MOSCOW, February 27 (RAPSI, Yulia Glozman) – Russian investigators have charged Nikolay Malomen, Lieutenant Colonel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), with killing a cameraman for Channel One TV Anatoly Klyan in 2014, the Investigative Committee’s press service reports Tuesday.

Charges against Malomen have been brought in absentia. Russian investigators accuse him of organizing the murder committed by a group of people in conspiracy, on grounds of political hatred.

According to investigators, on June 29, 2014, Malomen equipped the UAF servicemen based in the Donetsk Region’s town of Avdeyevka with firearms and ammunition, and ordered them to open unwarned effective fire on all civilians and armed people near the military unit.

On the night of June 29 to 30, 2014, Ukrainian and Russian TV journalists including Klyan, and soldiers’ mothers willing to hold talks on their children’s returning home, came by bus to the military unit in Avdeyevka.

Malomen intentionally ordered his soldiers to open fire on unarmed civilians in the bus, the statement reads. As a result, Klyan was shot and wounded, and later died in an ambulance car.