Daily Beast Reporter Describes Horrific Shooting of Him and Colleague By Gunman in Ukraine

A residential building damaged by a missile on February 25, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pierre Crom/Getty Images

Two journalists reporting on the war in Ukraine for The Daily Beast were shot by an unidentified gunman who opened fire on their car in the city of Okhtyrka.

Amid alarming reports of journalists facing attacks from troops in Ukraine, Danish reporter Stefan Weichert wrote about the shooting of himself and photographer Emil Filtenbourg in a harrowing dispatch for the Daily Beast.

The pair of journalists arrived in Okhtyrka on Feb. 26 to cover the bombing of a kindergarten by the Russia military that wounded several children. The day was “more peaceful,” Weichert wrote, until a Russian bomb struck nearby as the two journalists returned to their car.

Weichert and Filtenbourg ran to the car and drove away from the blast. They stopped “briefly to decide on the safest exit route out of the city.”

“While we were stopped, another car approached us from behind,” Weichert wrote. “A man carrying what looked like an assault rifle emerged from the vehicle. He then opened fire without any warning.”

Despite having the letters “TV” marked on the back of their car, the shooter fired at the car indiscriminately.

Weichert wrote:

The first shot broke through the rear window glass, narrowly missing our ears. After that, several more rounds. At least two bullets flew so close past my head that I could feel the wind pressure on my ears.

Before I knew it, Emil had taken one shot to each leg and two in the back. I had taken one to the shoulder. The bulletproof vests we were wearing couldn’t shield us from the many bullets that perforated our car, which was smoking from the gearbox and hood.

We drove as fast as we could to escape. The shooter seemed to keep firing at us for as long as our car was in his line of vision.

Filtenbourg was “bleeding heavily,” from the leg, and bleeding from the wounds in his back, Weichert said. They stopped the car, as Filtenbourg was “losing too much blood.”

The journalists were soon approached by Ukrainian soldiers, who offered help. They were taken to a local hospital, where people badly wounded in the war by bullets and bombs were being treated.

“News came quickly that Emil was in stable condition despite his many wounds,” Weichert wrote. They were evacuated from Ukraine back to their home in Denmark, where they continue to receive medical treatment.

The journalists never found out the identity of their shooter.

Read the full report here.