Putin’s glam propagandist TV reporter killed by landmine on Ukraine border
A glamorous propagandist for Vladimir Putin has been killed after she was blown up by a landmine while reporting close to the Russia-Ukraine border.
Anna Prokofieva, 35, a war correspondent for Russia’s state-run TV network Channel One, was killed after the vehicle she and her cameraman were traveling in ran over a landmine in Russia’s Belgorod region, state television announced on Wednesday.
The landmine was planted by Ukraine’s military, Channel One insisted, adding that Prokofieva “died while performing her professional duty,” in a statement on its website.
Prokofieva’s cameraman Dmitry Volkov was seriously wounded in the explosion in the Russian border region which has come under frequent drone and shelling attacks from Ukrainian forces amid their retreat from the neighboring region of Kursk.
The reporter had been covering the war in Ukraine for the rapidly pro-Putin network since 2023.
In that time, she frequently shared glamorous pictures of her in military fatigues or casual clothes posing next to soldiers or military hardware.
Often her outfits featured a large letter “Z,” which has become a symbol of strongman Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine among his supporters.
Her most recent post showing her sitting in a forest wearing fatigues and a head-mounted camera was shared on the messaging app Telegram on Tuesday.
On March 8, she posted a picture of herself posing in a basement as she wished her followers a happy International Women’s Day.
A fanatical supporter of the war, three days after Russia’s invasion, she took to her social media to express her devotion to the cause.
“Today I want to say: no matter what happens, I will always be for our guys,” she wrote. “You can insult, hate, unsubscribe, curse. I don’t care!!! I am Russian, I am a patriot, I love my country and I have always supported our Armed Forces.”
