On 26 April 2023, Bohdan Bitik, a Ukrainian journalist working as a fixer for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica was shot and killed by Russian forces while reporting near the Antonivskiy Bridge on the outskirts of Kherson, in southern Ukraine.
His Italian colleague, Corrado Zunino, was wounded. La Repubblica claimed both reporters were wearing bulletproof vests with “Press” written on them. The attack was carried out “most likely by Russian snipers”. “I saw Bohdan on the ground, he wasn’t moving”, Corrado Zunino told La Repubblica.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed the death on April 26. In a statement, authorities said a civilian accompanying a foreign journalist was killed as a result of an attack by Russian forces near the Antonivskiy Bridge in the Kherson region.
IMI, a Kyiv-based media freedom defense group, quoted sources among the Ukrainian military claiming that Bitik was not wearing a bulletproof vest. He was said to be wearing visible “Press” markings.
Bohdan Bitik is the eleventh media worker confirmed to have been killed in relation to their work in the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.