French journalist Arman Soldin dies in attack in eastern Ukraine

The attack occurred around 4:30 p.m. local time, near Bakhmut, in the greater Donbass region, the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine for several months.

The AFP news agency team was attacked with Grad rockets while they were with a group of Ukrainian soldiers.

Soldin, 32, was killed when a rocket hit near where he was. The rest of the team was unharmed.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Soldin with a message posted on his Twitter account, praising his efforts.

“With courage, from the first moments of the war, he was at the front to record the facts, to inform us,” Macron wrote, adding that he shares “the pain of his relatives and all his colleagues.”

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense offered its “sincere condolences” to the journalist’s family and co-workers, in a statement on Twitter, in which it assured that he was killed in an assault with Russian missiles against the city of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk province, in the east of the country invaded by Moscow.

“He dedicated his life to informing the world of the truth. His legacy, as well as his cause, will live on,” he stressed.

Born in Sarajevo, Soldin was a French citizen who started working for AFP as an intern in its Rome office in 2015 and was later recruited in London.

He was part of the first agency team that was sent to Ukraine after the start of the invasion of Russia, on February 24, 2022. He arrived the next day.

But Soldin had been living in Ukraine since last September, leading the news team’s video coverage and traveling regularly to the front lines of battle in the east and south.

A man “dedicated to his craft”

Soldin’s death means that at least 11 journalists, drivers or media equipment workers have lost their lives covering the war on Ukrainian soil, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPR) have confirmed. CPJ).

In Washington, the White House also paid tribute to Soldin, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the world is “indebted” to the journalists who have lost their lives covering the conflict.

“Journalism is essential for a free society,” he said in a statement.

For his part, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his condolences during a speech before the Freedom House think tank in the US capital.

“Today we were devastated to learn of the death of AFP video journalist Arman Soldin in eastern Ukraine (…) Our thoughts are with his family, loved ones and the entire AFP family,” he said.

AFP, “devastated” by the loss of Soldin

“Arman’s brilliant work sums up everything that has made us so proud of AFP’s journalism in Ukraine,” said Phil Chetwynd, the agency’s global news director.

Meanwhile, the president of AFP, Fabrice Fries, stressed that “the entire agency is devastated by the loss of Arman (…) His death is a terrible reminder of the risks and dangers that journalists covering the conflict face every day in Ukraine,” he confirmed.

The director of the company in Europe, Christine Buhagiar, remembered Soldin as “a true reporter on the ground, always ready to work even in the most difficult places (…) He was totally dedicated to his craft,” she stressed.

Others of his colleagues stressed that Soldin knew in particular how to recount the lives of civilians caught up in the Ukraine conflict and desperately trying to survive amidst the chaos.

Proof of this was recorded in Kiev, where the reporter captured a tender moment between a recruited father and his young son who had fled abroad, when they bonded over an online strategy game.

Earlier this month, he even rescued an injured hedgehog from a trench and nursed it back to health. She named him Lucky.

The founder of the Ukrainian animal rights organization UAnimals, Oleksandr Todorchuk, spoke of Soldin’s “absolute kindness” when he came to the hedgehog’s aid.

UAnimals is creating a grant for volunteers and shelters that rescue hedgehogs “in memory of Soldin and his big heart,” Todorchuk announced.