The work of a journalist is always fraught with danger. And probably the hardest test is the choice of conscience. It is this choice, as a rule, that at any hypocritical time leads honest people to the sacrificial altar of greed. And photojournalist Andrei Stenin, of course, became one of these victims.
Province nugget
The future journalist Stenin Andrei Alekseevich was born in the Komi Republic, namely in the city of Pechora on December 22, 1980. His mother, who became a widow in 2012, works at the State Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology as a paramedic. Besides him, there were no more children in the family. He showed a craving for journalism quite early, so he had no questions with the choice of profession. Therefore, after graduating from a higher educational institution in his homeland, Andrei Stenin in 2003 went to Moscow.
Unfortunately, there are no great details about his life before moving to the capital. In open sources there is no data on his preferences, how he studied at school, what institute he graduated from and what the choice of profession was dictated by, and even more so voluntary business trips to hot spots, which he managed to see a lot during his short career.
Carier start
Arriving at Belokamennaya, he began to work in the information and analytical publication "Rossiyskaya Gazeta". Andrei Stenin, whose biography, unfortunately, turned out to be so short, began his professional career as a journalist and wrote in the section “Society”. After that, he worked for several years on the information Internet portal Gazeta.ru. He decided to devote himself to the genre of documentary photo only five years after the start of his career. Andrei Stenin's work as a photojournalist focused on emergencies, riots, litigation, and military conflicts.
Freelance work
Andrey Stenin, whose photo has an amazing ability to grab the very salt of the situation, for several years has become quite popular in the photo correspondence market. At the same time he was a freelance employee of major international news agencies Reuters, Associated Press, France Press, Russian agencies RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS, as well as the newspaper Kommersant. Andrei Stenin has been active in the most dangerous hot spots of recent years: in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Libya, and the Gaza Strip.
He joined the RIA Novosti agency in 2009. At the end of 2013, the agency was liquidated, a corresponding decree was signed by President Vladimir Putin. On its basis, the federal state unitary enterprise “International News Agency“ Russia Today ”” was formed. Andrei Stenin, a journalist whose photos were already known, was issued as a special correspondent for the newborn agency.
His work has been repeatedly awarded with awards in the field of professional achievements. He received his first award in 2010, when he became the laureate of the Iskra annual national print media award. In the same year, and also three years later, he was among the winners of the Silver Camera contest.
Death trip
With the outbreak of military clashes in the south-east of Ukraine, a lot of journalists went to the next hot spot that suddenly appeared. Among such courageous and selfless was Andrei Stenin, who went there in May last year. Carrying out the editorial assignment, he worked in Kiev, as well as in places of direct armed confrontation - in Shakhtersk, Mariupol, Slavyansk, Lugansk and Donetsk. He worked there for about three months when communication with him was lost. The last working materials from him came on August 5 last year. It was only known that on his last trip he was accompanied by Sergey Korenchenkov and Andrey Vyachalo, employees of the Information Corps of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
Missing
The very next day, various versions of the future fate of the photojournalist began to be voiced. The most obvious and persistent version was the abduction of an employee of the Russian media by the Ukrainian security forces. Three days after Andrei Stenin’s disappearance, Russia Today, citing its source in eastern Ukraine, announced the abduction of their employee and formally charged the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the country opened a case on the disappearance of the photojournalist, but later Kiev did not find confirmation of the version that he was really captured by the SBU.
Meanwhile, his colleagues also began to search for traces of the journalist. It became known that Stenin did not tell his leadership the specific route of his movement around Ukraine, and after receiving the latest materials from him, no one in Moscow knew where he had gone. Colleagues said that the photojournalist generally loved freedom of movement, didn’t like when someone pressed on top, didn’t like to be in a heap of diverse journalists, which are extremely numerous during press tours. He loved his work, was devoted to her, sought to do it honestly. And the implementation of these principles did not endure fuss.
The ambiguous position of the Ukrainian authorities
Meanwhile, a week later, official sources reported that the Russian journalist was under arrest, that the Ukrainian special services suspect him of complicity in terrorism. This was announced on August 12 in an interview by the adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs, Anton Gerashchenko. However, a little later, he made a reservation that he did not have accurate information on this matter, that he only suggested such a development of events, and the interviewers - the leading Latvian radio stations Baltkom - misinterpreted his words. The official asked reporters not to bother him with these questions anymore. In response to these allegations, a radio official released an interview record.
Mr. Gerashchenko ultimately decided to throw his annoyance at the incessant questions about the fate of the Russian journalist into the social network. On his Facebook page, he noted that photojournalist Andrei Stenin is wanted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as the remaining 300 people who disappeared "during the terrorists' actions." Mr. Krasnov, better known as a pranker (telephone hooligan) under the nickname Vovan222, provoked much more inconsistent statements of Mr. Gerashchenko. Introducing himself as an assistant to the LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he brought up a conversation on the subject of a journalist. The official, putting forward another version, suggested that the journalist died "with his terrorist friends" in the vicinity of Shakhtersk. Pranker recorded this conversation and posted its transcript on the net.
Investigation
The first assumptions about the possible death of a journalist appeared already on the twentieth of August, when news of the body found in the vicinity of the city of Snezhnoye, not far from Donetsk, passed. Information appeared on the pages of the periodical "Komsomolskaya Pravda". From the moment he disappeared, his colleagues on a business trip in Ukraine began his active search. The Komsomolskaya Pravda employees Alexander Kots and Dmitry Steshin managed to attack the trail. It was these journalists who managed to establish with whom and where exactly Andrei Stenin went before his mysterious disappearance.
However, both the journalist’s employer and the Russian authorities asked not to rush to reports, not to make hasty public statements and conclusions until any official information from the Ukrainian side was received.
Meanwhile, employees of Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that, according to their information, Stenin, in the company of two local journalists, whom Mr. Gerashchenko was probably referring to as “terrorist friends,” went to the city of Snezhnoye, in the combat zone. According to one of the militias, it was possible to establish that it was on that day that the Ukrainian regular army fired at a train from cars on the road to Dmitrovka. They shot not only the military, but also civilian vehicles. The skeletons of burnt cars were discovered near Dmitrovka. Renault Logan was also found there, on which, presumably, the Russian journalist moved on that ill-fated day.
The remains of three people were found in the car, and professional equipment, lenses, and lenses were found in the trunk. According to data from open sources, the cars were first shot from machine guns and machine guns, and then from Grad installations. It was also found that after the murder the journalist’s phone turned on and off several times, moreover, someone logged into Facebook from him. Those who discovered the body claimed that the car was simply burned down by journalists, and the shelling by the Grad was arranged to confuse the tracks.
Promotions
Meanwhile, the world community held one rally of support after another. Rallies in support of the missing photojournalist were held in Russia, Serbia, the UK, Mexico and Argentina. The public showed increased attention to the disappearance of not the first Russian journalist on the territory of Ukraine and demanded from Kiev not only official statements, but also decisive actions to stop the arbitrary treatment of the pen workers. Representatives of the OSCE expressed support for the events, who subsequently traveled to the place where the body was discovered together with Donetsk investigators. In addition, representatives of the International Federation of Journalists and the international organization Reporters Without Borders spoke quite categorically.
The Russia Today agency itself organized an action demanding the release of the journalist. In addition, FreeAndrew tags were launched on social networks.
Russian version
Officially, the death of Andrei Stenin was confirmed on September 3, almost a month after his disappearance. The director general of the Russia Today MIA Dmitry Kisilev announced his death, referring to the results of the examination. Thus, since the start of the military conflict, four Russian journalists have died in Ukraine in several months.
The Investigative Committee of Russia, which also conducted its investigation, put forward its version of what happened. The TFR reported that a convoy of vehicles with refugees was moving to Dmitrovka from the city of Snezhnoy. Not far from the destination, a convoy in which there were only civilians came across an armed detachment, presumably the 79th separate airmobile brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces. The investigation concluded that the convoy, consisting of ten cars, was destroyed by shelling with HE shells and Kalashnikov tank machine guns. The next day, the Ukrainian military inspected the scene of the incident, where they found Andrei Stenin a couple of weeks later, searched the victims, found the items they found and fired at this place from the Grad once again.
The public demands
Andrei Stenin, whose photo in the professional community was called one of the most impressive, did not, unfortunately, manage to start a family. After his death, only his mother was left from his family. President Vladimir Putin brought his official condolences to the mother of the deceased in the professional duties of a journalist on the day of the official death announcement. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, assessing what happened, called the Stenin case "another barbaric murder," which, according to the department, is "the work of the Ukrainian security forces." In its message, the agency put forward a demand to Kiev to conduct a thorough investigation. A number of international communities, including UNESCO, have made similar demands. There is no information on the fate of the criminal case regarding the death of the special correspondent in open sources.
Andrei Stenin was buried on September 5 in Moscow, at the Troekurovsky cemetery. During the burial, military honors were given to him: three salutes of the guard of honor. On the same day, Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which the journalist was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage.
On the same day, a photo exhibition dedicated to the tragic events in Ukraine was held in New York. At the opening of the event, where a large number of photographs of Andrei Stenin were presented, the journalist was honored.
At the end of summer 2014, a predictor appeared on the Internet, a certain Dmitry. He keeps his video diary on youtube.com. "New Nostradamus", as its users immediately christened it, expressed its version about what will happen in Eastern Europe in the next three to five years. In the questions of subscribers, a question was raised, the theme of which was Andrei Stenin, the predictions on his account were vague. In particular, he initially reported that he was "neither among the living, nor among the buried." As he explained later, the confusion of his visions was connected precisely with the fact that his body burned down.