Tributes pour in for AFP journalist killed in Ukraine

PARIS (AP) — Colleagues of Arman Soldin, the Agence France-Presse journalist slain Tuesday in Ukraine, have gathered solemnly at the press agency’s Paris headquarters Wednesday to remember him. The death of the 32-year old, seen in a widely broadcast smiling photo of himself in Ukraine with a cat on his shoulder, plucked at the heartstrings of the nation. Soldin was killed in a rocket attack near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. He was with a team of AFP journalists traveling with Ukrainian soldiers when the group came under fire with Grad rockets. The rest of the team escaped uninjured. At the editorial meeting, AFP news director Phil Chetwynd called it “a very hard day for all of us.”