Emmanuel Macron. Photo credit: Ludovic Marin / AFP / Profimedia
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that he “found deeply sad” by the death of photojournalist Antoni Lallican, killed in a drone attack during a service task in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, AFP reports.
“I found out deeply sad” of the death of the 37-year-old French photojournalist, who was “the victim of a Russian drone attack,” the French leader said in an X post, in a rising tensions between Russia and European countries.
Antoni Lallican, an experienced photojournalist, established in Paris, is the first journalist killed by a drone in the war unleashed in Ukraine in February 2022, according to the European Journalist Federation.
The injury of the Ukrainian journalist Heorge Ivanchenko was also reported. About both of them are believed to have wore protective vests marked with “press”, notes France 24.
“Today, in Ukraine, the main threat to journalists, as well as to all civilians, are Russian drones hunting people,” said Sergey Tomilenko, president of the National Union of Journalists (Nuju). “These are not a collateral victims of the war. By targeting journalists, the Russian army deliberately hunters those who try to document the war crimes,” added Tomilenko.
The circumstances of the event are further investigated.
The French photojournalist went to Ukraine in March 2022
Lallican's work was published by several media institutions, including the French publications Le Monde, Le Figaro and Libération, as well as the German Der Spiegel, Zeit and Die Welt.
He traveled to Ukraine in March 2022, shortly after Russia launched the large -scale invasion, and worked intensely in the country, documenting the consequences of the war.
His activity focused on the inhabitants of the Donbas mining basin.
In January, Lallican won the 2024 edition of the Victor Hugo Award for devoted photography, for his impressive report “Suddenly the sky” about the War in Ukraine.
