Former BBC News Ukraine correspondent Oleksandr Bondarenko was killed in the course of duty in Ukraine. At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, he volunteered for Ukraine’s territorial defense as a communications expert and media trainer before joining the military.
Unknown at this time are the circumstances surrounding his combat death. According to his closest companions,
“death caught up with him in battle.”
Friends, former BBC colleagues, and members of Ukraine’s broader media community eulogized a gifted journalist who became a successful communications professional.
Bondarenko, also known as Sasha or Sashko, was originally from Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
From 2007 to 2011, he served as a news correspondent, presenter, and editor of Kyiv-based radio programs for the BBC Ukrainian Service. He quit the BBC to work for competing media outlets.
At the beginning of the war, he oversaw special initiatives for the leading Ukrainian communications agency RMA, whose employees praised his intelligence, wit, and voice.
He was one of the tens of thousands of Ukrainians from all walks of life who quit their civilian employment to defend their country against the Russian invasion.
Members of one of Ukraine’s most popular rock bands, Antytila, became army physicians, as did broadcasters Pavlo Kazarin and Yurii Matsarenko.
Several journalists have also lost their lives while covering the conflict. This week, a Ukrainian fixer working with an Italian journalist was shot and murdered near the southern city of Kherson.
Vasyl Samokhvalov of RMA praised Sasha Bondarenko as a volunteer from day one, describing him as “a man with a steel will.” A person with the most transparent motivation. A person who has the greatest music playlist.”
Maciek Bernatt-Reszczynski, the former head of the BBC’s Ukrainian Service, stated that the corporation was exceedingly fortunate to have him on the Kyiv team:
“There were always new challenges with this extraordinary man. Including the last valiant effort to defend his country against invasion.”
Bondarenko graduated from the teacher-training college in Luhansk and began his career in journalism at a local radio station in the east of Ukraine, before working for prominent Ukrainian television channels and the BBC Ukrainian Service.
Marta Shokalo, the editor-in-chief of BBC Ukraine, said, “When I look at our photos together, I can’t stop crying, even though I only remember our carefree days in the Kyiv office and how we laughed together.”
He moved on to become a television reporter, covering the massive Maidan anti-government protests in Kyiv in 2013 and 2014, as well as Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
As a native of eastern Ukraine, his understanding of the complexities of Ukraine’s relationship with Russia was considered particularly valuable.
He fulfilled a long-held ambition by swimming the Bosphorus, as he was an avid athlete. His final Facebook photo was captioned,
“Somewhere in the Kharkiv woods.”
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