UNESCO Director-General expresses condolences on the death of Russian propagandist Rostislav Zhuravlev

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has expressed her condolences over the death of Russian propagandist and employee of the RIA Novosti propaganda outlet Rostislav Zhuravlev.

This is stated on the UNESCO website.

"I deplore the death of Rostislav Zhuravlev and call for an investigation into the circumstances. Journalists serve a critical role in informing the world about conflict situations and must be protected," Audrey Azoulay said.

Russian propagandist Zhuravlev was allegedly killed during the shelling of the temporarily occupied Piatykhatky in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Along with him, employees of the Russian propaganda outlets RIA Novosti, TASS, Izvestiya and Rossiya TV channel were allegedly shot at.

Rostislav Zhuravlev was involved in the storming of the Donetsk regional state administration in 2014. He was also involved in the murder and robbery of residents of eastern Ukraine as a member of the illegal armed group 'LPR'.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Zhuravlev was in the temporarily occupied Donetsk, Volnovakha, Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Kupianske and Vovchansk (the last two cities were liberated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in September 2022). In particular, the propagandist was involved in the capture of the temporarily occupied Lysychansk. He posted relevant posts on his Instagram page.

In these cities, he allegedly worked as a 'military commander', but the editorial board of the online media Svidomi is currently unable to establish what role Zhuravlev played during the occupation of Ukrainian cities.

In addition, Zhuravlev supported Russian mercenaries from the Wagner PMC. Zhuravlev posted a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt with the PMC logo on his social media page.