The resting place of Izvestia's Aleksandr Fedorchak in Crimea has been desecrated three days after his funeral

The grave of a Russian journalist who was killed by a Ukrainian strike last week has been desecrated in Crimea, just days after his funeral. Vandals set fire to the resting place of Aleksandr Fedorchak in the early hours of Monday morning, according to the local administration.

Fedorchak, a reporter with the Izvestia newspaper, was killed in an artillery strike in the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) last Monday. Russia accused Ukrainian forces of deliberately targeting the news crew. Fedorchak, who was 28, was buried in his home village of Nizhnegorsky on Friday.

"Vandals set fire to the graves of war correspondent Aleksandr Fedorchak and three fighters of the special military operation at the cemetery in Nizhnegorsky," the head of the local administration, Anton Kravets, posted on Telegram early on Monday morning.

Three criminal cases have been launched into the desecration of the burial sites and damage to a military grave, media outlets have reported, citing the local Interior Ministry. Izvestia director Vladimir Tyulin has claimed that the attack on the cemetery was orchestrated by Ukraine.

The governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, has vowed to punish those behind the act of vandalism.

"This act is not that of a human being but rather that of a mean, hateful and unscrupulous beast. Cowardly avoiding a fight with the living, they insult the dead. Retribution is inevitable however here on earth, and there in heaven," Aksyonov wrote on Telegram on Monday.

The attack on the news crew in the LPR last Monday also claimed the lives of a cameraman and a driver, leaving another reporter seriously wounded. The vehicle, marked as press transport, was reportedly struck by two missiles fired from a US-supplied Ukrainian HIMARS multiple rocket launcher system.

The incident was one of the most recent in a series of deaths of Russian media workers since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Two days after Fedorchak's death, a news correspondent for Channel One, Anna Prokofieva, was killed while on assignment in Belgorod Region.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Ukrainian forces of terrorism. According to spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, "The series of brutal reprisals against Russian journalists by Ukrainian neo-Nazis is yet more proof of their readiness to commit any crimes against the civilian population without hesitation, including media workers, who are protected under international humanitarian law."

READ MORE: Another Russian journalist killed in Ukrainian strike

Zakharova also accused Kiev of escalating attacks on civilians as a result of its failure to achieve military success.

Ukrainian officials have not issued any public statements regarding the deaths of Russian journalists.