“The sky has darkened”: in Donetsk region, occupiers killed French photojournalist Anthony Lallican

As a result of a targeted strike by a Russian FPV drone, French journalist-photographer Antoni Lallikan was killed, and Ukrainian photojournalist of the Kyiv Independent, Hryhoriy Ivanchenko, was injured.

The 4th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade reported the tragedy on its Facebook page.

“As a result of a targeted strike by an enemy FPV drone, French journalist-photographer Antoni Lallikan was killed. A journalist and photographer from the Kyiv Independent, a member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers, Hryhoriy Ivanchenko, was working with him at the scene. He was injured, and his condition is currently stable. Both journalists were wearing personal protective equipment, and their bulletproof vests had identification marks – the inscription “PRESS”,” the report says.

The brigade stressed that the Russian army has once again cynically violated the norms of international humanitarian law, trying to silence the world about the truth about the war. According to media reports, the strike occurred near the city of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region, approximately 15 km from the front line.

Anthony Lallican is the third French journalist killed by Russia in a full-scale invasion. In May 2022, BFMTV reporter Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff was killed in Severodonetsk when his evacuation vehicle came under fire. In May 2023, AFP video coordinator Armand Soldin was killed near Bakhmut when he was hit by a missile strike while documenting the fighting and civilian life in the Donetsk region.

Who is Anthony Lallican?

The 38-year-old photojournalist from Paris has collaborated with leading French and international publications – Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, Mediapart, Paris Match, Der Spiegel, Zeit, NZZ, Focus Magazin, Die Welt, Stern and others. He came to photography quite late – at the age of 30, when he accidentally witnessed the clashes in Kashmir. It was then that he realized that his path was to document reality.

Returning to France, he began filming the “yellow vest” movement, later working on protests in Hong Kong and India, showing the lives of migrants and the social problems of the French suburbs.

In 2020, he traveled to a war zone for the first time – to Armenia during the Second Karabakh War. It was then, according to his colleagues, that he finally realized his calling – to give a voice to people in conflict regions.

Lallikan arrived in Ukraine in March 2022, immediately after the start of full-scale Russian aggression, and has returned regularly since then, working on a large-scale project about life in the Donetsk region. His works combine documentary rigor with the intimacy of everyday scenes – from portraits of soldiers and civilians to destroyed bridges and streams of refugees.

He has received many awards for his photo reports: he won the Victor Hugo Award in 2024 for his series about Ukrainians, was shortlisted for the Lucas Dolega 2024, and became the jury favorite of the Grand Prix Paris Match Etudiant in 2022.

The Institute of Mass Information (IMI) notes that since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 847 crimes against journalists and media have been recorded. As of September 25, 111 media workers have died, 12 of them while performing their professional duties.

It was previously reported that Bohdan Zayats, a journalist for the communal TV channel “Novyi Chernihiv” and a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was killed in the war.