Journalist Arman Soldin died on Tuesday in the Donbass while filming a report. His disappearance upset his colleagues on the spot, like Caleb Larson, who is the same age and had worked with him.
Article written by
Published
Reading time : 1 min.
/2023/05/10/645b74ef3d4d2_000-33eq6zh.jpg)
“I immediately cried, it touched me a lot”. Tuesday, May 9, shortly after 6 p.m., when he learned of the death of French journalist Arman Soldin, during a rocket attack near Bakhmout, Caleb Larson was overwhelmed with emotion. The two men were the same age. Arman Soldin, 32, became the third French journalist to die in Ukraine and worked for Agence France Presse (AFP). Caleb Larson, he works for the news agency Associated Press (AP), and yet on the ground, there was no competition.
>> War in Ukraine: what we know about the death of Arman Soldin, a French journalist killed near Bakhmout
“In journalism like in other jobs, you get to know people who work well with. Arman was one of those very positive guys, emphasizes Caleb Larson, still very moved by the disappearance of his colleague. It’s a bad comparison, but when you go to a party or to a bar, it’s like when you meet someone generous and who takes the time. He was a guy like that.”
Don’t stop inquiring
Caleb and Arman belonged to the same band of journalists: thirtysomethings, of all nationalities, who exchanged information on a WhatsApp group. Tuesday evening, they dropped work, to talk about their friend together. “We were talking and then we wondered what we should do, what Arman would have done. One of my friends said: ‘I’m not feeling well so I open a bottle of wine and I drink a drink to Arman’s health. And that’s exactly what he would have wanted.”
“I would have liked to know Arman Soldin a little longer. Unfortunately, that’s not possible.”
Caleb Larson, freelance journalist in Ukraineat franceinfo
Sharing a drink, and not stopping to inform because for Caleb, the death of Arman does not change much on a daily basis. He will return like the others to the field to continue, despite the risks, to tell the story of the war.
After the death of French journalist Arman Soldin, a colleague remembers “someone generous” – the report by Thibault Lefèvre
listen
View comments