Two French citizens have been killed in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne has confirmed.
"Two French volunteers paid with their lives for their commitment to Ukrainians. Three were wounded. My thoughts are with them and their families. France is on their side. Russia will have to answer for its crimes," he wrote on Twitter (X).
The day before, the head of the Kherson regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported that two French citizens who were doing volunteer work in Ukraine had been killed in Beryslav.
According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, on February 1, at about 16:00, Russian troops massively shelled Beryslav using unmanned aerial vehicles.
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, condemned the strikes on Beryslav in Kherson region, which killed and injured French volunteers.
Earlier, the French Foreign Ministry reported that two humanitarian workers were killed and three others were injured in the strike.
"I was shocked to learn that their vehicles had been targeted in the same way as during the tragic incident in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine just a week ago, when a humanitarian aid vehicle was hit and a humanitarian worker was injured," Brown said.
According to her, 50 humanitarian workers were killed or injured in Ukraine last year, 11 of them in the line of duty.
"In January alone, five humanitarian workers were injured. And this is happening at a time when people in frontline communities are already facing an extremely difficult humanitarian situation, as the Russian invasion has affected all aspects of their daily lives," she added.
Background. Read more about the number of volunteers in Ukraine and how they "take it all out" in the article "Volunteering for the long haul: what helps to support yourself and keep motivated".