, executives at Channel One said Tuesday.
Klyan’s body was delivered to Moscow from the southern city of Rostov-on-Don by a jet of the Russian Emergencies Ministry (EMERCOM) aroud midnight.
“Family members and colleagues came to the airdrome at Ramenskoye near Moscow to receive Anatoly’s body, and ramp guard was placed at the site,” an executive said.
In Donetsk, ordinary citizens and journalists are coming to the building of the former regional administration. They are laying flowers and lighting candles in front of Anatoly’s portrait that has been put up there.
Anatoly Klyan was born January 23, 1946. He spent 40 years working for Soviet and Russian television, in the course of which he had thousands of filming sessions and hundreds of business trips to the countries swept by armed conflicts like the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
He left on his last mission - for the Donetsk region - May 28 and his colleagues say he was supposed to return to Moscow July 1.
On the night from Sunday to Monday, June 30, Anatoly turned out to be riding in a bus that was trapped in gunfire. He received lethal wounds.
This is not the first case of a Russian reporter dying in Ukraine. Earlier last month, the reporter working for the All-Russia Broadcasting Company, Igor Kornelyuk, and sound engineer Anton Voloshin were killed by gunfire in the Donetsk region when they were making footage of local self-defense force fighters helping civilians to get out of a dangerous area.
International organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN, have condemned yet another act of violence against Russian reporters in Ukraine and have demanded that the authorities in Kiev conduct a thorough investigation of the incident.
Russia’s Investigation Committee has instituted a criminal case over Anatoly Klyan’s death. Condolences to his family and friends have been expressed by top state officials, diplomatic mission of other countries, and professional communities.