KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (BN24) — French photojournalist Antoni Lallican was killed in a Russian drone strike near the frontline village of Komyshuvakha in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said Friday.
Ukrainian photojournalist Grigoriy Ivanchenko, who was working alongside Lallican, was wounded in the same attack and later required leg amputation, officials said. The strike hit the area where the two journalists were embedded with Ukraine’s 4th Mechanized Brigade about 15 kilometers from the frontline.
The Hans Lucas photo agency confirmed both journalists were wearing protective gear marked with “PRESS” insignias when the drone strike occurred. A witness told the BBC that the sound of chainsaws used by soldiers to build defensive positions may have prevented them from hearing the drone overhead.
Anastasia Haletska, the brigade’s press officer who was also injured, applied tourniquets to Ivanchenko before both were evacuated to a hospital in nearby Kramatorsk. Lallican died instantly in the attack.
Lallican, a Paris-based photographer, had been documenting the war in Ukraine since March 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion. His work appeared in major French newspapers, including Le Monde and Le Figaro, and earned him the prestigious Victor Hugo Prize for photography in 2024.
His photography captured the human cost of the war, portraying families fleeing, elderly residents refusing to leave their homes despite bombardment, and soldiers living on the frontline. His work spanned from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast.
The European and International Federations of Journalists said this is the first case of a journalist killed by a drone strike in Ukraine. Since the war began, 17 journalists have been killed while covering the conflict.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Lallican on X, formerly Twitter, calling him “a victim of a Russian drone attack” and offering condolences to his family and colleagues.
The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine accused Russia of deliberately targeting those documenting war crimes. Sergiy Tomilenko, the union’s president, said Lallican “built a visual bridge between the world and Ukrainian reality” and “now he himself has become part of this tragic story.”
