A French journalist was killed Tuesday while covering the war in Ukraine after Russian rocket fire struck near where he was embedded with a group of Ukrainian soldiers.
Arman Soldin, a video coordinator for the international French news agency Agence France-Presse, was 32 years old. The attack occurred in a town near Bakhmut, where much of the fighting in the war has centered in recent months.
"The whole agency is devastated by the loss of Arman," AFP chairman Fabrice Fries said. "His death is a terrible reminder of the risks and dangers faced by journalists every day covering the conflict in Ukraine."
According to a AFP report, Soldin was a French national who began working for AFP in 2015 and was one of the first to be assigned to Russia's invasion of Ukraine when it began last year. The report added he traveled regularly to the front lines of the war in the east and south.
"We are devastated to learn of the death of AFP video journalist Arman Soldin in eastern Ukraine today," AFP wrote in a tweet. "All of our thoughts go out to his family and loved ones."
Soldin's Twitter feed featured extensive imagery and sounds from the front lines of the war. In one of his final tweets last month, he revealed how he and his team rescued a hedgehog they found near Bakhmut.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Soldin is at least the 15th journalist or worker of some sort for a media organization to have been killed during the war, and many others have been injured. Last month, Ukrainian journalist Bogdan Bitik was reportedly killed by Russian sniper fire while on a bridge in Kherson. According to the Reuters Institute, Bitik was working as a field producer for Italian reporter Corrado Zunino, who was also shot but survived.
Longtime Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski was killed last year while covering the invasion, alongside Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova, after Russian rocket fire struck their van outside Kyiv. Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall was severely injured in the attack.
