On 9 May 2023, Bosnian-born French journalist Arman Soldin was killed in the line of duty while reporting near Chasiv Yar, a town near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, during a rocket attack by Russian forces. Soldin, who worked as a video coordinator for French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), was traveling with a reporting crew accompanying Ukrainian soldiers in the area, which is known as the most combat-intense section of the frontline in Ukraine. The group came under fire from Grad missiles at about 4:30pm, AFP said. The team took cover but Soldin, 32, was killed when a rocket struck close to where he was lying. None of the other members of the reporting crew were injured in the strike. The attack took place approximately 10 km away from Ukrainian frontline positions in Bakhmut, which has been the site of a battle between Ukrainian and Russian forces for the past nine months.
Soldin was born in Sarajevo in 1991, and was evacuated to France from Bosnia the following year. He joined AFP in 2015 and had been in Ukraine to cover the war since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. He was the agency’s lead video reporter in Ukraine at the time of his death and had reported extensively from the frontline. The reporting crew, which included Soldin and four of his colleagues, had a security adviser with them at the time of the attack.