Volodymyr Fomichenko-Zakutskyi, formerly the marketing director at Zaborona Media, has been killed in action, 2402 Foundation (Daily Humanity) director, Zaborona Media co-founder Kateryna Serhatskova reported to the Institute of Mass Information.

According to Serhatskova, the news of Volodymyr’s death officially announced today, 10 March. He is reported to have died in combat on 26 February 2026 in Pokrovsk (Donetsk oblast).

Kateryna Serhatskova told IMI that Volodymyr had been the marketing director at Zaborona Media since 2021 and was actively involved in developing the news outlet’s business model and building its audience. Before that, he had been on the marketing team at Film.UA and was overall active in the film industry for most of his life.

He was also instrumental in the launch of the 2402 Foundation (being a volunteer in the first months of the full-scale invasion, he helped arrange safety classes for journalists, raised awareness of safety measures, and helped with the search for experts).

“He enlisted in late 2022, saying that he could no longer remain a civilian, because he had a duty to defend the country and all of us. He was merely a soldier, but he trained a lot and quickly learned to pilot drones and use them to aim strikes with larger, more complex systems, including ones manufactured abroad,” said Kateryna.

According to the Institute of Mass Information, Volodymyr Fomichenko-Zakutskyi was the 126th media professional to die in the course of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.