A 32-year-old French journalist was killed Monday in eastern Ukraine, fatally hit by shell shrapnel while covering a Ukrainian evacuation operation, according to the French news broadcaster he worked for.

BFM TV said Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was killed as he was “covering a humanitarian operation in an armored vehicle” near Sievierodonetsk, a key city in the Donbas region that is being hotly contested by Russian and Ukrainian forces. He had worked for six years for the French television channel.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Leclerc-Imhoff on Twitter, saying he “was in Ukraine to show the reality of the war.”

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said the journalist’s death was “deeply shocking.” She tweeted that he was killed “by Russian bombing.”

“France demands that a transparent inquiry be launched as soon as possible to shed full light on the circumstances of this tragedy,” she said in a written statement.

BFM TV said Leclerc-Imhoff was accompanied by a male colleague who was lightly injured. A Ukrainian woman who was working with them was not hit.

Earlier Monday, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, announced Leclerc-Imhoff’s death in a Telegram post, saying that Russian forces fired on an armored vehicle that was traveling to pick up people for evacuation.

“Shrapnel from the shells pierced the vehicle’s armor, fatally wounding an accredited French journalist in the neck who was reporting on the evacuation. The patrol officer was saved by his helmet,” he wrote.

As a result of the attack, the evacuation was called off, Haidai said.

He posted an image of Leclerc-Imhoff’s Ukrainian press accreditation, and images of what he said was the aftermath of the attack.

Haidai said Leclerc-Imhoff’s body was evacuated to the nearby Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut and will be taken to the central city of Dnipro for an autopsy.

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