“It’s a summary execution after interrogation”, summarizes Patrick Chauvel, photoreporter, about the death of Ukrainian journalist Maks Levin. He investigated this specific case for Reporters Without Borders. RSF publishes Wednesday June 22 its report of investigation, Evidence of an execution by Russian forces on the death of this journalist in the middle of the war. Patrick Chauvel, 73, returns from Ukraine where he had worked with Maks Levin at the start of the conflict. After collecting evidence on the spot, “DNA traces”he “hope that one day a Russian tourist will come to France and be arrested at the airport”.
franceinfo: Was it the desire to understand what happened to Maks Levin that prompted you to participate in this investigation?
Patrick Chauvel: He disappeared for several days and was found dead. It took us two days to find the car he died in because it was in a forest that’s totally mined with abandoned Russian positions. We eventually found the car and we started the investigation again. Because obviously the legal services and the Ukrainian police are overwhelmed by war crimes. They have more than 20,000 cases and we wanted to focus on this specific case. We found bullets in the car. We found a bullet that had gone through his head, in the ground. We looked at the position, the response to the impact in relation to his body with the photos provided to us by the police.
“We understood that we had taken off his bulletproof vest to put a bullet in his chest.”
Patrick Chauvel, photojournalistat franceinfo
Then he fell. And he received three bullets in the head, or two we don’t really know, at ground level. So it’s a summary execution after interrogation.
Why is this report important, why is it important to go there?
It matters because it is a crime against free speech. And it is also to pay tribute to the Ukrainian journalists, who help us. Often they serve as fixers because they need a little money. They can’t come in like us. We, after six weeks, can say ‘I’m tired, I’m going home’. Maks at some point, when we were working with him, he knew that there were attacks on kyiv when we were in Donbass. He said ‘I can’t stay with you because I have to protect my children and my wife.’ We haven’t seen him since.
“It was important to pay tribute to this press which is little talked about, this Ukrainian press which does its job and which helps us.”
Patrick Chauvelat franceinfo
This report, the evidence you have collected, what will it be used for?
We hope that one day a Russian tourist will come to France and be arrested at the airport. We found traces of DNA in the trenches. We searched the trenches around, there were plates with plastic forks, we recovered everything and passed it on to the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice to make it legal. RSF’s job is to relaunch investigations. But it is a Ukrainian investigation which will then undoubtedly go to the TPI (international criminal court).