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Stuart Ramsay: Sky News journo and crew shot by Russians in shocking ambush in Ukraine

'Our world turned upside down. I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful,' the journalist noted

A British journalist and his team of five reporting from Ukraine were ambushed by Russian troops who attacked them suddenly near a Kyiv checkpoint, leaving the group wounded. The Russian forces rained gunfire on the Sky News team, despite them identifying themselves as journalists from the UK. In his personal report about the attack, Ramsay noted, "Our world turned upside down. I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful.”

The shocking incident took place on Monday,  February 28, when Ramsay and the Sky News team were trying to flee Kyiv. Footage of the incident shows the reporter calmly narrating the war situation in Kyiv before bullets start hitting the windshield of their car. “We were under full attack. Bullets cascaded through the whole of the car, tracers, bullet flashes, windscreen glass, plastic seats, the steering wheel, and dashboard had disintegrated," Ramsay recalled in his account. 

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Ramsay, a veteran journalist with Sky News, was deployed in Ukraine with his team of five to report on the war. The group was headed toward the town of Bucha, around 30 miles from Kyiv, after the Russians started indiscriminately bombing and shelling the capital city. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army had recently destroyed a Russian convoy in Bucha.

At one of the checkpoints, a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad opened fire at Ramsay and his crew. The journalists kept on screaming and identifying themselves as "journalists" or "zhurnalistka", but the rounds continued to come. Russian forces had been attacking and even killing Ukrainian families who were trying to flee Kyiv.   At first, Ramsay had heard a small explosion as one of the bullets hit their car tire, causing the vehicle to halt suddenly in a desolate street. That was when the Russian soldiers started firing rounds at them from a distance. “It was professional, the rounds kept smashing into the car — they didn’t miss,” Ramsay described.

Ramsay later tried to run toward a 40-foot embankment when he was struck by a bullet on his lower back. He can be heard shouting, "I've been hit!" as he fell face-first into the embankment. Alongside Ramsay, camera operator Richie Mockler was also hit by two bullets on his body armor. 

Eventually, the five of them regrouped and took cover at a nearby factory unit, while waiting to be rescued. The following day, they managed to return to the center of Kyiv. 

In his report on the attack, Ramsay wrote, “At the bottom [of the embankment], we regrouped. The five of us were alive. We couldn’t believe it." He further noted, "We were very lucky. But thousands of Ukrainians are dying, and families are being targeted by Russian hit squads just as we were, driving along in a family saloon and attacked. This war gets worse by the day.”