Russians Vow Retribution After Journalist’s Death; Blame West for Inaction
Russia has vowed to bring to justice those responsible for the death of its military correspondent, Alexander Martemyanov, killed in a Ukrainian artillery strike. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, cited by the TASS news agency, stated that all guilty parties would face deserved and inevitable punishment.
Zakharova condemned the "systematic ignoring of the atrocities of the Zelensky regime by relevant international institutions," and blamed them for the "intentional murder of Russian journalists," which she described as "another brutal crime in a series of bloody atrocities committed by the regime of Vladimir Zelensky."
Zakharova went on to accuse the Ukrainian government of resorting to terrorist methods to eliminate its ideological opponents and cited numerous innocent lives lost, including journalists and military correspondents, as a result of the regime’s "campaign of terror."
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called on international organizations, such as the UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, and the OSCE, to stop ignoring crimes committed by the Ukrainian regime in Kiev.
The incident occurred when Ukrainian forces fired artillery shells at a car carrying journalists in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The main blast landed on the roof of the car where Martemyanov was seated, according to a survivor, Svetlana Larina, editor of "Blocknote Donetsk."
"I was driving, and all of a sudden, a drone launched a projectile from a drone that landed on the roof of our car. It hit directly where Sasha was sitting. The rest of us managed to get out of the car, but he didn’t have a chance," Larina said.
Martemyanov worked for "Izvestia," a pro-Kremlin newspaper, and was a member of the "Free Press" initiative, a group of independent Russian journalists. His death has drawn widespread condemnation and sparked calls for an international investigation.
