Zelensky awarded media workers on professional holiday. Four of them posthumously

On Radio, Television and Communications Workers Day on November 16, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded 21 media workers. Four of them died due to Russian aggression.

The corresponding decree was published on the presidentʼs website.

Zelensky posthumously awarded the Order of Merit, 3rd degree:

• Freedom TV channel correspondent Elena Hubanova and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin. On October 23, they died in Kramatorsk (Donetsk region), after being hit by a Russian “Lancet” drone. From the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion, they covered events in the Donetsk region and reported on war crimes by the Russian army, showed the evacuation of civilians and the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.

• Photographer of Ukraїner Kostyantyn Huzenko. He died on November 2. After the start of the full-scale war, he documented its consequences, later becoming the press officer of the 35th separate marine brigade named after Rear Admiral Mykhailo Ostrohradsky. In May 2025, Kostyantyn joined the video project “On the Frame Line” from the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers. This is a series of documentary interviews with Ukrainian photographers who joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, continuing to engage in photojournalism.

• French photojournalist Antoni Lallikan. He and Kyiv Independent photojournalist Heorhii Ivanchenko were attacked by Russians from an FPV drone on the morning of October 3 near Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region. The media workers worked in protective gear and were accompanied by a press officer. Both had the inscription PRESS on their bulletproof vests. Antoni Lallikan became the third French journalist killed by the Russians during the full-scale war in Ukraine. He had been documenting the consequences of Russian aggression since March 2022. Heorhii Ivanchenko was wounded. The president awarded him an order as well.

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