ST. PETERSBURG. June 6 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised Moscow's assistance in investigating the death of Agence France-Presse video coordinator Arman Soldin in Ukraine.
"We have never rejected any investigations. Do you know how many journalists of ours have died in the hostilities zone? At least 30 of our journalists have died. And no one gives us the opportunity to investigate what happened to them," Putin said at a meeting with the editors-in-chief of the world's leading news agencies.
"Even despite the fact that we are ready to organize this work. I don't know how it can be done in practice, because if a person has died in the hostilities zone [...] But we will do everything we can," Putin said after being asked by AFP European News Editor-in-Chief Karim Talbi whether Russia is ready to work together with France to investigate the circumstances of Soldin's death.
Talbi also said the news agency believes that Soldin died in Ukrainian territory "most likely after a drone strike".
"The Justice Ministry of France is conducting an investigation. Since he was near Chasov Yar, I believe that the drone arrived from Russia," Talbi said.
"As for what is now happening in Ukraine, an American journalist was tortured to death in prison, behind the bars of the Kiev regime. But, unlike us, the United States has not even raised the possibility of investigating what happened to him. He was an American citizen, a journalist. He was captured at the border, was dragged to a prison where he died. He was simply tortured to death in the literal sense of the word. Nobody cared about what really happened to him," Putin said.
Soldin died in Ukrainian territory on May 9, 2023 in what the Ukrainian Defense Ministry alleged was a Russian attack with Grad systems. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on May 10, 2023 that it would be necessary to look into the French journalist's death, as the Ukrainian authorities had recently barred the press from visiting areas along the contact line.