A Russian journalist was killed by shelling while on assignment in Kyiv

Russian journalist Oksana Baulina was killed by a rocket strike while on assignment in Kyiv, according to her employer, the independent news website The Insider.

The site said she "died under fire" while "filming the destruction after Russian troops shelled the Podil district of the capital." Another civilian was killed in the attack, it added, and two people who were with Baulina were hospitalized with injuries.

Baulina previously worked as a producer for the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the Russian non-profit established more than a decade ago by vocal Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. After the Russian government designated it an extremist organization in June 2021, Baulina had to leave the country in order to continue reporting on government corruption for The Insider, which is headquartered in Latvia.

"Oksana went to Ukraine as a correspondent, she managed to send several reports from Lviv and Kyiv," the publication added. "The Insider expresses its deepest condolences to Oksana's family and friends."

Baulina's coworkers and supporters are remembering her life on social media and demanding accountability for her death.

Investigative journalist Alexey Kovalyov, who said he had known Baulina for almost two decades and worked with her at several independent outlets, described her in a tweet as having a "phenomenal sense of moral clarity." Journalist Christo Grozev called her "amazingly brave."

Vladimir Milov, who worked with Baulina at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, vowed in a tweet to avenge her.

"I will never forget her and to all those who are responsible for her death I promise that they won't get away with (only) a trial and a verdict," Milov wrote, according to a translation from Al Jazeera.

The Insider said it 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."

Sergiy Tomalenko, the head of the Ukrainian journalist's union, wrote on Facebook that Baulina was not the only journalist whose death by Russian forces was reported on Wednesday.

Viktor Dêdov, the operator of a local television channel in the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol, was reportedly killed there on March 11, according to Facebook's English translation of the post.

Several other journalists have been killed while covering the war in Ukraine since it first broke out a month ago.

They include U.S. video journalist Brent Renaud, Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian freelancer Oleksandra Kuvshynova. Citing Ukrainian reports, the BBC says that Ukrainian journalist Shakirov Dilerbek Shukurovych was killed in late February, camera operator Yevhenii Sakun was killed during Russian shelling of Kyiv's television tower in March and investigative journalist Viktor Dudar died during a battle with Russian troops near the southern city of Mykolaiv.

Tributes to Baulina poured out on Twitter:

This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog.

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