Russian Journalist Oksana Baulina Killed In Shelling In Kyiv

Russian journalist Oksana Baulina, who was in the war-torn Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv to film the destruction, has been killed in a shelling incident.

Baulina, who worked for the independent news site The Insider, had been documenting the post-shelling scenes in the capital's Podilskyi district when she came under rocket fire, the outlet said in a statement Wednesday. One civilian died alongside the journalist while two more people who accompanied her were wounded and had to be hospitalized.

Baulina went to Ukraine as a correspondent and filed "several reports" from Lviv and Kyiv, The Insider said, adding that it would continue to cover the war and the indiscriminate Russian shelling of residential areas that cost the lives of journalists and civilians.

"The Insider expresses its deepest condolences to Oksana's family and friends," the outlet said in the statement. "We will continue to cover the war in Ukraine, including such Russian war crimes as indiscriminate shelling of residential areas where civilians and journalists are killed."

However, it wasn't clear in the statement where exactly Baulina was killed.

Condolences started to pour in after news of Baulina's death broke out. Alexey Kovalyov, a former colleague of the Baulina, mourned her death on Twitter, calling her a "journalist with a phenomenal sense of moral clarity."

Before joining The Insider, Baulina worked for Anti-Corruption Foundation, a non-profit organization owned by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. She reportedly remained there until it was declared an extremist organization.

Vladimir Milov, who worked with Baulina at the said foundation, vowed to avenge her death. "I will never forget her and to all those who are responsible for her death I promise that they won't get away with (only) a trial and a verdict," he wrote in a tweet, as per Al Jazeera.

Also mourning her death, Christo Grozev, an investigative reporter at Bellingcat, called her "an amazingly brave Russian journalist" who was "killed by her own country’s army shelling civilian areas."

Baulina's death marks the fifth journalist casualty in Ukraine this month. On March 13, American documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud, who was traveling in Ukraine to film the refugee exodus, was shot dead by Russian military personnel outside Kyiv.

The next day, two members of a Fox News crew, Oleksandra Kuvshynova and Pierre Zakrzewski, were killed by the Russian shelling as they reported on the war. Ukrainian camera operator Yevhenii Sakun was also killed earlier this month when a television tower was pummeled by the Russian troops.

Meanwhile, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the Ukrainian and Russian authorities to thoroughly investigate attacks on journalists and media workers covering the war. "Ukrainian and Russian authorities must do everything in their power to ensure the safety of journalists and all other civilians, and to thoroughly investigate attacks on members of the press," the group said.