FROM OUR REPORTER
ZAPORIZHZHIA We contact him who is taking off aboard a Ukrainian military helicopter from Kherson to Odessa. He can fly and travel: he is relatively well Conrad Zuninothe 57-year-old envoy of Republic targeted yesterday by Russian snipers in one of the hottest areas of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. His interpreter and friend Bogdan Finished instead he didn’t make it, the Ukrainian soldiers waited several hours before recovering his body. He has a wife and a small son, who is now the community of Ukrainian journalists and those of Republic they try to comfort.
«I’m fine, I have four wounds, three are due to a fall while running away, one, the one in the shoulder, was caused by a bullet. I was wearing a bulletproof vest. Probably the shot that wounded me also killed Bogdan by passing through his chest», says Zunino. Kherson is well known to us journalists who follow this war. It was occupied by the Russians from the very first days of the conflict and liberated by the Ukrainians on 11 November. Since then, however, the Russians have established themselves on the other side of the Dnipro, the great river that skirts the eastern districts of the city before reaching the estuary towards the Black Sea.
In the stretch in front of Kherson it is just over a kilometer wide: a natural border, where, however, a Kalashnikov is enough to kill anyone crossing the other bank. And in fact the Russians shoot continuously, night and day. Their bombings have emptied the city and the raids have increased in recent days, while there is talk of Ukrainian commandos stationed on the marshy islets on the eastern shore.
Zunino explains that yesterday in the middle of the day the situation was “relatively calm”, shots could be heard in the distance. He and Bogdan drive to the Antonovsky bridge, which was damaged in two places last fall and is now impassable. The local population avoids transiting along the river in any way. A little further north, the young Italian journalist was slightly wounded in the neck Claudio Locatelli in December. The two get out of the car and continue on foot a few tens of meters along the bridge. The situation is so calm that Bogdan is not wearing a jacket or helmet. But the soldiers shouted to them «go away». Zunino still remembers: “We left immediately, I heard that they said to each other that we were from the press”, as indeed can also be read on the writing “press”, which he has on his chest. “While my back was turned and Bogdan was still facing the Russian side, I heard a hissing, a burning sensation in my shoulder and saw Bogdan fall down.” He throws himself on the ground, crawls away, reaches a car that takes him to the local hospital. “The presence in Rome of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba facilitates the rescue operations,” tweeted Antonio Tajani himself.
In the evening the news of his return to Italy arrived.