Journalist Arman Soldinfrom the French agency AFP, was killed on Tuesday in a bombardment near the besieged Bakhmut in Ukraine. The deceased was traveling with four colleagues from the same agency and a group of Ukrainian soldiers when they were victims of a Grad rocket bombardment in an area subject to frequent attacks by Russian troops, who are trying to complete the conquest of the city.

soldin, 32 years old and video coordinator in Ukraine, died in the attack although his companions were unharmed, as reported by AFP. “His death is a terrifying reminder of the risks and dangers journalists face who cover the conflict in Ukraine on a daily basis”, stressed the agency’s president, Fabrice Fries, who stated that “the agency as a whole is destroyed”.

The French President, Emmanuel Macronhighlighted in a Twitter message the “value” of the informerwho was in Ukraine “from the first moment to define the facts. To inform us.”

Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has expressed the “great sadness” of the organization for “a tragedy for all those who defend the independence and reliability of information.”

Also The US mourned the death of the journalist. His Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has assured that his government is “devastated” after hearing the news. “Innumerable journalists are working to expose and report the truth in extremely dangerous contexts” (…) our thoughts are with his family (de Soldin), his loved ones “and the AFP agency,” he said.

soldin is the third French informant killed in the war in Ukraineafter Pierre Zakrzewski, a Franco-Irish Fox cameraman shot dead on March 14, 2022 near Kyiv, and BFM news television cameraman Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, victim of an artillery shell on May 30 last year while covering an evacuation of civilians in Lugansk.