A memorial evening was held in Kyiv to honor French AFP journalist Arman Soldin, who was killed on May 9, 2023, during a Russian missile attack near Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region.
About a hundred colleagues and friends came to the memorial event, organized by AFP in cooperation with the Ukrainian national news agency Ukrinform, to pay tribute to the deceased reporter and recall the brightest pages of his life, the agency’s correspondent reports.
“Arman was among the first journalists who volunteered to come to Ukraine… Arman lost his life so that millions of people would know what is happening in Ukraine,” said Fabrice Fries, Chairman and Chief executive officer of Agence France-Presse.
Soldin’s colleagues recalled that he spoke about the terrible reality of the war from Irpin, Bucha, Kherson, and often visited the Bakhmut direction.
According to journalist Emmanuel Peuchot, who was with Arman during the shelling, “he was very serious and knew the risks, but he wanted to show and explain the war.”
In a speech, the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine noted that he did not know Arman Soldin personally, but from the memories of those who knew him, he sees that he was not only a great journalist, but also a wonderful person.
“The French slogan is ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’. Unfortunately, we are all equal in the danger of war. And I believe that all those who organized this war should be equally punished and investigate why they organized this war. Because a lot not only journalists, but a lot of humans have been killed. Fraternité there is a great brotherhood of journalists who are covering this war to give the world an understanding of what we have with this Russian aggression. And of course, liberté – we are fighting for freedom and we will prevail,” said Tkachenko.
The head of the Reporters Without Borders office in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Jeanne Cavellier, told Ukrinform that French investigators have already arrived in Ukraine to investigate the death of Arman Soldin.
The head of the Reporters Without Borders office in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Jeanne Cavellier, told Ukrinform that French investigators have already arrived in Ukraine to investigate the death of Arman Soldin.
“We focus on this case about Arman. We consider that the crimes against journalists are not only crimes against civilians, of course, it’s war crimes. But it’s also it’s more than that because journalists have a social function, is it has a crucial role to inform, to give reliable information to the public as Arman did, he was very professional,” Cavellier said.
Arman Soldin was born in Sarajevo on March 21, 1991, and was a French citizen. He started working for AFP as an intern in the Rome bureau in 2015 and then moved to the London bureau. Soldin was part of the first AFP team to be sent to Ukraine after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, arriving the next day. Since September, he has been living in Ukraine and travelling regularly to the frontline.
Source: In Kyiv, memory of fallen French reporter Arman Soldin honored
