‘He left us too quickly’ — Ukrainian photographer and soldier Huzenko killed in Russian strike in jap Ukraine

Kostiantyn Huzenko, 28, a Kyiv photographer who documented the warfare and enlisted the thirty fifth Marine Brigade in April 2024, was killed Nov. 1 in a Russian strike in jap Ukraine, the media outlet Ukrainer reported.

Just over two years after the full-scale invasion started, Huzenko joined the communications division of the thirty fifth Marine Brigade, the place he served as a photographer and press officer till his demise.

“What I want most is for us to survive — to survive as Ukrainians,” Huzenko stated in an interview with the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPP) revealed in May 2025.

Before becoming a member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Huzenko additionally labored as a media producer and podcaster. As a part of the Ukrainer crew, which he joined as a volunteer in 2020, he helped doc tales from territories liberated from Russian occupation after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“In every dangerous corner of our motherland, Kostia was never afraid to go anywhere,” Bogdan Logvynenko, a soldier and a founding father of Ukrainer, wrote on Facebook.

Ukrainian photographer Karina Piliuhina, in an interview with the Kyiv Independent, recalled that Huzenko had thought-about leaving images to serve extra straight within the warfare.

He wished to take a fight function, feeling that images and work within the press service weren’t sufficient, Piliuhina stated.

“I remember him telling me about it, and I felt such a deep pride for him,” Piliuhina stated. “Kostia was gentle, sensitive, and vulnerable, yet the courage he discovered in himself during his years in the army commands my deepest respect and admiration.”

In June 2024, the Kyiv Independent, in collaboration with UAPP, revealed a collection of pictures by Huzenko. Taken in 2023, the photographs seize the fleeting moments of childhood in front-line areas, the place the evacuation of civilians was already underway.

“He did not see the world as black and white — he saw all its colors, all the interesting things it held,” Larisa Kalik, a photographer and pal of Huzenko, informed the Kyiv Independent.

“Even though he had recently been at the front, all these military photos showed so much humanity and warmth — such care for others, for loved ones,” Kalik stated. “We have lost an extraordinary person. He left us too soon.”

As the warfare in Ukraine continues, Russian assaults on Ukrainian journalists and photographers have change into extra frequent and brutal.

A primary-person-view (FPV) drone strike on Oct. 3 killed French photographer Antoni Lallican and critically injured his Ukrainian associate, George Ivanchenko, who misplaced his leg within the assault. It was Ivanchenko who had photographed Huzenko throughout an interview with UAPP, the place Huzenko spoke about his service within the thirty fifth Brigade.

“Today marks exactly one month since Antoni was killed. Yesterday (on Nov. 1), Kostia was killed by Russians. It is hard to even find the words — this month has been a difficult one. I still cannot quite grasp what is happening,” Ivanchenko wrote on Facebook.

“It feels like Kostia just went somewhere into the mountains, to a wooden cabin, picking apples in an orchard. My deepest condolences to all his family and loved ones. This is a hard trial we all have to go through,” Ivanchenko added.

Two days after Huzenko’s demise, the thirtieth Marine Corps, which incorporates the thirty fifth Marine Brigade, confirmed that its service members had been focused within the Russian assault in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The corps didn’t specify which brigade was affected.

Friends and colleagues of Huzenko, talking with the Kyiv Independent, prompt that the photographer had been killed on this assault, which reportedly struck an award ceremony the place troops had gathered.

The State Bureau of Investigation launched on Nov. 3 an inquiry into attainable negligence in army service throughout martial legislation, which can have led to the deaths of Ukrainian service members in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

‘It flew straight at them’ – how Russian drone assault on Ukrainian and French journalists unfolded

Throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, journalists have confronted routine assaults by Moscow’s forces — a menace now compounded by the unfold of superior drone know-how that makes front-line reporting much more harmful. Ukrainian photographer George Ivanchenko and his French colleague Antoni Lallican grew to become victims of such an assault on Oct. 3, when a Russian first-person view (FPV) drone struck them throughout a reporting journey in Ukraine’s war-torn east. “It was a focused strike by an