“There is no doubt russians deliberately carried out that attack.” NUJU meets with a journalist almost killed in a drone attack

“You are a hero!” – such words of support were given by the Acting Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Protection of Freedom of Speech, Yevhen Brahar, to the journalist from Zaporizhzhia/local international media producer/NUJU member, Oleksandr Pavlov. On September 19, in the front-line Stepnohirsk, he and a group of Swedish journalists were intentionally attacked by a russian drone.

An expert meeting of representatives of human rights organizations and international monitoring missions with the injured journalist was held at the site of the Journalists’ Solidarity Center of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) in Kyiv.

“The Swedes camped near a nine-story building and started filming stand-ups…,” said Oleksandr Pavlov. “Meanwhile, the russians fired a 120-caliber mortar. Everything was exploding 500-600 meters away from us… Suddenly, an experienced police officer, Andrii Khomenko, who was with us, shouted, “The drone is coming!” I saw this thing flying right into my forehead. I saw every cog on the drone… Some internal resource worked out in me, and I managed to jump some 7-8 meters away and fell on the tarmac. The drone operator, who was aiming at our group at the last moment, turned the drone into our car, which then burned to the ground in 1.5-2 minutes. The second police officer (who, by the way, was wounded in the thigh by the fragments of the drone) commanded: “Get in the car!” We jumped into the police car and drove off. It turned out that I had seriously injured my hand when I fell, and already at the police station in the center of the city, kind policewomen bandaged it [the head] and took me to the first aid station… We were fortunate that we did not get into the car ten seconds earlier. Because the consequences would be much more terrible,” added Oleksandr Pavlov.

According to the Swedish journalist Johan Fredriksson, who spoke to the participants in the meeting by phone, he is happy to have remained alive after the drone attack on September 19.

“I remain with Ukraine and will continue to cover the events of this war, this illegal russian aggression against Ukraine. It is my duty as a foreign news journalist to report on Europe’s most important war since World War II. Of course, we were unlucky. But this is just an episode of relentless, brutal aggression that russia carries out against civilians in Ukraine every day,” the journalist said and added that the war crimes committed by the attackers in Ukraine must be punished.

Oleksandr Pavlov emphasized that all the journalists were wearing bulletproof vests of civilian colors (blue and black) with the inscription’ PRESS,’ a video camera was standing next to them on a tripod.

Yevhen Brahar, commenting on this story, emphasized that he considers journalists working on the front lines to be real heroes.

“There is no doubt that the russians deliberately committed this attack because journalists are telling the world the truth about the war in Ukraine,” said the deputy.

Yevhen Brahar noted that he has an idea about the drones used by russia and believes that the journalists were most likely hit by the Lancet drone. The Orlan drone directs the strike drones to the target. And the operator of Orlan could not help but see that there were civilians standing near the nine-story building who arrived in a civilian car. So, the russians absolutely deliberately hit a civilian object, and they must be held accountable.

“Swedish television equipment and journalists’ personal belongings burned in the car,” Oleksandr Pavlov emphasized in a written statement submitted to the NUJU. “My iPhone and laptop, a jacket with important personal documents, keys to the apartment, bank cards, cash, USB cards, and power of attorney for the car were also burned in the car. The value of my lost property, if intellectual property is taken into account, is about угк 10,000 (the computer and phone contained an almost finished book about the war in Ukraine, essays from journalistic materials, and 11,000 photos taken since the beginning of the war). Due to the stress I experienced, my heart failure worsened. Doctors offer to undergo a long and expensive course of treatment at the clinic…”

As Sergiy Tomilenko, the President of the NUJU, emphasized, the Union and its network of Journalists’ Solidarity Centers constantly emphasize journalistic solidarity and the need to provide support to colleagues who suffered as a result of russian aggression. Therefore, the NUJU handed over one of the laptops received from the Government of Germany with the assistance of the Ukrainian Press Academy to Oleksandr Pavlov.