Injured Russian Journalist Describes Missile Strike on Ghazanchetsots Church

A journalist from "Komsomolskaya Pravda," Alexander Kots, interviewed injured Russian reporter Yuri Kotenok, who is currently hospitalized at the "Erebuni" hospital in Yerevan following the missile strike on the Ghazanchetsots Church in Shushi.

"We didn’t take helmets and bulletproof vests with us, thinking we would get them in Stepanakert. However, we learned that there had been a strike on the church in Shushi while we were on the way there. I was filming with my phone. It was set to aerial mode, but it was still compromised. I believe they targeted the signal coming from the phone," Kotenok recalls, emphasizing that his memory has not fully returned yet.

Describing the second strike while they were in the church, the journalist noted that it was terrifying. "I was already thinking I was dead. I came to and tried to stand up. I was calling out to the other reporter, Levon Arzanov. I have never encountered such demonstrative cruelty even in Chechnya," he said.