On 5 April 2024, two Ukrainian journalists were wounded in a Russian missile strike on the city of Zaporizhia in southeastern Ukraine: Olha Zvonaryova from state-owned news agency Ukrinform and Kira Oves from private broadcaster 1+1 (while reporting for TSN, the 1+1 flagship news program). The attack occurred at around 3.30 p.m. local time, TSN reported.
According to the outlets in question, as well as multiple other Ukrainian media reports, both journalists arrived to the scene of a recent attack when the area was again targeted in a so-called double-tap Russian strike. Reporters from other media outlets, including Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne, had also arrived to the scene to film footage of the previous strike, but were not harmed.
Both Oves and Zvonaryova were taken to a nearby hospital following the attack. The reporter for TSN said that she was “feeling well” and that doctors applied stitches to her temples. Zvonaryova, however, needed to be operated and later placed in an intensive care unit, said Ukrinform director Oleksiy Matsuka. She sustained a serious wound to her thigh, which received a heavy impact of shrapnel, Matsuka explained. On April 8, the director of the hospital told Ukrinform that he observed a “positive dynamic” in Zvonaryova’s condition, which was initially “serious” due to “massive wounds and blood loss”.
In total, three people were killed and 19 wounded in the two Russian attack on Zaporizhia on April 5, Ukrainian authorities reported. Minister of internal affairs Ihor Klimenko called the strike a “cynical double-tap [attack], [carried out] exactly when police, rescue workers, medics and journalists arrive[d] to the scene, when our divisions attempt[ed] to save those who suffered,” Klimenko wrote in a publication on Telegram.