Ukrainian forces kill Russian war correspondent Zuyev, who had been praised by Putin

A drone strike killed a Russian "war correspondent" Ivan Zuyev, who was working for the Kremlin-aligned news outlet RIA Novosti, in the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region. His colleague, Yury Voitkevych, was seriously injured.

Source: RIA Novosti

Details: On Thursday 16 October, RIA Novosti reported the death of their employee Ivan Zuyev "while on an editorial assignment" in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

According to the outlet, a group of propagandists came under attack by a Ukrainian drone. Zuyev was killed on the spot, while his colleague Yury Voitkevych was taken to hospital with severe injuries. The death was also confirmed by Yevhen Balytskyi, the Russian-appointed head of the oblast.

Zuyev was an active participant in Russia's information war against Ukraine. He first travelled to Donbas as a correspondent in July 2014. After the full-scale invasion began in 2022, he covered the occupation of Volnovakha, Sartana and the siege of Mariupol for the Russian state outlet Sputnik Blizhnee Zarubezhye. For his loyal service to the Kremlin, he received multiple state awards and, in March 2025, personal praise from Vladimir Putin.

Voitkevych, who was also filming Russian propaganda for years, was awarded the Medal of the Order For Merit to the Fatherland.

RIA Novosti said this was the third death of its staff member "on a combat assignment". Previously, Andrei Stenin was killed in 2014 and Rostislav Zhuravlev in 2023.

Zuyev's death adds to the list of Russian propagandists killed since the start of the full-scale war:

• Darya Dugina, daughter of Russian ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in August 2022 in a car explosion near Moscow.
• Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maksim Fomin), a "war correspondent" known for calls to destroy Ukrainians, was killed in an explosion in St Petersburg in April 2023.
• Andrei Morozov ("Murz"), a pro-war blogger, was found dead in February 2024. Russian media reported he had taken his own life after being harassed by military commanders for disclosing high Russian losses near Avdiivka.
• Kirill Vishynskiy, former head of RIA Novosti Ukraine accused of treason in Ukraine, died in Moscow in August 2025 at the age of 58 after a "long illness". He had been exchanged for Ukrainian political prisoners in 2019.

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