RSF did not answer RIA Novosti why Zhuravlev and Maksudov are not on the list of dead military officers

The international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) refused to comment to RIA Novosti on the lack of information in its research about the deaths of Russian military officers. On December 14, RSF published a report listing the names of journalists killed in the line of duty. The names of Rostislav Zhuravlev (RIA Novosti) and Boris Maksudov (VGTRK) are not on the list.

RIA Novosti said it sent RSF a request for comment last week. The agency claims that the organization’s spokeswoman, Elena Garcia, initially promised to reassign him to the employee responsible for Russia and Eastern Europe. However, over the next few days she told RIA Novosti that “everyone is busy” and “no one can comment.”

“We do not give comments to this type of media. This is contrary to our editorial policy,” Ms. Garcia ultimately said. RIA Novosti writes that when asked to clarify what “type of media” we are talking about, the press secretary “did not respond and hung up.”

On December 14, Reporters Without Borders published a report compiling the names of journalists who have died while on duty around the world. In 11 months of 2023, 45 journalists were killed, RSF wrote. The RSF article said that since the beginning of hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, 11 journalists have been killed there, two of them in 2023. The two journalists reported by RSF were French AFP correspondent Armand Soldin (killed on May 9) and Ukrainian military correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica Bogdan Bitik (killed on April 26). The names of Russian journalists Rostislav Zhuravlev and Boris Maksudov, who died in the combat zone this year, are not indicated in the RSF report.

Rostislav Zhuravlev died on July 22 near the village of Pyatikhatki in the Zaporozhye region. According to the Ministry of Defense, units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) launched an artillery strike on him and other journalists. Rostislav Zhuravlev died during the evacuation. President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded him the Order of Courage.

On November 22, Boris Maksudov received shrapnel wounds as a result of a UAV strike on a group of Russian journalists in the Zaporozhye region. The next day he died. Boris Maksudov has worked on the Rossiya 24 TV channel for the last few years; he has also repeatedly reported from hot spots.

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