Russian interpreter, Andrey Mironov – who was also a veteran human rights activist, a journalist and a Soviet dissident.

Mironov’s body is currently in a morgue in Slavyansk and might soon delivered to Russia, media report.

Mironov, 60, was killed along with Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli, 30, by mortar fire on Saturday near the village of Andreevka, a couple of kilometers from Slavyansk, eastern Ukraine. French journalist, William Roguelon was wounded in the attack.

In 1985 Mironov was arrested for distributing ‘the samizdat’ – the underground press and books banned in the USSR and a year later sentenced to four years in prison in for “anti-Soviet propaganda,” his colleague recalled. However, as Mikhail Gorbachev launched perestroika, Mironov along with other political prisoners was released.

As a rights activist – independently or together with colleagues – he visited many flashpoints, and repeatedly traveled to Chechnya during the conflict in the Russian Caucasian republic, according to Gannushkina.

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A picture taken on May 25, 2014, shows the domestic and foreign passports of Russian citizen Andrei Mironov, who was reportedly killed yesterday together with Italian journalist, Andrea Rocchelli, near the eastern Ukrainian town of Slavyansk.

30-year-old Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian translator, Andrei Mironov, had come under fire yesterday during a mortar shell attack, Rome's foreign ministry announced.

The exact circumstances surrounding Rocchelli's death were still unclear, added the ministry, saying the situation was "difficult to verify" even for the Ukrainian authorities