Russian drone kills French journalist Antoni Lallican in Ukraine

New York, October 3, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the killing of French photojournalist Antoni Lallican in a Russian drone attack on Friday. 

“CPJ is deeply alarmed by the Russian drone strike that killed French journalist Antoni Lallican and injured Ukrainian photojournalist Heorhii Ivanchenko, and calls on Russian and Ukrainian authorities to immediately investigate what appears to be a targeted attack,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Journalists are civilians under international humanitarian law, not combatants.” 

The drone killed Lallican while he was reporting for French photo agency Hans Lucas near the eastern city of Druzhkivka, in the Donetsk region, according to the 4th Separate Heavy Mechanized Brigade, a unit of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, and Sergiy Tomilenko, the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, a local advocacy and trade group. Ivanchenko, who was working with Lallican, was injured in the attack and is in stable condition, the reports said. 

Tomilenko told CPJ that the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and military press offices in the Donetsk region had both confirmed Lallican’s killing.

The brigade said that Lallican had been killed by a “targeted strike” from a first-person-view (FPV) drone. FPV drones allow operators to see their target before striking. Both journalists were wearing personal protective equipment and press markings, the brigade said.

“Currently, the main threat to journalists, as well as to all civilians, is Russian drones hunting people,” Tomilenko said. “This is a deliberate hunt for those who are trying to document the aggressor’s crimes.”

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his condolences on X.

Lallican, 38, had worked with several French and international news outlets, including Le Monde, Le Figaro, Der Spiegel, and Die Welt. He had been covering the war in Ukraine since March 2022.

At least 18 other journalists and one media worker have been killed while reporting on the war since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Among them are three other French journalists Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, and Armand Soldin and Pierre Zakrzewski, who also had Irish citizenship.  

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.