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16.02.2025, 09:00
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On February 16, 2018, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Military Journalist.
On this day, 10 years ago, not far from Debaltseve in the Donetsk region, the first Ukrainian military journalist during the Russian-Ukrainian war, editor of the Bryz TV and radio company of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Captain of the Third Rank of the Ukrainian Navy (posthumously) Dmytro Labutkin was killed after performing a mission.
He was born on December 11, 1986, in Kremenets, Ternopil region. He inherited his Russian surname from his grandfather, a native of Bryansk, who lived in Ukraine almost all his life. The son of a professional military officer, Dmytro grew up as a Ukrainian patriot from an early age.
Dmytro received his secondary education in several educational institutions - at the school in Bilokrynytsia village and at the Lyceum named after Ulas Samchuk in Kremenets, as well as at school No. 23 in Ternopil. Today, memorial plaques have been installed on their buildings in honor of the former student.
While studying, Dmytro was interested in the history of Ukraine, the Cossacks and military conflicts. Since childhood, he dreamed of becoming a secret service man - but fate decided otherwise.
After graduating from the Lviv Institute of Land Forces of the Lviv Polytechnic National University (later the Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Army Academy) in 2009, Dmytro Labutkin was assigned to serve in Sevastopol, at the disposal of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's Bryz TV and Radio Company, a kind of Ukrainian enclave in the city, the only Ukrainian-language TV and radio company in Crimea. Only after Dmytro's proofreading and translation into Ukrainian did his notes and reports go on the air.
In the fall of 2010, the Bryz TV and Radio Company, which concentrated the Ukrainian community of Sevastopol, faced difficult times: after Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions came to power, its management was changed, broadcasting was half in Russian, and most military history and patriotic programs were excluded.
From distant sea voyages and international military exercises, Dmytro Labutkin returned
to his wife and little daughter
in Sevastopol, which became his home.
Everything changed radically in late winter 2014. The footage that Dmytro and his colleagues have been filming in Sevastopol since then, often at the risk of their lives, and transmitting to the mainland, has become documentary evidence of the Russian occupation of Crimea.
The team had to confront local separatists who tried to paralyze the work of the Bryz TV and Radio Company. Eventually, together with Russian paratroopers and Kuban "Kazaks", they succeeded: On March 3, a television repeater was seized, and on March 9, the editorial office and an FM radio transmitter were confiscated.
Later, the occupiers offered the personnel and employees of Bryz to join them. Out of 72 military and civilian employees, only nine, including Dmytro Labutkin, did not accept this offer. The members of the TV channel's team who remained loyal to Ukraine moved to Odesa, where they revived Bryz's activities in the format of a TV studio with limited broadcasting time. At first, they had to live and work in the Kuyalnyk sanatorium. Immediately, the Labutkin family hung a Ukrainian flag on the balcony of their apartment. Experiencing the pain of leaving the occupied Sevastopol, Dmytro was happy to hear the Ukrainian language nearby.
On January 21, 2015, Dmytro Labutkin arrived in Kramatorsk with the rank of lieutenant captain, from where he went to the front line as a special correspondent of Sector C with the task of collecting materials for the Minsk negotiation group and delivering them to Kyiv. On February 5, he was filming a report with a GoPro helmet camera about a trophy Russian T-72 tank captured by soldiers of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade near Debaltseve, the hottest spot in the ATO zone. Unfortunately, this was the last shooting.
Almost immediately after the Minsk ceasefire agreements were signed on February 12, 2015, Russian terrorists and mercenaries brutally violated them. Dmytro Labutkin was the one who told the world the truth about the insidious enemy invasion of Ukraine. This was an urgent task from the current Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, at that time the Chief of Staff of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, Oleksandr Syrsky. Dmytro continued the mission, which he started in Sevastopol, in the burning east of Ukraine, in particular in Debaltseve. February 15 was the last day he got in touch.
On the morning of February 16, 2015, Russian militants fired anti-tank grenade launchers and small arms at a convoy carrying wounded Ukrainian soldiers in the direction of Bakhmut. One of the APCs was carrying a reconnaissance group led by Captain Yuriy Butusov of the 3rd Special Forces Regiment. Dmytro Labutkin, who did not have enough space inside the vehicle, sat on the armor: several enemy bullets broke his spine and tore his liver, leading to critical blood loss. Yuriy Butusov and his squad commander Vitaliy Fedytnyk were also killed. Two other members of the group were seriously wounded, and two more were taken prisoner for five years. After the shelling, the terrorists could not approach the Ukrainian APC for several hours, fearing that the crew would shoot back.
On February 18, Ukrainian troops began to withdraw from Debaltseve, accompanied by a large number of dead and wounded. The next day, Russian terrorists sent Dmytro Labutkin's wife, Oleksandra, a video from the railway station, where the bodies of the killed Ukrainian soldiers were lying next to a broken APC; the militants cynically boasted on camera about belongings and documents. The looters also got hold of the military correspondent's phone, from which they sent blasphemous messages to his colleagues and friends.
The killed Ukrainian soldiers lay in the field in the cold for several weeks. On March 13, Russian terrorists again filmed the scene. Later, the bodies were transported to occupied Donetsk; from there, they were taken to the government-controlled territory by representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine. On March 20, 2015, it was confirmed that one of the bodies of the dead Ukrainian soldiers brought from Debaltseve to the
Dnipro mortuary
belonged to Dmytro Labutkin. The first Ukrainian military journalist killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war was met with a human corridor on March 24 in Kremenets. The next day, the funeral took place in Bilokrynytsia, Kremenets region.
In May 2015, Dmytro Labutkin's name was submitted for the posthumous award of the title of Hero of Ukraine - however, for unknown reasons, this has not happened so far.
By the Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 366/2015 of June 27, 2015, Dmytro Labutkin was posthumously awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, III degree, for personal courage and high professionalism in the defense of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the military oath, and in December of the same year, by the order of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, he was awarded the "For Military Valor" honors. On July 26, 2016, the relatives of the deceased military journalist received another posthumous award in Khmelnytsky, the non-governmental honor "People's Hero of Ukraine.". In 2018, Dmytro Labutkin was posthumously awarded the medal "For Assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
On the first day of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, February 24, 2022, Dmytro Labutkin's father Vitaliy returned to military service despite his advanced age: first he joined the Territorial Defense forces, and later, as a master sergeant, he went to the front line in the Zaporizhzhia direction. By his own admission, he does not consider his rank to be purely revenge for his son; it was a decision to defend his homeland.
In August 2022, Dmytro Labutkin was posthumously awarded the title of honorary citizen of Ternopil region. It is hoped that one day he will also be proclaimed an honorary citizen of Sevastopol, the city to which he gave several years of his sacrificial work in the difficult conditions of Russian occupation exactly, and where he raised his family.
After all, the best honor to the memory of the man whom we, Crimean Ukrainians, consider our countryman, would be to resume the activities of the Bryz TV channel on Dmytro Labutkin Street in Sevastopol
.
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The published material is copyrighted. The opinions expressed in the author's blog may not coincide with the position of the editors of the «Voice of Crimea» IA.
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