Putin awards journalist killed in Ukrainian shelling the Order of Courage
Russian journalist Rostislav Zhuravlev, who worked for the RIA Novosti news agency and was killed in Ukrainian shelling last week, has been awarded one of the country’s top merits, the Order of Courage. A presidential decree announcing the posthumous award was published on Thursday.
Three other reporters injured in the same attack were awarded state recognition as well. The decorated reporters are Konstantin Mikhalchevsky, a photojournalist with Rossiya Segodnya, as well as Roman Polshakov and Dmitry Shikov, respectively a reporter and a video operator with the Izvestia newspaper.
President Putin commended the reporters for their “valor and courage, demonstrated in line with their professional duty,” the decree reads.
A vehicle carrying the journalists came under Ukrainian artillery shelling last Saturday near the village of Pyatikhatki in Zaporozhye Region. Over the past month, the area has seen intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces after Kiev launched its long-heralded counteroffensive push in early June.
The wounded journalists were rushed to field hospitals set up by the Russian military, but Zhuravlev succumbed to his injuries during the evacuation effort, the Russian military said after the incident. The news crews arrived in the area “to prepare reports on the shelling of settlements in Zaporozhye Region with cluster munitions by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the military noted.
