Interfax: Reporter Stenin dies in Ukrainian attack on refugee convoy, says Investigative Committee

(Interfax – September 3, 2014) Rossiya Segodnya news agency photographer Andrei Stenin died on the Snizhne-Dmytrivka road in southeastern Ukraine in the Ukrainian army’s attack on a refugee convoy, Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.

“Detectives have discovered circumstances of the journalist’s death : A. Stenin was on a field trip to Snizhne, Ukraine, on August 5,” the spokesman said. In his words, Stenin was driving a Renault Logan within a refugee convoy along the Snizhne-Dmytrivka road on August 6.

“The convoy was protected by six militiamen,” Markin added.

A BMP-2 armored personnel carrier and a tank of the Ukrainian army, presumably, the 79th airmobile brigade, opened fire for effect northwest of Dmytrivka, he said.

The militia managed to transfer the bodies of five persons found in a destroyed Renault Logan on the Snizhne-Dmytrivka road to Russian investigators only on August 27. “The remains were examined by Russian experts who said some of them belonged to Andrei Stenin,” Markin said.

Speaking of circumstances of the journalist’s death, Markin said over ten civilian vehicles were destroyed in that attack.

“Several persons managed to escape and hide in a belt of trees along the road,” he added.

Ukrainian military commanders visited the attack site on the next day, Markin said.

“They not only examined the destroyed cars and the bodies but also, according to eyewitnesses, took belongings from the destroyed cars into their own vehicles and searched the bodies. After they had left the location of the destroyed cars and the bodies, it was put under Grad rocket launcher fire,” the Investigative Committee spokesman said.

“In the course of the criminal inquiry, detectives intend to discover all circumstances of the death of Andrei Stenin and to identify the concrete culprits liable to criminal prosecution,” Markin said.