French President Emmanuel Macron confirms a French journalist was killed in Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

• A French journalist was killed in Ukraine on Monday, President Macron announced.
• Videographer Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was in an armored vehicle on a humanitarian mission.
• The attack occurred in the Severodonetsk region of Ukraine.

Russian forces killed a French journalist in an attack on an armored vehicle on its way to evacuate civilians from the conflict in the Severodonetsk region of Ukraine on Monday, according to President Emmanuel Macron and television network BFMTV.

Videographer Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff died from shrapnel wounds sustained in the strike, according to the network. Along with Leclerc-Imhoff, BFMTV reporter Maxime Brandstaetter sustained mild wounds and fixer Oksana Leuta emerged unharmed, the network said.

The evacuation mission was called off after Russian forces fired on the vehicle in an ambush, according to Serhiy Haidai, governor of the Luhansk region.

"Aboard a humanitarian bus, next to civilians forced to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally wounded," Macron tweeted in French, translated to English by Insider.

—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) May 30, 2022

Macron extended his condolences to the videographer 's family and reiterated the "unconditional support" of the French government for journalists covering the war.

Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, had been working for the news network for six years. BFMTV is one of the top TV networks in France, similar in stature to CNN in the United States.

He was on his second assignment to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, according to the network.

It was unclear as of Monday afternoon if there were any other civilian casualties in the attack.