Leclerc-Imhoff’s employer French TV channel BFM-TV also confirmed he had been killed.
A French journalist, identified as Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff, has been killed while working in Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday on Twitter, the latest of several reporters killed or wounded during Russia’s invasion of the country.
“Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff was in Ukraine to show the reality of war. Onboard a humanitarian bus with civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombings, he was mortally wounded,” Macron tweeted.
Leclerc-Imhoff’s employer French TV channel BFM-TV also confirmed he had been killed.
France’s new foreign minister Catherine Colonna called for an investigation into the death. “France demands that a probe is carried out as soon as possible and in transparency on the circumstances of this drama,” Colonna said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Russian investigators claimed that at least five people died following strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, saying the attack was carried out by Kyiv’s forces.
“On May 30, Ukrainian security forces shelled the centre of the city of Donetsk. According to preliminary information, five civilians were killed, including a teenager born in 2009,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said as quoted by Russian news agencies.
It added that 16 people were injured in the attack that damaged three schools.
Donetsk is the de-facto capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region that borders Russia.
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