2023-04-29 04:53:54
By Svitrana Doros (Kyiv), Katerina Kinkurova (London), BBC News Ukraine
image provided, Sasha Bondarenko/Facebook
Former BBC News journalist Oleksandr Bondarenko.Bondarenko was a man of humor, intelligence and an open mind, respected by his friends and colleagues.
Former BBC News journalist and Ukrainian, Oleksandr Bondarenko, has died while serving as a territorial guard on the front lines of Ukraine.
Bondarenko volunteered for the Ukrainian Territorial Guard in February 2022, working as a communications expert and media trainer when Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine. He later became a member of the military.
Details of how he died have not been revealed.
Close friends say only that death caught up with him during the battle.
Friends, former colleagues at the BBC and the Ukrainian media community paid tribute to the talented journalist who made it as a communications expert.
Bondarenko, known as Sasha or Sashko, is from Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
From 2007 to 2011, he was a news reporter and presenter for the BBC Ukrainian Service and editor-in-chief of a radio program broadcast from Kyiv. He has since left the BBC to work in other media.
Bondarenko worked as a communications expert and media trainer at the beginning of the war
At the beginning of the war, Mr. Bondarenko was in charge of special projects at the major Ukrainian telecommunications company RMA. RMA staff praised Mr. Bondarenko as a man of intelligence, humor and influence.
Thousands of civilians in all sectors of Ukraine left their jobs to protect the country from Russian aggression. Bondarenko was one of them.
Members of one of Ukraine’s top rock bands “Antitilla” became army medics, and Ukrainian celebrities such as journalists Pablo Kazarin and Yuriy Matzarsky who appeared on TV also joined the army. there is
RMA’s Vasyl Samokhvalov congratulated Bondarenko for volunteering for the Territorial Guard on the first day of the invasion. He was “a man with a will of steel, a man with the clearest motives, and a man with the best music playlists.”
Former head of the BBC’s Ukrainian language service, Macek Bernat-Lezhinskiy, said he was very fortunate to have Bondarenko on the Kyiv team. “This extraordinary man always faced new challenges, including one last brave attempt to defend his country once morest his invasion.”
After graduating from the Luhansk Pedagogical University, Bondarenko began his journalism career at a regional radio station in the East. He also worked on major Ukrainian television channels and the BBC Ukrainian service.
BBC Ukrainian Service Editor-in-Chief Marta Shokalo (right) and Mr. Bondarenko
“I can only remember our carefree days in Kyiv’s office and the times we laughed together, but the photos we took together still bring tears to my eyes,” said Marta Shokalo, editor-in-chief of the BBC Ukrainian Service. bottom.
As a TV journalist, Mr. Bondarenko also covered the mass anti-government protests known as the “Maidan” in Kyiv in 2013-14 and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
A native of eastern Ukraine’s insight into the complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia was particularly valuable.
He is also an avid athlete and has achieved a lifelong dream of swimming across the Bosphorus. Her last photo on her Facebook page was captioned “Somewhere in the forest in Kharkiv”.
image provided, Sasha Bondarenko/Facebook
Colleagues described Mr. Bondarenko as an unpretentious but knowledgeable journalist who was “excellent at everything.”The image was posted on Bondarenko’s Facebook page.
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