Updated on 02:00 p.m. Moscow time
MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a telegram published Wednesday that hopes of Rossiya Segodnya photographer Andrei Stenin returning home were strong up to the last minute of the bitter news of his death.
“We believed that Andrei would return home to his family and friends, but the bitter news has wiped out that hope. He fulfilled his journalistic and human commitment to the end. He did everything possible so that people, the whole world would know the truth of the tragic events occurring in Donetsk,” the telegram posted on the Kremlin’s website reads.
On Wednesday, Rossiya Segodnya Director General Dmitry Kiselev announced that according to information from the Russian Investigative Committee, Stenin, who went missing in Ukraine early in August, died about a month ago near Donetsk.
The car, in which Stenin was traveling in while on an editorial assignment, was shot at and burned on a highway.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, Stenin was killed in a Ukrainian attack on a column of refugees guarded by several eastern Ukraine independence supporters.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry demanded that Kiev launch a full investigation into Stenin’s death. Stenin is the fourth Russian journalist killed in the Ukrainian conflict.
Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and other Russian politicians have expressed condolences over Stenin’s death.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council denied the involvement of Kiev’s militants in the tragedy.
