Published: 12:13 AM, 07 May 2026
TASS photojournalist hit in Ukrainian drone strike
TASS photojournalist Alexander Polegenko was hit in a Ukrainian drone strike in the center of the frontline town of Vasilyevka in the Zaporozhye Region during the ceasefire declared by Vladimir Zelensky starting on May 6.
TASS has collected key facts about the incident.
Circumstances
- The journalist's car was attacked by a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle while he was recording footage in the frontline town.
- According to Polegenko, the car was not badly damaged, as he was also unharmed.
- The photographs taken by the correspondent show fragments of a drone with a Ukrainian flag.
- The strike was carried out near the administrative building of the town of Vasilyevka.
Reaction
- Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime Rodion Miroshnik stated that the Ukrainian armed forces attacked Polegenko, who was working in the Zarpozohye Region's Vasiliyevka, in an attempt to conceal the truth about life in the region's frontline zone.
- Miroshnik called the violation of Zelensky's "silence regime" an expression of "pathological cynicism."
- Kiev and the Ukrainian Armed Forces are increasingly trying to prevent Russian journalists from performing their professional duties in the special military operation zone, with the attack on Pologenko being clear evidence of that, Russian senator Igor Kastyukevich told TASS.
- According to him, Kiev's attempts to intimidate Russian journalists won't succeed.
- The Ukrainian military's attack on Polegenko was a calculated move aimed at intimidating civilians in the liberated territories and suppressing the truth about the conflict, Russian Senator Alexander Voloshin from the DPR has told TASS.
- Military expert Andrey Marochko believes Wednesday's strike on the TASS photojournalist was a deliberate attack by Ukraine's military, adding that its army is not observing the truce declared by Zelensky.
- Given the history of Ukrainian aggression in Donbass, it's hard to believe the Kiev regime's assurances about a ceasefire, Viktor Petrenko, a member of the public council under the Russian Ministry of Digital Development and the Chairman of the Union of Journalists of Russia in the DPR, told TASS.
- Russian journalists, despite frequent strikes against media representatives in the Zaporozhye Region, have not been intimidated and continue to work, covering the victories of Russian troops and the atrocities of the Ukrainian military, Anna Moskalets, the Chairperson of the regional branch of the Union of Journalists of Russia in Zaporozhye Region, told TASS.
- According to her, it is particularly cynical that Ukraine's attack on the TASS photojournalist occurred not on the frontline or at a place where Russian military personnel were stationed, but in the center of the peaceful town of Vasilyevka while he was recording footage of daily life.
- This situation clearly demonstrates the circumstances in which residents of the frontline areas of the Zaporozhye Region find themselves, Moskalets noted.
