Russian journalist Oksana Baulina killed by her own country’s army in Ukraine

A Russian who was forced to flee her own country because of the Putin regime has now lost her life trying to report on the war.

A Russian journalist, Oksana Baulina, has been killed by shelling from her own country’s military while covering the war in Ukraine.

Ms Baulina was in Kyiv, filming damage to the city’s Podil district, when she died, according to her employer The Insider.

Another civilian was also killed in the strike, while two more were hospitalised.

“The Insider expresses its deepest condolences to Oksana’s family and friends,” the publication said.

“We will continue to cover the war in Ukraine, including such Russian war crimes as indiscriminate shelling of residential areas which result in the deaths of civilians and journalists.”

Ms Baulina had previously worked for the anti-corruption foundation of Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent political opponent in Russia, who is currently imprisoned by the regime.

She was forced to flee her native country when Mr Navalny’s foundation was formally branded an “extremist” organisation.

Alexey Kovalyov, an investigative journalist who knew Ms Baulina, described her as someone with extraordinary “moral clarity”.

And now it's someone I've known for 16 years and worked with at several independent outlets. Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist with phenomenal sense of moral clarity, killed by Russian rocket fire on a reporting mission in Kyiv today. I'm yet to process this. pic.twitter.com/eUPuMoUw54

— Alexey Kovalyov (@Alexey__Kovalev) March 23, 2022

Oksana ditched a successful career in glossy magazines – I first met her at Time Out Moscow in 2006, where she edited the fashion section – to become an opposition activist, human rights campaigner and then full time reporter,” he said.

“(She was) arrested several times, her organisation declared ‘extremist’. That is how I’ll remember Oksana: always at the front of any picket line, immensely resourceful, incredibly brave but never reckless or irresponsible, always directing her superhuman energy to the most righteous causes.

“And a life she gave up for this without a second thought.”

Shaun Walker, a correspondent with The Guardian, said Ms Baulina was “funny, dedicated and extremely brave”.

“She was putting a new life together in Warsaw after having to flee Russia due to her Navalny links, and was determined to do important journalism,” he said.

“Another victim of this awful, senseless mess.”

Oksana Baulina.

Ms Baulina is the fifth journalist known to have been killed during Russia’s invasion, joining TV camera operator Yevhenii Sakun, filmmaker Brent Renaud and Fox News journalists Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshinova, the latter of whom was only 24.